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Joe’s British Blues Explosion concerts will be:

Hoghton Tower, Lancashire - Saturday July 2
Glasgow Clyde Auditorium - Sunday July 3
Bristol Colston Hall - Tuesday July 5
Greenwich London Music Time Festival - Thursday July 7
Newark Castle, Nottinghamshire - Friday July 8

On Monday June 27th, he will perform a free “invitation only” concert at the legendary Cavern Club venue in Liverpool, as a thank you to all the fans that have helped his career grow from playing small clubs to sold-out arena tours worldwide.

This intimate concert in front of 300 people will preview material that he will perform at five special concerts in the UK this July, where Joe will pay homage to the British blues rock guitarists that inspired him – Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page.

Tour tickets from Ticketmaster

or from Joe's website

 

News

The Rolling Stones, Exhibitionism, Saatchi Gallery, London

The Saatchi Gallery on King's Road, Chelsea has been converted into an exhibition of the words, music, pictures, objects and memorabilia of “The World's Greatest Rock and Roll Band.” The galleries each have a theme covering particular aspects of their career, recording, live performance, instruments, clothing, appearance in films, etc.

An introductory room presents you with some statistics as each year goes scrolling along the gallery wall; 46 albums and 639 tracks recorded, 33 tours playing 1823 shows. Next door there are multiple video screens mixing newsreels, newspaper headlines, live performances presented in chronological order with voice-overs by various band members.

From here we're whisked back in time, but geographically just down the road to where it all started with a mock-up of the first flat they shared at Edith Grove, Chelsea during 1962-1963. The usual signs of young men living together all are present: unmade beds containing a variety of clothing; discarded cigarette butts and beer bottles; a sink full of unwashed dishes cultivating an assortment of mould growth. One thing which separates this flat from a multitude of others is the Muddy Waters playing on the radiogram in the living room.

We then progress through their very early recording and touring career looking at concert promotional posters and tour programmes from 1963-1964, plus some early fan club merchandise with original hand written answers to the usual pop personality questionnaires. There is a representation of Olympic Studios from the late 1960's with a variety of the instruments used to record six albums at Olympic between 1966-1972. Interestingly in the same room there's a brochure advertising for hire the mobile studio they used to record 'Exile On Main St', whilst in Villa Nellcote in Southern France, where they had relocated to “ease the tax burden”, which is an interesting choice of words considering the current debates on taxation on the U.K.

Outside the Olympic Studio set-up there are interactive displays where you can listen to the band's thoughts on recording technique and how to record The Stones from Don Was, the producer of their most recent albums. If you fancy yourself as a record producer then your luck's in as you slap on a pair of headphones and you create your own remixes of eight of their best known tracks via access to the individual vocal and instrument tracks.

A 'Stones on Film' gallery contains a short documentary narrated by Martin Scorsese, (director of the 2008 'Shine A Light' concert film), which covers their various appearances on film and his artistic relationship with the band.

More galleries are dedicated to design of their famous tongue logo, album covers, tour posters and scale models of the stage sets for the recent Steel Wheels to A Bigger Bang tours. A wall of Andy Warhol paintings of Mick leads to a large gallery of band clothing from the 1960's (and I thought my 20 years old band T-shirts were doing well) moving thorough hippiedom, glam, 1980 sports styles to the present, which reflects the changes in British fashion and shows they have been more than just about the music. It's amazing just how much they've collected and archived during this time almost that it would be required for an event like this one day.

The final two galleries are designed to represent a backstage area (considerably more sedate than that shown in the footage from 1972s 'Cocksucker Blues') with dressing and make-up areas, racks of guitars and various kit; you collect a pair of 3D glasses as you enter the 'STAGE' door for a 3D HD version of 'Satisfaction' shot live at Hyde Park in 2013 which is good fun as you and your fellow gallery visitors try and catch the contents of the confetti canons on the screen.

The obligatory gift shop sells the usual clothing, but also a coat for the canine Stones fan in your life and a designer table football game which is a snip at £4,750 plus delivery costs. Interestingly a gift shop in an exhibition of “The World's Greatest Rock and Roll Band' sells no music made by them.

Overall, a fascinating and imaginative insight into the story of an important part of British music of the last 50 years.

Back in the introductory room there's a quote from Keith Richards saying that he's not ready to discuss The Stones legacy as the only thing they don't know is how long you can do this. He's one of only four people in the World who can answer that question.

The Rolling Stones, Exhibitionism continues at the Saatchi Galley until September 2016

Alisdair Whyte

Stones Exhibitionism website

Album Reviews

It was great to be at the 100 Club in London on the 6th April for The Poses only UK gig of their current European tour.

We like the quirky 100 Club in London for its intimacy. The stage is low (with a large pillar just in front of it) but the room is wide and shallow so can get close to the band.

The band are from Seattle and are Ken Stringfellow on keyboards and guitar, Jon Auer on guitar and Frankie Siragusa on drums. On some of the numbers they were joined by Gizelle Smith who provided some great soulful vocals. We were impressed with their new drummer Frankie. His drumming was enthusiastically brilliant. (Last year the Posies long time drummer Darius sadly died).

As always their songs were full of poetic lyrics and beautiful harmonies. Sometimes you need raw piercing sounds of heavy rock and sometimes you feel like standing on a warm beach and letting the gentle waves of rock wash over you. The Posies sound was the latter. It makes you feel good, but there were some serious lyrics wrapped up in there.

They played all of the tracks on the new album Solid States which is to be released next Friday on 29th April. Other numbers were from previous albums dating back to Frosting On The Beaters of 1993.

On the new album we really like the tracks We R Power which has a faster rhythm, the foot tapping March Climes and meditative like The Sound Of Clouds.

7/11

Ken

Gig photos

The Posies website

Set List

We R Power
Unlikely Places
Squirrel vs Snake
Dream
Scattered
March Climes
Licenses
The Glitter Prize
Sound of Clouds
Rollercoaster Zen
Titanic
The Plague
Throwaway
Please
The Definition
M Doll
Burn
Solar

Radiance
Fucking Liar
Flavor
You’re the Beautiful One

News

We're looking forward to Dan Reed Network's new album Fight Another Day to be released on 6th. 

The band formed in Portland, Oregon, during the 1980's with a sound mixing hard rock, funk and soul and they produced 4 albums before disbanding in the 1990's.  However they have now got together again and, as well as cutting the new album, they are touring Europe in June.  Sadly they are only doing one date in the UK, at the 100 Club London on Wednesday 15th June.

They say the album title comes from one of the lyrics in the track Champion.  It's about "surrounding yourself with positive people and giving you the strenght to fight another day"  "after 25 years we were able to gravitate back to the passion we discovered playing together all those years ago, and battle once more!“

Dan Reed Network website 

News

An ideal festival this summer for those who don't like the rain!  The brand new Stone Free Festival, will be held inside the mega tent that is the O2 Arena this June on Saturday 18th & Sunday 19th.

The festival will be headlined by Alice Cooper on Saturday and Rick Wakeman on the Sunday in a world exclusive performance of his 12-million-selling masterpiece ‘The Myths And Legends Of King Arthur And The Knights Of The Round Table’ for the first time since 1975.

Joining them in the arena over the weekend will be The Darkness, Blackberry Smoke, Marillion, Steve Hackett and Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here Symphonic Live along with many other bands.

It plans to have multiple stages, a huge variety of artists, special acoustic performances, Q&As with headline performers, cinema screenings at the Stone Free picture show, a vinyl fair, specialist market stalls, classic album playbacks, craft beers and street food stalls alongside the the existing restaurants.

Website and Tickets

News

The Cadillac Three have recently revealed the video for their new single ‘Graffiti’ which you can see below.

Cadillac Three are Jaren Johnston, Neil Mason and Kelby Ray. They hail from Nashville Tennessee and their sound is steeped in American southern rock.

The video was filmed only a few weeks ago in a grey and wet London and sees the band follow a masked street artist through the capital’s back-streets as the band’s lyrics and logo are tagged on every available surface, before taking refuge in a dimly lit East London bar. 'Graffiti' is taken from their forthcoming album due for release later this year.  The band have been doing well in the UK and their recent headline tour sold-out multiple shows including London’s Electric Ballroom. They will be next in the UK for Ramblin' Man Festival in Maidstone on Sunday 24th July.

Graffiti video here  

 

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