Penny Dread Fool's Home Built on April Fools day 2001

In search of Music having a soul! - Follow us in our quest! You shall find treasures!

The Penny Dreadful team patiently recruits other dread fools eager to embark on a journey of musical discovery. In the beginning was the Sound. In ancient times, Word to Mouth has always been the way to exchange knowledge but nowadays there are new possibilities to communicate that allow us to cross distance and time in a click of mouse. Even the greatest civilisations have evolved thanks to interaction.
Now it's time to have a 100% interactive webzine where you are to be the reviewers! Speak up your mind or thou shall remain silent forever!

So the question is : Do you have the necessary open mind and are you brave enough to follow us on a weird path where metal leads to celtic music, where gothic or classical music crosses the new age lands and where jazz rock leads to jungle or experimental music? If you answered yes, go through the next line, if no then try again. When you'll be fed up going back to the top of this page, you will be ready to help us :-D)

You're reading this line? Congratulations. You have passed the initiation step. But that's only a beginning : you think you have musical wisdom you are willing to share with us? Prove it! Join our boards and enlighten us. We wish to learn from all of you. We firmly believe that some music really have a soul. But beware! We are living evil times and some commercial noise may hide you the pureness of truly emotional Music.

That's why we (Matze, Stephane and Maggy) have decided to team up and build "Penny Dreadful Webzine - for music with a soul!" This site (built with poor tools and integriting no major technologic innovation) will cover an unlimited horizon of music styles, and will carry much personalised news, gossips, rumors (and humours). Its originality will rely on its interactivity: the readers will post their own bands, gigs, albums reviews. Wouldn't it be dreamy to see Loreena McKennit reviewed amidst Skyclad, Al Di Meola, Kreator, Dead can dance or Transglobal Underground??? hehehehhe...

The only condition to do an appearance as a special reviewer will be to type original stuff, to give the sources of your news, and to explain in your post why this band should be on penny dreadful... For the conditions, check Penny Dreadful's lyrics... it is obvious

Hope to see ye all there asap (the different message boards are the interactive section where you can put your own reviews, and so on...).

Those eager to work with us can email us to: matze@pennydreadful.de, stephane@pennydreadful.de or margarita@pennydreadful.de

Cheers!
Stéphane, April 2001

This afternoon, I heard an interview with Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson. He talked about Tull's first open air concert with Pink Floyd and T Rex in the late 60ies, saying that back then, people were were more open than nowadays and not limited to just one kind of music. Led Zep's audience listened to a little folk singer... In his opinion, that wouldn't be possible anymore.

Well, Ian may be a wise man, but here (I think) he's wrong. I KNOW there are still people out there that are not limited to any musical style. People who like music as long as it is well played, with feeling, music that makes you laugh, cry, dream, dance, music that touches you, because it's having a soul.

That's why we're here, trying to build up something that's more than just a simple news page. We want Penny Dreadful to be a community where everyone can share the musical treasures s/he discovered with open minded people.

All our readers are invited to get active - send in news about your favourite band, requests for our web radio and photos you've taken for our pic of the month section :), review records and gigs on the message board. With your help we can make Penny Dreadful an unique thing...

Matze, May 2001

I grew up on London, England, on a steady diet of three kinds of music, classical, 60's folk, and 80's pop. I loved the work of Tchaikovsky, Strauss, Wagner, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Simon and Garfunkel, Roxette, Boy Meets Girl, and Guns' N Roses. There was great music in all, from "Also Sprach Zarathrustra" to "Waiting for a Star to fall." Life was good. I enjoyed variety, good music that had heart and soul, meaning as well as melody. Of course, all my classmates thought I was odd for listening to something that wasn't radio mainstay, but I didn't care. When I turned 12 in 1992, my family moved from London, England, to La Canada, California. At the time, there was a major time lag between entertainment releases in the US and England. Albums were released in England about 6 months after they were released in the US. So when I arrived on US soil, the first things I heard on the radio were the disharmonious clattering of grunge. The 80s had truly died. Grunge had hit the states with a bang well before I arrived, and all that I loved was now passe. Done, finished, finit. And I was uncool for not liking the new music. But what about melody, what about epicness, what about heart and soul? Nope, sorry, we now listen to grunge, and you're a pariah for not liking it. Excuse me if I'm out of order, but this new grunge just has no soul

For awhile I tried to get into the new stuff. Yup, Ed tried to conform, but I hated Nirvana, hated Pearl Jam, and all the other imitation groups. I did like Soul Asylum, a band with good songs, and a lyricist comparable to Martin Walkyier. But all in all I was completely unimpressed with the latest fad, the alternative and grunge scene.

I kept looking for the music of Ed during high school. For awhile I was into Ska and Punk, playing saxophone in a Ska band called the Hick-Ups. But I soon grew tired of songs about lesbians and girls soccer teams. ("You say strategy, that don't mean a thing to me, you say I don't care, I just want their underwear!" The RX Bandits)

During my last years of high school, my brother brought home two Metallica albums, Black and Load. I found what I'd been missing. There was passion in James Hetfield's voice, their songs were longer, melodic, and they had something to say. I bought some early Metallica albums, and those blew away Black and Load completely. From there I got more and more into early metal, the thrash scene, and later on into Black and Death metal. Eventually I found my way to Skyclad, Tristania, Manowar, Nevermore, Hagalaz Runedance, and scores of other great bands that had one thing in common: Music with Heart and Soul.

I'm still a pariah to some extent. My friends understand that it's the music that I love, and that I'm not some Satanic, axe wielding, longhaired black wearing freak who loves noise. I do have long hair, wear all black, and am a Pagan, but they understand that I just love the music that I hear heart and soul in. Ultimately, that's what matters, that music is made with heart and soul.

That is what Penny Dreadful is all about, music having heart and soul. We don't discriminate based on genre. ("Yeah, the only true form of music is Mahler influenced Northern French Polka Swing Alternative Death Tango, everything else is crap!") We don't care whether a CD sold 5 million copies, or only 5 copies, or how big the singer's breasts are. That stuff just doesn't hold sway here. It's all about Heart and Soul. Britney Spears can send me millions of dollars, can come to Los Angeles and be my slave (Please!!!) but she won't get a review here, because her music has no heart and soul. True, commercial suicides appealing, but we refuse to be the flavor of the weak. Plain and simple.

Ed Graham, December 2001