Last year I did an interview for Velvet Thunder with Eric Bloom and the conversation turned to Blue Oyster Cult’s most famous song, (Don’t Fear) The Reaper. Asking about its longevity, Bloom said that certain songs simply ‘have legs’ and they just keep on getting played and played until they burrow themselves into the public..
DEAR MR TIME – Grandfather: The Anthology (Cherry Red / Grapefruit)
What we have with these three albums - though not in this order - is one which is very good, one which is quite exceptional, and one oddity which couldn't be more schizoid if it heard voices telling it to kill your CD player... Well now, here's something which really did NOT turn out in..
Hawkwind – Somnia (Cherry Red)
Brock has managed to show us that the journey into the sleeping brain is even stranger than the one into deepest space. Hawkwind have released a new studio album every year since 2016, and here they are like clockwork with this year’s release Somnia. It’s amazing really because Dave Brock is now officially an octogenarian...
VARIOUS ARTISTS – I’m A Freak Baby 3 (Grapefruit / Cherry Red)
'A Further Journey Through The British Heavy Psych And Hard Rock Underground 1968-1973' The three discs here contain a massive 53 tracks. Fifty three. That's more heavy psych and hard rock than you could shake a stash of pharmaceuticals at, and the hit rate in terms of quality is remarkably good. The third in a..
Banquet – Underground Sounds of 1969 (Esoteric / Cherry Red)
When you think about it, all mainstream trends in music and elsewhere must have had small beginnings – each journey starts with a single step, as they say. It’s strange to think that the ‘70s megastars of rock and prog, bands like Yes, Genesis, Deep Purple and Procol Harum, were considered ‘underground’ when they emerged...
TOYAH – The Blue Meaning: Expanded Edition (Cherry Red)
With the context of the passing of time, this is all brilliantly boundary-pushing music, and The Blue Meaning is an album which could astound the unprepared. Pure gold. The Cherry Red Toyah reissue programme continues with the second album, 1980's The Blue Meaning, following on from the excellent reissue of the Sheep Farming In Barnet..
OBERON – A Midsummer’s Night Dream (Grapefruit / Cherry Red)
...Oberon, a prog-folk-cum-jazz-cum-rock band which was formed by its members while still at school, played a handful of local gigs, and released only 99 copies of their sole studio album, because to release 100 would incur purchase tax! Intriguing enough for you? Me too! Under the Cherry Red umbrella, the Esoteric label has a tremendous..
Riding The Rock Machine: British Seventies Classic Rock (Cherry Red / Grapefruit)
As regular readers of these pages will know, The Cherry Red label have been hard at work in recent times, compiling and releasing a host of 3-CD boxed sets, chronicling the development of various genres or bands. The great thing about these compilations is that they never resort to the trite or hackneyed. It’s easy..
Ken Hensley – My Book Of Answers (Cherry Red Records)
We know that 2020 was a bad year for many reasons but in the music world it was certainly an annus horribilis for Uriah Heep fans. The sad deaths of Lee Kerslake and Ken Hensley within a couple of months of each other left Mick Box as the last man standing from the classic line-up...
Lee Kerslake – Eleventeen (Cherry Red Records)
We are used to pampered artists complaining about taking a long time to write an album due to writer’s block, tiring tours, and myriad other narcissistic excuses, and so the naked honesty from Kerslake in the sleeve notes of this album is startling: ‘It’s been a little over three years to record and finish it,..