Ginger Solo
Sat 24th June, Worcester Marrs Bar
Sat 15th July, Sheffield Leadmill, supporting The Levellers
Sat 19th August, London Union Chapel – Songs & Words
Mutation
To celebrate the release of Dark Black, the new album from Mutation, Ginger will be joined by Scott Lee Andrews (Exit_International) and Denzil (Ginger Wildheart Band, Young Legionnaire) to take the Mutation show out on it’s debut tour of the UK, in the following towns:
Fri 27th October, Leeds Brudenell Social Club (Tickets)
Sun 29th October, Manchester Deaf Institute (Tickets)
Mon 30th October, Glasgow Stereo (Tickets)
Tue 31st October, Newcastle Riverside (Tickets)
Wed 01st November, London Underworld (Tickets)
Thu 02nd November, Cardiff The Globe (Tickets)
Fri 03rd November, Brighton Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar (Tickets)
Mon 13th November, Osaka Fanj Twice
Tue 14th November, Nagoya Tight Rope
Wed 15th November, Tokyo O-Nest
Thu 16th November, Tokyo O-Nest
Hallowe’en Hootenanny
Sat 28th October, Wolverhampton Slade Rooms
PictureHouse have announced plans to release their smash hit single “Sunburst”internationally on their PHRC label in the summer of 2017.
For two years in a row this summer song was the most played song on Irish radio, used in a national TV advertising campaign for a major retailer and was used in the soundtrack to a film. It propelled the band to stardom and brought them on tours with the likes of The Corrs, Meatloaf, The Divine Comedy, Mel C from Spice Girls, Texas, Ronan Keating, their own tours and festivals which saw them headline Dublin’s Big Day Out in Marley Park to 35,000 people.
A dispute with their then record company ultimately contributed to the band breaking up, meaning the track never got released properly in the UK. They reformed, releasing 2014’s “Evolution” (which spawned the hit single “Rules of Science” which was playlisted on BBC Radio 2 as well as countless other stations across Europe.)
PictureHouse have now digitally remastered a number of their songs in a package that’s not meant to be a greatest hits – but instead be a “best bits” including some previously unreleased material. The record is called “How Can I Explain How This Came To Be?” and is due for release in August 2017. More details to follow.
Frontiers has had an ongoing successful working relationship with the one and only Jeff Scott Soto for many years now, so when JSS put a band in front of them and told them they HAD TO HEAR IT, they turned up the volume, leaned back, and awaited what would soon wash over their ears. What immediately stood out was the way the singer had such a commanding presence of the hard rock songs that were being performed. So, a conversation was started and a deal has been struck. Frontiers Music Srl is now very pleased to introduce the world to ANIMAL DRIVE, a young and driven hard rock band founded in Zagreb, Croatia in 2012 by singer Dino Jelusic, who is the primary writer and driving force behind the band’s sound. Dino was chosen by the late, great Paul O’Neill to tour as a featured vocalist on Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s most recent U.S. tour, which is how he crossed paths with Soto and which would ultimately lead to them becoming labelmates.
ANIMAL DRIVE’s line-up is completed by guitarists Ivan Keller and Alen Luke (who unleash a ferocious twin guitar attack on the listener), Damjan Milekovic on bass, and Adrian Boric on drums. Influenced by legendary bands such as Whitesnake and Skid Row with progressive rock and metal elements from Dream Theater thrown in the mix, Animal Drive take their listeners on a wild ride of hard rock bombast.
Dino says: “I am more than delighted and excited to be part of Frontiers’ machine, the label that Animal Drive’s music can relate to in so many aspects, from classic rock, progressive metal, heavy metal, hard rock… Our music contains everything that Frontiers holds right now, and some of the bands that are our biggest influences are signed to the label, which makes us even more excited. Can’t wait to share material we have been working on for almost a year now, and can’t wait to kick ass!”
The band’s debut album is expected to be released in late 2017/ early 2018 with a tour in support of the release to follow.
The Bootleg Beatles were performing tonight with the Liverpool Philharmonic to celebrate the 50th anniversary of one of the most iconic albums of all time, ‘Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’. The sold out Royal Albert Hall provides a suitably grandiose setting for the evening.
The poet Roger McGough started the evening off with a potted history of the Beatles and their musical influences which led up to the making of the album. Of course Roger McGough is no stranger himself to the pop charts having been a member of the Scaffold (who also featured Paul McCartney’s brother Mike in their ranks). He had an easy storytelling style adding in a few one liners and some of his poetry.
The Bootleg Beatles have been touring since 1980 and feature none of the original members – perhaps that makes them a tribute act of themselves?!
Having a full orchestra was a master stroke as they played a series of snippets from songs that influenced the Beatles. After this the Bootleg Beatles took to the stage, each one dressed as the Beatles appeared on the album cover. Strange to think that for such a classic album the original band never performed it live.
Before the release of his 16th album ‘I Am for You’ this autumn, UK solo artist Tim Arnold will re-release his first album: Jocasta – No Coincidence. The album was produced by Bruce Lampcov(Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi, Peter Gabriel) with all music, lyrics and string arrangements by Arnold, featuring The London Symphony Orchestra. Whilst the band only performed live as a four piece, the album became a sonic canvas for the creative ideas Arnold had been developing since he was 17 and has continued to explore ever since as a solo artist. Last year, Iggy Pop compared Arnold’s recent work to David Bowie.
After a string of hit singles in the ‘90s, Jocasta were dropped by Sony on the day the album was released. ‘No Coincidence’ remains one of the only albums released by Sony during that period not to have been added to iTunes or any other digital platforms for download or streaming, and never before released in North America. The album is now available for the first time in 20 years.
NME’s Roger Morton wrote of Jocasta in 1996:
‘Jocasta pour molten American rock guitar over peaking, clever-clever Anglo pop tunes, forging the kind of deep-grooved, glider high, everyman/woman heart-burst pop songs that everyone forgot existed. Like a Thom Yorke or a Billy Corgan, Arnold is at the helm of a distended, inflated, killer melody machine, robust enough to skim right across the Atlantic and bed in deep’
Q Magazine’s Nick Duerden wrote of No Coincidence in 1997:
“Fronted by Tim Arnold, this is a highly impressive debut whose breadth of vision suggests an ambition not easily sated”
‘No Coincidence’ will be released through TA Music on 2nd June 2017 – exactly 20 years to the day of the original release. The album is accompanied by a video for opening song ‘Laughing’.
The video places Arnold’s song about the British parliamentary system (written in 1995) onto an apocalyptic take on the special relationship between Theresa May and Donald Trump.
After a six-year hiatus, Swedish heavy metal band LION’S SHARE has just released a new lyric video, “Another Desire”. This is the group’s first new release since the Dark Hours album in 2009.
“The plan was always to release more LION’S SHARE material. And even though Lars [Chriss, guitar] and I live quite far apart, we have managed to squeeze in songwriting sessions here and there throughout the years,” lead singer Nils Patrik Johansson reveals.
“I’ve been working full time as a producer/mixer for the last six years, and Patrik has released albums and toured with both Civil War and Astral Doors, so it’s not like we’ve been out of the music business, even though LION’S SHARE as a band hasn’t been very public”, Chriss adds.
Both remark that they have always worked very well together, and at this point it feels the most natural to keep LION’S SHARE as a duo, with friends helping out wherever needed.
Well over 20 new LION’S SHARE songs are more or less written. About half of them are partly recorded as well, with original member Andy Loos handling the bass duties on the first batch of tracks. The plan is to release a couple of lyric videos – one by one – a couple of months apart, and to take it from there, depending on the response from fans.
Bristol-based Elles Bailey has a talent for crafting and seamlessly weaving rootsy blues, country, and soulful rock, with a contemporary edge. What’s more fate has blessed her with a ‘smoky vocal’ style that perfectly fits her music.
Elles’s trademark husky, lived-in voice may sound like this young songstress keeps up a 60-a-day habit, but was actually caused by a serious childhood illness. At the tender age of three, Elles contracted both viral and bacterial pneumonia. Ever-resilient, Elles recovered, but her voice had changed completely. An ENT visit revealed no permanent damage, but as the specialist prophetically observed, “If she ever wants to sing, she’ll be a natural blues vocalist!”
Now, the miracle girl with the made-for-the-blues voice is about to release her debut album, ‘Wildfire’, on 1stSeptember, 2017.
The opportunity to record ‘Wildfire’ arrived sooner than expected when a planned family road trip across the Southern States of the USA saw fate step in once more. “We’d arranged to cut a demo in Nashville along the route,” explains Elles, “You know, ‘when in Rome’ and all that? But what was meant to be just one solitary track took on a life of its own. Before I knew it, boom, we had a whole album!”
In Nashville, Elles drew together an amazing pool of musical and production talent and expertise, who were so taken with her that they went the extra mile (and then some), giving her not just the chance to create a demo, but to lay down an entire album!
“It was always my plan to release my debut album in 2017,” says Elles, “It had been a long time coming, but I could never have imagined getting the opportunity to make it in Nashville, at a studio like Blackbird Studios, where so many iconic albums have been made! I’m very excited about sharing this record with the world!”
Produced by Brad Nowell ‘Wildfire’ assembled a host of Nashville’s finest, including Grammy Award winner and two-time CMA ‘Musician of the Year’ Brent Mason on guitar, three-time ‘Musician Hall Of Famer’ Bobby Wood on piano, joined by Chris Leuzinger (Garth Brooks) on guitar, Mike Brignardello (Lynyrd Skynyrd, Amy Grant) on bass, Wes Little (Stevie Wonder, Melissa Etheridge) on drums, and even legendary Ivor Novello Award-winning songwriter Roger Cook came on board to help add some extra sparkle. Blended together back in the UK with the likes of Jonny Henderson (Robyn Ford, Matt Schofield) on Hammond organ and Joe Wilkins on blistering guitar, the result is a unique trans-Atlantic coming together of styles.
The single ‘Wildfire’ has already secured spot plays/sessions with Radio 2 and BBC London, Bob Harris and BBC Introducing and play listed on Planet Rock.
Having played extensively throughout Europe, and supported UK soulstress Jo Harman on her UK tour, Elles’ insatiable desire for live performance continues apace across the Summer of 2017, encompassing a series of headline shows and festival dates alike.
June
24th June Buckle and Boots Country Festival, Manchester
July
8th July Saddleback Blues Festival (main stage)
9th July Richmond Music Festival
15th July Rhythmtree Festival (main stage)
22nd July Upton Blues Festival (main stage)
29th July Café Rene Rhythm and Blues Festival 2017, Gloucester
12th August Lakefest, Eastnor, Ledbury,
18th Aug Old Bush Blues Festival, Callow End, Worcestershire
27th August Great British Rhythm and Blues festival (main stage), Lancashire
29th August – Ropetackle Arts Centre, Shoreham (Special guest support for Lucky Peterson)
