Tag Archives: john wetton

Uriah Heep To Release “50 Years In Rock” This October

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The Press Release:
On 30th October 2020 BMG proudly release Uriah Heep’s Fifty Years In Rock. British hard rock legends Uriah Heep are one of the “big four” rock bands, along with Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath, and certainly one of the most intriguing bands both musically and lyrically, to emerge from heavy rock. This extensive and ambitious super deluxe box set celebrates Uriah Heep’s remarkable career and was created with the full collaboration of Uriah Heep themselves and curated by founding members Mick Box, Ken Hensley, Paul Newton and Lee Kerslake.

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The beautifully presented box set contains 23 CD albums including 4 CDs compiled by the original members. This set also includes “The Magician’s Birthday” LP, remastered by renowned engineer Andy Pearce of Lou Reed and Black Sabbath fame, with re-imagined artwork by Roger Dean, two art cards and a 64 page book featuring rarities from the band’s personal archives.
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Reflecting On The 2017 Deaths In Music

If you’ve been reading the PiercingMetal website for a while then you already know that I occasionally need to share the sad news about deaths in the entertainment world. Historically speaking, I’ve been doing them since the days when I had “PiercingMetal Musings” as a side blog that had not yet been integrated into the main site as you see now. Back then I always felt weird about doing such posts but as much as good news should be announced so should the bad stuff and as a known “voice” for the Metal Scene, I try to keep up on them when the news hits the wire. Now with this being said, there is no way possible for me to address every single one of them based on the size of the team and the time that we have so starting this year I will be doing a larger rundown of many of the names that I think you would know. Some have already been discussed in our “In Memoriam” Features, and those artists will be highlighted so you can examine the longer toast that we did. Let’s start from the beginning of the year and raise a glass to their memories one more time.

January 16, 2017: Steve Wright (66), American power pop bassist and songwriter (The Greg Kihn Band)
January 18, 2017: Mike Kellie (69), British psychedelic rock and power pop drummer (Spooky Tooth, The Only Ones)
January 22, 2017: Pete Overend Watts (69), British glam rock bassist (Mott the Hoople)
January 24, 2017: Butch Trucks (69), American rock drummer (The Allman Brothers Band, Les Brers)
January 28, 2017: Geoff Nicholls (68), British rock musician and keyboardist (Black Sabbath, Quartz)
January 31, 2017: John Wetton (67), British progressive rock singer, bassist, and songwriter (Asia, King Crimson)

February 1, 2017: Robert Dahlqvist (40), Swedish alternative rock guitarist and singer (The Hellacopters, Thunder Express, Dundertåget)
February 4, 2017: Steve Lang (67), Canadian rock bassist (April Wine)
February 8, 2017: Tony Särkkä (44), Swedish black metal multi-instrumentalist
February 12, 2017: Al Jarreau (76), American jazz singer
February 13, 2017: Trish Doan (31), American heavy metal bassist (Kittie) (death announced on this date)
February 19, 2017: Larry Coryell (73), American jazz fusion guitarist
February 25, 2017: Rick Chavez, American progressive metal singer and guitarist (Drive)
February 25, 2017: Bill Paxton (61), American new wave keyboardist (Martini Ranch) and actor
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Progressive Rock Legend John Wetton Has Died (1949-2017)

Earlier today the music world learned of the passing of the great John Wetton who is most famously known for his musical contributions with Progressive Rock legends King Crimson and the chart-topping Power Rock band Asia. He was 67 years of age and it would be colon cancer that would take him from us. The images that I have shared below come from an appearance at the venerated B.B. King Blues Club and Grill where Asia was performing. It was a fantastic show and John sounded in such good form and appeared to be in promising health after dealing with some publicly announced bouts with illness.

john wetton, john wetton concert photos

As is my usual case with these sort of posts, I keep it to personal recollection more than repeating the full artist history that is well noted on their Wikipedia entries and I must admit to you all that I never much followed King Crimson as a band when I was growing up. Back then I didn’t consider myself much of a “Prog” guy but I did enjoy the tunes by Yes and Emerson, Lake and Palmer that I heard because my parents enjoyed them. Well, my Dad as least did. Mom was more of a Renaissance listener and that was a very good education as well. That being said I remember when the Rock radio stations of the time began playing this monster of a tune with “Heat Of The Moment” by a band called Asia. It blew so many young Rock fans minds and everyone I knew had this on LP and kept our local record stores owners very happy. I bought mine at a long shuttered place called The Record Factory and I think I still have it somewhere. I tended to stop playing my vinyl after a couple of apartment moves and after the turntable died and never got replaced. The Asia self-titled debut was an amazing thing to listen to and I loved the incredible tone of Mr. Wetton on each and every track.
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“Only Time Will Tell” (Live) (Single) by Asia

Artist: Asia
Title: “Only Time Will Tell” (Live)
Label: Frontiers Records
Release Date: 1/27/2017
Genre: Hard Rock
Rating: 4/5

Back in 2013, Progressive Hard Rock legends Asia performed in Bulgaria with the Plovdiv Opera Orchestra for their excited fans on that side of the world. The performance was captured on recording and video and will be released at the end of February on an album called “Symfonia: Live In Bulgaria 2013”. Yesterday, the Frontiers Records people in the press released the first single from the concert with the bands seminal hit “Only Time Will Tell”. Here are a few thoughts about it.
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“British Live Performance Series” by Asia

Artist: Asia
Title: “British Live Performance Series”
Label: Rainman Records
Release Date: 6/24/2016
Genre: Progressive Rock
Rating: 4/5

When I think of the band Asia the first thing that comes to mind for me is the level of juggernaut success that their self-titled debut album received back in 1982 when Steve Howe, John Wetton, Carl Palmer and Geoff Downes all joined forces to deliver an album that would bring a very radio friendly Progressive Rock into the homes of music fans worldwide. Granted it was a very different sound from their original groups of Yes, ELP, King Crimson and The Buggles and it might had annoyed the more purist of the Progressive Rock faithful but there was no doubt that the band was an Arena Rock staple from the signature track “Heat Of The Moment”. This classic concert from 1990 delivers a band looking back on the previous decade with a smile as they deliver tracks from the debut along with “Alpha”, “Astra” and “Then And Now” which would be the final album that the original members worked on together until their reunion in 2006 some sixteen years later.
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