Mickey Jones

Man Guitarist

7 June 1946 - 10 March 2010

Mickey Jones, guitarist with the Welsh psychedelic rock band Man passed away on March 10th according to www.manband.co.uk. Charles Michael Jones was born on 7th June 1946 in the Welsh town of Merthyr Tydfil, he was the mainstay of the band for over 35 years until he was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2002. His son George replaced him in the band and Mickey made a brief comeback in 2004 but in 2005 he required further treatment which stopped him touring with Man.

In a ruling in a London court on Thursday March 11th it has been decreed that EMI Group Ltd. can only sell the music of Pink Floyd in full album format and can’t sell single songs online. EMI had argued that the terms of the contract with Pink Floyd signed eleven years ago applied only to “physical product” such as CDs but Justice Andrew Morritt said in his judgement, “There is nothing in the terms ‘album’ or ‘record’ to suggest they apply to the physical product only.” Click HERE for full details.

Last night the entire Roed Farm in Moss, Norway burned to the ground. Norwegian rockers Magic Pie had their recording studio and rehearsal room in the farm building. In addition to Magic Pie, the farm also hosted a guitar workshop, a photo studio, an art gallery, a writer’s lounge, four horses, two pigs and some rabbits. All the animals were killed and all of the irreplaceable arts and crafts were lost in the fire. Magic Pie was close to complete the recording of their 3rd CD and had recently started rehearsals for the upcoming concerts 3 weeks from today.


The first concert in their hometown, Moss, was supposed to be their first gig in Norway in 1,5 years. Magic Pie had also invited two other really promising local acts to join them for an "Easter Kick-Off" on March 31st. The other concert was happening at the Finisterrae Festival in La Coruna, Spain on April 2nd.

It is with great sadness both these appearances by Magic Pie will be cancelled. The band will have to spend the next weeks trying to gather/borrow equipment so that they are able to start rehearsing again and to finalize the rest of the recordings. "We hope to be able to gather all necessary equipment to be ready to headline RoSFest in the USA on May 2nd" say the guys after this shaking incident.

At the same time they stress their compassion for the owner of the farm and all the other artists that lost so much of irreplaceable art and craft in this tragic fire.

Magic Pie did not lose much of their recordings of the forthcoming CD "The Suffering Joy". "I have most of the recordings at home since I've started the mixing process, so even if we are looking at some delays, we will get the CD done" says guitarist Kim Stenberg.

Swedish Progressive Metal band Pain Of Salvation have finished mixing and mastering the first part of their upcoming album “Road Salt One - Ivory”. The twelve track CD will be presented in a standard edition and a limited edition directors cut and will be released in May. More album details for the “Road Salt Ivory” release via Inside Out Music will be available in the coming weeks.

The official Genesis website has announced that the band’s management have decided to close down the site. The official statement says, "The [official] Genesis website will be closing down shortly. UltraStar have come to the decision to no longer host the Genesis site, and until a time in the future when a more thorough web presence is necessary, the website will cease to exist..."

The bands contract with Ultrastar, the company who manage the website is due to expire, no definite date has been declared for the shutdown. The website will be replaced with a page of links to other Genesis related sites. The site has existed since July 2001.

We've been working quite hard in the studio for the past couple of months and are now almost entirely in the mixing phase.

The music is turning out great! We just added a couple new song samples from a freshly mixed song called The Quiet House. It has some hard rock parts and some pretty bits. The samples we put up give you a nice sampling of the various moods of the song.

Next up on the mixing board will be the two longest tracks on the CD, another one from Dave and John called "Jaws Of Heaven" and Nick's song "From The Darkness". Those should be mixed next week sometime.

We're in the home stretch! The artwork is done and printed, the swag and t-shirts are being manufactured as I write this. This CD has proven to be a bit more complex to produce than previous CDs so we're running a little behind, but thanks for hanging in there with us, and we are seeing light at the end of the tunnel, and it's a really big bright light! ;-)

Click here to go to our MySpace page where you can hear the new song samples. Below you can find a YouTube Video of "Al recording overdubs at The Mouse House in Altadena, CA before mixing a new song for SBX. Rich Mouser at the board."

IQ are to mark the 25th anniversary of the release of “The Wake” by re-releasing the album on GEP Records in two different forms. The 2-CD set will feature the original album remastered, along with a series of demos and previously unheard studio outtakes. A Deluxe Edition 4-disc set will also include an extensive booklet, further demos and studio outtakes, work-in-progress mixes, a DVD of live footage from 1984 (the earliest surviving live film of IQ), band commentary and more. Details are still being finalised.

To support this release, IQ will be playing a series of live dates in 2010 during which they will perform 'The Wake' in its entirety for the first time. We are planning to have the new editions on sale for the first time at these shows.

Echolyn got together this past weekend and had a killer time recording new material for our next release!! We captured two of them. one is called '"Moments Without Sound" and the other is "Hey Headright", the later we wrote from scratch in an hour and 10 minutes. "we have a lot of good energy on this project and are having so much fun working things through. with that said it is a lot of work because this is serious shyte and we all want to capture a newness and take a big step forward rather than remain stagnant. the openness to ideas amongst the band is what keeps me coming back. everyone is really pushing themselves. people grow and we want that growth to be reflected in our music. we are filming as much as we can and will try to keep everyone posted. feel free to write anytime to see what's up".

Asia Featuring John Payne has inked a recording deal with Steve Vai's Favored Nations record label. A June/July release is scheduled for the yet-to-be-named CD. Asia Featuring John Payne is currently planning worldwide tourdates to support the new album.

"I am very excited at working with Steve Vai and Dean Schachtel [Favored Nations A&R]," John Payne states. "Apart from being consummate professionals that I admire and respect, their added knowledge of the business is superlative. In a time of change within this industry and conglomerates run by bean counters, Favored Nations is the ideal company for our music and our future. I could not be more happy with this union."

Guy Manning updated his website on March 8th keeping us up to date with progress on the new album “Charlestown”. The track listing for the new Manning album Charlestown (in no particular running order for now) is as follows:

1. T.I.C.
2. Caliban & Ariel
3. The Man in the Mirror
4. Clocks
5. Charlestown
6. Finale

Progress on the acoustic & electric guitar parts is now at full steam ahead...

At the end of March, we will start the drums recording process at Orion Studios in Kilnhurst - this will really add the final jigsaw pieces!!

The new collection has quite an ensemble feel to it with more orchestration and layering of flutes, cellos, fiddles, violin, mandolins, guitars, keyboards, percussion and vocals. It is sounding very strong indeed to our ears and we hope you will really enjoy it when it is finally completed.

On other news, please don't forget our headline CRS date in Maltby,UK on the 20th March. Tickets are going fast so please get yours booked!

Work has also now started on a 10th Anniversary re-issue program for some of the older MANNING albums. The new slim jacket and remastered editions will also feature bonus tracks. These should hopefully be ready for our our ROSFEST appearance on 1st May.

HAKEN meld metal with progressive rock, drawing influences from contemporary bands like Dream Theater and IQ as well as “old school” icons Genesis and Queen. The band includes members from Linear Shere and To-Mera. Aquarius is their debut release - a 72 minute, larger than life conceptual sci-fi/fantasy work filled with bombastic keyboard flourishes, stunning vocals, and lethal guitarwork. The album was recorded in Germany at Spacelab Studios (Delain, Everon, Wolverine) and mastered in Germany at Eroc’s Mastering Ranch. Artwork is by Dennis Sibeijn at Damn Engine - created to tie in with the Aquarius story.' [Laser's Edge]

Moon Safari have revealed the names of the eight tracks on their upcoming new CD “Lover’s End” which will be released “before Summer takes hold”. The band released the track names on their Facebook page on March 5th, the CD will have an approximate length of 50 minutes, the tracks are:

1. Lover's End Pt.1
2. A Kid Called Panic
3. World's Best Dreamers
4. Annus Mirabilis 2010
5. New York City Summer Girl
6. Heartland
7. Crossed the Rubicon
8. Lover's End Pt.2

Although the album has been released for less than a year, Phideaux has announced on his MySpace page that he is planning to remaster his “Number Seven” album. Phideaux explains “I have long felt that there was a harshness in the finished product of our albums that was not present in the individual tracks. I believed that the solution might be to get an analogue mixing desk. However, they are quite expensive. After some careful research on the internet, Gabe discovered some new tricks for Pro-Tools. He called me, excited by these revelations. He thought this explained why our album mixes were too "grainy". Faced with this new information and potential way of working we decided to "correct" Number Seven with a totally new remaster (and a little bit of remixing).”

“Number Seven” will be re-released in a second edition and people who bought the original album will be offered the opportunity to download a lossless wav file of the new mix or can request a replacement disc.

Dear friends and partners,

"e're very proud to invite you to our official Video-Countdown for the RPWL Anniversary-Release of "The Gentle Art of Music" at 26th of March. Please see below our first video about Marc Turiaux and his recordings of the new album.



Looking forward to your comments and to hearing from you soon.

Yogi, Kalle, Chris, Markus and Marc
RPWL

"Plastic Soup" is the first album of the new Dutch Progressive rock band PBII, the successor to the well known Plackband of the 70's and 80's, often called the Dutch Genesis. Plastic Soup however, has a sound that is absolutely 2010: modern, fresh and rocky but still with some great symphonic influences of the past. Stylistically, you could place it somewhere between Spocks Beard, Porcupine Tree, Frost*, Marilion, Linkin Park and Genesis. Special guests include John Mitchell (Arena, It Bites, Frost*), John Jowitt (IQ, Frost*) and Heidi Jo Hines (daughter of Denny Laine of Wings. Though not a concept album, the central theme of the album is the environment. Plastic Soup is another name for the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, floating in the ocean with a size twice that of the US. Discoverer of this plastic soup is captain Charles Moore, who also did some voice overs on the album. PBII wishes to get more attention to this environmental problem.

“Plastic Soup” is the new worldwide ProgRock Records release from PBII and can be found at HERE. The album will be released late March 2010 and available in stores on July 13, 2010.

Originally founded by guitarist Markus Berger and keyboardist Markus Maichel as a studio project, soon evolved into a full performing band, as the first studio tracks turned out to be very promising. Their debut album "The Inner Circle" (2008) was very well received by both critics and prog lovers.

Their current release was recorded and produced at the band's own "Red Tube Studios" and shows the band compose and perform heavy Progressive Rock at its best. "Saturnine" features beefy riffing, astounding melodies, huge orchestrations as well as intimate moments, culminating into the epic nineteen minutes closing track "Vanessa".

"Saturnine" is the new worldwide ProgRock Records release from DANTE and can be found at HERE. The album will be released late March 2010 and available in stores on July 13, 2010.