Big Big Train’s sound is as tight and lush as ever, but it’s also very much a rock show… There’s an edge to their rich textures. An urgency that keeps even the gentlest moments interesting. Almost everyone has a lead-ready voice… Attributes of a band quietly rewriting the rules for what a rock group ‘should’ be. It’s prog rock in excelsis… but always with a song in its heart, even without words. How cool it is that a group like this exists today.” Prog magazine live review, November 2024 Big Big Train are delighted to announce seven further shows to take place in April 2025 in North America. In addition to returning to the United States (following a successful short run of shows in March this year), the band will also make its debut in Canada, with details of two Canadian shows expected to be announced shortly. The majority of these shows will take place following the band’s co-headlining appearance on board Cruise To The Edge. In addition, Big Big Train will play for the first time in Portugal at the beginning of May at the Gouveia Art Rock festival.
At these performances the seven piece band will be promoting their recent studio and live albums The Likes Of Us and A Flare On The Lens, which were released by InsideOut/Sony in March and September respectively this year to great critical acclaim.
Lead vocalist Alberto Bravin says: “We really enjoyed bringing Big Big Train to the United States for the first time earlier this year and playing to such enthusiastic audiences. We’re excited about returning and playing a mixture of recent and older material. As well as visiting some venues and locations that we played in March this year, we’re also bringing the band to some new areas as we seek to build our profile further. With two nights again in New Jersey, we’ll be varying the set list to some extent as well. Roll on April!”
Drummer Nick D’Virgilio comments: “We had an absolute blast last year playing in the States and on board the Cruise, so we were keen to do a longer run of shows this time around, including venturing north of the border into Canada. We’re taking a step by step approach to North America – if we can make this second run of shows successful, then the next step would be to get further west and south.”
Violinist Clare Lindley continues: “I’m looking forward not only to Big Big Train’s return to North America but also to the band playing for the first time ever in Portugal at Gouveia Art Rock. The festival has a great reputation and we relish the opportunity to add to the list of great bands that have played there over the years.”
Bassist Gregory Spawton says: “Over the last couple of years Big Big Train has really matured as a live band. Since September 2022 we’ve played almost 50 live shows and I think audiences have been able to see and hear how strongly we’ve gelled. This line-up works so well together, both musically and socially, and we’re keen to build on our current momentum.”
Keyboardist Oskar Holldorff adds: “On tour in September and October this year it felt as if we grew as a band every night. Alberto, NDV, Greg, Rikard, Clare and I simply love playing together and we feel we’ve found a real gem in Paul Mitchell, who joined us on trumpet in September and October and will be with us again next year.”
For the balance of 2025, Big Big Train will focus on recording their next studio album, expected to be released by InsideOut/Sony in the first half of 2026.
“We’ve got some great material in progress already for the next Big Big Train studio album,” comments guitarist Rikard Sjöblom. “Everyone has been contributing to the writing process to varying degrees and we’re confident about building on the foundations that we laid with The Likes Of Us.”
The band’s shows in North America and Portugal are likely to be their only appearances in 2025.
BIG BIG TRAIN – LIVE IN ‘25
THE LIKES OF US IN NORTH AMERICA TOUR
Wednesday 2nd April – Sweetwater, Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA Friday 4th– Wednesday 9th April – Cruise To The Edge Thursday 10th April – Des Plaines Theatre, Des Plaines, Illinois, USA Friday 11th April – The Token Lounge, Westland, Michigan, USA Sunday 13th April – Electric City, Buffalo, New York, USA Thursday 17th April – Regent Theatre, Arlington, Massachusetts, USA Friday 18th April – Rivoli Theater at The Williams Center, Rutherford, New Jersey, USA Saturday 19th April – Rivoli Theater at The Williams Center, Rutherford, New Jersey, USA *** Sunday 4th May – Gouveia Art Rock, Gouveia, Portugal
with Friends—his band Stratospheerius, Randy McStine, The Tea Club, and Dave Bainbridge—Dec. 15 online and in person from Rutherford, NJ
Kansas violinist Joe Deninzon & his band Stratospheerius celebrate the release of their new album, “Impostor!” & Joe’s 50th Birthday!
With very special guests:
The Tea Club (featuring Kansas bassist Dan McGowan)
Dave Bainbridge (The Strawbs, Lifesigns)
Randy McStine (Porcupine Tree, Steven Wilson)
The ProgStock-sponsored celebration and event takes place on Sunday, December 15th, at 6:30 PM, at the Black Box Theater at the Williams Center, 15 Sylvan Street, in Rutherford, NJ 07070.
For more information, please call 973-886-6077.
This very special concert-celebration will be streamed worldwide on StageIt at 6:30 PM ET /3:30 PM PT /and Monday morning at 12:30 AM Amsterdam time as its happening on Sunday December 15th. StageIt tickets are available for $10 at ProgStock Festival is on StageItIn-person tickets range from $32.08-$47.56 (service fees included in these prices) and are available at progstock.simpletix.com The Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/share/1NC5Cb4wvh
Joe Deninzon & Stratospheerius
Stratospheerius is Joe Deninzon (Electric violin/lead vocal), Jason Gianni (drums/background vocals), Michelangelo Quirinale (guitar/background vocals), Bill Hubuaer (keys/background vocals), Dan Asher (bass). The group’s new album, “Impostor!” (on Trey Gunn’s 7d Media) is on over 100 radio stations across world, with more plays than ever on streaming media, acclaim, and still growing.
Thankful for this 50th birthday celebration, Joe is looking forward to connecting with fans and friends on December 15. He says, “With my crazy Kansas touring schedule, my band Stratospheerius only gets to do a handful of shows during the year. I’m psyched to celebrate my birthday and the release of our new album at the Williams Center alongside some of my favorite artists on the planet! The audience is in for a treat!”
Dave Bainbridge
Dave Bainbridge is musician, composer, artist, and producer who co-formed the Celtic Prog Band Iona, who were popular from 1989 through 2015. He joined the Strawbs and Lifesigns. He and Sally Minnear (daughter of Gentle Giant keyboardist Kerry Minnear) released a recent collaboration, “Live in the Studio.” Dave has been in the Top 4 of Prog Magazine’s Top Ten Guitarist in their annual readers poll every year since 2021.Dave sat in with Stratospheerius in Baltimore; and we hear that he’ll play guitar on one of the band’s classic songs in Rutherford!
Randy McStine
Most known as a great collaborator, including as a member of Porcupine Tree, McStine and Minnemann, and Dave Kerzner’s prog/symphonic group In Continuum, the multi-instrumentalist Randy is also working solo artist. Currently on tour, opening for the Pineapple Thief, his three solo albums have featured special guests including Nick D’Virgilio (notably of Spock’s Bear), Kings’ X’s Doug Pinnick, and Porcupine Tree’s Gavin Harrison and Colin Edwin.
Randy’s played every notable rock instrument (guitar, bass, drums) as a substitute in Stratospheerius through the years. Quips Joe, “If he learns violin, he’ll fill in for me!”
The Tea Club
The Tea Club is fronted by the songwriting team of brothers Patrick and Dan McGowan whose unorthodox guitar playing and fervent singing form the core of the group’s unique art-rock, folk, electronica, and romanticism style. Bassist Jamie Wolff and drummer Dan Monda draw upon their shared love of dynamics and melody to create a raucously sophisticated rhythm section. Joe Dorsey helms the keyboards and brings boundless energy, virtuosity, and a forward-thinking approach to the compositions.
Their latest record If / When is daringly personal, exploring themes of death, failure, new life, and hope. Dan McGowan and Joe share the stage most every weekend in Kansas, but it was originally at ProgStock Festivals that Joe and Dan, and the rest of their bands fell in love with each other’s music!
InsideOutMusic recently signing of Italian instrumental, prog-metal fusionists Asymmetric Universe to a new worldwide deal. The band, formed by brothers Federico Vese & Nicolò Vese, played some select live shows this past Summer, including a rapturously received set at Arctangent Festival in the UK. Today the band are pleased to launch a brand new track titled ‘Opaco’, Italian for ‘opaque’, and you can watch the video (directed by Edoardo Giuliani) now here:
The band comment: “Opaco is the most technically challenging song we have ever composed. It’s inspired by the modern guitar style of bands like Animals As Leaders, Polyphia but with a genre-bending jazz sections inspired by Pat Metheny, Victor Wooten, Jacob Collier. We wanted to set aside the heavy arrangement of the previous song in order to sound like a jazz/metal quartet.”
The band have been receiving attention aplenty, with Total Guitar Magazine picking them out at Arctangent Festival as “this year’s guitar standout”, while Guitar World called their previous single “wonderfully ludicrous in its extremism” and “a jazz-fusion thrill ride like no other.”
Formed in 2018, with the goal of pushing the limit of modern prog and fusing disparate genres, they combine metal with jazz & ambient music, alongside chamber orchestration. In 2023, the band released their second EP ‘The Sun Would Disappear As I Imagined All The Stars’, which was mixed by Forrester Savell and mastered by Ermin Hamidovic. They also embarked on their first European tour as support to Australian progressive metallers Ne Obliviscaris, as well as opening for Caligula’s Horse in Italy.
Both brothers are mostly self-taught musicians, who have been heavily involved in composition and orchestration, as well as music production.
Federico has composed music for as wide ranging places as Radio Montecarlo (one of the biggest Italian radio stations), as well as one of the largest Italian amusement park Mirabilandia. He is a metal/rock producer and this background influences his work as a composer in the video game industry. He is also a professional music and guitar teacher with online students from different parts of the world.
Jethro Tull’s relationship with the Christmas season goes all the way back to the legendary band’s early days. Now it’s to be renewed for modern-day admirers and longtime fans alike, with the release of an expanded and remixed edition of 2003’s The Jethro Tull Christmas Album via InsideOutMusic on December 6th, 2024.
With the release just around the corner, the 2024 remix of the track ‘Jack Frost and Hooded Crow’ has been launched on digital services. Newly mixed by Bruce Soord (The Pineapple Thief), you can listen to it now here:
Under the title ‘The Jethro Tull Christmas Album – Fresh Snow At Christmas’, the bands 21st studio album has been remixed from the original masters by Bruce Soord (The Pineapple Thief), as well as being given the surround sound treatment in both Dolby Atmos & 5.1. The limited deluxe 4CD + Blu-ray book-set collection features all-new artwork, as well as live material, and includes the following across its 5 discs.
CD1: Original Album Mixes CD2: 2024 Remixes by Bruce Soord CD3: Christmas Live At St. Bride’s 2008 (newly remixed by Bruce Soord) CD4: The Ian Anderson Band Live At St. Bride’s 2006 (previously unreleased) Blu-ray: Dolby Atmos, 5.1 Surround Sound & High Resolution Stereo Mixes of The Jethro Tull Christmas Album, as well as High Resolution Stereo Mixes of both live recordings
As well as this, the album will be released on vinyl for the very first time, as a Gatefold 180g 2LP featuring the 2024 remixes. Pre-orders are available now here: https://jethrotullband.lnk.to/JethroTullChristmasAlbum
The Jethro Tull Christmas Album was much praised on first release, with Rolling Stone noting admiringly: “The originals simmer with eccentric, eclectic, folky energy, rocking ditties threaded through with Celtic stylings, jazzy undercurrents, Ian Anderson’s distinctive flute and wry humour.” Allmusic called it “perhaps the most satisfying Tull releases in 25 years.”
It included new interpretations of no fewer than seven Tull songs, including their first to be inspired by the holiday, 1968’s much-loved ‘A Christmas Song.’ That Anderson composition, which opened with lyrics interpolated from ‘Once in Royal David’s City,’ was the B-side of the band’s first UK chart single, ‘Love Story.’
“Some of the tracks are not necessarily Christmas songs; they’re more seasonal so that gives a broader window,” says Ian. “And then there are a couple of them that I quite often play in the middle of summer and say, ‘It’ll soon be Christmas – it’s in the diary. So let’s kick it off now.’ And that’s part of what I’ve done over the years since October of 1968 when I went into record ‘A Christmas Song. ‘So, yes – it goes back a long way.”
‘A Christmas Song’ was joined on the album by reworkings of such pieces as Tull’s 1976 festive hit ‘Ring Out Solstice Bells’; ‘Weathercock,’ first heard on 1978’s Heavy Horses; and ‘Another Christmas Song,’ from 1989’s Rock Island. Also among the re-recordings was J.S. Bach’s ‘Bourrée”, another longtime live favourite, inimitably imagined by Ian.
“Part of the joy of redoing those things,” he says, “is that you can…not necessarily recreate, but you can keep all the essential elements of the song and maybe declutter it a little bit and give it a fresh look, but essentially still staying faithful to the original arrangements.”
The Jethro Tull Christmas Album was their last studio set to feature longtime guitarist Martin Barre, who composed its pretty closing instrumental ‘A Winter Snowscape.’ Also featured on the album were keyboard and accordion player Andrew Giddings, bassist Jonathan Noyce and drummers Doane Perry and James Duncan. Anderson compositions making their debut included the opening ‘Birthday Card At Christmas’ and ‘First Snow On Brooklyn,’ while traditional pieces such as ‘God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen’ and ‘We Five Kings’ were interpreted alongside Fauré’s ‘Pavane.’
The new Refestramus single “I Ruined Christmas” is a wet blanket for the holidays, chronicling the perils of parental disappointment, political disagreements, sleeping with someone’s hot sister and smoking joints in the garage before Xmas dinner.
Refestramus composer/drummer/ leader Derek Ferguson says, “My favorite bit is the line ‘it’s like I told you before, it won’t happen again, my dear’ – we know that even as they apologize, they haven’t really learned anything from their mistakes and will undoubtedly be repeating them.”
The music video features clips of Refestramus’ rock video girl Agent M plotting mayhem on friends and family, who aren’t in very good moods at their holiday tables. It shows the band in the studio looking mighty ornery, too.
Along with Derek Ferguson, the band members are guitarist Derek Pavlic and producer Ian Beabout (Colouratura), with long time vocalist NIDA, and a host of festivity-spoiling guests: bassist Jerry King (Cloud over Jupiter), keyboardist Dyanne Potter Voegtlin (Potter’s Daughter), and saxophonist Mitch Lawrence.
The basic tracks of which were recorded at Aardvark Productions in Steubenville with engineering talents of Dan Bozek and Crack the Sky’s Rick Witkowski.
“I Ruined Christmas” comes to you hot off the heels of the critically divisive “Intouríst” album, released through Melodic Revolution Records. After ruining progressive art rock last May, the Grinche’s of Prog, Refestramus, have simply grown in ambition.
Hailing from Lakeview Chicago, Illinois, fans are calling Refestramus “the Punks of Prog” because “this song is out to spoil your holidaze next month,” says Derek Ferguson, “The good news is you can make everyone’s holidays better by gifting ‘I Ruined Christmas!’”
left to right Derek Pavlic, Derek Ferguson, Ian Beabout
The I Ruined Christmas Sessions NIDA – lead and backing vocals Mitch Lawrence – saxophones Derek Pavlic – guitar Dyanne Potter Voegtlin – piano, keyboards and Moog synthesizer Jerry King – bass Derek Ferguson – drums, sleigh bells, glockenspiel, bass drum
Agent M from the Music Video “I Ruined Christmas”
Additional Information: Produced by Ian Beabout and Derek Ferguson Mastering Engineer: Ian Beabout Recording studio: Aardvark Productions and The Rec. Room, Steubenville OH Record label: Melodic Revolution Records
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