Steve Vaus

The brand-new solo album from The Dream Syndicate’s Steve Wynn, released in tandem with his memoir. Make It Right is a commentary between literal and metaphorical ruminating – a dialogue between memoirist and musician - a vulnerable, more reflective Wynn than previously heard.

Steve Hillage has always had one eye on the future, experimenting with genres such as ambient and dance before many of his peers, and creating extra-terrestrial guitar sounds throughout his career with Uriel, Khan, Gong and System 7…

Annabel Mehran's black-and-white cover photo for Steve Gunn's The Unseen Inbetween is a portrait of the guitarist and songwriter seemingly on the move. It evokes those found on early- to mid-'60s recordings by Bob Dylan, Koerner, Ray & Glover, Jackson C. Frank, Bert Jansch, and others. Gunn has shifted his focus considerably. Rather than simply showcase his dazzling guitar playing, he delivers carefully crafted, uncharacteristically tight and well-written songs with guitars, keyboards, strings, reeds – and percussion – translating them without artifice or instrumental disguise. Gunn's also a more confident, capable singer than he was on 2016's Eyes on the Lines and it shows.

While this is not nearly as essential as some other Stax wax, it has a loose, raffish appeal and never falls into the murk of a boring super-session chopsfest. These guys were simply havin' fun with some standard soul/R&B covers (e.g. "What'd I Say," "Baby What You Want Me To Do") and some wide-open originals, kickin' back with some serious riffin'. Cropper proffers his usual intense, simplistic soloing, while King swoops and dives in a stringbending fury. The added plus is the silky smooth near-falsetto of Pop Staples, whose vocal on "Tupelo" is suitably eerie…

The Steve Miller Band is an American rock band formed in 1966 in San Francisco, California. The band is managed by Steve Miller on guitar and lead vocals, and is best known today for a string of (mainly) mid-1970s hit singles that are staples of classic rock radio, as well as several earlier acid rock albums. Steve Miller left his first band to move to San Francisco and form the Steve Miller Blues Band. Shortly after Harvey Kornspan negotiated the band’s landmark contract with Capitol Records in 1967, the band shortened its name to 'Steve Miller Band'. In February 1968, the band recorded its debut album Children of the Future. They went on to produce albums Sailor, Brave New World, Your Saving Grace, Number 5, Rock Love and more. The Steve Miller Band’s Greatest Hits 1974-1978, released in 1978, sold over 13 million copies. They continued to produce more albums and in 2014, Steve Miller Band is touring with the rock band Journey.

Ten songs totalling 30 minutes of music from the eve of Steve Howe's emergence as one of the world's most famous guitar players. The singing isn't much, and the songwriting (apart from the excellent "Black Leather Gloves," written by Clive Skinner, and the group composed "Tired Towers") lacks some lyricism and tunefulness, but Howe's playing is filled with virtuoso melodic flourishes that almost make up for this shortcoming. His guitar carries songs like Curtis's "I Want You," and if you close your eyes on some of the other cuts, it's easy to imagine some of his work grafted onto songs from his first two Yes albums; one can also imagine some of this as demos by Peter Banks' group Flash. But overall this CD reveals Bodast as a band that needed something distinctive besides its axeman, and didn't have it, either in its personnel or their songwriting abilities.