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Generation X - Valley of The Dolls (Classic Album UK 1979)

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Valley of the Dolls was Generation X's 1979 second album and was produced by Ian Hunter. The album contained the UK hit singles: "King Rocker", which reached No. 11 in the charts in January 1979, the title track "Valley of the Dolls", which made No. 23 in April of the same year and "Friday's Angels", which got to No. 62 in June 1979.

Generation X (also known as Gen X) were a British punk rock band, formed on 21 November 1976 by Billy Idol, Tony James and John Towe.

Three members of Gen X were previously in Chelsea along with lead singer Gene October, they soon broke away from October and selected the name Generation X (after Jane Deverson's 1965 sociology book, a copy of which was owned by Idol's mother). Idol switched from guitar to vocal duties, and Bob "Derwood" Andrews joined as lead guitarist after leaving the Fulham band 'Paradox' which included well known local musicians of the time, Gary Claydon and Chris"Noggin" McCullough.This was the band that were at the centre of the infamous riot at Fulham Art centre in 1976, which is where Billy Idol first saw Bob Andrews. Generation X played their first concert on 21 December 1976 at The Roxy (becoming the very first band to play at the venue).

Towe was later replaced on drums by Mark Laff (ex-Subway Sect), to complete the 'official' line-up, before the band signed to Chrysalis Records and released their first single, "Your Generation" in September, 1977. This configuration would remain through their first two albums, the self titled, Generation X (1977), followed by Valley of the Dolls (1979).

Generation X were one of the first punk bands to appear on the BBC Television music programme Top of the Pops. Unlike other punk bands, Generation X ignored some of the 'rules' and 'ideals' adopted by UK punk rock bands, taking inspiration from British pop of the 1960s. In 1977, they covered John Lennon's "Gimme Some Truth", and in 1979 they teamed up with veteran old-school rocker Ian Hunter who produced their second album Valley of the Dolls.
There were differences in the group's musical direction that they struggled to resolve. They wanted to remain true to their punk roots while pursuing a heavier rock sound. Internal disagreements came to a head in late 1979 during the recording of what was to have been their third album. This was released decades later as part of the Anthology boxed set under the title, Sweet Revenge.

In 1980, Andrews and Laff left the band (subsequently forming the post-punk band, Empire), to be replaced in Generation X by The Clash and Cowboys International's former drummer Terry Chimes, and former Chelsea guitarist James Stevenson.

Generation X made a last stand, re-recording some of the Sweet Revenge material, as well as several new songs. With this final release, Kiss Me Deadly (1981), the band abbreviated its name to Gen X. Kiss Me Deadly included a version of "Dancing with Myself", first recorded as part of Sweet Revenge with Andrews and Laff, and which Idol would later cover as a solo artist to kick-start his own career with a hit.

Idol went on to pursue a solo career in the United States, where he became a substantial pop star. James later formed Sigue Sigue Sputnik and performed with bands including The Sisters of Mercy and, much later on, Carbon/Silicon. Stevenson later joined Gene Loves Jezebel then The Cult then The Alarm. Chimes rejoined The Clash.

01."Running with the Boss Sound" (Idol, James, Bob "Derwood" Andrews)
02."Night of the Cadillacs"
03."Paradise West"
04."Friday's Angels"
05."King Rocker"
06."Valley of the Dolls"
07."English Dream"
08."Love Like Fire"
09."The Prime of Kenny Silvers (Part One)"
10."The Prime of Kenny Silvers (Part Two)"

Bonus
11."Gimme Some Truth" (John Lennon)
12."Shakin' All Over" (Johnny Kidd)

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Black Sabbath - The Rainbow, London 1973 (Great Concert)

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Black Sabbath has been so influential in the development of heavy metal rock music as to be a defining force in the style. The group took the blues-rock sound of late '60s acts like Cream, Blue Cheer, and Vanilla Fudge to its logical conclusion, slowing the tempo, accentuating the bass, and emphasizing screaming guitar solos and howled vocals full of lyrics expressing mental anguish and macabre fantasies. If their predecessors clearly came out of an electrified blues tradition, Black Sabbath took that tradition in a new direction, and in so doing helped give birth to a musical style that continued to attract millions of fans decades later.

The group was formed by four teenage friends from Aston, near Birmingham, England: Anthony "Tony" Iommi (b. Feb 19, 1948), guitar; William "Bill" Ward (b. May 5, 1948), drums; John "Ozzy" Osbourne (b. December 3, 1948), vocals; and Terence "Geezer" Butler (b. July 17, 1949), bass. They originally called their jazz-blues band Polka Tulk, later renaming themselves Earth, and they played extensively in Europe. In early 1969, they decided to change their name again when they found that they were being mistaken for another group called Earth. Butler had written a song that took its title from a novel by occult writer Dennis Wheatley, Black Sabbath, and the group adopted it as their name as well. As they attracted attention for their live performances, record labels showed interest, and they were signed to Philips Records in 1969. In January 1970, the Philips subsidiary Fontana released their debut single, "Evil Woman (Don't Play Your Games With Me)," a cover of a song that had just become a U.S. hit for Crow; it did not chart. The following month, a different Philips subsidiary, Vertigo, released Black Sabbath's self-titled debut album, which reached the U.K. Top Ten. Though it was a less immediate success in the U.S. -- where the band's recordings were licensed to Warner Bros. Records and appeared in May 1970 -- the LP broke into the American charts in August, reaching the Top 40, remaining in the charts over a year, and selling a million copies.

Appearing at the start of the '70s, Black Sabbath embodied the Balkanization of popular music that followed the relatively homogenous second half of the 1960s. As exemplified by its most popular act, the Beatles, the 1960s suggested that many different aspects of popular music could be integrated into an eclectic style with a broad appeal. The Beatles were as likely to perform an acoustic ballad as a hard rocker or R&B-influenced tune. At the start of the 1970s, however, those styles began to become more discrete for new artists, with soft rockers like James Taylor and the Carpenters emerging to play only ballad material, and hard rockers like Led Zeppelin and Grand Funk Railroad taking a radically different course, while R&B music turned increasingly militant. The first wave of rock critics, which had come into existence with the Beatles, was dismayed with this development, and the new acts tended to be poorly reviewed despite their popularity. Black Sabbath, which took an even more extreme tack than the still blues- and folk-based Led Zeppelin, was lambasted by critics (and though they eventually made their peace with Zeppelin, they never did with Sabbath). But the band had discovered a new audience eager for its uncompromising approach.

Black Sabbath quickly followed its debut album with a second album, Paranoid, in September 1970. The title track, released as a single in advance of the LP, hit the Top Five in the U.K., and the album went to number one there. In the U.S., where the first album had just begun to sell, Paranoid was held up for release until January 1971, again preceded by the title track, which made the singles charts in November; the album broke into the Top Ten in March 1971 and remained in the charts over a year, eventually selling over four million copies, by far the band's best-selling effort. (Its sales were stimulated by the belated release of one of its tracks, "Iron Man," as a U.S. single in early 1972; the 45 got almost halfway up the charts, the band's best showing for an American single.)

Master of Reality, the third album, followed in August 1971, reaching the Top Ten on both sides of the Atlantic and selling over a million copies. Black Sabbath, Vol. 4 (September 1972) was another Top Ten million-seller. For Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (November 1973), the band brought in Yes keyboard player Rick Wakeman on one track, signaling a slight change in musical direction; it was Black Sabbath's fifth straight Top Ten hit and million-seller. In 1974, the group went through managerial disputes that idled them for an extended period. When they returned to action in July 1975 with their sixth album, Sabotage, they were welcomed back at home, but in the U.S. the musical climate had changed, making things more difficult for an album-oriented band with a heavy style, and though the LP reached the Top 20, it did not match previous sales levels. Black Sabbath's record labels quickly responded with a million-selling double-LP compilation, We Sold Our Soul for Rock 'n' Roll (December 1975), and the band contemplated a more pronounced change of musical style. This brought about disagreement, with guitarist Iommi wanting to add elements to the sound, including horns, and singer Osbourne resisting any variation in the formula. Technical Ecstasy (October 1976), which adopted some of Iommi's innovations, was another good -- but not great -- seller, and Osbourne's frustration eventually led to his quitting the band in November 1977. He was replaced for some live dates by former Savoy Brown singer Dave Walker, then returned in January 1978. Black Sabbath recorded its eighth album, Never Say Die! (September 1978), the title track becoming a U.K. Top 40 hit before the LP's release and "Hard Road" making the Top 40 afterwards. But the singles did not improve the album's commercial success, which was again modest, and Osbourne left Black Sabbath for a solo career, replaced in June 1979 by former Rainbow singer Ronnie James Dio (b. July 10, 1949, d. May 16, 2010). (Also during this period, keyboardist Geoff Nichols became a regular part of the band's performing and recording efforts, though he was not officially considered a band member until later.)

The new lineup took its time getting into the recording studio, not releasing its first effort until April 1980 with Heaven and Hell. The result was a commercial resurgence. In the U.S., the album was a million-seller; in Britain, it was a Top Ten hit that threw off two chart singles, "Neon Knights" and "Die Young." (At the same time, the band's former British record label issued a five-year old concert album, Black Sabbath Live at Last, that was quickly withdrawn, though not before making the U.K. Top Five, and reissued "Paranoid" as a single, getting it into the Top 20.) Meanwhile, drummer Bill Ward left Black Sabbath due to ill health and was replaced by Vinny Appice. The lineup of Iommi, Butler, Dio, and Appice then recorded Mob Rules (November 1981), which was almost as successful as its predecessor: In the U.S., it went gold, and in the U.K. it reached the Top 20 and spawned two chart singles, the title track and "Turn up the Night." Next on the schedule was a concert album, but Iommi and Dio clashed over the mixing of it, and by the time Live Evil appeared in January 1983, Dio had left Black Sabbath, taking Appice with him.

The group reorganized by persuading original drummer Bill Ward to return and, in a move that surprised heavy metal fans, recruiting Ian Gillan (b. August 19, 1945), former lead singer of Black Sabbath rivals Deep Purple. This lineup -- Iommi, Butler, Ward, and Gillan -- recorded Born Again, released in September 1983. Black Sabbath hit the road prior to the album's release, with drummer Bev Bevan (b. November 25, 1946) substituting for Ward, who would return to the band in the spring of 1984. The album was a Top Five hit in the U.K. but only made the Top 40 in the U.S. Gillan remained with Black Sabbath until March 1984, when he joined a Deep Purple reunion and was replaced by singer Dave Donato, who was in the band until October without being featured on any of its recordings.

Black Sabbath reunited with Ozzy Osbourne for its set at the Live Aid concert on July 13, 1985, but soon after the performance, bassist Geezer Butler left the band, and with that the group became guitarist Tony Iommi's vehicle, a fact emphasized by the next album, Seventh Star, released in January 1986 and credited to "Black Sabbath featuring Tony Iommi." On this release, the lineup was Iommi (guitar); another former Deep Purple singer, Glenn Hughes (b. August 21, 1952) (vocals); Dave Spitz (bass); Geoff Nichols (keyboards); and Eric Singer (drums). The album was a modest commercial success, but the new band began to fragment immediately, with Hughes replaced by singer Ray Gillen for the promotional tour in March 1986.

With Black Sabbath now consisting of Iommi and his employees, personnel changes were rapid. The Eternal Idol (November 1987), which failed to crack the U.K. Top 50 or the U.S. Top 100, featured a returning Bev Bevan, bassist Bob Daisley, and singer Tony Martin. Bevan and Daisley didn't stay long, and there were several replacements in the bass and drum positions over the next couple of years. Headless Cross (April 1989), the band's first album for I.R.S. Records, found veteran drummer Cozy Powell (b. December 29, 1947, d. April 5, 1998) and bassist Laurence Cottle joining Iommi and Martin. It marked a slight uptick in Black Sabbath's fortunes at home, with the title song managing a week in the singles charts. Shortly after its release, Cottle was replaced by bassist Neil Murray. With Geoff Nichols back on keyboards, this lineup made TYR (August 1990), which charted in the Top 40 in the U.K. but became Black Sabbath's first regular album to miss the U.S. charts.

Iommi was able to reunite the 1979-1983 lineup of the band -- himself, Geezer Butler, Ronnie James Dio, and Vinny Appice -- for Dehumanizer (June 1992), which brought Black Sabbath back into the American Top 50 for the first time in nine years, while in the U.K. the album spawned "TV Crimes," their first Top 40 hit in a decade. And on November 15, 1992, Iommi, Butler, and Appice backed Ozzy Osbourne as part of what was billed as the singer's final live appearance. Shortly after, it was announced that Osbourne would be rejoining Black Sabbath.

That didn't happen -- yet. Instead, Dio and Appice left again, and Iommi replaced them by bringing back Tony Martin and adding drummer Bob Rondinelli. Cross Purposes (February 1994) was a modest seller, and, with Iommi apparently maintaining a Rolodex of all former members from which to pick and choose, the next album, Forbidden (June 1995), featured returning musicians Cozy Powell, Geoff Nichols, and Neil Murray, along with Iommi and Martin. The disc spent only one week in the British charts, suggesting that Black Sabbath finally had exhausted its commercial appeal, at least as a record seller. With that, the group followed the lead of the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac, putting the most popular lineup of the band back together for a live album with a couple of new studio tracks on it. Recorded in the band's hometown of Birmingham, England, in December 1997, the two-CD set Reunion -- featuring all four of Black Sabbath's original members, Iommi, Osbourne, Butler, and Ward -- was released in October 1998. It charted only briefly in the U.K., but in the U.S. it just missed reaching the Top Ten and went platinum. The track "Iron Man" won Black Sabbath its first Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance. The band toured through the end of 1999, concluding their reunion tour on December 22, 1999, back in Birmingham. In February 2001, Black Sabbath announced that it would reunite once again to headline the sixth edition of Ozzfest, Osbourne's summer concert festival, playing 29 cities in the U.S. beginning in June. More surprisingly, the group also announced its intention to record a studio album of all-new material, the original lineup's first since 1978. By the end of the year, a failed recording session with producer Rick Rubin proved what an unreasonable idea this was, and the band laid dormant while Osbourne enjoyed scoring a hit TV series the following spring. [AMG]

01."Tomorrow's Dream" – 3:03
02."Sweet Leaf" – 5:26
03."Killing Yourself to Live" – 5:29
04."Cornucopia" – 3:57
05."Snowblind" – 4:46
06."Children of the Grave" – 4:33
07."War Pigs" – 7:36
08."Wicked World" – 18:55
09."Paranoid" – 3:14

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Ian Gomm - Summer Holiday - (Great Rock Album UK 1978)

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Ian Robert Gomm (born 17 March 1947, Chiswick, west London) is a British singer-songwriter, who was the rhythm guitarist for Brinsley Schwarz from 1970 to 1974. He was named "Best Rhythm Guitarist" by NME in 1971.

After Brinsley Schwarz folded, Gomm moved to Wales, where he built his own recording studio and recorded sessions by The Stranglers, Amon Düül, and Alexis Korner. He also released his own solo debut album, Summer Holiday in 1978. The following year, Stiff/Epic issued the album retitled as Gomm with the Wind in the United States. From it he scored a Top 40 hit on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1979, with the song "Hold On" which reached #18 in the autumn of that year. This led to a gig supporting Dire Straits on their Sultans of Swing tour. Gomm also co-wrote with Nick Lowe the song, "Cruel to Be Kind", which reached #12 in both the US and UK for Lowe also in 1979.

"Hold On" has been featured as bumper music on the Coast to Coast AM radio show.

Subsequent solo albums included What a Blow, The Village Voice (which included "Louise," a song that became Phil Everly's first solo hit) and 1986's Images, his final release of the 1980s. Gomm spent the rest of the decade building a new studio, Mountain Sound, and writing more songs.

Producing and engineering work kept him busy until 1997, when he released Crazy for You. In 2000, he returned to the studio with Jeff "Stick" Davis of the Amazing Rhythm Aces, plus Pat McInerney of Nanci Griffith's Blue Moon Orchestra, to record Rock 'N' Roll Heart. It was released in 2002.

Ian has finished a new 2010 album project “Only Time Will Tell” with American singer/songwriter Jeb Loy Nichols for the Relaxa Records label. They have recorded 14 new tracks together at Gwyn Jones’s Bos Studio in Llanferfyl, Mid Wales. Nashville musicians Clive Gregson and Pat McInerney also dropped by to help out in between UK touring commitments. It was mixed at The Butcher Shoppe, Nashville, Tennessee, USA by David Ferguson and mastered at Foxwood Mastering, Nashville, Tennessee, USA by Dave Shipley.

01. Hooked On Love 2:11
02. Sad Affair 2:49
03. Black And White 1:55
04. Come On 2:49
05. Hold On 3:02
06. Airplane 2:15
07. Images 3:48
08. Twenty Four Hour Service 2:57
09. That's The Way I Rock'n'roll 2:44
10. Dirty Lies 3:17
11. You Can't Do That 2:58
12. Chicken Run 2:22
+ Bonus Tracks

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Too Much - Juni & Too Much (Heavy Psychedelia, Japan 1971)

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Often touted as the Japanese Black Sabbath by blowhards and those who’ve not actually heard the music, the excellently named Too Much hailed from the large city port of Kobe, where the band members grew up sucking in all kinds of western influences from the LPs and 7” singles that came in on the boats.One of the band – guitarist Junio Nakahara – had spent the late ‘60s in the blues group The Helpful Soul, whose sole LP features in this book’s Top 50 on account of its deeply inspired 10-minutes plus plodathon ‘Peace For Fools’.However, as its audience could never have perceived The Helpful Soul as anything more than another Group Sounds act, guitarist Nakahara decided to jump on the burgeoning New Rock bandwagon by forming the more appropriately named Too Much.Nakahara’s inspiration came from the TOO MUCH concert that The Helpful Soul played with the newly-formed Blues Creation, in Kyoto at the end of February 1970.

The hippy phrase ‘too much’ was already utterly cliched in the West by this time, but it was iconic and easily pronounceable to Japanese.In the process, Nakahara hooked up with hard rock singer Juni Lush, changed his own name to the more substantially New Rock-sounding Tsomu Ogawa(!), and dragged high school mates Hideya Kobayashi and Masayuki Aoki along as the rhythm section.They signed a deal with Atlantic Records in the summer of 1970, and wrote a whole slew of mindless proto-metal anthems, including the excellent ‘Grease It Out’, ‘Love Is You’ and ‘Gonna Take You’.These were duly recorded and sounded mindlessly, monolithically, perfectly suited to the lowbrow audience Too Much was aiming to please.

Unfortunately, the Atlantic businessmen saw in the be-afro’d Juni Lush another potential star in the mould of Flower Travellin’ Band’s Joe Yamanaka, and they pressured the band into adding several mawkishly sentimetal ballads to the debut LP in order to widen their audience.The results were disastrous. No one needed yet another version of Bobby Dylan’s ‘I Shall Be Released’, particularly the Nipponashville abortion that Too Much delivered. Hey, but neither did they require ‘Song For My Lady’, the arduously phlegmatic 12-minute album closer which arrived replete with megastring sections, Michel LaGrande pianos, Moody Blues flute solos and nere a six-string razor in sight.Too Much was just not enough, and they split soon after the album was released...

Yet another Japanese hard rockers with their only one album. It opens with monstrous "Grease It Out" with typical Sabbath's riff and vocal manere (but not with such voice) "like Plant". The second track is so funny - "Love That Blinds Me" - free cover "Since I've Been Loving You" (begins with the words "“Working from early in the morning Till late at night everyday...” :)) with similar melody. But if not keep in mind this curiousity the rest of material is not bad - and tuff songs ("Love Is You ? Gonna Take You") and power-ballads ("Reminiscence" ? "I Shall Be Released"). And the last composition that ends the album is very good - sympho-prog 12-minutes long "Song For My Lady (Now I Found)" with flute, acoustic and mellotron.

01.Grease It Out
02.Love That Binds Me
03.Love Is You
04.Reminiscence
05.I Shall Be Released
06.Gonna Take You
07.Song For My Lady (Now I Found)

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Anthony Phillips - The Archive Collection Volume II (2CD)

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Archive Collection Volume II is the second vault release from Anthony Phillips following Archive Collection Volume I in 1998. Compiled by Anthony Phillips and Jonathan Dann it is a 2 CD selection of previously unheard pieces and variations recorded between 1971-1988.

It was released on May 10, 2004 on Blueprint Records (UK) and was re-issued in Japan on Arcangelo Records as a limited edition mini-vinyl in December 2007.

According to the liner notes, Tregenna Afternoons is a piece Ant invented to teach original Genesis drummer Chris Stewart how to play guitar.

The track Fantomas opening theme on CD2 features John Silver on drums. He was the second drummer for Genesis and the inspiration for the song Silver Song.

Biography:
Anthony Edwin "Ant" Phillips (b. 23 December 1951, Chiswick, west London) is an English multi instrumentalist, best known as a founding member of the band Genesis. He played guitar and sang backing vocals until leaving in 1970, following the recording of their second album, Trespass. He left due to suffering from stage fright, after being told by his doctor that the best thing would be to leave the band. He is known for his twelve string guitar work, and his influence can be heard throughout Genesis's early output.

Genesis's first album after Phillips's departure, Nursery Cryme, featured two songs which were holdovers from the days when Phillips was in the band: "The Musical Box" (originally called F#) and "The Fountain Of Salmacis." "The Musical Box" especially remains a favourite of fans.

After leaving Genesis, Phillips studied classical music (especially classical guitar) and made recordings in collaboration with Harry Williamson, Mike Rutherford and Phil Collins, among others.He played the keyboards on the demos for Peter Gabriel in 1976. His first solo album, The Geese and the Ghost, was issued in 1977.

Phillips released his second album in 1978, entitled Wise After the Event. This was followed the next year by Sides. Both of these albums were produced by Rupert Hine and were intended to reach a mainstream audience, though neither album was successful in that regard.

In its initial release in the UK, Sides was accompanied by a more experimental album entitled Private Parts and Pieces; in the U.S. and Canada the two albums were issued separately. Private Parts and Pieces II: Back to the Pavilion followed the next year, and several further sequels were issued in the 1980s and 1990s.

Phillips began writing material with Andrew Latimer of Camel in 1981, and was a featured performer on that band's album, The Single Factor (released in 1982).

Phillips released a mainstream pop album entitled Invisible Men in 1983. He later claimed that this project went "horribly wrong" as a result of commercial pressures, and would subsequently eschew mainstream success in favour of more specialised material.

Phillips remains involved in a variety of musical projects, including extensive soundtrack work in England often for the label Atmosphere part the Universal Music Group. In the mid-1990s, he released an album entitled The Living Room Concert, which featured solo acoustic versions of his earlier material. He also provided archival material for the first Genesis box set, Genesis Archive 1967-75, released in 1998.

Several of his albums feature artwork by Peter Cross.

Disc 1
01. Guitar Song (1973) (1:58)
02. The Anthem from Tarka (demo, 1988) (3:47)
03. Deep In The Night (demo, 1977) (5:48)
04. Bleak House (instrumental mix, 1978) (6:13)
05. Our Man In Japan (Library piece, 1979) (1:19)
06. Child Song (demo, 1973) (3:41)
07. Old Wives Tale (solo version, 1976) (4:45)
Scottish Suite II (1973/76): (Total time 10:27)
08. (I) Leaping Salmon (3:03)
09. (ii) The Witching Hour (1:20)
10. (iii) Two Truths (1:19)
11. (iv) The Letter (1:11)
12. (v) Walpurgis Night (1:03)
13. (vi) Sweet Reaper (1:01)
14. (vii) Why Sinks This Cauldron? (0:44)
15. (viii) Her Last Sleepwalk (0:46)
16. Sally (instrumental mix, 1981) (4:19)
17. Windmill (demo, 1971) (1:26)
18. Tregenna Afternoons (demo, 1973) (7:41)
19. Lofty Vaults (Library piece, 1979) (1:21)
20. Variation on a Theme of Fantomas (demo, 1973) (5:04)
21. Picardy Pictures (demo, 1972) (4:30)
22. Polar Lights (Library piece, 1979) (1:34)
23. The Ridolfi Plot (demo, 1978) (6:15)
24. Falling For Love (instrumental mix, 1982) (3:35)

Disc 2
01. Highland Fling (Library piece, 1979) (1:34)
02. Prelude #1 (1981) (1:37)
03. Siesta (1981) (1:54)
04. Bubble & Squeak (1981) (1:11)
05. Guru (Instrumental mix, 1982) (4:43)
06. Shady Arbours (1974) (1:46)
07. West Side Alice (1983) (2:59)
08. Vic's Tango (demo, 1983) (4:16)
09. Seven Long Years (instrumental mix, 1976) (3:02)
10. Romeo & Juliet (Library piece, 1976) (0:34)
11. I Saw You Today (1978) (4:43)
12. The Anthem From Tarka (alternate mix of demo, 1988) (1:01)
13. Quadrille (from Alice) (1983) (2:57)
Desert Suite (1980) (Total time 4:33)
14. (i) Sand Dance (1:45)
15. (ii) Pipelines (1:08)
16. (iii) End Theme (1:40)
17. Fantomas opening theme (Film music, 1973) (2:31)
18. Sistine (instrumental mix, 1982) (3:45)
19. Sisters of Remindum (Basic mix, 1977/78) (4:28)
20. Will The Last Man Off The Ice Rink (Please Turn Out The Lights) (1973) (1:20)
21. Finale (Instrumental mix, 1982) (5:11)

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Black Widow - Black Widow III (Progressive Rock UK 1972)

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Black Widow is often, and quite inexplicable to me, compared to (the likes of) Black Sabbath. I can't understand why and that's simply because the two groups have nothing, or at least very little, in common with each other. Now, it's true that Sabbath came across as quite occult back in '70 and based on the inverted cross depicted on the inner sleeve, who'd think otherwise? Black Widow on the other hand played around with mock sacrifices on stage and (at least on their debut) lyrics about demons and evil, whereas Sabbath on their debut sang mainly about other stuff. (They were, in fact, basically very much a bluesy heavy rock-band.) The difference between Black Sabbath and Black Widow was, apart from the lyrics, mainly a musical issue. Sabbath was led-heavy, Black Widow was not. Sabbath was heavy rock/metal, Black Widow belonged in the realms of progressive rock. Lyrics of the dark side accompanied by great flute and organ-based progressive, making the nether world look like quite a groovy place.

The lyrics changed shape by the time of the second album and turned into less demonic tales but the music stayed the same, thank God (or the Devil?). The songs and music on "III" is quite extraordinary to me. I'd compare it, musically and lyrically, to the likes of Raw Material (their second album) or Diabolus, among others. Very british sounding, I think, and very melodic. In short, outstanding. I love all three albums they made (the fourth post-humously "IV" is enjoyable aswell) and this one may well be my favorite since it's consistent and has got everything great about early 70's prog, and british prog in particular. (Besides, I think people ought to buy something else by the band (aswell) than just the first only because it's labelled "occult".) The songs are beautifully constructed and makes for a very enjoyable listening experience indeed. It's a true gem of the early 70's and I think it deserves a place in any decent prog collection. [progarchives.com]

Biography:
Black Widow were a rock band that formed in Leicester, England in September 1969. The band were mostly known for its early use of satanic and occult imagery in their music and stage act. The band were often confused with the better-known Heavy metal band Black Sabbath, but the bands were only superficially similar.

The band originally formed in 1966 as Pesky Gee! with Kay Garrett (lead vocals), Kip Trevor (lead vocals, guitar and harmonica), Chris Dredge (guitar), Bob Bond (bass guitar), Clive Box (drums and piano), Jess "Zoot" Taylor (organ), Clive Jones (saxophone and flute). Jim Gannon (guitar, vocals and vibes), replaced Dredge in Spring 1969. The band split in September 1969.

The band released one album for Pye Records as Pesky Gee!, 1969's Exclamation Mark, before Garrett left the band. The remaining band members continued on as Black Widow and released their debut album Sacrifice in 1970. Perhaps better known than their music was the band's use of occult references in their music and their live performances, which were made more controversial with the mock sacrifice of a nude woman. These acts at time were very shocking but now a common use in the underground music scene, black metal. The band attracted further controversy by consulting infamous witch Alex Sanders for advice.

Controversy aside, Sacrifice reached #32 on the UK Albums Chart. The band also performed at the Whitsun Festival at Plumpton, UK, and at The Isle of Wight Festival in 1970. By 1971, the band had moved away from its darker occult imagery in an effort to gain a wider audience, which was unsuccessful. Having replaced Bond and Box with Geoff Griffith and Romeo Challenger, Black Widow released the self-titled Black Widow album in 1971 and Black Widow III in 1972 (by which time Gannon had left, replaced by John Culley) to general disinterest before being dropped by CBS Records. The band recorded an album, Black Widow IV, later in 1972 without a recording contract. It was not released then due to the band breaking up, shortly after replacing lead vocalist Kip Trevor, with another singer known as Rick "E" (born Frank Karuba; formerly of 'Plum Nelly').

The album was finally released in 1997 on the Mystic Records label. In 1999 the original recordings of their debut album, made before Garrett left the band, were released as Return to the Sabbat. In 2000 Black Widow Records (an Italian label) released King of the Witches: Black Widow Tribute featuring bands such as Death SS and Church of Misery as well as tracks featuring original members Kip Trevor and Clive Jones. In 2003 Sanctuary Records released an Anthology 2xCD.

In 2007 Mystic Records released an unreleased concert film Demons Of The Night Gather To See Black Widow - Live as a DVD. The film included Black Widow's entire Sacrifice album show from 1970. The interest towards Black Widow has been growing and because of that Clive Jones and Geoff Griffith have been working on new Black Widow music. Paolo "Apollo" Negri from an Italian hard rock band Wicked Minds has agreed to join the project on keyboards. The forthcoming Black Widow album has a title Sleeping With Demons.Tony Martin will be featured on the album as a guest vocalist on the song Hail Satan.

Black Widow's most popular song Come to the Sabbat has been covered by many bands and artists including Timberjack (Top 10 hit in New Zealand in 1971), Jon the Postman, Bewitched, Death SS and Propagandhi. Clive Jones of Black Widow together with Mark Pollard & Kevin Brooks wrote a Abba tribute song "Hey You Ring Me Tonigt" recorded by the swedish band The Airwaves and released 2008 on their 3 tracker CD with the same name (Riverside Records Bonnier Amigo Distribution) [Wikipedia]

01. The battle (10:54)
a) The onslaught
b) If a man should die
c) Survival
02. Accident (4:12)
03. Lonely man (4:51)
04. The sun (4:30)
05. King of hearts (6:41)
06. Old man (9:10)

1. https://rapidshare.com/files/4135171773/Black_Widow.rar
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Gary Benson - The Concert (Pop UK 1973)

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Gary Benson (born Harry Hyams, London) is an English singer-songwriter.

Benson spent eight weeks in the UK Singles Chart in 1975 with his own composition, "Don't Throw It All Away". The single, released on the State label (State Records STAT10), reached No. 20 in the chart, leading to an appearance on BBC Television's Top Of The Pops. The song had originally been recorded by The Shadows, and they had performed it in the 1975 A Song for Europe contest, where it finished fourth of six entries.

Benson had further attempts at winning the UK ticket to the Eurovision Song Contest, reaching the UK finals in 1977 with "After All This Time", performed by Wesley, Park and Smith, finishing fifth of 12; in 1981 with "All Cried Out", which he performed himself to place fourth of 8, and was later released on the WEA Records label; and in 1993 with "It's Just a Matter Of Time" performed by Sonia, finishing last of eight entries.

Benson's song "Let Her In", oddly credited to both Gary Benson and Harry Hyams, was recorded by John Travolta in 1975. Another of Benson's composition's, "Close To You", was recorded by Maxi Priest. In 1977, he composed and sang one of his sweetest melodies: "You" but never ranked in the UK charts.

01. Concert
02. Let Her In
03. Almost Forgot About Losing You

04. To Kill Another Day
05. Quiet Man
06. Safe Place To Live
07. Help Me Get Through
08. Sausalite
09. Best Things I Can Do
10. Closing Down Of The Old Porland Railway Company
11. No Guarantee

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Blue Mink - Melting Pot (Great Rock Album UK 1969)

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Blue Mink was a British five-piece pop group, that existed from 1969 to 1974. Over that period they had six Top 20 hit singles in the UK Singles Chart, and released five studio based albums. According to Allmusic: "they have been immortalised on a string of compilation albums, each recounting the string of effervescent hits that established them among Britain's best-loved pop groups of the early 1970s.

Roger Coulam (organ) (born 26 April 1944) formed the band in the autumn of 1969, with Madeline Bell (vocalist), Roger Cook (vocalist), Herbie Flowers (bassist), and Barry Morgan (drummer) (born November 1944, London died 1 November 2007). Most of the songs were written by Cook and Roger Greenaway.

Flowers, Morgan and the guitarist Alan Parker all worked with Coulam at London's Morgan Studios. The four of them recorded several backing tracks, with which Coulam approached soul singer Bell and Greenaway (who had been half of David and Jonathan) as vocalists. Greenaway declined, but put forward Cook (the other half of David and Jonathan).

The band's debut single, "Melting Pot" (written by Cook and Greenaway) was recorded with this line-up and released on 31 October 1969, Philips (BF1818), with the b-side "Blue Mink" (penned by Alan Parker); it charted at #3 in the UK Singles Chart. An album of that title was released early in 1970, at the same time as the second single, "Good Morning Freedom". This track was not on the first release of the LP; but it was added to subsequent pressings.

The members continued with their session work despite the success of the band. In March 1970, Cook and Bell appeared on Elton John's eponymous first solo album; Elton John covered "Good Morning Freedom" (written by Albert Hammond) anonymously on the Deacon Records budget compilation album Pick Of The Pops. In April, Cook and Greenaway played briefly in Currant Kraze, and together they continued to write songs like "You've Got Your Troubles", "I've Got You On My Mind" and "I'd Like To Teach the World To Sing". Other side projects included involvement with Alan Parker's band The Congregation; Herbie Flowers' contributions to Lou Reed's Transformer album; and the involvement of Flowers, Morgan and Parker in sessions with Pete Atkin in March 1971, that later appeared on his Driving Through Mythical America album.

The band's second album and their third single released on Philips in September 1970 were entitled Our World (the album was released as Real Mink in the U.S.). The band's next single release was "The Banner Man" on Regal Zonophone in the spring of 1971. It reached #3 in the UK chart. The members' other projects now took priority until January 1972 when Blue Mink played two weeks at The Talk Of The Town club in London. Recordings from this engagement were released that March as the album Live at the Talk Of The Town simultaneously with the studio album A Time Of Change (renamed from Harvest to avoid confusion with Neil Young's new LP).

Ray Cooper (drums) and Anne Odell (keyboards) joined the band that summer and played on the single "Stay With Me" which charted at #11 in November 1972. By the time of Blue Mink's fourth album, Only When I Laugh, glam rock was supplanting the lighter pop sound of the previous few years. The associated single, "By The Devil (I Was Tempted)", written by Guy Fletcher and Doug Flett, only reached #26 and the Top 10 single "Randy" in June 1973 was their last success.

Their final album, Fruity, (January 1974) and the singles "Quackers" (January 1974) and "Get Up" (July 1974) failed, and the band split up that autumn after a farewell tour of the United States. Elton John was among the celebrities present to say goodbye, introducing the band onstage at The Troubadour in Los Angeles, California.

As a footnote, it is worth recording that when Capital Radio, one of the UK's first two independent local radio stations took to the air in London in 1973, the station identity jingles were written by Cook and Greenaway, performed by Blue Mink and orchestrated by George Martin. Appropriately, Madeline Bell had also sung the original jingles for Radio Caroline, the offshore pirate station that first went on-air in 1964, in the end successfully challenging the BBC's monopoly of British radio broadcasting.

Since the band's demise, each of the members maintained a loud presence in the world of session musicianship and songwriting. The Rimshots covered Blue Mink's "Get Up", retitled as the disco single "7-6-5-4-3-2-1 (Blow Your Whistle)" in 1976, and had a hit single.

01. Mary Jane 3:70
02. Gidda Wadda Wobble 3:45
03. Country Chic 4:30
04. Over The Top 6:13
05. Melting Pot 3:50
06. Blue Mink 4:02
07. Prelude 3:50
08. But Not Forever 3:00
09. Chopin Up Stix 4:25

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John Entwistle - Whistle Rymes (Classic Rock Album UK 1972)

Size: 117 MB
Bitrate: 256
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Whistle Rymes is the second solo album by John Entwistle, bassist for The Who. The album, his most successful solo output, features work by a then lesser known Peter Frampton (who had recently split from Humble Pie) and Jimmy McCulloch. The album title itself is a play on how his last name is often misspelled. It was the first album to feature bass synthesizer.


The original 1972 UK release of this album was on Track Records and distributed by Polydor Records. The first US issue of this album was on the silver Track/Decca label. A year later it was re-issued in the US on MCA Records.

After making a surprisingly effective debut with Smash Your Head Against the Wall, Who bassist John Entwistle consolidated his solo success with Whistle Rymes. Like its predecessor, this album combines catchy, straightforward, pop-tinged rock with dark, often bitingly sarcastic lyrics; good examples include "Thinking It Over," a witty, waltz-styled tune about a potential suicide having second thoughts while preparing to jump off a building, and "Who Cares," a punchy, piano-driven rocker about a man who deals with the problems of life by refusing to take it seriously. However, Entwistle's finest achievement in this respect is "I Feel Better," a devastatingly sarcastic tune that features the singer putting down an ex-lover by listing all the things all the things he does to get back at her.

Viciously witty yet full of emotion, this poison-pen gem ranks up there with Harry Nilsson's "You're Breaking My Heart" as one of rock's ultimate post-breakup songs. Whistle Rymes further benefits from a stylish production job by Entwistle that judiciously adds extra instrumental layers to the album's basic rock style to subtly broaden its sonic palette; for instance, "Thinking It Over" is anchored by a thick synthesizer bassline and "I Wonder" allows Entwistle to indulge his skill with brass instruments by overdubbing himself into a virtual big band brass section. It's also interesting to note that this album features a pre-solo fame Peter Frampton turning in some searing guitar riffs throughout the disc. All in all, Whistle Rymes is an entertaining and consistent rock album that balances energy with ambition. It may be a little too dark and eccentric for the general listener, but is well worth the time for any hardcore Who fan.

01."Ten Little Friends"
02."Apron Strings"
03."I Feel Better"
04."Thinkin’ It Over"
05."Who Cares?"
06."I Wonder"
07."I Was Just Being Friendly"
08."The Window Shopper"
09."I Found Out"
10."Nightmare (Please Wake Me Up)"


Bonus tracks
11."I Wonder" (Demo)
12."All Dressed Up" (Demo)
13."Back on the Road" (Demo)
14."Countryside Boogie" (Demo)


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