FRANK ZAPPA
Shut Up `N Check Out Yer Discs
Hardly any other rock musician has left behind such a closed and complex body of work as Frank Zappa. From his early records with the Mothers Of Invention to his late compositions, which were increasingly influenced by Pierre Boulez and Edgar Varèse, from "Freak Out" to "Yellow Shark", the purposeful development of an artistic personality is clearly discernible. Frank Zappa wanted to be more than a rock musician right from the start. His casualness and ambition gave him an extremely explosive synthesis. The supposed bourgeois terror was never a true anarchist, but a pedant and control freak bursting with creativity. Randomness was rare in his oeuvre. Just once, during the late seventies, he lost control of his output and had to watch his record company Warner randomly assemble his tracks into albums he hadn't authorized.
SAGA
Fresh Blood
In the end it was just a simple "Bye-bye!" with which Michael Sadler said goodbye to his German fans on December 5, 2007 after 30 years as front man of Saga. Since April 2008 the new singer is Rob Moratti, who has to follow in almost oversized footsteps. Shortly before the start of the tour we talked to keyboarder Jim Gilmour about the future of the Canadian Melodic Prog institution.
JEFF BECK
"I am the guitar, the guitar is me!"
Already in 1972 the "Melody Maker" called him "one of the four best guitarists in the world": And indeed no rock fan can ignore Jeff Beck. Yardbirds, Jeff Beck Group and Beck, Bogert & Appice are only the most important of his numerous stations in more than forty years in business. Now the 64-year-old Englishman has released the CD/DVD "Performing This Week... Live At Ronnie Scott's" and eclipsed gave an exclusive interview on this occasion.
ARCHIVE
The absence of critical mass
"Controlling Crowds" is the name of Archive's new epic work, which comes across as a classic concept album: three parts arranged thematically and representing different moods both textually and musically. A final fourth part is to follow - possibly before the end of this year. We met Darius Keeler, one of the main composers and founders of the collective, in Cologne.
MONO
Soundtrack of a spiritual journey
It's her fifth album in ten years: Mono's "Hymn To The Immortal Wind" is the product of a band that doesn't listen to its origins in Japan. For the epic cinemascope and the emotionality of this ear cinema, the heavily strained term New Artrock is almost too small. The instrumental quartet around Takaakira Goto works continuously on his art: five years on tour, one year recording, then immediately on tour again. eclipsed caught the guitarist between two concerts in Stockholm and Oslo.
KRISTEEN YOUNG
steel keys
A piano whose force smashes meter-thick walls, a voice in addition, as sharp as polished steel - these are also the ingredients of Kristeen Young's latest stroke. With "Music For Strippers, Hookers, And The Odd On-Looker" she once again tries to escape her self-made cage. We met the US siren in her adopted country of New York.
SPACE ROCK
music from another star
How does it sound when flying saucers and teapots rush past you? How does it feel to be the ruler of the universe? What's it like to just set a course for the heart of the sun? Since the late sixties music fans have been getting answers to urgent questions like these. In this and the next issue eclipsed lets itself be carried away by the stellar winds and delves deep into the history and stories of Space Rock.
IQ
Anything goes!
An IQ album without Martin "Widge" Orford - is that possible? Yes, I'm fine! Frequency" is published on 22 April - after a delay of more than one year. Guitarist Mike Holmes explains in an interview why it took so long and was still much easier than with "Dark Matter".
SATELLITE
rehearsal room in the head
While Satellite presented their latest album "Into The Night" (2007) as their most rocky work so far, the Polish prog band is again hitting more moderate tones with their latest output - without drifting into the shallows. The fiver around the full-time drummer and part-time guitarist/keyboarder Wojtek Szadkowski offers an exciting mixture of intelligent art rock, song oriented neoprog and highly melodic AOR with the first class produced "Nostalgia". We talked to Szadkowski about his way of working and his inspirations.
eclipsed-CHECK "Top 100 Cover-Songs": Reader Rating
You seem to have enjoyed the ranking of the "Top 100 Cover Versions" as much as we have. Therefore, first of all a big praise: Never before has there been so much input from the reader's side as with this ranking, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Even though the editorial staff and the readership once again presented themselves in a confident unity at the top placings, there were many suggestions and new cover versions to discover for us as well. Many thanks and thumbs up!
Keep the text up! Cult songs and their meaning
TALKING HEADS - (NOTHING BUT) FLOWERS
THERE ARE MANY LITERARY UTOPIAS AND DYSTOPIAS (FICTITIOUS ANTI-IDYLLS), BUT THE HORROR THAT TALKING-HEADS-QUERKOPF DAVID BYRNE HAS OF THE FUTURE IS ITS VERY OWN...
THE 13TH FLOOR ELEVATORS
Garage!? Psychedelia?!
The 13th Floor Elevators are among the polarizing acts of the Sixties: for some they are a boring, imprecisely playing garage band with a limited musical horizon. Others, on the other hand, see the short-lived US formation as the one that heralded the psychedelic age. As is so often the case, the truth lies in the foggy intermediate zone..
