UNCUT

25 min read

PLUS! THE RHAPSODY WORLD TOUR REVEALED! PAGE 98 EVEN for a band as seasoned as Queen, a new tour presents certain tribulations. For example, as they resume their Rhapsody World Tour – including a 10-date residency at London’s O2 Arena – Brian May, Ro

Classic Rock

3 min read

Tfirst Jethro Tull studio album for nearly 20 years, The Zealot Gene landed high in our Albums Of 2022 list. Mainman Ian Anderson may be 75, but his talents as a songwriter, flautist and frontman remain undimmed. With the follow-up album done and due

Prog

11 min read

The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, the group he formed in 1967 with Vincent Crane (later of Atomic Rooster), are absolutely foundational to the development of progressive rock. The Crazy World spiced up their R’n’Bderived sound with classical and jazz

Prog

11 min read

Fifty one years ago, four expatriate Africans and three Caribbean musicians came together in London as Osibisa. Flying their “crisscross rhythms that explode with happiness”, UK audiences had never seen anything like the seven smiling figures in Afri

Evening Standard

5 min read

Over the course of the last decade or so, Ed Sheeran went from a gigging Suffolk teenager with an acoustic guitar and a loop pedal, to someone who’s played in front of the Queen, sold out arenas around the world and, by most measures, become one of t

NPR

3 min read

Trumpeter Hugh Masekela and producer Stewart Levine organized the 1974 festival and produced the new album Zaire 74: The African Artists, which captures performances by Miriam Makeba, Franco and more.

Total Guitar

25 min read

Anew year brings another landmark in the life of one of the greatest guitar players of them all. “Fifty years,” Brian May says with a smile and brief pause as he takes it all in. “It really is amazing when you think about it.” Half a century ago, t

Classic Rock

2 min read

Since forming in Holland back in 1996, over the past 26 years Within Temptation have risen to become one of the world’s biggest symphonic rock bands. Frontwoman Sharon den Adel explains how they did it. The four upcoming dates you’re doing were origi

Classic Rock

2 min read

FOUNDED IN 2005 by Philadelphia neighbours Kurt Vile and Adam Granduciel, The War On Drugs have since expanded into a fearsome sextet, updating the classic tenets of heartland rock for a whole new generation. Latest album I Don’t Live Here Anymore –

Australian Guitar

5 min read

T hey could be considered the vanguard of a 70s glam rock revival, but New York brother-band The Lemon Twigs are exploring a more contemplative and stripped-back sound on their fourth full-length, Everything Harmony. Full of rich vocal harmonies and

Goldmine

8 min read

On September 15, we lost singer-songwriter and producer Ric Ocasek, a founding member and leader of The Cars. Ric and Benjamin Orr had played in a few Ohio bands before ultimately moving to the Boston scene, which led to The Cars’ self-titled polishe

The Atlantic

4 min read

Initially, neither group was excited about collaborating for “Walk This Way.” The rest is history.

NPR

6 min read

In 2010, the emo revival began to crest, Instagram launched, The Beatles released its catalog to iTunes and Kanye West released My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

Electronic Musician

8 min read

Fraser T. Smith has been a force ubiquitous to the UK music scene, contributing his talents to 18 number one albums and picking up Grammy and Ivor Novello Awards. Over his 25-year career, he’s worked with Adele, Sam Smith, Gorillaz and Florence and t

Stereophile

15 min read

VOCALIST JON ANDERSON HAS BEEN AT THE CENTER OF THE FABLED ROCK BAND YES SINCE ITS FOUNDING IN 1968 AND HAS COLLABORATED WITH OTHER NOTABLE ARTISTS INCLUDING VANGELIS, MIKE OLDFIELD, JEAN-LUC PONTY, AND THE CONTEMPORARY YOUTH ORCHESTRA. A TIRELESS AN

Goldmine

6 min read

During the 1970s, rock concerts began to be broadcast on mainstream radio, and quickly developed a strong following. The King Biscuit Flower Hour was the first to break through, and it ran on Sunday nights for over 20 years, across almost 300 station

JazzTimes

12 min read

To work on an installment of Bright Moments featuring the bassist and composer William Parker can feel like an exercise in futility. But not because he’s uncooperative or vague. In his cozy East Village apartment in January, Parker, 67, proved an exc

UNCUT

8 min read

LEROY “Lonnie” Jordan is outlining the War manifesto. “Our choice of weapon was our instruments, shooting out rhythm, melody and harmony,” says the band’s singer and keyboardist. “That was our motto. We were called War, but we were all about keeping

Classic Rock

2 min read

Formed in 1994 by guitarist Warren Haynes and bassist Allen Woody (the latter died six years later) – both members of the Allman Brothers Band – American southern rock jam group Gov’t Mule have carved out a successful career while flying beneath the

Prog

53 min read

We asked. You voted. In your thousands. Almost 80,000 of you to be precise, by far and away the biggest reader vote this magazine has ever undertaken. So the past month has been a heady whirlwind of names, numbers, quotes, frayed tempers, late nights

Classic Rock

3 min read

Born in Brooklyn, New York and raised in the neighbouring borough of Queens, Eric Bloom became co-lead guitarist, frontman, keyboard player and songwriter with hard rockers Blue Öyster Cult in April 1969. Over the following half-century he has been a

Metal Hammer UK

7 min read

The opening of the show is like something from a horror movie. The sinister choral intro of Welcome Back, O’ Sleeping Dreamer reaches a crescendo as blinding blue light floods the venue. Lorna Shore run onstage. “Berlinnnnn! Are you guys ready to fuc

Stereophile

30 min read

As I was preparing our annual Records to Die For feature for 2021, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, it occurred to me that at such a moment, “Records to Die For” didn’t evoke the same feelings it once did. That name—for what has become Stereoph

The Independent

7 min read

It’s usual to be taken aback at The Masked Singer’s big reveals, but the season that aired in February this year was a much-needed reminder of one of the most distinctive voices in British music history. Under the Harlequin costume, a singer with cri

BBC Music Magazine

3 min read

Unwanted noise (see also left) can occur in the concert hall too. The Bridgwater Hall in Manchester sits on giant rubber bushes to eliminate vibration from the nearby railway, but the Hallé Orchestra’s previous home, the Free Trade Hall, was woefully

Computer Music

9 min read

When Sharam Tayebi started work on his recent single, The Rain, he immediately knew that one version of the song was not going to be enough. “The original song had a kind of New York vibe,” he explains, “but as I was mixing down, I started to imagin

UNCUT

10 min read

“A FEW years ago I went back to The Rocket, the pub in Crawley where The Cure started playing. Our first bassist, Michael Dempsey, met me at the airport and asked, “Do you want a trip down memory lane?” The biggest thing that ever happened to The Roc

Prog

3 min read

Where’s home? Yorkshire – a wilderness life in rather harsh weather conditions, stacks of natural beauty. Love it. Earliest memory of prog? The kids from my dad’s church would meet on Sunday evenings at our vicarage and play their records. I wasn’t a

Classic Rock

3 min read

Andy Powell is the last remaining co-founding member of the current line-up of Wishbone Ash, whose fiery yet inherently melodic signature twinguitar sound (forged originally with Ted Turner) left an indelible stamp bands such as Thin Lizzy, Iron Maid

UNCUT

11 min read

MOST mornings, you’ll find Robert Fripp in his garden. “Every day I can walk out of the door and see the season change,” he says. “It is the first time in the life of a touring musician that I’ve been able to do that.” For Fripp, lockdown has present