The iconic progressive rock band YES will be kicking off a North America tour on March 1st and performingthree of their classic albums in their entirety; The YES Album from 1971, Close to the Edge from 1972 and their 1977 release, Going for the One.
By: William Clark Daryl Shawn is one of modern day music’s most unique and creative acoustic guitarists to step out into the scene. He possesses the ability to be able to take a nylon string guitar and make it roar with dynamic precision and raging power, a talent that many upcoming guitarists would just kill [...]
Guitarists around the world may want to pay attention to the Japanese band called B’z, or its guitarist Tak Matsumoto and maybe learn a few things about how to make their guitars wail and scream, whine and soar.
Ian Crichton is easily one of progressive rock’s most experienced and talented guitarists: he has contributed to several recording sessions with Asia, released several successful solo albums, and aside from that is a founding member for one of the world’s largest and most successful progressive rock bands, Saga.
Consisting of drummer Chad Smith, guitarist Jeff Kollman, bassist Kevin Chown, and keyboardist Ed Roth, the band first formed in 2008 and have just issued their first-ever live recording, Live Meat and Potatoes.
Today, Steve Hackett, the prolific guitarist who captured the spotlight when he joined Genesis is releasing a new album , Steve Hackett and Chris Squire: Life Within a Day, with bassist, Chris Squire, who rose to fame with the ’70s progressive rock band, Yes.
Vocalist and keyboardist Neal Morse is a busy guy, and he likes it that way. Not only did he recently finish a tour with Mike Portnoy’s Yellow Matter Custard Beatle’s cover band, he is currently in the studio finishing up two new album, Testimony 2, the follow up to highly received 2003 album and the first album with a new project featuring Portnoy, Steve Morse, Casey McPherson and Dave LaRue. Most artist would be happy working on one of these projects in any given year, but for a workhorse like Morse, it’s business as usual.
The name Adrian Belew is always linked to Robert Fripp and King Crimson, the legendary progressive band that he’s been playing in for 30 years as composer, singer and of course guitarist. However, a quick look at his short, home-made video “Life in A Nutshell” on YouTube reveals countless collaborations with very diverse artists such as Frank Zappa, Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Joan Armatrading, Nine Inch Nails, Paul Simon, Tori Amos, David Bowie, Laurie Anderson, Mike Oldfield, Cyndi Lauper, Crash Test Dummies, Jean-Michel Jarre, Robert Palmer, Artie Traum, Joe Cocker, Sara Hickman, Garland Jeffreys, Jerry Harrison and The Bears.
After finding international success in the 1970s, Progressive-Psychedelic rock band Nektar found themselves going their separate ways, and not releasing an album after 1980s Man in the Moon. The next two decades found Nektar’s band members doing solo project and pursuing other endeavors as the band moved further away from their heydays of the ‘70s. While many other bands would have simply moved on and called it quits after such a long time apart, in 2002 Nektar reunited and have been recording and touring together ever since.
Saturday at this year’s NAMM show was a big day for major artists making appearances at booths for performances and to sign autographs for long lines of fans. After checking out Steve Vai at Ibanez, Steve Morse at Ernie Ball and Alex Skolnick at Heritage Guitars, I was walking from one side of the room to the other when I happened to pass the Orange amp exhibit, and standing in front of a giant amp, happily signing autographs for his fans, was Mars Volta guitarist Omar Rodriguez-López.
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