The More You Live, The More You Love

Tune - Lucid Moments

2012-02-01T11:36:00.003+01:00

Tune
Lucid Moments
(own release)

Tune was founded in 2009 in the Polish city Lodz by Leszek Swoboda (bass, vocals) and Adam Hajzer (guitar). The music and songtexts breathe a melodramatic progressive atmosphere, in which the use of the accordion for the keyboardparts makes the music of this Polish pentad unique for the progressive rock scene. The result is a brilliant album, that seems to define progressive rock again. Okay, when you start analyze the music for sure you will find references, but concerning orginality Lucid moments is an album, which I haven’t heart in our beloved style for quite awhile. Specially the use of the accordion gives their sound something elusive. Did past Polish bands look for their sound and references to bands of the seventies, remember quidam, Collage and Satellite which find their inspiration in the music of Genesis, or Abraxas and Lizard which are influenced by UK, Tune seems to have developed themselves without the influence of big or small names in the progressive scene. The main part of their sound is based on dramatic stylistic art rock, in which the frivolous accent of the accordion, played by Janusz Kowalski, delivers their characteristis sound. Even vocalist Jakub Krupski can’t solve the negative spiral. His sometimes dark but also frivolous and open vocal sound, a mixture of John Wetton, Kurt Cobane and Ray Wilson, and strong pronunciation create a strong counter-weight against the accordion. This unique combination of instruments and vocals, yes I can not mention it enough, turns the album into a joyful listening experience. In every song Tune displays their skills, which is especially striking with a dosed presentation, and they don’t shun, like in the titletrack, to weave the acoustic guitar sounds through the electronic ones. When we do want to compare Tune with a band it’s like they are the Rammstein of the progressive rock scene, because they are the stranger in our midst. It is a series of highlights, where each song in one way or the other stands out towards the other. A wonderful guitar solo in the instrumental Dimensions, the rousing accordion in Lucid Moments, Cabin Fever, which is also characterized by great guitar work, the dark singing in starter Depended Masquerade, the only number which warrants a reference to King Crimson. Lucid Moments is a wonderful debut album that sounds mature and well considered. Using the accordion tune has created a unique sound, though of course we have to see if we still praise them for using this instrument after a few albums. For now I can only conclude that it has worked out very well and yields a beautiful album.

Tracklist

Dependent
Repose
Confused
Lucid Moments
MIP
Dimensions
Cabin Fever
Masquerade
Dr Freeman

Alan Reed - Dancing With Ghosts

2012-02-01T09:33:00.003+01:00

Alan Reed
Danicing With Ghosts
(Red Dwarf Recordings RD0101 / The Merch Desk)

After 26 years it is time for Alan reed to stand on his own feet. Dancing With Ghosts is his first solo release. The ep best can be seen as a warm up release to keep the listeners interested and get them ready for First In A Field Of One, Reed’s first solo album which is planned for early 2012. Both titles refer to the hectic period which followed on his (un)volentary departure of Pallas. On this ep Reed choose to approach the songs from an acoustic interpretation, not a progressive sound but pure vocals, guitar and bas with here and there some keyboard and drum support. The choice of work is from the past and the present, with Sanctuary being a surprised opener. A bombastic sounded somg of over nine minutes brought back to an acoustic interpretation of five, turns out to be wonderful. With Who’s To Blame, again that gut feeling, Reed plays the second Pallas song and with Kean On The Job he looks back on his Abel Ganz career, which is the last song on his trip to memory lane. He ends Dancing With Ghosts with the acoustic versions of Teardrops In The Rain and Begin Again, both featured on the upcoming album, but played in a more relaxed manner. Besides Reed Jennifer Clark plays the bass, while Scott Higham does the additional drums and Mark Spencer the sitar and keyboards. After listening tot his ep I was left behind with mixed feelings. Besides the fact that Reed has chosen songs that highlights his current situation, the listener is left wondering what the result might be. Do not get me wrong, the acoustic versions of this songs are definitely worth listening to, but I have the feeling Reed is using this ep to make a point to his former Pallas mates, that he can stand on his own feet. If the latter is right than I can surely says his mission is accomplished and I am longing to hear the real thing on First In A Field Of One.

Tracklist

Sanctuary
Who's To Blame
Kean On The Job
Teardrops In The Rain
Begin Again

That time of the year

2011-12-26T13:04:00.005+01:00

Now that we are getting closer to the closing of the year, everywhere you can read the top 1`0 lists of the past year. Of course I could not resist, and created a top ten, which was presented on Facebook in the past days. But this was a compound list of progressive rock and other styles of music.

01. Comedy Of Errors - Disobey
02. Konchordat - The New Crusade
03. Florence And The Machine- Ceremonials
04. Mirrors - Lights And Offerings
05. Also Eden - Think Of The Children!
06. White Lies - Rituals
07. Kate Bush - 50 Words For Snow
08. Thomas Dolby - A Map Of The Floating City
09. Pallas - XXV
10. Gotye - Making Mirrors

Split this list in two and you get the progressive top ten:

01. Comedy Of Errors - Disobey
02. Konchordat - The New Crusade
03. Also Eden - Think Of The Children!
04. Kate Bush - 50 Words For Snow
05. Pallas - XXV
06. Rush - Time Machine
07. Sean Filkins - War And Peace & Other Stories
08. Steven Wilson - Grace For Drowning
09. Yes - Fly From Here
10. Memories Of Machines - Warm Winter

And the top ten normal music:

01. Florence And The Machine- Ceremonials
02. Mirrors - Lights And Offerings
03. White Lies - Rituals
04. Thomas Dolby - A Map Of The Floating City
05. Gotye - Making Mirrors
06. Elbow - Build A Rocket Boys!
07. Snow Patrol - Fallen Empires
08. Coldplay - Mylo Xyloto
09. Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Liverpool (deluxe reissue)
10. Ultravox - Moments From Eden

Also Eden - Think Of The Children!

2011-12-26T12:29:00.007+01:00

Also Eden
Think Of The Children!
(Festival Music 201110)

Those who love the Music of Aragon, Galahad and Marillion will be pleased with Think Of The Children!, the third album of Also Eden in five years. They used as much singers during that period, but with Rich Harding they seemed to have found the right frontman, but also new energy, a new sound and a new direction. The sensitive and emotional vocals of Harding sounds in between the, quiet, vocals of Stuart Nicholson (Galahad) and the, the fierce vocals of Les Dougan (Aragon). Simon Rogers sounds like a merge of John Poloyannis, Roy Keyworth and Steve Rothery. The keyboards of Ian Hodson are the essential background supplement, but when he loses himself, there are fierce musical battles with Rogers’ solo guitar. And with a strong and tight base presented by bassist Steve Dunn, who delivers some very nice bass loops now and then, and drummer Lee Nicholas, Also Eden makes a strong performance and a classic album is born. Certainly when it is a concept album with nine songs which running from one into the other. Hiding In Plain Sight would have been a nice addition on a Galahad album and Stealth starts with a Brave alike intro but continues in the vein of Aragon’s Don’t Bring The Rain. Dream Within A Dream also opens in the Brave style but switches into the Galahad vein later on. In 1949 all seems to flow together. The restrained vocal ferocity of Harding, the Amaranth (from Galahad’s album Sleepers) alike middle section, which last much too short. It is followed by the Nicholson alike vocals and a beautiful Rothery alike guitar solo.
Think Of The Children! has become an album of a high and consistent standard, and again a release of Festival Music which could become a hit. Here and there you hear the sensitivity of Pink Floyd, guitarsolo in Greater Game, and the atmosphere of Genesis, the combination of acoustic guitar and keyboards in Think Of The Children II. But it’s understandable, because the references are aware of their classics themselves. Also Eden delivers an excellent album with beautiful atmospheric nuances, which will make you turn the album time after time.

Tracklist:

Think Of The Children I
Hiding In Plain Sight
Oversight
Cijfers
The Greater Game
Stealth
Dream Within A Dream
1949
Think Of The Children II

Enjoy the ride

2011-11-29T10:27:00.012+01:00

Nik Kershaw played the Boerderij in Zoetermeer on 28 November 2011. To be honest this concert, which featured most of the set seen in Mai 2009 at Zeche in Bochum, was so much better compared to that night in Germany one and a half years ago.

It all started with the good sound, the good atmosphere and the good voice of Nik, who also got the laughers on his hand when introducing or explaining the songs. The keyboards were well balanced into the sound, and again the atmosphere on stage and in the crowd was marvelous.

The opener Wide Boy made the standard of the evening. A good voice and well balanced instruments and a band that enjoyed to play for a crowd of 250. Already confinced of the crowd as a second in the setlist Nik threw in a new song called Enjoy The Ride. A nice uptempo song with the Kershaw trademark. During the concert two new ones would follow; You're The Best, a tribute to his wife, and Rock Of Ages, a song about growing older but still loving the music and the party. The new songs were received with a lot of enthusiasm.

But of course the oldies received the most cheer of the crowd and become real sing-alongs. The almost Big Country alike guitar double in The Riddle was a highlight, and for me it was great to hear Get Up again, and played in combination with Bogart. Also the Chesney Hawkes hitsingle The One And Only, written by Nik Kersaw, was played in the Kershaw trademark and the crowd anticipated in the choruses. After sixteen songs with hits, semi-hits and great albumtracks Wouldn't It Be Good ended the regular setlist.

After a couple of minutes Nik returned alone with guitar to play some acoustic songs. Fiction and Oh You Beautiful Thing which are both played in the same version on his last album No Thrills, got a good response. And when the band joined again they played Loud, Confident & Wrong. Niks answer to the worst president of the US George Bush jr., which when introduced was met with a lot of laughter from the crowd. The band ended the show with two old favourites Human Racing and I Won't Let The Sun Go Down On Me.

After a show of nearly two hours the band got a great applause and with a "we love you" Nik and band left the stage. A great performance, a well balanced setlist and a great sound and good voice. One of the best shows I attended too this year.

Band:

Nik Kershaw - Vocals, guitar
Adam Evans - Guitar, backing vocals
Simon Carter - Keyboards
Bob Knight - Drums
Paul Geary - Bass, backing vocals

Setlist:

Wide Boy
Enjoy The Ride (new)
Somebody Loves You
Dancing Girls
Have a Nice Life
Get Up
Bogart
The Riddle
You're The Best (new)
Radio Musicola
The One And Only
Promises, Promises
Don Quixote
Billy
Rock Of Ages (new)
Wouldn't It Be Good

Encores:

Fiction (solo acoustic)
Oh You Beautiful Thing (solo acoustic)
Loud, Confident And Wrong
Human Racing
I Won't Let The Sun Go Down On Me

White Willow - Terminal Twilight

2011-11-08T12:24:00.005+01:00

WHITE WILLOW
Terminal Twilight
(Termo Records TERMOCD009)

White Willow belongs, since the release of their debut album Ignis Fatuus, to a small select group of bands, which with every new release raises high expectations. With the return of Sylvia Skjellestad they should consider themself lucky, because she has a wonderful voice that fits with White Willow. The listener therefore is not disappointed.

Besides vocally, musically this album sounds great, which strongly depends to the 70's prog with a mix of jazz rock, fusion and folk, where the reference goes from King Crimson to Weather Report and Genesis to Muse with surprising contributions of Tim Bowness, David Lindberg and Michael S. Judge. Bowness together with Jacob Holm-Lupo wrote the No-Man-like Kansas Regrets, which in the second part recalls the days of Nurcery Crime, complete with vintage keyboards and whistles. Leaves in Bed, dedicated to Tony Banks, again follows the pattern of Genesis and in Floor 67 White Willow follows the steps of the Crimson King mode of musical interpretation. Starter The Mountain Hawks Circle, with guest appearance by Judge is rightly characterized by the jazz rock and fusion.

The highlight for me is the instrumental Natasha Burning Of The Woods. I rarely have heard such a beautiful instrumental, in which everything seems to come together. The opening refers lightly to the memory of Japan, after which the atmosphere of Wind & Wuthering echoes in the use of acoustic guitar and keys. Around four minutes the music swells to a beautiful melody with heavy percussion by Mattias Olsson (Anglagard / Pineforest Crunch), then the same melody returns and slowly drifts away.

Of the six albums that White Willow now has delivered especially the leading role of flute (Ketil Enarsen) and vintage keyboards (Lars Fredrik Frøislie) has become a trademark, in which the guitar as in the seventies only can be heart in the front during solos and acoustic passages, such as in the Hackett-like closing song A Rumour Of Twilight.

The result is a raw, honest and live sounding album, in which the group again appears to be exploring their musical extremes. The lyrics are like a sequel to Storm Season and Holm-Lupo for a moment hesitated to even releasing the album at all, because the apocalyptic texts have come close to the tragedy of July 22.

“Suddenly my lyrics seemed a little close to home, and I actually had some misgivings about releasing the album at all. In retrospect I have come to realize that there might be – at least for myself – something a bit cathartic and therapeutic in the music. I also feel like the songs offer the occasional ray of light and hope, even if optimism isn’t really White Willow’s forte. But sometimes sad songs can comfort more than happy ones.”

Tracks:

Hawks Circle The Mountain
Snowswept
Kansas Regrets
Bed Leaves
Floor 67
Natasha Of The Burning Woods
Searise
A Rumour Of Twilight

Konchordat - The New Crusade

2011-11-07T21:08:00.005+01:00

Konchordat
The New Cruisade
(Konchordat Music KMCD1002)

Konchordat for me is a new name, though it appears the group released an album called English Ghosts in 2009. Driving force behind the group is Steve Cork (bass, keyboards and bass pedals) who in Stuart Martin (vocals, guitar and keyboards) found a new partner in crime. Martin was one of guest guitarists on English Ghosts. On The New Crusade, they are assisted by Liam Green on drums.

Listening to the six-track album, I can only conclude that the gentlemen put their ears to a listen to Magellan, IQ and It Bites and they have forged their style. Frequently the keyboards, usually in combination with the guitar playing the same melody, bring the magnum opus of It Bites, Once Around The World, in mind, while the very sudden breaks and heavy pounding work with bombastic bladder samples have a strong Magellan’s Magna Carta reminiscent. Throw in the symphonic sauce of IQ, especially in the spherical portions, and a new Konchordat is born. The beauty of this album is that Konchordat continues to play this combination in mostly all of the songs, with the exception of Time To Go which really sounds like IQ.

Overall it is always the sum of three, which dominates each song in a very positive way. A nice solid guitar solo in Panic Room, colse to hard rock, with Dream Theater-like structures of guitar and keyboards make it the best track of the album, although the title track, Heaven's Gate and A Coming Of Age are hardly inferior to the high level of Panic Room. Scars Inside is actually the stranger in their midst since the song, despite the bombast and the interplay of keyboards and guitar, sounds too much the same and the strong melody leans to the progressive hard rock tendency.

The New Crusade is an album which grows with every time you play it and thus reveals the recognition of the musical mix, without, and I should really emphasize that, distraction. It truly is unfortunate when after fifty-five minutes Stuart Martin ends with "It's Time For Me To Go" and a spherical carpet of keyboards supports the closing Hackett-style guitar solo.

Tracklist:

The New Crusade
A Coming Of Age
Panic Room
Heaven's Gate
Scars Inside
Time To Go

Comedy Of Errors - Disobey

2011-10-13T18:52:00.009+02:00

COMEDY OF ERRORS
Disobey
(Own release COE001; distributed by ACH Media)

Comedy Of Errors is a band which was active in the late eigthies progressive rock scene. Founded in Glasgow the first incarnation released three democassettes, One Mini-Album and a CD in their five years excistence. The CD contained the demo 24 Hours and the Mini-Album and was released on the disputed Ugum label. After various line-up changes their progressive rock style changes to mainstream hardrock. In the early nineties it seems the band disappered from the stage, and only last year the first signs of a recarnation are mentioned with a possible release of Disobey,their first proper CD. During all those years keyboardplayer Jim Johnson kept writing music and finally found Joe Cairney (vocals) and Mark Spalding (bass, guitar), both members of the first line-up, available to record the album together. Besides them Bruce Levick plays the drums, and Hew Montgomery (Abel Ganz) plays bass on The Student Prince Part 1. Musically they extend the sound of the Mini-Album. Strong compositions with references to other eighties bands, but overall the unique sound of Comedy Of Errors. Although the start of Jekyll refers to IQ, the outtro of Carousel to Castanarc and parts of The Student Prince sounds like Pallas. You could say that the great vocals of Jim Cairney are a great part of that unique style, and the layered lines sound marvelous. The mideval minstrel sound returns in the marvelous instrumental Prelude, Riff And Fugue. But their magnum opus can be found in their four part song The Student Prince, a nearly 26 minutes long tour de force of progressive rock. It starts with the 26 year old Part 1, When Will I See You Again, which sounds more melodic and even better than the original. In this 26 minutes Comedy of Errors show their potention, which is clear, but could never be made by the first line-up. They nearly go over the top at the end of Part 1 with a guitar solo of Spalding, over layers of keyboards and the melodic bass lines of Montgomery. On the other hand they keep it small when Johnson opens Part 3, Foolcircle on piano and Cairney sings the first couplet. Also you see they like to joke with influences when they open part 4, Green Light Coda which starts with a piano melody, that sounds a lot like the theme of Hill Street Blues. The new start of Comedy Of Errors turns out to be excellent and they deliver a beautiful and constant album, which revives their eigthies sound, but sounds so 2011.

Tracks:

Disobey
Jekyll
Prelude, Riff And Fugue
Carousel
American Rodeo
Could Have Been Yesterday
Ailsa's Lullaby
Joke
the Student Prince
Part 1. When Will I see You Again?
Part 2. And So To Bed
Part 3. Foolcircle
Part 4. Green Light Coda

Bolus - Delayed Reaction

2011-10-13T16:33:00.009+02:00

BOLUS
Delayed Reaction
(Bolus Music Group 884502881691)

Bolus, what's in the name*, are a Canadian band from the surroundings of Toronto. Delayed Reaction is their second album on which Nick Karch (vocals, guitar, bass and keyboards) and Mat Keselman (drums, percussion, vocals and flute) are influenced on the second half of the seventies Genesis, Rush and Yes. Although it isn't strange to hear some influences of Dream Theater and Spock's Beard now and then. Such a references makes curious and I can tell you the listener won't be disappointed.

From the first song Those Who Saved Us it is clear that Bolus put a lot of work in their compositions. Strong songs with a start and an end, with fluid and natural lines. The keyboards, mostly piano, hammond and mellotron are mainly used for support and in some songs are behind in the mix. THe guitar parts are very strong. From the acoustic Genesis sound in Outside, including flute parts, and the Steve Hackett alike solo in Push To Exit, to the Alex Lifeson alike solo in White Window and the Metallica sound of Instructions, where the vocals of Nick Karch sounds in between Peter Nicholls and Stuart Nicholson.

Seventy minutes of Delayed Reaction isn't a long sit. Bolus keeps the attention of the listener, from acoustic to metal it does not bore for a moment, the variation of the material makes it even stronger and turn Delayed Reaction into a very strong record. Until now one of the best albums of 2011 which I have given a listen.

Tracks:

Those Who Saved Us
Outside
Instructions
Postman
Push To Exit
White Window
He And I Alike
Doorstep Thoughts
Drawing A House In Perspective
- Home Is Where The Heart Is
- Paranoia Safehouse
- Steps Under Shelter

* In Dutch a bolus is a turd

Top 10 sofar

2011-08-21T17:32:00.004+02:00

Again it seems that this year musically is very strong. Surprisingly strong albums of old timers Pallas and Yes, a coming back album of the neoproggers Comedy Of Errors, a first solo album of the former singer of Big Big Train, Sean Filkins, the nice album Of Mirrors, a farewell live album of A-Ha and many more.

Five months before the end of this year it brings me to the following top 10:

01. Comedy Of Errors - Disobey
02. Sean Filkins - War And Peace & Othere Stories
03. Yes - Fly From Here
04. Pallas - XXV
05. Kate Bush - Director's Cut
06. Mirrors - Lights And Offerings
07. Memories Of Machines - Warm Winter
08. Ultravox - Moments From Eden
09. A-Ha - Ending On A High Note - The Final Concert
10. Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Liverpool

From the vault: Steve Cochrane - The Purest Of Design

2011-07-26T16:10:00.004+02:00

STEVE COCHRANE
The Purest Of Designs (1998)
(Spirit Compass Music SC103)

'My goal in life is to communicate a sense of optimism in our world - to project the image of a hero, not only as a character to be viewed, but also as a part of each of us, something to be experienced - the best within us. I try to create a musical picture of what should be and express the conviction that it is possible.' - Thus Steve Cochrane.

With the Purest Of Designs this Canadian multi-instrumentelist releases what is already his third album, although he is still pretty much unknown in the Netherlands.
His greatest inspiration comes from listening to the music of Rush, Renaissance, Mike Oldfield and Steve Hackett. After listening to this wonderful album I think I can include the Wind and Wuthering period of Genesis in this small list as well. Much of the atmosphere of the music harks back to this album, and several keyboard and guitar parts bring back to mind Wind And Wuthering. The opening track "To The Glory Of Man" and the 16 minute plus final track "The Promise Of The Music" are the instrumental tracks on this album. "To The Glory Of Man" is guided by the instrumental tracks of Wind and Wuthering, while "The Promise Of The Music" more or less marks a journey through the work of Steve Hackett. Opening like the acoustic work from albums such as Bay Of Kings, Guitar Noir and A Midsummers Nights Dream and building up to the earlier work like Spectral Mornings. The Purest Of Designs can best be described as a dream album. The album is very positive and brings back the memories of the late seventies prog.

Tracks:

To The Glory Of Man
When Music Speaks
Songs For Spring
Dreams Of Reason
The Promise Of The Music

Notes:
* This review comes from 1998 and was first published in iO Pages

From the vault: No-Man - Flowermouth

2011-07-24T13:53:00.006+02:00

NO-MAN
FLOWERMOUTH (1994)
(One Little Indian Records TPLP67CD)

With Flowermouth No-Man delivers their first full CD, showing they’re still alive. With the signing of a contract to a large recordcompany, there was time and money enough for a full album, which in spite of the multi-instrumental talents of Steven Wilson contains a list of well-known guest musicians.

Since Steven Wilson played as a guest role on their CD Beginning To Melt, Steve Jansen and Richard Barbieri (also a member of Porcupine Tree) are both involved. Robert Fripp and Mel Collins are well represented. The final result contains a clearly stamp of Fripp, who makes use of his flippertronics.

Vocalist Tim Bowness sounds like Marc Almond, but keeps its vocals too monotonous. So the real fire work needs to come from Steven Wilson and the guest musicians.

Especially notable is the link of balance the band has created from their equivocal past. He who knows No-Man specifically from the Exposure albums (then working under the name No Is An Island Except For The Isle Of Man) has in mind a rather heavy percussion orientated band, whereas the later work moves more into the new age territories.

With Flowermouth the group has bounded these extremes, which sometimes ends in progressive dance-rock. With regard to mood the album refers to Camel’s Dust and Dreams. I say especially with regard to mood, because musically No-Man sounds more like a crossover of Japan and Talk Talk.

Tracks:

Angel Gets Caught In The Beauty Trap
You Grow More Beautiful
Animal Ghost
Soft Shoulder
Shell Of A Fighter
Teardrop Fall
Watching Over Me
Simple
Things Change

Notes:
* This review comes from 1994 and was first published in SI Magazine
* In September 1999 the album was re-released as a remastered & partially remixed version (3rd Stone)
* In Mai 2005 re-issued with bonus tracks Angeldust & Born Simple (Snapper/Kscope)
* Both bonus tracks first released on Flowermix (Hidden Art/Resurgence) from 1995

From the vault

2011-07-24T13:47:00.003+02:00

I like to start with a new item within my blog. As an editor of iO Pages I wrote a lot of reviews in the past. Besides iO Pages I also wrote for SI Magazine and the DPRP, although the later was for a short while. Since most of these reviews are in Dutch, I will translate them to English and place them on this blog. All reviews are from the period 1990 - 2005. The new ones I am already placing on this blog, although I am a bit behind.

The "from the vault" review series will start with one of my next blog entries.
So keep visiting for more prog reviews from the past and present.

The Unknown Beauty Of the 80's

2011-07-24T13:17:00.003+02:00

Volume 24

01. Leisure Process - A Way You'll Never Be
02. Blue In Heaven - I Just Wanna
03. Peter Coyle - Yours the spirit That Soared
04. B-movie - Just An Echo
05. 3D - Nearer
06. Interview - The Adventurers
07. The Mood - Watching Hour
08. China Crisis - African And White (steve Proctor remix)
09. Wild Swans - 1982
10. H2O - Go On
11. The Man They Couldn't Hang - The Crest
12. Zerra One - The Domino Effect
13. Scary Thieves - Only Fascination
14. Brother Beyond - I Should Have Lied
15. Das Kabinette - The Cabinet
16. Transparent Illusion - Vortex
17. Bone Symphony - Everything I Say Is a Lie
18. Two Minds Crack - One Sky Above Us
19. Toyah - Brave New World

Some links reposted

2011-07-24T12:52:00.004+02:00

Over the past months I got some requests of reposting some compilations from the past. Because of my illnes I wasn't able to do it on earlier state, but here they finally are:

Exposure: link

The Unknown Beauty of the Eighties: Volume 10
The Unknown Beauty of the Eighties: Volume 15

Enjoy the music.

Galleon - In The Wake Of The Moon

2011-06-15T15:06:00.006+02:00

In The Wake Of The Moon is already the ninth album of the Swedish neoprog band Galleon in their 25th years of existence. Strong compositions with beautiful community singing, melodic music in which Ulf Hedlung Pettersson and Sven Larsson have the oppertunity to give their solo performance on keyboards and guitar. Göran Fors got a nice and good sounding voice and his bassplaying I strong while drummer Göran Johnsson controles everything. You can call Galleon a surpisingly very strong band, with a brought reference of bands, but surely their own sound, which makes them unique. The quality of the eight compositions is of a high standard. After the bombastic starters Stages and Wallflower and the instrumental Child’s Play the band slow down in the titletrack, a beautiful ballad with a strong Tangerine Dream ambience. The first part of War At Home, called Woodland Creatures, opens as an instrumental with mainly Hammond organ, after which the ambient Aftermath follows. Over the Hills And 3 Feet Under is the second instrumental, a composition mainly driven by several guitarloops of Sven Larssen. Mr. Murphy is again a very bombastic composition after which the album ends with the beautiful Rain. In The Wake Of The Moon has become a very strong album, with beautiful compositions which are of the strongest Galleon has ever written. A wonderful atmospheric progressive album.

Tracks:

Stages
Wallflower
Childs Play
In The Wake Of The Moon
War At Home
- Woodland Creatures
- Aftermath
Over The Hills And 3 Feet Under
Mr. Murphy
Rain

Ultravox - Moments From Eden

2011-06-07T14:31:00.006+02:00

After a succesfull reunion tour in 2009 which resulted in the 2CD / DVD Return To Eden, Ultravox returned to the stage in 2010 to bring the tour to the European mainland, where they played the Paradiso as well. For this second leg of the tour they changed the setlist. In Germany they decided to play the Kraftwerk alike Mr. X in the German version, called Herr X a b-side of the Vienna 12” single. Together with the three other additions to the setlist they have been released on the Moments From Eden EP. All three songs, New Europeans, White China and Love’s Great Adventure, additions the fans had wanted to see the band put into the setlist, are more rock orientated, machine-made driving electronic tunes with power-melodies and strong delivery. For fans this release completes the whole setlist of the Return To Eden Tour and keeps the fire burning since the announcement earlier this year about the band working on new material for a late 2011 release.

The release comes as a limited exclusive ten inch red vynil with CD set from Townsend Records.

Mirrors - Lights And Offerings

2011-05-27T16:06:00.006+02:00

It has been awhile since my last entry. I was knocked out for three months by a virus and hardly visited the internet that time. But slowly I am recovering and after founding this treasure in my mailbox the other day, it was time to return to my blog.

Last year Mirrors was the support act for Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark during their European leg of their History Of Modern tour. The four guys impressed the public with their great electronic music with references to Gary Numan, old OMD, Kraftwerk, Old Human League, John Foxx and others. A great performance for such a young band who so much wanted to look like Kraftwerk on stage. During the tour they sold a special album Broken By Silence to keep the flame burning after the concert. And now there is Lights And Offerings, a full album of the quartet, which will keep the flame burning even higher and for much longer. It offers a mix of already known tracks with reletively new ones (not released so far), because all tracks were recorded in June 2010, when the band locked itself away from the world to record their music.

Of the ten tracks Look At Me, Into The Heart, Ways To End and Hide And Seek were already released as singles on an earlier stage, while Fear For Drowning and Somewhere Strange circulated on the internet as demo versions. Well that keeps us with Write Through The Night, Something On Your Mind, Searching In The Wilderness and Secrets, which continu to show the high standard of great musicianship of Mirrors. Great electronic songs which can compete with the best their references have to offer. Well crafted, edgy songs which, due to the use of their instrumentation, bring back in mind the end of the seventies and the early eighties, but sounds so today.

The German version of Lights And Offerings, released through Pias, comes with two bonustracks: Visions Of You and Perfectly Still.

At the moment a free download EP is available through the Facebook website of Mirrors. Just go to http://www.facebook.com/theworldofmirrors and you can download a five track Facebook EP.

Pallas - XXV

2011-01-31T21:34:00.006+01:00

After a hiatus of five years I was asked to return as an editor for the Dutch progressive rock magazine iO Pages. I decided to return back to the music which I hardly listened too for the past years, and see what it would do to me. It was quite a surprise to receive the new album of Pallas as a review copy, since their last studio album was released five years ago.

So let me come straight to the point, I think for a lot of us it will be a strange experience to listen to an album of Pallas, where, for the first time in 25 years, Alan Reed is not the singer. Paul Mackie is the replacement, an Aberdeen local, who does a very good job. His voice sounds pleasant, and somehow the vocal arrangements with Graeme Murray are stronger than during the heydays with Alan Reed. It's a gamble, but it pays back very well. Without a doubt musically the album is as strong as you can expect from Pallas. In eleven songs the band returns to Atlantis, where after the optimistic celebratory ending of The Sentinel had been corrupted by human nature and the Sentinels return to take their experiment to its ultimate completion.

As a Sentinel part II, it is not surprising that instrumental parts link back to The Sentinel. Besides that the rich history of progressive rock can be linked musically to this album. Since their reunion in the late nineties Pallas has worked on to their own sound, which is a great mix of prog, rock, classical and pompous music, in which atmospheric nuances reminds you to certain reference.

XXV is a very strong album, which for sure can be find in a lot of top ten list at the end of this year. And highlights, well okay: starter Falling Down, Crash and Burn, with a strong Spock's beard alike opening, after which the band continue with strong references to The Sentinel, with Dream Theater alike breaks, the beautiful The Violet Sky; the ballad of the album and strong ending song XXV Part 2 - The Unmakers Awake. But honestly this album is pure joy for the ear and a great returner for the Scotch men.

Top 15 of 2010

2010-12-22T22:43:00.006+01:00

What a year 2010 turned out to be. Great concerts, great albums of new acts and old acts. New albums and great re-releases. It was an expensive year, but I enjoyed the music from the first to the last day. And I know we still have some days to go, but by now I can come up with a top 15 of albums of 2010.

Since the list of albums was so big and the re-releases were so much, I decided this year to come up with a list of new releases and a list of re-releases, because music is my passion, my first love, and I can not leave all those nice re-releases out of this years list.

So first the top 15 of new albums, produced and released over 2010.

01. Marina & The Diamond - The Family Jewels
02. Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark - History Of Modern
03. Alphaville - Catching Rays On Giants
04. Mirrors - Broken By Silence
05. Hurts - Happiness
06. Customs - Enter The Character
07. Mylene Farmer - Blue...Noir
08. The Script - Science And Faith
09. Steve Hackett - Rails
10. Ultravox - Return To Eden
11. Brandon Flowers - Flamingo
12. Crowded House - Intriguer
13. Everything Everything - Man Alive
14. Run The Red Light - Run The Red Light
15. Lostboy! A.K.A. Jim Kerr - Lostboy!

Top 10 of re-releases

01. Reflex - Re=Fuse
02. Propaganda - A Secret Wish: Deluxe Edition
03. No-Man - Wild Opera
04. A-Ha - Hunting High And Low: Deluxe Edition
05. Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Welcome To The Pleasuredome: Deluxe Edition
06. IQ - The Wake: 25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition
07. Arcadia - So Red The Rose: Deluxe Edition
08. The Teardrops Explodes - Kilimanjara: Deluxe Edition
09. A-Ha - Scoundrel Days
10. Midge Ure - The Gift

Rush

2010-12-04T19:04:00.007+01:00

Last weekend I had a nice weekend with friends. While drinking nice beers, eating delicious cheeses, we enjoyed listening to music and watching music DVD's. Around one o'clock two of the three left and we decided to turn on some Rush DVD's, and of course turn up the sound level as well. I put on the X3 DVD set and we played the DVD of the Grace Under Pressure tour enjoying the music very much while drinking from our Westvleteren 12.

Since I learned earlier this week Rush will visit the Netherlands next year on their Time Machine Tour, their music hasn't been out of my CD player or on my computer. I have listened to Moving Pictures a lot. It is the album they gonna play entirely during this tour. Friday I managed to get a ticket for the concert and the listening became more intense. Okay Ahoy is not a hall I like to visit, and I promised myself not to go there anymore. But well the problem is, Ahoy is the only hall in the Netherlands big enough for Rush. So for one time I make an exception and will visit Ahoy again.

Meanwhile I keep listening to Rush on a more regular base to get to know the songs for next years concert. Even bought their digital single Caravan the other day through iTunes. So I am ready let it become May soon.

Playing on old holy ground

2010-11-29T16:59:00.006+01:00

It was a long time ago that Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark played the Paradiso in Amsterdam. It was during the Liberator tour in 1994 that Andy McCluskey played there with another band. But tonight it was the original band with a new album History Of Modern, that turned the Paradiso in a great atmosphere.

But first it was time for Mirrors, a modern pop-noir electronic four-piece from Brighton, UK, who released four singles sofar, and had a special Limited Tour CD, Broken By Silence for sale in the merchandise stand. They took of with great synthpop sounds which were related to the pioneers in synthpop or electronic music of the late seventies and early eighties. You can hear influences from bands like Tubeway Army, early Depeche Mode, Human League, OMD, Heaven 17, Kraftwerk among others. Their performance is a bit similar to Kraftwerk, as they perform in tuxedo’s and try to stand there as dummies. Only half an hour was enough to show the potential of this young band, which want to release their first album in early 2011, and already showed the audience their skills on the limited tour EP Broken By Silence, which covered most of the setlist.

At half past eight the instrumental History Of Modern Part 3 & 4 opened the concert of OMD. In just over one and a half hour the band played a mix of old, middle and new songs as Andy McCluskey called it after singing the opener New Babies: New Toys. It was the start of a great but too short set with the four Architecture And Morality songs in the middle being the Highlight of the set. Which was followed by a beautiful version of New Holy Ground. After that they turned up the speed of the songs when singles like Green, Talking Loud And Clear were played welcomed by the enthusiastic audience.

Andy showed he hasn’t lost his dance skills, and Martin played a nice saxophone solo during So In Love. The sound was very good, although during the end of the concert it became louder. But it stayed well balanced and the people were enjoying a band in shape. Sister Mary Says was another nice highlight, and after Pandora’s box and Sailing On The Seven Seas, Enola Gay already turned out to be the last song of the regular set.

After a short break they returned for Walking On The Milky Way and the first single Electricity. Just after ten o’clock the lights went on and the band was in the dressing room. Within a quarter of an hour the roadies were already putting the gear in the boxes and the crowd left the venue.

In the hall I had a short but nice chat with half of Mirrors. After which my friend and I left the venue for a nice drink in the pub De Balie. We discussed a bit about the short but very nice concert over a nice beer of the IJ Brewery, a local Amsterdam brewery. Then it was time to catch the train and go home.

Setlist Mirrors:

Intro
Fear Of Drowning
Ways To An End
Write Me Through The Night
Into The Heart
Searching The Wilderness
Hide And Seek

Setlist OMD:

History Of Modern Part 3 & 4
New Babies: New Toys
Messages
Tesla Girls
Bunker Soldiers
History Of Modern Part I
Forever (live & die)
She's Leaving
Souvenir
Joan Of Arc
Maid Of Orleans
New Holy Ground
Green
Talking Loud And Clear
So In Love
Locomotion
Sister Mary Says
Pandora's Box
Sailing On The Seven Seas
Enola Gay

Walking On The Milky Way
Electricity

The Things That Dreams Are Made Of

2010-11-09T14:06:00.004+01:00

Take time to see the wonders of the world
To see the things you've only ever heard of
Dream life the way you think it ought to be
See things you thought you'd never ever see

Take a cruise to China
Or a train to Spain
Go round the world
Again and again
Meet a girl on a boat
Meet a boy on a train
And fall in love
Without the pain

Everybody needs love and adventure
Everybody needs cash to spend
Everybody needs love and affection
Everybody needs 2 or 3 friends

These are the things
These are the things
The things that dreams are made of
These are the things
These are the things
The things that dreams are made of

Take a lift to the top of the Empire State
Take a drive across the Golden Gate
March, march, march across Red Square
Do all the things you've ever dared

Everybody needs love and adventure
Everybody needs cash to spend
Everybody needs love and affection
Everybody needs 2 or 3 friends

These are the things
These are the things
The things that dreams are made of
These are the things
These are the things
The things that dreams are made of
Like fun and money and food and love
And things you never thought of
These are the things
These are the things
The things that dreams are made of

New York, ice cream, TV, travel, good times
Norman Wisdom, Johnny, Joey, Dee Dee, good times

These are the things
These are the things
The things that dreams are made of
These are the things
These are the things
The things that dreams are made of
These are the things
These are the things
The things that dreams are made of
These are the things
These are the things
The things that dreams are made of
These are the things
These are the things
The things that dreams are made of
These are the things
These are the things
The things that dreams are made of

Words & Music: Philip Oakey, Adrian Whright

My song for today. Enjoy your dreams. Even if they are nightmares. Because we learn from our dreams. And remember they are dreams but also important lessons from our subconscious.

The Unknown Beauty Of the 80's

2010-11-06T17:38:00.005+01:00

Volume 23

01. The Mood - No One Left To Blame
02. Kevin Kitchen - This Couldn't Happen To Me
03. Fra Lippo Lippi - A Moment Like This
04. Tanh Chi - How Long Is A Day
05. Haircut 100 - Fish In A Bowl
06. DEVO - Whip It
07. Leisure Process - Rachel Dreams
08. Nik Kershaw - Radio Musicola
09. The Kane Gang - Motortown
10. Bill Nelson - Eros Arriving
11. Paul Haig - Never Give Up
12. Endgames - Somewhere To Run
13. The Big Supreme - He'll Deceive
14. Thomas Leer - Searchin'
15. Peter Coyle - Shattered
16. Robert Görl (DAF) - Darling Don't Leave Me
17. The Tempest - I Want To Live
18. The Angels - No Secrets
Alan Parsons - Standing On Higher Ground
20. Echo & The Bunnymen - Bring On The Dancing Horses

Top 15 of recent released albums

2010-11-06T17:09:00.002+01:00

01. Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark - History Of Modern
02. Propaganda - A Secret Wish: Deluxe Edition
03. Customs - Enter The Character
04. Marina & The Diamond - The Family Jewels
05. Hurts - Happiness
06. Lostboy! A.K.A. Jim Kerr - Lostboy!
07. Peter Gabriel - Scratch My Back
08. The Scipt - Science And Faith
09. Villa Nah - Origin
10. Ultravox - Return To Eden
11. Brandon Flowers - Flamingo
12. A-Ha - 25
13. Everything Everything - Man Alive
14. Run The Red Light - Run The Red Light
15. Keane - Night Train

We all stand out tonight

2010-11-05T12:31:00.006+01:00

An evening of Pioneers Of Love, Willow and Customs at the Patronaat, Haarlem on November 4, 2010.

Review follows soon including pictures

Setlist Pioneers Of Love

Intro - Purgatory
Walhalla
Confessions
For All I Care
Fear Of Heights
Persist Pretend
Franz
New Frontiers

Setlist Willow

Setlist Customs

Intro
Where The Moon Spends His Days
Shut Up, Narcissus
Talk No Nonsense
Tonight We All Stand Out
Justine
Violence
We Are Ghosts
Rex

Transmission (Joy Division cover)
The Matador

The Unknown Beauty Of the 80's

2010-10-31T09:16:00.003+01:00

And I hereby present Volume 22.

01. Bill Pritchard - Pas De Plaisanterie
02. Peter Godwin - The Art Of Love (UK remix)
03. The Angels - Fashion And Fame
04. Box Of Toys - Old Man Rome
05. This Island Earth - Fireflowers
06. Boys Don't Cry - I Wanna Be A Cowboy
07. Fashion - TRader
08. Eyeless In Gaza - What I Want To Know
09. The Big Dish - Reverend Killer
10. Dislocation Dance - Show Me
11. EBN-OZN - Big Lady (I wonder)
12. Blue Zoo - I'm Your Man
13. Dalek I Love You - Masks & Licenses
14. H2O - Hollywood Dream
15. China Crisis - Be Suspicious
16. Nick Heyward - Stolen Tears
17. Associates - Reach The Top
18. Leisure Process - Loce Cascade
19. The Mood - Paris Is One Day Away

The Unknown Beauty Of the 80's

2010-10-31T09:01:00.004+01:00

This time it is volume 21.

01. Endgames - Waiting For Another Chance
02. Wild Swans - No Bleeding
03. China Crisis - Watching Over Burning Fields
04. Thomas Leer - Chasing The Dragon
05. Sophie & Peter Johnson - Torn Open
06. Shack - High Rise Low Life
07. Peter Koppes - Take A Vow
08. H2O - Blue Diamond
09. Waterfront - Dancing With Strangers
10. Strawberry Switchblade - Let Her Go
11. The Dream Academy - Indian Summer
12. Nick Heyward - Strange Life
13. Kissing THe Pink - Certain Things Are Likely
14. Fra Lippo Lippi - The Distance Between Us
15. Picnic At The Whitehouse - We Need Protection
16. The Adventures - Your Greatest Shade Of Blue
17. Mobiles - Drowning In Berlin
18. Hurrah! - Velveteen
19. The Cars - Magic
20. Bette Bright - All Girls Lie

The Unknown Beauty Of the 80's

2010-10-18T12:40:00.002+02:00

And that brings us to Volume 20 this week.

01. New Musik - Warp
02. Endgames - Love Cares
03. Thomas Leer - All About You
04. Kissing The Pink - The Last Film
05. China Crisis - Cucumber Garden
06. Echo & The Bunnymen - The Killing Moon
07. Orchids - Peaches
08. Stephen Duffy - I Love You
09. Thrashing Doves - Angel Visit
10. Respect ft. Philip Oakey - What Comes After Goodbye
11. Friends Again - Lullaby No 2
12. B-Movie - My Ship Of Dreams
13. Elvis Costello & The Attractions - Everyday I Write The Book
14. The Blue Nile - The Second Act
15. Our Daughters Wedding - Always Be True
16. Vitamin Z - Circus Ring
17. Box Of Toys - It Goes Without Saying
18. It's Immaterial - Several Brothers
19. Throwing Muses - Dizzy

The Unknown Beauty Of the 80's (reposts)

2010-10-11T15:54:00.013+02:00

Okay, like I wrote some weeks ago, people have been asking for older volumes, so today I repost Volume 11 to 14 again.

Volume 11 tracklist

Volume 12 tracklist

Volume 13 tracklist

Volume 14 tracklist

For tracklist check out the older posts, or follow the tracklist links.

Please feel free to send in your reactions.

The Unknown Beauty Of The 80's

2010-10-11T15:21:00.003+02:00

This week brings us to Volume 19.

01. Two People - People In Love
02. New Musik - Luxury
03. Paul Haig - Love And War
04. Fiat Lux - this Illness
05. H2O - Burn To Win
06. Flynn - The Nobody Inn
07. The Big Supreme - What Love Means
08. Cocteau Twins - Pearly-Dewdrops' Drops
09. Chris Duffy - All The Time In The World
10. Swing Out sister - Another Lost Weekend (long version)
11. Billy MacKenzie - Ice Cream Factory
12. Foreign Press - Love In A Strange Place
13. Hey Elastica - This Town
14. Mummy Calls - Let's Go
15. Gangway - Come Back As A Dog
16. Power - Soul In My Shoes
17. The Lover Speaks - Still Faking This Art Of Love
18. The Primitives - Crash
19. China Crisis - Orange Mutt Mutt Dance

The Trilogy Show

2010-10-11T15:11:00.006+02:00

Fischer-Z, live at the Mezz, Breda on 30 August 2010.

I was in the second class of the Senior General Secondary Education, when Fischer-Z scoored a minor hit with Marliese, not shortly after I saw a performance of John Watts during the No-Nukes festival on the Dutch TV. A broadcast that still brings back warm memories, cos it also introduced me to the music of The Stranglers, The Sound and Ideal. Since then I have been following John Watts, unfortuantly never been able to see him live. I bought his solo records, the album of The Cry and the later albums of Fischer-Z re-incarnation.

So I was kind of surprised learning that John Watts would play two concerts in the Netherlands, one as a support of Simple Minds. Since I've seen quite some concerts of the Simple Minds over the past few years, I decided to visit the Fischer-Z concert at the Mezz in Breda.

It turned out to be a good decision, since John Watts] and co did a great concert, with a great setlist of songs from the first three Fischer-Z albums. With Sam Walker, Matthew Gest and Matthew Waer John Watts got a great band, which are able to perform in a high standard. The performance of the tracks was outstanding, and the major part of the setlist are favourites of mine.

So I really enjoyed the concert and I am looking forward to new dates of this line-up of Fischer-Z, silently hoping John Watts will play a solo concert soon as well.

Setlist:

Remember Russia
Wax Dolls
The Worker
Lies
Pretty Paracetamol
Room Service
So Long
Crazy Girl
Crank
Berlin
In England
Battallions Of Strangers
Red Skies Over Paradise
Marliese

Pick Up / Slip Up
Limbo

Band:

John Watts - Vocals, guitar
Sam Walker - Drums, backing vocals
Matthew Gest - Keyboards, backing vocals
Matthew Waer - Bass, backing vocals

Ending On A High Note - Farewell to Amsterdam

2010-10-11T12:48:00.011+02:00

A-Ha live at the HMH, Amsterdam on 10-10-2010.

The support Jimmy Gnecco, and his band Ours which helped him to perform his first released solo-material, had just flown in the other day, maybe in the same plane as the one where Solomon Burke died in just before landing. They were given a change to start up the crowd with a performance of fourty minutes. As said they played material from Jimmy's first solo album The Heart, which sounded very promising for a first listen.

At nine o'clock the lights went out and a classical intro was played, after that a keyboard tune followed with Morton singing short phrases over it as if he was practising his voice. Then the band came on and opened with The Sun Always Shines On T.V. It took them three songs, in which Morton wore his sunglasses, to get into the mood. With Scoundrel Days the voice was warm and the band relaxed as if to say the professional photographers are gone it is time to start the party. What followed was a show with a lot of greatest hits and some nice unexpected albumsongs.

Halfway through the concert a three song acoustic set was played with the new single Butterfly, Butterfly (the last hurray), albumtrack (seemingly) Nonstop July and the Everly Brothers cover Crying In The Rain.

Was the set before the acoustic intermezzo mostly eighties orientated, except for The Bandstand, from their 2009 album Foot Of The Mountain, after the acoustic intermezzo, it was mostly songs from their last four albums after 2000. Unfortuantly the worse performance of a track was one of my favourite song of the last period Minor Earth Major Sky. It was played inspireless, without fire. Something I didn't miss during most of the performance, where they played enthusiastic and with compassion.

At half past ten they left the stage and a video was played on the screen, showing pictures of album sleeves, singles and band. After this the band returned for the first three encores. During The Living Daylights the crowd got a change for some audience anticipation time, some sing along, while Paul stirred up the crowd, and a card with Amsterdam was shown on the screen with footage from the crowd.

The last encore was their first hit Take On Me that lanched their career in 1985. Then it was over, 25 years of A-Ha music finished in nearly two hours. A last goodbye, a last farewell, the stage went empty, the lights got on, and the crowd woke up and left the hall. An icon of the eighties will gone to rest, although the band tours for another two months through Europe to end their career during a three night performance at Oslo in early December.

Band:

Morton Harket - Vocals, guitar, percussion
Magne Furuholmen - Guitar, backing vocals
Paul Waaktaar-Savoy - Keyboards, backing vocals

with:

Karl Oluf Wennerberg - Drums
Erik Ljunggren - Keyboards, bass

Setlist:

The Sun Always Shines On TV
Move To Memphis
The Blood That Moves The Body
Scoundrel Days
Stay On These Roads
Manhattan Skyline
Hunting High And Low
The Bandstand
We're Looking For The Whales
Butterfly, Butterfly (the last hurray) (acoustic)
(seemingly) Nonstop July (acoustic)
Crying In The Rain (acoustic)
Minor Earth Major Sky
Forever Not Yours
Summer Moved On
I've Been Losing You
Foot Of The Mountain

Cry Wolf
Analogue
The Living Daylights

Take On Me

The Unknown Beauty Of the 80's

2010-10-04T12:37:00.000+02:00

Volume 18

01. McCluskey Brothers - Slip Away
02. The Indian Givers - Hatcheck Girl
03. Bonk - Cupid In Cars
04. Love & Money - Saint Henry
05. The Painted Word - I Found Love Today
06. Claudia Brücken - Whisper
07. Fiat Lux - Blue Emotion
08. Person To Person - High Time
09. Furniture - Brilliant Mind
10. Big Audio Dynamite - E=MC2
11. Fra Lippo Lippi - Naive
12. Strawberry Switchblade - Trees And Flowers
13. The Lotus Eaters - You Fill Me With Need
14. The Wild Swans - Whirlpool Heart
15. Pete Shelley - You Can't Take That Away From Me
16. Picnic At The Whitehouse - Success
17. John Foxx - Enter The Angel
18. Westworld - Sonic Boom Boy
19. Altered Images - I Could Be Happy

I have been asked to re-post some old volumes. I will try to upload them later this week. Meanwhile enjoy this volume.

The Unknown Beauty Of the 80's

2010-09-25T15:20:00.002+02:00

A week later and here is Volume 17.

01. Yellow Magic Orchestra - Technopolis
02. Paul Haig - The Only Truth
03. Clark Datchler - True Confessions
04. Friends Again - State Of Art
05. The Lotus Eaters - Set Me Apart
06. Rhythm Of Life - Uncle Sam
07. Endgames - We Feel Good
08. Blaine L Reininger - Paris En Automne
09. The Kane Gang - Gun Law
10. It's Immaterial - Gigantic Raft
11. Tin Tin - Hold It
12. Esquire - Moving Together
13. Thomas Lang - The Happy Man
14. New Musik - While You Wait
15. Frank Tovey - Luxery
16. Fiat Lux - Aqua Vita
17. Fashion - Eye Talk
18. B-Movie - Polar Opposites
19. The Only Ones - Another Girl, Another Planet
20. Japan - Quiet Life

Midge Ure remasters

2010-09-25T14:51:00.008+02:00

After all Ultravox albums were digital remastered and re-released during 2008 and 2009, now EMI will release The Gift and Answers To Nothing, the first two solo albums, of Midge Ure as remastered definitive editions.

Besides the remastering of the original albums both second discs contains a lot of interesting material, which, besides B-sides and the single - and/or extended version of the singles, include unreleased live and work in progress material. Both albums will be released on the 4th October 2010, just before the European tour of Midge Ure.

The track list of The Gift is:

Disc 1

01. If I Was
02. When The Wind Blows
03. Living In The Past
04. That certain Smile
05. The Gift
06. Antilles
07. Wastelands
08. Edo
09. The Chieftain
10. She Cried
11. The Gift (reprise)

Disc 2

01. No Regrets
02. Mood Music
03. If I Was (extended mix)
04. Piano
05. The Man Who Sold The World
06. That Certain Smile (extended mix)
07. The Gift (instrumental)
08. Fade To Grey (live)
09. Wastelands (extended mix)
10. When The Wind Blows (live)
11. After A Fashion (live)
12. The Chieftain / The Dancer (live)
13. Call Of The Wild (extended mix)
14. That Certain Smile (live)
15. The Gift (live)

The tracklist for Answers To Nothing is:

Disc 1

01. Answers To Nothing
02. Take Me home
03. Sister And Brother
04. Dear God
05. The Leaving (so long)
06. Just For You
07. Hell To Heaven
08. Lied
09. Homeland
10. Remembrance Day

Disc 2

01. Answers To Nothing (extended version)
02. Honorare
03. Oboe
04. Dear God (extended version)
05. Music #1
06. Sister And Brother (alternate single edit)
07. All Fall Down (live)
08. Strange Brew (live)
09. Dear God (live)
10. Just For You (live)
11. Sister And Brother (work in progress mix) (no vocals)
12. Music #2
13. Answers To Nothing (work in progress mix)
14. Just For You (work in progress mix)
15. Sister And Brother (work in progress mix) (with vocals)

The Unknown Beauty Of the 80's

2010-09-19T23:35:00.003+02:00

Sorry for those who were waiting for a new Volume. It has been awhile since I wrote a last entry and for sure even longer when I shared a Volume with you. But well finally here you find Volume 16.

Volume 16

01. Nick Heyward - My Pure Lady
02. Fiat Lux - Feels Like Winter Again
03. Mainframe - 5 Minutes On..
04. Esquire - Sunshine (alternate mix)
05. Eyeless In Gaza - All Lone Hours
06. Paul Haig - Big Blue World
07. English Evenings - Those Briliant Teens
08. Zip - Your Love
09. Dalek I - Holiday In Disneyland
10. Planning By Numbers - Lightning Strikes
11. Our Daughters Wedding - Target For Life
12. Martin Hall - Spiral
13. Bonk - The Smile & The Kiss
14. Two Minds Crack - Cry Cry Cry
15. Two People - Heaven
16. Vitamin Z - Angela
17. Pseudo Echo - Walkaway
18. Faith Brothers - Sunday
19. Gangway - You & Yours
20. Bill Nelson - Quit Dreaming And Get On The Bean
21. Voice Farm - Elevate (7" version)

Return To Eden 2

2010-05-06T13:03:00.008+02:00

Ultravox, 26 April 2010 at the Paradiso in Amsterdan

The third time in a year that I saw the "classic line-up" perform. The 2CD and DVD of Return To Eden, the registration of the Return To Eden concert at Camden Roundhouse, which I visited last year April, hadn't been out of my players, after they arrived in early April and the released setlist through the forum of the Ultravox website promised a nice evening of great music. And it turned out to be a great evening.

This time the Belgium violist Sonja Haering, known for her contributions on records of André Rieu turned out to be a much better support, than the singer of last year. Her performance was static, but the songs were promissing.

At 8:30 Ultravox opened their set with New Europeans, one of the "new" tracks compared to the setlist of last year. It turned out the opening of a very strong concert. Midge Ure's vocals were great, certainly he has grown during the year. Even the high pitches of Vienna and Dancing With Tears In My Eyes went well. The band was in great shape, very enthousiastic and playing with a very positive drive. It was great to have White China and Love's Great Adventure in the setlist, but unfortuantly they weren't the strongest songs of the set.

That turned out to be Hymn, in which the audience participation turned out to be great. Other highlights were Passing Strangers, the slow songs Visions In Blue and Rage In Eden and One Small Day.

Compared to the first leg of Return Of Eden the digital walls were replaced by white blankets and lots of lights which turned out an improvement. Now and then slides were showed on the blankets, which gave a nice effect.

After 20 songs, nearly one hour and fifty minutes later, the band left the stage of a damp Paradiso. They had shown that the music of the eigthies is still very much alive and the audience showed that Ultravox still is a great band to watch and cheer with.

Setlist:

New Europeans
Passing Strangers
We Stand Alone
Mr X*
Visions In Blue
Thin Wall
I Remember (Death In The Afternoon)
Astradyne
Rage In Eden
Hymn
Lament
One Small Day
All Stood Still
White China
Vienna
Reap The Wild Wind
Dancing With Tears In My Eyes

Love's Great Adventure

Sleepwalk
The Voice

Band:

Midge Ure - Vocals, guitar, synths
Billy Currie - Synths, violin, backing vocals
Criss Cross - Synths, bass, backing vocals
Warren Cann - Drums, percussion, vocals on *, backing vocals

Return To Eden

2010-04-09T07:36:00.008+02:00

Finally after nearly a year on the fifth of April the long awaited live album Return Of Eden was released by Chrysalis. This stunning album, recorded at the Camden Roundhouse on 30 april 2009, is released in two formats. A 13 track CD only version and a 2CD + DVD version with the complete concert and an extra documentary.

The sound is great, clear and well balanced, the setlist, for those who visited the tour last year, well known by now. The atmosphere that evening was very special. It was such a great concert and seeing Ultravox perform, for me, after 25 years again, was so special, that I am very pleased I choose to visted this concert.

As I wrote last year in the concert review, it was mainly based on the first two albums Vienna and Rage In Eden of the Currie, Cross, Cann, Ure line-up, filled up with the singles of Quartet and Lament. A good setlist with just one dissonance, mentioned by several reviewers already last year, the song Your Name Has Slipped My Mind Again. The song was played just after the band started to play the uptempo songs and public favourites. Still the band decided to put the complete setlist on CD and DVD.

But well the guys and those at Chrysalis did a great job, and present us with a great document of one of the leading synthpop bands of the eighties. For sure this album will get you ready for the second leg of the Return To Eden tour, which took of on the sixth of April.

CD only version:

01. Astradyne
02. Passing Strangers
03. Mr X
04. The Thin Wall
05. I Remember (death in the afternoon)
06. Rage In Eden
07. Lament
08. One Small Day
09. Vienna
10. Dancing With Tears In My Eyes
11. Hymn
12. Sleepwalk
13. The Voice

2CD + DVD version:

01. Astradyne
02. Passing Strangers
03. We Stand alone
04. Mr X
05. Visions In Blue
06. The Thin Wall
07. I Remember (death in the afternoon)
08. Rage In Eden
09. Lament

01. One Small Day
02. All Stood Still
03. Your Name Has Slipped My Mind Again
04. Vienna
05. Reap The Wild Wind
06. Dancing With Tears In My Eyes
07. Hymn
08. Sleepwalk
09. The Voice

01. Astradyne
02. Passing Strangers
03. We Stand alone
04. Mr X
05. Visions In Blue
06. The Thin Wall
07. I Remember (death in the afternoon)
08. Rage In Eden
09. Lament
10. One Small Day
11. All Stood Still
12. Your Name Has Slipped My Mind Again
13. Vienna
14. Reap The Wild Wind
15. Dancing With Tears In My Eyes
16. Hymn
17. Sleepwalk
18. The Voice

DVD Extra: Building Eden: The Reformation Documentary

tour dates for 2010:

April 2010 - UK

06 Birmingham - Symphony Hall
07 Liverpool - Philharmonic
08 Manchester - Apollo
10 Oxford - New Theatre
11 Hammersmith - Apollo
12 Bristol - Colston Hall

April 2010 - Europe

14 Modena, Italy - Vox Club
15 Zurich, Switzerland - The Volkshaus
17 Munich, Germany - TonHalle
18 Offenbach, Germany - CAPITOL
19 Cologne, Germany - Musical Dome
21 Hannover, Germany - CAPITOL
23 Hamburg, Germany - Grosse Freiheit 36
24 Berlin, Germany - Admiralspalast
26 Amsterdam, Netherlands - The Paradiso
27 Copenhagen, Denmark - Pumpehuset
28 Stockholm, Sweden - Berns
30 Oslo, Norway - Sentrum Scene

May 2010

01 Bergen, Norway - Old Bull Theatre, Bergen Music Festivla
03 Bochum, Germany - Zeche
05 Luxembourg - Den Atelier

* Live pictures were taken by myself last year at the Roundhouse.

The first stunning album of the year

2010-03-26T22:08:00.008+01:00

Lovers of female vocals synthpop, with an eighties edge, for sure you can say they are living a marvelous and golden age. After Ladytron and Goldfrapp took off some years ago, it seems a new wave is coming from the UK again. To name some Little Boots, La Roux, Polly Scattergood and the stunning Marina & The Diamonds.

After releasing the singles 'Mowgli's Road' and 'Obsessions' and the EP The Crown Jewels, expectations were very high for the Greek/Welsh singer Marina Diamandis. Hollywood was the next single a very strong synthpop song with Keane alike piano base, strong Hazel O'Conner alike vocals and wow what a sound.

And just after releasing 'I Am Not A Robot' as a single, already available on last years The Crown Jewel, the album The Family Jewel is released. And what an album, all four singles are on it. But the album contains another nine great songs and to be honest the album rocks from start to end and asks for a replay at once.

My highlights of the album are opener 'Are You Satisfied?', 'Shampain', 'Hollywood', "Oh No!' and the beautiful "Rootless' . Marina is original, mixing diverse styles in her great songs. Okay you hear the influences, Florence And The Machine in 'Girls' and 'Are You Satisfied?', Goldfrapp and ABBA in 'Shampain', in fact it sounds like Goldfrapp going all the way to play ABBA, Kate Bush in the vocals and the piano of several of the songs, Hazal O'Conner in the rocky vocal bits. But overall this album is so strong. And I know the year is young but this could turn out to become the best I will hear this year.

If you visit the official Marina & The Diamonds website, you can download the radioproof remix of 'Hollywood'. When you become a Diamond member you get access to a link to the Passion Pit remix of 'I Am Not A Robot'.

Tracklist:

01. Are You Satisfied
02. Shampain
03. I Am Not A Robot
04. Girls
05. Mowgli's road
06. Obsessions
07. Hollywood
08. The Outsider
09. Hermit The Frog
10. Oh No!
11. Rootless
12. Numb
13. Guilty

score: 9 out of 10

No room for nonsense

2010-03-02T13:38:00.003+01:00

Customs played the Paradiso, Amsterdam on 01 March. Customs is a Belgium combo of four retrofuturists, known for melody, atmosphere and mathematical edge. Influences detected by several journalists include: The House of Love, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Sound, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry and Cocteau Twins. and you can add nowaday bands like Editors and Interpol to that list.

So tonight they played the small hall of the Paradiso in Amsterdam. After the Kraftwerk intro the band opened with The Matador, their third single of their album Enter The Characters, which just has been released in the Netherlands, but already available for several months in Belgium. The sound was excellent, well balanced and very tight. From the start Customs were able to win the crowd for them. With a strong setlist, including the cover Shine On of The House of Love they played three quarter of their debut with a moving crowd from begin to end, which seemed to know more than their singles Justine and Rex.

The sound was heavier then on the album, and the keyboard samplers were hardly used.

Setlist:

The Matador
Tonight We All Stand Out
Talk More Nonsense
Justine
Where The Moon Spends His Days
Violence
Shine On (The House of Love cover)
We Are Ghosts
Rex
Shut Up, Narcissus.

Band:

Kristof Marie August Albert Uittebroek - vocals, guitar
Joan Willy August Govaerts - bass
Jelle Florentius Mark Janse - guitar
Ace Mirko Zec - drums

Back to the music

2010-01-12T20:06:00.001+01:00

These days are filled with music and less internet. I'm not in the mood to wander through websites, read blogs or spend time on e-mail. I went back to my cabinet, opened it and took out the CD's I wanted to hear again after so many years. Music which filled up the free times of the past, when you lay on your bed studying, or reading a book while the records made their rounds.

So yesterday I played mostly Toyah records. Started from Sheep Farming In Barnet and ended with Love Is The Law. Albums I hadn't heard for quite some time and which I enjoyed a lot to hear again. During the first part of the eigthies I was a huge fan of Toyah Willcox, having all her records and most of the singles. A school friend introduced me to her music, and I remember borrowing the records from the library of Haarlem. A cycle trip we undertook each couple of weeks with a small group of friends. Afterwards we visited the record stores, where I started to buy the Toyah albums and singles.

Yesterday evening we went to the funeral centre. Spent an hour alone with the body of my dad, with our family and some unkles and aunts who had come over as well. Afterwards we went to my sister's place and drank some coffee. Discussed the music for the service on Thursday. We watched some songs on YouTube and afterwards my oldest nephew started asking questions about certain bands his music teacher had discussed in class, I showed him some bands I like on YouTube, after he told me his teacher loved eighties progressive rock and bands like Yes and Rush.

I told him to come over soon some day so I could show him some stuff of the music I like. As a result I played only Rush today. And that was some time ago that I played their stuff. I think I had to go back to 2004, that I played some stuff to get into the R30 tour, which for me turned out to be a diseaster. I arrived at the concert when they already were playing more than half an hour. And left much to early. Since my girlfriend didn't like it. As with Toyah I went back to their eigthies period when they made progressive rock. I became really interested in the band after hearing several songs from their album Power Windows on the Dutch radio. I knew the band from their early hard rock songs like In The Mood and Working Man. Now I learned a complete different band, which made great powerful progressive rock with songs like Manhattan Project, Marathon and Big Money. Power Windows was one of the first albums I bought on CD. When in 1988 Rush played the Rotterdam Ahoy during their Hold Your Fire tour I was there and enjoyed the concert, just like several years later during their Roll The Bones tour.

The Unknown Beauty Of The 80's

2009-12-31T10:23:00.003+01:00

Volume 15

The last volume of the year.

01. Blue Nile - I Love This Life
02. Human Sexual Response - Land Of The Glass Pinecones
03. League Of Nations - Fade
04. CCCP - American - Soviets
05. Howard Jones - Angels & Lovers (single mix)
06. Gleaming Spires - A Christian Girl's Problem
07. Profil - Berühren
08. Kim Wilde - Shane
09. Other Ones - All The Love
10. Flue - Fancy Free
11. New Math - They Walk Among You
12. Immaculate Fools - Immaculate Fools
13. Cook Da Book - Your Eyes
14. Simon LeBon - Grey Lady Of The Sea
15. Neon - The Same ritual
16. The Listening Pool - Where Do We Go From Here
17. Jon Astley - Jane's Getting Serious
18. Lax - Ronnie's Song
19. Den Harrow - Future Brain
20. Esquire - To The Rescue

the final 15 of 2009

2009-12-31T09:40:00.005+01:00

The last day of the year brings me to the final list of the best albums for me over the year 2009. I have to say it was a good year. I discovered some nice new bands which turned out to become live favourites soon afterwards. Also this final list contains a nice mixture of new releases and re-releases. Because 2009 turned out to be a great year of re-releases.

01. (01) Editors - In This Light And On This Evening (2009)
02. (02) White Lies - To Lose My Life... (2009)
03. (--) No-Man - Mixtaped (2009)
04. (09) Thomas Dolby - The Golden Age Of Wireless (collector's edition) (2009)
05. (03) Muse - The Resistance (2009)
06. (--) Keane - Hopes And Fears (deluxe edition) (2009)
07. (10) Florence And The Machine - Lungs (2009)
08. (05) H2O - Faith (remastered) (2009)
09. (11) Ultravox - Lament (remastered definitive edition)(2009)
10. (--) A-Ha - Foot Of The Mountain (2009)
11. (04) Depeche Mode - Tour Of The Universe (Werchter) (2009)
12. (07) Porcupine Tree - The Incident (2009)
13. (--) Simple Minds - Graffiti Souls Tour (Amsterdam)(2009)
14. (14) Coldplay - LeftRightLeftRightLeft (2009)
15. (15) IQ - Frequency (2009)

The Unknown Beauty Of The 80's

2009-12-03T13:30:00.003+01:00

Volume 14

01. Two People - Mouth Of An Angel
02. The Wild Swans - Bible Dreams
03. Rhythm Of Life - Soon
04. 39 Lyon Street - Kites
05. Robert Lloyd - Nothing Matters
06. Fiat Lux - Solitary Lovers
07. Pookah Makes 3 - Lucky Lucky Lucky
08. The Dolphin Brothers - Shining
09. Academy - Stand Up!
10. Our Daughters Wedding - Automusic
11. Boom Boom Room - Take Your Time
12. Win - Shampoo Tears
13. Alan Rankine - The Sandman
14. Private Lives - Break The Chains
15. English Evenings - Touch
16. Nik Kershaw - When I Grow Up
17. Buzzcocks - I Believe
18. Psychic TV - Godstar
19. Bill Pritchard - Tommy & Co
20. Camouflage - Love Is A Shield (extended)
21. The Big Dish - Faith Healer

Graffiti Soul Tour 2009

2009-12-01T20:48:00.004+01:00

Simple Minds & Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
Heineken Music Hall, 26 November 2009

An evening of music of two bands I follow since the early eigthies. I became interested in the Simple Minds with the release of New Gold Dream in 1982, and already knew Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark with their great album Architectury And Morality, which are both albums that I count in my list of top albums if the eigthies.

So it wasn't hard for me to get some tickets, when I learned during the Lokeren Festival, where Simple Minds performed with Ultravox, another great eigthies band, that Simple Minds would return to mainland Europe with OMD as their secial guests.

At half past seven OMD took of with a setlist mainly filled with singles. It was nice to see the band again after a two hiatus, at least for me. They are working hard on a new album for a release in late 2010, but meanwhile it was a nice surprise to see them on stage again although only for an hour.

At nine Simple Minds took off with a a rather changed setlist compared to the show in Lokeren just three months ago. For this tour they had a background singer again, and besides tracks from their new album Graffiti Soul, they had given their back catalogue a new look and took out some golden oldies which turned into a surprising setlist. Good to hear perform them tracks like Thems Of Great Cities and In Trance As Mission after so many years. And although the new album bring them musically back to the eigthies, still the songs aren't that strong as they were back in those days.

The nicest thing of the evening was the performance of the Kraftwerk cover Neon Lights with both Simple Minds and OMD on stage.

It was a good concert, but I would give them the advice to stop using Ghostdancing / Gloria as the last encore. It starting to become boring. since I knew what to expect by that time I had left the venue to get my train back home.

Overall a good night of great music.

Setlist Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark:

Messages
Tesla Girls
Electricity
Forever Live and Die
She's Leaving
Souvenir
Joan Of Arc
Maid Of Orleans
Statues
Talking Loud And Clear
Locomotion
So In Love
Sailing On The Seven Seas
Enola Gay

Setlist Simple Minds:

Theme Of Great Cities
Sanctify Yourself
Stars Will Lead The Way
Waterfront
Big Sleep
All The Things She Said
Moscow Underground
See The Light
Streetfighting Years
Sons And Fascination
Someone Somewhere (in summertime)
In Trance As Mission
Somebody Up There Likes You
Once Upon A Time
One Step
Don't You (Forget About Me)
Miracle
Glittering Prize
Let It All Come Down
New Gold Dream

Neon Light (with OMD)
Alive And Kicking
Let There Be Love
Rockets
Ghostdancing

The Unknown Beauty Of The 80's

2009-12-01T19:56:00.003+01:00

Volume 13

01. Academy One - Forever And Ever
02. Shack - Ali's Vacation
03. Random Hold - Walking On The Edge
04. Robert Lloyd - Funeral Stomp
05. The Light - Pride Of Winning
06. The Swinging Laurels - Peace Of Mind
07. Martin Gore - In A Manner Of Speaking
08. Pookah Makes 3 - Take It Back
09. Paul Haig - Something Good
10. Way Of The West - Drum
11. 21 Strangers - More Cain Than Abel
12. Martin Ansell - Shine
13. Shock - Angel Face
14. De Film - Here We Are
15. Alan Rankine - Last Bullet
16. Andy Pawlak - Mermaids
17. The Big Supreme - Let's Turn Our Love Around
18. Boys From The East - Brilliant
19. Black - Everything's Coming Up Roses
20. Boom Boom Room - Here Comes The Man
21. Empire - Talk Free
22. Men Without Hats - Living In China
23. Bourgie Bourgie - Careless

The present tour

2009-11-15T12:21:00.009+01:00

Yes at the Waerdse Tempel, Heerhugowaard on 14 November 2009

Band:

Benoit David - Vocals
Steve Howe - Guitar
Chris Squire - Bas
Oliver Wakeman - Keyboards
Alan White - Drums

A nice evening of Yes music I have to say. The band returned to an early eigthies way of line-up, Steve Howe, Chris Squire and Alan White, accompanied by two new members, Benoit David and Oliver Wakeman, which gave the band a change to perform tracks that hadn't been performed since Jon Anderson returned in 1982. It was great to hear them perform Tempus Fugit and Machine Messiah.

The setlist wasn't well balanced, but it gave a good idea of what the band has been capable of writing over the fourty years of existance. Benoit David sounds a lot like Jon Anderson but he is able of creating a complete different atmosphere on stage. And well what is it with the Wakeman family, it seems they're all capable of playing like pater familias Rick Wakeman. Oliver Wakeman played like he was in Yes for years, as if a young copy of his dad had returned.

They had a great setlist, bringing back tracks that hadn't been performed that much over the years by other line-ups. Steve Howe had his acoustic moment again in the middle of the set. Unfortuantly after that moment they turned up the sound drastic, when an uninspired Owner Of A Lonely Heart was played. To me one of the depth points of the set.

Setlist

Siberian Khatru
I've Seen All Good People
Tempus Fugit
Onward
Astral Traveller
Yours Is No Disgrace
And You and I
Steve Howe Solo
Owner Of A Lonely Heart
Southside Of The Sky
Machine Messiah
Heart Of The Sunrise
Roundabout

Starship Trooper

Top 15 of recent released albums

2009-10-04T13:30:00.021+02:00

It's been a couple of months since I first started this item. Since then a couple of very strong albums were released and yes this has had an impact on me listening to music. This meant a lot of great albums were dropped in favourite of new albums, which even produced a new number one.

01. (--) Editors - In This Light And On This Evening (2009)
02. (01) White Lies - To Lose My Life... (2009)
03. (--) Muse - The Resistance (2009)
04. (--) Depeche Mode - Tour Of The Universe (Werchter) (2009)
05. (08) H2O - Faith (remastered) (2009)
06. (07) Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid (live at Abbey Road) (2009)

07. (--) Porcupine Tree - The Incident (2009)
08. (02) Keane - Perfect Symmetry (2008)
09. (--) Thomas Dolby - The Golden Age Of Wireless (collector's edition) (2009)

10. (--) Florence And The Machine - Lungs (2009)
11. (--) Ultravox - Lament (remastered definitive edition)(2009)
12. (04) Simple Minds - Graffiti Souls (2009)
13. (10) Echo And The Bunnymen - Ocean Rain Live 2008 (2009)
14. (06) Coldplay - Left Right Left Right Left (2009)
15. (11) IQ - Frequency (2009)

The Unknown Beauty Of the 80's

2009-09-18T10:26:00.003+02:00

Volume 12

01. Scary Thieves - Tell Me Girl
02. Vitamin Z - Burning Flame
03. Microdisney - Town To Town
04. The Adult Net - Waking Up In The Sun
05. Terry Blair & Anouchka - Ultra Modern Nursery Rhyme
06. Secession - Fire Island
07. The Comsat Angels - Will You Stay Tonight
08. The Painted Word - Independence Day
09. The Quick - Hip Shake Jerk
10. Yello - I Love You (7" version)
11. Virgin Dance - Are You Ready For That Feeling
12. The Caretaker Race - Somewhere On Sea
13. Millions Like Us - In Love With Yourself
14. The Mock Turtles - Strings & Flowers
15. Dollar - Give Me Back My Heart
16. Swans Way - When The Wild Calls
17. The Adventures - Another Silent Day
18. Power - Work Hard
19. Giant Steps - (the world don't need) Another Lover
20. B-Movie - Remembrance Day (extended)
21. Clark Datchler - I Don't Want You!
22. China Crisis - Scream Down At Me

The more you hear, the more you love

2009-09-10T20:52:00.004+02:00

Paradiso, Amsterdam 09 September 2009

It was 25 years ago that A Flock of Seagulls played in the Netherlands. Then at the Noorderligt in Tilburg, this time it was at the Paradiso in Amsterdam. In all those years a lot has changed. The 'new romantics' was at its highlights, and A Flock of Seagulls had scored a small hit with The More You Live the More You Love, and Mike Score was a fashion icon with his hairstyle.

Nowadays it is a band living on the fame of their early eigthies hit I Ran, which became a hugh top ten hit in the US, but hardly did anything in the Netherlands. It were the singles Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of You), and The More You Live the More You Love which gave the band some success overhere.

It also is a band that consists of a founder member accompanied by new members. Of the original band only Mike Score is present, accompanied by Joe Rodriguez on guitar, Pando on bass and Micheal Brahm on drums. The sound of the band was heavy but very well balanced, and contained tracks from all albums except from Dream Come True. There even was room for new, guitar orientated, songs like Naked and She Won't Let You.

But most of the tracks of the setlist were from their selftitled debut, which were mostly situated at the second half of the setlist, and were welcomed by great applaus and a lot of sing-a-long.

Highlights for me were The More You Live the More You Love, Remember David (a great favourite for me from the album The Story of a Young Heart), Man Made (which was introduced as a visit to the end of the world)

For me it was a trip down to memory lane. I enjoyed every minute of the show, and was a bit disappointed that it all ended just after ninety minutes.

Band:

Mike Score - Vocals, keyboards
Joe Rodriguez - Guitar, backing vocals
Pando - Bass, backing vocals
Michael Brahm - Drums

Setlist:

Modern Love Is Automatic
Hearts On Fire
Rainfall
The More You Live The More You Love
Setting Sun
Naked
She Won't Let You
Man Made
Space Age Love Song
Traveler
Telecommunication
Quick Sand
Remember David
Messages
Wishing (if I had a photograph of you)
I Ran

Nightmares

The Unknown Beauty Of The 80's

2009-08-01T21:09:00.002+02:00

Volume 11

01. Sons Of Heroes - Strange Eyes
02. Empire - My Imagination
03. Associates - Those First Impressions
04. Fiat Lux - Secrets
05. English Evenings - What's The Matter With Helen
06. Cava Cava - Brother Bright
07. The Pale Fountains - ... From Across The Kitchen Tabel
08. Electric Guitars - Language Problems
09. B-Movie - Scare Some Life Into Me
10. The Time Dance - Picture
11. Gangway - My Girl And Me
12. Perfect Day - Jane
13. Waterfront - Nature Of Love
14. Dalek I Love You - Ambition
15. The Passion Puppets - Voices
16. Haircut 100 - Too Up Two Down
17. The Light - Contrasting Strangers
18. H2O - You Take My Breath Away
19. Bonk - I'm Not Unusual
20. The Painted Word - Frances
21. Clark Datchler - Broken Spirit

Exposure 88

2009-07-18T22:05:00.005+02:00

After the release of Double Exposure, Steven Wilson decided to focus on his own projects. No-Man had had a good start from both Exposure albums, and soon afterwards his new progressive band Porcupine Tree would be formed which is still active and will release a new album The Incident soon followed by a hugh European tour.

But from the now turned prog lowlands, The Netherlands, came some new volunteers to carry the flag. Main man was Peter Lindenbergh, also responsible for a magazine in English on progressive rock called Freia. In later years the editorial staff would change the name to Background Magazine.

Since it wasn't an English project anymore, this album features only main land European bands, with the Netherlands delivering three out of eight contributors.

In the years to follow this release The Last Detail, Asgard, Isildurs Bane and Odyssice would become names in the prog scene. The most important thing of this compilation was the fact that the musical atmosphere of the progressive rock scene were shifting and changing. Isuldurs Bane, Barrock and Odyssice play instrumental orientated songs, but where Odyssice and Barrock choose for a more rock orientated structure, Isildurs Bane goes for a more classical and Genesis (Winds & Wuthuring era) alike sound. The Last Detail is a band which choose for short melodic songs, while Asgard goes for the longer midieval and gothic orientated longer tracks.

Tracklist

The Last Detail - Mirrors
Barrock - The Witch
Harnakis - Temps d'Esser
Achet-Aton - a Pagan Song
Rivendel - Jardin Secreto
Isildurs Bane - The Second Step
Asgard - The Tale
Odyssice - Losing Her

10cc - Greatest Hits and more Tour

2009-07-15T08:04:00.007+02:00

10cc did a theatre tour through the Netherlands during February and March. I recently found the time to write a late review about it.

It sounds strange but it turned out to be a great succes. 10cc nowadays is mainly Graham Gouldman, the only founder member left of the four who started 10cc in 1972. Besides Graham Gouldman Rick Fenn and Paul Burgess are involved with the band since 1977. Mick Wilson joined in 2000 and Keith Hayman is the musical director of Cliff Richard and working with 10cc since 2006.

Still the subtitle for the tour is "Featuring Graham Gouldman and Friends". But it's nice to see such respected artists perform in a theatre creating an intimate atmosphere. Although I've never seen the legendary line-up or the two plus line-up in later years, this re-incarnation of 10cc delivers a good evening of great songs performed with a lot of fun and enthusiasm. It was just a walk along memory lane with a pack of great seventies hit singles, some sixties tracks written by Graham Gouldman for various artists during those days like The Hollies and Herman's Hermits, some nice album tracks like Old Wild Men and From Rochdale To Ocho Rios and the Graham Gouldman/Andrew Gold track Ready To Go Home from 10cc's final studio album Mirror Mirror from 1996.

It turned out to be over much sooner than expected. But what a concert it was. One of the best I have ever visited. A great performance.

Setlist:

The Wall Street Shuffle
The Things We Do For Love
Good Morning Judge
I'm Mandy Fly Me
Life Is A Minestrone
Art For Art's Sake
Bus Stop (acoustic)
No Milk Today (acoustic)
Feel the Benefit
The Second Sitting For The Last Supper
Old Wild Men
Silly Love
Donna
The Dean And I
From Rochdale To Ocho Rios
I'm Not In Love
Dreadlock Holiday

Ready To Go Home
Rubber Bullets

Double Exposure

2009-07-12T13:07:00.008+02:00

A year after the release of Exposure, Double Exposure was released. This time more bands wanted to anticipate in the concept. So in the end it turned out to be a double vynil album with contributions from England, Spain, Germany, The Netherlands and Italy. Again the concept was to give bands a change, which just had released an album or were in the progress making one. But this time it turned out to be that bigger names were involved.

Ishtar - M'Allegro Molto Vivace
The Bond - Seriously Sibling
Mazlyn Jones - First Light
Heimdal - Somnis
No Man Is An Island Except For The Isle Of Man - Faith's Last Doubt
Anthony Philips - Promenade
Rousseau - Breakfast At Tiffany's
Airspeed - Far Away Screams
Haze - In The End
Plenty - Forest Almost Burning / Sacrifice
Rog Patterson - Party Piece
Galadriel - Summit
Abel Ganz - Dangers Of Strangers
Weirdstone (the old trip) - Circles
Egdon Heath - In The City
Notturno Concertante - Nocturne

Anthony Philips is the best known participant on the album. Guitarist in the first line-up of Genesis, left the band in 1970 and has had a very productive solo career with various styles on a lot of albums. But what to think of The Bond, band of ex Twelfth Night singer Geoff Mann, Abel Ganz again, like of course No Man...
Even the old band of Tim Bowness, Plenty, is featured with a song Forest Almost Burning / Sacrifice, of which the first one turned up on the Girl From Missouri EP in 1989 (see earlier post for the No-Man version).

The contribution of Abel Ganz is from their third tape Dangers of Strangers, which was released some years later on CD by Ugum, and re-released by Witness in 2005. Now the band has a new re-release with bonustrack (the version of Dangers of Strangers from this album) and enhancement (video of making Dangers of Strangers) avialable through their own website. Dutch band Egdon Heath contribued the title track from their first release In The City.

Galadriel, Rousseau and Haze were already established bands in the scene. Rog Patterson tried it on his own this time and bands like Isthar, Weirdstone and Heimdal came up as quick as they disappeared afterwards.

Here it is

Exposure

2009-07-10T11:19:00.005+02:00

I think it was somewhere around 1984 when I listened to the radio on a frequent base. Every Thursday we had a two hour program running on the Dutch radiostation Hilversum 3 in which they played tracks from new albums. It was a great program called LP Show. A couple of years later they changed the name to the CD Show.

It was a well known program where they played every style of music, normally without talking through the intro and outtro of the music, and on several occations they broadcasted live shows. Through this show I discovered new music. Became interested in bands like Marillion, Pallas, IQ and Pendragon, and so into progressive rock, or the neo-prog as it was called, since all these bands were from the eighties.

It was also around this time that a small Dutch magazine called Sym-Info was starting, and this magazine brought more names to my attention. It was basicly an A5 magazine at the start filled with reviews, but later on with interviews. Since they knew the music they were promoting was hard to find, they gave addresses of the artists to order their music. On a later date, when changed to SI Magazine and working on a more professional base, they had their own ordering and distribution.

In 1985 a young musician called Steven Wilson, ex-member of Karma, decided to do something different releasing a compilation album on own control. He asked bands to contribute a song for this release, and recorded his contribution "From A Toyshops Window" under the name "No Man Is An Island Except For The Isle Of Man". Seven other bands, mainly from the UK but two from Spain, contributed a song to the compilation. All bands were starters or had just released a cassette album. It turned out to be a great idea and in the following years two more volumes saw the light. The albums came under my attention through the magazine and I ordered them directly from Steve Wilson.

Nowadays from all eight bands only Abel Ganz and No-Man are active. It was strange for Twice Bitten, since Rog Patterson and Greg Smith had gone their seperate ways by the time the album came out. Borag Thungg changed their name to Gogo Street but disappeared soon afterwards as well. Comedy Of Errors released their EP some time later, and recorded several tapes before disappearing in the early nineties. So did Coltsfoot. On the Spainish bands I don't have any information.

Exposure (1986)

Abel Ganz - The Unholy War
Coltsfoot - Autumn
Pharaon - Medianoche
Borag Thungg - Song Of The Vineyard
No Man Is An Island Except For The Isle Of Man - From A Toyshop Window
Twice Bitten - End Play
Comedy Of Errors - Time There Was
Aletsesoida - Living On Earth

The Unknown Beauty Of The 80's

2009-07-10T10:57:00.002+02:00

Volume 10

01 Flynn - The Only One
02 Thomas Leer - Number One
03 B-Movie - Forever Running
04 It's Immaterial - Heaven Knows
05 Wild Swans - Revolutary spirit
06 Two People - Rescue Me
07 Turquoise Blue - We Are Lost
08 Vitamin Z - Dancers Of Eve
09 Endgames - First Last For Everything
10 Box Of Toys - Precious Is The Pearl
11 Mick Karn - Buoy
12 Pete Shelley - Waiting For Love
13 Peter Godwin - Images Of Heaven
14 The Big Dish - Prospect Street 85
15 Cava Cava - Where's Romeo
16 Foreign Press - The Great Divide
17 Care - Flaming Sword
18 Academy - On The Beach
19 Matt Fretton - It's So High
20 Bill Pritchard - Romance Sans Paroles

No-Man - Mixtaped Launch Event

2009-07-07T21:09:00.004+02:00

August 22nd, The Rosemary Branch Theatre, Islington, London

20 years after performing its debut concert at the venue, No-Man returns to The Rosemary Branch for the launch of the band's forthcoming double DVD, Mixtaped.

The presentation will consist of a special 70 minute preview of last year's Bush Hall performance (in widescreen and 5.1 surround sound), a 20 minute excerpt from the No-Man documentary Returning, and a 5.1 showing of the videos for Back When You Were Beautiful (especially commissioned for Mixtaped) and Wherever There Is Light.

There will be two screenings at 2pm and 7pm.

No-Man merchandise will be on sale and Tim Bowness, Steven Wilson and Mixtaped/Returning director Richard Smith will be in attendance at both showings.

Please note that tickets are extremely limited due to the size of the venue and no refunds can be given.

Venue location: Rosemary Branch

Chech out at: No-Man website

Repost No-Man

2009-07-07T15:23:00.004+02:00

Several people have asked me to repost the eigthies material of No-Man. So here it is again.

No-Man is the band of Steven Wilson and Tim Bowness and dates back to the late eighties. After playing in Karma and Pride Of Passion Steve Wilson decided to start his own band. The first release, From A Toyshop Window, of this band, called No Man Is An Island Except For The Isle Of Man was released on the compilation album Exposure (1986). On this track Wilson plays all the instruments. It's a very progressive rock orientated song. On the Double Exposure album from 1987 the name is cut to No Man Is An Island, and ex plenty vocalist Tim Bowness and Stuart Blagdan on guitar have joined the band. Faith's Last Doubt is the track featured on this compilation.

In 1989 The Girl From Missouri 12" is released which shows a hugh step forward towards the music No-Man is known for these days. Violin player Ben Coleman has joined the band and Blagdan has left. Later that year they change the name to No-Man and release the Swagger tape.

From 1990 untill today No-Man releases albums during unregular periods and through a great variety of record companies. Check their website for more info.

The eighties period of the band contains the following tracks:

From A Toyshops Window
Faith's Last Doubt
Flowermouth
Life Is Everywhere
Bleed
Mouth Was Blue
The Girl From Missouri
Forest Almost Burning
Night Sky, Sweet Heart
The Ballet Beast

An evening without silence

2009-07-07T11:54:00.021+02:00

TW Classic, Werchter 20 June 2009

Recently I visited the latest edition on TW Classic in Werchter. It wasn't really a classic line-up but it turned out to be unforgettable.

The first artist I saw that afternoon was Tom Helsen. He's a Belgium singer, who I got to know through his collaborations with Milow. His music is a cross between Milow and a Dutch band called City To City, which had their moment of fame in 1999 when they scored a number one hit in the Netherlands with The Road Ahead. So not a very special sound a bit like middle of the road music but a nice opener. I missed Motor so I can't tell how they were.

Setlist Tom Helsen:

Sun In Her Eyes
Bring It Home
Change Yourself
Longface
Numbers & Figures
Shades
Night And Day
Easy
Slowly
Home
Out Of Something
Every Little Thing
When Marvin Calls

Next in the program was Duffy. She became known to the public through her singles Stepping Stone and Mercy. Her first album Rockferry refers to the sixies, a period Amy Whinehouse like to refers to as well. On the album Duffy sings with a very mature and nice voice, but live she sounds like a thin high pitched girl with a lot of annoying vibrations at the end of every singing line. The only impression left after her performance was the clothing she wore. Since at that time it was turning colder, and she walked around on stage in a short and on high heels.

Setlist Duffy:

Rockferry
Hanging On Too Long
Rain On Your Parade
Serious
Stepping Stone
Cry To Me
Breaking My Own Heart
Warwick Avenue
Stay With Me Baby
Delayed Devotion
Stop
Mercy

My first highlight for the day Keane was the next. Since their first album Hopes and Fears I've been a great fan of the trio from Sussex, who delivers a great sound for a threesome and delivers great singles which become hit after hit. I was hoping for a good setlist including a lot of the singles, and I wasn't dissapointed. To be honest, although I'm a hugh fan of Depeche Mode for over 25 years now, It was the best performance of the day. Every song was brought with great enthusiasm and the band tried to play as much songs in an hour as possible. Although the standard of the performance was very high, there were highlights: Perfect Symmetry, one of my favourites of the last album, Is It Any Wonder? one of the singles from Under The Iron Sea and Under Pressure the Queen / David Bowie song that Keane first performed for the War Child curation concert in 2007. A very positive point towards the band was the great interaction between Tom Chaplin and the crowd.

Setlist Keane:

The Lovers Are Losing
Everybody's Changing
Bend And Break
Spiralling
This Is The Last Time
You Haven't Told Me Anyything
Is It Any Wonder?
You Don't See Me
Perfect Symmetry
Somewhere Only We Know
Crystal Ball
Under Pressure
Bedshaped

Moby had to do a good job to impress me. I'm not that familiar with his work, except for the singles. Thank god he played some, and also thank god for not playing a set full of dance and house songs. His setlist turned out to be a bit rocky, and although the bass was loud throughout his performance, it was acceptable once you were off the festival ground. I spend the duration of his concert mostly outside the vences where the drinks and food were cheaper. It was a pity because I had prefered Keane standing on the spot having an hour and an half to play their music instead of Moby.

Setlist Moby:

Extreme Ways
In My Heart
Go
Sitboth
Raining Again
Bodyrock
We Are All Made Of Stars
Mistake
Porcelain
Pale Horses
Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad
That's When I Reach For My Revolver
Walk With Me
Find My Baby
Natural Blues
Lift Me Up
Feeling So Real

The last band for me was Depeche Mode. This was the band where I bought my ticket for in the first place. When they annouced in October 2008 that Depeche Mode would be the headliner of TW Classic 2009 I had bought my tickets quickly. I was anxious to hear the new album, but was a bit disappointed about the new songs, certainly because I like the sound of Playing The Angel a lot, which unfortuantly was only featured with one track: Precious. I already knew that probably five or six songs of the new album would be in the setlist, but well that's just one fourth of the tracks they presented during the nearly two hours they played. They played a decent setlist, with some of my favourite tracks like Home, brought solo by Martin Gore, In Your Room, Enjoy The Silence and Stripped, and tracks going back to halfway the eigthies. But what I missed, and witnessed during earlier tours in the eighties and nineties, was the interaction with the audience. Dave Gahan used to stir up the crowd, but now he was more interacting with the band than with the audience. Now and then they tried to do some audience anticipation time, like during Never Let Me Down, when the audience waved their hands from left to right. I remember the old days when a concert of Depeche Mode was More Than A Party (a track they should bring back in the setlist btw). Still the acoustic evening closer Waiting For The Night gave me the creeps and completely satisfied I returned to Leuven and sat down on the terrace of one of the pubs, where while drinking some La Chouffe beers, I relived the concerts of Keane and Depeche Mode, and felt really satisfied.

Setlist Depeche Mode:

In Chains
Wrong
Hole To Feed
Walking In My Shoes
It's No Good
A Question Of Time
Precious
Fly On The Windscreen
Little Soul
Home
Come Back
Peace
In Your Room
I Feel You
Policy Of Truth
Enjoy The Silence
Never Let Me Down Again

Encore #1
Stripped
Master And Servant
Strangelove

Encore #2
Personal Jesus
Waiting For The Night (Bare Version)

Top 15 of recent released albums

2009-07-07T10:06:00.009+02:00

At the moment i'm enjoying my holiday and listen to a lot of (mostly) new music. In my present top 15 there are some great new bands, to me, with very good releases.

01. White Lies - To Lose My Life... (2009)
02. Keane - Perfect Symmetry (2008)
03. The Script - The Script (2008)
04. Simple Minds - Graffiti Souls (2009)
05. 10CC - Windows In The Jungle (japanese re-release + bonustracks) (2006)

06. Coldplay - Left Right Left Right Left (2009)
07. Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid (live at Abbey Road) (2009)
08. H2O - Faith (remastered) (2009)
09. It Bites - The Tall Ships (2008)
10. Echo And The Bunnymen - Ocean Rain Live 2008 (2009)

11. IQ - Frequency (2009)
12. Ultravox - The Very Best Of (2009)
13. Steven Wilson - Insurgentes (2009)
14. Depeche Mode - Sounds Of The Universe (2009)
15. No-Man - Schoolyard Ghosts (2008)

Other albums that need to be mentioned and get a recent re-play, but are not in my top 15 at the moment, are:

Propaganda - A Secret Wish (special edition) (1984)
Marillion - Seasons End (2 disc remastered) (1997)
Pseudo Echo - Teleporter (2000)
Glass Tiger - The Thin Red Line (1986)
Cetu Javu - Southern Lands (1989)
Anne Clark - The Sitting Room (1982)
Peter Schilling - The Different Story (world of lust and crime ) (1989)
Live - The Distance To Here (1999)

And a lot of A Flock Of Seagulls.

The nicest thing of this top 15 is that I was able to see some of these bands perform live recently as well, or will be seeing live soon.

Seen:

No-Man - De Boerderij, Zoetermeer 3 September 2008
10CC - De Slof, Beverwijk 28 Februari 2009
IQ - De Boerderij, Zoetermeer 24 April 2009
Ultravox - Camden Roundhouse, London 30 April 2009
Keane - TW Classic, Werchter 20 June 2009
Depeche Mode - TW Classic, Werchter 20 June 2009

Upcoming:

Simple Minds - Lokerse Feesten 8 August 2009
Ultravox - Lokerse Feesten 8 August 2009
Keane - The Hague Beatstad 29 August 2009
A Flock Of Seagulls - Amsterdam Paradiso 09 September 2009
White Lies - Amsterdam Paradiso 21 Oktober 2009

Wouldn't It Be Good

2009-05-18T21:49:00.017+02:00

Nik Kershaw played with band at Zeche in Bochum, Germany on Saturday 16 May 2009. We drove up to Bochum in the early afternoon, arriving in our hotel around half past three. The hotel Schmidt-Mönnikes was nicely situated, about a five minute drive from the venue. Also the hotel is in a nice suburb with a beautiful park full of rhododendrons. We had a nice walk through the park and afterwards, after returning back at the hotel, had dinner at Vitrine, the restaurant which is in the same building as the hotel.

We arrived at the venue at a quarter to eight and had to wait for half an hour before the band and of course Nik Kershaw came on stage. They opened with Wide Boy.

Close to the stage the voice of Nik was drowing out. Furtherup in the venue his voice was better, but sounded more shrill and sharp. Also I had the idea that he looked tired and the sound was way too loud. I don't know if this was to mask the mistakes which were made during the first twenty minutes of the concert or that the keyboards were out of sound. I had the idea that Simon Carter was hired at the last minute to play his parts, cos he played all from paper and sometimes was out of tune. Compared to Paul Geary and Adam Evans his performance was poor.

Still I liked the concert and was singing along most of the time. At least he played my all time favourite Get Up. It was a bit overwhelming thou that so much of the uptempo songs were in the setlist and that the sound was mostly guitar orientated. The interaction on stage between Nik and Paul was great, and Paul was having a lot of fun.

Overall a good setlist which covered most of his work and had enough hits in it. To me the highlights were The Riddle, Get Up and Somebody Loves You. The build-up to the end of the setlist was well done. The Chesney Hawkes hit The One And Only was a nice surprise in the setlist, which was remodelled to the Kershaw trademark. Great to end up with Human Racing and I Won't Let The Sun Go Down On Me as encores, cos they're of course public favourites. Great too to finally hear Oxygen in a nice played acoustic version.

Band:

Nik Kershaw - Vocals, guitar
Paul Geary - Bass, b. vocals
Bob Knight - Drums
Simon Carter - Keyboards
Adam Evans - Guitar, b. vocals

Setlist:

Wide Boy
Oh You Beautiful Thing
Radio Musicola
Times Like These
Dancing Girls
Have A Nice Life
Loud, Confident And Wrong
Get Up
Bogart
The Riddle
Promises Promises
Don Quixote
Somebody Loves You
Billy
The One And Only
You Might
Wouldn't It Be Good

Oxygen (acoustic)
Human Racing
I Won't Let The Sun Go Down On Me

Return To Eden

2009-05-15T11:48:00.013+02:00

It took me some time to come up with a review for this concert. It was great to go to London after more than ten years. And during your stay get a change to see one of your favorite bands makes it more special. We arrived in time to have a quick dinner down the road at Fogg. A nice restaurant with a card referring to the travel Phileus Fogg undertook according to Jules Verne’s book Around The World In 80 Days. They’ve got meals from all the continents Philieus Fogg crossed during his trip. You can choose your own courses or decide to take a complete meal.

When I entered the Roundhouse I was able to get a last soundbit of the support, Anne-Marie Helder, who sounded dreadful. I was glad I had spent the duration of her performance to some quality time in a nice restaurant.

At a quarter after eight the lights dimmed and Ultravox stepped on stage and took off with Astradyne. From that moment the atmosphere was great. Both band and audience were enjoying the gig. Billy Currie was met with great applause and jelling when he took his violin and walked to the edge of the stage. For the next nearly two hours it was a walk down memory lane with highlights of the Chrysalis period of Ultravox. The emphasis of the setlist layed mostly on the albums Vienna and Rage In Eden, while Quartet and Lament were presented by the singles only. The sound was very good, with the real highlights being Visions In Blue, Rage In Eden, Hymn and the second encore The Voice, which contained the full percussion ending.

It was great seeing the band again after 25 years, when I visited them in Vredenburg, Utrecht during the Lament tour. This time they did it as a four piece, then they were assisted by The Messengers on keyboards and backing vocals. I was really impressed, and except for Your Name (has slipped my mind again) enjoyed all the tracks they played. The audience was outstanding, cheering a lot, which resulted in a very enthousiastic band as well.

Band:

Warren Cann - Drums, percussion, vocals
Cris Cross - Bass, keyboards, b. vocals
Billy Currie - Keyboards, violin, b. vocals
Midge Ure - Vocals, guitar, keyboards

Setlist

Astradyne +
Passing Strangers +
We Stand Alone #
Mr X +
Visions In Blue *
The Thin Wall #
I Remember (death in the afternoon) #
Rage In Eden #
Lament $
One Small Day $
All Stood Still +
Your Name (has slipped my mind again) #
Vienna +
Reap The Wild Wind *
Dancing With Tears In My Eyes $
Hymn *

Sleepwalk +
The Voice #

+ Vienna (1980)
# Rage In Eden (1981)
* Quartet (1982)
$ Lament (1984)

A Flock Of Seagulls

2009-04-14T21:09:00.006+02:00

Being a fan for many many years I was really surprised the band decided finally, after 25 years, to do an European tour again. I am aware of the fact that it's only Mike Score nowadays who's left of the old line-up. Still I like to see them, because back in 1984 I was unable to visit the famous Noorderligt at Tilburg. On 09-09-09 A Flock Of Seagulls will play the well known Paradiso theatre in Amsterdam.

I became an instant fan of the four when I heard I Ran on the radio. But it was Wishing (if I had a photograph of you) which really turned me into AFOS. Through the years I was able to track down most of their vynil releases. And of course the CD's followed as well. I even became a member of the Airborne Division. With the internet things changed and in 1996 I was able to get a CDR copy of most of the b-sides and rare recordings of AFOS ripped from vynil, which I like to share with you. The recordings are from the period 1982 - 1985 when they had the line-up of:

Mike Score - Vocals, keyboards
Frank Maudsley - Bass, backing vocals
Paul Reynolds - Guitar
Ali Score - Drums

A Flock Of Seagulls - B-Sides

01. Talking (remix) (from the original Cocteau 12")
02. Talking (instrumental) (from the original Cocteau 12")
03. Factory Music (from the original Cocteau 12")
04. Pick Me Up (I Ran b-side)
05. Windows (Space Age Lovesong b-side)
06. The Last Flight Of Yuri Gagarin (Nightmares b-side)
07. Rosenmontag (extended version) (Nightmares b-side)
08. Tanglimara (It's Not Me Talking b-side)
09. The Traveler (live) (Wishing b-side)
10. Comitted (Wishing b-side)
11. I Ran (live) (Transfer Affection b-side)
12. Quicksand (Transfer Affection b-side)
13. Never Again (the dancer) (dance mix) (Never Again b-side)
14. Living In Heaven (Never Again b-side)
15. The More You Live, The More You Love (full moon mix) (TMYL, TMYL 12")
16. Lost Control (totally) (TMYL, TMYL b-side)

BTW the Airborne Division is still alive.

This is not all. Here you find a link to a concert registration of the Full Moon Tour, recorded in Toronto 1984.

The Unknown Beauty Of The 80's

2009-04-04T13:46:00.006+02:00

Volume 9

01 Alan Rankine - The World Begins To Look Her Age
02 Duran Duran - The Chauffeur
03 Gene Loves Jezebel - Desire
04 Human League - Seconds
05 Eight Point Five - Mary
06 The Cry - Laughing & Crying
07 A Drop In The Gray - Heartache Feeds Heartache
08 Dial - Modern Day Love
09 Empire - This Is My Word
10 King - Won't You Hold My Hand Now
11 Data - Fallout
12 B-Movie - Ship Of Dreams
13 H2O - Who'll Stop The Rain
14 EBN-OZN - AEIOU Sometimes Y
15 Dukes Of The Stratosphere - Vanishing Girl
16 Box Of Toys - I'm Thinking Of You Now
17 David & David - Welcome To The Boomtown (album version)
18 Hidden track

The Unknown Beauty Of The 80's

2009-04-04T13:45:00.002+02:00

Volume 8

01 The Thought - There's A Boy (remix)
02 Boom Boom Mancini - Red Skies
03 Shop Assistants - I Don't Want To Be Friends With You
04 Rain Parade - Mystic Green
05 Toyah - Rebel Run
06 Henry Badowski - My Face
07 The Allies - Emma Peel
08 Stephen Duffy - I Love You
09 Robert Marlow - The Face Of Dorian Gray
10 Pseudo Echo - His Eyes
11 Altered Images - Don't Talk To Me About love
12 Hazel O'Conner - Eighth Day
13 Tones Or Tail - Go
14 Bodeans - It's Only Love
15 Reward - It Must Be Love
16 Playing By Numbers - Automatic Introductions
17 This Other Eden - Angels Tell Lies
18 Pop Will Eat Itself - There Is No Love Between Us Anymore
19 The Fools - World Dance Part (remix)
20 Camera Obscura - Destitution
21 Industry - State Of The Nation
22 The Reels - Comedy
23 After The Fire - 1980-F

The Unknown Beauty Of The 80's

2009-04-04T13:36:00.003+02:00

Volume 7

01 The Police - Synchronicity I
02 Theatre Of Hate - Do You Believe In The Westworld
03 Dial M - House Of Joy
04 Kids In The Kitchen - Current Stand
05 Our Daugther's Wedding - Lawnchairs
06 Dekkan Danse - I Can't Believe It
07 The Boomtown Rats - Talking In Code
08 The Thought - The Rise And The Fall
09 One The Juggler - Everyday
10 The Jericho - Muscle Deep (single version)
11 Blue Train - Wheels Go Round
12 Ministry - I'm Falling
13 Icehouse - Walls
14 The Tempest - Bluebelle
15 Roaring Boys - House Of Stone
16 It's Immaterial - Ed's Funky Diner
17 Fashion - Love Shadow
18 Re-Flex - How Much Longer
19 H2O - Turn Back In Anger
20 Romeo Void - Say No
21 The Act - Too Late At 20

Enjoy.

No-Man - Mixtaped

2009-03-31T10:11:00.002+02:00

'Mixtaped' concert DVD/CD, documentary and new No-Man material

The live recordings from the No-Man mini-tour of autumn 2008 are now complete in terms of audio soundtrack and visuals.

The band are planning a double DVD release in spring/summer 2009, which will be called 'Mixtaped'.

The DVD will feature a second disc comprising a detailed documentary on No-Man's history, written and produced by Richard Smith and featuring interviews with Tim and Steven, as well as several extras.

An audio CD of the best of the Bush Hall performances, also called 'Mixtaped', is likely to be released at a later date.

No-Man - Wherever There Is Light

2009-03-31T10:03:00.003+02:00

No-Man will be releasing a new EP in summer 2009 (most probably in early May).

The EP will be called 'Wherever There Is Light' and will feature one previously released track plus new recordings and live audio/visual content (serving as a taster for the forthcoming live DVD).

The full tracklisting for the EP is:

Wherever There Is Light
Death Was California
Counting
Carolina Skeletons (live)
All The Blue Changes (live)
Wherever There Is Light (video)
All The Blue Changes (live video)

'Wherever There Is Light' is taken from last year's 'Schoolyard Ghosts' album (as is the accompanying video for the track) and features frequent band ally Theo Travis on flute and ex-American Music Club pedal steel guitarist Bruce Kaphan. All of the live tracks were taken from No-Man's concert at Bush Hall, London on 29th August 2008 and feature the full live band.

The new studio tracks were recorded at No-Man's Land during 2008 and 2009 and feature a guest performance by the live band electric violinist Steve Bingham (on the track Counting).

The Icicle Works

2009-03-28T13:47:00.005+01:00

In 1985 "The Small Price Of A Bicycle" was the second album of The Icicle Works after the critical acclaimed self tittled debut album of 1984, which featured the hit single Birds Fly (whisper to a scream).

The band consisted of:

Robert Ian McNabb - Vocals; Guitar; Keyboards.
Chris Layhe - Bass; Keyboards; Violin; Backing Vocals.
Chris Sharrock - Drums and Percussion

Guest:
Jacques Loussier on Rapids
Lip Service - Brass on All The Daughters (of her father's house)

The album was produced by Wally Brill, engineered by Richard Manwaring with assistance of Jacques de Jacques. Hollow Horse produced by Hugh Jones. All The Daughters (of her father's house) produced by Geoff Muir and The Icicle Works, remix engineer, Gary Thomas.

tracklist

Hollow Horse
Perambulator
Seven Horses
Rapids
windfall
Assumed Sundown
Saint Sojourn
All The Daughters (of her father's house)
Book Of Reason
Conscience Of Kings

The Ward Brothers

2009-03-24T16:49:00.006+01:00

On a recent CD hunt in Alkmaar I was able to collect some nice eighties albums again, which I will share over the next couple of weeks. The first album to share is of the band The Ward Brothers from Barnsley who made one album "Madness Of It All" for Siren Records in 1986. The band consisted of:

Dave Ward - Lead and backing vocals, percussion and drums
Derek Ward - Keyboards and programming
Graham Ward - Guitars and backing vocals

Guests on the album are:

Martin Bullard - Synth bass and keyboards (joined Smokie in 1988)
Wesley Magoogan - Saxophone on "Why Do You Run"
Louis Restro - Bass and additional keyboards on "Madness Of It All"

The album was produced by Mike Howlett and engineered by Steve Power.

"Madness Of It All" produced by Don Was with Frank Fillipetti. Engineered by Frank 'Sushi' Filipetti.
"Cross That Bridge" produced by Don Was. engineered by Phil Brown.

"Madness Of It All" recorded at Soundtracks and Righttracks, New York. "Cross THat Bridge"recorded at Flexible Response, Bradford and Parkgate Studios, Sussex.

All other tracks recorded at Battery Studios, London on Mitsubishi 32 track digital.

Tracklist:

Why Do You Run
Easy Prey
I Trusted You
Over The Border
Shadows Of You
Don't Talk To Strangers
Limbo
Cross That Bridge
Madness Of It All
Easy Prey (cloth cap mix)*
Don't Talk To Strangers (brown mac mix)*
Cross That Bridge (kitchen sink mix)*
Madness Of It All (instrumental)*

* Bonustracks

Vynil expansion

2009-03-08T11:10:00.016+01:00

Last week I decided to check at a recycle shop in the village. I checked one about a month ago at Beverwijk, a nearby city, but that turned out negative. Coming home from work I decided to pop in. And I was suprised to find 11 12 inches, nearly all bands that weren't that known in the Netherlands during the eighties. And for just 75 cents each it was a bargain, considering the good condition most of them are in.

Have been playing some of them a lot these days. Blossom Child was the first one that became an instant favourite. I Pray is a great song with a nice bass line. The song was a hit in France. Also Roy White turned out very nice. The Sandman of Alan Rankine, known from The Associates, I already knew, as ABC of course.

Here you find some of the songs I was able to track down.

Castanarc

2009-02-07T13:24:00.018+01:00

It's been awhile since I went over to England to interview this band. The trip was nice. I spent some time with friends in Grimsby, and was able to make the trip to Appleby to have an interview with the band and their manager in a local pub. The interview was published in iO Pages 29 (December 2000).

Over the years I always kept appreciating the music of Castanarc. Mark Holiday and David Powell confronted the listener with a mixture of ambient progressive rock and uptempo high-energy rocksongs, in which the band didn’t bogged down in copying their own work, or work of others. But it turned out that in 1999 Castanarc released their final album Little Gods, a beautiful diamond, which continued to follow the atmospheric and musical direction the band undertook in earlier releases like Burnt Offerings and Rude Politics. After the release of Little Gods Mark and David told me they had great plans with their label. Neil Duty had returned and they were setting out a course concerning gigs and releases. There was enough shelved material for one or two sort of Archive albums.

How it turned differently. It seems like Castanarc was shelved shortly after I interviewed the band. John Spence their producer and engineer started to work with Mostly Autumn, Karnataka and Manning (solo project of the singer of Parrallel or 90 Degrees), to name a few.

A complete biography of the band, which I wrote some months ago, can be found at last.fm.

To give an idea of the music the band created over a timespan of 15 years, I enclose a link to a rough compilation, which contains the following tracks:

01. Peyote (Journey To The East)
02. When Doves Become Eagles (Burnt Offerings)
03. New Jerusalem (Rude Politics)
04. The Sun (Little Gods)
05. How Beauty Attracks The Beast (Rude Politics)
06. The Moon (little Gods)
07. No Mans Land (Burnt Offerings)
08. Journey To The East (Journey To The East)

Their discography consists of:

1984 Journey To The East (Peninsula Records Pencil 10)
1987 Journey To The East (Cue Rain CR02)
1988 Burnt Offerings (Cue Rain CUE03)
1988 Rude Politics (RCS PD71884)
1989 This Island Love (Pyramid Records 12PYR09)
1991 Journey To The East (Kinesis KDCD1001)
1998 Rude Politics (Khepra Records KHEP02)
1998 Burnt Offerings (Khepra Records KHEP03)
1998 Little Gods (Khepra Records04)

Furthermore they appear on the following compilations:

1984 Debut "Goodbye To All That" (Debut LC 8942/10 / 804 579-985 )
1993 Ugum Part II "Everything But The Boyd" (MSI UGU 00193)
1995 Kinesis Progressive Rock Sampler One "Peyote" (Kinesis)

The Unknown Beauty Of The 80's

2009-01-20T21:47:00.004+01:00

And here we have Volume 6.

Blue Zoo - Cry Boy Cry
Icicle Works - Understanding Jane
The Lotus Eaters - German Girl
Honeydrippers - Sea Of Love
Academy - Tonight (the world keeps swinging)
The Glove - Perfect Murder
Ellery Bop - We Deny
The Adventures - Send My Heart
Delta - Touch The Earth
The Hooters - Satellite
Fiction FActory - Ghost Of Love
Fra Lippo Lippi - Out Of Sea
The Climb - Touch Me (heaven)
Camouflage - The Great Commandment
Torch Song - Don't Look Now
Dekka Dance - Open Secret
Espionage - The Sound Of Breaking Hearts
Cast Of Thousands - Nothing Is Forever
Haysi Fantayzee - Shiny Shiny (bon temps)
Mi-Sex - People
Seona Dancing - You're On My Side

Return to London

2009-01-11T15:10:00.009+01:00

My first visit to London goes back to 1983. Fourth class of Senior General Secondary Education a group of thirty students visited the capital of England with three teachers as part of a study week abroad. We had fun, went to the Punch and Judy, a pub in Covent Garden, to the free museums, to the Tower Bridge and lot of other sightseeing spots in London and bought records at the famous Harrods. It was a great week, first time off without parents and a bunch of schoolfriends with you.

I returned to London in 1998 and spent a couple of days in the city with friends from Grimsby. Visited some old places and some new places of course. We had fun again and this time bought CD's at the Virgin Store and several other music stores. After seeing London we then spent some days in Oxford, Nottingham and Grimsby before I turned home again.

And now in 2009 at the end of April London will be visited again. This time with a particular reason. After 25 years I will be seeing Ultravox performing live again. I only saw the band performing live once. This was during the 1984 Lament tour, when they played the Vredenburg theatre on 18 September in Utrecht. With a great support of Messengers, who also participated during the Ultravox concert on keyboards and backing vocals. I am really looking forward to this show.

For people interested in the music of Messengers, their album "It's Been Twenty Years, Let's Try Turning Up The Volume", containing 13 tracks, is available through the ultravox website. The album ships with an internet Url, where you can access a note from Danny and Colin and SIX BONUS TRACKS.

The Unknown Beauty Of The 80's

2009-01-02T13:05:00.003+01:00

Happy new year everyone.

I thought I start the year with sharing a new volume of my Unknown Beauty series.

Tracklist of Volume 5:

The Passion - I'm In Love With A German Film Star
4 Out Of 5 Doctors - Anna With Antennea
Flesh For Lulu - I Go Crazy
Nick Heyward - Move It Up
The Box - Ordinary People
After This - Fields
Railway Children - Brighter
Re-Flex - The Politics Of Dancing
The Monitors - Singing In The Eighties
Teardrop Explodes - Reward
Blanket Of Secrecy - Something I Don't Need
The The - This Is The Day
Comsat Angels - You Move Me
Positive Noise - When Lightning Strikes
Sophie & Peter Johnston - Happy Together
Pukka Orchestra - Cherry Beach Express
Julian Cope - World Shut Your Mouth
Bourgie Bourgie - Breaking Point
The Lightning Seeds - Pure
Kirsty MacColl - A New England
Alex Cox - Pray For Rain / Taxi To Heaven

More on No-Man

2008-11-29T16:49:00.011+01:00

No-Man is the band of Steven Wilson and Tim Bowness and dates back to the late eighties. After playing in Karma and Pride Of Passion Steve Wilson decided to start his own band. The first release, From A Toyshop Window, of this band, called No Man Is An Island Except For The Isle Of Man was released on the compilation album Exposure (1986). On this track Wilson plays all the instruments. It's a very progressive rock orientated song. On the Double Exposure album from 1987 the name is cut to No Man Is An Island, and ex plenty vocalist Tim Bowness and Stuart Blagdan on guitar have joined the band. Faith's Last Doubt is the track featured on this compilation.

In 1989 The Girl From Missouri 12" is released which shows a hugh step forward towards the music No-Man is known for these days. Violin player Ben Coleman has joined the band and Blagdan has left. Later that year they change the name to No-Man and release the Swagger tape.

From 1990 till today No-Man releases albums during unregular periods.

The eighties period of the band contains the following tracks:

From A Toyshops Window
Faith's Last Doubt
Flowermouth
Life Is Everywhere
Bleed
Mouth Was Blue
The Girl From Missouri
Forest Almost Burning
Night Sky, Sweet Heart
The Ballet Beast

Winter time

2008-10-26T14:10:00.005+01:00

Last night, during the last weekend of October, it was time to put back the clocks for an hour. A strange phenomenon, decided in 1977, to give people more suntime during the summer. In winter time follows its original path, but in summer the clock goes an hour forward to have more sun during the day.

Although the start of the winter is roughly two months away from now, somehow you get the feeling that it has started with changing the time. So I checked my collection to see if there was something to bring in those long evenings of the winter. Turned out to be a nice list of nice tracks.

So now you can enjoy your winter evenings with a nice collection of wintersongs, while for example reading a good book and/or enjoying a good glass of (winter) beer.

Winter Time

Psyche - Love Is A Winter
Freeez - Caribbean Winter
Aztec Camera - Walk Out To Winter
Big Country - Winter Sky
Camouflage - Winter
The Cure - Winter (studio outtake 1978)
The Dolphin Brothers - My Winter
English Evenings - Winter Feelings
Translator - Winter Crying
Killing Joke - Wintergardens
Bangles - Hazy Shade Of Winter (hazy shade mix)
The Mockers - A Winter's Tale
Music For Pleasure - Winterscenne
Nits - Sometime In Winter
Screaming Trees - Winter song
Fiat Lux - Feels Like Winter Again
Yazoo - Winter Kills
Duran Duran - Winter Marches On
Psyche - Love Is A Winter (reprise)

The Unknown Beauty Of The 80's

2008-10-05T11:00:00.004+02:00

I'm very busy at the moment preparing for an exam, so just an upload of one of the volumes. Enjoy.

Volume 4

Vince Clark & Paul Quinn - One Day
Dial M - Secret Sound
3D - Break The Fix(ation)
Zrra One - Rescue Me
Human League - You Remind Me Of Gold
The Light - Monument
Big Audio Dynamite - The Bottom Line (parts 1 & 2)
Les Enfants - Shed A Tear (there you go)
Video - Somebody (hey girl)
Artery - Into The Garden
The Bible - Red Flag
The Big Supreme - Don't Walk
Troy Tate - Thomas
Rheingold - Triad Diminsions
Wire Train - Half A Lifetime
Fashion - Too Much Too Soon
The Farmers Boys - In The Country
Dear Enemy - Computer One (US mix)
Rouen - Young For A Day
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark - Once When I Was Six

The Unknown Beauty Of The 80's

2008-09-11T19:43:00.002+02:00

A new volume of the series I created last year as an introduction to friends of mine containing more or less unknown tracks.

Volume 3

3D - Dance To Believe
Nik Kershaw - Elisabeth's Eyes
Scary Thieves - Behind The Lines
English Evenings - English Evenings
Our Daughters Wedding - Moving Windows
Red Bamboo - Dance Of Love
H2O - I Dream To Sleep
Siouxsie & The Banshees - Cities In Dust
Act - Where Love Lies Bleeding
The Messengers - The Semi-Professionals (theme no 1)
Class Action - Blast Off
Bill Nelson - Finks And Stooges Of The spirit
Fra Lippo Lippi - Say Something
Roman Grey - Shangri La
De Film - I Saw Your Dream
Pseudo Echo - See Through
Blue Zone - Don't Walk Away
A Drop In The Gray - All The Same
Stephen 'Tin Tin' Duffy - Kiss Me

All Sweet Things

2008-09-05T12:12:00.008+02:00

No-Man, Schoolyard Ghosts Tour
de Boerderij, Zoetermeer
3 September 2008

Finally after years of waiting No-Man made it to mainland Europe. Playing their first gig at de Boerderij in Zoetermeer.

At 8:30 their support Fear Falls Burning, which turned out to be just one man, Dirk Serries, tried to warm up the crowd. But listening to guitarloops played over samples for nearly half an hour isn't my kind of pleasure, so after a couple of minutes I returned to the bar to have another drink.

At 9:15 No-Man kicked off when violinist Steve Bingham played his first string sample into the computer. Three samples followed and the string background of Only Rain played through the venue. Since Micheal Bearpark was having problems with his pedals, Bingham was given more time to play a nice violin solo intro. After five minutes, with the problems solved, the band finally took off.

A nice set of songs was played in the nearly two hours that followed. Besides contributions from their latest album Schoolyard Ghosts, like All sweat things, Truenorth, Wherever There Is Light and Mixtaped, No-Man played a mixture of older tracks from Flowermouth, Returning Jesus and All the Blue Changes.

Of course there were highlights. Days in the Trees, introduced much earlier in the set than played, was one of them. Also Lighthouse, a much heavier performed Carolina Skeletons and encore Things Change, with again nice violin play of Bingham, need to be mentioned.

No-Man played a great gig, with a much more heavier and progressive sound than you normally hear on their records. Although very concentrated, you could see that the band was having fun. The great vocals of the serious looking Tim Bowness, the guitar contributions of Steven Wilson, who sometimes jumped over the stage, and the steady keyboards of Stephen Bennett. It was quite clear the band stood there to play a great gig and creating a nice atmosphere all in service of the songs.

With the encores Things Change and Watching Over Me they left the stage, leaving behind an overwhelmed audience. Like we use to say overhere "We always have the pictures", it's with relieve I can say that the Bush Hall London gig of 29th August was filmed for a DVD release in the near future.

Setlist:

Only Rain
Time Travel in Texas
All sweat things
Pretty Genius
All The Blue Things
Truenorth
Wherever There Is Light
Days in the Trees
Lighthouse
Carolina Skeletons
Returning Jesus
Mixtaped

Things Change
Watching Over Me

Band:

Tim Bowness - Vocals
Steven Wilson - Guitars
Micheal Bearpark - Guitars
Stephen Bennett - Keyboards
Steve Bingham - Electric Violin
Andy Booker - Electric Drums
Pete Morgan - Bass

Read more about No-Man on their website.
Enjoy the introduction

The Unknown Beauty Of The 80’s

2008-08-29T19:57:00.005+02:00

After nearly twenty years it still is a treasure chest with undiscovered compartments. Although I’m interested in nowadays bands, I get more enthusiastic when I discover a band from my teens. Discovering B-Movie gave me more satisfaction than hearing a band like Snow Patrol or Keane. Don’t get me wrong I like them both, but discovering something new, for me at least, from the eighties gives me a kick.

Volume 2

Bolland – Ouverture – You’re In The Army Now
Philip Jap – Save Us
When In Rome – The Promise (7”)
Blanket Of Secrecy – Say You Will
Frazier Chorus – Typical
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark – Annex
Beargarden – A Seaside Song
Paul Haig – Torchomatic
Allez Allez - Valley Of The Kings
Telex - L'Amour Toujours
The Meteors - It's You, Only You
Voice Of America - Seikou
Dollar - Mirror Mirror
The Armoury Show - Castles In Spain
China Crisis - 96.8
Sophie & Peter Johnson - Television Satellite
B-Movie - Nowhere Girl
Human League - Marianne (remix)
The March Violets - Turn To The Sky
The Adventures - Broken Land

It's a piece of my life

2008-08-28T20:06:00.011+02:00

My first contact with photography happened during my high school days. There was a photographic club which mainly worked with black and white films. They had their own darkroom in the cellar of the building near the big cellar room where we held our Friday tea club afternoons, with a lot of good music, and the class parties.

I joined the club with a friend and had fun for several years making and developing my own pictures. Sometimes we spent hours in the darkroom to create, for us, the perfect picture. When I left high school and continued intermediate technical school I changed from black and white to full colour photos, but mainly made them during trips or while being on holiday.

It wasn’t until halfway the nineties that I started to make pictures on a regular base again. During that period I wrote for a Progressive Rock magazine and visited a lot of concerts and did interviews with the artists. So it was easy to take a camera with me and make pictures during the gigs and after interviews. Photography did become a part of my daily life again.

Now in the digital age it’s even easier to make photographs. Every decent mobile contain a camera nowadays and with pages like Flickr.com for example, it has become very easy to publish your pictures.

So to combine two passions of mine, here you find the perfect soundtrack to photographs and pictures.

Photographs and Pictures 1

Berlin – Pictures Of You
Blanket Of Secrecy - Photograph
The Cure - Pictures Of You
Depeche Mode - Photographic
Fashion - You Only Left Your Picture
Fiat Lux - Photography
Peter Gabriel - This Is The Picture (excellent birds)
Japan - Gentlemen Take Polaroids
Hubert Kah - The Picture (renegade ripple mix)
The Lotus Eaters - The First Picture Of You
Luba - Everytime I See Your Picture
No-Man - Photograph In Black And White
The Playground Slap - Pictures Of Age
The Smith - Paint A Vulgar Picture
Talk Talk - Pictures Of Bernadette

Photographs and Pictures 2

The Boomtown Rats - Having My Picture Taken
Boytronic - Photographs
Camouflage -A Picture Of Life
Cee Farrow - Distant Picture
The Chameleons - Dali's Picture
The Comsat Angels - Pictures
Crown Of Thorns - Pictures
Depeche Mode - Photographic (some bizarre version)
De/Vision - Pictures Of THe Past
DEVO - The Big Picture
The Embarressment - Picture Women
Fashion - Something In Your Picture (full frame)
A Flock Of Seagulls - Wishing (if I had a photograph of you)
Midnight Oil - Pictures
November Group - Pictures Of The Homeland
Oingo Boingo - Pictures Of You
Rich Kids - Put You In The Picture
Screaming Trees - Pictures In My Mind
Wire Train - Picture In A Picture

The Unknown Beauty Of The 80's

2008-08-14T11:49:00.005+02:00

A couple of entries ago I wrote about the re-discovery of eighties music. Since then I’ve been searching the net, the record stores, online stores, second hand stores and ebay to collect music from the eigthies. Last year I did a project which as a result turned into 60 discs full of eighties music found during the last five years. Most of it I wasn’t aware of at that time.

So today I introduce you to the first volume of those discs. I hope you have as much fun listening to it as I had with creating them. In the next couple of months I hope to present one on a regular base.

Volume 1

Two People - This Is The Shirt
White & Torch - Miracle
Zerra One - The Banner Of Love
Bamboo Industry - Hypnotized
Cee Farrow - Wildlife Romance (so ramantic)
Cetu Javu - Have In Mind
Data - Stop
Eyeless In Gaza - Stay
Icehouse - Icehouse
Fra Lippo Lippi - Light And Shade
How We Live - Working Girl (demo)
Keep It Dark - Outsider
Thomas Leer - International
One (B-Movie) - I'll Wait
So - Are You Sure
The sound - Winning
This Final Frame - Take No Prisoners
B-Movie - Letter From Afar
Secret Sounds - State Of Sound
Bill Nelson - Acceleration

Soundtrack for a rainy day

2008-08-07T10:26:00.012+02:00

After a couple of days of nice sunny weather, the weather gods decided that it was time to switch to a wet version for a change. I saw a colleague turn in soaked completely. Within the atrium of our building the rain is pooring along the windows as heavy as on the outside, so our facilities manager has some work for the next couple of days.

The funny thing is that immediately you start associating the event with music. So some nice songs popped up which I had to share with you.

Alphaville - Summer Rain
The Blue Nile - Tinseltown In The Rain
Boulevard - Rainy Day In London
Crazy House - Burning Rain
John Foxx - Europe After The Rain
Freiheit - Kissed You In The Rain
H2O - Who'll Stop The Rain
Bruce Hornsby & The Range - Mandolin Rain
Ice Cold In Alice - When The Rain Comes Down
Modern English - Rainbow Ends
Virgin Dance - Rainy Days
The Weather Prophets - Why Does The Rain

Ice Cream Genius

2008-07-31T19:45:00.015+02:00

During the day I was trying to come up with titles for further entries. Since I was paying some attention about the progressive rock band Marillion it was an easy step to Steve Hogarth their singer since 1989. Hogarth started his career in the new wave / synthpop group the Europeans, which consisted of Geoff Dugmore (drums, backing vocals), Ferg Harper (lead vocals, bass), Steve Hogarth (keyboards, lead and backing vocals), Colin Woore (guitars, backing vocals). The band formed in 1980 under the name Motion Pictures, but changed names in 1981 after Hogarth had joined through an add in the music press. They released three albums before the band broke up in 1985. However their first track "Drink Pink Zinc!" appeared on a compilation album titled "The Snoopies Album" from 1981.

Hogarth was the keyboard player of the band and did lead vocals on five out of eight tracks on "Recurring Dreams" and on one the nicest track of their debut album "Vocabulary", he sang "Kingdom Come". The other one is "American People".

After the Europeans he went on with guitarist Colin Woore and formed How We Live. HWL only released the album Dry Land in 1987 with nice new wave / synthpop songs. Although the album was a great icon of musicianship HWL hardly had any commercial success. It almost looks like the album got shelved at CBS, and when the band ran out of money, while working on tracks for a second album, Hogarth decided to quit HWL at the end of 1988. Be honest who had heared of HWL if Hogarth hadn't joined Marillion.

So in 1989 Steve Hogarth joined Marillion after Fish had left. The funny thing is the band had already written several tracks, which in the end musically turned on the Marillion album "Seasons End" and lyrically turned on the Fish album "Vigil In The Wilderness Of Mirrors". Suddenly the fans got two great albums within the year.

I really like both. The Marillion album is one of the best they ever made, which I easily compare with Script For A Jesters Tear and Fugazi. The music is the best they've ever been able to make and even the vocals and lyrics of Hogarth fit well in the overall result. Hogarth does a fine job, and to my opinion makes it easy to forget Fish as the frontman of one of my favourite bands. "The Space", the closing track of the album is a crossover of Marillion and Europeans since the track is written by all Marillion - and European members.

The only problem with both Marillion and Fish turns out to be that they're unable to keep up a stable quality of follow-up releases. "Holidays In Eden is a worse album, although it features the HWL track "Dry Land", and for follow-up releases of Fish it is likewise. "Brave" on the other hand turns out to become one of the best prog albums of the nineties, and Fish celebrates new victories with the album "Suits". Then the quality of new albums drops to doubtful levels 'till the release of Marbles.

It's 1996 when Marillion takes a break and several members work on their own projects. Steve Hogarth releases under the name H the album "Ice Cream Genius". On the album he works with all star band Richard Barbieri (Japan, Porcupine Tree / Synthesizers), Clem Burke (Blondie /Drums), Dave Gregory (XTC / Guitar), and Chucho Merchan (David Gilmour, Pete Townshend / Bass). Here he gets the change again to create his own music, which has become a mixture of new wave, synthpop and progressive rock.

Full discography:

1983: Europeans - Vocabulary
1984: Europeans - Live
1984: Europeans - Recurring Dream
1987: How We Live - Dry Land
1989: Marillion - Seasons End
1991: Marillion - Holidays In Eden
1994: Marillion - Brave
1995: Marillion - Afraid Of Sunlight
1996: Marillion - Made Again
1997: H - Ice Cream Genius
1997: Marillion - This Strange Engine
1997: Marillion - Best Of Both Worlds
1998: Marillion - Radiation
1999: Marillion - Marillion.com
2001: Marillion - Anoraknophobia
2002: The H Band - Live Spirit Live Body
2002: Marillion - The Singles '89 - '95
2004: Marillion - Marbles
2006: Marillion - Crash Course
2007: Marillion - Somewhere Else
2008: Marillion - Happiness Is The Road

For a detailed discography check: for Marillion and for Europeans and How We Live.

Cucumber time

2008-07-31T10:06:00.005+02:00

Half the country is on a holiday nowadays. Half the working building is empty and therefore I am able to play my music a bit louder than normal these days.

In journalistic terms it's called cucumber time, and you can see it everywhere. The newspapers are slim, the news comes with items, that normally hardly make the news and which are blown up to items to fill the time. Well it seems hardly anything is happening in this country these days. Even the musical world seems a bit quiet these days. So I thought which sleeve describes these days the best way and I came up with Marillion's "Garden Party". Cos besides the cucumber time it's great weather for BBQ's and Garden Parties.

It was the first twelve inch I bought of Marillion. Already being a fan of Genesis I fancied the great songs Marillion were making in those early days. I still consider "Script For A Jesters Tear" And "Fugazi" among the best albums made in the eighties. Other neo progressive bands in that list are IQ, with "The Wake", Twelfth Night with "Fact And Fiction" and Pallas with "The Sentinel".

But well this entry is more about parties and gardens. Since the weather is fine, there's is a big change people spend their time in the garden this afternoon and evening. So with this musical download today we return to "The Hanging Garden" of Babylon, have a party on the "Roof Garden", walk through the "Cucumber Garden" (how ironic), end up on "Salvador Dali's Garden Party", which turns from a "World Dance Party" into a "Party Weekend". And all this happens while you walk "Into The Garden".

So party away and enjoy the weather and music.

Hunter and the hunted

2008-07-29T10:39:00.012+02:00

A couple of days ago I was finally putting my vynil records in a cupboard again. On the attic we have created a nice listening and relaxing room with my old audio tower, a television, a DVD player and my old collection of vynil records alongside my collection of music DVD's.

Going through my special singles collection I discoverd that behind every single there's a story. In the mid eighties I organised trips to major Dutch cities with friends to go on record hunting. Those days it wasn't just the big chains of stores you have nowadays. The Free Record Shop, one of the biggest in the Netherlands these days, was a small one those days, which offered the music lover a lot of import 7" and 12" singles, mostly not available elsewhere and sometimes hardly heard on the readio (I bought all my regular Marillion 12" singles there). They only had shops in big cities then like Amsterdam, Haarlem and Utrecht to mention some. Nowadays every small city has one and you find them on railwaystations as well. And while the musical offering was diverse those days, nowadays it's only the titles that sell, so top 40 stuff. Besides that they offer DVD's, books, cell-phones on sale, as long as it sells.

Besides the FRS you had small independent stores with nice collections on sale. I remember a particular one on the Gierstraat on Haarlem. It was a nice store the size of a big livingroom where they sold picture discs, special album pressings, 7" and 12" singles and more collectables. I bought a lot of nice stuff there, including the one from the pictures. I can tell you I spent there a lot of hours and a lot of money. Due to this store I became a big fan of China Crisis. I got most of their 7" singles and a lot of 12 inches as well.

On the Gedempte Oude Gracht, also in Haarlem, there was a store called Elpee. They were more into alternative music. There I got all my records of Toyah. They also had selfmade lyric books on sale. I still have some laying around somewhere.

Those hunts always provided us with new music to listen to. It was exciting to listen to a b-side for the first time. Back then you scrambled through boxes of singles, nowadays you let a computerprogram search the internet. It surely has taken away a lot of excitement and nostalgia.

The music of the pictures can be found here here.

Music was my first love

2008-07-25T15:32:00.012+02:00

The first time I got involved with music occured when I was about two or three years old. You wouldn't believe it but there was a concert of the Beachboys on the radio and my father had put on his taperecorder. This was around 1968-69 so you can guess by now how old I am.

So dad had put on the taperecorder and I was singing along with God Only Knows and Barbara Ann. To be honest it became a legendary recording in my family. The only things I could sing was Pa pa pa and ba ba ba barbara ann as you can guess being only two / three years. It's fun to listen to the songs while typing this contribution to my blog.

But small kids grow tall and ten years later I visit high school and get in touch with hardrock and progressive rock. To be honest I've never been a punk lover, and the punk scene somehow seemed to pass the Netherlands in the late seventies. My parents had tried to keep me away from modern day music by giving me Abba records every Sint Nicolasday and also uncles delivered taped versions of Neil Diamond albums, but in high school, due to classmates, I discovered the real world of music. I remember The Kinks, Cheap Trick. Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin being the first bands to listen to. I remember buying my first record, Van Halen I, when I was in first class. Soon the Abba records and Neil diamond tapes were put aside and I listended to Genesis, Rush, Thin Lizzy and other rock orientated bands. My mom almost got a heartattack when I returned home with an iron Maiden t-shirt picturing Ithe killers album on it.

But the searching for music went on and soon I discoverd my own taste. I became a hugh follower of new wave and progressive rock. The range was wide from A Flock Of Seagulls to Marillion. Also I became very interested in the Dutch wave of bands like Het Klein Orkest, Toontje Lager, Frank Boeijen Groep and Het Goede Doel. I've never been a hugh fan of Doe Maar, although this was the Dutch band of the eighties.

Living in the Netherlands meant you only got involved with the big English and American bands in those days. It wasn't until 2001, during a returning trip from Switzerland, that, after hearing The Great Commandment of Camouflage on a German Radiostation, I discovered the eighties again. It was easy to get music from the internet these days, and the Torchomatic website was my guide to the undiscovered bands and tracks of the eighties. I'm pretty sure a lot of you will agree with me that a whole bunch of us got wild on the music Simon was introducing to us each week.

Soon afterwards I discovered the NW Outpost and a guy in Canada running his online radiostation. It seemed eighties paradise to me. And with the online blog's nowadays it still is. I hardly listen to new music these days, I'm still discovering the eigthies. And with being a member of the last.fm community it's easy to find bands that sound alike bands you already know.

So for example earlier this week I was able to get some music of Zerra One. Last.fm prompted me to the first five comparising bands, which were Fiat Lux, Cee Farrow, Leisure Process, Box Of Toys and Scary Thieves. Five bands which are already familiar to me and so I put them in my WinAmp player and play them now.

for you the reader of this blog I've put up a download of six tracks:

Box Of Toys - I'm Thinking Of You Now
Cee Farrow - Paint It Blue
Fiat Lux - Solitary Lovers (extended)
Leisure Process - Rachel Dreams
Scary Thieves - Only Fascination
Zerra One - Rain (remix)

A new start

2008-07-25T10:55:00.013+02:00

I never know how long I can obtain the returning updates of a Blog.

I started one a couple of years ago and after a few entries ended it because I ran out of inspiration. This time I try to continu, although I can't promise anything.

So what's the first thing to come up with to talk about. I love reading and I love music. the problem is for the first one I hardly have or find the time these days. This results in a bunch of unread books, that's on the shelf for some time now.

Music is with me everyday. The first thing after turning on my computer at work is starting Winamp and run my eighties mp3 archive, which is on my hard drive. On last.fm you find the list of tracks I've been playing since I became a member in late April 2007.

So what can you expect, or on the other hand what am I willing to write about. I have a vague outline for these pages, but will think it over for the next couple of days. For the moment enjoy a rare version of the title of this blog, which you can find here.