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Various - The Reggae Christmas Collection
#Review | The Reggae Christmas Collection | Check these 4 Xmas albums (Yellowman, John Holt, Joe Gibbs) courtesy Doctor Bird/Cherry Red Records. #Xmas #JohnHolt #Yellowman #JoeGibbs #cherryredrecords Read the full article
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In conversation with Mariusz Duda ...
Polish âprogâ masters âRIVERSIDEâ have just released an entirely instrumental album entitled âEye Of The Soundscapeâ which compiles all the special tracks that have previously been used as bonus material for their albums âShrine Of New Generation Slavesâ and âLove, Fear and the Time Machine" [re-released recently], alongside rare cuts and 4 brand new songs (âWhere The River Flowsâ, âShineâ, âSleepwalkersâ and âEye Of The Soundscapeâ). As a huge fan of âRiversideâ, I was really quite blown away by this new release - itâs a departure for them - it pushes their boundaries into new musical territory - but itâs an album that you really must seek out. If you arenât already aware of âRiversideâ, then please accept this introduction. Formed in 2001, in Warsaw, by friends Mariusz Duda, Piotr GrudziĆski, Piotr Kozieradzki and Jacek Melnick, the band has gone from strength to strength, becoming a no1 selling act in Poland, with growing popularity around the globe. Melnick left the band in 2003, after the release of their debut album - it didnât halt their creativity, and with the addition of Michal Lapaj, the band have since released 6 more studio albums - the latest being âEye Of The Soundscapeâ. 2016 has been a tough year for them, following the unexpected death of founder member Piotr GrudziĆski - the band remain close, but are now a three piece, although they are adamant that this is how they will progress ... I had waited for some time to catch up with lead singer / bassist Mariusz Duda, and hereâs what happened when I eventually did :
Helen Robinson : Looking at the âRockâ music scene in Poland - there seems to be a huge underground following of âextreme metalïżœïżœ music - why do you think this genre is so popular? How involved were you / the band in that scene before âRiversideâ?
Mariusz Duda : From time to time everyone needs to do something extreme. And people need extreme music. True, it seems that in Poland we have pretty interesting extreme metal bands that there are known worldwide, but this is not so wide range as Norwegian bands for sure. âBehemothâ, âVaderâ, maybe âDecapitatedâ. But thatâs it. For us the roots of the founder members were pretty metal. Our drummer used to play death metal in HATE, our guitar player used to play something weird, maybe not extreme, but for sure connected with metal music. The fact that they wanted to start something more prog than metal, and they found me was pretty extreme too [laughs].
HR : Lucky for them, yes - but what persuaded you to become involved with a âprogressiveâ rock band?
MD : Progressive for me doesnât mean that you have to sound like the bands from 70âs. Progressive in my terminology means - break your habit, push the boundaries. For us pretty original was the fact that our drummer in his death metal style always disturbed us to play ballads. And that was pretty original and... progressive, so we became that kind of band [laughs] Ok, just to be serious - in spite of normal songs we always liked long forms, long structures and lots of keyboards - so after our debut release, full of that stuff, we became progressive rock band.
HR : How does it feel to have risen up to become a number 1 selling act in your home land?
MD : Pretty cool. Itâs great to know that you live in the country where people like to listen to something ambitious from time to time too.
HR : Youâre very popular in many other countries, of course - having been on the road pretty extensively since 2004 - throughout Europe, into the Middle East, Russia, South America, the USA and Canada - what do you most enjoy about touring and performing live? What has been your weirdest moment?
MD : Thereâs always an amazing adventure to be somewhere for the first time. Before routine comes and you mostly searching Wi-Fi in the venues instead of searching the town where you are for the first time! [laughs] Speaking of venues - I remember our show in Turkey, Istanbul. very small club. There was no stage for our drums. I mean there was a stage, but only for the drums. We had to figure something out, and we did. I remember that our guitar player had to play on the stairs, next to the stage. Truly weird experience.
HR : The band suffered a devastating loss early in 2016 with the sudden passing of Piotr Grudzinski - he would want you to continue, I am sure, but how have you coped as a band with the prospect of moving forward?
MD : That was hard. I was considering the end of the band even, but then I realised that the legacy is too big. Well, Iâm still the captain of this band. Iâm still the main composer. Iâm going to continue anyway. We lost one voice, but we still have the ship and we still want to sail. Differently for sure. This loss made us someone different, but maybe it will help our music to become more progressive in the terminology I always loved?
HR : How did you evolve as a âunitâ in the 15 years together since you formed? Do you hang out, or do you just come together to be a band?
MD : We are a family. Thatâs why after Piotrâs passing away we cancelled all our live shows till the end of the year and thatâs why became a trio. We usually spend lots of time together, but we also know that each of us need to have his own room
HR : [laughs] Sure, I understand that, and you are 4 quite different personalities ... How difficult was it to create (and hold on to) your own âsoundâ and identity as a band ?
MD : It was not hard. It was long. This is a long process - in time. I had the idea for the style of our band, but I had to be patient. I always wanted to play both short and long songs, hard and soft, very melodic, spacey, psychedelic, etc.
HR : What inspires you / How do you stay focussed on creating music? Who do you make the music for -Â your fans or yourselves?
MD : I take inspirations from my own experiences. And the experiences of my friends. Mostly everything that is placed in my heart and soul finds its own reflection in my music. And I compose that kind of music that I always would like to listen to. So tâs not only reflection and spitting out everything I have to say without taking care how it sounds and what people might thing about that. I care. But the truth is in the right balance. As a Libra I always pay attention to that.
HR : Ha! Libra - yeah I know a few Librans! Well then from a more personal perspective -  your own identity. You are pretty sure of yourself, but some musicians (especially front men) go through their careers constantly re-inventing themselves; is this something you have done? Is it possible to be 2 people at once and have a separate life on stage, and a real life away from it all - or is it all one place, where itâs easy to lose sight of who you are? [I promise I am not a psychiatrist! Just curious ...]
MD : I do what I feel. I try to be honest with my music. I usually write about something personal. My lyrics are like a pages from the diary. I develop myself with every album, grow up. I know what performance on the stage means, I know that I need to exist in social media to be alive in my job industry, but I also take care of my privacy. Libra. Balance ;)
HR : You have the libra balance musically too I guess. âRiversideâ have just released a new album âEye Of The Soundscapeâ which is purely instrumental - a first for the band- what made you decide to do this now?
MD : This is a very selfish album. Myself and Piotr GrudziĆski always wanted to release that kind of album. I think this is really an interesting piece of music. Something organic and electronic in the same time. Thanks to that kind of album - lots of people now can take a look at our band from the wider perspective. That we are not prog metal band only. That our influences are wider.
HR : From what I read, the fans are loving it ... so ... Where do you plan to go from here?
MD : The show in February with guest guitar players. The tour maybe. But mostly the new album recordings in 2017. Itâs time to break the silence. Again.
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Lawrence Hayward (Mozart Estate), Paris Popfest, 23 September 2022, Le Hasard Ludique, 128 avenue de Saint-Ouen, 75018 Paris, France [digital, 50.80cm x 33.87cm] | www.danilosama.ph
#lawrence#mozartestate#gokartmozart#denim#felt#cherryredrecords#parispopfest#lehasardludique#paris#france#artist#artists#band#bandphotographer#bandphotography#bands#club#clubbing#clubs#concert#concertphoto#concertphotographer#concertphotography#concertphotos#concertpics#concerts#entertainment#event#events#festival
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Always different, always the same đđ» Like The Stooges, and Velvet Underground playing with a hangover, itâs a must buy, but youâd know that anyway đ¶đđ» #thefall #markesmith #mes #hexenductionhour #cherryredrecords #limitededition #whitesplattervinyl #postpunk #indie #rock #vinyl #vinylcollection #recordcollection #vinyladdict #vinylcollector #vinyljunkie #vinylporn #nowspinning #lp https://www.instagram.com/p/CoK3g9mNOEe/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
#thefall#markesmith#mes#hexenductionhour#cherryredrecords#limitededition#whitesplattervinyl#postpunk#indie#rock#vinyl#vinylcollection#recordcollection#vinyladdict#vinylcollector#vinyljunkie#vinylporn#nowspinning#lp
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Cherry Red
Credit to @luxorhair_david
#redhaired #redcolor #redcolor?? #redcolors #redcolorhair #redhairlove #redhairdye #redhairdays #redhairstyle #redhairmodel #redhairstyles #redhairlovers_ #bleachhair #cherryredhair #cherryredrecords #stylistssupportingstylists
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Music Reviews: âLes Cousinsâ (folk anthology), plus Steeleye Span Live and Eric Brace & Thomm Jutz
Music Reviews: âLes Cousinsâ (folk anthology), plus Steeleye Span Live and Eric Brace & Thomm Jutz @redbeeteric @thommjutz @cherryredrecords @official.martincarthy @bertjanschfoundation @americanahighways #byjeffburger #americanamusic #americanahighways #musicreviews #herefirst @steeleye_span
Les Cousins (folk anthology), plus Steeleye Span Live and Eric Brace & Thomm Jutz Rock wasnât the only kind of music that was exploding in the 1960s: a major folk and blues revival was underway on both sides of the Atlantic. In the States, many artists who championed these genres performed at famed clubs such as Greenwich Villageâs Gaslight and Bitter End; Saratoga Springs, New Yorkâs CaffeâŠ
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#Al Stewart#Cat Stevens#Donovan#Eric Brace#Nick Drake#Paul Simon#Steeleye Span#Thomm Jutz#Tim Hardin
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[Crumbling the antiseptic Beauty] [Felt] [1982] [LP] obscure, delicate, mysterious, dark, majestic, epic, strange, melancholic, innovative and just beautiful music is on this unique debut album by the great band "Felt". https://www.instagram.com/p/CgKQ3sAI1Fg/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
#crumblingtheantisepticbeauty#feltband#felttheband#lawrencehayward#lawrencefelt#lawrenceofbelgravia#mauricedeebank#martinduffy#garyainge#nickgilbert#powerpop#janglepop#postpunk#newwave#psychedelia#indiepop#indierock#dreampop#tweepop#cherryredrecords#jinglejanglemorning#janeleonard#nowplaying#nowrunning#nowlistening#nowlisteningto
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STREAM 665 THE FALL SONGS | Explore The Complete Studio Albums of The Fall with this new 665 Songs-Playlist by Cherry Red Records on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1hwI0wA7j74qeElru8ZNBf @cherryredrecords #cherryredrecords #cherryred #thefall #markesmith @wheelchairjunkie #antikorpersession #antikoerpersessions https://www.instagram.com/p/CPTzg6JnTZz/?utm_medium=tumblr
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FELT penelope tree (single b-side) #felt #lawrence #vinyl #single #bside #cherryredrecords #penelopetree #1983 #vinylcollection #reissue https://www.instagram.com/p/Bz1tkh8hS2i/?igshid=z0r8rijdfvov
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Various - Lee 'Scratch' Perry Presents Soulful I: The Jamaican Singles 1969 - 1970
#Review | Lee 'Scratch' Perry Presents Soulful I: The Jamaican Singles 1969 - 1970. This follow-up to "People Funny Boy" is a great dbl CD. #LeePerry #Upsetters #BustyBrown #CarlDawkins #DavidIsaacs #cherryredrecords Read the full article
#BustyBrown#CherryRedRecords#davebarker#DavidIsaacs#doctorbird#gladstoneanderson#leeperry#TheBleechers#TheSilvertones#theupsetters#valbennett
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In conversation with Anthony Phillips ...
1967 â the World watched on as San Francisco experienced itâs âSummer Of Loveâ, and listened on as music reached the dizzy heights of psychedelic rock; Classical music seemed to be drowned out by the screams accompanying  The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who ⊠Meanwhile, at Charterhouse school - one of Great Britainâs finest âpublicâ educational establishments in the idyllic English county of Surrey - a handful of budding young musicians, were busily trying to prove to their masters that banning guitar practice as a punishment for missed homework, would not stop the musical revolution that had begun to happen within itâs own splendid Gothic walls! Unsurprisingly, there is a noteable list of âOld Carthusiansâ â including the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, amongst numerous artists, actors, poets , sportsmen, TV personalities, journalists, politicians, and Bishops! â but we doubt that they could ever have imagined that they would also nurture, and eventually include in that list, the founder members of a band called ⊠âGenesisâ. Perhaps you have heard of them?
Peter Gabriel, Michael Rutherford, Tony Banks, Christopher Stewart, and ⊠Anthony Phillips. Despite his departure from the band in 1970, Ant has never strayed from his musical path.  His solo discography boasts in excess of 30 albums; in addition to that he enjoys an incredibly busy, and successful career as a TV and âlibraryâ composer; and has been involved with a number of musical projects including collaborations with fellow âGenesisâ band mates Mike Rutherford, Phil Collins, and Peter Gabriel -  but it hasnât all been plain sailing ⊠ Helen Robinson, caught up with him to find out more : HR - So where did your musical journey begin?
AP - I was pretty much self taught at school. I studied music later, but in the beginning I was self taught. I briefly had guitar lessons from a chap who was very impressive. My mum used to buy me the Beatles sheet music, and kindly send it down to me at âCharterhouseâ â and this chap  would just look at them and read from the piano score, with guitar âshapesâ written in fret numbers as opposed to tablature â and he would play the chords and the melody on this beautiful classical guitar. I just wanted to be able to strum the chords to the songs and sing along really, and I think at the time he was a bit disappointed that I wasnât prepared to go the classical route ⊠Anyway I didnât.  Then formed a band at school â doing Rolling Stones,  Beatles, Kinks, Animals, The Shadows  - Hank was a big influence - and that took me up to starting to write my own stuff; A lot of it with Mike Rutherford. I met Mike when I was 13 â the other Genesis guys were quite a bit older so we didnât get together with them for a couple of years. The school band â The Anon - was people more my age. I was the babe of Genesis!
HR - Indeed â and with that in mind, how much input did they allow you to have on the debut album â âFrom Genesis To Revelationâ?
AP - The first album I didnât do an enormous amount of writing â it was very much dominated by Peter Gabriel and Tony Banks. Â The second album â âTrespassâ - Â was much more of a âgroupâ album. In fact, myself and Mike were responsible for the basis of 3 or 4 of the tracks on âTrespassâ. âVisions of Angelsâ was my piano track originally. Songs like âLooking For Someoneâ were Peter Gabriel songs that the rest of us developed the instrumentals around. I had a reasonable amount of stuff on âGenesis To Revelationâ, but Mike had very little â we came much more into play on âTrespassâ.
HR - Youâd left the band by the time their 3rd album was released. Did they take any of your ideas forward into âNursery Crymeâ? AP - Actually, I was responsible for mucking about with a few ideas that ended up on the album, way before I left  - Mike had this weird tuning of F# which we played about on.  That song became âThe Musical Boxâ later â so, yes, a couple of ideas made it.
HR - Do you ever listen back to the first two albums, and hear things that you would change?
AP - I donât often listen, no - and I havenât listened to them enough to have any really strong thoughts. I think if you donât listen for a while then itâs quite pleasant. If you have a period away from these things, you tend to forget what you thought was wrong, Â so then itâs not so bad â but I must say that when you listen repeatedly, then you start to think âoh dearâ, I could have done that differently. We all felt that the business of putting strings on âGenesis To Revelationâ Â - which necessitated reducing the backing track to mono -was a bit of a disaster. Â Whilst our playing wasnât the best, the album had a rough, raw power to it which, that process of adding these high wheeling strings to, made it lose something, and anodyne, perhaps. I know that our producer was trying to give it a more commercial edge, which I understand, but I donât think it really came off - Â and it was at some cost too!
HR - Would you re-record or re-mix any of it again now, in your own way?
AP - No I donât think so. Â I think it is of its time really. Â The other thing of course is that itâs physically impossible now. Â That reduction process, means that things were erased, so we canât get back to the original stages even if we wanted to. Thatâs all changed now, mercifully, with computers . You can get back to any stage these days â providing you remember to save it!
HR â Ah, yes!  The wonders of modern technology.  And ⊠NOT saving things! [laughs]
AP - Yes â weâve all done it!!!  Itâs all so easily done. We take too much for granted with technology. You can become over reliant on it, and lazy! I do fall into that trap myself sometimes actually â musically. I donât think enough about original sounds I just tend to buy virtual instruments. T hey are wonderful, but if you think back to albums like  [The Beach Boys], âPet Soundsâ and [The Beatles] âSgt Pepperâ, those sounds were created, they werenât just there at the push of a button!
HR - I know youâre quite experimental with your solo work ⊠Once youâd left Genesis , how easy was it to move into a more classical sound with your compositions?
AP - I found it difficult! I could play by ear, but learning to read music at the age of 18 was incredibly hard to grasp. It was a different discipline of course, of not looking at the guitar or the piano, whilst reading music. My motivation in doing it, was because I wanted the ability to orchestrate ; Not having had that set of skills in Genesis , we couldnât really have any input into the orchestral approach because we simply didnât really understand it. Tony Banks did more than the rest of us, although he wasnât orchestrally trained, but he could read music. So I wanted the power to orchestrate. It wasnât simply about being able to read music, or being able to play piano pieces â It was definitely to understand notation, so that I could write orchestral pieces. I had a âRoad to Damascusâ, if you like, Â after I left Genesis, and listened to all sorts of composers. âThe Karelia Suiteâ, by Sibelius, was my epiphany. I suddenly thought âthis doesnât sound like classical music!â. I must have listened to the wrong things, or maybe my ears werenât ready to listen as a child, so I had a lot of catching up to do. There was a huge âpopâ / âClassicalâ divide as I was growing up in the 60s â it was rancorous between the establishment and the young tear-aways, and hippies. Â It was a wonderful voyage of discovery though, but frustrating at the same time â Â technically - Â I loved doing Bach âChoralesâ and things like that, but some of the exercises I had to do, I found quite dull.
HR - Having honed your skills then, Â did you find that it made a difference to the music that you wanted to write? Did you find yourself wanting to bridge the gap between pop and classical â through a âprogressiveâ angle?
AP - Hmmm, Bridge the gap is interesting. It didnât make a great deal of difference to me in terms of the progressive wing of my writing â I think I would have grown into that anyway.
With Genesis - There were some moments which were quasi classical, but I donât think they bridged the gap really, no. Tony Banks was very familiar with the classical repertoire, so you could argue that his chord sequences were classically influenced. What studying  did for me, was give me the ability to do - with the more markedly classical wing of things (although you may argue that itâs a fine line to distinguish which bits are prog, and which are classical!) â  was cope with them better.
On âThe Geese And The Ghostâ for instance, having studied orchestration, and knowing how to write the parts, I didnât have to get an arranger in. I could think for myself and make my own judgments on which instrument to add where. Plus â arrangers inevitably, like anyone else, tend to have their own styles which then reflect on the piece, which might be good, but it might not be necessarily what you want. So it really did help me in that respect.
HR - Genesis certainly didnât carry any of that vibe forward, into their commercial phase âŠ
AP - No! Well, the post Gabriel group gradually became more and more commercial didnât they. Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel were quite different animals really - Obviously Peter did some successful commercial things afterwards. To be fair to them [Genesis], it would have been very difficult to carry on that way â especially post punk, and disco eras. There was almost a unilateral, multilateral, Palace revolution, that everyone had to start doing that! It became very unfashionable to be âprogâ and have such complicated long and drawn out pieces of music.
My timing was peccable - Â Iâm not sure there is such a word, but I like it anyway! - coming back into the business, because I walked straight into the teeth of punk! Whilst I had nothing against it, in the sense that if I had been 10 years younger I would have been doing the same thing âwhat I did object to, was being asked to go into reverse gear, and start doing simple pop stuff, because Iâd out grown it.
So I think it actually, for the purposes of the market, became very difficult for groups to stay true to their former selves and continue to produce classically based music. I donât think it was a conscious direction on behalf of a lot of groups to start to simplify their music, they just were not given much choice.  It didnât do England a great deal of credit the way that everyone cashed in on that - there was so much clichĂ©d nonsense around and people were saying âthis music hasnât got any balls!â. In a lot of European countries and the States, different styles were able to co-exist much better, than here in the UK. It was the fault of the record companies rather than a lot of the punk musicians really - they were just happy doing their own thing, but there was a lot of unpleasantness at that time. There were a lot of people who were heroes one day, and then being knifed in the back the day after by the people who had been adulating them! Which wasnât anything to be terribly proud about âŠ
HR - Not at all! But, something to be proud about is this lovely re-issue of your debut solo album âThe Geese And The Ghostâ!
AP - Yes! Â Absolutely! Itâs just come out again, and in surround sound too, which is the first time I have had a surround sound album, and they have done a fantastic job with it! Particularly the instrumentals â it really does make a difference to have that experience of surround sound. And theyâre releasing limited editions on Vinyl too, which is fabulous because that is when the artwork really comes into itâs own. Vinyl seems to be having a bit of a revival, which is great! MP3s are OK, but the sound is pretty impoverished really one youâve narrowed the bandwidth of the sound. It sounds like a different album really, with that treatment! HR - When you started work on âThe Geese And The Ghostâ originally - Did you write it from a fresh perspective or was it something that you had brought forward from Genesis?
AP - It was actually written from a period as far back as 1969 / 1970. Things that Mike [Rutherford] and I had played around with then. There were some additions and refinements made between 1973 / 1974. Recording began in 1974, although the main body of it was done in 1975 â which is actually 40 years ago, isnât that terrible?! And then, because they were now unfashionable times, we really struggled to get it released - so it didnât come out until early 1977, by which time some of that material was over 7 years old!
HR - When you were selecting musicians to work with, what influenced your decision to ask Phil Collins and not Peter Gabriel?
AP - Well, Mike and I wrote together, and Peter and Tony [Banks] wrote together - Â when we came together as a group, that modified a little, but that initial pairing pretty much stayed the same way. So, because Mike and I had all this unreleased music â which was frustrating âat the earliest opportunity ; at a time where solo albums looked like a possibility - we wanted to use this material. We had done a single with Phil in 1973 which ironically was written about the previous Genesis drummer, Jonathan Silver, who was on the first album. Â I had written this with Mike â a very uncharacteristic kid of loose country song called âThe Silver Songâ and Phil came down and sang the demo and did such a great job of it. You see, Peter was married, so whenever we had any time off - he went home to spend it with Jill ; whereas Phil was foot loose and fancy free and had tons of energy. The single never got released for various reasons, but when it came to âThe Geese And The Ghostâ he was the obvious choice because the three of us had worked together before. HR - Iâm glad you mentioned Jonathan Silver there â Â with regards to him, and John Mayhew â were they just hired guns for the early Genesis albums or did they have creative input?
AP - No, they werenât hired guns as such, but by the same token they didnât have a huge input, but we did group compositions on all the tracks on those first 2 albums â  so whilst they werenât writing huge swaythes of chord sequences, they were putting in little bits here and there. Jon Silver was full of energy and ideas about arranging and how things were connected. HR - We never really get to know the dynamics of the early stuff, which is why I was curious. It has always seemed to me, that Phil Collins became Genesis ⊠or is that an unfair judgment?
AP - Well he had the big commercial success and I donât think it would have been easy to keep him unless he had the lion share of the writing credits, although I think theyâve shared the credits pretty well ⊠I think itâs sad to see him fall so far from all of that these days, with the press in particular, but he was colossally successful, and I think the group would have been looking the gift horse in the mouth if they hadnât run with Phil.
The media can be so cruel. I remember a duel review of âThe Geese And The Ghostâ being handed to me from the states. One called it a âmellow rock classicâ, the other said it was âmusic to wash dishes toâ ⊠and sadly you seem only to remember the bad ones!
And do you know, that it was the album that very nearly never came out?!! It sat on a shelf whilst punk roared away, and Iâd given up on it to be honest. It was 15 months between finishing it and it being picked up to be released.  For the first 3 or 4 months I was quite hopeful;  by new year  1976 I was beginning to lose hope, and by the summer I was definitely starting to think about other things, and applying to go to music college full time. Â
It was a pretty soul destroying time â Iâd spent a lot of time and energy on it; a lot of angst , and thought, apart from hard work, had gone into it ⊠And then right at the 11th hour, while I was going for auditions to music college for the following year  - suddenly it was picked up by an American record company. It was never actually released on a formal English record company label - it was released by the Genesis management company with whom I was with at the time â âHit And Runâ â so like I say itâs the album that nearly never was!
HR - If it hadnât been picked up then, do you think youâd have given it another shot down the line?
AP - No ⊠I donât actually. I think I would have gone to music college, and ...  Good point! What would I have done at the end of it?  I think I would have carried on composing, definitely, but Iâm not quite sure where I would have come out at the other end, because the progressive scene had long gone, when I finished college in 1979â [laughs] Yes - in a parallel world what would I have done?  I have absolutely no idea! I would probably have ended up as a music teacher.
HR - Did you teach, at some point?
AP - Yes ⊠yes I did funnily enough. Whilst I was studying, I taught classical guitar - which helped me a lot. I had always played acoustic guitar, but didnât play proper finger style - my right hand was quite basic, so I studied classical guitar as well as piano when I left Genesis, and teaching then helped me to pass the Classical Guitar teachers exams (as opposed to the performers diploma). I taught at a couple of different schools. One was Pepper Harrow ; which was like a progressive borstal for kids who were very bright, but whoâd fallen foul of authority - not so badly that had to be interned, as it were.  A great number of them had come from some pretty horrific backgrounds, but a number of them have gone on to do great things. Some of them were brilliant musicians!  I remember wondering what I was letting myself in for initially, but itâs something that I look back on with a great deal of affection. They werenât just guitar lessons â they were much more -  the music was a vital part of these guys rehabilitation.
HR - Sounds like youâd have made a fantastic teacher, had all else failed! Given that âThe Geese And The Ghostâ almost didnât happen â did that fill you with confidence to carry on to do the next album straight away, or had it discouraged you a little?
AP - Oh Iâve had more than my fair share of discouragement over the years! The album that came directly afterwards was âWise After The Eventâ and I was immediately told that it had to be an album of songs â the writing was on the wall for these straggly instrumental albums - Â and it was time to crank up the electric guitar into a heavier rock genre, or donât bother turning up, kind of thing.
âSidesâ was originally going to be called âBallsâ, which was cocking-a-snook at people for saying that my music didnât have enough balls! At the time it seemed to me to be so ludicrous to have this blanket approach across all music  - so thatâs why we had the cover with the table football table on it - But the powers that be, over-ruled âBallsâ and we had to change it to âSidesâ ; because it did have one side that was more overtly commercial than the other, which is a little more instrumental.
I was lucky at that point, because the âPrivate Parts and Piecesâ idea just came out of the blue really. I had been recording and stockpiling quite a lot throughout the year when nothing was happening with âThe Geese And The Ghostâ, and I asked if it might be possible, as a foil to this more rock orientated stuff, to be able to release an album of piano pieces, guitar pieces â sort of home recordings, which made up in their atmosphere and mood, what they lacked in technical perfection - and they said yes! Â
The first X of âSidesâ was released as âPrivate Parts And Piecesâ - as a freebie. Â It wasnât actually âPrivate Parts and Pieces Iâ because it was a one off, but that numbering thing became sort of a generic term for my albums which were more homespun and simple â you know, small scale, as opposed to the more magnum opuses.
Not that I was able to do a Magnum Opus for quite a while! There was the âInvisible Menâ album, which had a certain amount of record company backing, but that was again released around the time of the âNew Romanticsâ â more bad timing! Iâd just bought my first house, and was under huge financial pressure with about 18 lodgers to pay the mortgage!  So there was big pressure on to have hit singles and get paid, and so I didnât do another full scale album for about another 6 years. I was lucky to still have this  âoutletâ, with the small scale releases, to continue to get some music out there during the 80s  - when the climate was very much against the more classical stuff -  at least I did continue to get piano, guitar, synth - slightly more imaginative stuff - out there, but all very much on a small scale.
Thinking about it, it was actually a full 7 years gap before I had the opportunity to do another large scale album at the end of the 80s. It was a frustrating time that too, Â I can tell you. I had rather a chequered career for a while. I was doing a lot of songwriting, and aiming it at other artists. We would keep getting close, but then, the management would lose the artist, or the album was canned. They werenât collaborations or anything, but we had some placements in the works for Sheena Easton, Roger Daltry and people like that, but they never worked out. We had a song covered by Bucks Fizz â who promptly had a coach crash! So I had a run of bad luck with that really. It was an interesting time â Â I was trying allsorts of different things whilst my own music wasnât making much money, and whilst trying to pay for the new house. It didnât quite come to being a cat burglar, or an assassin, but I did give it some serious thought!
HR - Your celebrity friends could have hired you to assassinate the music press âŠ
AP - [laughs] Yes âŠ
HR - Is there anyone in particular, that you would like to collaborate with? AP - I thought you were going to say Assassinate! I donât know these days ⊠about collaborations ⊠Mike and I were always a good team but we have gone in different directions now.  Iâm not sure that heâs interested in doing complicated instrumental stuff any longer.  He did ask me if I wanted to be involved with the Mike and Mechanics albums, but I knew that I couldnât see the whole project through with the touring and everything, which is what he needed.  And itâs not necessarily my bag if Iâm honest, although I very much respect what heâs achieved. I think maybe weâve gone too far down different roads now to make anything work. Steve Hackett and I have talked about writing together a few times, but itâs always risky when someone is your friend. Working relationships do change things, and Iâm not sure Iâd want to risk my friendship with Steve!
With my TV library music, I do collaborate with quite a lot of people then anyway, so Iâm not one of these musicians who doesnât want to work with anybody else.
HR - When are you at your happiest then?  When youâre working on solo stuff and youâre completely in control of it (and Iâm not insinuating that youâre a control freak!)  âŠ
AP - Ha, NO! Actually, a great friend of mine calls my studio the spaceship! And Iâm completely happy in there when Iâm just mucking about with all the wonderful synth sounds, creating tapestries of colour with sound â Love it!
And also playing guitar, which increasingly seems to happen late at night in front of the TV. Just picking up a guitar â 12 String or Classical â when these ideas enter my head at absurd times of the day. On the recordings you can invariably hear Alan Hansen and Match Of The Day commentary in the background! And I do actually present demos to my library producer, with TV programmes going on in the background.
HR - What  sort of boundaries are in place with your Library writing? Can you remain true to your âalbumâ style, or are you tied  to a  brief?
AP - I have a lot more freedom these days to create some varied pieces â guitar, synth â itâs very varied, and thatâs what I love about it, but itâs hugely competitive, and the recession spawned a lot of âunder-cuttingâ -  the market is flooded, and the rates of pay have dropped! I feel very fortunate to have done well at a time when it was less competitive, and to have continued to do it. Itâs incumbent on me to keep writing as much as possible -  I canât afford to take my foot off the peddle. So when things come up, I donât ever really have a blank page because of the stockpile of guitar, piano , synth, and orchestral library pieces already down â I have all of this material ready to go, rather than start from scratch. Some of them are slightly rough and would need to be redone, but the mood is there, and if someone came to me tomorrow asking for such and such, I would hope that I have something that would suit. Unless they asked for a bagpipe concerto. I havenât got one of those. Itâs unlikely to happen, but you never know âŠ
HR - So when we end this conversation, youâre going to go and write one âŠ
AP - [laughs]Theyâre not a pretty sound when people turn them off you know! What they donât tell you is that when theyâre warming up and cooling down they sound like a sick cow! It is a racket! We had a funny incident on the road with Genesis actually. Peter Gabriel was a little bit accident prone, and slightly absent minded on stage, and used to play the accordion in Stagnation, a bit â in quite an unconventional way, not like jolly French stuff with the onions and the beret - but he would put it down during a very quiet section and if he didnât put it down properly, it would make this kind of squealing noise going off into the distance, and suddenly we would sound like a John Cage outfit! People would look up completely startled! Another thing he would do â he was a good flute player but struggled with an A flat in âThe Knifeâ which was our closing song â and Tony Banks had to remind him before we went on, that you had to tweek the flute to tune it by a semi-tone. Occasionally Tony would forget to tell him, and Peter wouldnât remember;  The lights would dim, and weâd be ready for this lovely moody bit, and BANG! He would come in a semi tone out!  That was pretty tense I can tell you! I love all of those instruments âŠ
HR - Whatâs your favorite instrument?
AP - Ooooh Tricky. I think pushed to answer that, Iâd have to say 12 string guitar 1st, followed very closely by piano, Classical guitar 3rd, and underwater sousaphone 4th âŠ
HR - And, may I say you play all 4 brilliantly!
AP - Aww thanks âŠ
HR - Iâll look forward to your underwater sousaphone symphony at some point, amidst the forthcoming re-releases! Were you looking at reworking your back catalog, or was it something that you were approached to do?
AP - They approached me! Â [Cherry Red / Esoteric Records]. Not to put too finer point on it but I make the majority of my living from my TV music, and the album work has always been a very nice foil to that, but itâs not been my bread and butter, as it were. Iâm probably one of the only artists who has ever said to a record company â âare you really sure you want to do this?â And they did, so I was a bit surprised really! I gathered they were in the business of picking up back catalogsâ and I hate the world âcultâ â but of people who have âcultâ followings, and it felt like entirely the right thing to do. It feels a safe place to be, and with a decent company who have their act together; after having had so many years of uncertainty with this stuff.
HR - How much influence did you have over the way that the 2014 anthology âHarvest Of The Heartâ, was put together?
AP - Not a lot actually, but entirely by choice. I wrote a little bit for the blurb on the boxset, but as far as choosing what songs to include â I couldnât make the decision. It was too difficult â I mean, I dither anyway, at the best of times!  And Iâm not in any way trying to imply with arrogance that this is all so wonderful, but it was just too hard for me to decide. Iâm not a good judge of what other people would have wanted, and to be frank I donât like listening to a lot of it anyway, once I have done it, otherwise I start to pick it all apart and convince myself that I could have done better ⊠So I was very happy to leave it up to Jonathan Dann, who runs my website ; and Mark Powell (Boss of Cherry Red), who went through all of it. He deserves a medal for that!
HR - I know itâs unfair to ask an artist what their favourite piece of their own music is, but â do you have one?
AP - The albums Iâm most proud of , would be âThe Geese And The Ghostâ, and an album called âSlow Danceâ ; which was the first album that I did when I came back after that 7 year hiatus in the wilderness, as it were âŠ
HR - Was that [Slow Dance] released under your own steam outside of record label jurisdiction?
AP - It was actually! I did that off my own bat, and once again ended up having a bad time of it! Weâd done an album called âTarkaâ, and there was a bit of an upturn in the 80s with the ânew ageâ boom. Iâd been doing what was effectively ânew ageâ for a while, but suddenly people realised that, after about 5 years! So I borrowed some money from my management company to crank up my gear, in order to enable me to do a larger scale record. This was in lieu of a small advance from the record company, who then went bust! So the rights to my songs were impounded, under US laws, and my catalogs were frozen (as assets) in the states for a number of years and I couldnât get them back -  so it was a pretty chaotic period in terms of America, but also I had to finish what I had started here! So I pressed on with this album, very much in debt, because Iâd bought the gear, but then hadnât got the advance to pay it off! Looking back Iâm not sure how I kept going really because the record was very complicated ⊠But I did have an ulterior motive which was to try and secure a publishing deal with the thenâ Virgin Publishingâ under Richard Branson. I donât to this day think he realises what he let go of when he sold it on to EMI â it was such a wonderful company to be a part of. Ultimately, I got a deal, which got me out of the mire;  I finished what became âSlow Danceâ and then Virgin came in and released ALL of my albums onto CD for the first time, so I was very fortunate then. I owed a lot to that record in the end. But it was a real blood, sweat, and tears album, and it wasnât just mentally painful to listen to afterwards â it was literally physically painful too ; I would writhe around and cringe listening to it because I spent too long on it, and it sounded awful to me. It tried to do too much. Itâs quite filmic, and unabashedly lyrical - Itâs very orchestral at times and some of it is artificial; the sounds at that stage werenât particularly brilliant and in hindsight it would have benefitted from more real orchestra. I think I could listen to it now ⊠There is a two year rule â donât listen for something you did for two years, and youâll forget what was wrong with it!
HR - Would you re-record it, now?
AP - Well â itâs one of the things that will come up for discussion, funnily enough,  because we are planning to release some more in surround sound, but it has to be practical to do because itâs a very expensive process, and Cherry Red are very fair, but they know we possibly wonât sell a million copies. I would like to do âSlow Danceâ yes. I think any of the orchestral albums would really benefit from being in Surround Sound. The bigger it is, the more there is going on, and the more you can throw around the room. The re-release schedule is a bit torturous actually. Up next is âPrivate Parts and Piecesâ with a bonus CD of material from the time, and  ⊠I donât want to give too much else away really, but we will be doing more ⊠maybe âTarkaâ, eventually.
HR - Would you like to get any of your compositions to a point where an orchestra could perform it live? AP - Oh You bet! Iâd love it!! There was a performance of âTarkaâ in Australia, but it was with a scratch orchestra, so a rather mixed affair. Itâs quite hard [Tarka] although itâs not an incredibly difficult score, but it needs some very good players to do it justice. These things are just so incredibly expensive to put together though, arenât they?
HR - Yes, they are! Do you ever perform?
AP - I donât ⊠no. My experience with Genesis made me very tentative about performing, but to be honest - the thing that I enjoy most is composing. Iâm a terrible practicer! The process of playing something over and over again, just bores me to tears!
HR - How about conducting then? AP - Gosh no, Iâm not a good enough conductor â I did study it for a while, briefly, but Iâd be much better on a bus! I know the moves, and the beats, but itâs that business of making the left hand totally independent of whatâs going on with the right hand â thatâs really difficult.  Itâs an extraordinary art! And when I go to see an orchestra, the conductor always seems to be so far ahead, that I canât ever put it together!! When I was first studying I used to get the orchestra seats behind the Albert Hall proms, which are  the ones behind the Orchestra where youâre looking directly at the conductor â and some of the conductors seemed to be so far ahead of the orchestra, that we used to joke that the conductor would be in the dressing room toweling down, whilst the orchestra were still finishing off! I donât understand it!! Itâs one thing that I do regret in life actually â I would have loved to have been in the middle of a big phat orchestra when something like the  âRites Of Springâ [Stravinsky]  or âThe Planetsâ [Holst] is being played.  That must be amazing! Even to just play the triangle or something!  Iâd love to do that âŠ
HR - Thereâs always time! Â What about your life outside of music? Do you ever divert from your musical routes?
AP - [laughs] It would seem not to the untrained eye eh? I have a lot of friends and probably spend too much time socialising, and eating out, so I burn the candle at both ends too often. I spend a lot of time with my nieces and nephews, and God-children â I donât have kids of my own but keeping up with all of them makes life pretty full! It is a difficult balance to keep because I really canât afford to fall behind with work stuff and that involves an endless amount of mind boggling admin with the album career, and for composing for the library - I have to keep up with all the new technology in the studio, and the new sounds â endless changes! I love sports ; all sorts of sports ⊠Iâm a big film man  - love films. Probably my favourite music is in film scores these days. My big musical heroes are film composers â amongst many, my favourites are  Ennio Morricone : particularly âCinema Paradisoâ and the wonderful âGabrielâs Oboeâ from âThe Mission; John Williams, âSchindlers Listâ; George Fenton , âShadowlandsâ; Thomas Newman ,  âShawshank Redemptionâ; Hans Zimmer,  James Newton Howard,  Alan Silvestri and many others ⊠so, yes! How do I actually find time to work? That is the question ... Not too long after weâd had this chat, Ant got the opportunity to work on a re-release of âSlow Danceâ ; hereâs the verdict ... HR : So the ultimate question is, forced to listen to it again, have you grown fonder of Slow Dance during the re-mastering, for this re-release?AP :  My own view in general, which I appreciate may be very different to that of other musicians, is that when you come back to an album not having heard it for ages, it has novelty value and you think âthatâs not bad at allââŠ.! Thatâs why i prescribe the âtwo year ruleâ. Donât listen to a piece, album, whatever, for a while and you will forget what it was that you are aspiring to that made you feel dissatisfied with its original outcome !Alas, repeated listens gradually bring back the issues that worried you at the time ! And the more time spent on an album (in my case Slow Dance, Geese were particular long campaigns) the worse it is. QBG and I flew through PP3 in the lovely summer of 1981 and it all remained fresh and therefore untarnished in oneâs memory. This naturally makes us completely unobjective when it comes to judging our work ! Slow Dance was such a painstaking haul that when I finished it I found it excruciating to listen to.You have a mystical image of how a piece should sound and capturing this remains tantalisingly elusive !  Perhaps this very frustration is what drives you on to try and do better âŠ?So yes, at first pleasantly surprised, with a few reservation, then gradually I began to feel âcould have done that better - in many instances !But there are sections that I am still quite proud of and I know it is a piece that has been a moving experience for number of peopleâŠâŠ. HR : When last we spoke, You were enjoying the opportunity to take your recordings into the surround sound arena - has this one surpassed your expectations?AP : The Surround was a tough one : the toughest of all the re-releases thus farâŠ.Perhaps not harmonically but certainly in terms of the arrangement, the album was in parts very intricate and both the balance and flow hung by a thread. Any slight change and the wheels would come off. And they did ! It presented an almost insurmountable challenge to Simon Heyworth and Andy Miles, as there were effects on outboard gear (now either absent or defunct !) that werenât recorded to tape and therefore had to be somehow âreconstructedâ. On the other hand instrumental albums such as this and particularly 1984 ( a feast for the guys with all the weird, tricky sounds lending themselves well to sonic spatial manipulation !) do benefit from  the size and ambience that 5.1 affords. So my considered view is that the more ambient, floaty parts benefit greatly whilst other sections slightly less soâŠ.But what does the musician / composerâs view countâŠ..? It is only the audienceâs opinions that ultimately counts ! I am happy that we try to give anyone repurchasing these albums enough extra material to make it feel worth it !
#genesis#modern classical#anthony phillips#ant#cherryred#cherryredrecords#esoteric#prog rock#prog#classical#composer
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The Chameleons - Live At The Gallery Club Manchester 1982, Let Them Eat Vinyl 2015. 2xLP, Ltd Ed, Gatefold, Grey. Grey like the sky is right now. Cold AF too. But I've got a hot performance too warm these ears. This is The Chameleons early on. đ€đ€đ€đ€ - #vinyl #vinylcollection #vinylrecords #onmyturntable #lps #liverecording #thechameleons #letthemeatvinyl #cherryredrecords #postpunk #itsfreakingcold (at Chicago, Illinois) https://www.instagram.com/p/BtHdi7Dnftp/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=5gqqlyzkdfgo
#vinyl#vinylcollection#vinylrecords#onmyturntable#lps#liverecording#thechameleons#letthemeatvinyl#cherryredrecords#postpunk#itsfreakingcold
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The Tights - Bad Hearts 7" 1978 Cherry Red Records.-U.K. Primero de los dos Ășnicos singles de esta banda de teenagers original de Worcester. Fueron toda una promesa pero por diferentes motivos solo editaron un single mĂĄs. Este estrenaba el.mitico sello Cherry Red y Bad Hearts es un temazo curiosamente no compilado en series Punk/Power Pop eso que no es un single fĂĄcil de ver. En España se incluyo Bad Hearts en el recomendable Lp la gran descarga de 1981 #tights #badhearts #cherryred #cherryredrecords #7" #45rpm #powerpop #newwave #punkrock #punk #vinylcollection #vinyljunkie #vinylrecords #vinylcollectionpost #recordcover #recordcollection #record #recordcollector #artwork #design #music #rock #vinylporn https://www.instagram.com/p/CgFQCCHMEeY/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
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Forever breaths the lonely world #felt #1986 #creationrecords #reissue #2018 #cherryredrecords #vinyl #vinilo #vinylcollection #recordcollection #instavinyl #vinyligclub #vinylgen_feature #vinylcollection_feature #nowspinning #nowplaying #sonandoahora #escoitandoagora #vinyloftheday #vinylgram https://www.instagram.com/p/Bp6oPuYgUfj/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=167nlk87tqki8
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V.A. âOnce Upon A Time In The West Midlands â The Bostinâ Sounds Of Brumrock 1966-1974â ( GRAPEFRUIT 3CD) 1960ćčŽä»ŁćŸćăă1970ćčŽä»ŁććăźBirminghamăźWest MidlandsăźăăăŻă»ă·ăŒăłăćéČăă3æç”CDăUKăźćçșć°éăŹăŒăă«ăźGRAPEFRUIT ăăæèżăȘăȘăŒăčăăăŸăăă The Move, The Moody Bruce, Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, Idol Idol Race, Slade, Electric Light Orchestra, Roy Wood & Wizard, Judas Priestăźæćă©ăăăăçĄćăźăąăŒăăŁăčăăŸă§ćéČăăŠăăŸăă #grapefruitrecords #cherryredrecords #onceuponatimeinthewestmmidlandsthebostinsoundsofbrumrock19661974 https://www.instagram.com/moritan0717/p/CXe23HisE8w/?utm_medium=tumblr
#grapefruitrecords#cherryredrecords#onceuponatimeinthewestmmidlandsthebostinsoundsofbrumrock19661974
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