Plague Songs CD
37 track double CD launching 1st April 2021
£12 (plus £1.29 UK postage)
£12 (plus £1.29 UK postage)
Created during the various lockdowns, there have been 3 video-albums, 52 songs and 28 different performers.
This Double CD contains 37 of those tracks.
Martin Rowson's poetry book 'Plague Songs' is published by Smokestack Books on April 1st 2021.
This Double CD contains 37 of those tracks.
Martin Rowson's poetry book 'Plague Songs' is published by Smokestack Books on April 1st 2021.
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Press Release 7th March 2021
‘Art as Public Enquiry’ – where Ring a Ring o’ Roses meets War Of The Worlds
Introducing the Plague Songs Double CD - launching April 1st 2021
‘… furious, bleakly funny and often offensive poems & songs about Covid and Brexit, written during the lockdowns.'
Words & Images – Martin Rowson
Music & Production – Jon Tregenna
Released via Smokestack Books
‘Powerful stuff. Words and music as angry and disturbing as these present times.’
Ken Loach
‘This is art as public enquiry… It’s a troubling watch but then this is weapons-grade artistic material designed to shock and unsettle and castigate. And shock it does, like licking your finger twice before inserting it into the National Grid. That grade of shocking. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.’
Jon Gower, Nation.Cymru
Martin Rowson (whose work the Daily Mail once denounced in a full-page editorial as, ‘disgusting, deranged... sick and offensive’) has written extremely challenging lyrics in response to the political and social climate surrounding the pandemic and Brexit. These were set to music by Welsh musician and playwright Jon Tregenna and performed by a cast of actors and singers. Martin then provided cartoons and all the images can be found on the 3 Plague Songs albums at www.youtube.com/plaguesongs
***
‘It’s not an easy listen, nor is it meant to be: unlike much pandemic-induced creativity, it hammers home the reality of the pickle into which we have been summarily purloined by a cabal of crooks, liars and thieves.’
Tom King, Morning Star
‘Another repellent, ghastly and entirely necessary piece of work’
Robin Ince
'Wow… it was brilliant.’
Kate North, BBC Radio Wales
‘Eerily reminiscent of Christopher Logue’s jazz poetry of the 60s “Redbird”
Jonathan Pryce
‘…prolific, far out and beautifully performed’
Gillies Mackinnon
‘There’s been some great things in and around lockdown, and this is up there. Give it a listen. Well done Martin Rowson & Jon Tregenna’
Keith Allen
‘Angry, absurd, witty and strangely sad, these songs capture the highs and lows of the Covid crisis: the personal tragedies and the public farce. Tregenna provides a rich, diverse and often haunting soundscape; while Rowson’s dexterous verse
proves once again that he really can do this poetry lark.
Not bad for a bloke who colours in for a living’
Luke Wright
‘Epically subversive, new-age War of the Worlds.’
Dan Llywelyn Hall
Biogs
Martin Rowson is multi-award winning cartoonist, illustrator, writer, graphic novelist, broadcaster, ranter and poet. He has also authored, illustrated or contributed in one way or another to 60 books, from Lower Than Vermin: An Anatomy of Thatcher’s Britain (1986), via comic book versions of The Waste Land, Tristram Shady & The Communist Manifesto, to Stuff (2006), his memoir about clearing out his dead parents’ house which was longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize. His six thin illustrated volumes of verse include Pastrami Faced Racist & Other Verse (2018), The Dance of Death (2019) and Plague Songs (2021).
Jon Tregenna is a playwright and musician and wrote National Theatre Wales’ musical Hail Cremation! (about the Welsh radical druid Dr William Price), which was postponed four days before opening in March 2020 due to Covid. He authored the BBC ebook on Dylan Thomas, and his 2014 National Theatre Wales play (co-created with artist Marc Rees) Raw Material: Llareggub Revisted, made a Guardian ‘Top 10 Theatre’ list. He was until recently the front man for Welsh band The Mams, and in London-based 90s cult fop-rockers Fur-lined, who were once described in the NME as ‘Baffling and oddly enjoyable.’
‘Art as Public Enquiry’ – where Ring a Ring o’ Roses meets War Of The Worlds
Introducing the Plague Songs Double CD - launching April 1st 2021
‘… furious, bleakly funny and often offensive poems & songs about Covid and Brexit, written during the lockdowns.'
Words & Images – Martin Rowson
Music & Production – Jon Tregenna
Released via Smokestack Books
‘Powerful stuff. Words and music as angry and disturbing as these present times.’
Ken Loach
‘This is art as public enquiry… It’s a troubling watch but then this is weapons-grade artistic material designed to shock and unsettle and castigate. And shock it does, like licking your finger twice before inserting it into the National Grid. That grade of shocking. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.’
Jon Gower, Nation.Cymru
Martin Rowson (whose work the Daily Mail once denounced in a full-page editorial as, ‘disgusting, deranged... sick and offensive’) has written extremely challenging lyrics in response to the political and social climate surrounding the pandemic and Brexit. These were set to music by Welsh musician and playwright Jon Tregenna and performed by a cast of actors and singers. Martin then provided cartoons and all the images can be found on the 3 Plague Songs albums at www.youtube.com/plaguesongs
***
‘It’s not an easy listen, nor is it meant to be: unlike much pandemic-induced creativity, it hammers home the reality of the pickle into which we have been summarily purloined by a cabal of crooks, liars and thieves.’
Tom King, Morning Star
‘Another repellent, ghastly and entirely necessary piece of work’
Robin Ince
'Wow… it was brilliant.’
Kate North, BBC Radio Wales
‘Eerily reminiscent of Christopher Logue’s jazz poetry of the 60s “Redbird”
Jonathan Pryce
‘…prolific, far out and beautifully performed’
Gillies Mackinnon
‘There’s been some great things in and around lockdown, and this is up there. Give it a listen. Well done Martin Rowson & Jon Tregenna’
Keith Allen
‘Angry, absurd, witty and strangely sad, these songs capture the highs and lows of the Covid crisis: the personal tragedies and the public farce. Tregenna provides a rich, diverse and often haunting soundscape; while Rowson’s dexterous verse
proves once again that he really can do this poetry lark.
Not bad for a bloke who colours in for a living’
Luke Wright
‘Epically subversive, new-age War of the Worlds.’
Dan Llywelyn Hall
Biogs
Martin Rowson is multi-award winning cartoonist, illustrator, writer, graphic novelist, broadcaster, ranter and poet. He has also authored, illustrated or contributed in one way or another to 60 books, from Lower Than Vermin: An Anatomy of Thatcher’s Britain (1986), via comic book versions of The Waste Land, Tristram Shady & The Communist Manifesto, to Stuff (2006), his memoir about clearing out his dead parents’ house which was longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize. His six thin illustrated volumes of verse include Pastrami Faced Racist & Other Verse (2018), The Dance of Death (2019) and Plague Songs (2021).
Jon Tregenna is a playwright and musician and wrote National Theatre Wales’ musical Hail Cremation! (about the Welsh radical druid Dr William Price), which was postponed four days before opening in March 2020 due to Covid. He authored the BBC ebook on Dylan Thomas, and his 2014 National Theatre Wales play (co-created with artist Marc Rees) Raw Material: Llareggub Revisted, made a Guardian ‘Top 10 Theatre’ list. He was until recently the front man for Welsh band The Mams, and in London-based 90s cult fop-rockers Fur-lined, who were once described in the NME as ‘Baffling and oddly enjoyable.’