Knock and Knowall

Album Review: Steve Mason - About The Light Double Six Records https://www.stevemasontheartist.com/   http://www.doublesixrecords.com/ Steve Mason's catalog presents an aural document of one man's journey from youthful eccentricity (a double-edged sword), isolation, depression and, ultimately, a joyous recovery. The music throughout is the product of a particular kind of genius possessed of an independent musical vision. The Scottish musician's career began in earnest in 1996 with the formation of The Beta Band (pronounced "Bee-tah) who established themselves with three consecutive critically lauded 4-song EPs. The songs bridged the gaps between pop, electronica and progressive rock with just a smidge of the Bonzos to make it fun. Their self-titled debut full-length went a tad over the top, opening up with a self-indulgent rap (!) about the history of the band. The Beta Band spent their next two albums recovering from this but ceased to exist after the...

Anyone who knew me as a child knows that Star Trek was far and away my favorite television show. Growing up in Pittsburgh the worst punishment my parents could inflict on me was not letting me watch the new episode of Star Trek on Friday night. Clever lad that I was, I was able to catch a grainy version on Saturday from the NBC affiliate in Steubenville that pre-empted it on Friday nights with studio wrestling. As a teenager I ran home from school daily to watch it on afternoon syndication before not doing my homework. The Starship Enterprise felt like my home and its crew, my family. My living room made the perfect bridge of the ship when I played Star Trek with my friends Dan Reading and Neal Feldman. The front window was the view screen, the coffee table was the navigation console, the corner desk, replete with a slide viewer, was perfect as Mr. Spock's science station. I barked orders as Captain Kirk from my dad's easy chair. I broke a stained glass lampshade while...

Album Review Steve Kilbey Sydney Rococo Golden Robot Records  https://goldenrobotrecords.com/golden-robot-records/steve-kilbey/ http://thetimebeing.com/ Like many American music fans around my age I didn't become aware of the Anglo/Australian band The Church until the release of their sixth album Starfish and the hit single "Under The Milky Way." I didn't become a fan of The Church until their follow-up Gold Afternoon Fix. That is the album where I jumped on and many who had discovered the band in the previous year quickly jumped off. I had never heard anything quite like Gold Afternoon Fix , an album that infuriated their label Arista Records and caused a rift that saw the label find clever ways to cheat them and sabotage their career. (One story, told to me by a promotion person at BMG, involved the pressing of 10,000 copies of a promo single, which were immediately destroyed and charged to the band.) Gold Afternoon Fix made me a fan and I set ...

Steve Hackett is one of the most enduring rock artists working today. Despite a long, fruitful solo career. with close to thirty solo albums in his catalog, he is still closely associated with the band he left in 1977. Steve does not avoid, but rather embraces, the association. In addition to releasing a new solo album of original material every two years or so, he has also created modern, sonically superior versions of those classic Genesis songs and goes out of his way to feature them live on massive world tours that would tire a younger man. At the end of January, just weeks before his 69th birthday, Hackett will release a new studio album At The Edge Of Light and embark on a 160 plus date world tour featuring Genesis music, classic solo material and select tracks from the new album. Steve was kind enough to call me late one cold evening from his London home. Here is what we talked about. Eric Sandberg: How are things in London? Steve Hackett: Very cold at the moment. ...