The Muffins

The Muffins are Canterbury influenced quartet formed in Washington D.C. in the year of 1973 by Dave Newhouse (keyboards, reeds), Billy Swan (bass) and Michael Zenterner (guitar, violin). Their sound is strongly influenced by the Jazz-Rock tendencies of Soft Machine, the improvisational techniques of Henry Cow and the quirky song structures of Hatfield and the North and The Mothers of Invention.
The new group remains nameless until one day, while the trio are discussing upon potential names, a friend of there's enters the house and shouts "The muffins are hear!" and conveying a tray of blueberry muffins, thus the band is born! A number of drummers are recruited off and on during the next few months…

Blue Dogs (2015). Named after The Muffins' 1978 debut album - one of the essential Canterbury-related releases - Manna/Mirage is the newest project by founding member Dave Newhouse (one of the band's two woodwind players). Not surprisingly, fellow Muffins Billy Swann and Paul Sears are also on board, as well as Newhouse’s son George, guitarist Mark Stanley (of Chainsaw Jazz and Thee Maximalists), and newest recruit, Steve Pastena, on French horn. The ensemble's debut, released in the autumn of 2015, bears the title of Blue Dogs - a title inspired by a painting by artist and RIO/Canterbury fan Gonzalo Fuentes Riquelme (aka Guerrilla Graphics), which graces the CD cover. The album was mixed and produced by none other than Mike Potter of Orion Studios - probably the most important venue for progressive music in the US, and the setting of The Muffins' most recent performance to date, in May 2015…

Manna/Mirage is the ongoing project by former The Muffins mastermind Dave Newhouse. While he’s obviously working towards different ends and also with a variety of different people as he explores these different ends, it’s still very much coming from his pen, so fans of the band should also greatly enjoy this release.
Autobiographie features nine all-instrumental tracks at just over 46 minutes of playing time. The music is roughly a third Canterbury jazz, a third avant-prog and a third various ethnic folk music styles all mashed up into a cool stroll into the world of instrumental prog. The album also finds a cameo of two early members of The Muffins, Michael Bass on drums and Michael Zentner on electric violin. This album is well paced with each track sounding distinct whether it's the Canterbury dominated opening "Phantosmia" or the tango-fueled "Practicing Tonglin In A Time Of War"…

Manna/Mirage is the ongoing project by former The Muffins mastermind Dave Newhouse. While he’s obviously working towards different ends and also with a variety of different people as he explores these different ends, it’s still very much coming from his pen, so fans of the band should also greatly enjoy this release.
The 4th Manna/Mirage album is now available as a limited edition CD in a Digipack format. It features many guest musicians from the RIO / Canterbury / Independent music community. Fred Frith (guitar) adds a new level to a comp entitled "Fred's Dream" (yes, it really did come from a dream I had about Fred!), and Guy Segers (bass) monsters through an 10 minute juggernaut of a comp called "4 Steps Back".

Dave Newhouse of The Muffins has returned with his 3rd Manna/Mirage album, "Face". Helped along by the playing of some wonderful collaborators, this recording band has produced another solid addition to the AmeriCanterbury genre. The cover is from an original panting titled “Face” by the late great Italian painter, Serge Serghejev.

This box set is the ultimate pop collection, 43 albums featuring many of the biggest hits performed on the legendary pop music chart BBC TV programme Top of the Pops, which ran for a record shattering 42 years from January 1964 to July 2006! The show totalled an amazing 2205 episodes and at its peak attracted 15 million viewers per week! This complete set features a total of 875 tracks, including over 600 top ten hits and over 150 number one's!