Music-Drop Magazine

George; a 71 year saint would have looked fondly his lawns in Friars Park as he awoke on the 29th Of November. His death day. Unfortunately George is not able to act this scenario for me, as he passed on in 2001. Personally, George has always been the Beatle who spoke to me. George always seemed, better. Ringo was the one I think I could of been buddies with, he would say a joke, I'd say a joke. Paul was the one who I reckon I'd be friends with but I'd get I'd feel a little too clean if I spent too much time with him. John is the one who is raw and unafraid. George was silent, funny, and thoughtful, exactly how I like humans. You'll find everyone talking about him nowadays. How he had the best post-Beatles solo album; the immaculate All Things Must Pass, how he had the first and last solo number 1 out of all the Beatles: My Sweet Lord & Got My Mind Set On You. And about how Martin Scorsese made one of the best documentaries ever about him Living In The Mater...

"You know you don't please everybody" - Ronnie Montrose  Ronnie Montrose; the leader ofAmerican rock band: Montrose & Gamma passed away on the 3rd March 2012. If he had lived he would have been 67 today, 29th November 2014. Ronnie's first foray into the music world was in band Sawbuck with Bill Church, but in the middle of recording Sawbuck's debut, producer David Rubinson gave Ronnie a audition to play on Van Morrison's Tupelo Honey . Ronnie got the job. Ronnie then played with Boz Scaggs, before joint the Edgar Winter Group, where he played on such hits as Free Ride & Frankenstein.  With Sammy Hagar in 1973, he formed Rock band Montrose. The band released two albums Montrose (1973) and Paper Money (1974). The second edition of Montrose with Bob James instead of Hagar released two albums Warner Bros Present…. Montrose (1975) & Jump On It (1976) before breaking up. Ronnie's first solo release was the all-instrumental Open Fire (1...

In a recent interview with NME (See here) , Jimmy Page has said that Royal Blood (Young UK Hard rock band) are capable of "Taking rock into a new realm". Jimmy Page praised the rock duo in the interview saying that "Their album has taken the genre up a serious few notches". Page saw the duo in New York in May, and complimented they performance "They were fantastic. Absolutely riveting". Royal Blood will be opening for The Foo Fighters alongside Iggy Pop during The Foo Fighters 2015 UK tour. Meanwhile Jimmy Page has expressed interest in touring in 2015, and has recently published a pictorial autobiography. Royal Blood's Little Monsters

In honour of the 40th anniversary John Lennon's last concert appearance: 28th November 1974. I'm going to list the top 5 most significant Beatles performances of their career. The band's touring schedule was famously cut short in 1966, after becoming increasingly annoyed with the fact that they could not hear themselves perform, and the fact that there songs could no longer be recreated for a audience with just 4 Beatles. Tour with Roy Orbison (May 18th - June 9th 1963)  Riding high off their Please Please Me album, Brian Epstein (The bands manager), organised a 'joint' tour between the Beatles and Rock N Roll superstar Roy Orbison.  The Beatles during the tour were reportedly shown up by Orbison's performances, and reports claim that Roy stole almost every show.  During the performances The Beatles wrote She Loves You and All My Loving during the tour.  George and John continued their friendship with Orbison after the tour, and George and Roy...

Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Phil Ochs and Koerner Ray & Glover. 1 of these names is a household name, 2 of these names recognisable for most music fans, but 1 is left to be ignored by all who are not experts on folk. Koerner, Ray & Glover met at the university of Minnesota, and became stars of the Folk revival. Their breakthrough album Blues, Rags and Hollers  was released in 1963, to heaps of success which gave them a recording contract for 2 albums with Elektra. Together they have been credited with influencing many musicians including: Bob Dylan & Bonnie Raitt. The trio continued to reunite throughout the 20th century, until 2002, when Ray died on the 28th of November. Koerner & Glover meanwhile still perform together infrequently. This post was made today in appreciation of Dave "Snaker" Ray who passed on today, 12 years ago.

Tom Petty has recently done a interview with Classic Rock Magazine ( Read it here) . In the interview Petty talked about The Travelling Wilburys, the supergroup he was part of alongside George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne & Roy Orbison. The band came about due to Harrison needing a B-side for This Is Love. The song which came about Handle With Care  was deemed far too good for a simple B-side by the band. So they decided to form The Travelling Wilburys (A recurring joke of Harrison's). In the interview Petty said "That extra track turned into the Travelling Wilburys. It was a wonderful time. There was never a negative moment doing that. We really enjoyed that. I think we made that record for us really" "Those 10 tracks were all we did. We'd go and cut the track. We'd have to dinner, and work on the lyrics over dinner, and then go to do the vocals - Bang. I love those guys" said Petty. The Band released two albums Vol 1 & Vol 3.

17th February 2015 - 100 Club, London. Mark the date. Because one of the hottest commodities in contemporary music are in town. Twin Peaks, are a power pop/jangle pop band, they are perhaps one of the most talented bands of their genre nowadays and their album Wild Onions  of 2014, was very very good. The band playfully intwine their guitars to echo the sounds perhaps most accurately of Weezer. Whose similar power chords and power pop dual combination are perhaps nearing identical to Chicago's Twin Peaks.

"Al Jackson was the greatest single stroke player I ever hear in my life" said Steve Cropper , in a interview with Jim Payne for his book Give The Drummers Some! . Perhaps one of the greatest stories in American music history, is that of the multi-racial Booker T & The MGs, named by their drummer Mr Al Jackson Jr. The band broke boundaries limited in music, by having 2 white players; Donald Dunn & Steve Cropper and 2 Black players Al Jackson Jr, & Booker T. Unfortunately just Booker T & Steve Cropper are still with us today. Perhaps the ground shaking nature of the band, set them apart from their contemporaries and allowed them to be one of the very few acts who emerged post original Rock n Roll (1954-1959) and the Beatles induced rock era (1963 - ). Their quintessential hit Green Onions is such a part of Western culture that it is grained into us seemingly by birth. Al Jackson, alongside the rest of Booker T & The MGs, backed many of the greats ...

Well NME has posted it's top 50 tracks of this year. Naturally it failed to match my personal opinion. Perhaps the worst part about the list is that they've revealed it over a month before the end of the year. December could have some of the greatest music ever, as far as we know, but alas as William Shakespeare said "December aint no part of a year". NME's top 10 was 1. Seasons (Waiting For You) - Future Islands 2. Can't Do Without You - Caribou 3. Touch The Leather - Fat White Family 4. Red Eyes -  The War on Drugs 5. Blockbuster Night Part 1 - Run The Jewels 6. Eez-Eh - Kasabian 7. Digital Witness -  St Vincent 8. Zombie - Jamie T 9. Little Monster - Royal Blood 10. Chambers Of Reflection - Mac DeMarco Basically you can separate these songs into a few sections 1. NME's personal addictions (Fat White Family, Kasabian, Jamie T) 2. NME wanting to be Hip (Caribou, Run The Jewels) 3. Popular indie choices (Mac DeMarco, Royal Blood, St...

In a recent interview with Uncut, Jimmy Page has said that his greatest achievement outside of Led Zeppelin was performing with X-factor winning singer Leona Lewis at the 2008 olympics in Beijing. In the interview Page complimented Lewis' vocals during their performance of Whole Lotta Love  saying that "She's really plucky, she's superb and she sang ' Whole Lotta Love ' brilliantly". Of the performance he also said that he was very proud that "We didn't fuck it up". "It was a Led Zeppelin number but it took on another persona. I was proud to be able to play that riff for the handover." Page has in recent interviews discussed the possibility that he will tour in 2015 alongside a backing band, while he in september he discussed with NME that Led Zeppelin are not looking likely to reunite "I don't think it looks as though thats a possibility or on the cards". Recently Page has also published a self-titled aut...

There are two bands called Felt. Both are cult artists. One was a jangle pop group from the 1980s who reached levels of critical fame but barely any popular recognition. The other band is a psychedelic band who formed 2 years after the summer of love and didn't gain any sort of fame for over 20 years. One of the few things we know of this band is that it was made up of five musicians from Arab, Alabama. Mike Neel on drums, Stan Lee on guitar, Tommy Gilstrap on bass, Alan Darlymple on Keyboard and lead singer and guitarist Myke Jackson (Now Mychael John Thomas).  Mychael John Thomas was enlisted to help uncover the secrets of this top-secret cult band. Music-Drop Magazine: How did Felt form? Mychael John Thomas : Sometime in April or May of 1970 Mike Neel came back from Florida (He had moved there a couple of years earlier). He came to me and said he wanted to start an all original music band, because that‘s what all the bands in Florida were doing. So we started writing song...

In case anyone was wondering I trawl though Reddit. One of the things that I found a few days ago was that River Cuomo of Weezer is doing a IAMA, now this is 4 days later, yet I haven't seen a round-up of it. So I figured whose more qualified than me to do one. A lot of people actually.  So here are the top 10 things we learnt from River Cuomo's IAMA.   You can read the IAMA here .  He's not a big movie guy What did he think of himself in the 90s? "We Rule"  When he was younger he really did want to be monk His pre-gig ritual is that he plays Frisbee with bandmate Scott  His favourite animal? "Pig"  He thinks all Weezer fans should here The Beach Boy ' s Pet Sounds and Ozma's Rock & Roll Part 3 He says "we're confident we're going to keep making kick ass music that we all love"  When he started his career he tried to look like Rick Moranis. No one thought he did.  His hobby when not doing music "Going to S...

Unfortunately for everyone with ears sometimes the greatest musicians are simply unknown. The case can be made for Alex Chilton (Of Big Star), of Rodriguez, and of many other musicians. However one thing that they have is the fact that they brign something unique into music. Never was this case more prevalent than in the story of Nick Drake the English folk songster. On the 25th of November 1974 he (allegedly) committed suicide. Taking from the world one of the greatest song-crafter in existence. In his lifetime Drake released 3 albums, all of which have achieved a legendary status, in this article I could talk about how he was a under appreciated genius, I could talk about his life, and I could talk about him. However you can read that all here , here , here and here . Instead I'm going to do a simple music person thing; I'm going to list. Perhaps you stubbled on this article because you were looking for Nick Drake stuff, or perhaps you were randomly trawling the web,...

Yesterday afternoon about 3pm I was in the supermarket. I bought a pack of roll, A pack of chargrilled chicken and a packet of Crackers. I then walked back to my dorm in the rain, and listened to some Replacements on the way back. While I was listening to I Will Dare one Swedish lucky 41 year old fellow named Fredrik Wikingsson was sitting in Philadelphia's Academy of Music. To his left was no-one, to his right was no-one, behind him was no-one, but in front of him was the greatest artist of the 20th century, and the voice of more than one generation; Bob Dylan, or Zimmy to his weirder fans.  In the amazing concert Wikingsson was alone, he sat in the second row of the arena. Because as he told Rolling Stone, he thought "the front row might freak him [Dylan] out".  Photo by Getty. In the unique concert experience Dylan played 4 songs, Covers of Buddy Holly's Heartbeat , Fats Domino's Blueberry Hill  and Chuck Will's It's Too Late (She...

Gandalf is the sort of record the 60s loving hipster you know references to try to seem knowledgable about psychedelic music, it's a pretty obscure record. However since it's release in the late 1960s it has built a large cult following and the band Gandalf is now considered one of the best little known secrets of the psychedelic era.  Gandalf were together for four years from 1965 until 1968 and despite their cult status not much is popularly known of the band. One person hoping to rectify that is Peter Sando, the guitarist for Gandalf. Perhaps the most overt Psychedelic album artwork in existence “ I met Bob Muller in detention hall in the 7th grade. He had a band [the Thunderbirds] and they were in the process of dumping their guitarist, Michel Nouri, later to become a successful actor. I joined the Thunderbirds, later to become the Rahgoos.” Peter Sando recalled of the band's origin. Sando's earliest musical influences are common for many his ...

It's impossible to count the amount of incredible musical giants who were playing in the London R&B scene in the early 1960s. There were The Rolling Stones, The Pretty Things, John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers, The Yardbirds and so many more. However history tends to forget some of the bands who participated in the scene, on such band are The Downliner Sect, who were possibly better known for their drunken antics off stage then their Blues Rock on stage. So who are The Downliners Sect? To help me I enlisted the help of their front man Don Craine. The band is probably best known for having two songs of the Nuggets II compilation; Glendora & Why Don't You Smile Now Music-Drop Magazine: Who were your earliest musical influences? Don Craine: Major influences were Lonnie Donegan, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bo Diddley and Eddie Cochran. Where did you first hear the Blues? DC: My first taste of the Blues was watching a Saturday night T.V. sho...