MUSIC MATTERS - Mississippi Smith and Adventures In Reality - The Coventry Observer

MUSIC MATTERS - Mississippi Smith and Adventures In Reality

Coventry Editorial 1st Jul, 2021   0

COVENTRY Music Museum Curator Pete Chambers BEM writes for the Observer.

Mississippi Smith

MISSISSIPPI Smith are Dayle Crutchlow and Ben Dixon.

Dayle was a part of renowned local bands Eusebio and Lazy Eye in the 90s and noughties, while

Ben has worked as a songwriter and producer and in recent years moved from London to Warwickshire.




They first met back at university in London in the late 80s and early 90s.

The new single ‘The Little Things That You Do’ is out on July 9, once again this is thinking man’s music – clever instrumentation blending perfectly with the spot-on vocals, giving the listener something of a waltz like vibe.


That at first glance maybe about some failed love affair but dig a little deeper and its evident that there’s much more to the lyrics here, someone desperately wrestling with depression maybe?

Whatever it’s about, it is a powerful piece of music.

Dayle tells us: “We are currently working on an album of our music, of which this single ‘The

Little Things That You Do’ will be a part, along with our previous single ‘Entirely Mine’ and released at Christmas.

“Live, we are simply two voices in harmony and an acoustic guitar. On record, we utilise full production.”

I for one can’t wait to hear it.

 

Adventures In Reality – The Complete Collection 

Anyone who has basked in the light of the 15 fame filled minutes of the fanzine writer is going to love this mighty tome of a book.

Adventures In Reality – The Complete Collection is just an incredible publication, written and compiled by Coventry Fanzine writer and musician Alan Rider who was responsible for the Adventures In Reality fanzine in the early 1980s.

It’s the complete works all put into one collection. This is social history, music history and the history of fanzine design all rolled into one,

I still have many copies of this fanzine that I bought and made minor contributions to at the time.

So seeing them all again in such epic proportions is a true joy. It’s a true coffee table book that you pick up and take a trip back in time and put down to return to the less carefree times of today and then repeat.

Alan tells us it was written over just two weeks in the summer: “Scanning in every page of the 13 issues, plus spin off zines and posters etc took a while to do as the originals are getting fragile now.

“I had to do a fair bit of photography for title pages etc and working really closely with the designer Puppy38, along with bouncing proofs back and forward.

“That incorporated text corrections and additions (which I constantly came up with) and adding extra images.

“That probably added almost 100 pages, so it grew to quite a monster of close to 500 pages.

“It is called ‘The Complete Collection’ though, so I guess I filled that brief.”

I asked Alan who did he think this book was aimed at?

He replied: “Anyone! It will appeal to those who were there, those who wished they were there, those who knew someone who was there, and those who were studying and writing about what was there.

“It’s a social record and a visual document but hopefully entertaining and artistic too and possibly the only fanzine reprint to date.”

Locally, it’s currently available at Just Dropped In Record shop at FarGo Village, so go buy yourself a huge slice of local nostalgia.

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