This is the final reminder about the Fierce And The Dead’s new live record, thank you to all of you ordering, the response has been incredible. We’re 50 orders off our biggest ever pre-order sale and funding our DVD recording. Amazing.
If you want the limited edition signed postcard version of our new live album this is the last week to order it. The link it here:
In the early 1970s in England there were a few rock bands that mattered and one that really mattered, and that was the Faces. I mean Rock band. Rock and roll. They were a supergroup, a bridge between genres, a match in a haystack. They had big hits and the best hair.
For English kids the Faces must have represented a lot of things, glam without the spacesuits, the Stones but more fun, a way to get back to the basics in the wake of the Beatles’ passing. So they could springboard Rod Stewart to pop stardom, sure, but also be an inspiration, both in attitude and rock power, to punk bands from the New York Dolls to the Sex Pistols. The Faces were about energy and, when they put their mind to it, peerless songwriting, thanks in good part to Ronnie Lane, the core of a band who counted among its cadre once or future members of the Jeff Beck Group, the Small Faces, the Rolling Stones, and the Who. Across their four albums you get the strong sense the rest of them were there because of Lane — playing a cheery bass and occasionally singing, in his homespun warble, songs with a a bit of a wink and a whole lot of heart.
“Ooh La La,” a rock and roll music hall chanty of the type Lane virtually invented in the Small Faces, was the last song on the Faces’ last record. It’s perfect. It’s a smiling shake of the head, a “poor old granddad” and “poor young grandson” dialogue of women and love and sex. There was genius in the decision to have Ronnie Wood sing Lane’s lyric — ragged but right, he brings to it the feeling of an old man, twinkle in his eye, holding forth in the corner of a bar. Such places are after all where the Faces lived, and where you can still find them.
soundstreamsunday presents one song or live set by an artist each week, and in theory wants to be an infinite linear mix tape where the songs relate and progress as a whole. For the complete playlist, go here: soundstreamsunday archive and playlist, or check related articles by clicking on”soundstreamsunday” in the tags section above.
It’s April 22. A huge day, as you all well know. It’s, after all, the Feast Day of St. Arwald of the Isle of Wight.
Oh, wait. Maybe that’s not what you’re thinking.
April 22??? Something, something. . .
Oh yes! Eart. . .
No, Record Store Day. That’s it. Record Store Day! No offense to St. Arwald. He was pretty cool.
Checker Records, Hillsdale. Photo courtesy of the Hillsdale Collegian.
But, Record Store Day is the day we celebrate the local record stores, owned by families, groups of friends, and entrepreneurs who struggle against the collosal entities of the box stores and the cyber corporations. If you do nothing else today, please buy something from your local record store. My local record store is Checker Records–run by wonderful people and serving excellent coffee as well as good conversation and good humor.
Hi everyone,
The new Big Big Train album is called Grimspound and will be released on April 28th 2017.
Here is a new promotional film made by Peter Callow for Experimental Gentlemen (Part Two). The full-length version of this song will feature on the Grimspound album:
There are two vinyl versions of the album. There is a limited edition frosted clear vinyl version alongside the standard black vinyl version. Both vinyl versions are gatefold releases featuring double heavy weight 180g vinyl and a 4 page booklet insert including the lyrics and the stories behind the songs. A complimentary code for a high-resolution download version of the album is provided with each vinyl order. Orders of the limited edition frosted clear vinyl will also include a postcard signed by all band members. A limited edition blue vinyl version of 2016’s Folklore album is also available at Burning Shed and includes a complimentary hi-resolution download code.
The CD edition of Grimspound is presented in a gloss laminated softpack and features a 24 page booklet with the lyrics and the stories behind the songs.
The hi-res download version available at Bandcamp includes a PDF of the CD booklet.
Grimspound is also available to pre-order on MP3 on Amazon and will be available on the iTunes store on the day of release. Spotify and other streaming and download sites will also feature the album from the 28th April.
I first heard of Big Big Train when listening to a sampler CD that came with my prescription to Prog Magazine. The song was “Judas Unrepentant” off of the soon to be released album, English Electric. I was listening to it in my car and thought it sounded a fun song — I could tell that there was some story going although I couldn’t quite follow the details. All I knew for sure I that somebody was charged with “conspiracy to defraaaaaaaud!” The track was compelling enough that I played it again. Then I played it again and had my friend in the passenger seat start writing down the lyrics. We listened to it over and over until we had the words down, and by that point could sing along with the full song and I had decided that it was one of the better songs I had heard…
A review of Ayreon, THE SOURCE (Mascot, 2017). Summation: Arjen Lucassen climbs ever higher in the prog pantheon.
On April 28, 2017, Arjen Lucassen releases the ninth studio album of his progressive rock space opera project, Ayreon. Entitled THE SOURCE, Lucassen’s latest–to no one’s surprise–throws everything the great man possesses into it. From heavy guitar riffs to Queen-inspired vocal melodies to Celtic folk, the album comes in at over 88 minutes long. Quite an amazing feat, even for Arjen Anthony Lucassen.
After all, what can’t the man do?
If I tried to pretend objectivity, I’d be readily and truly accused of dishonesty. Since I first listened to Ayreon–well over a decade ago–I was quite taken with it. Since then, I have collected every thing that Lucassen has done–from Star One to Guilt Machine to The Gentle Storm to Ambeon to Stream of Passion to his solo work.
Sheryl Crow has some great thoughts about the crappy pop music on the radio today over in her USA Today interview:
She reflects, “In the old days you’d sleep during the day and write and record furiously all night because there was something altruistic about making music that could save the world. Now Jeff and I are just a couple of old dudes in the studio.”
Of course it’s hard to keep all-nighter hours when you’ve got two sons to raise. For Be Myself Crow and her team had to work during school hours. Once the boys came back home, she switched to family mode, which includes acting on some of the themes addressed in her lyrics.
“I’ve turned into one of those people that young rock ‘n’ rollers hate,” she says, with a laugh. “I don’t like them turning on pop radio and hearing songs about sex — and that’s all that’s on there, 18-year-olds singing about ‘the taste of you.’ If everything is about branding and we’re branding sex as power, what does that say to little girls and little boys? What does that say about beauty?”
She sighs and smiles. “I guess I’m a dinosaur. But I like it.”
Ruth Zurawka is offering a free celebratory Yes pass to anyone who emails her.
Posted today on “Yes Turns 50”, a Facebook group Zurawka administrates:
“Want a FREE celebratory 50 year YES pass? Email your postal address to yesturns50@gmail.com. Passes will be shipped starting sometime in May. No cord is included. When you get yours, take a photo of you with it, post your photo here and say where in the world you’re celebrating YES! Each pass is numbered. Let’s see how many we can get out there! (Bracelets will come out later in the year for those asking!) If you live out of the US, still send me your postal address. We’ll see how much shipping would be.”
In another post, Zurawka says: “YES turns 50 in 2018! We need to make some noise to make it an extra special year for our band! Let’s talk gatherings, celebrations and other ways to observe this quinquagenarian year!
As a hardcore Yes fan for 25 years, I’m very much looking forward to receiving my pass. I wonder if it will give you access to all of Yes’ shows during their 50th year (and Yes Featuring ARW too)! A man can dream right?
“I realised a long time ago that instrumental music speaks a lot more clearly than English, Spanish, Yiddish, Swahili, any other language. Pure melody goes outside time.”
Carlos Santana
Here we are, 2017 and have to admit it’s been a long time since I last heard a new Prog instrumental album. You almost fell over them back in the 70’s. They were everywhere. You had the likes of Camel’s ‘Snow Goose‘ rubbing shoulders with Mike Oldfield’s ‘Tubular Bells‘ selling over 16 million albums, thank you very much. In some ways this was rocking up Symphonic Music and then some. Tangerine Dream were up for it and put out many an acid tripping the keyboard fantastic LP, and of course Vangelis was no slouch with his unique blending of electronic sounds on such albums such as ‘Albedo 0.39′ and ‘Opéra sauvage’ which also included Jon Anderson on harp.
Fast-forward thirty-five years or so and a handful of artists and bands are recording and releasing the odd instrumental album or three. You only have to look at Pink Floyd’s mostly instrumental 2014 album, ‘Rattle That Lock‘ to see the interest is still there. Something Canadian multi-instrumentalist (keyboards/bass/guitar) , Art Griffin is well aware of as demonstrated by his new album recently released, ‘Visions From The Present.’ The band is known as Art Griffin’s Sound Chaser and includes some of Canada’s finest musicians such as the drummer from Saga, Steve Negus, with Victoria Yeh on electric violin (amazing performances on this album) only equaled by Kelly Kereliuk‘s guitar work. That’s not to say Art is far behind. Is he what? If his mind-blowing keyboard solos are anything to go by, he’s charging ahead encouraging the others to keep up!Having the likes of well respected Ken Baird throwing down the occasional keyboard solo makes it an extra bit special moment to listen to.
Very few prog bands have sailed through nearly two decades of music-making with flying colours quite like the Welsh Magenta.
With prog’s Captain Prolific, Rob Reed, still holding a strong and steady course at the helm, Magenta’s band of sister and brothers are united in their overwhelming desire to create some of the most mellifluous, melodic prog around.
Never afraid to steer into previously uncharted waters, Magenta’s canon of work now includes seven studio albums, the newest being We Are Legend, which is released on 27 April.
Again, this is completely new territory for a band that is now so adept at giving us memorable figures and concepts within their specific landscape, but more about that later.
I truly believed they had reached the zenith of their considerable powers when they released The Twenty Seven Club in 2013, an album depicting six musical legends- Morrison, Joplin, Hendrix, Jones, Cobain and Johnson, all of whose lives came to tragic ends at that Bermuda Triangle age of 27.
In the early 1970s in England there were a few rock bands that mattered and one that really mattered, and that was the Faces. I mean Rock band. Rock and roll. They were a supergroup, a bridge between genres, a match in a haystack. They had big hits and the best hair.
This just in from the band:
Progarchy 