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We are delighted to announce that the mystery guest headliners for this Thursday’s Big Night @ Cargo show (www.cargo-london.com/event/the-big-night-live) are none other than the incredible Alabama 3.
We shall be onstage at 9pm.
You can still buy tickets. Hopefully we’ll see you there!
xxx The Penny Black Remedy
A knees up in the country in aid of ‘MARIE CURIE CANCER CARE‘ featuring:
Tickets £20
Live music on the Saturday begins at 2pm
Fireworks on the Saturday at 10:30pm
FURTHER INFO AND TICKETS GO TO www.judyinjune.org.uk
The Penny Black Remedy are the only Balkan infused country and western semi punk outfit named after a stamp that I’m aware of, and I hope nobody else does it, because they do it so well and it’d just dilute the niche genre.‘No One’s Fault But Your Own’ is a storming disc, featuring great tracks like the opener, ’95 Charing Cross Road’, a guitar driven punky-cossack tinged woeful country song, featuring great lyrics like ‘They ruined nearly everything in that raid, But they did not take my heartache, They forgot to take my pain.’ Yet the track remains upbeat, and is a definite dance-along, especially once it all kicks in with a Gogol Bordello styled chants and electric guitar rhythms.
That’s my fear for The Penny Black Remedy, they’re just going to get compared to Bordello, as soon as you say ‘punky’ and ‘eastern-european’ in the same sentence, people will go “oh, like Gogol Bordello!” and I know it. The thing is, the punky moments aren’t that frequent, instead featuring on country and western rhythms and vocals styles, and in the case of singer Keith Thompson, country hats and moustaches (he only has the one moustache by the way).
The album includes everything, all based around a really tight bass and drums rhythm section, it has ska moments, campfire acoustic sing alongs, whiskey drinking chants (yes, I consider some chants to be just for whiskey drinking) and even the occasional quiet heartfelt number.
This album really is the whole package, and I can see it all coming out well live, there’s nothing too fancy, no over the top multi tracking that can’t be pulled off, just driving up tempo tracks which are oh so easy to dance along to, and great sneering vocals and lyrics throughout.
For standout tracks, and if you’re one of those people that downloads a few tracks before you get a full album, try ‘Don’t Count On Us’, a skanking powerhouse featuring both the sultry and searing (in a good way) vocals of Marijana Hajdarhodzic and a great surf style guitar solo. Check out ‘The First Time I Saw Angels’ too, this one really is a country strum-along, it’s got a really Johnny Cash vibe, and with the line ‘Those angels aren’t from heaven, That fucker sent me straight to hell’ how can you not listen to it?
By Rob Barker
Rating: 9/10
Format: Album
Release Date: 18/05/09
Label: Soundinistas
We are literally frothing at the mouth with excitement about being able to declare that today, Monday 18th May 2009, is the day on which The Penny Black Remedy’s debut album, “No One’s Fault But Your Own“, is officially released.
Everyone here at TPBR would very much like to take this opportunity to say an enormous thank you to everybody involved, on every level, for helping make this album an actual reality. We humbly extend unfeasibly large bouquets of cyber flowers, place Hawaiian-style, cyber flower-based necklaces around your collective cyber necks and raise real life brimming glasses of surprisingly expensive cava whilst reciting relevant and appropriately high brow poetry in your honour. Thank you.
The album is now available on itunes and on this website.
We would also like to say a massive thank you to everyone who ordered the album before it was actually released and to those of you who made it down to our offical album launch party last Tuesday in The 12 Bar Club. It was a real honour for us to celebrate this occasion with you. We hope nobody suffered any balloon-related injuries.
Finally, we have a few shows coming up over the next few months which we’d be delighted to see you at:
Friday 29th May - The Grove, South Wimbledon. Onstage at 9pm.
Friday 19th and Saturday 20th June - Judy In June Festival, Gloucestershire. There is a plethora of fantastic bands playing, you can camp there, there is a fantastic fireworks display at the end and all proceeds go to the wonderful charity Marie Curie Cancer Care. Tickets are 20 pounds. For full info and to buy tickets for this festival please click here.
Saturday 18th July - Gypsy Hotel @ Bardens Boudoir, Stoke Newington High Road. Onstage around 9.30pm and entry is £6.66.
Saturday 8th August - Hootenanny, Brixton, Tulse Hill. Onstage around 9.30pm and entry is £3.
Hopefully see you there.
Big, big, big love and pleasingly uncivilised amounts of pelinkovac with a single unrestrained tear of joy on the side.
Keith
et al @ The Penny Black Remedy
xxx
As you may know, on Monday 18th May 2009, The Penny Black Remedy’s debut album “No One’s Fault But Your Own” shall be officially released. To celebrate this momentous occasion, we shall be hosting an exclusive album launch party in The 12 Bar Club on Tuesday 12th May. We would feel deeply honoured if you could attend this very special evening, but would also strongly recommend that you get there early to guarantee entry, as spaces on the night are going to be particularly limited.
The doors open at 7pm, we shall be performing a full set at 9.30pm, and the bar is open until the potentially hazardous-to-your-health time of 3am. It might also be pertinent to point out that the evening is being sponsored by Red Stripe lager, which means there shall be pleasingly heavy discounts on said beer on the night.
So, hopefully we’ll see you there with more bells on than your average campanological society member attending their local Campanological Society’s annual ball.
In the meantime, feel free to follow this link to read a recent and rather nice TPBR article/interview with the Von Pip Musical Express.
xxx
The Penny Black Remedy
Latest album review from the Von Pip Musical Express
“Like The Pogues at the height of their powers, “No Ones Fault But Your Own” is full of thoughtful prose combined with foot stomping tunes that would certainly provide the soundtrack to one hell of a hooley. It’s timeless and yet paradoxically very much of its age. So if you’re bored with unoriginal electro pap, or sick of being brainwashed into believing that music from a decade of greed, personal acquisition and selfishness (the 80’s) is somehow relevant as we look set to endure the worst recession since the 1930’s, then this musical collective who have a heart and a soul may well have the remedy to cure your ills.”
We’re deeply excited to find out that we were played on Steve Lamacq’s BBC Radio 2 Show last Wednesday. He declared “Come Back When You Have More Ambition” as being “the winner of the song title of the week award”.
You can listen to the show online until his next show goes on air again next Wednesday. He mentions us at the beginning of the show and then 42 minutes in, when he also plays “Come Back When You Have More Ambition”). To listen to the show, click here.
There is also a section on the site where you can contact him and leave comments - you can do this by clicking here.
The show has a great playlist, so hopefully you’ll have time to enjoy the whole show.
Big, big love and edible cups of horlicks with a small puppy on the side to gently stroke.
The Penny Black Remedy
xxx
Just a quick note to let you know of a few shows we’re doing this week. Please note that these are the last three shows we’ll be doing until our album launch:
Tues 21st April – Camden Calling @ The Enterprise – Chalk Farm/Camden – Onstage at 9pm – suggested donation of £3.
Wed 22nd April – The 12 Bar Club, Denmark Street – Onstage at 9pm – Entry £3.
Sat 25th April – The Fighting Cocks, Kingston Upon Thames – Onstage at 9pm – Entry £4/3.
Hopefully we’ll see you there. Feel free to come wearing a disguise. The more elaborate the better.
Big, big love and oversized mugs of digestive system healing peppermint tea with a single aspirin on the side.
Keith et all @ The Penny Black Remedy
