Three years after their critically acclaimed debut  Pictures of You, keyboard player Geoff Downes (Yes, Asia) and singer/songwriter Chris Braide (This Oceanic Feeling) have come together for the second chapter of their joint venture as the Downes Braide Association (DBA), with Suburban Ghosts to be released on 6th November through Cherry Red Records. Suburban Ghosts was inspired by both of their ...

The world’s first all-female Iron Maiden tribute band The Iron Maidens have announced a one-off show at Shepherds Bush Empire on 14th April 2016. Excited front-woman Kirsten Chickinson said: “For years people have been asking when we’re coming to the U.K. so it feels almost surreal that it’s finally happening. To play London – the city where Iron Maiden actually began ...

Radio City Music Hall is one of those iconic buildings that populate New York. A venue that showbiz royalty perform, you know the likes of Frank Sinatra and Barry Manilow. It’s a big thing, especially if you hail from the city. Joe Bonamassa played two sold out nights there this January, the icing on the cake to a year and ...

From the West Midlands to the Wizzfest in Belgium isn’t too far a stretch, and three years down the road into their career it’s where you would have found Vicious Nature this spring, delivering their collective metallic goods to an enthusiastic crowd. Things went down so well in fact, that in playing back a recording of their set they decided ...

Jon Anderson and Jean Luc Ponty have released a video of the pair performing ‘Owner of A Lonely Heart’. ‘Owner of A Lonely Heart’ is taken from the new Anderson Ponty Band CD Better Late Than Never, featuring reimagined renditions of classic songs by the former Yes vocalist and Mahavishnu Orchestra violinist. For more information on the band and tracks ...

Among the things informing the songs of Blackmore’s Night are sagas and symbolism. In the case of the supernatural ‘Will O’ The Wisp’, the rock-based song continues the band’s vision involving what singer and lyricist Candice Night describes as “Nature and folklore from around the world.” ‘Will O’ The Wisp’ is from the group’s tenth album All Our Yesterdays now, ...

Erjya Lyytinen comes from Finland. Her 2014 release The Sky Is Crying was voted homeland’s YLE Radio Best Album of the Year and found favour elsewhere for her modern approach to the slide guitar, as influenced by that instrument’s original superstar, the legendary Elmore James. October, last year, Lyytinen came to London, alongside her three-year strong live band: David Florene ...

Chantel McGregor has a voice built for stardom. It comes as a breath of fresh air blowing free the cobwebs of complacency then once your attention is held it draws you in calmly, studied but not detached; her articulation and turn of phrase enhancing the emotional narrative of the songs unfolding. It is a young woman’s voice, waiting to share ...

The manner in which country rock filtered towards more mainstream musical credibility is an odd one and curiously still remains ill-defined. At its outset under the wings of bands like The FIying Burritos Brothers it never took off. Now, outwardly it appears musical tastes have either changed or more likely the populist approaches of country music and country rock has ...

Is ‘Logotherapy’ a prerequisite for calligraphers on a downward career path or some long lost record by The Police? Well, Sting’s diction was never this good, and as I start listening to the rest of the tracks on This Oceanic Feeling’s Universal Mind I consider reaching for my thesaurus.  Singer/instrumentalist Chris Braide explores themes of mental wellbeing, with frustration and ...