15.12.07 - The Astoria 2 - London, UK
12.01.08 - Montgomery Hall - Wath-Upon-Dearne, UK
26.01.08 - The Robin 2 - Bilston, UK
19.04.08 - The Met - Bury, UK
Latest news:
With great sadness, we have to announce that Martin Orford has decided to leave IQ. A founder member of the band since its inception in 1981, his contribution to IQ in the years since then has been incalculable. Everyone will be extremely sorry to see him go but we wish him every success in his future endeavours. Martin's final appearance with IQ was in Montreal on 16th September 2007.
We're very happy to announce that the new addition to the IQ family is Mark Westworth. Mark is best known for his work with Grey Lady Down and more recently Darwin's Radio. Mark's first appearance with IQ will be in Rome on November 23rd. We're sure you will all join us in welcoming him to the fold and we look forward to seeing you when we play live.
IQ - New Studio Album: Following Martin's departure from IQ, work has been suspended on the new album to give Mark a chance to learn the back catalogue and settle in the band. Work will resume on the album early in the new year and there is a good chance that both Martin and Mark will feature. No release date has yet been decided.
IQ - "Forever Live: To coincide with the forthcoming European tour, IQ's "Forever Live" is finally being released as a special 2-DVD set. Disc 1 features the original concert from the Stadthalle in Kleve, Germany from 1993 with a brand new stereo and 5.1 surround mix. Disc 2 features the following special features: - 'Wiggle' and 'No Love Lost' from the concert (previously unreleased), - 'Scenes From The Day' documentary, including a commentary by Peter Nicholls, - IQ Family Tree, - Bonus live footage: Early versions of 'The Darkest Hour', 'Fading Senses' and 'Came Down', and performances of 'Further Away', 'Corners' and 'N.T.O.C. (Resistance)', - Photo Gallery. This DVD will be available to buy on the IQ tour and from the GEP Online Store from the start of December. A full release in the shops is planned for March/April.
Martin Orford - "The Old Road": Martin has made considerable progress with the album in recent months, and all the drums (Nick D'Virgilio / Andy Edwards) and bass parts (Dave Meros / John Wetton) are complete. With a final push now underway to finish guitars and vocals, a release in the first half of 2008 is likely.
U2's "The Joshua Tree" has been meticulously re-mastered from the original analog master tapes to mark 20 years since its release and was released on November 20, 2007.
In 1987, The Joshua Tree reached Number 1 around the world and won a Grammy for Album of the Year, while U2 won the Brit Award for Best International Act and Time Magazine put the band on its cover, proclaiming them "Rock's Hottest Ticket". Including the singles I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, Where The Streets Have No Name and With Or Without You, The Joshua Tree went on to sell in excess of 20 million. The album is available in four formats: 1) A standard CD featuring liner notes from Bill Flanagan, lyrics and unseen photographs from long time collaborator Anton Corbijn, 2) A double 12" gatefold vinyl format, with the original album pressed across two 180 gram audiophile discs, 3) A deluxe edition including a second CD of b-sides and demos from the original album sessions, 4) A limited edition box set containing two CD's and a DVD featuring The Joshua Tree Tour live from the Hippodrome in Paris and other rare video footage. The CD track listing is as follows: Where The Streets Have No Name, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, With Or Without You, Bullet The Blue Sky, Running To Stand Still, Red Hill Mining Town, In God's Country, Trip Through Your Wires, One Tree Hill, Exit and Mothers Of The Disappeared.
Asiafeaturing John Payne announce new keyboardist: John, Jay and Guthrie are pleased to officially announce that the band lineup has finally been completed with the addition of keyboard wizard par excellence Erik Norlander. Erik's evocative synthesizer technique and style is reminiscent of the legendary Rick Wakeman, Keith Emerson and Jon Lord while still creating a very unique musical voice of his own. The band has commenced recording the much-anticipated album "Architect of Time" to be released in 2008. Red Entertainment is currently booking worldwide tour dates.
The new Jetboy DVD/CD is in stores now. It's called "The Glam Years Movie And CD". There are six out of the total of 21 tracks on the DVD/CD that have been previously released.
Lion's Share will release their new album, "Emotional Coma", in USA on January 29 via Locomotive Music. "Emotional Coma" was released by AFM Records in Europe and Spiritual Beast in Japan/Asia and features guest solos from ex-Kiss guitarist Bruce Kulick and Megadeth guitarist Glen Drover.
The new Porcupine Tree material to be released on Peaceville Records: Following the release of the critically-acclaimed "Fear of a Blank Planet" album and the success of their 2007 North American tour comes Porcupine Tree's latest offering "Nil Recurring". The mini-album (29 minutes of music) was written during the 'Fear Of A Blank Planet' sessions, completed over the Summer of 2007, and is now presented as a cohesive, self-contained Porcupine Tree work in its own right, set for general release on February 18th, 2008. The title track features Robert Fripp on lead guitar, and the album moves through the full Porcupine Tree spectrum of atmospheric ambience, melodic hooks, and crushing riffs. Packaged in deluxe Super Jewel case in textured slipcase. Porcupine Tree is regarded as one of the most impressive experimental/progressive/psychedelic rock bands to emerge from the UK since their inception in 1991, having enjoyed a successful recording career spanning over 15 years.
Rocket Scientists announce "Looking Backward", a 5-Disc Multimedia Box Set that reissues and revisits their back catalog in grand fashion. "Looking Backward" contains expertly remastered CD editions of the band's first three studio albums, "Earthbound (1993), "Brutal Architecture" (1995) and "Oblivion Days" (1999) along with bonus tracks on each disc. All of the original artwork is included in the package as part of a full-color 64-page 5x7 book. The Looking Backward book also contains thorough liner notes and commentary from the musicians along with extensive photos by Raj Naik, Neil Zlozower and Scott Streble. To complete the Looking Backward package, the core Rocket Scientists musicians, Mark McCrite (vocals, guitars), Erik Norlander (keyboards) and Don Schiff (Stick), returned to the same Los Angeles area studio where they recorded the early albums and commenced a series of new sessions with drummer / percussionist Greg Ellis who appears on Norlander and Schiff's solo albums as well as on the Rocket Scientists' "Oblivion Days". The quartet recorded a new disc of "live in the studio" material where they reinterpreted songs from the band's early studio albums, some with the benefit of over 15 years of perspective. This fourth disc, "The 2007 Sessions", chronicles those recordings. Additional unreleased material recorded over the years was added to "The 2007 Sessions" disc including a special version of the Rocket Scientists classic, Mariner, with guest vocals from long time Erik Norlander collaborator, Kelly Keeling. Two songs from the "Oblivion Days" album, Escape and Break the Silence, were also remixed especially for "The 2007 Sessions" disc. But the band didn't stop there. Producer Erik Norlander brought in an HD video crew to film "The 2007 Sessions", and these live-in-the-studio performances appear in the Looking Backward package on the fifth disc, an NTSC region-free DVD. The DVD also includes lengthy interviews with the band as well as historical footage going all the way back to the first album recording sessions in 1992. Norlander also filmed a bonus featurette, "An Afternoon with Emmett Chapman" where Stick maestro Don Schiff discusses his groundbreaking instruments with their creator, inventor Emmett Chapman. Worldwide Release Date: December 17, 2007, on the Think Tank Media label, distributed by ProgRock Records.
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A British bass player, studio/electronic musician, songwriter, composer, and improviser, Hugh
Hopper is one of the most active, influential and respected figures on today's international jazz-rock scene. In a career lasting over 40 years, beginning in the early 1960s and continuing today, Hopper has played and recorded with countless jazz, rock, and jazz/rock musicians around the globe, including every musician of the British Canterbury scene, and amassed a huge body of recorded work. Hopper was a central figure in the genesis of Canterbury School music, Britain's most distinctive contribution to progressive jazz/rock, and he composed some its most memorable tunes; historian Aymeric Leroy, a Canterbury specialist, regards Hopper to be the personification of the Canterbury school. Hopper also introduced some of the most avant-garde techniques into jazz/rock, attaching fuzz boxes to his bass and experimenting with tapes,
soundscapes and electronic manipulations of sound. Indeed, Hopper is one of the world's most distinctive and influential bass players in any genre: his signature fuzz bass sound, developed in the late sixties as a member of Soft Machine, had profound impact on psychedelic music, European jazz/rock and even 'zeuhl' (Magma) music of the day, and continues to resonate among young jazz/rock players today.
Tour Dates:
With Soft Machine Legacy:
January 31, 2008 - Festival Jazz en Nord - Lille, France
With The Delta Sax Quartet:
December 10 - Kingston University, London, UK
December 12 - Jubilee Hall - Chagford, Devon, UK
December 13 - Bristol, UK
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"For" is the new CD by The Claudia Quintet, the genre-defying band led by Grammy-nominated composer John Hollenbeck. "For" is a positive message. "For" is driving rhythms, beautiful melodies, and passionate virtuosity. "For" is for all music lovers. "For" is also their fourth CD. Since John Hollenbeck first presented the band in an internet cafe on Avenue A in Manhattan in 1997, the Claudia Quintet has amazed audiences from Alabama to the Amazon. Their unique sound has inspired dancing hippie girls at a New Mexico noise festival, the avant-garde cognoscenti in the concert halls of Vienna and Sao Paolo, and a generation of young musicians worldwide. In the course of the thousands of miles they have traveled together and hundreds of concerts they've played, the Claudia Quintet has evolved and grown, developing a dynamic live sound based on trust and spontaneity. They bring this powerful energy into the studio where they record the old-fashioned way, live, playing as a band. The legions of people who have been won over by the music of the Claudia Quintet live and on CD attest to the fact that genre-defying new music need not be "inaccessible". "For" is for everyone.
Dates:
March 15 through 19, 2008 - The Claudia Quintet on European tour
The legendary US band Megadeth will headline the 22nd edition of the Metalmania Festival. The biggest metal fest in Central-Eastern Europe will take place on the 8th of March 2008 at Spodek Hall in Katowice, Poland. Doors open: 9.00, Small stage: 9.30, Main stage: 10.30.
Porcupine Tree started out as an in-joke between Steven Wilson and a friend (early recordings were purportedly the back catalogue of a fictional seventies supergroup 'The Porcupine Tree' that Wilson created). Almost 20 years later the group is a hundred thousand selling band, selling out arenas across the world. Throughout this period they have evolved from a psychedelic solo studio project to one of the most revered live bands on the planet, releasing 11 critically acclaimed albums, a host of singles and various re-mastered and re-mixed reissues. Until now little of this extensive catalogue of classic recordings has been available digitally. The band's early albums are now going to be released during December and January.
"Inner Visions" is the second solo album from Japanese virtuoso Tadashi Goto. Although a young man with only one other album under his belt, this instrumental tour de force has an impressive array of guest musicians that include: Sean Conklin, Randy George, Brett Garsed, Tony Franklin, David Ellefson, Chris Poland, Tony Levin, Matt Bissonette, Joseph Patrick Moore, Alan Morse. With elements of prog, metal and fusion with some killer musicianship, this instrumental release is sure to please. is the ProgRock Records debut release from Tadashi Goto. The album will be released in early 2008.
