June 14, 2011

YOU ROCK

That might be an Olympic thing, as the 1st Eurock Marathon starts in Athens, in Greece, in October 2011. With special “name” guests, the aim of the festival, its organizers say, is to discover the rock stars of tomorrow and to be a musical parade with the hottest new-comers of the European rock scene. And yes, that’s going to be a competition, with entries to be listened to and given marks by a special committee who’ll pick up the best eight bands. These will play Athens, where that same committee, and the public, will choose three winners who are to receive 5.000€, 3.000€ and 2.000€ for the first, second and third place and to perform at the 2nd Eurock Marathon in 2012, in Berlin. So if you have at least one CD under your belt, go to eurockmarathon.com and sign up. Make yourself shine!

WHAT’S YOUR NUMBER?

ANTHRAX have their new album at the mixing stage already, and as their producer reports, there’s some nice wonders in it: the vocal echo on a certain song has to be set at 666 milliseconds to be in time with the drums… IRON MAIDEN should pay attention!

MAKIN’ NOISE

When it comes to British blues, the name of Mick Clarke isn’t mentioned as often and as loud as it deserves, but the veteran’s oeuvre with KILLING FLOOR and then MICK CLARKE BAND is kept in high esteem by connoisseurs. And now, posibly re-energized by his stint with the revitalized SALT, Mick delivers another slice of blue noise, “The Rambunctious Blues Experiment”. Laid down mostly first take, the album, out now and available at many outlets in physical and digital form, features trio of Clarke on guitars and vox, Russell Chaney on drums and Dangerous Dave Newman on harmonica. No wonder the sonics description goes, “Seasick Steve hitches a lift with THE WHITE STRIPES on the way to a Rory Gallagher concert”. Read a review here.

1. Cheap
2. Poor Day
3. Groundhog Man
4. Wanna Do
5. Shake That Boogie
6. Twenty Miles
7. Old Bones
8. Slipaway
9. Go Go Freddie
10. Something’s Wrong
11. I Should’ve Waited
12. Woodsman

SHINE ON!

In this time when labels come and go, there’s a reason to celebrate MoonJune Records‘s 10th anniversary now. That’s what they sent in:
“Thank you for your continuous support, for reviewing and spinning all ‘MoonJunies’ all those years. MoonJune Records’ CDs have been featured/reviewed/spinned in over 55 countries in all 4 corners of the globe and in more than 35 languages. The record label came into being in 2001. The company represents the fruition of vision from entrepreneurial producer, tour manager, promoter and international music impresario Leonardo Pavkovic (also of 2 Plus Music & Entertainment) – and draws its’ name from SOFT MACHINE drummer Robert Wyatt’s famous 1970 epic “The Moon In June”. MoonJune has already long established its pedigree with “in-the-know” progressive music fans. The focus of MoonJune is to discover and release music by artists from a variety of international settings – exploring the expanding boundaries of genuine, challenging, “non-over-produced music” that cannot be easily categorized into any specific format. The ongoing goal of MoonJune is to support music that transcends stylistic pigeon-holing, but operates within an evolutionary progressive musical continuum that places jazz at one end and rock at the other. The ever-expanding boundaries of these two musical categories have since come to include everything from progressive rock to ethno-jazz, from experimental avante-garde to jazz-rock, and anything in between”.
Long may they run!

TAKE NO PRISONERS

Genius loves company, they say, and in the case of John Wetton it’s becoming more and more true. Having used to work with classica collectives such as FAMILY, KING CRIMSON and URIAH HEEP and in the supergroup framework with U.K. and ASIA, the veteran’s solo records saw an occasional appearance by an old friend – and even a co-writing credit with Ringo Starr – but Wetton’s new one, “Raised In Captivity”, out on July 1st, captured John hitching his past gloriously, in the company of usual suspects Robert Fripp, Geoff Downes and Steve Hackett who graced his records before and the unexpected ones including HEEP’s Mick Box, another hard rocker, Steve Morse of DEEP PURPLE, as well as YES’ original keyboardist Tony Kaye, and Eddie Jobson who John Wetton finally reunited recently in U.K. where guitars duties are taken by Alex Machacek, also present here. Should be a joyride.

1. Lost For Words (feat. Steve Morse)
2. Raised In Captivity (feat. Robert Fripp)
3. Goodbye Elsinore (feat. Steve Hackett)
4. The Last Night Of My Life (feat. Alex Machacek)
5. We Stay Together (bonus track)
6. The Human Condition (feat. Tony Kaye)
7. Steffi’s Ring (feat. Geoff Downes)
8. The Devil And The Opera House (feat. Eddie Jobson)
9. New Star Rising (feat. Mick Box)
10. Don’t Misunderstand Me (feat. Tony Kaye)
11. Mighty Rivers (feat. Anneke Van Giersbergen)

June 14, 2011

Category(s): News

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