Hosted By:
Suzy Mangion

When:
24 August 2009

Where:
 


Heaton Park
Newcastle-Upon-Tyne
NE6

Description:
Suzy Mangion will be performing a live concert from the park pavilion, followed by a rare screening of Frank Borzage's silent film classic "Seventh Heaven" with piano accompaniment by the world-renowned Neil Brand. The whole event is free, and in the fresh air (although if the weather turns, take heart - there will be alternative sheltered arrangements)


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Click Here To View Event

it's been a long time since the last blog. I feel it would be good to make an effort to update more regularly, it would also be easier. The longer it's left, the harder it is to remember what you wanted to say.

A few things to mention -

this Tuesday is the Handsome Family show at Ruby Lounge, and some tickets are still available. This is the first time I've played in Manchester for quite a while, with the exception of Winter Journey gigs. In fact, the last one was a strange show organised by Channel 4 Radio at (what used to be) Discotheque Royale on Peter Street, in (I think) November 2006... it's an odd thing, me & manchester. I hope this one works out well. After that there's a few shows in unusual places - Fell Foot Wood by the shores of Lake Windermere in June, a silent film night in Heaton Park, Newcastle in August. But mostly this summer I want to start recording again, recording The Winter Journey album #2, the Suzy Mangion solo album #2. I really hope the dog in next door's garden which my music room overlooks stays quiet occasionally, or there may be a kind of dog-bark-rap theme over all the new material.

A couple of Winter Journey matters:

The Winter Journey were asked by Rebellious Jukebox (www.myspace.com/rebelliousjukeboxmcr - home of the incomparable Shirokuma) to contribute a (reverent) cover of I'll Be Your Mirror to the label's covers album of The Velvet Underground and Nico. The whole album is available as a free download from www.rebelliousjukebox.org. We approached the recording process with trepidation, as it's lovely to be asked, but TVU&N is an album that I feel to be ground-breaking and unsurpassable in all ways, and we tried very hard not to ruin this classic!  

And all the way back in February, after our tremendously fun gig with Woodpigeon & The Miserable Rich at the Deaf Institute in Manchester, Pulp Magazine in Manchester filmed The Winter Journey doing a small acoustic presentation in an office in the student union building. Fun was had by all, bad drumming was done by me, and the video clip of Malachi My Messenger is available to see on http://pulpmagazine.co.uk/2009/04/08/pulp-presents-the-winter-journey/ 

Things about the songs on the music player:

Taking advantage of the new music player's larger capacity, I've put on a few new old songs recently. "Come In By Stealth" is taken from The Other Side of the Mountain, and features Anthony on classical guitar, and James Green on harmonium & harp. The pub recording is from a BBC sound effects record, fortuitously found in Kingbee Records, in Chorlton-cum-Hardy. An awful lot of records I like come from their £1 and under boxes. The sound effects record turns up a few times on the album, in fact it was while I was trying to find a suitable clockwork-wind-up sound to start the Incredible Friend, and failing to replicate it, that I went out on a frustrated walk, ended up in Kingbee, browsing through saw this record with a recording of "wind-up clock". It was meant to be. The pub sound reminds me of all too many gigs in the past where I'd be struggling over the sound of the audience. This used to happen alot in Manchester, it was one of the reasons I stopped performing here. "Come In By Stealth" is a very defiant song, even though it sounds slight. I'm defiant, though losing, against people who won't listen, and the song was one of those situations of turning a bad experience into a song, making something bad that happens to me into something good that I can control. A feeling of, you may do this to me, but I can make it into a song and then you have no power over me. And no, it's not about George, but about another situation around that time. But it's sometimes very hard to make big changes in your life.

"Song of Degrees" is from "A Week of Kindness". Many of the psalms in the Old Testament are called songs of degrees, i don't really know why, but I took the idea. It's not about academic qualifications, more about stages and turns, always thinking of someone, even if you're far away. It's a very personal song, although they always are, and very, very guarded. I don't like open confessional songs, I like coding things and hiding them in words.

"The Track Through The Woods" is from "The Magic Lantern". It's very old now. It's a song I keep re-working and performing, still enjoy it even though I've been playing it over a decade. I remember writing it in Cambridge, overlooking Webbs Court in King's College, in the early months of 1998. I'd been listening to Tim Buckley a lot, I think. I remember writing the first lines down earlier though, in November 1997, while watching Stars of the Lid and Labradford play an astonishing, inspiring set upstairs at The Briton's Protection in Manchester, crammed into a tiny room. Labradford had a song with a haunting sleigh bells sound, Stars of the Lid had wonderful film projections, including a haunting looped image of woods. The "sounds like Easter" relates to the clanging of bells and similar sounds that accompanies the suddenness of the lights coming on at the midnight Easter Vigil Mass. That year I'd been clanging away at the percussion from the balcony, ringing in the light. At the time of writing this song I was working out what sort of music I wanted to make and how to make it.

"Fantastique" is just a bit of fun recorded in 2005, that was intended for a semi-imaginary record George never released titled "5 Sleazy Pieces". It's a song about tap-dancing, which I'd only just started to do. I'm trying to be a bit Jane Birkin.

I'm going to make a song available for download from the page each month, for the duration  of that month only. For the rest of May it's going to be "Song of Degrees". Please remember, if you like it, you can not only order the album from Pickled Egg or many other outlets, but also download it on all the major download sites, including itunes.

hello - one fine day there will be a proper blog again soon, at the moment 2009 continues to be a struggle through the dark forests of flu, which one of these mornings I'll have left behind me for another year.
Sending reminders of some imminent live dates I've got coming up, including TOMORROW's Winter Journey gig at Manchester's Deaf Institute on Grosvenor Street (that's Tuesday 24th February), supporting Woodpigeon & The Miserable Rich for a Red Deer Club / Humble Soul special-do. Fun starts 7.30 prompt.
Also coming up, possibly to somewhere near you...
March 14th, The Winter Journey play Source Arts Cafe, Carlisle (with Ottersgear)
March  28th, The Winter Journey play St Clement's Church, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester (with Starless & Bible Black)
April 2nd, The Winter Journey play at The Tudor, Wigan
May 19th, Suzy Mangion plays at The Ruby Lounge, Manchester (supporting The Handsome Family & Liz Green). Tickets for this one are £12 and may go quick, you can track down tickets & more info via these: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=60186834026
http://www.ticketline.co.uk
http://www.seetickets.com
http://www.wegottickets.com/event/43544
Hope to see some of you at some of these.
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLHrZ-Jzof8

Please enjoy this video made by Testphase, regular visuals wizard for Arbol, of Nomi, one of my songs on 'You Travelled My Heart Inside Out'.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KXFAe_I36N0

Do enjoy this delightful picture-film preview for 'The Rise and Fall of Le Bleu.

Proud as punch, the official launch of This Is The Sound Of The Winter Journey, the debut album of The Winter Journey, will be celebrated with a gig/party on Saturday November 8th at The Art of Tea in Didsbury, Barlow Moor Road, Manchester. Please join us for music, dancing and damn fine tea, as well as incomparable musical support from Timbreland Records comrades Sally Murray and Peter John Philipson. Frolics begin at 7.30 pm, priced £4.

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The album has already garnered some lovely compliments, including this lovely review by Chris Long at BBC Manchester.

AND...

At the 11th hour of Summer folk-luminary James Yorkston most kindly asked me, out of the blue, to contribute to an album of covers of his songs that accompanies his latest album, When The Haar Rolls In. I merrily, hurriedly pulled out of my hat a version of his little-known gem "Are You Coming Home Tonight?" (which was the b-side to the original 7" of "Moving Up Country") released when he was still performing as J. Wright Presents.  The covers album was released on Domino records in September as part of the When The Haar Rolls In limited edition box set, comprising both CD & vinyl versions of the album, the covers CD, a CD of remixes, plus (very importantly) a delightful badge & shopping bag! For further info, see James Yorkston's website and the myspace for the covers album

ALSO...

The Rise And Fall Of Le Bleu, the second studio album by Phillip Lockwood-Holmes international collective Le Bleu, is released on CD on November 3rd, and for download on december 1st. I collaborated with Phillip on a song called "A Step, A Cross, The Sea" for the album, which is a delightfully eccentric and eclectic travel with various artists from far-flung corners of the world.  Click here to find out more about the album.

Phillip's idea was that each singer would contribute a song about their home country in response to its past. When I pointed out my mixed-relationship with England, and the close & complex relation I have with former colonies & protectorates, we agreed that I do a song partly about Malta. For anyone who doesn't know, Malta was part of the British Empire from 1814 to 1964, and still has strong links with Britain, partly because people still speak English as well as Maltese. The tiny island was one of the most fought over and bombarded territories in WW2, because of its key position between Italy & North Africa. About 3000 air-raids took place over approximately 2 years, with German & Italian planes dropping bombs nightly on an area smaller than Manchester. And my Dad was born in the midst of this, and sometimes it's hard to believe, when I have been lucky enough to never live in a war zone myself. In 1942 the entire island was awarded the George Cross for Bravery, an award usually only given to individuals.

PLUS...

I still have a small photography exhibition called "A Photo-Story" at The Lowry, Salford Quays. "A Photo-Story" is a disjointed narrative sequence of black & white photographs, some of which were used in the artwork for "A Week of Kindness". The work is on view in the restaurant  (it may not be the main gallery, but it's still The Lowry!) and will be on display until Christmas-tide. Don't worry about having to buy a dinner - it's perfectly fine to just pop in to see the work (the staff are used to this!) I hope that some of you get a chance to see this, photo-stories are very close to my heart at present. I spent nearly the whole of our fleeting summer trying to write about disjointed photo-narratives, and now I feel time has not stood still at all, there is a chill all around me.

I'm currently working on 2 projects - the Strange Sounds Association collaboration with Farina genius Mark Brend, which is a real library-record sounding treat. After that I'll be recording a version of a hymn for a project based on The English Hymnal for the lovely folk at Urban and Eastern. I'm still undecided, but think will record Abide With Me and Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, and then choose one for the record, but keep the other for something else.

After that... well, as the nights draw in, and after I've had a holiday and begun climbing The Mountain Of Research (a *little* like Mt Purgatory after Dante finds himself on the shores beyond Hell...), I intend to get started on the next Winter Journey record AND the next Suzy Mangion record. When I've gathered in the harvest of new wires, microphones, recording gadgets...

 

On Saturday 20th September, I'll be doing a very special show at Star & Shadow Cinema in Newcastle. It's an evening of music & specially-chosen avant-garde film, , including works by Peter Greenaway, Patrick Keiller, Guy Maddin, Chris Marker, Georges Melies and Man Ray.
Held at North-East England's most exciting and innovative cinema-venue, this promises to be a tremendous night. The Star and Shadow Cinema is a volunteer run cinema in the Ouseburn area of Newcastle that shows films beyond the mainstream, and is a vital place for film-lovers in these predictable days of multiplexes. All are welcome here. See www.starandshadow.org.uk for further information and directions.
Showtime is 7.30pm, and tickets are £4, available on the door. It is a member's club, but don't worry if you're not a member, membership fee is extremely small (about £1) & is available on the night. For more information see www.urbanandeastern.com
p.s. "This Is The Sound of The Winter Journey, As I Remember It", the debut album of The Winter Journey is out now and available to buy online from www.timbreland.co.uk  & www.myspace.com/thewinterjourney  & from selected record shops (including Piccadilly Records). Please, don't just download - the album comes in special hand-printed, hand-numbered sleeves, and is hopefully a thing of joy to behold.
It's about to turn September in a few minutes, and once again I wonder where the Summer went this time.

In these next few weeks there are two new releases I'm involved in...

"This is the Sound of the Winter Journey" (Timbreland Records) - our debut album released in early September, on hand-printed limited edition numbered sleeves. It's 11 songs of especial feeling, recorded on high days & holidays. Tracklisting is:

1 malachi my messenger

2 kill devil hills

3 rhythm and stillness

4 saints

5 clean kick

6 sovereign

7 turning circle

8 kochel

9 I have lost the road

10 spring song

11 ready mades

We will be finding the road again in the early Autumn, we hope. We're taking some pre-orders at  www.myspace.com/thewinterjourney . There was an entertaining article in the Manchester Evening News by David Sue the other week, you can spy it here: http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/entertainment/music/s/1058683_tap_into_new_folk_sound

Timbreland is a really exciting label to be involved with, their recent showcase at Hedge in Whalley Range was stunning. You can find out more about them at: www.myspace.com/timbreland or www.timbreland.co.uk

The other exciting news is I've recorded a song that's included on the boxset of the new James Yorkston album, "When the Haar Rolls In" (Domino), released on September 1st. 1000 limited edition box sets have been produced, each one including extra CDs and bonus products, including a CD of artists covering James Yorkston songs. I've done a version of "Are You Coming Home Tonight?". It has tap-dancing on it, and my toy drum. What more could you possibly want in a record?! The raft of stellar artists on the CD includes King Creosote, Nancy Elizabeth, David Thomas Broughton, Pictish Trail among others. It can be pre-ordered from here: http://www.dominorecordco.com/mart/preorders/

Some of the songs can be heard on here: www.myspace.com/jamesyorkstoncoversalbum  

AND, if patience hasn't been tried, and my own trumpet isn't broken from being blown too much, I have a small exhibition of work, "A Photo-Story", at The Lowry, Salford Quays. It's in the restaurant space, rather than the main galleries, but anyone is free to go in to see the exhibition without having to eat or drink in the restaurant. I'll write properly about this soon. Now I have to knuckle down to "The Movement Image" and feel confused about 'the spiral of time'.