Yo Zushi

Yo Zushi's songs and other things

[yozushi]

My recent New Statesman review of the Black Panther comics by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Brian Stelfreeze is up on the website now. [Click here]

It begins like this:

What’s in a name? If your comic book is called Black Panther, quite a lot – especially if your father was once a defence captain in the Black Panther Party and your work as a journalist and essayist has stalked the ever-elusive meaning of race in America. That meaning will always evade any writer, even one as perceptive as Ta-Nehisi Coates, because the experiences of a skin tone – black, white, yellow, or brown – are so various that no single explanation will ever do...

[yozushi]

My review of the William Eggleston show at the NPG in London appeared in the New Statesman magazine last week. The full online version is now up [click here]. Here’s an extract that describes the image above:

...These undeniably low-key choices, however, do not make for dull art. One striking 1974 photograph of two girls – Eggleston’s second cousin Lesa Aldridge and her friend Karen Chatham, reclining on a brown sofa – fizzes with narrative possibility. Is the girl in blue crying? The girl in red, curled around her friend, seems to be consoling her: what is she saying? Although it’s a documentary image (the two subjects happened to drop by at Eggleston’s house after a night out), the composition is entirely unified. A wine glass behind the girls holds a flower; this is echoed by the sofa’s flower pattern, which is in turn echoed by the design on Aldridge’s dress... 

[yozushi]

My long-read article on boxing appeared in the New Statesman’s summer double issue recently - the online version is up now. [click here]

It begins like this:

Tommy Martin threw the first punch – then a series of hooks and jabs that struck the arms of the Commonwealth super-lightweight champion, John Wayne Hibbert. All eyes strained to follow the boxers as they skipped and shuffled their way around the bright blue ring.

Boxing is controlled chaos. The referee, watchful and sharp in his bow tie, brings the control; the boxers bring the chaos. From the terrace of the Copper Box Arena at the Olympic Park in London, the action seemed remote at first. The men in the spotlight were the size of toy soldiers and their grunts and gasps were inaudible. Only the heaviest blows seemed to make any sound: pop-pop, like rain on an umbrella... 

[yozushi]

Stuff

Somehow I’ve neglected this Tumblr... again. Stuff I should have posted ages ago:

1) My Christmas song for 2015... actually a New Year’s song... was released by Eidola Records. It was called “Happy New Year” and you can hear it here on YouTube. It was the most Elliott Smith-ish thing I’ve done and I liked it. My sister Hana did the video.

2) Lots of writing for the New Statesman, including this article on Frank Sinatra, illustrated by Le Gun’s Neal Fox. Also - here’s something I had in the David Bowie special issue that immediately followed his death. 

3) My 2015 album It Never Entered My Mind is still available... It’s good so how about giving it a go if you like that sort of thing (CLICK HERE)... That 1970s country sort of thing... Meanwhile, I’ve been working on a few collections at the same time. The first is a studio set with songs like “Miskatonic Valentine” on it; the second is a bunch of much darker, more stripped-down stuff done at home; the last is a boozed-out bar-room covers set with lots of Sinatra/Elvis stuff I’ve butchered for no reason at all. All three are almost done so come back and have a look here in the near future.

4) James McKean came over one evening and I did this scuzzy video for his great song “I Long to Make Your Dreams Come True”... which deserved better than what I made, probably. 

5) I’ve become obsessed with Todd Rundgren. And Spock, a bit, after reading Shatner’s Leonard Nimoy book.

[yozushi]

My first Christmas song from... a decade ago. Recorded with Greg Box and Mike Taylor.

[yozushi]

I do a Christmas song every year... and the next one is called “Happy New Year”! Here’s the Brent Spiner-themed cover art I did...

[yozushi]

My new video for the Eidola Records single “Miskatonic Valentine”, launching at Servant Jazz Quarters in London on 12 August...

[yozushi]

My dumb drawing cover for the Miskatonic Valentine/Careless Love/I Can’t Wait to See Her Again triple-A single, which comes out on Monday 10th of August (Eidola Records). The launch takes place at Servant Jazz Quarters in Dalston on Wednesday 12th of August. I’ll be joined by the great oMMM.

[yozushi]

Do It! Do It Now! 

I've been busy and, being an owner of an old Nokia phone and lacking a computer, I've neglected the Tumblr... But in short: 1) The launch of the album was fun and we've done a few more shows, the best of which was at a night hosted by Winspear and William at the Constitution in Camden. Thanks, W&W! 2) Jack Lyons at Americana UK gave It Never Entered My Mind an 8/10 review: "This album is great - the songs feel complete; perhaps the 5 year gap between releases has allowed for this. With this in mind, one can only hope for a slightly smaller gap next time!" http://www.americana-uk.com/index.php/cd-reviews/item/yo-zushi-it-never-entered-my-mind   3) Here's my Billie Holiday article on the New Statesman website. 4) After a pretty dry thing I wrote for the New Statesman magazine on the truth and the internet in modern journalism, I wrote a long appreciation of... Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's in the new issue, out in the shops tomorrow. 5) On Sunday 26 July, I will be appearing with the band at the Ambition Festival in Croydon, where Lee Scratch Perry and Soul II Soul are also performing. 6) I've got a lot of new songs written and recorded, which means... it's coming up to gratuitous free download album time again. More on this soon. And... 7) I'm planning to do a single soon (either "Miskatonic Valentine" or "I Can't Wait to See Her Again"... both actual rock and roll songs, as opposed to my usual country thing). Got them recorded - it's just a matter of mixing with the Master Ross Palmer. The plan is to fool people into thinking that these are on It Never Entered My Mind so they buy the album. To be continued...

[yozushi]

Yo, Gs. My album is out today.

You can buy the CD version as well, now. Click [HERE]. 

Uncut magazine said:

"A gentle zephyr of a country-folk record... Zushi's slight, boyish voice adds poignancy to the lovely 'Send Your Love to Me' and 'No Use in Waiting Any More'... A glacial excursion into Red House Painters territory" - Graeme Thomson...

But then they gave it 6/10.

Ah, well. It's a great record, Graeme, go listen to it again! Then send me some flowers. And some Skittles.

[yozushi]

New album "It Never Entered My Mind" out on 19 January on Eidola Records

Yo. As John and Yoko once sang (almost), "Click pre-order, if you want it." So why not aim [HERE] and pull the trigger for the Amazon pre-order page of the digital version of my album. The CD, though, has artwork by the artists Zoe Taylor and Joe Kessler and is probably what I'd pay for if I were you. Below you'll find the poorly embedded video for "Send Your Love to Me". Enka-ish chords but really a country song. Mostly recorded live. Ross Palmer produced my album.

[yozushi]

"Blue Christmases" single and video

I try to make a Christmas song every year and this is the 2014 one, which Eidola Records is putting out as an online-only thing (available December only). Click here to go to the website. The video is here. Eidola is the label that will be releasing my album It Never Entered My Mind on 19 January 2015.

Zoe bought me a fortune cookie a few days ago and it said: "All your hard work will soon pay off." Hopefully that's some sort of mysterious-sounding-but-actually-unsubtle reference to all these songs (OK, my friend and producer Ross Palmer did most of the hard work but you can humour me sometimes, you know)... Maybe I should go on eBay and splurge on stuff I can't afford using money promised me by Fortune Cookie God. I've always wanted a picture of a naked lady gazing up at a freaky display of ventriloquists' dummy heads... Oh, look, they have one:

I made the video for "Blue Christmases" myself.

[yozushi]

Round up of some of my recent writing

Hi.

1) The other day I interviewed Thurston Moore for the East End Review. It's in the current issue (December) and will probably be running online at some point soon. You can get the magazine in Hackney, London.

2) Here's a review I did of Alan Warner's new novel Their Lips Talk of Mischief, which appeared in the New Statesman magazine in September. Warner's best known for Morvern Callar but he's been consistently good for years - click here for my thoughts on it.

3) Christopher Frayling's new book, The Yellow Peril, is about Fu Manchu and Chinaphobia. And it's great fun - well researched and light of touch. I wrote this last month for... the New Statesman. I do work for those guys after all. [Click here]

4) As you may know, I'm a Dylan fan. Or I thought I was, until I read David Kinney's The Dylanologists. Compared to some of the people he mentions, I'm just skimming the surface. I did the review for the New Humanist magazine. [Click here]

5) My favourite bit of recent journalist work was my article on horror movies - the business of it, how it works, and so on. It appeared in the New Statesman magazine and also on the New Republic website, which I hope continues to exist after the recent shit-storm there. [Click here]

6) Tomorrow's issue of the... New... Statesman... will feature my exhibition review of the Guy Bourdin show at Somerset House. It's probably the best-written of all these selections but that has a lot to do with how I mined the bookshelves and thoughts of my girlfriend Zoe, who generally knows more about stuff than I do. Go to the brilliant show if you can. Link to come when they upload the thing.

[yozushi]

Our zine fair at the Ophelia in Dalston back in October... I had a nice time. My sister Hana took a few photos and here's one of them. That's me on the right with my head in a state of partial eclipse with the other guy's

[yozushi]

Dalston Zine and Print Fair 2014

Hi. Last year, Zoe Taylor and I put on the Clapton Zine and Print Fair (see pic above)... This year, we've moved it to the Ophelia in Dalston - click the link for venue details. We're open for business from 12pm to 4pm.

Come by to browse/pick up the comics, zines, tapes and other work by the most exciting small-press publishers including: Arty http://www.artymagazine.com/ Garageland http://www.transitiongallery.co.uk/garageland.htm Crumb Cabin http://www.crumbcabin.com/ OOMK http://oomk.net/ James Unsworth (Ditto Press) http://shop.dittopress.co.uk/products/dead-boys-james-unsworth Jennifer Crouch http://www.jennifercrouch.com/ Mireille Fauchon http://cargocollective.com/mireillefauchon Sofia Drescher http://sofiadrescher.com/ Robert Ridley-Shackleton and Veronica Cordova Visual Artist

See you there!

Facebook event page [here]

[yozushi]

OK... Here's the free album Joyride on Soundcloud, featuring covers of the Spice Girls, Minnie Riperton, Lionel Richie & Diana Ross, Bananarama and Kool & the Gang, alongside five of my own songs... It was made for fun.

[yozushi]

Here's the cover art for my free download album Joyride. The photo was taken in the mid-1990s by Zoe Taylor as part of a project that invented a band of Barbies, complete with fanzines, magazine interviews, record sleeves, etc. The album is a bit of fun I had in the wait before January, when my main album, It Never Entered My Mind, comes out on Eidola Records (see previous post). You can get it [here].

I'm playing at the Railroad, 120 Morning Lane, Hackney, on Sunday 5 October, to celebrate finishing this!