The Pretty Things Announce ‘The Final Bow’ deluxe boxset (Featuring David Gilmour & Van Morrison)

The Pretty Things – Credit Judy Totton

British music icons The Pretty Things will release ‘The Final Bow’ via Madfish on 1st November. Celebrating 55 years of the greatest band most people have never heard of, The Final Bow captures The Pretty Things at their riotous, unique & mercurial best.  Recorded across 3 sets of classic tracks featuring special guest appearances from good friends David Gilmour and Van Morrison at Indigo at the 02 in December 2018. The Final Bow will be released as a beautiful and carefully curated deluxe edition and as a 2xLP soundtrack set as well.

Featuring 2 concert film DVDs and 2 live recording CDs, the deluxe edition will also feature a special 10″ of Phil May and Dick Taylor’s track selections and a 52-page hardback book packed with live photography by acclaimed photographer Judy Totton, ‘The Gospel according to Mark St. John’ extensive sleeve notes and Phil & Dick’s individual sleeve notes telling their story as a ground-breaking, ballsy and ambitious band. As Rock and Roll’s greatest nearly men.

Invaluable to the development of British music, The Pretty Things have been a critical success and a huge influence on artists as diverse as David BowieAerosmithThe RamonesBob DylanThe Sex PistolsThe White StripesKasabian, The Lightning Seeds and countless more. A who’s who of music icons site The Pretty Things and their outrageous behaviour, incandescent stage performances and astonishing catalogue of remarkable, ground-breaking recordings as fundamental in the creation of their own work.

Still creating significant music today and with a rich catalogue including top-level albums such as The Pretty Things, S.F. Sorrow & Parachute, they remain a hugely significant artistic and creative force. They are a band to revere with no other first-wave artist but The Rolling Stones outselling their frontline recordings today and probably no artist at all out-performing them live.

This electric performance features all of the youthful and incendiary vigour from their 60s beginnings, showing off a technical prowess by performing tracks from their full range of styles: first wave R’n’B, psychedelic rock, and the blues. Led by founding vocalist and guitarist Phil May & Dick Taylor, the band was driven by their current line-up consisting Frank HollandJack Greenwood & George Woosey and featured returns from original recording band members Skip AllenWally Waller & John Povey. The evening was transformed from unmissable to sensational with the guest performances of Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour on classics including “Cries from the Midnight Circus” & “L.S.D.“, and legendary vocalist Van Morrison on blues classic “Baby, Please Don’t Go” & soul standard “You Can’t Judge a Book by its Cover“.

The Final Bow is a startling and essential snapshot of a band who, for over 55 years, have never stopped pushing, growing and honing their craft – a record 5 decades in the making.

Phil May: – The Pretty Things: “After 55 years, saying goodbye to The Pretty Things electric band was a seismic, emotional blow and a genuine life loss, for all the band and our manager.  But, to be forced into it on health grounds, when the band was riding high, creating great new music and touring so successfully, throughout the world, made matters worse. But, life’s a bitch and then you die…

That said, this box set and what it represents, as a lasting tribute to the band I love, the life we have lived, and the way we have lived it, in music and performance, is unparalleled. I know I’m lucky, I, and the band, made it through a 2-hour 45-minute performance, in the best form we could have hoped for and we all feel that we created a performance, worthy of “The Pretty Things” at their best. That we captured it on film and on record, that we had our great, old friends, David Gilmour and Van Morrison alongside us and creating the moment and that, most of all, the o2 was sold out with our friends, old and new, young and old, and the people that we have done it for and who made it possible for us, was the icing on the cake.

This is a great representation of a great night, a wonderful gig, a heart-breaking moment and – a life in rock and roll. We love it, I hope you do, too..”

‘The Final Bow’ can be pre-ordered from Madfish now with the first 500 orders of the deluxe edition receiving a signed Insert by Phil May & Dick Taylor.

The ‘Song-by-Song’ Book Series Launches with Pink Floyd by Andrew Wild

An intelligent, illuminating and enjoyable examination of the meaning and context of every Pink Floyd song from 1966 to 2014.

• An examination of every Pink Floyd song from ‘Arnold Layne’ to
‘Louder Than Words’.
• The stories behind the songs, their context within the parent
albums and the times they were written and recorded.
• Who played what in the studio and when the songs were played live.
• What the band and critics had/have to say about their musical
development.

From ‘Arnold Layne’ to ‘Louder than Words’, Pink Floyd wrote about
anger, isolation, regret, dismay, and fear. These themes, not always
obvious starting points in popular music, were married to a rare
dynamism that would make Pink Floyd stand out from the crowd.
Pink Floyd’s most successful period critically and musically – the eight
albums from 1970 to 1983 – combines the pithy lyrics of Roger Waters, the soulful voice and breath-taking guitar solos of David Gilmour and, until 1979, the jazz-influenced piano and keyboard abilities of the late Richard Wright. In varying permutations, these three wrote the band’s best work. However, when working together as equals, the three principals of Pink Floyd were significantly more than the sum of their individual strengths. Pink Floyd: Song by Song takes a fresh look at the songs, which led to Pink Floyd becoming the third best-selling band of all time. Written in a wry and engaging style, this book will delight the aficionado and the newcomer alike, as it re-listens to the complete works of a unique band.

Andrew Wild first heard Pink Floyd as an impressionable sixteen-year-old in 1983, and since then has studiously collected every available note of music from Pink Floyd and its constituent members. Pink Floyd: Song by Song is his fifth book; his previous works include official biographies of the bands Twelfth Night (Play On, 2009) and Galahad (One for the Record, 2012). He is currently one of the presenters on Progzilla, the UK’s only dedicated prog-rock radio station.

 

Wallet Emptier – 29/9/15

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Nad Sylvan – Courting the Widow

Better known recently as the voice behind Steve Hackett’s ‘Genesis Revisited’ live show, Nad has had a varied career as a solo musician and as part of the musical projects Unifaun and Agents Of Mercy. ‘Courting the Widow’ is his first solo effort since 2005 and was quite a revelation to me. It is full of traditional progressive rock pointers yet it is Nad’s voice that carries the album all the way through. A concept album about his stage persona, The Vampyre. Featuring a plethora of guest musicians including Steve Hackett, Nick BeggsRoine STolt and Nick D’Virgilio if you like well written, story driven music (and a touch of Genesis), you’ll love this.

Released 16th October 2015 (EU)

Stand Out Track – Long Slow Crash Landing

Pre-order Courting the Widow from inside out music

 

David Gilmour

David Gilmour – Rattle That Lock

Pink Floyd’s guitar maestro releases his first solo album since ‘On an Island’ and it is a good one. There’s been a lot of discussion about the prominence of the older, established artists recently and how they are perhaps taking the attention from the new and up and coming acts (I put my hand up to being one who is worried by it) but, surely, they can exist together. If these older, nostalgic acts weren’t around, what music would we have listened to in the first place? Nothing new or different but polished and comfortable, like your favourite shoes, I find myself returning to it quite frequently.

Released 18th September 2015

Stand out track – And Then…..

Buy direct from the artist’s website

 

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Hillward – Flies in Amber Stones

Canadian band Hillward started off as Southern Cross’ side project with three of its members, David Lizotte, Jean-François Boudreault and Antoine Guertin. The band became one of its own when Alexandre Lapierre joined as a second guitar player after the recording of the first album ‘Flies In Amber Stones’.

Progressive metal with alternative undertones, its powerful and dynamic sound is really quite addictive as it pulses and resounds with heavy riffs, potent drumming and aggressive vocals.

Released 25th September 2015

Stand out track – Flies in Amber Stones

Buy direct from the artist

 

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Perfect Beings – Perfect Beings II

The eagerly awaited follow up to 2014’s eponymous debut album is a cornucopia of progressive, classical, experimental, ambient, jazz and pop influences that create the band’s unique style. Emotive and full of energy it is the fruit of 2014’s live performances and the way that playing live tightened up the band’s sound and evolved them into a tighter unit.

Perhaps a tad incohesive and self-indulgent in places, it is still, nevertheless, a great Prog-Rock release.

Released 16th October 2015

Stand out track – The Love Inside

Pre-order Perfect Beings II direct from the band’s website

 

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Australia’s Caligula’s Horse release their third album of raw, honest, and yet skillful, progressive, alternative rock. Vibrant and dynamic, the band are like a force of nature and their music is not for the faint hearted whilst being energetic, grand and forthright.

This is their most vivid, vibrant and emotional work to date and should see them break through and become one of the leading lights of the genre, full of colour and life.

Released 16th October 2015 (EU)

Stand out track – Dragonfly

Buy Bloom from inside out music

Blast from the past…..

Kinetic Element – Powered by Light

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Following my review of the band’s ‘Travelog’ album last week, I have the pleasure of introducing their first release from 2009. ‘Powered by Light’ follows in the tradition of the progressive rock giants of the 1970s, heavy with symphonic keyboards and virtuoso guitar work, Kinetic Element takes the listener on a lightspeed journey of the heart, full of great evocative passages.

Released 2009

Stand out track – Reconciliation

Buy Powered by Light from MRR