The Rocker – The Artist Formerly Known As Zeitgeist. TAFKAZ

Martin Stephenson takes over the world

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MAGAZINE(S)
No, not Devoto’s excellent mob, I mean the music magazines. You know, the ones that manage to have a Beatles feature at least every 3 months; oh look another Smiths retrospective…well for a bloody change they have actually gone out on a limb and decided to write about Martin & The Daintees. Checkout the January edition of Record Collector (see, just next to Clapton’s left thigh) and the February issues of Mojo and Uncut. This is not normal. Not since the Demon Records days of the mid-90’s has Martin had this level of press coverage. It ties in with a promotional push for the excellent California Star album; Uncut calling it “a high-water mark”, Mojo going with “a gifted musician…scattering gems at our feet”; and Martin telling RC that new album The Haunted Highway will be like “a soundtrack; it could fit into a road movie, or a Tarantino.” Excellent stuff. If only they had a biography to use as research for future features.
TRIBUTE CD
Equally exciting is this damn fine thing…a collection of talented musician friends and admirers of Martin’s have combined to produce a tribute album called The Great North Light. It is something that has been in the pipeline for a while but due to the dedicated, loving curation of Pete Shields, it now sees the “light” of day. Covers of classic Martin songs are played by the likes of Stephen Foster-Pilkington, The McCluskey Brothers and Helen McCookerybook. It really is an excellent album, providing a different view of some much loved classics like Even The Night, Running Water and Slaughterman. The Great North Light is available digitally from Martin’s download site here for just £5, and for that you can download The Daintees 2008 Western Eagle album as well. Bargain!
GLASGOW & MORE
OK now for some gig news; and for those of you up in Scotland the great news is that an extra date has been added to The Daintees spring tour. Get yourself down to Glasgow’s Oran Mor on Friday 2nd May. Details on the gig page here and also a link direct to buy tickets.

Some of you will have attended one of Martin’s “live in the lounge” on-line gigs. He has a new one coming up this weekend on Sunday 2nd February at 8:00pm. They are great fun; a quite unique way for artist and audience to interact. Martin has even got the hang of the technology as well!

And back north of the border, just picking out a lovely gig that Martin’s pals Helen McCookerybook and Scott MacDonald are playing on Monday 3rd February. It’s at Foakies in Edinburgh, a lovely little basement venue under the Royal Oak pub. Brighten up your Monday night, with Helen due to play the late, great Pete Seeger’s Where Have All The Flowers Gone. I reckon it could be very special.
“THE HAUNTED HIGHWAY”
I mentioned last time that a new Daintees album is in the pipeline. Latest news is that the basis of it is recorded (and inside information tells me that Kate Stephenson has been an absolute star on the drums!) with just a few vocals and mixing left to be done. No sneak preview yet I’m afraid, but just as soon as I can get hold of anything, rough mixes, more song titles, artwork, anything, I will share it with you. Release date is currently looking like late summer/early autumn. Can’t wait!

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