News in Brief...
		Hello. Greetings from the twilight zone, or maybe that should be the toilet zone after some of the dressing rooms we’ve seen lately... It’s funny how when Pale Rider first received the invitation to ‘play along side’ (support, that is) the volatile combination of America’s most hated goth/glam antichrist superstar and rock’s premier grunge widow it seemed like a good idea - how wrong can you get? So what can I say that isn’t libellous (I’m not sure if they’re suing us or we’re suing them!) about our somewhat short stint to the States? Rather sadly what was intended to be a week’s worth of dates (we were never booked for the whole tour) barely made it past three. I’m afraid the boys didn’t take too kindly to the attitude She ( yes I know ‘she’ is the cat’s mother, but in this case we can assume ‘she’ is the cat’s arse-hole) lavished on them. Needless to say that being treated like a retarded sixteen year old who’d never played a gig before didn’t impress our Mr Crowe and by day two he told her in that very polite way of his that if he’d been her husband he would’ve given head to a loaded barrel too! Day three strangely saw the Rider’s dressing room down graded to the toilets and their sound check time whittled away to nothing. On the bright side the boys always seem to play extra specially moody when they’re pissed off and of course a frown is Alexander Crowe’s best expression. Umm... by day three Alpha (sic) himself had fallen out with Her and it was handbags at dawn all round. Anyway to cut a long story short, I feel at this point I must quote the Crowman himself, tired of self important people and others with bizarre prosthetic fetishes (apparently Crowe had had an offer he could refuse) he declared about a minute before the fourth gig “I refuse to work with that ludicrous woman and that over-sexed peacock a second longer. “Here” he said removing his artificial hand and throwing it at the double M “have that wank you so desperately want and leave me out of it!” This was followed by one of those perfectly preserved moments in time where nobody moves a muscle and you can hear the proverbial pin drop. Shortly afterwards the braver components of the back stage audience burst into hysterical laughter leaving everybody else to flee for the hills. Day five and Pale Rider were replaced with Monster Magnet. But what the Hell, life as Alexander G(r)ump said isn’t like a chocolate box at all, it’s one big tennis match and Love means Nothing! Swiftly moving on, “Miranda, Death of Souls” will be the long awaited second (and last) single from “A Lumininous Account of the Fourth Dimension”. The CD version will sport the nifty combination of “Solitude and Dreams” and “ Battlefield”, where as the 12” (sorry all you record fans, this will be the final vinyl single Black Market intend to release) will be backed by “Solitude and Dreams” and - cough! Cough! Splutter! - a gothed up live version of the ol’ Kim Wilde track “Water on Glass”!!! Sorry that’s left me a bit speechless... ... I feel better now so I’ll just add that it is hoped the promo video for “Miranda” will be completed before the single is released (at the end of the month), so that it can be added as a CD Rom to the CD single. Cool,eh? Staying with the recording side of things the band is actually taking a couple of months off (which is good for me ‘cos we all know how efficient I am at updating the web site!) before starting work on their new album, but during the lull the inevitable and totally hoped for is going to happen - Yes, at last Alexander Crowe is gonna make a album with Cyprian Tanhauser. l’m told that it will sound like a cross between Pale Rider and Rob Zombie - dark, moody, loud, aggressive and guitars in all the right places! As things stand the project is nameless and no other musicians are involved as on a studio only level Monsieur Tanhauser can cope more than adequately. However if things go live, is there any truth in the rumour that Alex’s estranged father (Dog Nation’s) Andy Crowe will be playing guitar? Alex wont say... But, hey, watch this space. Talking of Tanhauser and Crowe, Cyprian recently surprised Alex by giving him a shaggy - hold on! No need for dirty innuendo - black German Shepherd cross from their local RSPCA centre. Pity he didn’t give it to him for Christmas, I could’ve done my “a goth is for life...” joke, anyway I’m sure Chaos (as he’s now called) will look after Alex every bit as well as the late Smiff did. Finally : Alex has given permission to a well know whiskey manufacturer in the States to use “Hellfire Blue” from “Goodbye Jesse James” in a cinema commercial. “Originally I turned them down” he said “But when I stopped and considered Darryl’s love affair with whiskey it seemed rather appropriate, so obviously I changed my mind. I’ve seen the story board and it all looks suitably dark and rock’n’roll. Darryl would approve.” All proceeds from this track, as from the album are going to cancer research charities. A quick round up of other news sees David finally passing his driving test. (I’m not allowed to say how many times he failed, but four’s always been his lucky number!) Mr Beck will be celebrating by writing a column in a well known monthly rock rag, all about it and other scary gothy type things no doubt. Steve will be heading off to Canada with wife Nikii to have their long awaited honeymoon, Michael’s going to Poland (with Laine Milewski by any chance?) and Danny, having recovered from his recent brush with the law (temporarily detained for wearing that Cradle of Filth T-shirt), well, he’s planning to restore his recently acquired rusty old Norton motorbike... and who knows maybe I’ll let him. Pax Vobiscum. Laura.