The More You Live, The More You Love

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 pro...

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 ...

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 th...

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...

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

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

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 na...

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 Whinehou...

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) Marillio...