July 2022

1972 - Rock is boss and nothing works without guitars

It's February 3, 1972, and very few visitors to the Lanchester Arts Festival in the Locarno Ballroom, Coventry, England, know that the guy in front of them on stage once thought about becoming a comedian in his youth. And if they knew, they'd cheer all the more, after every single line of the song. The man at the microphone rolls his eyes, grins, and acts like he can't hold back a drop of water: "This here song it ain't so sad, the cutest little song you ever had." Indeed, sir, the whole thing sounds more like shake rhyme and nursery rhyme than sophisticated rock art.

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Di Meola/de Lucia/McLaughlin - The Day After

Al Di Meola's, Paco de Lucia's and John McLaughlin's 1981 release "Friday Night In San Francisco" is one of the most famous and important acoustic guitar albums in music history. Some 41 years later, "Saturday Night In San Francisco" has now been released, a recording of another concert by the three guitar reros on the following day. In an interview, Al Di Meola told how it came about and what it was like back then

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ASIA - Made in Japan

That a band records its best live album with a substitute frontman and not with its original singer, who on top of that is one of the main songwriters, sounds unlikely at first. However, if this substitute is named Greg Lake and the whole thing happened almost 40 years ago, then the shoe is on the other foot: Carl Palmer remembers the event at that time, which is now re-released opulently and well restored as "Asia In Asia", and gives an outlook on future activities of the band.

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On HUM's first album you listen to abysmal psychedelic metamorphoses

Three gentlemen from the Frankfurt music area: guitarist Harri Gottschalk, bassist Martin Krause and drummer Stehn Raupach have joined forces under the name Hum to present their version of psychedelic rock to the astonished world, garnished with stoner riffs and in garage rock production. One is already amazed by the band name and the cover of "One". There they pose in a kind of extraterrestrial full-body romper suits. What's behind this curious, almost surrealistic psychedelic rock attack, the three musicians explain best themselves ...

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GREEN ASPHALT are the biggest hopefuls in the wake of Gentle Giant

Dan Bornemark's T-shirt with the "Free Hand" cover motif says it all: The singer, multi-instrumentalist and main composer of Green Asphalt is a huge Gentle Giant fan. This can be heard clearly on his band's self-titled debut album, which nevertheless sounds highly independent and is a found food for all those listeners who like complex prog songs full of playfulness

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JOURNEY - Looking For Freedom!

In the course of their now almost 50-year musical journey, the band Journey, founded in 1973 in San Francisco, not only went through many skins - massive disagreements were not left out either. For example, their current main protagonists, guitarist Neal Schon (the only remaining founding member) and keyboardist Jonathan Cain (architect of the band's mass success in the '80s), are not exactly of one heart and soul. In the interview Cain finds both praising and slightly critical words for the new Journey album "Freedom".

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TEDESCHI TRUCKS BAND - To the moon and back

The Tedeschi Trucks Band, one of the few big bands in the history of rock, always liked it big. With their last project, a live homage to the legendary album "Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs" by Derek And The Dominos, the group around guitarist couple Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks already laid it on very thick. With the new mammoth work "I Am The Moon" - a cycle of no less than four separately released albums - the large formation now goes a clear step further.

A poem almost nine hundred years old

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ARTHUR BROWN is still well ahead of the game at the age of 80

The legendary "God of Hellfire" has given himself and his worldwide fan community a perfect musical surprise for his 80th birthday with "Long Long Road". Reason enough to arrange a Zoom meeting with the tireless rock legend.

eclipsed: Mr. Brown, you've been in the music business for almost 60 years. How and where did you start?

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MARIUSZ DUDA goes in search of electronic traces of his youth

It was not easy to get Mariusz Duda on the microphone during the last months. Already during the U.S. tour of Riverside various appointments fell through, another interview appointment failed at the last second because the ship of the "Cruise For The Edge" prog cruise left earlier than planned and sailed into the Internet-free zone. During the subsequent flying visit to South America, a renewed contact with the head of the Polish proggers seemed even more unlikely, so that we reached the 46-year-old only in early June after returning to his home country

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CD Sampler: Song Pearls 1972

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