PUB.lication 01

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music for the past, present and Future

EDITORIAL: The economy is collapsing around us, MK One’s are turning into 99p shops as we speak but fear not! We’ve given ourselves fancy job titles and are providing you with free reads. You heard me you bonus-grabbing city dwellers, your millions are no good here.

So behold our humble zine: dedicated to music of the past, present, future and dusty longforgotten corners. This month’s theme: First Time.

Appropriately for the first ever issue of PUB.lication, we’re sticking to new artists, debut albums [old and new], and a specially collected list of personal firsts. We even have our five-year old niece’s first published illustration. Breasts and all.

But don’t get too comfortable with the formula.

Themes change. So get used to it.

Editor in Chief: Francesca Ronai Art Director: Farouk Adegboyega Agoro Web Editor: Raymond Okoi-Obuli Contributors: Katie Allen

Akinola Davies

Raheem Agoro Illustrator: Natsumi Agoro

Contact: editor@pub-lication.com

www.pub-lication.com

It All Had to Start Somewhere...

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our first forays into rhythm, sounds & life

Let’s Talk About Firsts

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noteworthy debut albums

Nite Jewel

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new artist: analog electro from l.a.

This Page Belongs To...

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katie on her first poster boy

Recorded Music

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spanking brand new: debut albums micachu & the shapes/dm stith/heston etc...

Ego crack stevens at buraka som sistema

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Our personal relationships with music, the way it soundtracks our individual histories [and subsequently history on a global scale] is fascinating. Our intriguing first steps out of nursery rhymes and into the crying, screaming and fainting arena of pop music are for each of us a landmark whether we stand by it proudly or would prefer to sweep it under our childhood beds along with the dust and collection of Lego/Sylvanian Families/antiquated porn.

PUB has collated a few humble beginnings of noted music fans around us, for our amusement, curiosity and a longstanding love of lists. Take a look at www.pub-lication.com for more.

It All Had to Start Somewhere A brief history of our personal firsts: baby steps of musical growth Anahita est. 1982 First Cassette: Michael Jackson - Bad/2 Unlimited - No Limits: I bought these on the blackmarket in Bangkok, Thailand when I was 8 or 9.

First Concert: David Hasselhoff, Hamburg: I was so in love with him. I wore a neon necklace so that he could spot me. Then I got selected by his crew to go on stage and get a kiss from him. I couldn’t bring myself to stand in front of thousands of people, even if it meant the Hoff would kiss my infantile cheek. After the concert, I cried for two days. David had left and I would probably never see him again.

First CD: Janet Jackson: No idea what track; something happy. My friend Fatemeh bought her first single that day too, a Dutch techno song. We argued the entire day about whose CD was Raheem est. 1975 better. Turns out that despite our heated arguments that day, she became an R&B girl and I First LP: became a friend of electronic music.

Musical Youth - Pass the Dutchie: This LP actually became mine by default as I borrowed it First LP: and never returned it. Years later my first purI took over my dad’s records in Iran and de- chase with my hard-earned cash was R. Kelly’s clared two as my own. Disney Songs had a list 12 Play. What a contrast huh? of beautiful, classical pieces of which Waltz of the Flowers was my favourite. The second was First Cassette a Tom Jones record with the songs I’m Never Recorded off the radio, it had all the new jack Gonna Fall in Love and She’s a Lady. My fa- swing shit... that was what was up back then. ther had strategically utilised it to win over my mom’s heart when they first met in Washington First CD D.C. Snoop Doggy Dog – Doggystyle: By this time I was fully into the hip hop thing.

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First Concert Fela Kuti, University of Ibadan. Nigeria: We were in boarding school, a couple of friends and I jumped the fence (literally) to go see this.

On the way there we almost had our throats slit and on the way back, wild dogs in the bushes chased us. We are all still alive.

and had to shake our booty. I remember someone lobbed a cup at us to sit down. Yar boo sucks to them.

First CD/Cassette: I have tried so hard to remember my first tape and CD and I cannot for the life of me remember them. The first pre-recorded tape that I bought that sticks in my mind was Bow Wow Wow’s C30 C60 C90 Go. The first CD player I ever saw, touched and heard was when I was working at Our Price Records in 1983. I remember thinking what’s the big deal…doesn’t sound any different. *Suki, Dave and Nick are Emma’s older siblings.

Nick also happens to be your editor’s dad.

Emma est. 1961 First Single: I inherited a lot of singles from Suki, Dave and Nick*. Including Mr Hendrix’s Hey Joe/The Wind cries Mary, Booker T and the MG’s - Green Onions, Fleetwood Mac - Albatross, The David Rose Orchestra - The Stripper, Cilla - Anyone Who Had a Heart and The Beatles - Get Back.

Nick or Dave bought me The Monkees’ Last Train to Clarksville/A Little Bit Me a Little Bit You and I’m a Believer for my 7th or 8th birthday. Ha! As I type A Little Bit Me a Little Bit You has come on the radio…what are the chances of that eh?

Nick est 1947 First single (45 RPM) This is embarrassing because I think it might have been FBI by the Shadows. We’re talking late 50s, early 60s. I know I also had Let’s Twist Again by Chubby Checker and I vividly remember Pistol Packin Mama by the Piltdown Men. My taste improved considerably after that!

First LP Good old vinyl. Now that was definitely Jerry Lee Lewis. I can even remember the shop I bought it from in Chiswick. Great Balls Of Fire and other amazing rockers. I subsequently swapped it for an Alexis Korner album with a friend of mine. The first jazz LP I bought was the First LP: soundtrack from the film All Night Long (1961) The first album I bought with my first record to- and I still own it NOW. They recently released ken when I was about eight or nine was The the film on DVD and it still stands up to critical Best of Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger and the Trin- review although it’s a bit dated. ity. Nick was beside me giving it ‘this is good, get this’ and I believed him. Turned out to be a First Concert classic.

I do remember this although it was not a concert as such. I was eleven years old and took First Concert: my first girlfriend to see Lonnie Donegan (the Kool and the Gang, Hammersmith Odeon: I skiffle king) starring in Aladdin at the now long was sixteen and your dad took me. It was fab. defunct Chiswick Empire. Lonnie was a very Height of cool. They were all in white suits and big star at that time with such major hits as The hats and the trumpeter held a note for what Rock Island Line and My Old Man’s a Dustman seemed like 10 minutes. We were in the circle under his belt.

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Like

it or lump it muthafuckers, I harbour a not-so-small obsession for His Purpleness and since we here at PUB tow the line of ‘it’s my zine and I’ll cry if I want to’, I am entitled to any excuse if it means I can write about him. [Just wait until we reach the Prince Etc… themed issue].

For You is an oft-overlooked debut album. In fact many mistake Prince’s self-titled follow up to this record as his first. It certainly rendered a list

of more recognisable tracks including I Wanna Be Your Lover and the original version of Chaka Khan’s smash I Feel For You. But the R&B synthorama session of For You should not so easily be forgotten under a pile of his more recognisable masterpieces.

It’s a preview of greatness to follow. Just look how early on we were shown Prince’s charming side: “Hey, lover, I got a sugarcane that I wanna lose in you”, perhaps the most winning opening line of a song ever. Soft and Wet was the first telltale sign of a whole decade of flirtation with oversexed lyrics and performance. If time travel presents itself to us at anytime, without a doubt the first stop on my itinerary would be a pre-Jehovah’s Witness Prince concert: Dirty Mind, Controversy or perhaps even the Lovesexy era [oh the mind reels…].

So For You isn’t pushing any boundaries, apart from perhaps seeing how pretty and fluffy his afro could be. But In Love, with Prince’s signature falsetto or the hair-metal raising funk of I’m Yours and the slow, space effects on Crazy You make this a worthy addition to the collection of Prince albums that everybody should have. Yeah I said it.

Everybody. FR

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classics: debut albums

Essays have been written about this album

and exactly how brilliant it is. But fuck it, this album is too good not to mention, I don’t care if I’m throwing a pebble in the ocean.

You may notice that our classic debut selection is very badly spread out, having chosen releases all from the latter part of the seventies.

But while folk-rockers were out-pompousing the best fo them and punk was struggling to remain relevant, there was a veritable spring awakening of great music.

Horses was one of the first to predict this change, jumping into the postpunk and new wave of releases years before its time. Patti’s lyrics are genius; Birdland is practically a fullblown novel. Gloria and Land will forever be crowd-pleasers but my personal love affair started with Free Money. Nothing prepares you for the orgasmic build up of jet planes, planets, heat, cold and dreams of gratis cash. Having been broke long before the recession made it fashionable, getting drunk on one bottle of red wine with this track on repeat has always made for a good night in. From open to close, and even the androgynous and subtle sexuality of the cover art, Horses is pure rock n’ roll. If Jesus did die for someone’s sins, they definitely weren’t committed on this album. FR

An enigmatic and revered character, Bunny Wailer is the sole-surviving member of the original

Wailers line-up. His debut solo album Blackheart Man in ‘76, set him in a new stratum amongst reggae fans, launching a 33-year recording career and distinguishing him as a prolific songwriter and visionist.

Politically charged and touching on various topics from town to country, songs like Fighting Against Conviction explore the daily struggles of a family man living in the ghetto; hustling to make ends meet and dodging the claws of Babylon, always out to slow up a man’s programme.

Rastaman is enchanting with heavy spiritual connotations. Referencing several biblical figures the tune tells how far the Rastaman has been trodding from I-ration (creation) up until this very I-wah (hour/time), overcoming trials and tribulations along the way. Blackheart Man is based on a Jamaican countryside myth of a strang wanderer who lures children with sweets and takes them away. The Rastaman them dem were likened to this mysterious character, leading to further alienation and persecution by Babylon.

Producer Robbie Shakespeare [of Sly & Robbie fame], percussionist and original Skatalite Tommy McCook and bassist Aston ‘Family Man’ Barrett attributed to the success and quality of this release. RA

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Swinging from the chandeliers of atmospheric

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and minimal electro ballrooms, Nite Jewel, led by the Californian native Ramona Gonzalez, captures the faded spirit of past decades of dance music. Encouraged by fellow Los Angeleans and avant-garde musicians Ariel Pink, his co-horts Haunted Graffiti and Geneva Jacuzzi, Ramona started off solo but swiftly joined the underground scene, performing regularly as Nite Jewel with her bandmate Emily Jane.

Their first full-length release Good Evening, previously only available to the vinyl friendly, has just been put out on CD through the Human Ear Music label. Recorded on an 8-track cassette deck, it’s lo-fi and melancholy but distinctly disco, referencing the eighties’ enthusiasm for what was once the fresh sound of synth.

Ethereal and lovely, Good Evening is warped

new artist: nite jewel and drowsy like Donna Summers’ Love to Love You Baby drugged up on Rohypnol. Tracks like Surbubia, Weak For Me and Let’s Go [The Two of Us Together] provide the soundtrack for the dream sequence of a funkadelic high.

Ramona cites many influences. Considering the undeniable 80s nature of their album, it comes as no surprise that they include freestyle electro artists Lisa Lisa & the Cult Jam and the lesser known but oft referenced Debbie Deb. Also mentioned on the long list of inspiration are R&B artists such as TLC and SWV, who [like many teenage girls growing up in the early 90s] made a marked impression on her subsequent tastes.

Nite Jewel have also appeared on the respected electro label Italians Do It Better whose roster of artists include Glass Candy and the Chromatics. They released a one-off 12” single with the infectious synthdrone pop of What Did He Say. With another EP due to be released on Italians Do It Better in the next few months, Nite Jewel are providing the blissed-out dancehalls with a regular feed.

To find out a little more, we pestered Ramona with questions just as she was busy SXSW-ing it in Austin, Texas:

Nite Jewel: Ramona’s Firsts First Concert: Probably some world music function at Ashkenaz in Berkeley.

First cassette: A tape with the story of Tom Sawyer from Fisher Price.

First record: God that’s hard. As with most kids in my town, I adopted my mom’s record collection at some point. I remember some jazz, classical, folk compilations, Ravi Shankar and Beatles records. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was a favourite.

First CD: Even harder. Probably some gangsta rap.

Why Nite Jewel?

Nite Jewel is the title that subsumes many things including my music, my band, myself, etc. The name comes from a song by a band called Nimbus Obi. Where do you call home?

A little Spanish style house in Lincoln Heights, Los Angeles.

How long have you been making music and why?

I have been playing and writing music since I was a little kid. I was obsessed. I wanted to be on Star Search.

Where do you think you fit in the current music scene and is there anyone out now that you are really into?

I like to think that I don’t fit in anywhere, but of course people make associations to Ariel Pink and Italians Do It Better since I, very obviously, released records on their labels (respectively).

Also people like to think there is an 8-track recorder scene, which is funny since almost every musician I know owns an 8 track. A current artist/group I am really into right now? Tim Hecker, for one.

What’s the best thing about performing live and what has been your most memorable gig of late?

Most memorable gig is playing at Emo’s outside in Austin and the monitors were so loud I almost had a heart attack on stage. I couldn’t hear or see anything, it was insane. I like performing for large crowds of bewildered people.

It’s always a sweet moment when you win them over.

What can we expect from a Nite Jewel gig?

Not much except two girls having fun.

Any chance we might see you in London anytime soon?

Yes, hopefully so. In September.

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My

first (musical) crush is perhaps idiosyncratic in that I deliberately chose someone I didn’t fancy. Not for me the breathless, rollercoaster adoration of a David Cassidy or Zac Efron: I was 12 years old, and decided to step into the maelstroms of adolescence on the well-upholstered arm of keyboardbotherer Gary Barlow.

“Chose” is the word. Everyone knew Take That were the best. I had no intention of letting my childish innocence be rattled by any of the substandard popstrels peddling their wares on Top of the Pops: Peter Andre, Boyzone, 911, Upside Down. And especially not East 17 with their heads shaved like criminals and incomprehensible but undeniably racy songs about Steam. So it had to be Take That. But which one? Howard and Jason had alarming oiled sixpacks, Mark had that dolphin tattoo on his hip but everyone liked him, and there was something renegade about Robbie even then. He ruined the choreography.

So I picked Gary. He was sort of handsome, if you squinted a bit, and he conscientiously played the piano while the other boys leapt around in mesh shirts and quasi-Nazi uniforms.

The form prefect among all the back-of-theclass rebels.

My crush escalated gently. I carted a spiralbound folder around at school and wrote TT

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logos on things in Tippex, but I was never going to be one of ‘those’ girls who sat outside Mark’s house and sent the boys knickers. I doubt they would have wanted one of my floral, five-in-apack M&S numbers anyway. When “the Thats” relaunched themselves with a strange, defiant new look –Howard had dreadlocks! - Gary remained the same, but I was changing. I shed a desultory tear when Robbie left, mainly because I felt like I ought to, but also because it seemed to toll a bell of doom somewhere.

But, on to my first gig. It was 1995. I remember my outfit included white shorts. I remember going with my babysitter. I remember the earshattering screams that practically ripped Earls Court apart. I don’t really remember much about the boys, or their music, except for the portentous closer Never Forget. After that zenith, I think my love waned a little more. How Deep is Your Love, their final single, still gives me a quiver, but it wasn’t that deep apparently.

When the boys finally disbanded, I wasn’t too bothered.

With the cruel inconsistency of youth, I let other things get in the way: exams, homework, not being invited to parties. When I was about 15 my affections reawakened with the infinitely cooler David Bowie, whom I saw a few years later clad in frockcoat with pre-Raphaelite curls against a Glastonbury sunset, possibly the best gig of my life. But that’s another story.

Seeing the Thats’ recent “manband” return gives me a retrospective, fond glow, but never again did I nurture such an obsessive, if perhaps passion-free, love for a band. They say you always remember the first time. KA www.fatquartermagazine.co.uk

this month’s debut album of choice: Jewellery [Rough Trade]

Unemployed ladies of the UK:

micachu & the shapes

fuck the recession, get yourself any old noise-making machine and start a pop career.

There could be no better time to avoid queuing up at 9am every two weeks to sign on with your local job centre. London accents are useful, shiny gadgetry is even better. Get yourself a couple of gigs; a following of neon-wearing youths and soon A&Rs will be forming orderly lines to get their greedy mitts on you.

Admittedly this might not be a watertight plan, I probably wouldn’t write it down in your jobseeker’s booklet for some disinterested DWP minion to sign. But you can’t deny that techno-savvy women are rocking the industry at the moment.

Obviously some more gracefully than others – notmentioninganynamesladygaga. And all I’m saying is that considering the odds, this could be a clever time to dig out the instruction manual to your Tenorion/analogue synthesizer/noisy household appliance.

But if you choose the latter, you better be prepared to produce something as brilliant as Micachu & The Shape’s vacuum-cleaning debut album Jewellery. Like droning electro funk taking place in the middle of laser-touting space warfare, tracks such as Curly Teeth and Golden Phone rip out the hearts of dance floor weaklings and eat them in their post-clubbing kebabs. A particular heart-warmer, Just In Case plays with the idea of acoustic guitars and singer-songwriter angst but throws in a heavy dose of barn-burning favela beats just to throw you off the trail. It’s a hard example to follow but I reckon once you’ve mastered the smoothie maker, it could be done. FR

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recorded music: debut albums

Malakai Ugly Side of Love (Invada/B Block] A recent review boldly stated that Malakai’s debut album was ‘perversely good enough to fuck’. And so the mind wanders: How would one coerce Ugly Side of Love into bed if one were that way inclined?

Do Gee and Scott, the twosome that make up this Bristol-born band, act as pimps offering their album’s services in exchange for reasonable sums of cash? And do you bump and grind with the whole album like some sordid 14-piece orgy or make sweet love to each track individually? And if so, which track?

Snakecharmer, a free-spirited flower child obsessed with solo George Harrison records, who recreationally flirts with psychedelic hallucinogens or Laydown Stay Down who, as the name suggests, specialises in light funk bondage and drum-thumping dominatrix games?

I’m inclined to go for Omega Time, soulfully sexed up rock n’ roll, not afraid of the kinkier stuff; the only downside being a bit too much chat at the end. But there’s also Fading World: straight out of a Blaxpoitation flick, enveloped in cigarette smoke, curvaceous and resonating.

Like the first time you see Pam Grier’s breasts in Coffy; jaw-droppingly sexy and little bit overwhelming.

But if the opportunity to sleep with a track on

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this album did present itself and Shitkicker made a pass at me, I’d be out of that musical brothel quicker than a drumbeat.

The Pains of Being Pure At Heart The Pains of Being Pure Heart [Fortuna POP!] Is it just me or is it amusing that I am writing a review of a biblically-titled band in a café where a girl is wearing a silky skirt with I Heart Jesus plastered all over it?

I am distracted. Don’t look too closely and you could mistake it for a garish Versace knock-off, with its thick royal blue border and gold chain print. Only when you notice the Jesus slogan [think archetypal New York souvenir t-shirt but replace the NY] wrapped around her bum that the confusion sets in. Has Donatella become a born-again? Is she trying to spread the word by redesigning her signature fabrics to incorporate the word of the Lord? Will this catch-on? Will Louis Vuitton bring out a range of classic brown logo luggage with every second LV replaced with WWJD? Will fashionistas be taking this to the masses or more worryingly, is this a trend for religious irony?

Like the mullet or porn ‘tache, people sport glittery Jesus shirts, carry around the bible and go to church on Sundays. But only as a joke. Thus they are hilarious and cool. No, society does not want to go down this route.

So the skirt has distracted me and I have less than 100 words left for The Pains: A ridiculously cute group of NY hipster kids with a lot of noise in them. But also quite poppy, like the recorded equivalent of a grungy Hello Kitty doll.

DM Stith Heavy Ghost [Asthmatic Kitty] A compilation of songs that receive the most rotation on the jukebox dominating the bar area at the member’s only Reclusive Gentlemen’s Club.

NY born DM Stith has achieved what many long considered a staunch impossibility: accesing a club so limited you’d have more luck getting into Cuckoo unannounced, completely wasted and dressed as a banana. His debut taps into a hidden world amongst the nameless and faceless.

Pity Dance is a particular favourite. Its moody ambience, a regular crowd-pleaser at RCG discos – discos with less dancing and more disappearing into dark corners and avoiding eye contact. Like a gloomier version of the nerd corner of John Hughes’ prom scenes but with less head braces.

Morning Glory Cloud has become the favoured drinking song. Taking turns to fork out change for the jukebox, a sozzled gathering of hermits join in the track’s ghostly cry, swaying to it’s

hymnal melodies. For daily aerobics, Creekmouth rallies the loners along while they lunge and stretch their anti-social bodies, beating out the rhythm of their routine. The ethereal cloud that envelops Heavy Ghost is a fascinating soundtrack of urban solitude and musings of an introverted mind.

Heston Storyteller [Dome] Soul retains a special place for me. I grew up on it. Considering the odds: living in Germany in the 90s surrounded by eurodance and boy bands, I’m surprised my music collection survived unscathed in the first place.

The beacon of light was VH1. Before Flava of Love, Rock of Love, Shot at Love and other such ‘love as a consumerist reality show concept’ programmes, VH1 was a fountain for discovery. Sit through endless repeats of Pop Up Video, and be rewarded with Erykah Badu’s turbaned and mud-covered On & On video, fuck, it was like getting your first kiss from the TV. Even now with horizons widened and tastes evolving, good soul can still reawaken the butterflies. Like the latest Dome release from Heston. The new school of nu soul, this island boi from Dominica comes via Atlanta with a debut like a bear hug in the shape of a shiny disc.

Only the heartless can resist. FR

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ego: crack stevens at his first buraka som sistema gig

It was a dark night; the venue: Digital in Brighton. One of those converted boat arches on the

seafront, which is now a meat market of a club. The anticipation had been building up and the party equipment was in full flow. My homies and I were seriously not holding in the money department but what we lacked financially we made up for in abundant investments. In this case some burger-sized pills from a previous road trip to Bristol.

We got in for free due to me, Crack Stevens already having achieved God-like status in this seaside pumpkin of love. Buraka were totally feverish, the whole place was buzzing like a giant shit-pile. I hate when people try to categorise music and to be honest I was probably too mashed to even recollect doing so. It’s basically like being in the Rio carnival but without the sun, fancy dress, tanned women or even Rio for that matter. So none of the good bits except for the music. Coming at you with two MC’s, a DJ and some foxy little thing who indulges in some ass shaking cameos, literally. I’d love to tap that!

Derived from a mixture of Portugal and Angola, Buraka inject a wholesome party vibe. It got so loved up in there that the ceiling was crying, allowing me to seal the highlight of the night for my friends and many watching ladies. Ripping my shirt off Hulk Hogan style. Trust me: the ultimate pulling move.

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Est. 2004 First CD: Michael Jackson - Thriller: oh yeah.

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