Music-Drop Magazine

Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, MC5, Mountain, Deep Purple and… Stray? The canon of hard rock and heavy metal is filled with founders and originators. Some argue The Kinks created the genre in 1964, others claim Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath were the bands who ushered in the heavy era of rock.  But one band who helped define the sound Hard Rock is Stray who were made up of a bunch of teenagers from London who formed in 1966 and played together until 1997. To help indulge the music lovers amongst us, I decided that we should all be aware of the rocking impulsive sounds which come from Stray. To help me tell you about the band and its history I enlisted the help of Stray's guitarist Del Bromham. M-D M: Who were your earliest musical influences? Del Bromham: Well All my family loved music and my older brother Allan had a band so consequently there was always music playing in my house. I remember the first record that had a big impact on me even though I was ju...

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...

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...

Well as anyone can tell my consistently on this blog is appalling. However I now intend to take this blog to a new level. I shall try my hardest to update with new pieces at least every week (Starting with either this week or next week. This blog shall now include two new series that should help form the majority of the pieces inside it. One of these pieces shall be on modern day blues musicians. This shall cover modern musicians who are playing the blues in the modern day. The people I shall cover will have been born post-1980, to reflect the "Modern" aspect. People who shall be part of this series include Goldie Reed,  Lucy Zirins, and hopefully such as acts as: Marcus Bonfanti, Laurence Jones among others The over series that I shall be doing is lost bands. I shall try to conduct interviews with members of these bands and I shall try to either post the interviews as they were conducted or (If I have two members of the same band) I shall tell the story of the band from ...