Days after former Iron Maiden singer Blaze Bayley suffered a heart attack while at home in the UK, his management team has announced he is to undergo Triple-Bypass surgery. Read a statement below with an update on Blaze. He has so far postponed upcoming shows for March and April, with a decision on future shows coming eventually. Get well soon!
From escaping their leash and running amok in the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal scene of the early eighties to being put to sleep just five years later, Tysondog may have only had a short life but still managed to make a name for themselves in a highly competitive scene. A packed Neat Records roster including the likes of Raven, Saracen, Avenger and Venom, plus a proliferation of compilation albums available at the time helped the band attain a level of prominence, their song ‘Eat the Rich’ featuring on the likes of British Steel, Metal Killers Vol 2, and Axe Attack.
With a solo career that is now going over two decades strong, Blaze Bayley shows no signs of slowing down with his tenth full-length album. While War Within Me (Blaze Bayley Records) is an inevitable step back from the Infinite Entanglement trilogy that he released through the late 2010s, this has more to do with the sense of scale than any sort of quality concerns. If anything, the album is essentially a fun look back on everything that Blaze has accomplished thus far.
Ghost Cult caught up with the great Doro recently to discuss her long-awaited best-of album Magic Diamonds – Best Of Rock, Ballads & Rare Treasures, released from Doro’s own label, Rare Diamonds Productions. The exhaustive collection includes 56 songs on three CDs with a total of almost four hours with 20 rock songs, 18 ballads, and 18 rare treasures, offering a ton of music and content. It also has an official 4LP version, on colored vinyl. His and Hers perfume, a scarf, and a poster, all personally designed by Doro herself. We chatted about the collection, revisiting these decades of songs and unreleased music, her favorite collaborators such as Lemmy, Peter Steel, Udo, Blaze Bayley, Tarja, and more, her take on the Drive-In shows she did at the start of the pandemic, and her new album she is working on! Purchase the boxed set (available in Europe only) and check out our chat with this legend of Heavy Metal! Continue reading
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Heavy Metal legend Blaze Bayley toured earlier in 2019 on the “Tour of the Eagle Spirit”, conquering stages in Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Belgium, France, UK, USA and Canada. In September 2019 Blaze took that tour on the road a second time, with a sequence of shows across Germany, Netherlands, Poland, plus two special concluding concerts at the Melodka venue, Brno, Czech Republic. All-told the tour totalled 59 shows and those final two shows were captured for Blaze’s forthcoming release entitled Live in Czech – a live album and DVD. The theme of the tour followed on from Blaze’s ‘Infinite Entanglement’ trilogy of albums, including deep cuts. Pre-orders are live now for the package. Continue reading
The third and final day of SOS is more of a classic rock day, although it features fewer bands for me that I was aware of than yesterday. Today is more of an adventure day, and I’m hoping for some discoveries. Continue reading
Time for one of the highlights of my year, the rather excellent SOS festival. A festival envisioned 12 years ago by Lynne Hampson of Rocksector Records as an antidote to the plethora of family un-friendly festivals around at the time. Continue reading
Blaze Bayley
08-10-2017
At Saint Vitus Bar, Brooklyn, NY
All Photos By Omar Cordy/OJC PhotographyContinue reading
Sunday
Sunday at SOSfest was for my money one of the stronger days of the weekend. Starting the day were midlands grunge band Resin. Resin have undergone an almost total line-up change since I last saw them play a couple of years ago. Most interestingly they’ve added a violinist in the form of Emma from one of my all-time favourites Cadence Noir, so I was eager to see how their sound had changed since then. Continue reading
Friday:
SOS (Schools Out for Summer) fest 2017 was celebrating its 10th year of existence, if you’ve not heard of it then you’re probably not alone but you’re still missing out. SOS fest is the jewel in the crown of small independent family friendly festivals. This festival instantly became an annual highlight for myself and my daughter, as it’s one of few place gigs the average nine-year old can attend and properly rock out, and even practice concert photography.Continue reading