Neal Morse, Mike Portnoy & Randy George recently announced their return to the Cover To Cover series of albums with ‘Cov3r To Cov3r’, the brand new third instalment. Featuring their renditions of classic tracks by the likes of King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Gerry Rafferty, David Bowie & more (including their cover of ‘No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed’ featuring vocals from Yes singer Jon Davison), the album will be released on July 24th, as CD, Gatefold 2LP + CD & as Digital Album.
Today they are pleased to reveal a video for their cover of ‘Baker Street’, originally by Gerry Rafferty, and you can watch it now here:
Randy George comments: “Baker Street’ is one of the songs that is instantly recognizable. When I first mentioned the idea of doing ‘Baker Street,’ Neal said that it was funny because he and Mike had just been discussing that one as well.“
Neal Morse adds: “To be honest I was never that big of a fan of this song. It’s one that Mike really wanted to do as I recall. But as we dove into it and I began singing it, I really felt it. Lyrics about thinking that it’s going to be really easy to succeed and then hitting walls and becoming disillusioned are very relatable to me. I found myself really digging into it and taking a kind of “The Who” approach to the song really works well!”
As well as this, the ‘Cover To Cover Anthology (Vol. 1 – 3)’ will be released on the same day, collecting all 3 installments together over 3 discs. The first two albums have also been newly re-sequenced and remastered, and will also be available on all digital services. All the albums have also been given brand new artwork, created by Thomas Ewerhard (Sons of Apollo, The Neal Morse Band, Avantasia).
‘Cov3r to Cov3r’ on Jewelcase CD & Gatefold 2LP + CD, and ‘Cover to Cover Anthology (Vol.1-3) on Limited 3CD Digipak is now available to pre-order here: https://MorsePortnoyGeorge.lnk.to/Cov3rtoCov3r
LP 1:
No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed (cover version)
Hymn 43 (cover version)
Life On Mars (cover version)
Baker Street (cover version)
It Don’t Come Easy (cover version)
Baby Blue (cover version)
LP 2:
One More Red Nightmare (cover version)
Black Coffee In Bed (cover version)
Tempted (cover version)
Runnin’ Down A Dream (cover version)
Let Love Rule (cover version)
CD:
No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed (cover version)
1.Where The Streets Have No Name (U2) 2.I’m The Man (Joe Jackson) 3.What Is Life? (George Harrison) 4.Badge (Cream) 4.Maybe I’m Amazed (Paul McCartney) 5.Day After Day (Badfinger) 6.Pleasant Valley Sunday (The Monkees) 7.Tuesday Afternoon (The Moody Blues) 8.Can’t Find My Way Home (Blind Faith) 9.I’m Free / Sparks (The Who) 10.Where Do The Children Play (Cat Stevens) 11.Feelin’ Stronger Everyday (Chicago) 12.Rock N Roll Suicide (David Bowie)
CD 2 (Cover 2 Cover):
1.(What’s So Funny About) Peace, Love & Understanding (Elvis Costello) 2.Lido Shuffle (Boz Scaggs) 3.Crazy Horses (The Osmonds) 4.Driven To Tears (The Police) 5.Come Sail Away (Styx) 6.Rikki Don’t Lose That Number (Steely Dan) 7.Lemons Never Forget (The Bee Gees) 8.The Letter (Joe Cocker) 9.I Saw The Light (Todd Rundgren) 10.Teacher (Jethro Tull) 11.Southern Man/Needle And The Damage Done/Cinnamon Girl (Neil Young) 12.Starless (King Crimson)
CD 3 (Cov3r To Cov3r):
1.No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed (Yes) 2.Hymn 43 (Jethro Tull) 3.Life On Mars (David Bowie) 4.Baker Street (Gerry Rafferty) 5.It Don’t Come Easy (Ringo Starr) 6.Baby Blue (Badfinger) 7.One More Red Nightmare (King Crimson) 8.Black Coffee In Bed (Squeeze) 9.Tempted (Squeeze) 10.Runnin’ Down A Dream (Tom Petty) 11.Let Love Rule (Lenny Kravitz)
Morse, Portnoy & George first worked together on Neal Morse’s Testimony Live project back in 2003, and since then they have devised and recorded countless Neal Morse albums, including three with The Neal Morse Band.
The three friends have also released music as Morse, Portnoy & George: so far, two Cover to Cover albums have been produced, each being a collection of covers of their favorite songs. As Portnoy explains: “One of the first things myself, Neal and Randy usually start talking about what we can cover when we gather for one of Neal’s solo albums, should we have some leftover time at the end of the session. Most of the songs are rooted in the 60s and 70s and are songs / bands we grew up with.” Explains George, “We all share an attachment for this era of music, so we each throw out song ideas, see what sticks, and record the ones we like the most!”
The trio has covered songs from such greats as, Paul McCartney, Cream, The Who, Jethro Tull, Steely Dan, and many more. They also have also covered some prog classics from the likes of King Crimson and Yes.
On 22nd & 23rd May IQ was due to play two shows, Uden in the Netherlands and Nancy in France. Of course these have now been canceled as a result of the recent COVID-19 lockdown measures, so the band thought it would be a good idea to stream a live concert from their recent ‘Resistance’ tour.
Mike Holmes: “I know it was beyond our control, but we’ve never had to cancel a gig before and it didn’t really sit well with us, especially as we knew so many people had made travel and accommodation plans for the shows.
I’ve seen quite a few artists doing various lockdown videos from their homes which is a great idea, but it’s not really going to work with the IQ setup. As luck would have it we recently played two gigs in Germany and the first one at Aschaffenburg was filmed and recorded for our own archives. The video footage wasn’t quite what we hoped it would be so we had no real plans to do anything with the files, but with this whole lockdown thing in place for the foreseeable future, we figured we’d try to do something to show in place of the two concerts in May.
The setlist for the Aschaffenburg show was pretty much the same that we would be playing in Uden and Nancy and as it’s the entire two and a quarter-hour concert it seems kind of appropriate for the moment.”
The live stream will take place on Friday 22nd May at 20:00 GMT (link will appear on the IQ website https://www.iq-hq.co.uk/index.php/253-streaming-event ) and will be available for the following week to make sure that everyone has the chance to see the show. There’ll also be a live chat with members of the band during the initial stream.
Today Tim Bowness and Steven Wilson, launch a brand new podcast, THE ALBUM YEARS.
On The Album Years podcast, long term friends, collaborators and music nerds Steven Wilson and Tim Bowness regularly meet online to discuss and bicker about their favourite music released during the golden album years, which they reckon to be from around 1965 to the end of the millennium. Each episode focuses on a single year picked at random. At the end of each episode they pick their personal favourites and the album they think had the most long-term impact on music. Can you guess which albums Steven and Tim will pick from 1980, and what would be your favourite albums from that year?
Me, Kimmo and Steve are at the moment working hard on the new “The Samurai of Prog” album inspired by the chronicles of Narnia.
It will feature the talent of Ton Scherpenzeel, Oliviero Lacagnina, David Myers, Octavio Stampalìa, Mimmo Ferri, Luca Scherani, Alessandro Di Benedetti and Jaime Rosas.
Available as standard release or with bonus CD (November 2020)
Artwork by Nele Diel Logo by Ed Unitsky Graphic layout by Kimmo Heikkilä
Following the announcement today of the cancellation of the Ramblin Man festival, Big Big Train are very sorry to confirm the cancellation of the band’s shows in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy in July due to the coronavirus.
David Longdon comments: “We have of course continued to monitor events regarding coronavirus closely in recent weeks. With the restrictions that have been entirely understandably imposed by European governments, in conjunction with the promoters of our six shows in July we have bowed to the inevitable and been forced to cancel these concerts.”
“We were hugely looking forward to all the shows, including making our debut at the legendary Friars in Aylesbury, returning to Germany and the Netherlands and playing for the first time ever in Italy,” Greg Spawton adds. “Sadly however, it is not to be in 2020. We are instead now focusing our efforts on writing and recording a new Big Big Train studio album which we plan to release next summer. We intend to return to playing live following the completion of our next album. We expect to visit all the countries that were on the schedule for 2020 as well as adding further countries to the tour and have some exciting further news about our future live plans which we will announce shortly.”
Ticket holders should contact their point of sale for concert ticket refunds. The shows affected are:
• Thursday 16 July – Friars, Aylesbury, UK • Saturday 18 July – Ramblin’ Man Festival, Kent, UK • Monday 20 July – Stadstheater, Zoetermeer, The Netherlands • Tuesday 21 July – Lichtburg, Essen, Germany • Thursday 23 July – Konzerthaus, Karlsruhe, Germany • Friday 24 July – Phenomenon, Fontaneto D’Agogna, Italy
Free membership of band’s digital fan club for July 2020 ticket holders
Big Big Train is offering July 2020 ticket holders a free 3-month membership of the band’s digital fan service called The Passengers Club. The Passengers Club contains exclusive material including unreleased demos with commentaries, behind the scenes videos, photo galleries, and blogs. Existing members of the Club whose memberships have not previously been extended will have their memberships extended free of charge by 3 months. Details can be found at www.thepassengersclub.com of how July 2020 ticket holders can obtain free membership.
Changing Seasons is the first official promo video by Southern CA, progressive rock band AmuZeum from their critically acclaimed debut new beginnings. AmuZeum has an impressive pedigree that goes back more than a decade. The five members have crossed paths many times through the years in LA studios and playing in different bands such as Mars Hollow, Ten Jinn, Gabble Ratchet, and Heliopolis, all of which had various degrees of success.
Changing Seasons is basically about living a life to its fullest. To take chances even though sometimes it might feel a bit overwhelming. There is a meaning to it all and if you believe in yourself, you will find your drive, passion and purpose. Remember, we’re only here for a very short time.
Album // “New Beginnings” Released // April 17, 2020 Music & Lyrics by AmuZeum Produced by AmuZeum Mixed By Billy Sherwood Mastered By Mike Bozzi @ Bernie Grundman Mastering Group Shot Photography by Joseph M. Garcia Video Clips: pexels.com/
Listen ~ Love ~ Share
Band Media and Booking Contact: Michael Matier m.matier@yahoo.com Label Contact: Melodic Revolution Records Nick Katona nick@melodicrevolution.com
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
