Hello, more Alphabet Soup today Mmm. The seventies space cowboy is up first, after scoring a megahit with The Joker, Steve Miller had the means to take it easy and record his classic Fly Like an Eagle at his new ranch. It turned out a very fruitful time as he recorded his two most succesful albums there, basicly in one go, even if Book of Dreams was released a year later....Psychospacerock visionaries Monster Magnet spent much of the 1990s struggling against the prejudices imposed upon image and sound by the alternative rock critics. In the meantime, Monster Magnet still managed to become one of the most successful and influential bands associated with the so-called underground "stoner rock" scene. And yet, their influences span much further than that scene's foundations in '70s hard rock and metal, delving into space rock, psychedelia, and beyond. Dopes to Infinity deserved much more credit than it got..convince yourself....Finally Mecano a dutch band who's early eighties work i posted 18 months ago (see Eurotour-stage 12), they were shocked out of their slumber 4 years ago after the brutal murder of a friend, they took up their pen again and recorded a new album, Snake Tales For Dragon, they quickly found out they had still fans out there, specially in Greece and France. Last year they released another album "Those Revolutianairy Days" .....
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Steve Miller - Fly Like An Eagle (76 flac 364mb)
Miller was born( October 5, 1943) to Dr George "Sonny" Miller, a pathologist, jazz enthusiast, hat salesman and amateur recording engineer, and Bertha, a jazz-influenced singer. In 1950, the family moved to Dallas, Texas. His first guitar chords were taught to him when he was five years old by his godfather Les Paul, pioneer of the electric guitar and multitrack recording. Les Paul and his wife Mary Ford were regular visitors at the Miller house and Dr Miller's father was best man at their wedding. Les Paul encouraged young Miller to use his prodigious talents, and much of Miller's success has been attributed to Paul's tutelage.
While at highschool, Miller formed his first band, The Marksmen. Miller taught classmate Royce Scaggs — better known later by his nickname Boz — guitar chords so that he could join the band. Miller graduated in 1961 and later, while attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Miller formed The Ardells. Scaggs joined the Ardells the next year; and Ben Sidran became the band's keyboardist the year after. After attending the University of Copenhagen in Denmark for a semester in his senior year, he dropped out six credit hours shy of a literature degree. Upon his return to the United States, Miller moved to Chicago where he immersed himself in the city's blues scene, teaming with Barry Goldberg for two years. He then moved to San Francisco and formed the first incarnation of the Steve Miller Blues Band, featuring guitarist James "Curly" Cooke, bassist Lonnie Turner, and drummer Tim Davis. The band built a local following through a series of free concerts and backed Chuck Berry in 1967 at a Fillmore date later released as a live album. Scaggs moved to San Francisco later that year and replaced Cooke in time to play the Monterey Pop Festival; it was the first of many personnel changes. Capitol signed the group as the Steve Miller Band following the festival.
In 1968 they released an album, Children of the Future, the first in a series of discs rooted solidly in the psychedelic blues style that then dominated the San Francisco scene. The group followed the release of their second album, Sailor, with a series of high-quality albums ( Brave New World, Your Saving Grace and Number 5) with similar chart placements followed. Miller remained a popular artist, but pop radio failed to pick up on any of his material at this time, even though tracks like "Space Cowboy" and "Brave New World" had become FM rock staples.with the albums Brave New World, Your Saving Grace and Number 5. In this first period Miller established his personae of the "Gangster of Love" (from Sailor) and the "Space Cowboy" (from Brave New World), which were reused in later works. In 1972, Miller recorded the album Recall the Beginning, A Journey from Eden, in which a third persona, "Maurice," was introduced in the tune "Enter Maurice." Things began to look bleak for Miller when he broke his neck in a car accident and subsequently developed hepatitis, which put him out of commission for most of 1972 and early 1973.
Miller spent his recuperation time reinventing himself as a blues-influenced pop-rocker, writing compact, melodic, catchy songs. This approach was introduced on his 1973 LP The Joker and was an instant success, with the album going platinum and the title track hitting number one on the pop charts. Now an established star, Miller elected to take three years off. He purchased a farm and built his own recording studio, at which he crafted the wildly successful albums Fly Like an Eagle and Book of Dreams at approximately the same time. Fly Like an Eagle was released in 1976 and eclipsed its predecessor in terms of quality and sales in spite of the long downtime in between. Fly Like an Eagle is where Miller took flight, creating his definitive slice of space blues, stylish, trippy, plus a detailed atmospheric production where everything fits. It gave Miller his second number one hit with "Rock'n Me," plus several other hitsingles. Book Of Dreams (77) flac 235mb was almost as successful, selling over three million copies and producing several hits as well.
On the heels of this massive success, Miller took a long hiatus from recording and touring, emerging in 1981 with Circle of Love, an ambitious album possibly intended to appease critics of his new style. Sales were disappointing, however, and in 1982 he returned to the pop formula with another hit album, Abracadabra. The title track gave him his third number one single and proved to be his last major commercial success. A series of collections, live albums and attempts to find a new style appeared in 1984 (Italian X-Rays), 1986 (Living in the 20th Century and 1988 (Born 2B Blue), none of these albums were consistent enough to be critically or commercially successful, after 1993's effort, Wide River, Miller gave up producing records altogether.
Millers popularity fueled very successful concert tours throughout the 80s and 90s, often with large numbers of younger people being present at the concerts. Miller would often headline shows with other classic rock acts and played a variety of his music including a good selection of his blues work dating from the late 60s. Prior to the start of his 2007 tour it has been revealed that a new studio album titled Loose Tether is being recorded.
01 - Space Intro (1:15)
02 - Fly Like An Eagle (4:42)
03 - Wild Mountain Honey (4:50)
04 - Serenade (3:10)
05 - Dance, Dance, Dance (2:16)
06 - Mercury Blues (3:43)
07 - Take The Money And Run (2:48)
08 - Rock 'N Me (3:05)
09 - You Send Me (2:40)
10 - Blue Odyssey (1:00)
11 - Sweet Maree (4:16)
12 - The Window (4:19)
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Monster Magnet - Dopes To Infinity (95 flac 436mb)
New Jersey native Dave Wyndorf was already a rock & roll veteran by the time he formed Monster Magnet in 1989, having cut his teeth with little-known punk band Shrapnel (also featuring future punk producer Daniel Rey on guitars) in the late '70s before retiring from music altogether. But, after teaching himself guitar, Wyndorf began assembling Monster Magnet with a handful of fellow New Jersey natives, vocalist Tim Cronin, guitarist John McBain, bassist Joe Callandra, and drummer Jon Kleiman. Fusing their metal, punk, space rock, and psychedelic influences, the band developed a sludgy, feedback-heavy hard rock sound that helped them stand out from the era's burgeoning retro-rock movement. In 1989, Monster Magnet released two demo cassettes: Forget About Life, I'm High on Dope and I'm Stoned, What Ya Gonna Do About It?. The band's first "official" release was a 6 track self-titled EP from Glitterhouse Records of Germany. After which Wyndorf assumed all vocal responsibilities, while Cronin retreated to a behind the scenes "conceptual consultant" position.
In the meantime, Monster Magnet had signed with independent label Caroline Records in 1992, and recorded their first full-length album: the very impressive, uniquely dark psychedelic masterpiece Spine of God. The productive sessions also yielded a number of extensive space rock jams that would later be issued as the Tab album in 1993. A support tour with the fast-rising Soundgarden also helped attract powerhouse A&M Records, but even as they prepared to sign with the label, Wyndorf had a serious falling-out with guitarist McBain, who was soon replaced by Ed Mundell. 1993's Superjudge proved to be a stellar major-label debut. Unfortunately, the group's retro-rock image had become highly unfashionable at the time, arriving at the height of the post-Nirvana grunge boom, and the album sold poorly.
Dopes to Infinity (1995), the follow-up record, was more accessible, and had a hit single in "Negasonic Teenage Warhead", which benefitted from a music video showing Dave Wyndorf travelling through Outer Space that received rotation on MTV. Dopes to Infinity is about as far apart from Superjudge as the original Siamese twins were to each other. Wyndorf's singing is a touch crisper in the mix this time out, while the guitar playing is even more powerfully direct and epic amidst all the space-out swirl and rockets to the moon. It's the secret weapon of the album as a whole, turning Monster Magnet's gift for the large scale into something that's almost uplifting, often connecting with a listener instead of dominating one. Still, the record was not the success the band had hoped for, partly because other innovative tracks like "Dead Christmas" and the title track, received little or no airplay. In the end the album sold only slightly better than its predecessor.
After the Dopes to Infinity tour, Wyndorf moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in order to begin working on Powertrip (1998), a breakthrough hit that earned the band a gold certification. Powertrip saw the band departing from its usual lo-fi, stoner metal fare, and enter into an era with a more hard rock-type sound. Guitarist Phil Cavaino joined the band in 1998. "Space Lord", the first single, was a major radio hit and the band went on tour with bands like Aerosmith, Metallica, Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson. Powertrip channeled all of Sin City's vice, greed, and sex into its hedonistic but surprisingly accessible tracks. Monster Magnet then embarked on a marathon two-year world tour, both as a headliner and as support . By the year 2000, the band had contributed the track "Silver Future" to the Heavy Metal 2000 soundtrack and completed work on their fifth album, God Says No, released in Europe in October. But their new American record label, Interscope (which had swallowed A&M in a hostile takeover the year before) inexplicably fussed and messed with the album before finally releasing it domestically in April 2001. Ultimately Monster Magnet found themselves rudely dropped.
Monster Magnet duly reunited for a short North American tour in early 2002 and, a year later, a new deal with the German SPV label was announced. Recorded in late 2003, the group's sixth full-length album, 2004's Monolithic Baby!, would be recorded with a new rhythm section, these being bassist Jim Baglino and drummer Bob Pantella. In 2005, Phil Caivano left the band amicably, and the rest of the group started recording in L.A. with producer Matt Hyde. A followup to Monolithic Baby! was expected in March 2006 to coincide with their European Tour, along with rereleases of Spine of God and Tab, both featuring new artwork and liner notes, however the tour and album release did not go ahead. On February 27, 2006 Dave Wyndorf overdosed on prescription drugs. In 2007, it was announced that Monster Magnet would release a new album, 4-Way Diablo, which had been put back for a year because of Wyndorf's overdose. It was released later that year. Later in 2007, another greatest hits collection, 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of Monster Magnet, was released.
01 - Dopes To Infinity (5:43)
02 - Negasonic Teenage Warhead (4:28)
03 - Look To Your Orb For The Warning (6:32)
04 - All Friends And Kingdom Come (5:38)
05 - Ego, The Living Planet (5:07)
06 - Blow 'Em Off (3:51)
07 - Third Alternative (8:33)
08 - I Control, I Fly (3:18)
09 - King Of Mars (4:33)
10 - Dead Christmas (3:54)
11 - Theme From "Masterburner" (5:06)
12 - Vertigo (11:15)
diet version
Monster Magnet - Dopes To Infinity ( * 99mb)
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Mecano - Snake Tales For Dragon (FLAC 527mb) !
The story of Mecano starts with a painting, made in 1977 by founder Dirk Polak after finding an old booklet belonging to a Meccano construction box, as fabricated and sold in the thirties.While scanning the booklet, Dirk was struck by a vision of a world built out of Meccano, in painting, sculpture and even lyrics and music.
The examples in the instruction booklet set Dirk to paint his Meccano figures, surrounded by surrealistic landscapes and interiors. In those days punk was booming and Dirk thought it was time to start a band and together with Pieter Kooyman and a few hired guns he recorded Face Cover Face, b/w Fools as Mecano Ltd. for the “No Fun” label. But Dirk wanted a real band and so he asked Ton Lebbink to be the drummer. Ton, immediately introduced the brothers Tejo and Cor Bolten, who also worked at Paradiso, Tejo as floor-manager and Cor, the band was formed in the blink of an eye. Another advantage of Ton and the Bolten brothers, beside their musical abilities, was that they had unlimited acces to Paradiso, the best rehearsing place a band could think of and they started experimenting and putting the music together, mainly based on the ideas of Dirk and the Bolten brothers.
Emerging from the punk-era, Mecano is best described as new wave, adding poetry and remarkable arrangements, colored with unusual guitar harmonies, converting into an ashtonishing eclectric blend. Early 1980 newly founded Torso Records had released the mini-lp Untitled and in that same year Subtitled (see Eurotour-stage 12), both nowadays reaching high prices amongst collectors . After that the band split up, to be reunited in 1982 without Ton Lebbink and Pieter Kooyman and a smaller size Mecano started recording Autoportrait, which came out early ‘83 and on which Pieter Kooyman is present on Suggestive Sleep and To Life's Reunion.
Mecano released, The Half Inch Universe, a double cd containing their remastered eighties work with some unreleased (live) material in 2002. But then after 22 years of comparative silence Mecano released 'Snake Tales for Dragon 'in 2005 . For a long time, Tejo Bolten had felt the will to start Mecano again… there was a mission to fulfill and it was unfinished. Sadly, it was the murder of the Dutch film director Theo van Gogh in 2004 by a radical Islamist who had felt offended by the artist’s stance. This loss triggered singer Dirk Polak a promise upon his dead body that he would sing again. In January 2005 Tejo Bolten and Dirk Polak, brought their music and lyrics to another level with the release of the album 'Snake Tales for Dragon'. As a metaphore of the Meccano toy found years ago “for the engineer of tomorrow”, Tejo and Dirk reassembled the parts of the original structure and began to build a whole new story for Mecano. They presented it along with older material in Athens, Greece where they are rather popular, the following year at the capital’s long-running annual Rockwave Festival.
Fall 2007 Mecano released “Those Revolutionary Days”, a continuation of the album Autoportrait. According to the band, its new album was conceived as “the scenario for nostalgia enlightened with a modern vision.” Mecano shares with the audience a reacting to society instead of assuming a passive attitude towards it. The extraordinary voice of their music communicate many important messages for all to listen. A voice that comes through the ages, to speak of truth and justice, and hope.
01 - Intro / Dustry Soul (5:13)
02 - Treasure Lost And Found (4:01)
03 - Drag On (5:13)
04 - Excluded From The Heart (3:19)
05 - Saint Of Sorrow (4:54)
06 - Love You One In A Million (4:09)
07 - November 2 (5:40)
08 - Painted Words (5:08)
09 - Clarity I Guess (5:03)
10 - Le Chant Du Cygne Du Serpent (6:50)
11 - New Skin (5:50)
special bonus
12 - Love You One In A Million (xxxxl remix)
(24:12)***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Steve Miller - Fly Like An Eagle (76 flac 364mb)
Miller was born( October 5, 1943) to Dr George "Sonny" Miller, a pathologist, jazz enthusiast, hat salesman and amateur recording engineer, and Bertha, a jazz-influenced singer. In 1950, the family moved to Dallas, Texas. His first guitar chords were taught to him when he was five years old by his godfather Les Paul, pioneer of the electric guitar and multitrack recording. Les Paul and his wife Mary Ford were regular visitors at the Miller house and Dr Miller's father was best man at their wedding. Les Paul encouraged young Miller to use his prodigious talents, and much of Miller's success has been attributed to Paul's tutelage.
While at highschool, Miller formed his first band, The Marksmen. Miller taught classmate Royce Scaggs — better known later by his nickname Boz — guitar chords so that he could join the band. Miller graduated in 1961 and later, while attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Miller formed The Ardells. Scaggs joined the Ardells the next year; and Ben Sidran became the band's keyboardist the year after. After attending the University of Copenhagen in Denmark for a semester in his senior year, he dropped out six credit hours shy of a literature degree. Upon his return to the United States, Miller moved to Chicago where he immersed himself in the city's blues scene, teaming with Barry Goldberg for two years. He then moved to San Francisco and formed the first incarnation of the Steve Miller Blues Band, featuring guitarist James "Curly" Cooke, bassist Lonnie Turner, and drummer Tim Davis. The band built a local following through a series of free concerts and backed Chuck Berry in 1967 at a Fillmore date later released as a live album. Scaggs moved to San Francisco later that year and replaced Cooke in time to play the Monterey Pop Festival; it was the first of many personnel changes. Capitol signed the group as the Steve Miller Band following the festival.
In 1968 they released an album, Children of the Future, the first in a series of discs rooted solidly in the psychedelic blues style that then dominated the San Francisco scene. The group followed the release of their second album, Sailor, with a series of high-quality albums ( Brave New World, Your Saving Grace and Number 5) with similar chart placements followed. Miller remained a popular artist, but pop radio failed to pick up on any of his material at this time, even though tracks like "Space Cowboy" and "Brave New World" had become FM rock staples.with the albums Brave New World, Your Saving Grace and Number 5. In this first period Miller established his personae of the "Gangster of Love" (from Sailor) and the "Space Cowboy" (from Brave New World), which were reused in later works. In 1972, Miller recorded the album Recall the Beginning, A Journey from Eden, in which a third persona, "Maurice," was introduced in the tune "Enter Maurice." Things began to look bleak for Miller when he broke his neck in a car accident and subsequently developed hepatitis, which put him out of commission for most of 1972 and early 1973.
Miller spent his recuperation time reinventing himself as a blues-influenced pop-rocker, writing compact, melodic, catchy songs. This approach was introduced on his 1973 LP The Joker and was an instant success, with the album going platinum and the title track hitting number one on the pop charts. Now an established star, Miller elected to take three years off. He purchased a farm and built his own recording studio, at which he crafted the wildly successful albums Fly Like an Eagle and Book of Dreams at approximately the same time. Fly Like an Eagle was released in 1976 and eclipsed its predecessor in terms of quality and sales in spite of the long downtime in between. Fly Like an Eagle is where Miller took flight, creating his definitive slice of space blues, stylish, trippy, plus a detailed atmospheric production where everything fits. It gave Miller his second number one hit with "Rock'n Me," plus several other hitsingles. Book Of Dreams (77) flac 235mb was almost as successful, selling over three million copies and producing several hits as well.
On the heels of this massive success, Miller took a long hiatus from recording and touring, emerging in 1981 with Circle of Love, an ambitious album possibly intended to appease critics of his new style. Sales were disappointing, however, and in 1982 he returned to the pop formula with another hit album, Abracadabra. The title track gave him his third number one single and proved to be his last major commercial success. A series of collections, live albums and attempts to find a new style appeared in 1984 (Italian X-Rays), 1986 (Living in the 20th Century and 1988 (Born 2B Blue), none of these albums were consistent enough to be critically or commercially successful, after 1993's effort, Wide River, Miller gave up producing records altogether.
Millers popularity fueled very successful concert tours throughout the 80s and 90s, often with large numbers of younger people being present at the concerts. Miller would often headline shows with other classic rock acts and played a variety of his music including a good selection of his blues work dating from the late 60s. Prior to the start of his 2007 tour it has been revealed that a new studio album titled Loose Tether is being recorded.
01 - Space Intro (1:15)
02 - Fly Like An Eagle (4:42)
03 - Wild Mountain Honey (4:50)
04 - Serenade (3:10)
05 - Dance, Dance, Dance (2:16)
06 - Mercury Blues (3:43)
07 - Take The Money And Run (2:48)
08 - Rock 'N Me (3:05)
09 - You Send Me (2:40)
10 - Blue Odyssey (1:00)
11 - Sweet Maree (4:16)
12 - The Window (4:19)
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Monster Magnet - Dopes To Infinity (95 flac 436mb)
New Jersey native Dave Wyndorf was already a rock & roll veteran by the time he formed Monster Magnet in 1989, having cut his teeth with little-known punk band Shrapnel (also featuring future punk producer Daniel Rey on guitars) in the late '70s before retiring from music altogether. But, after teaching himself guitar, Wyndorf began assembling Monster Magnet with a handful of fellow New Jersey natives, vocalist Tim Cronin, guitarist John McBain, bassist Joe Callandra, and drummer Jon Kleiman. Fusing their metal, punk, space rock, and psychedelic influences, the band developed a sludgy, feedback-heavy hard rock sound that helped them stand out from the era's burgeoning retro-rock movement. In 1989, Monster Magnet released two demo cassettes: Forget About Life, I'm High on Dope and I'm Stoned, What Ya Gonna Do About It?. The band's first "official" release was a 6 track self-titled EP from Glitterhouse Records of Germany. After which Wyndorf assumed all vocal responsibilities, while Cronin retreated to a behind the scenes "conceptual consultant" position.
In the meantime, Monster Magnet had signed with independent label Caroline Records in 1992, and recorded their first full-length album: the very impressive, uniquely dark psychedelic masterpiece Spine of God. The productive sessions also yielded a number of extensive space rock jams that would later be issued as the Tab album in 1993. A support tour with the fast-rising Soundgarden also helped attract powerhouse A&M Records, but even as they prepared to sign with the label, Wyndorf had a serious falling-out with guitarist McBain, who was soon replaced by Ed Mundell. 1993's Superjudge proved to be a stellar major-label debut. Unfortunately, the group's retro-rock image had become highly unfashionable at the time, arriving at the height of the post-Nirvana grunge boom, and the album sold poorly.
Dopes to Infinity (1995), the follow-up record, was more accessible, and had a hit single in "Negasonic Teenage Warhead", which benefitted from a music video showing Dave Wyndorf travelling through Outer Space that received rotation on MTV. Dopes to Infinity is about as far apart from Superjudge as the original Siamese twins were to each other. Wyndorf's singing is a touch crisper in the mix this time out, while the guitar playing is even more powerfully direct and epic amidst all the space-out swirl and rockets to the moon. It's the secret weapon of the album as a whole, turning Monster Magnet's gift for the large scale into something that's almost uplifting, often connecting with a listener instead of dominating one. Still, the record was not the success the band had hoped for, partly because other innovative tracks like "Dead Christmas" and the title track, received little or no airplay. In the end the album sold only slightly better than its predecessor.
After the Dopes to Infinity tour, Wyndorf moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in order to begin working on Powertrip (1998), a breakthrough hit that earned the band a gold certification. Powertrip saw the band departing from its usual lo-fi, stoner metal fare, and enter into an era with a more hard rock-type sound. Guitarist Phil Cavaino joined the band in 1998. "Space Lord", the first single, was a major radio hit and the band went on tour with bands like Aerosmith, Metallica, Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson. Powertrip channeled all of Sin City's vice, greed, and sex into its hedonistic but surprisingly accessible tracks. Monster Magnet then embarked on a marathon two-year world tour, both as a headliner and as support . By the year 2000, the band had contributed the track "Silver Future" to the Heavy Metal 2000 soundtrack and completed work on their fifth album, God Says No, released in Europe in October. But their new American record label, Interscope (which had swallowed A&M in a hostile takeover the year before) inexplicably fussed and messed with the album before finally releasing it domestically in April 2001. Ultimately Monster Magnet found themselves rudely dropped.
Monster Magnet duly reunited for a short North American tour in early 2002 and, a year later, a new deal with the German SPV label was announced. Recorded in late 2003, the group's sixth full-length album, 2004's Monolithic Baby!, would be recorded with a new rhythm section, these being bassist Jim Baglino and drummer Bob Pantella. In 2005, Phil Caivano left the band amicably, and the rest of the group started recording in L.A. with producer Matt Hyde. A followup to Monolithic Baby! was expected in March 2006 to coincide with their European Tour, along with rereleases of Spine of God and Tab, both featuring new artwork and liner notes, however the tour and album release did not go ahead. On February 27, 2006 Dave Wyndorf overdosed on prescription drugs. In 2007, it was announced that Monster Magnet would release a new album, 4-Way Diablo, which had been put back for a year because of Wyndorf's overdose. It was released later that year. Later in 2007, another greatest hits collection, 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of Monster Magnet, was released.
01 - Dopes To Infinity (5:43)
02 - Negasonic Teenage Warhead (4:28)
03 - Look To Your Orb For The Warning (6:32)
04 - All Friends And Kingdom Come (5:38)
05 - Ego, The Living Planet (5:07)
06 - Blow 'Em Off (3:51)
07 - Third Alternative (8:33)
08 - I Control, I Fly (3:18)
09 - King Of Mars (4:33)
10 - Dead Christmas (3:54)
11 - Theme From "Masterburner" (5:06)
12 - Vertigo (11:15)
diet version
Monster Magnet - Dopes To Infinity ( * 99mb)
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Mecano - Snake Tales For Dragon (FLAC 527mb) !
The story of Mecano starts with a painting, made in 1977 by founder Dirk Polak after finding an old booklet belonging to a Meccano construction box, as fabricated and sold in the thirties.While scanning the booklet, Dirk was struck by a vision of a world built out of Meccano, in painting, sculpture and even lyrics and music.
The examples in the instruction booklet set Dirk to paint his Meccano figures, surrounded by surrealistic landscapes and interiors. In those days punk was booming and Dirk thought it was time to start a band and together with Pieter Kooyman and a few hired guns he recorded Face Cover Face, b/w Fools as Mecano Ltd. for the “No Fun” label. But Dirk wanted a real band and so he asked Ton Lebbink to be the drummer. Ton, immediately introduced the brothers Tejo and Cor Bolten, who also worked at Paradiso, Tejo as floor-manager and Cor, the band was formed in the blink of an eye. Another advantage of Ton and the Bolten brothers, beside their musical abilities, was that they had unlimited acces to Paradiso, the best rehearsing place a band could think of and they started experimenting and putting the music together, mainly based on the ideas of Dirk and the Bolten brothers.
Emerging from the punk-era, Mecano is best described as new wave, adding poetry and remarkable arrangements, colored with unusual guitar harmonies, converting into an ashtonishing eclectric blend. Early 1980 newly founded Torso Records had released the mini-lp Untitled and in that same year Subtitled (see Eurotour-stage 12), both nowadays reaching high prices amongst collectors . After that the band split up, to be reunited in 1982 without Ton Lebbink and Pieter Kooyman and a smaller size Mecano started recording Autoportrait, which came out early ‘83 and on which Pieter Kooyman is present on Suggestive Sleep and To Life's Reunion.
Mecano released, The Half Inch Universe, a double cd containing their remastered eighties work with some unreleased (live) material in 2002. But then after 22 years of comparative silence Mecano released 'Snake Tales for Dragon 'in 2005 . For a long time, Tejo Bolten had felt the will to start Mecano again… there was a mission to fulfill and it was unfinished. Sadly, it was the murder of the Dutch film director Theo van Gogh in 2004 by a radical Islamist who had felt offended by the artist’s stance. This loss triggered singer Dirk Polak a promise upon his dead body that he would sing again. In January 2005 Tejo Bolten and Dirk Polak, brought their music and lyrics to another level with the release of the album 'Snake Tales for Dragon'. As a metaphore of the Meccano toy found years ago “for the engineer of tomorrow”, Tejo and Dirk reassembled the parts of the original structure and began to build a whole new story for Mecano. They presented it along with older material in Athens, Greece where they are rather popular, the following year at the capital’s long-running annual Rockwave Festival.
Fall 2007 Mecano released “Those Revolutionary Days”, a continuation of the album Autoportrait. According to the band, its new album was conceived as “the scenario for nostalgia enlightened with a modern vision.” Mecano shares with the audience a reacting to society instead of assuming a passive attitude towards it. The extraordinary voice of their music communicate many important messages for all to listen. A voice that comes through the ages, to speak of truth and justice, and hope.
01 - Intro / Dustry Soul (5:13)
02 - Treasure Lost And Found (4:01)
03 - Drag On (5:13)
04 - Excluded From The Heart (3:19)
05 - Saint Of Sorrow (4:54)
06 - Love You One In A Million (4:09)
07 - November 2 (5:40)
08 - Painted Words (5:08)
09 - Clarity I Guess (5:03)
10 - Le Chant Du Cygne Du Serpent (6:50)
11 - New Skin (5:50)
special bonus
12 - Love You One In A Million (xxxxl remix)
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
All downloads are in * ogg-7 (224k) or ^ ogg-9(320k), artwork is included , if in need get the nifty ogg encoder/decoder here !
19 comments:
Thanks for this great post. I have always loved Mecano's work.
Only the link does not seem to work. Could you post the correct link?
Thanks
Great stuff. Unfortunately the link doesn't work.
Hello, sorry about that forgot to enter the address, have rectified it now..and added a diet version.
Best of luck,
Rho
Oh, Beautiful work!
No 6
Great post!!
Thanks!
It's out of stock since long time. Any chances for some lossless rip?
well anon i don't know but chances of a lossless rip would rise if you become more specific as to what it is you want.
Mecano - Snake tales... I would be infinitely thankful for some lossless upload, as far as it's still out of stock (not mention 110E offer on discogs). many thanks in advance...
Hello Anon, well those prices at Discogs are sometimes mystifying. The thing is re printing a cd is expensive for the guys from the band. In this day and age everything can be had digitally as it's very cheap to copy- so cheap that i can afford to use that extra energy it costs to rip and upload Snake Tales. Remains me to say N'Joy
On behalf of all anons posting here, thank you very much, Rho, for all your comprehension, effort and an upload, indeed.
All the best! Cheers!
Rob(in)
dear rho
link for MECANO goes nowhere to download please check & repair.
keep on the great work
Artemis
Hello, whole page has been re-upped including Steve Miller
Dear rho
thank you very much for Mecano
i wouldn't like to seem ungrateful .....
......such masterpiece as PINK INDUSTRY'S sole Lp deserves mmmmmmmmore quality rip than poor -only for informative purpose if some guy didn't listen to this till today IMHO- ancient OGG file.
AAnyway
thank for your kindness great work all these years with truckfull loads of good music..
Artemis
PS any chance for ASTRONAUTS - SOON & SEEDY SIDE in lossless?
how demanding person am i?
cheers
A.
no response at all?
especially in PS request?
anyway
thanks for great music
A.
Hello A, I don't have the Astronauts album so i can't halp you there
thanks for your response
keep on
thanks for great music
Artemis
Steve Miller file seems corrupt? Tried two different extracters, two different players and every time all the tracks are 100% static. Thanks anyway for a great, great blog!
hello Anon, the file is not corrupt I accidentally uploaded the 5.1 DTS version here foobar will play it if you add the dts decoder
Thanks for the suggestion -- I'll give foobar a try. While I have your attention, any chance of a re-up on some of your Sam Cooke stuff? Live at The Harlem Square Club would be sincerely appreciated. Thanks again!
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