Shake ‘n’ Pop: BILLY BREMNER’s Singled Out reviewed!

Rockpile remains one of Rock ‘n’ Roll’s most respected but commercially overlooked bands. In terms of credibility, how could you go wrong with a band featuring Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds, Billy Bremner and Terry Williams? While Rockpile recorded albums that were credited to either Edmunds or Lowe, they only recorded one proper studio album under their collective name – 1980’s SECONDS OF PLEASURE – before the band split up. Nick and Dave continued their successful solo careers while Terry joined Dire Straits. The band’s secret weapon – guitarist/vocalist Bremner – also pursued a solo career as well as working with The Pretenders (that’s him playing lead guitar on “Back On The Chain Gang”), Shakin’ Stevens, and many others. He did appear on Lowe and Edmunds’ solo albums as well. While not as high profile as his former bandmates, Bremner has released four solo albums over the years and worked with a multitude of other artists. Often overlooked on his own merits, the best of Billy’s solo material has finally been compiled on the excellent SINGLED OUT collection courtesy of RPM/Cherry Red.

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PAUL COLLINS: An EXCLUSIVE Q&A

STEPHEN SPAZ SCHNEE: OUT OF MY HEAD is about to be released. How are you feeling about the album and the reaction to it so far?
PAUL COLLINS: I’m very happy with the entire process of making this record. Usually, the making of a record is a lot more difficult – for some reason all the aspects of this recording came together relatively easy. The music, the recording and mixing, the artwork, we were so lucky to get Bob Gruen for the photos, and then, of course, our label Alive did a superb job of bringing it all together! The reaction has been great so far but as always there is a lot to do to promote a record.

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SLOAN: Spinning Our Wheels – An EXCLUSIVE Q&A

STEPHEN SPAZ SCHNEE: 12 is just about ready to be released. How are you feeling about how the album turned out and the reaction to it so far?
CHRIS MURPHY: I’m not sure what the reaction is beyond people commenting on my Instagram account and anyone who finds themselves there is probably going to say something positive. Of course, I want to think that people care but regardless I am just happy to be creating an enormous body of work, which if people don’t acknowledge in the present, still makes me happy. I like to say we are making music for rock journalists in the future.

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Five MUST-HAVE releases on Wounded Bird Records!

      For nearly 20 years, Guilderland, NY-based Wounded Bird Records has been quietly reissuing a plethora of CD titles that are generally geared for collectors but most definitely appeal to causal music lovers as well. Not a label to focus on one genre, Wounded Bird has just about every musical style covered – from OC punks Agent Orange to Jazz legend Joe Zawinul. In between, you’ll find releases by the golly-ricious Jim Nabors, Hard Rock heroes Montrose, former Eagles members Don Felder, Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmidt and way too many others to list. In the early days, Wounded Bird was a straight reissue label – no bonus tracks or liner notes. However, over the years, they’ve started adding bonus material to some of the releases, which makes them even more exciting.

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