Johny Brown

With Hector Gannet and Andy Thompson

Presented by: Pennyblackmusic online music magazine

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0	LONDON: The Water Rats
P	Saturday 25th May, 2024
N	7:30pm

Event information

Penny Black Music is presenting a night of solo artists (although not all of them will be playing solo).

We are returning to our regular London venue for the last six years of The Water Rats in Kings Cross where we will be presenting what we believe are to be three outstanding musical talents -Johny Brown, Hector Ganner and Andy Thompson. Tickets are £!2 in advance and £!5 (cash only on the door).

JOHNY BROWN

The front man of The Band of Holy Joy – who have headlined our Bands’ Nights on four separate occasions – Johny Brown has recorded over twenty albums in his long musical career of over forty years.

Brown has been going through a golden period of creativity of late. The latest BOHJ album ‘Fated Beautiful Mistakes’, which came out last year, has earned the band some of its finest reviews to date, and many critics and fans alike believe it is the best album out of all their LPs so far.

They are now hard at work on another album, but Brown has also found the time to record his debut solo album, ‘Gut Feels’, which will come out on their regular label of the last few years, Tiny Global Productions, on the 14th February.

While The Band of Holy Joy have employed an increasingly lavish sound in recent years, ‘Gut Feels’ is in comparison much more lo-fi. Recorded on seemingly ancient instruments, in contrast to the social and political concerns of The Band of Holy Joy, its songs are abstract and angular, and are about elderly musicians and actors, who go on honing their craft against the odds, tattoos, raincoat-wearing teenagers, pigeons and punk badges.

This will be Johny Brown’s debut gig under his own name, and he will be playing half the set solo and half with a junk scratch trash band.

HECTOR GANNET

Hector Gannet is the moniker of North Shields on Tyneside-based Aaron Duff, who works under that name both as a solo arist and with his band.

Hector Gannet has toured and played support dates with fellow Shieldsman and double Brit Award winner Sam Fender, Sea Power, The Felice Brothers, Lanterns on The Lake, Pete Doherty and Richard Thompson as well as done its own headline dates and tours.

Its debut album Big Harcar (named after a small island off the coast of England), came out in 2020, with songs inspired by nature, industry and Tyneside history.

Hector Gannet released its environmentally-sonscious second album, ‘The Land Belongs to Us’ at the beginning of last year. Duff has described it as “a clarion call for coexistence between all people and nature.,,,’The Land Belongs to Us’ is ultimately a torch for hope, and a call to appreciate the natural things around us which are free and often taken for granted.”

This will be a rare London gig for Hector Gannet, who will see Aaron Duff playing with a keyboardist.

ANDY THOMPSON

Andy Thompson’s former band, the sublime Idiot Son played the Penny Black Music Bands’ Night a remarkable eight times.

Since they split in September 2022, after playing their farewell gig at one of our shows,
Thompson has focused on playing drums with his other band, The Prods.

Now he is back, and will be opening the evening acoustically and with a selection of songs from both Idiot Son’s albums, ‘Lummox’ and ‘Stibbington’. This will be his debut show.