THE DOOBIE BROTHERS Welcome Mick Fleetwood On A Charity Single

November 20, 2023

It’s been a bit longer than a hundred days since wildfires raged in Pacific paradise, almost obliterating Lahaima, the ancient capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom and, until August 8th, 2023, a wonderful place. Some people who were there are still missing and cultural damage may be incalculable, but there is People’s Fund of Maui cofounded by no other than Dwayne Johnson, and it’s this charity that the new single by THE DOOBIE BROTHERS, a song titled after the place which suffered the flames, co-penned by the ensemble’s veteran Patrick Simmons and featuring Mick Fleetwood, another local resident, will benefit.

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CLASSIX NOUVEAUX Return To The Fray

November 18, 2023

Supergroups are not destined to last long, and CLASSIX NOUVEAUX were a supergroup of sorts – a supergroup in reverse, with roots in X-RAY SPEX and branches in ICEHOUSE and other prominent collectives – so the quartet’s career, having spun from 1979 to 1985, resulted in a mere three albums that, nevertheless, proved to be highly influential on a new-wave scene. The last of these platters appeared in November of 1983, and, since nobody really counted on the band’s comeback, it was a big surprise to find out the foursome, resurrected in 2021, deliver their fourth full-length studio offering four decades and three decades after “Secret” had been issued.

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Gavin Friday Scores Prokofiev’s Classic As Imagined By Bono

November 17, 2023

Ever-popular, Sergei Prokofiev’s symphonic suite “Peter And The Wolf” has long been part of art-rock vocabulary, most prominently manifested on Jack Lancaster and Robin Lumley’s 1975 reading of the perennial in the stellar company of elite players, and recently, when a new animated version of it was released, one based on original illustrations by Bono, the film’s score saw no other than Gavin Friday apply to the visuals his talents as a composer, arranger and narrator.

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MANDALABAND Melodies To Shine Afresh

November 16, 2023

It’s rare, if not unique, to encounter an ensemble whose oeuvre is steeped in mythology to be led by a genuine historian, yet MANDALABAND are such an entity whose very existence has a scent of myth to it too. Devised by the future Egyptologist David Rohl, then a photographer for the likes of THE MOODY BLUES and studio engineer for the likes of THIN LIZZY, and brought to life by the stellar cast of players – some of them would go on to create SAD CAFÉ, while others, including Noel Redding and Graham Gouldman as well as the members of BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST, were already famous – over the course of two albums: the group’s eponymous platter from 1975 and “The Eye Of Wendor” from 1976, both boldly venturing into conceptual progressive rock and both seeing the expanded reissues on February 9th, 2024.

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David Jackson And René Van Commenée Divide Road Space

November 15, 2023

If back in his VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR days David Jackson used to work hard, lately the veteran reedman has been laboring even harder, and a new record bearing the veteran’s name seems to appear every few months now. Just recently, it cropped up in association with his joint project with Marco Lo Muscio, but there’s a fresh one, implemented in the company of Dutch singer and multi-instrumentalist René van Commenée and planned for release on February 2nd, 2024.

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