Woman in Black. A Fine Edition

My friend Mr Palmer has just recently loaned me a copy of Susan Hill’s Woman in Black. I have read the book and seen the film….plus seen the stage version, but I was rather taken by this hard back copy 1st published in 1983. The Illustrations are by John Lawrence and at first they might seem a bit light in style and at times even jovial, more fitting a lighter tale. But the illustrations are in fact quite lovely and are definitely a bonus which add to the whole reading experience of this classic story;  The Woman in Black has many elements of other classic ghost stories. An old house, a causeway, a village were the locals mutter into their pints at the mention of the house, an unsuspecting hero, eerie sounds in the night, spooky children, fog/mist, secrets, vengeance, a locked room, rocking chair and of course The Woman in Black. All this is used to great effect as the mystery unfolds and the suspense builds and reaches a climax.
I have seen both the BBC adaption (Screenplay by Nigel Kneel) and the 2012 film with Danial Radcliffe. Both quite good in their own right; even though the film does change the story quite a bit, but both are very enjoyable and def worth a watch. 

Just a Bad Dream

In the summer of 2018 I was contacted by Cherry Red Records who were putting together a 60 track compilation of 1980s Garage/Postpunk/Trash. They were very keen to include a Psylons track from the Bite Back Records Cassette release Psylons is Golden.
It had been many many years since I had given my old band Psylons much thought. Occasionally things would turn up on YouTube and other places on line, but that was about it. In 2016 Gideon Coe played a Psylons Peel Session track (Gideon Coe has also consistently played Keith Seatman tracks. Thank you Mr Coe) and in 2014 a Psylons track was played on a John Peel 75th anniversary special.
I have over the years (on and off, def more on than off now) stayed in touch with the rest of the band. So after a catch up and band meeting (not had one of them for decades) we agreed to let Cherry Red use the requested track Waiting Nation. Jack Packer (Psylons Guitar) re-mastered the track as we only had a cassette copy of it and Warren Grech (Psylons Bass) did the write up for the CD booklet. Unfortunatly Carl Edwards (Drums) was very ill and could not meet up with us. So we agreed that we would email, text all relevent info to Carl to keep him in the loop and part of the whole project. Carl would regulery reply to my emails outlining what was going on and giving us the thumbs up to go ahead with it.  Just A Bad Dream is a massive and impressive collection. Naturally Billy Childish features heavily on this collection (Thee Mighty Ceasars, The Milkshakes, The Headcoats) but there are also so many others: Naz Nomad, The Playn Jayn, The Wolfhounds, Biff Bang Pow, Jesus and The Mary Chain, The Prisoners, Prime Movers, Sexton Ming and loads and loads more. The music site Louder than War said this about the collection
A must-have compilation for all lovers of that stripped back primitive sound.On this new compilation, Cherry Red have taken a snapshot of the bands that maintained the garage-trash sound throughout the 80s in the UK.

Sadly by the time this collection was released our dear friend and Drummer Carl Edwards had passed away. I am 100% certain that he would have loved the finished product.