The More You Live, The More You Love

The entries were close to zero in the past month. Too much work on my mind, and although I played enough music there was little time to write an entry. All time was fixed on work, and besides that on a huge article about New Wave music. It is scheduled for somewhere this month, when iO Pages will release their first special. So it meant diving into the eighties, listen to a lot of familiar music and also buying some stuff again. Unfortuantly Fonos no longer excists, so if you're interested in a band that was up till now still only available on vinyl it means you have to search for it and then digitize it. So with a bit of luck I discovered a compilation cd early July of the new wave band The Dutch. Soon I was able to collect all their vinyl and then I turned my focus on another early eighties new wave band Secret Sounds. Through Fonos I had bought their album Wasteland ages ago but when I scrolled their page on discogs.com I discovered that their singer/guitarist WilmerWolf was ...

I have to say 2012 turned out to be a wonderful year for music. Both in the progressive - and new wave / synthpop scene the releases were wonderful and mostly great productions. At first a list of ten albums would be enough but with so much fine releases over the year I made two top tens. One with the progressive rock music and the other with the new wave / synthpop music. But first the top ten that was send to the magazine I wrote for. The top ten had to be send a couple of weeks ago and since then the number one and number two in that list have switched places, mainly because at the end of November Unheilig released the winter edition of their succesful album Lichter der Stadt and the live album on dvd and cd of their succesful tour of this year. iO Pages top 10 01. It Bites – Map Of The Past 02. Unheilig – Lichter der Stadt 03. The Fixx – Beautiful Friction 04. Big Big Train – English Electric (part 1) 05. Galahad – Beyond The Realms Of Euphoria 06. Clock Opera – Ways To Fo...

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...

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 delive...