KAYAK To Say Goodbye With A Live Album

December 19, 2024

It was almost fifty years ago, with the release of KAYAK‘s "Royal Bed Bouncer" in 1975, that an inkling of the Dutch ensemble’s greatness came to the light; so it’s only logical that what may well be their last-ever album will see the light of day on February 28th, 2025. The two-CD-and-DVD package titled “Back To Shore: 2022 Farewell Tour” is a document of the band’s final trek, a brilliant recording spanning their entire career, from the collective’s 1983 debut "See See The Sun" to “Out Of This World” from 2021.

Continue reading →

Posted in News Tagged ,

Jon Camp Passed Away

December 18, 2024

The great Jon Camp died on December 13th, my friend Jon, a soft-spoken man with an immense sound when it came to music. There was no one like Camp and never will be, because no one else could play bass like him and move so effortlessly from most delicate passages to aggressive rumble. Always associated with RENAISSANCE’s halcyon days, when he used to also sing – in duet and harmony with Annie Haslam and solo, so touchingly on “Only Angels Have Wings” which he wrote – and compose, steering the ensemble towards pop in the early ’80s, after enriching their repertoire by “Love Theme” on “Scheherazade And Other Stories” and other gems, best experienced on-stage, where his dynamics came to the fore, Jon left his mark on a few more remarkable collectives.

Continue reading →

Posted in News Tagged , ,

SHARKS Sharpen Their Focus On Concert Record

December 17, 2024

They were a great proposition, SHARKS, formed in 1972, when Andy Fraser and Chris Spedding joined forces to play music that differed from what the pair had played previously only to fall apart. But though the ensemble disintegrated only after two albums, Spedding and singer Stephen Parsons, also known as Snips, reformed the collective later on – first, briefly, in the mid-’90s, and then in 2015 – to soldier on into the present and spend this year promoting their “Not a Rock-Doc” film. Yet if this movie and the “Car Crash Supergroup: The Island Years 1973-1974” box set, scheduled for release in January, seem to assign the veterans to the past, they also have just issued a rather recent concert recording to show the band still are a viable offering.

Continue reading →

Posted in News Tagged , ,

THE LAST POETS Bridge Nigeria And The USA

December 15, 2024

It’s difficult to overestimate the influence THE LAST POETS had on contemporary American music, and it’s impossible to not discern their imprint on today’s urban scene, from the ensemble’s prominent performance on the soundtrack to “Performance” – the film many watched thanks to the onscreen presence of a certain Rolling Stone – in 1970 onwards. There may have been a gap between 1997’s “Time Has Come” and “Understand What Black Is” which was issued in 2018, yet one album later the ensemble are ready to serve up what can become their definitive statement – because “Africanism” is bound to reconnect the veterans to their black nationalism origins via collaboration with a legendary Nigerian musician.

Continue reading →

Posted in News Tagged ,

Terry Manning Enlists Billy Gibbons And Mutt Lange To Embrace Variety

December 13, 2024

Even the most knowledgeable music connoisseurs may be stumped when asked if there’s a studio denizen who worked with Otis Redding and IRON MAIDEN, Bryan Adams and LED ZEPPELIN, Shakira and ZZ TOP, Isaac Hayes and THE TRAGICALLY HIP. Their answer will likely be negative, because one would assume nobody’s career is that long – and they will be wrong, because Terry Manning‘s resumé includes all these and many more artists. What’s no less important is the existence of the American veteran’s solo career, even though there was a decades-long gap between his 1970 debut “Home Sweet Home” and “West Texas Skyline: A Tribute To Bobby Fuller” from 2013, with a shorter wait between the latter and 2015’s “Heaven Knows” and a longer pause between it and “Red And Black” which is scheduled for release in early January.

Continue reading →

Posted in News Tagged