Firecracker is a project featuring Stefan Lindholm and Pontus Larsson of Vindictiv and Tommy Korevik of Seventh Wonder.  Before looking at the songs, it needs to be noted that this CD comprises work recorded prior to Lindholm, Larsson and Korevik having any success – some sources claiming it to be a Vindictiv demo from 2005. [...]

Signed to the Metro Blue imprint of the legendary Blue Note label, The Bird And The Bee is a electronic pop duo comprising of Greg Kurstin and Inara George (daughter of Little Feat legend Lowell George). The first couple of albums by the duo are fine as far as electronic based pop is concerned, but [...]

As the optimism of the late 60s crumbled, music became darker. In 1970, Deep Purple (Mark II) recorded their genre-shaping masterpiece ‘In Rock’ and, Black Sabbath, in their debut, gave the world something which would be seen as of the first truly heavy metal albums. That same year, Uriah Heep released their debut, ‘Very ‘Eavy…Very [...]

I first became aware of Jeff Beck in the mid-80s. My first proper exposure to his work was via his short set on the ‘ARMS’ charity concert video, where he – alongside Fernando Saunders, Simon Phillips and regular collaborator Tony Hymas – played superb versions of a handful of his better known instrumental tunes, complete [...]

Welcome, ladies and gents, to ‘Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum’, bought to you by a bunch guys better known for the colours of their skinny ties than their names. Collectively, the guys in ties are Tally Hall – a power pop/college rock ensemble from Michigan. The opening number ‘Good Day’ (winner of the 2004 John Lennon [...]

In the early 90’s I was a big Guns n’ Roses fan.  I mean, who wasn’t?  They were the biggest rock band on the planet back then.  However, a fifteen year gap between the release of ‘The Spaghetti Incident?’ (a poor covers album) and ‘Chinese Democracy’ damaged their public profile, not to mention the record [...]

By the time Iron Maiden entered the studio to record their third album, they had no previously unused material in their archive. Bruce Dickinson (aka ex-Samson vocalist Bruce Bruce) had also become the band’s frontman, replacing Paul Di’Anno, who’d provided vocals on Maiden’s first two full-length releases. The band and producer Martin Birch (who’d produced [...]

Between 1978 and 1980, using the pseudonym Klark Kent, the world-famous drummer Stewart Copeland (hi-hat god) released a 10” EP and a handful of singles. On these tracks, he performed everything, allegedly with no outside help. These releases sold moderately in the UK. Klark Kent’s career made little impact, barring his best-known release, ‘Don’t Care’, [...]