Portis Head

To coincide with the 30th anniversary of our seminal debut album, we have scoured the vaults to unearth some absolute gold for the legions of die-hard Head Cases out there. We have found the original unmastered demo cassette of the 1993 demo that got the band signed, and had it remastered Sterling Sound. But the jewel in the crown; a never-before-released 4-track cassette rehearsal demo with our original drummer Tony Costanza, painstakingly remixed from the original 4-track cassette bounces and also mastered at Sterling Sound. Only for the most hard-core Head Cases!

Limited Card Wallet CD Edition featuring 6 extra live tracks. 62 years of music, loves, losses, long summer days and longer, darker nights are vividly recalled by ‘our greatest living songwriter’, Michael Head and The Red Elastic Band as he plays out flickering scenes from his life on new album, Loophole, set for release on 17th May 2024 on Modern Sky. 12 evocative and autobiographical songs to be accompanied by the written word as Michael Head prepares his memoirs for release with an autobiography with Nine Eight Books. UK Tour dates announced for May and December, ending the year with a career-spanning, home city set at Liverpool Philharmonic.

"Goin' Out of My Head" is the fifteenth album by American jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery, arranged and conducted by Oliver Nelson, it was released in 1966. It reached number 7 on the Billboard R&B chart. At the 9th Grammy Awards Goin' Out of My Head won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album, Individual or Group.
Guitarist Wes Montgomery had a hit with this version of "Goin' Out of My Head" but musically it is little more than a pleasant melody statement. Accompanied by a wasted all-star big band given arrangements by Oliver Nelson, Montgomery mostly sticks to playing themes, even those as dull as "Chim Chim Cheree" and "It Was a Very Good Year." Recordings like this one disheartened the jazz world but made him a household name and a staple on AM radio. Heard three decades later, the recording is at its best when serving as innocuous background music.

1970s hard rock power trio from Michigan led by guitarist & vocalist Paul Frank. This group from Detroit was formed in late 60s by Paul Frank (guitar, vocals), Michael Urso (bass, vocals) and John Bredeau (drums). After signing to Capitol, they recorded a self-titled debut at Paramount Studios in Hollywood, although a couple of tracks were recorded live at Detroit's Eastown Theatre. The album was issued in June 1971. The music is heavy rock very powerful in the vein of early Grand Funk Railroad, Cactus and of course Led Zeppelin. Despite some positive reviews and various gigs (they opened for Frank Zappa and The Mothers at Fiilmore East in NYC) Head Over Heels didn't last much longer and disbanded circa 1972.

Badfinger completed their best album in 1975, then had it pulled from the shelves in a haze of managerial misdeals and contractual screw-ups. They were good soldiers, at least for a while, heading into the studio (without Joey Molland, who bailed at the last minute) to bash out another album for Warner, completing it in two weeks. Warner rejected the effort, lead songwriter Pete Ham committed suicide not long afterward, and the album sat in the vaults until late 2000, when Artisan/Snapper released Head First as a double-disc set (the second disc consisting of demos and outtakes). Head First confirms that Badfinger had settled into a groove with Wish You Were Here, finding an effective middle ground between their pop gifts and hard rock inclinations, with both Ham and Tom Evans contributing equally strong works.

From Allmusic: Led Zeppelin's fourth album, Black Sabbath's Paranoid, and Deep Purple's Machine Head have stood the test of time as the Holy Trinity of English hard rock and heavy metal, serving as the fundamental blueprints followed by virtually every heavy rock & roll band since the early '70s. And, though it is probably the least celebrated of the three, Machine Head contains the "mother of all guitar riffs" — and one of the first learned by every beginning guitarist — in "Smoke on the Water." Inspired by real-life events in Montreux, Switzerland, where Deep Purple were recording the album when the Grand Hotel was burned to the ground during a Frank Zappa concert, neither the song, nor its timeless riff, should need any further description. However, Machine Head was anything but a one-trick pony, introducing the bona fide classic opener "Highway Star," which epitomized all of Deep Purple's intensity and versatility while featuring perhaps the greatest soloing duel ever between guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and organist Jon Lord. Also in top form was singer Ian Gillan, who crooned and exploded with amazing power and range throughout to establish himself once and for all as one of the finest voices of his generation, bar none. Yes, the plodding shuffle of "Maybe I'm a Leo" shows some signs of age, but punchy singles "Pictures of Home" and "Never Before" remain as vital as ever, displaying Purple at their melodic best. And finally, the spectacular "Space Truckin'" drove Machine Head home with yet another tremendous Blackmore riff, providing a fitting conclusion to one of the essential hard rock albums of all time.