The Great Steve Walsh (Kansas)

Steve Walsh (born June 15, 1951) is an American musician, singer and songwriter best known for his work as a member of the progressive rock band Kansas. He sings lead on Kansas' four best-known hits: "Carry On Wayward Son," "Dust in the Wind", "Point of Know Return", and "All I Wanted", the last two of which he also co-wrote. During Walsh's time with the band, Kansas recorded two enormously successful albums, 1976's Leftoverture and 1977's Point of Know Return. With Kansas, Walsh has released 12 studio albums, six live albums, and numerous singles. He has released three solo albums thus far. Walsh left Kansas after 1980's Audio-Visions due to creative differences with the band's primary song writer Kerry Livgren. Earlier in 1980, he released his first solo album, Schemer-Dreamer, which included band mates Kerry Livgren, Rich Williams and Phil Ehart, as well as guitarist Steve Morse (who in 1985 would join the revamped Kansas). It contains the popular song "Every Step of the Way". In 1982 he formed a rock band called Streets, which released the albums 1st in 1983 and Crimes in Mind in 1985 before disbanding...

Steve Walsh - Schemer Dreamer (1980)

Schemer-Dreamer is the first solo album by Steve Walsh, the former and original keyboardist/vocalist of the progressive rock band Kansas. It was released in 1980. Although this is his solo album, it features other members of Kansas including Kerry Livgren, Phil Ehart, and Rich Williams. In their retrospective review, Allmusic sarcastically suggested that the self-aggrandizing front cover of Schemer-Dreamer "very well could be the greatest album cover in rock history." They criticized the music itself as "a big, loud, dumb arena rock record, one that sounds completely tied to its year, if not month, of release", but also avouched that "it's kind of fun because of that".

Feliz Natal! E um som para sua festa...

Esta é a seleção do Som Mutante para musicar seu Natal...

Christmas Greetings From Jerry Vale

Etta James - 12 Songs Of Christmas

Cool Jazz Christmas Hits

A Jolly Christmas From Frank Sinatra

A Merry Christmas With The Four Aces

Burl Ives - Have A Holly Jolly Christmas

Wynton Marsalis - Crescent City Christmas Card

Randy Travis - An Old Time Christmas

Johnny Cash - Country Christmas

Santa Claws & The Naughty But Nice Orchestra

Hell’s Bells Of Christmas: A Holiday Tribute To AC/DC (2007)

And Christmas For All: A Holiday Tribute To Metallica (2007)

The Green Days Of Christmas: A Holiday Tribute To Green Day” (2007) 

The Mills Brothers - Merry Christmas

LINKs from TWILIGHT ZONE

Thanks to ronh1...

FELIZ NATAL

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Spacecraft (France, Space Electronic, Ambient)

ProgArchives Revires:

Paradox is the first and only album by a largely unknown French guitar/synth duo called Spacecraft, and the music on this album is a psyche-tronic mess. I'd put this somewhere between the loudest krautrock and the noisiest prog electronic. The synth and electronic effects on this album are extremely bright and punchy in the mix, which makes for a slightly abrasive but very powerful kind of spacey feel when coupled with the echoing/hypnotizing psychedelic effects in the background. But, unlike most of the spacey electronic albums, this album sounds less like the atmosphere of space and more like the congested atmosphere from inside a spacecraft looking outwards toward the stars and planets. This sound is achieved from the electronics sounding very mechanical but within the context of a spacey atmosphere, whereas most prog electronic groups seem to do either one or the other. The addition of the manipulated guitar gives this album a strong krautrock flavor as well, and I'm not sure if I'm correct but the guitar playing sounds to be mostly improvised. It's all done very well, but it does sound a bit German to me. Not that sounding German is bad, but I kind of hoped for something uniquely French, considering that the guitarist of this project was also a member of Clearlight (which sounds uniquely French, in my opinion). Of course, there is no France in outer space, or a Germany for that matter. The purpose of the electronic and krautrock genres were initially to create music that sounded like it was from the depths of space. With that in mind, this album definitely succeeds, and it is a very wonderful album of noisy, congested, mechanical space music.

Spacecraft - 1978 - Paradoxe

Kalapana - Hawaiian Rock

Uma interessante banda do Havaí, com um Rock consistente e que está há muito tempo na estrada, com mais de 10 álbuns de sucesso, principalmente no Japão.

Kalapana II (1976)

Personnel:

- Malani Bilyeu (Carl James Malani Bilyeu) - acoustic guitar, rhythm guitar, percussion, vocals

- Mackey Feary (Bryant Mackey Feary) - bass, acoustic guitar, gut string guitar, percussion, vocals

- D.J. Pratt (David John Pratt) - acoustic guitar, lead guitar, percussion, congas, clavinet, backing vocals

- Kirk "Guitar" Thompson - acoustic & electric piano, synthesizer, acoustic guitar, vibraphone, vocals

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- Alvin Fejarang - drums, percussion, timbales

- Michael Paulo - saxophones, flutes

Symphonic Slam - Prog Rock from Canada

Symphonic Slam biography (Prog Archives)

Symphonic Slam was mainly about Timo Laine (born in Finland, and moved to America as a child), and his polyphonic guitar synthesizer. The rest of the band was filled out by drummer John Lowery, and keyboardist David Stone. Timo had been playing the club circuit for a while, but it wasn't until he relocated to Canada that things began to happen. It was there that Symphonic Slam was discovered by A&M Records. What set them apart was the $10,000 360 systems guitar synthesizer prototype. This led to the release of their 1976 self-titled album. They toured, and played gigs with some of the big names of the time (Rush, The Rolling Stones, and the Village People). Soon they were asked to go to L.A. to work on a new album. Not being interested in this tack, Stone took the opportunity to defect to Rainbow. After the album was completed, A&M wasn't pleased (they wanted disco). Timo took it to Canada, and created his own label on which to release it. It had some modest success, but Laine wasn't interested in going back to L.A. to fight disco once again. Musea's 2001 re-release of the first album inspired Timo to get back on the horse. Apparently he had been working on another album for many years. "Her Fire" is supposed to be released some time in the future. He is also working on an instrumental solo project. You can hear some influences of Styx, Kansas, Wakeman, Emerson, a bit of E.L.O., and even some funk. However, this is not like most of what we consider to be the classic '70s progressive sound. Some of those qualities are woven in, and there are some lovely moments. But make no mistake, this is mid 70's rock and roll at the core.  The main point of interest here is really the fact that Laine basically pioneered the synth guitar. It was a very new thing at the time. 

H.T. Riekels (bhikkhu)

Symphonic Slam official website

Symphonic Slam (1976)

it's All Meat!!! - Garage,Psych,Punk

It’s All Meat were a late 60s/early 70s band that hailed from Toronto and released this excellent album in 1970 (Columbia).  Prior to that, It’s All Meat had been known as The Underworld.  The Underworld released a superb, crude garage single (“Go Away”/”Bound” – the label is Regency) in 1968 and also recorded some fine unreleased material captured on acetate.  As mentioned before, some of the members of The Underworld would form It’s All Meat.  In 1969 this new group would release their debut 45, “Feel It” coupled with “I Need Some Kind of Definitive Commitment.”  The A-side combined MC5 energy with New York Dolls-style swagger and features plenty of feedback and great guitar breaks.  It’s one of the great proto-punkers. 

Their album was released the following year and feartured 8 fresh original numbers written by drummer Rick McKIM and keyboard player/lead vocalist Jed MacKAY.  There are a bunch of good, solid stonesy garage rockers that form the axis of this lp: “Make Some Use Of Your Friends,” “Roll My Own,” “You Brought Me Back To My Senses,” and “You Don’t Know The Time You Waste.”  The latter track would be released as the group’s second and final single but “Roll My Own” and “Make Some Use Of Your Friends” were just as good, featuring fine psychedelic guitar work and raw vocals.  Other note worthy tracks flirted with blues (“Self-Confessed Lover”) and folk-rock (“If Only”) but the lp’s brightest moments were its two 9-minute marathon compositions.  “Crying Into A Deep Lake” was full-blown Doors psychedelia with spacey keyboards and spooky Jim Morrison influenced vocals.  The other lengthy track, “Sunday Love,” sounds like a strange Lou Reed/John Cale concoction with lots a great psychedelic guitar noise and soft folk-like passages sprinkled with light garage keyboards.   So while these last two tracks are very long, they never wear out their welcome and are required listening for both garage and psych fans.  The album’s production teeters between a primitive recording sound and the typical major label gloss, making it just right.

It’s All Meat is a fine, consistent trip all the way thru.  It’s one of the best late period (really late) garage rock albums I know of.  The album’s hard rock and proto-punk sounds give it a nice,  visceral edge.  It’s All Meat was reissued in 2000 by Hallucinations though originals are not hard to come by either. (http://therisingstorm.net/its-all-meat-its-all-meat/)

It's All Meat (1970)

Isolation - Psychedelic Folk

“Isolation remains today as one of the most unknown folk-psych groups of the UK.” it says. "Released in micro-quantity back in 1973" and “Reminiscent of folk-psych legends Ithaca. This is an album you’d better own!!” Hoho not too quickly ! Let me hear it first. I can’t recognise any Ithaca, except for the use of the same instruments, and some improvisation. The (not so fantastic) singing reminds me partly more of American CSNY-influenced bands. And the recording itself has so much noise reduction, the remaining music sound like it's being sandwiched. The improvisations of acoustic guitars with piano and flute are good, sometimes a bit jazzy psych-folk styled. The whole idea reminds me more of the first reissue of Oberon. The music is fine, but not fantastic. But the “remastering” could have been better.

Isolation (1973)

Keith Christmas - Folk Rock

Keith Christmas (born Keith Peter Christmas, 13 October 1946, Wivenhoe, near Colchester, Essex) is an English singer and songwriter. In 1969 his first album Stimulus was released. Christmas played acoustic guitar on David Bowie's Space Oddity album, and appeared at the first Glastonbury Festival in 1970. Through the 1970s he released four more albums, Fable Of The Wings, Pigmy, Brighter Day and Stories From The Human Zoo, while touring with and supporting bands like The Who, King Crimson, Ten Years After, Frank Zappa, Roxy Music, Hawkwind, Captain Beefheart and The Kinks. Among the musicians who contributed to his recordings were Mighty Baby, Pat Donaldson, Keith Tippett, Gerry Conway, Shelagh McDonald, Rod Argent, Peter Sinfield, Greg Lake, Mel Collins, Cat Stevens and Michael Boshears. In 1972 he was voted one of six favourite international artists by writers of Sounds magazine.

In 1976 he came back to England and after a few years stopped playing. He formed the blues band 'Weatherman' in 1991 with some friends and an album of the same name was released in 1992. In 1996 he suddenly started to write a different kind of acoustic material which almost immediately led to the release of a new album 'Love Beyond Deals' on HTD records. In January 2003 Keith released an instrumental CD, ‘Acoustica’. It got excellent worldwide reviews - ‘absolutely brilliant’, ‘this is a quite exceptional piece of work’, ‘lavish and overwhelming’, ‘a beautiful album’, and the opening track was used on the BBC documentary 'Hidden Gardens'. In 2006 he recorded and produced his first ever solo CD called 'Light of the Dawn'. The magazine fRoots reviewed it “…the sound is fantastic and grabs the attention: the confident, gutsy guitar, picked or slide, has immediacy and intimacy in equal measure; and Christmas's urgent, hoarse vocals can't help but involve the listener in the moods and stories of the songs…a fine timeless album” In 2011 Keith released a 5-track solo acoustic EP called 'Fat Cat Big Fish' and in 2012 released his first live CD 'Live at the Pump'

Keith Christmas - Fable Of The Wings (1970)

Personnel:

- Keith Christmas - vocals, guitar

- Jan Whiteman - piano, electric piano, organ, mellotron

- Keith Tippett - piano

- Mike Evans, Pat Donaldson - bass

- Gerry Conway, Roger Powell - drums

- Bob Stewart - autoharp

- Shelagh McDonald - vocals (02)

- Sandy Roberton - producer

Pazop - 70's Beligium Prog Rock

Pazop were an early-'70s progressive rock group with some jazz-fusion tendencies from Belgium. Though their music was beyond the ordinary, they were never able to release an album during their short lifetime. Pazop was formed at the end of 1971 by vocalist and flautist Dirk Bogaert, keyboardist Frank Wuyts, violinist Kuba Szczepansky, bassist Patrick Cogneaux, and drummer Jacky Mauer. Wuyts and Szczepanski had just left progressive rock band Wallace Collection, Wuyts had previously been involved with Bogaert, Cogneaux, and Mauer had been in another short-lived prog band, Waterloo. Cogneaux had also been a member of Arkham, a group that included future members of Magma and Univers Zero, while Sczcepansky, a classically trained musician born in Poland, played in the Brussels Opera Philharmonic Orchestra for a couple years before turning to rock with Wallace Collection in 1970. Even before they had decided on a name, the new group approached Wallace Collection's label, EMI, and though the record company did not sign the group, they offered them a two-day studio session to record a better demo. The four-song demo was in a style far more commercial than their normal sound, which had influences as diverse as Miles Davis, 20th century classical music, progressive rock groups like King Crimson and Caravan, and Frank Zappa. With the new demo Szczepanski and Mauer headed to Paris to hit up every record label there for a contract, but they had no success. They also finally came up with a name for themselves, Pas Op, Flemish for "Warning" but the spelling was soon changed to Pazop.

Psychillis of a Lunatic Genius They finally got a contract with producer Luigi Oglival in March of 1972, who was able to get them signed to CBS and the Barclay label. The band went into the Herouville Studio in France in July 1972 to record the album Psychillis of a Lunatic Genius. The group also played several gigs at the Gibus-Club in Paris, which brought them some excellent press, as well as other shows in France and Belgium. Meanwhile, near the end of that year, Barclay rejected their album as being too non-commercial, and chose to release one of the earlier demos as a single instead, much to the group's chagrin. Oglival, who realized he wouldn't recoup the studio costs, dropped the band as well, reneging on his contract and even keeping the master tapes. In 1973, the group was hired by pop musician Sylvain Van Holme to provide modern rock adaptations of various classical pieces by Tchaikovsky, Dvorák, Mozart and Verdi. Van Holme decided to co-produce a new record by Pazop, and booked them at the Start Studio in Belgium in the late summer of 1973. Van Holme contacted several record companies, but again the album was not commercial enough. The group continued touring Belgium and France until July of 1974 before calling it quits. Their inability to get enough gigs and to release either of their LPs had left them financially and emotionally strapped, and they split up for more successful groups. Their master tapes sat in a desk drawer for years. Pazop's two albums, minus the four commercial demos, were finally released on CD by Musea in 1996. (http://www.allmusic.com/artist/pazop-mn0001976155/biography).

Pazop - Psychillis Of A Lunatic Genius