From: owner-seven-seas@smoe.org (seven-seas-moderated-digest) To: seven-seas-moderated-digest@smoe.org Subject: seven-seas-moderated-digest V2 #17 Reply-To: seven-seas@smoe.org Sender: owner-seven-seas@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-seven-seas@smoe.org Precedence: bulk seven-seas-moderated-digest Monday, January 6 2003 Volume 02 : Number 017 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 12:20:17 -0000 From: "Shaz" Subject: seven-seas-moderated On topic news from British Sea Power you may be interested in this..... Shaz BRITISH SEA POWER Newsletter No. 8 Frimaire CCXI A fecund yet secular mid-winter missive from British Sea Power  Flirting with The FANYs  Friendship with the French  Recording with Will Sergeant Winter is creation. Spring is release. That is what they say and who are British Sea Power to argue? So, fret not, even when the wind cuts right through and the last blackthorn fruit has been stripped from the branch. While the frost takes hold, British Sea Power have been laying down fat and hidings acorns in the ancient, furrowed bark. The bands debut album is now all but complete. The Decline Of British Sea Power is all but ready to head out into the world. But, for the moment, let us take you over recent events. November saw BSPs first concert in France. This engagement was as part of the attractive Les Inrockuptibles magazines Les Inrocks Festival  an event featuring Ms Dynamite, David Lynch, The Streets and the Coral, among others. British Sea Power played at Pariss Divan Du Monde alongside fellow Rough Trade glee-boys The Libertines, Baxter Dury and Jacob Golden. The night went well, with the Gauls liking BSP so much that they seemed inspired to strike up a whole new rock entente cordiale. Tranchante et passionnante, brouillonne aussi! declared the Les Inrockuptibles review. The French excursion was immediately followed by willing congress with Damien Hirst and Keith Allen. On 9 November, this duos stage play, Glastonbury, was staged in Brighton. Over the course of the plays run, a range of bands including New Order, Electric Soft Parade, UB40 and Ocean Colour Scene had been chosen to play the part of a band performing at the festival. Thus, BSP began this particular evenings performance with their typical to-the-moooooon! concert closer, Rock In A. Plastic crows were booted into the audience, while the band ritually assaulted each other with an equally plastic grey heron. Little surprise then that the plays cast  including Allen and the lovely Bronwyn Davies and Kate Ford  presented the band with a standing ovation. That was great! exclaimed seasoned pro-rogue Allen. Easily the best band weve had on. November also saw leading rock primalist publication Kerrang! celebrating the power and glory of BSP. There was a full-marks, KKKKK review of BSPs October show as Londons 93 Ft East. In fact, BSP were the only band awarded the prestigious max-K rating that week. Oh yes, stick up your kohl-splattered pig-techno lederhosen, Herr Alec Empire. The review was followed by BSP playing at the opening night of Kerrang!s London K-Fest event. Pleasingly, the heroic former Judas Priest frontman was spotted in the audience, watching intently for the entirety of the BSP set. Might there now be the possibility of BSP joining Bob to recast such Priest classics as Hell Bent For Leather and Wild Nights, Hot And Crazy Days? At the end of November, BSP headed to Bryn Derwen studios, near Bethesda in North Wales. With ravens flying overhead and surrounded by the gloriously oppressive bulk of the Penrhyn slate quarry, the band recorded three tracks. One was a new version of A Lovely Day Tomorrow, produced by the redoubtable Echo & The Bunnymen guitarist Will Sergeant. There is still a little work to be done on the remaining two tracks, so full details cannot yet be revealed about the top-secret production duo at the helm. For now, this illustrious pair can only be known as Force 10 From Commanders Cottage. The band returned from the studio to find a fond hosanna from former Newsnight presenter Jeremy Vine. As Mr Vine prepared to take up his new role as fulcrum daytime DJ on Radio 2, MOJO magazine asked him to select his all-time favourite ten tracks. Naturally enough, he saw fit to include BSPs Remember Me. As we draw to a the end of year and look forward to receiving numerous book tokens over the Baby Jesu period, we would like to recommend one book that has been engaging BSP of late. It is Between Silk And Cyanide by Leo Marks, first published in 1998. With an audacious mix of passion, mental brilliance and super-sly camp, this autobiography delves into the authors work as a cryptographer in World War II. Between writing such glorious code-poems as The Life That I Have and saving many brave young lives, our hero expends his remaining energy flirting with the FANYs (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, of course) and confusing his lumbering superiors. Incunabula and intercourse, he ventures when asked about his hobbies at his interview for the secret service (look it up  we sure had to). So, let us bid you a happy mid-winter and let us all look forward with hope. This band are soon to release an album that will celebrate music in all its complexity and simplicity, ease and difficulty. As the journalist Matthew Sweet recently wrote in British daily newspaper The Independent, Balls of fire, crested grebes and Kelloggs Frosties are great. Britain is more complicated than that. This is the way that we feel about popular music. And, despite the terrible, reductive, retarded by-ways that rock music has been led into of late, such thoughts can still resonate in this world. Never forget that a little thing can make a difference. After all, the launch of Viagra is now thought to have brought a reduction in the illegal hunting of endangered species. Thats right, my friend, the scientific community has detected a decline in the trade of such traditional aphrodisiacs as the penises of harp seals and the nice velvet covering of reindeer antlers. Suffice to say, the BSP album will not come clad in velvet. Hail to all. Get pissed, destroy. Then, come 2003, get ready to build. Yours, Old Sarge - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ - ---- - ---- MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE* ====================================== The Official Seven-Seas Web Page. www.bunnymenlist.com ====================================== ------------------------------ End of seven-seas-moderated-digest V2 #17 *****************************************