Monthly Archives: February 2019

Deluxe edition of Tangerine Dream ‘Live At Coventry Cathedral’ available for pre-order

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Tony Palmer’s legendary film of Tangerine Dream’s 1975 UK visit has a troubled history.  What should have been a fantastic document of a unique event ended up being a bit of a botch under the watchful eye of Richard Branson, when an executive decision was made to pair the visuals with (then) previously unreleased music, regardless of what was played at the show itself.

A new ‘Director’s Cut’ DVD finally married the images to the correct soundtrack, but a super-deluxe box set for 2019 goes a step further.

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HUMBLE PIE – Joint Effort

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With the release of two massive Small Faces box sets, two Humble Pie bootleg boxes, an expanded reissue of Humble Pie’s ‘Watch Your Step’ and a four disc set of the final performances of Steve Marriott’s Packet of Three all issued within just over a year, the stretch between April 2017 and the summer of 2018 was a wondrous time to be a Marriott fan. …And then, at the beginning of 2019, Cleopatra Records offered fans something extra from the archives – a long overdue vinyl release of ‘Joint Effort’, Humble Pie’s “lost” album from 1974.

The origins of ‘Joint Effort’ were already somewhat troubled. In the lead up to recording, Marriott had briefly quit Humble Pie hoping to join The Rolling Stones (the vacant guitarist’s role was filled by Faces man Ron Wood) and guitarist Clem Clempson had moonlighted with Greenslade [appearing on their ‘Spyglass Guest’ album, his contributions are fantastic]. To be fair, at that point, the future of the band looked uncertain. However, the reconvening of Clempson and Marriott in 1974 led to various recording sessions which, while perhaps not as coherent as ‘Street Rats’ (the album that eventually hit the shelves the following year), make an interesting album in their own right.

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The Venus Reaction to release new 7″ in March

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Plane Groovy Records were well ahead of the curve with regards to any kind of vinyl revival.  Long before the retro format had a huge presence in HMV and before Record Store Day became a cash-cow on the record buyers’ calendar, the UK label was championing the format with high quality pressings of cult titles.  They provided the only physical format for the first Strange Majik album and were responsible for bespoke, limited pressings of Big Big Train albums and more besides.

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IRON MAIDEN – Killers

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Iron Maiden’s second album ‘Killers’ was released in the UK in February 1981, just ten months after their debut LP. Not so much “born into a scene of angriness and greed, dominance and persecution” as born of haste following EMI’s request for a speedy follow up, it was a “second album” in almost every conceivable sense. Faced with the prospect of having to deliver a new product amid relentless touring, they looked to their archive of already written material and plundered it for all it was worth. Years of honing their sound on the road and the fact the debut included just eight tracks, they found themselves in the fortunate position of having a cushion of material – and while it’s sometimes obvious why some of the tracks were not considered first division material when compiling the debut, Maiden’s “leftovers” were still strong, with some tracks having already become firm fan favourites by the time Steve Harris and company re-entered the studio.

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The Radio Buzzkills invite you to ‘Get Lost’…

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The last few years have been very much a case of “onward and upward” for The Radio Buzzkills.  The St. Louis pop-punkers released their EP ‘The Quick & The Cheap’ in April 2016 and just five months later plans were afoot for the band to share a stage with their hero and Screeching Weasel co-founder, John Jughead.

Their tenacious and never-say-die attitude led to the Buzzkills working with another of their heroes, Dave Parasite, on the first full length album the following year.  Released early 2018, ‘Get Fired!’ was a masterpiece of pop punk. With a couple of Parasite co-writes and an amazing production job, The Buzzkills had made a classic record, their very own equivalent of Screeching Weasel’s ‘Anthem For A New Tomorrow’.

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