News
January 29, 2004
PROJECTION'S ON
A new year has come and brought forth some more non-big-budget yet big names' projects that will surely appeal to classic hard rock aficionados.
The first is called RAZORBACK, and is a band comprised of Rolf Munkes of MAJESTY and ex-SHYLOCK Chris Heun on guitars, singer Stefan Berggren who worked until recently with THE COMPANY OF SNAKES), and former VANIZE rhythm section Marcus Bielenberg and Pierre Fienhold. The quintet, laying the last bricks into their debut record, have just signed a deal with Massacre Records. Hopefully, unlike Munkes' EMPIRE, this beast will hit the road one day.
Next comes MOONSTONE, a brainchild of the Italian guitarist Matteo Filippini, a venture that invloves real heavyweights. Among them are no other than DEEP PURPLE's skin-kicker Ian Paice, his erstwhile cohort Glenn Hughes and former URIAH HEEP warbler John Lawton. There's no deal yet for the bluesy-directed engine, although the recording has started some time ago and will continue until spring. Lately, Italians keep themselves busy with star-ridden combos: Dario Mollo, Chris Catena and now Filippini... Why not, really?
The last for the moment - surely, not for 2004 - emerges AUDIOVISION, a showcase for NARNIA's vocalist Christian Rivel who called to arms his friends Jeff Scott Soto, Tony Franklin and two fellow Swedes Mats Leven of KRUX and EUROPE's Mic Michaeli. Their first fruit is ripe for taking in the form of "Love Is Like Oxygen" recorded for THE SWEET tribute, "The Sweet According To Sweden", out on February 9th.
The in-crowd thing is good, ain't it?
MOURNER'S RHAPSODY
Czeslaw Niemen could be called a father of Polish rock. Among the first Eastern European musicians to embrace the sounds coming from the West, Niemen's works - no matter, blues, progressive, psychedelic or latter-day jazz - are ranked, by those in the know, equal to the Brit and Kraut masterpieces. Light a candle for the soul brother, then, for on January 17th he died of cancer, age 64. Czesc, Czeslaw!
THE CALL OF THE EIGHTH STAR
It's been five years in circulation and proved so popular its author decided to turn the bootleg into a commercial release. The author in question is the BLACK SABBATH mastermind Tony Iommi who, back in 1996, had a second go at the solo album, as the first , 1986's "Seventh Star", ended up as a SABBATH record. Tony's choice of a singer for another attempt was the same: Glenn Hughes - with a line-up rounded off with Don Airey on keyboards and Hughes' colleague in TRAPEZE, Dave Holland on drums. They did an amazing work - but for some reason didn't put the results out, though "I'm Gone" resurfaced on Glenn's 2000's "Return Of Crystal Karma" as "Gone", and "Don't You Tell Me" on Tony's real debut, 2001's "Iommi", as "Black Oblivion". Now, the guitarist is going to remix the tapes and release the album that won't be called "Eighth Star", which was the bootleg title, and won't feature "No Stranger To Love" and "Shaking My Wings", which didn't belong to the project being "To Cry You A Song" from JETRO TULL tribute album featuring Hughes. No need to get rid of the bootleg though...
STEALIN' WHAT WE SHOULD HAVE BEEN BUYING
Here comes two more titles in the URIAH HEEP re-remastered series, 1973's "Sweet Freedom" and "Wonderworld", released a year later. Both are sprinkled with bonus cuts, yet there's no anything special:
"Sweet Freedom"
- Sunshine
- Seven Stars (extended)
- Pilgrim (extended)
- If I Had The Time (demo)
- Sweet Freedom (alt. live)
- Stealin' (alt. live)
"Wonderworld"
- What Can I Do
- Love, Hate And Fear (unreleased version)
- Stone's Throw
- Dreams (extended)
- I Wont Mind (live)
- So Tired (live)
January 22, 2004
BASS-IC VALUES
At least one music instruments-producing enterprise turned their specs on URIAH HEEP: from now Trevor Bolder is an official endorser of D'Alegria Custom Basses. A quality Brazilian-made guitar, D'Alegria Defender JB passive bass has become Trev's instrument of choice, so reciprocating has been quite overdue.
GETTING EQUATED
A new AYREON album, "The Human Equation", slated to appear in June, will again have a great array of guests. Yet this time Arjen Lucassen invited onto his warship two great masters of organ hamming and experts in big prog concepts, namely ex-URIAH HEEP Ken Hensley and IQ founding member Martin Orford. Teasing.
THE CLUES IN A CROSSWORD
February 9th is the release date for another batch of JETHRO TULL classic re-issues. This time a turn has come for 1978's "Bursting Out double live album finally restored in its entirety to rival the original vinyl LP but with no additional material; 1979's "Stormwatch" augmented with four bonus cuts previously available only on "20 Years" box set and a single CD, including such a gem as "Kelpie"; and 1980's "A" that saw the group's line-up changed with only guitarist Martin Barre staying alongside Ian Anderson whose solo album this was supposed to be. "A" has no extra songs on it - a pity! - but there's a bonus DVD "Slipstream", a glorious though murky extravaganza of videos to old songs intercut with a footage from 1980's tour. Indispensable item, that is.
"Stormwatch"
- Stitch In Time
- Crossword
- Kelpie
- King Henry's Madrigal
"A": "Slipstream" Bonus DVD
- Black Sunday
- Dun Ringill
- Fylingdale Flyer
- Songs From The Wood
- Heavy Horses
- Sweet Dream
- Too Old To Rock 'n' Roll
- Skating Away On The Thin Ice Of The New Day
- Aqualung
- Locomotive Breath
SQUEEZING THE TORMATOS
Another band that continue their re-issue programme is YES - three of their not-so-classic albums will see the light of day on February 24th. With all the interest to the additional material on 1978's "Tormato", of more interest might be some of the bonus tracks on 1980's "Drama" - cuts from November 1979 infamous Paris sessions which resulted in disillusioned Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman leaving the fold and replaced by Geoff Downes and Trevor Horn. Less intriguing are a couple of songs recorded in 1983 before Anderson was back and now placed on "90125".
"Tormato"
- Abilene ("Don't Kill The Whale" UK B-side)
- Money
- Picasso (previously unreleased)
- Some Are Born (previously unreleased)
- You Can Be Saved (previously unreleased)
- High (previously unreleased)
- Days (Demo)
- Countryside (previously unreleased)
- Everybody's Song ("Does It Really Happen" early demo)
- Onward (backing track - hidden)
"Drama"
- Into The Lens (single version)
- Run Through The Light (single version)
- Have We Really Got To Go Through This (previously unreleased)
- Song No. 4 (Satellite) (previously unreleased)
- Tempus Fugit (tracking session)
- White Car (tracking session)
- Dancing Through The Light *
- Golden Age *
- In The Tower *
- Friend Of A Friend *
* - from the 1979 Paris sessions by Chris Squire, Jon Anderson, Rick Wakeman, Steve Howe and Alan White
"90125"
- Leave It * (single remix)
- Make It Easy *
- It Can Happen * (cinema version)
- It's Over * (previously unreleased)
- Owner Of A Lonely Heart (extended remix)
- Leave It (a capella version)
* - performed by Tony Kaye, Trevor Rabin, Chris Squire and Alan White
YONGER THEN THAN NOW
A concert Bob Dylan played on October 31st, 1964 at NYC's Philharmonic Hall was one of his last purely acoustic performances, and it's a shame that a recording of Bob's all-acoustic show has never been released officially - until now. Bootleggers made up for that, and the tapes are known as the "Halloween Mask" concert, because of Dylan's remark "It's Halloween, and I'm wearing my Bob Dylan mask!" changed hands for long. The sound quality, though, left much to be desired, so "Bob Dylan Bootleg series, Volume Six: Live 1964 - Concert at Philharmonic Hall" double-CD, out on March 9th, is eagerly awaited for. Not only by collectors - the set's amazing:
Disc 1
1. The Times They Are A-Changin' |
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Disc 2
1. Talkin' World War III Blues |
January 15, 2004
APPICE'S NEW PIECES
Carmine Appice throws himself into some new ventures. Always bent on working with guitar warriors, the drumming legend's about to walk into a studio with Pat Travers to record an album simply called "Travers 'N' Appice", or "TNA". As for Carmine's main band - if VANILLA FUDGE can be considered such at present times - there soon will be a DVD and CD cut with the San Fernando Valley Symphony Orchestra. Quite fitting for those who, a quarter of a century ago had an album titled "Renaissance".
C'EST AMORE
Judging on witnesses' accounts, John Wetton's latest shows were shaky to say the least. This couldn't be said, though, of his performances in the Eastern Europe, 1999's "Nomansland" being the veteran's best live album of all. That was recorded in Krakow, Poland, a city John revisited on April 11th, 2003 - and here's a document of this visit: a DVD called "Amorata". Wetton's cohorts on this are IQ's Martin Orford on keyboards, Steve Christey on drums and John Mitchell on guitar. Mainly a greatest hits collection - "Nothing's Gonna Stand In Our Way" being the only song from 2003's "Rock Of Faith" - the DVD extras include the artist's biography and the band members' profiles, Wetton's interview and discography, as well as photo gallery and desktop images. As for the concert itself, the songs featured are:
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1. Amorata |
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RIDE EASY
As it's been reported before, there are six George Harrison albums to be re-issued next month, to be followed by the box set "The Dark Horse Years 1976-1992", which will comprise the same CDs - "Thirty Three & 1/3", "George Harrison", "Somewhere In England", "Gone Troppo", "Cloud Nine" and "Live In Japan", the first five augmented with bonus tracks, the latter being a double - and and exclusive DVD. Out on February 24th, one day before George would have been 61, "The Dark Horse Years" DVD comes in form of a casebound 24-page booklet with extensive liner notes by "Mojo" magazine's David Fricke, unseen photographs, illustrations and press cuttings, as well as a short history of the Dark Horse label Records by Olivia Harrison. Clocking in around 89 minutes, its contents looks like this:
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Dark Horse Feature |
ACROSS THE UNIVERSE
February 7th marks the 40th anniversary of THE BEATLES' coming to America. A glorious triumph, it'd been immortalised by Maysles Brothers in a documentary "The First US Visit", the first ever film on the Fabs immaculately capturing the very spirit of Beatlemania. It's a real pleasure to compare the real life events with the story of "A Hard Day's Night" released some months later. Now the documentary finally will be properly released on DVD - the previous edition was a simple transfer, with no remastering applied. To be issued on February 3rd in the US and on February 9th in the UK and rest of the world after exclusive theatrical premieres in New York, Los Angeles and London, the DVD also includes a 50-minute "Making Of The Beatles First US Visit" feature and an interview with Albert Maysles. All this augments the movie itself - and there you can see the boys fooling about on the train from New York to Washington, playing at the Coliseum and performing at the Ed Sullivan show, among other delights.
STORMING ON
It seems, Steve Hackett compensates now for not supplying his fans with enough concert recordings during last 20 years, and after three recent titles the guitarist adds "Live Archive 03" to the series beginning with "Live Archive - 70, 80, 90's". A double album, exclusive to stevehackett.com, it's a testimony of Steve's 2003's :To Watch The Storms" European tour featuring tracks from High Wycombe, Stockholm, Braunschweig, Croydon, Mannheim, Rotherham and Limbourg laid down by Hackett's current band and his flautist brother John as a guest on "Kim".
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1. Mechanical Bride |
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12. Slogans |
KEN CAN
There's no rest for Ken Hensley. Former URIAH HEEP organist has a great prospect for the year of 2004: three CDs, no less, an anthology of sorts. The first album, to be recorded in Moscow with the cream of Russian rock players, will be "The Decadent Dozen - A Solo Anthology" that, together with a maxi-single of three new songs, is to coincide with an April tour of Russia and Belarus. This will be followed by "Born Again - An Anthology Of Uriah Heep Songs" and "Mixed Messages - An Anthology Of Ballads", all re-recorded. At the end of the year, the CDs are to be packaged together with a DVD featuring documentary of their making, live footage and clips from the Kremlin rehearsals and live performance with the Presidential Symphony Orchestra. And if that's not enough, Hensley is going to enter the world of films and television commercials...
TWIST IN THE TALE
Meanwhile, John Lawton is releasing a DVD / CD set called "Shakin' The Tale" recorded live at the Mean Fiddler in London on November 7th, 2003. Don't expect any of the URIAH HEEP songs, as John's moving on, and the bulk of the performance consists of tracks from his latest album, "Sting In The Tale", although there'll be a bonus on the DVD featuring young Lawton with LUCIFER'S FRIEND. For only 14.99 GBP and signed by the band it's a must. Pre-orders can be made through the JLB site.
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1. Take You High |
THE SPOT OF THE LANDING
Having re-energised their batteries after Michael Schenker leaving, UFO don't leave 2002's "Sharks" to be the last line in the band's discography and, on February 16th release new album, "You Are Here". There's no worry about the musicianship level, as the core of vocalist Phil Mogg and bassist Pete Way are joined now by keyboardist Paul Raymond, who played with ensemble before, John's son Jason Bonham on drums and guitarist Vinnie Moore.
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1. Daylight Goes To Town |
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