From their late eighties origins in Bournemouth, Big Big Train (BBT) have grown and evolved into one of the unknown superstars of progressive rock. Their devoted fans (known as ‘passengers’) ensure their gigs always sell out, and that the band continue to survive against some extreme odds, e.g. losing David Longdon in a tragic accident in 2021.

This is an extremely detailed tome, weighing in at 540 pages, and leaves virtually no area of the band untouched, with the words interspersed with plenty of visual material, such as old newsletters, messages from past members of BBT and, in particular, items from the archives of David Longdon, which have been made available to the authors.

The book is divided into four sections, with each section covering a different time period between the band’s inception in 1987, right up to the recent releases in 2026. In short, it is a very deep dive into the story of BBT, telling the story of the band through their music and their individual songs, which means every song the band has ever tackled, as well as a couple of ‘lost albums,’ which were albums the band never released. A quite significant one is Hope, largely worked on by David Longdon, which had been intended to be that most dreaded release in progressive rock, the ‘double concept album.’ However the band ran out of the time required to finish the album and it got lost along the way, but it’s interesting to read the comments about what ‘might have been’ had the album been completed.

Time And Tide is the result of a herculean effort by the two authors. Of the two, Andrew Wild is known for his books on prog, notably his two most recent efforts, Mirror Of Dreams and Playground Of The Broken Hearts, and he’s also the official keeper of the BBT archive, whereas Dr Douglas Helvering is an associate professor who wrote the musical analyses of BBT‘s songs. Between the two authors, they shine a light on the creative endeavours of each member of the band, especially in how albums came about and how certain pieces of music, the idea for a song or the lyrics are arrived at… their songs have included such topics as hedgerows, ancient landscapes, trains and electricity pylons… in particular how painstaking some of these efforts are, and the thoughts and contributions of many of the current and past members of the band are noted, with the differing approaches being quite instructive.

That Time And Tide is a fascinating and very enjoyable read, containing as it does more fact and detail than you ever thought possible about BBT, is not in doubt, and will likely be the definitive BBT book, but while the diehard ‘passenger’ will be more than happy to acquire this book, I suspect the same will not apply to the prog fan who likes BBT‘s albums but will most likely baulk at a 540-page tome. With respect, dare I say this is one for the anoraks?

The post Time And Tide: The Definitive Big Big Train Book appeared first on RAMzine.

The idea for the album arose from a visit to the Oslo Munchmuseet in 2023 while BBT were touring Europe, sparking an exchange of ideas between Greg Spawton (bass) and Alberto Bravin (vocals). That spark ultimately led to BBT putting together their most ambitious piece of music, based upon “a single woodcut print to an exploration of the universal light and darkness of artistic hopes and thwarted dreams.” All the band have been involved in the creative process, though. Each member has contributed to the book, offering personal reflections on not just the album and how it was made, but also on why the whole thing matters and the resonance it has for listeners.

You will need to be a dedicated “passenger” (BBT fan) to take in all the detail provided. Woodcut: The Making And The Meaning weighs in at over two hundred pages and is much more than just the standard book about how a band made an album. There is considerable detail given about the centuries-long art of woodcut itself, taking in medieval book illustrations via Thomas Bewick’s Tiny Marvels, including Edvard Munch’s radical “jigsaw” prints, and it makes fascinating connections between the groundbreaking artists of the 19th century and modern day prog musicians. The detail included is quite astonishing.

Andy Stuart has written a book which is in equal parts a history, creative journal and cultural commentary, and he is the right author for this project. He is no stranger to BBT because he also wrote the book A View From The Embankment, A View From The Line about BBT’s 2023 European tour, where he accompanied the band across the continent on several dates.

Possibly the most intriguing section of the book is the introduction. Andy Stuart used as his starting point a review of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s album Welcome To The Pleasuredome, which initially produces a sigh of “what?” from this reviewer. It was not so much the review as the context of the review, and reading on, I caught onto where he is coming from and appreciated why he took this approach. As someone who is most definitely fully paid up on the “sweat equity” (you will have to read the book), Stuart’s rationale made sense. I also said yes to the questions he asked. Again, you will have to read the book.

Woodcut: The Making And The Meaning is a labour of love from an author who really does know his stuff, and who has put together a book about a creative process, linked it up to an historical perspective and brought it into the present day. This is not your bog standard book about what went on in the studio when a band records an album. What originally began as an invite by BBT to write the liner notes for their new album has become so much more, and complements the album perfectly.

Woodcut: The Making And The Meaning is published by Kingfisher Publications and written by Andy Stuart.

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Up to 1969, The Rolling Stones had endured a couple of traumatic years which had seen three of the band arrested on drugs charges, with two imprisoned, though sentences were quashed on appeal. Brian Jones had left the band and drowned soon after, being replaced by a young unknown guitarist, Mick Taylor. In December 1967, they’d released Their Satanic Majesties Request to almost universal derision. The Stones and psychedelia just didn’t gel. Apart from a one off show in May 1968 and a free concert in Hyde Park in July 1969, they’d been largely absent from live work. They hadn’t toured the US for three years, or anywhere else, due to problems obtaining visas after three of the band received convictions for substance misuse. The cumulative events of 1967 to 1968 would have broken a lesser band than The Stones.

Thus, when the decision to tour the US in 1969 was made and dates booked, starting on November 8th 1969, The Stones now really had to play for keeps because the demographic had changed very considerably. Audiences were no longer just full of screaming girls, disinterested in the music. They’d had their expectations raised because pop had now become rock, and bands like Led Zeppelin, Cream, Jimi Hendrix and The Nice were in the ascendancy. With their virtuoso playing, every one of them had considerably raised the musical ante. Now, for a major band to just go onstage and give a run through of their hits was unthinkable. Audiences expected their favourite bands to be able to play.

A more aggressive style of journalism had also emerged, embodied in new counterculture publications like Rolling Stone and Creem. Sycophancy was out. Journalists were no longer starstruck; they were very willing to bite the hand that had given them free concert tickets if the band didn’t perform as expected.

The Stones, therefore, had everything to play for when they flew to the States in mid October 1969 to begin rehearsals. They’d only played one show with new guitar man Mick Taylor, who was largely an unknown quantity in the US, and he’d had all their classic tracks to learn, plus the new material on their next album, Let It Bleed. But that the tour became the success it did, apart from its concluding date, is largely due to the ease with which Taylor‘s style blended in with Keith Richards‘.

Richard Houghton’s book is a fan’s eye view of the tour, told from the perspective of those who’d purchased the tickets, stood in line and then waited, and waited, sometimes for several hours for The Stones to take the stage. However, the tour initially gets off to a bad start before the first note is played, with complaints from all quarters, especially the music press, about the extortionate price of tickets. Writers like Ralph Gleason stated this says The Stones despise their own audience. Jagger replies with, “We’re sorry if people can’t afford to come,” which goes down badly, especially when promoters say it’s the band setting ticket prices, not them.

But the shows themselves? Once the band eventually gets up onstage, up to four hours late on occasion, they generate ecstatic reactions from fans who realise this isn’t the mid ’60s Stones. This is now The Stones who can play onstage with the best of them. Their new songs were better and Keith Richards‘ playing had been galvanised with the virtuosic input of Mick Taylor. From this tour will come their classic live album, Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out!

Fans all across the States are euphoric about these gigs, especially with support acts which included Terry Reid, B.B. King and Ike & Tina Turner, and how well new tracks like ‘Midnight Rambler’ and ‘Stray Cat Blues’ go down onstage. The controversy about ticket prices is soon forgotten as The Stones become “the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band in the world.” Renowned critic Dave Marsh, writing in Creem, declares: “The Stones are the greatest goddamn band in the land.”

The tour ends badly, however. Wanting to do a free US show, similar to their Hyde Park gig, the band are refused Golden Gate Park and other public spaces before a disused racetrack called Altamont was offered. Despite a stellar line up, the event is a disaster, with one murder, three other deaths, much violence and The Stones slated for believing Hells Angels were an appropriate choice for security. Did Altamont really herald the end of the ’60s?

But the real significance of this tour is what followed. On this tour, the band now played on bigger stages, with the gap between audience and performers wider than ever, with the sense of intimacy reduced. Also, the first 20 rows of seats were now reserved for friends and music biz people, with real fans being kept well back. This is a trend much in evidence today with Ticketmaster and Hyde Park Summer well to the fore.

Perhaps most importantly, this tour creates the template for future stadium rock (which The Stones would redefine even further on 1989’s Steel Wheels tour) with increasingly larger shows and bigger crowds needing better organising, and set the benchmark for tour organisation. Professionalism became the watchword, with agreed start and finish times and setlists. The only stadium band to flout this was Grateful Dead, whose setlist changed nightly. This was also the tour where Keith Richards morphs into “Keef,” complete with the coolest hair known to man, and ultimately becomes a role model for people like Johnny Thunders and Mick Jones.

Rolling Stone‘s Robert Christgau claims The Stones‘ 1969 tour is “history’s most mythic rock ‘n’ roll tour.” Certainly, apart from Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young‘s 1974 “Doom Tour,” few other tours can claim the same impact or significance.

The post Rolling Stones 1969 US Tour: The Book That Captures Rock History appeared first on RAMzine.

Which is quite remarkable when you consider that over the course of an extraordinary, almost sixty-year career, both inside VdGG and as a solo artist, he’s released at least 20 albums with VdGG, as well as at least 36 solo albums. It’s an astonishing output however you slice it. Yet, with the exception of Van der Graaf’s The Least We Can Do Is Wave to Each Other album, which just about crept into the top fifty, not one of his recorded pieces has troubled the albums charts, and he doesn’t release singles. So what is it about Peter Hammill that has attracted such levels of fanatical devotion from his army of fans?

This is what Banks has set out to discover in his book, which is a deep dive into the works of Peter Hammill, as well as being a portrait of Hammill as an artist and as a man. It’s the story of someone with a musical vision, originally drawing his influences from the early ’60s beat boom and the blues, whose career begins with his band being bottled offstage by drunk medical students and ends with fans crossing continents to see him perform. Fans who are serious about music that is “fiercely literate.”

It’s an assiduous examination, going into almost anorak levels of detail, based on his time with the famous Charisma label in the 1970s. Banks dissects every song and, in many cases, the inspiration behind the song, on every album Hammill and VdGG recorded during this period – a time when Banks claimed Hammill produced “some of his best-known, most groundbreaking works, both solo and with the band.” It doesn’t purport to be the definitive account because, as the author rightly says, the book would be so much bigger were this to be the case.

A key piece of advice given to Hammill by the legendary Graham Bond has proven decisive. Bond tells Hammill, “You have to do what you have to do,” which Hammill claims was the only true piece of advice he was ever given in the music business. Hammill has since then almost defiantly followed his own muse, constantly striving to produce new and interesting music. This leads to one critic claiming, “This album will win them more acclaim but, I fear, it won’t sell.” His single-mindedness has meant, as Chris Judge Smith says, while Hammill would’ve been thrilled to have had a hit album, “he won’t let anyone screw with his music.”

This may well be because he rarely repeats himself. As Banks illustrates, from album to album, you never know where the muse will take him, ignoring current trends. Neil Young once famously said, “With every album, I give the fans what they don’t want, but they still come back.” Hammill is in that select group of artists to whom the term “maverick” applies, alongside people like Neil Young and Todd Rundgren.

It hasn’t always been easy for Hammill following his muse. His vision of what he wanted VdGG to be was occasionally at odds with the other band members, causing bouts of friction and disharmony. But as drummer Guy Evans says, the band stayed together because there was “brotherly affection arising from a longstanding, improbable friendship.”

This book is a weighty tome, checking in at over 500 pages, and contains many previously unpublished pictures of the various stages of Hammill’s career. It includes a brief look at his post-Charisma career and concludes with lists of albums and radio sessions. Greg Spawton, co-owner of Kingmaker Publications, states, “Peter Hammill has long deserved the kind of critical appraisal given by Joe Banks.” Ultimately, this could well become the go-to book about Peter Hammill and VdGG in the seventies, and Banks is to be commended on giving us such a fine study of a revered artist.

ROCK and ROLE: The Visionary Songs of Peter Hammill and Van der Graaf Generator by Joe Banks will be published on 21^st November 2025 via Kingmaker Publishing.

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Ian Hunter Patterson came into the picture in 1969 when the band Silence met up with Island’s Guy Stevens. He liked the band but not the singer, so auditions were held. Hunter was chosen, and Stevens named the band Mott the Hoople after a novel by Willard Manus about a circus freak show. Hunter was then almost 30 when he joined the band, married with children and a seasoned frontman, having sung with various bands throughout the late fifties and sixties.

After four albums in three years, Mott hit the jackpot with David Bowie‘s ‘All The Young Dudes’. They had a few more hits before Hunter left the band in 1974 as a bona fide rock star.

His career comes in two parts. Initially, after making his name with Mott, he teamed up with Mick Ronson for a short period before finally deciding to go it alone. His work has been described as ‘setting a benchmark for literate, emotionally charged rock’, with his lyrical content praised by no less a judge than His Bobness.

Through it all, he’s rightly achieved cult status. At 86, he’s still writing and playing, a revered and well-respected elder statesman of rock. Bands like The Struts cite his influence on them, Def Leppard‘s Joe Elliott (who wrote the foreword) says he’s a ‘rock god’, and Springsteen called him ‘one of the great rock voices’.

The book, compiled by legendary rock photographer Ross Halfin (who describes Hunter as ‘one of my all-time heroes’ and pens his own eulogy to the man), looks at Hunter’s career through the years, beginning in 1969 and almost up to the present day. It features many rare and previously unseen pictures given to Halfin by Hunter. There are pictures of Hunter with the various bands and other artists he’s recorded and performed with, some possibly quite surprising, plus memorabilia, posters and more.

It comes in varying formats, with the super deluxe edition featuring a lithograph hand-signed by Hunter, Halfin and Johnny Depp. The lithograph is based on a picture taken of Ian Hunter in Boston, and it’ll set the buyer back a cool £599. Limited to a print run of only 100 copies, for fans of Ian Hunter, this book is the Holy Grail. Ross Halfin concludes with ‘I asked Ian for a quote and, after looking at it, he said, ‘buy the book’.’

The book can be preordered from https://www.rufuspublications.com.

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Miller’s starting point is that artists always need someone to take care of everything: travel, wardrobe, hotels, sometimes even finding their way to the stage. As he says, being treated often as a ‘gofer’ means you get to see the real person as well as the pop star, and they can be “a real pain in the arse.” But being a gofer sometimes requires quick thinking. At the border between East and West Germany in 1969, a potentially tricky situation was resolved by offering border guards a bundle of West German porn magazines, which were illegal in the East.

Throughout these pages, various contributors have witnessed the types of behaviour and petulant tantrums that might be considered acceptable for pre-pubescent children, but from grown adults with sizeable fan bases across the world? Who’d think it acceptable to delay a flight to Tokyo for two hours, inconveniencing countless other passengers, just to spend longer in the duty-free lounge, then demand a burger, causing missed connecting flights and delayed shows? Which star phoned their manager in England from a hotel room in Spain to complain about missing soap in the bathroom? When told to speak with the hotel staff, she replied, “But I don’t speak Spanish, can you sort it?” Which egotistical star sacked Miller for buying the wrong chocolate? You’ll find it all here.

You’ll also discover that musicians don’t always make the best decisions in their own interests. When asked if they wanted one of their songs included in a film in 1984, Judas Priest declined because they’d never heard of the star (“who the f**k is he?”) and the film didn’t sound like much. They put the song on their next album instead. The film was Top Gun, the star was Tom Cruise, and the soundtrack album sold nine million copies. Charlie Harper, singer with punk band UK Subs, once sold a song he’d written for £20 to buy beer. That song, ‘Tomorrow’s Girls’, became a top 20 hit, has appeared on numerous punk compilations, and is estimated to have earned around £100,000.

Backstage Chronicles is a fairly lightweight read, a collection of stories that never venture too far over the edge. Most are told from a humorous perspective, and if it’s stories about bona fide rock ‘n’ roll debauchery you’re after, Mötley Crüe‘s The Dirt would be more to your liking. Here, there’s just enough referencing of bad behaviour to keep things interesting without sliding into full-on rock ‘n’ roll clichés of tour life.

The post Carl Miller’s Backstage Chronicles: Rock Stars Behaving Badly appeared first on RAMzine.

This is more than just a people’s history; it’s also a kind of autobiography, with Bragg offering his views on various issues raised by others. The book covers his life from starting out, up to almost the present day, including his own reflections on the state of things, plus an extensive gig list as well as memorabilia. But, mostly, it’s written in the words of those who’ve either followed him from the very beginning, seen him onstage or on a demo, as well as those who’ve toured/recorded with him, and it’s been authorised by the man himself. And he’s had quite the ride. He’s worked in a record shop, been a soldier of the Crown (for three months), had a no. 1 single, performed at Wembley Stadium, written a book on patriotism and has shaken the hand of Queen Elizabeth 2nd. Billy has had a life!

This life has seen him have a forty-plus-year career as one of the UK’s most popular singer-songwriters, as well as being a staunch campaigner on political issues and social justice. His views on most major subjects are well known, and it helps his case that he’s erudite and very articulate in how he explains his philosophy. He isn’t university educated, so his commitment to politics and the causes he champions has been learnt on the streets and through interaction with others. His songs reflect the times and struggles ordinary people experience on a daily basis, and he does this without adopting a patronising stance. The sincerity he exudes from his music has been an inspiration to many fans. In NYC in 1985, one fan says hearing Billy Bragg play ‘A New England’ changed his life forever, and the songs on Life A Riot With Spy v Spy converted him from being someone who cared about nothing going on outside, to someone who “gave a sh*t about what’s happening around him.” He wasn’t the only person to express this view.

But it isn’t just his political/social awareness calls which draw the fans. His love songs also resonate. Mia Rankin said, “Behind the stoic left-wing activist is a man who’s written some of the tenderest love songs I’ve ever heard.”

The book also contains several quite amusing tour anecdotes. Flying out of Washington, DC, in a violent rain storm, the plane experiences bad turbulence, so while others fretted, Bragg put his headphones on and listened to the ‘Russian National Anthem’. On the Red Wedge tour during the mid-1980s, Bragg casts doubt on the sincerity of a speaker he’s just heard, to which the then Labour leader Neil Kinnock tells him not to upset that person as “he’s the future of the Labour party” … The person concerned was Tony Blair!

As Billy Bragg’s career approaches the venerable stage, he’s very likely on his way to becoming a ‘national treasure,’ who’d have thought this of the man once christened the ‘Bard of Barking?’ This is a book which’ll have an appeal to everyone with an interest in progressive causes and social justice, as well as the views of fans.

The post Billy Bragg: A People’s History        (Spenwood Books) appeared first on RAMzine.

Mention Iain Matthews’ name to most music fans and, if the answer isn’t “who?”, then it’s likely to be “oh, isn’t he the one who had the hit with Woodstock?” For many, this is where they think his story ends, as he’s not troubled the charts much since then. But this is a mistaken view because not only is he still around, he’s still playing, being a much-travelled musician who, in the eyes of his legion of fans and admirers, has been the torchbearer for Americana for many years, an artist who has eschewed fame for a career in the pursuit of continuous improvement and making good music.

The book, A People’s History, is an attempt to correct the misapprehension that he disappeared after 1970, and it does just what it says. It’s not an autobiography, it’s a series of reminiscences and memories from fans, friends, music biz folk and various musicians who’ve played with him, taken from across a professional career of almost sixty years. It begins in a shoe shop in Carnaby Street in 1965, where memories of seeing Iain perform with either Fairport Convention, Matthews Southern Comfort or Plainsong, or seeing him as a solo act, or meeting him either front of or backstage, right down the years are expounded upon.

Iain Matthews McDonald hails from near Scunthorpe and, after playing in a series of hometown local bands, decides to try his luck down in ‘swinging London’ in 1965, where he meets John Hayes in said shoe shop and the band Pyramid forms. From here he eventually emerges in the early incarnation of British folk-rock national treasures, Fairport Convention (the band who are to real ale what the Grateful Dead were to LSD) and performs on their first two albums, initially as a singer alongside Judy Dyble, but she leaves after their debut album, to be replaced by Sandy Denny, who has a different vocal style. The Fairports prefer Sandy’s style, so Iain leaves. Out of this comes Matthews Southern Comfort, who scored a top 20 hit in 1970 with Joni Mitchell’s song Woodstock. Leaving his own band, he forms Plainsong, who play together on and off down the years, releasing several well-received albums. Along the way, he learns to play acoustic guitar and becomes quite an accomplished player.

What comes across more than anything about Matthews in this book is the degree of affection with which he’s held. His fanbase clearly identifies with Matthews’ comment to a fan, Chris Shutty, when he explained why he continues, “I want to inspire people. I want you to look at me and say, It’s because of you I didn’t give up.” Certainly, his own solo career hasn’t exactly been a day on the beach; as he put it, “living hand to mouth for fifteen years” .. but his dedication to his music has never wavered, even in his dark times, and his sincerity and humanity, not to mention his music, is much appreciated by those who know him. It’d probably be fair to describe Iain Matthews as a ‘cult artist,’ albeit one quite some distance below the radar.

His wife, Marly Kleeven-Matthews, accompanied him on tour and says, “Imagine doing this for over fifty years. Iain’s 79 but still can’t stop working. He says he wants to, but in our house, we’ve stopped believing him.”

The post Iain Matthews: A People’s History by  Richard Houghton appeared first on RAMzine.

Derek Shulman has indeed been on an improbable journey, from being one of six children in a Glascow tenement building, to being one of three starstruck brothers in 1960’s pop band Simon Dupree & the Big Sound. To fronting seventies prog meisters Gentle Giant… finally to becoming a record company executive with a number of major labels, including  Polygram and Atco, sitting as he says, “with the ‘suits’ who make the decisions.” Everything he’d learned on one side of the stage, he used on the other side to help prevent artists from experiencing some of the rip-offs and hassles he’d experienced as a performer, particularly in the sixties and early seventies. He was in the business of other people’s music and, as he modestly puts it, “I was damn good at it, I was sh*t hot.”

Giant Steps is an eye-opening memoir. Shulman had a front row seat in the music business, being an eyewitness to some quite extraordinary times and adventures.

Shulman’s early life gave no indication of his future path. He grew up with four brothers and a sister, sharing a small house with an outhouse, no heat and no bathroom. As he says, “rock stardom wasn’t exactly on the horizon”. His early life is shaped by his music-loving father, who played trumpet in a jazz band and encouraged his sons Derek, Ray and Phil, in their musical leanings, and his early death when Shulman was seventeen was a major blow, but it determined him to make a success of his life. He tells his teacher he’s going to be a pop star, which was met with scorn and derision, but this doesn’t stop him.

His late teens and early twenties are spent with pop band Simon Depree (named after a previous Mayor of Portsmouth, where the Shulman family had relocated to). They score a few minor hits and one major one, ‘Kites,’ which reached no. 8 in the charts in 1967 and is still played on classic pop radio today. But in 1970 the brothers decide the time is right to become more musically adventurous. This being the dawn of progressive rock with ELP, Yes Genesis and the Floyd leading the way. Recruiting Kerry Minnear and Gary Green, the Shulman brothers form Gentle Giant. Gentle Giant were one of the seventies’ more adventurous progressive rock bands, who released eleven studio albums, plus one ‘live’ album, in ten years before realising the times are-a-changing again, and creatively they’re beginning to run on empty. So Giant folds in 1980. But, rather than cash in on his name as a successful prog rock vocalist, he travels in the opposite direction, accepting an offer to work for Polygram, which ultimately leads to him running his own label.

The business he entered in the early eighties was awash with cocaine, which he eschews, and, in the era of MTV, increasingly run by people who now see music as ‘product’ and artists as ‘facilitators.’ But he comes to terms with the landscape and gradually makes his mark, going on to play an integral role in launching the careers of Bon Jovi (he even gives them their name!), Pantera and Dream Theatre. He helps Uriah Heep get a record deal at a time when they couldn’t even get arrested, and helps relaunch the careers of Bad Company and AC/DC, amongst others. Along the way, he discovers the Beach Boys have surly attitudes and can’t play, The Eagles are extremely obnoxious and The Jams’ anti-Americanism was a major hindrance in attempting to break them in the States. He also encounters a surprised Gene Simmons, who remarks “aren’t you the guy whose band played with Kiss in Philly? What the f**k are you doing here in a suit?”

This is a rare case of someone working for a record label who’d actually played in two successful bands. Gentle Giant had benefitted enormously from record company people like Tony Visconti and Gerry Bron, and Shulman’s desire to want to help musicians arose out of his own experiences. He already knew the music business was a shark pool because, in the early seventies, he’d fallen foul of two legendary music business crooks, Don Arden (Ozzy’s father-in-law) and Tony Meehan. It was Shulman who first alerts Black Sabbath to how much they and Gentle Giant are being ripped off by Meehan’s firm, WAM, with some quite staggering amounts missing, leading to an angry Ozzy hurling a bottle at Meehan’s head, narrowly missing. Tony Iommi’s realisation, after several hit albums, that he didn’t own his house or car came as quite a shock!

In total, Derek Shulman’s career in the ‘business of music’ spans more than fifty years, and he knows the stage and the inner workings of the business, and all the shady, underhand tricks involved, so who better to give the view from both sides of the divide? After reading this highly enjoyable book, my only concern is, next time I play a Gentle Giant album, will I be thinking about music or business?

Karma is a bitch: After Simon Dupree & the Big Sound have a top ten hit with ‘Kites,’ the same teacher who’d ridiculed Shulman’s desire to be a pop star asks him to autograph his copy of the single!

Pre-order (UK/EU): https://tr.ee/GiantSteps-UK-EU

The post Derek Shulman – Giant Steps: My Improbable Journey appeared first on RAMzine.

With prog a more than credible genre once again .. it now has its own dedicated magazine (its editor writes an entertaining foreword to this book), its own album chart and with many of its original practitioners now anointed as ‘prog Gods,’ .. there’ve been any number of publications written by people who’ve treated writing about the genre almost as an intellectual exercise, and they’ve examined it from the outside looking in. With this book, however, Andrew Wild has gone back to the true source, those who were actually there .. those who were in the bands, in the crowds or compiling the fanzines. In other words, those who were in the vanguard of fighting the prog wars, and with this approach, he’s tapped into the absolute real ‘spirit and feel’ of the time. Thus, we’re given happy/sad stories of highs and lows, elation and rejection, great and disastrous gigs, bands changing key personnel, which led to hopes and dreams being dashed, as well as stories of bands coming up against a changing music scene which increasingly eschewed bands with any semblance of a creative spirit, especially in a period when it was MTV Uber Alles.

This meant, for every Marillion who crossed over to the mainstream, there were many others who didn’t even make it out of the Marquee. The momentum which’d been building was derailed for any number of reasons, not least because record labels became more risk averse as the ‘bean counters’ established their grip, which saw bands like IQ and Pallas being dropped due to ‘disappointing album sales,’ and also bands changing line-ups .. Euan Lowson leaving Pallas, Geoff Mann leaving Twelfth Night, Martin Orford leaving IQ and, in ’88, Fish leaves Marillion, the 80’s equivalent of Gabriel leaving Genesis though, like them, Marillion didn’t just survive, they went on to new heights.

Was there even an eighties prog revival? Not according to Fish, who claims it was all “a media invention.” Really? Did the fans who regularly packed out the Marquee, and who’ve stayed the course, think so? The fact that the momentum of the early years of the decade wasn’t more successful can be ascribed to several factors, but it’s worth noting that, in 2025, Solstice are more successful than ever, Marillion are still a force and IQ and Pendragon still sell albums and pull in crowds. In between this, a new generation of fans has seen bands like Porcupine Tree and Riverside rise to prominence on the strength of great albums.

Ultimately, though, Prog survived and grew because it fought for its right to party, in the face of media indifference. As Martin Orford, ex-IQ claimed, “Prog was no genteel art movement. It was often a rough and tumble, played out in seedy halls in front of crowds who were occasionally hostile and violent. It was a battle for the music and a battle to survive.” And survive it has. Just as old hippies never die, they just get older, so it is with old proggers.

The post A Playground Of Broken Hearts – Andrew Wild      appeared first on RAMzine.