Friday's Monday's Playlist - Mixing Desk Hero: Martin Birch

With the sad news that legendary producer Martin Birch passed away at the age of 71, we scrambled our usual schedule and  decided to publish this playlist that pays tribute to the man's immense contribution to rock music, as an engineer and as a producer.

Friday's Playlist: Songs About Real People

 

This Friday's Playlist compiles songs about real people. As usual, there are some rules I've adhered to: I've tried to avoid presenting the same artists twice. I've also excluded any diss songs, which means there are no ex-bandmates feud songs like John Lennon's How Do You Sleep? or Guns N' Roses' Sorry. As usual, I've made an exception to that rule by including Pink Floyd's elegy for their former leader Syd Barrett.

UPCOMING GIGS! Tentatively...

Although much of the world is still in the throes of a deadly pandemic and a second wave is due to hit our neck of the woods in the fall at the very latest or even as early as this summer according to some reports, some concerts are being scheduled (or re-scheduled) and hopefully we'll be able to hit some of them. It's hard to believe it's been six months since we last attended a rock show.

Our fingers are crossed, and so are our toes. Maybe real life, normal life, is on its way back. Because, you know, this virtual concert thing, it's better than nothing, but it's not exactly cutting it. Here are the concerts we'll be hitting, providing they actually happen.

Friday's Playlist: Free Jazz

In the mood for something a little challenging? Something wild, exhilarating, mysterious? Good. We got you. Check out this playlist of classic Free Jazz. Spontaneous combustions of sound, free-form expression, bursts of micro-tonal melodies, dissonant waves of pure music, improvised pathways to the subconscious.

Friday's Playlist: Welcome to New Orleans

This playlist gathers a few of New Orleans most famous bands and musicians. Of course, jazz and funk are heavily featured. Didn't everything start with Louis Armstrong? It sure feels like it did. Some of the very best music every recorded is in this playlist. Check out the Wild Tchoupitoulas or the Meters if you haven't already. Brilliant stuff.

Friday's Playlist: Unusual Songs by Classic Artists

These are a few songs by famous artists that sound nothing like the rest of their output. Sometimes it's a good thing: hearing a piano in AC/DC is just brilliant. Sometimes, it's not so good: why Guns N' Roses decided to close their last record of original material for close to two decades with the abysmal techno-turd rap My World is anyone's guess.

Friday's Playlist: Songs with Sequels

It's summertime and if that damn virus hadn't screwed up everyone's plans we'd be on the beach somewhere in California soaking up the sun and a few Margaritas. It would also be blockbuster season and no doubt people would be rushing to the movie theaters to catch Star Wars Episode 31, Avengers: Overcrowded Intergalactic Cosmic Battle or the latest James Bond film Die Like Death.

Friday's Playlist: The Canterbury Scene

This Friday we're zooming on Canterbury, a city in Kent, England and the birthplace of several of the most celebrated progressive rock bands of the late sixties/seventies. Bands like Caravan, Hatfield & the North, Soft Machine...

Friday's Playlist: Welcome to the Apocalypse

Lockdown has ended in our neck of the woods, although life is far from back to normal. Doubtful any significant concerts will take place any time soon, and it does feel like the aftermath of a devastating catastrophe. And of course, it was. So in that spirit, here's a little doomsday playlist for you.

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Greatest Hits Live (2011-2020)

These are trying times. Parts of the world are starting to emerge from lockdown, but life is still far from normal. It's going to take a long time before we are able to go back to who we were. In fact, I don't think we ever will.

This page has been largely inactive for almost three months, and will remain so until concerts resume. When will that be? It seems increasingly unlikely that large gatherings can be held any time soon, but who knows? Some postponed events have already been rescheduled.

We had quite a lot of concerts lined up by Aerosmith, Guns N'Roses, Rose Tattoo, Mötley Crüe, Def Leppard, Poison, Sparks, Iron Maiden, Tarja Turunen, Samantha Fish, Hollywood Vampires, Walter Trout and many more... Hopefully these will happen at some point. What is the concert experience going to be like when they do? What is the infamous "new normal" going to look like?

So until life begins again, until we are able to go to a club or an arena and rock out to our favorite band, until we can have savour a libation with our friends, enjoy this gallery of some of our favourite concert shots from the past decade or so. Artefacts from a time when we took simple things like leaving the house for granted.

Click on the captions to access the full concert gallery and accompanying review. 

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Enjoy, comment, share and don't forget to wash your hands.

Angus Young (AC/DC)

Friday's Saturday's Playlist: Ronnie James Dio

Hard to believe it's been ten years since Ronnie James Dio passed away. Even harder to believe the man would be pushing eighty had he not failed to kill the dragon.

In his honour we have compiled a massive chronological playlist of some of his biggest accomplishments. Clocking it a several hours, it's a retrospective of his stints in Elf, Rainbow, Black Sabbath, his own band Dio and Heaven & Hell.

Friday's Playlist - Eric Clapton: Sessions & Contributions

Hey look at that! A new playlist! Been a while... This one is in honour of Eric Clapton's upcoming birthday in three days. It features some of his outside collaborations. So his solo career is mostly absent, as are bands in which he was the leader, or one of the leaders. Sadly this means no Cream, no Derek & the Dominos, no Blind Faith...

Covid-19 Update

Friday's Playlist: Rock Operas & Concept Albums

Happy Friday! This playlist focuses on concept albums and rock operas. Rock scholars have been fighting for ages to determine which record was the first rock opera. Tommy, SF Sorrow... some exegetes even put forward Sgt. Pepper...