The More You Live, The More You Love

RED SAND Behind The Mask (www.redsandmusic.ca SPBN005) After a hiatus of five years with Behind The Mask the Canadian band Red Sand delivers her fourth studio album. It is no secret that the music of the band strongly operate in the Marillion / Genesis vein. Guitarist Simon Caron does not hide the influences an d his playing and solos sound at times like a Steve Rothery clone , although the reference to Steve Hackett certainly is not neglected . It provides at least seven beautiful compositions, which retrieve musical references from the heyday of Genesis (A Trick Of The Tail and Winds & Wuthering ) and Marillion 's Fish period . In Memory Of Past Simon Caron shows his skills, and it seems for five minutes Steve Rothery is leading the band. The almost ten minute long track Mask Of Liberty holds references to Grendel while Veil Of Insanity Part 1 floats on the melody of Your Own Special Way ....

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...

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 progres...

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 fin...