For the majority of their career, Gentle Giant was that rarest of breeds: uniquely challenging, singularly unlike any other rock band, with no hit singles or radio airplay, or anything approaching 'danceable'. Yet they garnered and cultivated a fiercely loyal, almost ravenous core of fans and admirers. These listeners weren't content to settle for standard..
OLIVER WAKEMAN
From A Page - Live from Lyon 2009, Plus Four Previously Unreleased Songs - plus a new chapter to the yes story... We were actually trying to do something creative, and actually bringing together some music that we felt would be a positive addition to the Yes canon." The ultimate affirmative is Yes - and..
Marcel Kunkel – 4th Labyrinth
Well, it’s better than a slap in the face with a wet fish! Oh, for the good old days, when drummers were the bane of the band – time-consuming, notoriously unreliable and dreadfully hard to come by. In an unthinkable about-face, I have had a couple of bands in recent times tell me it’s regular..
Jan Akkerman
It sounds maybe a little bit outlandish, but it’s just the octatonic scale... All serious beard-stroking musos have their favourite gripes about accomplished musicians selling out to crass commercialism. Some cite Rod Stewart, swapping his rock’n’roll roots for the Atlantic Crossing era of international superstardom; others point at Blackmore’s Rainbow or Def Leppard giving up..
THE BLACKHEART ORCHESTRA
Photo: Lee Bolton I must say the progressive world has totally embraced us, which is wonderful (Chrissy Mostyn) A word of explanation is probably in order if you aren’t familiar with The Blackheart Orchestra. First and most important would be that they aren’t an orchestra. In actual fact, they are scarcely a band by the..
Photo by Paul England
David James Smith – Austin Gold
We recorded the drums, bass, guitars and keys, as we always do. Then if I remember rightly, Andy put a monitor in the toilet... First off, let’s set something straight – Austin Gold is the name of a band, not a person. It grew out of a standard Peterborough pub blues band, and is named..
THE FAR MEADOW
The Far Meadow are a 5 piece symphonic prog rock band from London who’ve now been playing for five years. They’re a band at the mellower end of the prog spectrum. There’re no lengthy ‘for the sake of it’ guitar/keyboard soloing, or raucous instrumental histrionics, just plenty of virtuoso playing, some epic songs, plus a..
JOHN LODGE
Photo: Brian Aris At the end of the day, it’s just nice to get out there with the old bass and take a few of the old songs with me and sort of say to them “See, I haven’t forgotten you”. Throughout the long career of the Moody Blues, although all of the members have..
Anthony Phillips …in conversation
One might be inclined to think that an 86 minute album of guitar instrumentals could wear out its welcome and tempt the attention deficient among us to turn it off before it was halfway done. Certainly that has been the case with past releases from some of the flashier players in Guitarland, with their endless..
MAYHEM
Mayhem is a legend, and an institution in extreme music. 1994’s epochal De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas still shocks with the essence of pure evil it conveys, while at the same time it also was, and still is, one of the most original and unique expressions of the black metal genre. The new, long-awaited, sixth full-length..