Yesterday, on May 16th, 2026, the great Robert Fripp became 80 years young. To celebrate this milestone, the guitarist announced an array of his writings and his band’s rare recordings are being made available on different platforms, in particular Substack and Nugs.
Eight years after he joined MARILLION, Steve Hogarth had been so properly embedded into the band and so loved by their fans as to finally strike out on his own and start a parallel career as a separate entity, h. The singer’s solo debut, “Ice Cream Genius” from 1997, was an impressive offering which contained a strong set of songs and featured an impressive ensemble who delivered them, including Dave Gregory, Richard Barbieri and Clem Burke. All of this guaranteed the album a long life – the life taking on a new meaning on July 24th, when the already classic platter gets a deluxe treatment in the way the singer’s main group’s record do.
Some artists arrange their reissues chronologically; others try to adhere to anniversary schedules; for THIN LIZZY, it’s been all over the place. Not counting the "Live And Dangerous" extravaganza, the band began presenting their albums in deluxe editions with "Vagabonds Of The Western World" in 2023 before jumping to "1976" a year later, and then rewinding back to "74-75: Night Life / Fighting" in 2025. And now, in order to fill the gaps and mark its 55th spin around the sun, an expansion of 1972’s “Thin Lizzy” is about to see the light of day.
A supergroup in the making, QUIET SUN hadn’t left a sizeable dent on the Canterbury scene before they broke up in 1972, with guitarist Phil Manzanera ending up in ROXY MUSIC and bassist Bill MacCormick in MATCHING MOLE, but the ensemble, who also included drummer Charles Hayward and Dave Jarrett and keyboard player Dave Jarrett, reunited in 1975, when Manzanera allocated a part of studio time booked for the recording of his “Diamond Head” album to the creation of a longplay which was based on the quartet’s early material – upgraded then and using the services of Brian Eno. The resulting platter, titled “Mainstream” and spanning nine cuts, brought them a lot of accolades – only the band weren’t really happy with the heavily ED-ed mix that removed all the immediacy from what got laid down at first or second takes, and this is why there’s a new version of the classic prepared for release on September 11th.
John Bundrick, aka Rabbit could have been a legend if he wasn’t as unassuming a character as he is, and it doesn’t matter that the American keyboard player served as a member of FREE – he wrote or co-wrote a half of their “Heartbreaker” album – and recorded and toured with THE WHO, as well as appeared on such notable platters as John Martyn’s “Solid Air” and "Whale Meat Again" by Jim Capaldi to name but two. Rabbit also issued quite a few solo albums, such as "Run For Cover" from 1995, although the last one out dates from 2003, and following “A Tribute To John Entwistle” were only two volumes of a movie soundtrack John composed composed together with his old friend Johnny Nash. However, May 29th will see the appearance of a song cycle Bundrick calls his last… probably.
