THE GONZO TRACK OF THE DAY: Auburn - Indian Summer- Stop the clock.

CURRENTLY AVAILABLE FROM GONZO
Indian Summer
CD - £9.99

LINK: Liz loves to share passion for music

OK, this story is 19 months out of date, but do we care? Nah! We are all massive Lizfans here at Gonzo Daily...

LIZ Lenten is helping to rescue Gosberton Risegate village hall in the spare time she doesn’t have.

“When you have a big mouth, you have to do something about it,” says Liz, who lives in Siltside in the village.

“It was a lovely village hall and at risk of closure.”

Liz may admit to a big mouth, but friends know she won’t blab about the secrets they share with her in the hot tub, although their tales of life and love may end up as lyrics in her songs.

In fact singer-songwriter Liz’s new album, coming out on May 7, also speaks of a subject Liz is not talking about too much. The album is called Indian Summer, that title referring not to the amazing weather we have enjoyed this autumn, but personal times of change and transformation, such as a significant birthday...

However, there will be no slowing down for Liz, who successfully juggles four separate areas within her musical career: artist management, education, community as well as her own music.

Liz has been singing since she was 16, and touring, recording and teaching since her early 20s.

She was based in London, where she launched her own label – Scarlet Records – and had a recording studio until about eight years ago when she and her sound engineer and producer husband Wan Hewitt fell in love with their home in Gosberton Risegate.

Read on...

CURRENTLY AVAILABLE AT GONZO

Indian Summer
CD - £9.99

GONZO DAILY TRACK OF THE DAY: 'Cry' by Auburn

Currently available at Gonzo:

Indian Summer
CD - £9.99

A CAUTIONARY TALE (Featuring the CFZ, Jefferson Starship and Auburn)

JEFFERSON STARSHIP AT GONZO

Tales From The Mothership - Roswell UFO Festival 3 July 2009 4CD - £15.00

Acoustic Warrior CD - £0.00

BB Kings Blues Club, Ny, 2007  3CD - £19.99

Substage, Germany 2005 3CD - £19.99

Soiled Dove DVD - £12.99 AUBURN AT GONZO Indian Summer CD - £9.99

ACOUSTIC AUBURN LIVE ON STAGE

Check out the Auburn Gonzo artist page

THERE WILL BE MORE VIDEO OF AUBURN LIVE IN SOUTHAMPTON SOON - BUT IN THE MEANTIME SOME PICS BY GRAHAM THAT i COMPLETELY FORGOT THAT I HAD

Check out the Auburn Gonzo artist page

AUBURN: Liz and CHOIR VIBE at LATITUDE (Pinched from her Facebook page)

Check out the Auburn Gonzo artist page

WHILST ON THE SUBJECT OF AUBURN...

Here is a very peculiar picture of Auburn bassdude Jevon with a purple cat. The two of them are on the way to the Edinburgh gig...

Jevon and his purple pussy en route to edinburgh queens hall ...with Auburn

Check out the Auburn Gonzo artist page

AUBURN ACOUSTIC: Tie me down

AUBURN ACOUSTIC live - NEW TRACK - LIZ LENTEN & MARK GUSTAVINA

Check out the Auburn Gonzo artist page

EXCLUSIVE: Liz Lenten is on the road with Jefferson Starship, and is telling us all about it...

Well, as regular readers will be aware, Jefferson Starship are currently on tour with Auburn as support act. And as regular readers will also be aware, I have a very soft spot for Auburn, and so I have been keeping in touch with the lovely Liz who is giving the Gonzo Daily exclusive backstage reports from the tour...

JON: How is the tour going?

LIZ: It’s great, it’s really nice.  I am absolutely loving it.  The fans have been just delightful.  You know, when you are a support band your expectations are nil basically – everything is a bonus, but they are just so warm and so generous.  They have been inviting me up to sing with them on their last song – I have been getting up and singing with Cathy

JON: Wow, what song have you been doing?

LIZ: Volunteers in America. I have been standing up next to David and mouthing next to him, whatever he is singing and singing along with him and then Cathy came over and we shared a mike and did a bit of girlie thing together which has been good fun.  They are just delightful, honestly – I’ve never, ever had such warmth and generosity from a headline band.

JON: You know, that was the song they sang at Altamont?

LIZ: Yeah apparently it was, and I have been warned that they might ask me to get up every night at the end which I would be delighted to and apparently sometimes they do With a Little Help from my Friends – the Joe Cocker version - as well so I’ve got that to come.

JON: It sounds absolutely magical.

LIZ: I know…. it’s been, as I say I can’t get over it really. Normally your moment is the bit on stage and the rest is just a night, not a nightmare you know – that’s your 99% perspiration and your 1% joy, but the whole tour is delightful and I’m loving it all.  Acoustic is a new thing for because we have been doing the full band change so this is a new line up and we’ve changed some of the arrangements to make them work acoustically and I’m delighted with how that is and I’ve got a lovely crew and we just … we feel like we’re on holiday.

When we were in Edinburgh the sun was shining and as I say the Jefferson team are absolutely lovely. We have a giggle with them and it’s all been going very smoothly so far. Granted we’re only three days in, but it’s been absolutely wonderful.  I’m just settling in to the institution of touring really.

JON: I didn’t realize it was a new lineup of the band

LIZ: Well it’s interesting actually.  My original guitarist who I did my first album, not Indian Summer,  with … the guy we did Indian Summer with, the producer, he couldn’t get away and so I contacted Gus (Mark Gustavina ) my old writing partner and my old friend and he came to New Orleans with me and he and I did the acoustic set in New Orleans at the Blue Nile Club and so he’s come along on this tour and Jevon who is the bass player on the Indian Summer album who’s also in the full band lineup, so it’s just me and  Gus and Jevon that’s why I am playing a lot more guitar than I normally do so we’ve got a nice jangly sound. As I say we’ve changed some of the arrangements slightly so they work well acoustically so it’s very vocal led as opposed to being instrumentally, you know it’s really all about the vocals which is pressure, but lovely. And I am enjoying vocalising. You know, there’s a lot of space. And yeah, it’s working. Well according to the audience reaction it is working. 

JON: That’s brilliant. What I am going to do if I may – because I am going to try to keep up the momentum…if I give you a ring in a few days time and see how things are going...

Check out the Auburn Gonzo artist page
...and check out the Gonzo Artist Page for Jefferson Starship you know it makes sense

AUBURN: Liz in America

Check out the Auburn Gonzo Artist page

TWO MORE EXCLUSIVE PICS OF AUBURN'S LIZ LENTEN

And it doesn't end here, either, 'cos tomorrow we have some pictures from the band's recent sojourn in the United States. (I hope they behaved better than I have done on occasion in 'The Land of the Free'. I remember once being interviewed by a reporter from Fox News who, for some reason asked me who I thought was the greatest living American. He choked on his microphone when I looked him straight in the eyes, and deadpan, answered "Charles Manson". They have never interviewed me since..)

AUBURN EXCLUSIVE PIX

Some eminently groovy new publicity pictures of the lovely Liz Lenten from Auburn which are - I believe - totally exclusive to us.

Auburn are supporting the mighty Jefferson Starship next month and I will be there with the CFZtv posse to film as much as I can...

Watch this space.

PS. There will be more Lizpix tomorrow..

ANOTHER ARTIST TAKES UP MY POETIC GAUNTLET (Phoaar, look at the pentameters on that)

As regular readers will be aware, every day I send out a digest of what is on the Gonzo Daily to various readers on Usenet and Facebook. For some reason known only to me (and I have forgotten), I do Sunday's notifications in rhyme. Over the months I have dropped huge hints that I would be highly amused if one of the artists about whom I write would reply to me in verse. I had hoped that Rick Wakeman would decide to set some of them to music and release a double concept album entitled 'The Rhymes and Doggerel of a fat bloke sitting in a converted potato shed nine miles from Bideford', but alas it was not to be.

Until this morning, the only person ever to reply to my appalling poetry has been the ever lovely Liz Lenten of Auburn. Check out a sample of her exquisite pentameters here. I have just realised that this sentence is open to misinterpretation - if you don't know what pentameters are, for example. However, today all that has changed.

Yesterday, I wrote:

THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem

'The World Poet' Thom Woodruff
writes all sorts of groovy stuff
I'm almost embarrassed that sometimes
he will read Jon Downes' awful rhymes

Today I received this from Thom:

REALLY liked your universal verse

Mine has been MUCH worse

Forced endings are like slavery-

chains of meaning broken indefinitely

SET POETRY FREE!

Cheers to young Jonathan from me!

What a nice man he is!!!!!

PS. Getting back to the subject of Auburn, we have some exclusive pictures of our Liz which shall be posted later this week...

ANOTHER JEFFERSON STARSHIP/AUBURN TOUR POSTER

I have always been a sucker for sci-fi themed San Fransisco poster art of the hippyesque kind, and writing about the forthcoming Jefferson Starship/Auburn tour is certainly giving me the opportunity to indulge this obsession. I thought that the tour poster that I posted yesterday was a good one, but have a butchers at this....


Golly!!!

Check out the Auburn Gonzo Artist page

...and check out the Gonzo Artist Page for Jefferson Starship you know it makes sense.

AUBURN: Liz is in America, and OMG she's gone native!

Check out the Auburn Gonzo Artist page

JEFFERSON STARSHIP/AUBURN UK TOUR

This is what I believe they call a dream team. Corinna and I will be filming a couple of the dates and making a little documentary thing for Gonzo Daily.

Tue, 09 Oct Kinross, Backstage at The Green Hotel
Wed, 10 Oct Edinburgh, The Queens Hall
Thu, 11 Oct Glasgow, The Ferry Glasgow
Fri, 12 Oct Blackburn, King George's Hall
Sat, 13 Oct Grimsby, Yardbirds Club
Tue, 16 Oct Bilston, The Robin 2
Wed, 17 Oct Southampton, The Brook
Thu, 18 Oct Haywards Heath, Clair Hall
Fri, 19 Oct London, The Borderline
Sat, 20 Oct London, The Borderline

Check out the Auburn Gonzo Artist page

...and check out the Gonzo Artist Page for Jefferson Starship you know it makes sense.

AUBURN: Press release and two (very nearly) exclusive pics

For Immediate Release

UK Electro-Acoustic Group Auburn's Reunion CD 'Indian Summer' Receives Rave Reviews

August 1, 2012 – London, UK – One of the break-out releases of 2012, UK electro-acoustic ensemble Auburn's 'Indian Summer, has been garnering rave reviews worldwide. Featuring singer/songwriter Liz Lenten, Auburn reunited in 2011 after an almost 10-year hiatus! The group released their critically acclaimed CD 'Indian Summer' on May 7, 2012 on Scarlet Records, distributed through Gonzo MultiMedia. Described as a band that delivers “songs from the heart” by the London Evening Standard, and “Dreamy, moody and atmospheric” by Classic Rock Society, Auburn has been touring the UK in support of their new CD release. 'Indian Summer' is a mix of up-beat and slower tempo electro-acoustic pop music, but borrowing much from the roots, country and blues genres, with a slightly retro sound but still very 2012. “We have been really thrilled by the positive reviews that the album has had and the response at the live shows,” says Liz. “It feels like people are getting it and getting me. There is definitely an awareness building around Auburn and the 'Indian Summer' album, and we mean to develop that by doing some new tracks after the summer, and more live shows later in the year and also next year.

Here's what the press have been raving about Auburn's 'Indian Summer':

“One of the prevading joys is Liz Lenten's voice – at times etheral and wispy, at other times emotive and powerful, but always a joy” - Tumblr

“Fronted by a tremendous vocalist in Liz Lenten, whose influence bears hallmarks of some of the great dream pop singers, but with more singer songwriter approach, the group create mature heartfelt melodies for a new generation” - Morning Star Online

“A warm intimate blend of stripped down electro-acoustic pop...'Indian Summer' is a lovely album from start to finish of intriguing laid back instrumentation, high-spirited vocals and spine tingling harmonies' – Rhythm & Booze

“Easy listening, inspirational and rather relaxing” - Ravenheart

“An immaculate Autumn record, released in spring signals the welcome return of a warmly missed English ensemble” - DMNE

“Understated and more often than not charming Liz Lenten's pop styled folk has a beautiful, and on occasions, a quirky feel” - Flyingshoes

Fronted by female vocalist Liz Lenten, who's voice has been described as “so sweet it'll make your hair curl” and “husky, with an emotional frailty”, who isn't afraid to show her full range of vocal tones or emotions. Likened on this album to singers including Macy Gray, Karen Dalton and Lady Daisey and with varied influences from Bonnie Raitt, Billie Holiday, Ricki Lee Jones, Amy Winehouse, Kate Bush and Janis Joplin to name a few, Liz's songs grab you melodically, but also tell a story of love and life. The Auburn band is a mixed sound of lush acoustic guitars, rich cello lines and groovy percussion, underpinned by hypnotic bass lines.

Along with the positive reviews, Auburn's 'Indian Summer' has been garnering substantial airplay around the world including stations like WWSP, KKUP, WCUX (USA), Roots Revival (Belgium). The album reached #18 in the UK Roots radio airplay chart on May 30, 2012. More live dates and a live video are in the works: “We are playing a full band show at 'Exhibition Road Festival' in London on July 29th, and then an acoustic showcase at the 'Blue Nile Club' in New Orleans on August 3rd for the E1 conference,” says Liz. “Then, more live dates after the summer and now looking at a UK tour the end of 2012 or early 2013, then we'll be back in the USA next summer for some live dates and festivals.”

Auburn – 'Indian Summer'
Label: Scarlet Records / Distribution: Gonzo/Proper

To purchase Auburn – 'Indian Summer': http://www.gonzomultimedia.co.uk/search/product_details/15443/Auburn-Indian_Summer.html

For more information: www.auburn.org.uk
www.facebook.com/auburnindainsummer

Check out the Auburn Gonzo Artist page

AUBURN REVIEWS

Some weeks ago I got into contact with a charming young lady called Alanah, who is a big fan of Auburn (as are we all at Gonzo Daily). I arranged a signed tour poster for her, and asked her to write something for us. I then forgot completely about it (because age is catching up with me, and I really have no memory to speak of, unless it is recalling bass-players of obscure prog bands from 1968).

According to the Harry Potter legend, J.K.Rowling wrote the first of the series sat in a cafe somewhere. I think I met her a couple of times whilst she was a student at Exeter Uni; I remember a feisty and not unattractie blonde called Jo who I think was her, and - due to pressure of circumstances I am sitting in a cafe on the M6 typing into a very battered old laptop that used to belong to a boss of mine. When he drank himself to death owing me three thousand quid, and subsequently his widow was sent to prison for fraud, I decided to keep the laptop, and it has come in useful today, but I digress.

I was reading my emails ten minutes ago when - much to my great pleasure - I read an email from Alanah, with the following message:

Here are both of the review vids since im not very good at writing reviews, im sorry it took a while to get it up but here it is




Methinks that Gonzo Daily has now got a roving reporter. I wonder who we can send her after next...

Check out the Auburn Gonzo Artist page

LIZZY'S DIZZY - SHE GOT BUSY!

As regular readers will no doubt know, for some reason known only to myself (and I have forgotten it), I write the Sunday notifications in rhyme. What notifications? Every day I post a witty digest of the Daily Gonzo stuff (the same thing that you can see on the Scoop-it page each day) to various Facebook groups and fora, and email out to those who ask for it (and some who don't). Six days I do them relatively sensibly, but on the 7th, for no particular reason I do them in bad verse.

Why bad verse? That is simple. I am a lousy poet, and to be horribly honest I doubt whether my silly doggerel counts as poetry, but it amuses me, and it also amuses various Gonzofolk such as Erik Norlander, and the lovely Liz Lenten of Auburn. Now, Liz opened a real can of Pandora's boxlike worms the other week, because she sent me a poem in reply, and ever since then I make sure that there is a Lizstory every Sunday. (Note to other artists: I am easily bribed and a few lines of verse, or a double concept album, song story or eight movement Rock Opera each week will guarantee your placing in the sunday news).

Yesterday, I pinched some arty pictures from some arty pictures from the Auburn Facebook page and wrote the following lines in my defence:

And it would not be a Sunday blog
although the rest is quite diverse,
I always try to find the space
for 8 lines of Liz Lenten verse,
because her album Indian Summer
is really bloody good you know,
so each week I still try to plug it,
and I've done it once again (ho ho)

To which the Divine Ms L replied:

Now Jon, let me make this very clear,
To me, you have become quite dear
So, anything you ‘nick’ to post is fine
What’s mine is yours…….its in the rhyme

Now Phil Reeves is a clever bloke
Of which you have already spoke (en!)
His shots are always so unique
And he makes me look so cool and chic

There’s more to come, so just for you
We’ll send exclusive pics straight thru
And then you’ll know when you next post
the shots were seen on Gonzo blog first (!)

Liz
x

PS - sorry for the awful rhymes - it is Sunday and I am tired!!

There really is nothing that I can say to that except to bow graciously, and point you in the direction of her Gonzo Artist page

P.S. I hope my mate Biffo who once was scriptwriter for Sooty and Sweep appreciates the headline