Wailing, wild and dipped in compelling mania, this latest single from DreamFirstBorn is to be released to kick start the launch of his second album; Gutter Trash: The Last Days of Vanity. Released through the independent empire of New Funk Order, this track, about a kidnapper of a young female artist, is perfectly titled, ‘My Psyko Song.’ Like an electrified zombie, the energy of this artist’s performance is disturbingly creative to the point of bowing down gracefully to the Gods Of Punk.

By resurrecting the wildness of the obliterating Punk scene, this style maybe nearly thirty years old, yet it still holds some great significance to the way artists’ compose today. This track is aggressively appealing complete with all the ‘oo’s’ and ‘arh’s’ of a Mowtown backing group. It’s hyper hysterical performer is ready to pull out his hair with angst at any given moment.

It’s a stunning piece of new age Punk that still produces the same rawness and edge of the Malcolm MacLaren, The Damned and The Buzzcocks era, but without the pink and blue hair and safety pins. Punk Funk it could be classed, even so, it’s energised, basic and stripped of all that it neurotically mass produced and commercial.

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‘Providing original music and other art works freely to the public.’

‘The artists duly reap in personal recognition..’

‘Ensure the artists continually have complete control over their music and their rights….’

It is an organisation that needs your support. If you’re an artist with dreams and need a stage to perform and get noticed then they need you to!

Musicians with hearts, compositions and with instruments in their hands are very welcome!

Check out ‘My Psyko Song’ and it’s video at;

The intricate workings of a great legendary mind like Paul Simon still remains a mystery when we embark on the journey through his most recent album ‘Surprise.’ This extraordinary album must be first categorized and a myth must be dispelled. Since the incredible impact of the definitive ‘Graceland,’ way back it 1986, we have been left in limbo state, not far from the feeling of floating on a World Music trip so much to the extreme that his next three albums (Concert In The Park Live; November 1991, Songs From The Capeman; November 1997 and You‘re The One, October 2000) have quiet simply passed us by. So why was it that this album, quite ‘surprised’ us in 2006? What on Earth was it that made us sit up so rigidly?

It could be the fact that this small proportioned, geeky guy resembling an English teacher is turning sixty five in October this year? It could well be. Simon has yet again, enchanted us with his commitment to modern music. He could, let’s face it, have quite easily tripped out on stage every so many years and enlightened us with renditions of ‘50 Ways To Leave Your Lover’ and possibly ‘Mother And Child,’ both unique records in their own right, but it can be a smoother path to tread at a certain age in an artists’ life than embark on the cold, unfriendly route of dipping old toes into the sea of youthful culture.

Therefore, we should embrace this man who has allowed us to participate in his life long campaign to awaken us both politically and culturally, as well as bathe us in his spiritual knack of producing such music to let us dream and expand our sometimes, narrow minds.

This title, perhaps, says it all. What does it mean to us, to hear someone say ‘Surprise!’ We are alarmed, astonished and completely taken aback. Well, in that case, I have summed up this whole album in just those few words. ‘Graceland’ it is not. A ‘bolt from the blue,’ it most definitely is.

The perfection and simplicity of a baby’s face stands out at us, staring hard into us, from this pure album cover. Just this picture, automatically conjures up questions in the listener’s head; is the child surprised? Is it the surprise of a birth of a child? To me, the idea of re-birth springs to mind and it is this thoughts that stays with me throughout the album.

It would suggest that the impression we get on hearing this album is just that. The feeling of re-birth. Simon is certainly finding new feet on his journey through these songs. Or perhaps, it is just the easy feeling of slipping into comfortable, new shoes. Staying faithfully with Warner Bros yet again and producing the album himself, he gives us a small collection of songs; eleven in total, and therefore, it is down to us to make up our own minds as to whether these shoes look good enough on him.

In topical moods of the current state of the planet through the eyes of a wise, mature artist, the pictures within the cover booklet are simple, touched with strong, sobering undertones. We see a picture of a giant wave from the sea about to drown a sleepy coastline resort. An American City engulfed with smoke. A young boy’s ear, just in shot of the camera. A man getting drenched up another throwing a bucket of water over him. An Ape-like couple, with arms around each other. A missile plummeting into the sea. The face of an Oriental baby. Foxgloves growing on the side of a hill covered in ferns. A photograph of a family, dropped onto the dirt of a footpath. The reflection of the Empire State Building in a puddle at night. A very young photograph of the man himself, and lastly, the delightful face of a happy little girl, playing. These images are thought provoking and dare I say it, reminding us of events, that in today’s daily life, we have seemed to have forgotten.

Don Henley is, of course, better known to many of us as the front man and the voice behind The Eagles. After a ‘Long Run’ of Country rock hits throughout the seventies, the need to spread their individual wings by 1980 had become to great for most of the band. Henley was the most successful of the bunch although a fleeting brush with the law came his way before he could actually get any solo efforts of the ground. A young girl was found drugged in his home in California. He was fined, rather heavily and took some rehab to please the judge. Noticeably, it was a stumbling block in the shape of a thirteen foot brick wall and any solo releases were put on hold until the following year.

Henley was one of five of the members of The Eagles who went on to make solo records. His collaboration with Stevie Nicks with her single, ‘Leather And Lace,’ proved to be somewhat of a trampoline for him. Already well known, he had enough experience behind him to create one of the most successful solo careers from such a big, world wide rock band.

‘Building The Perfect Beast,’ was only his second album release. Reaching an average number 13 in the album charts in February 1985, it appeared that because it had included the biggest hit, ever for him, ‘The Boys Of Summer,’ that it was likely that Henley could have followed this album with something even better. The truth was, that this was about as good as it was going to get for the solo artist and that a reunion with the rest of The Eagles, eventually, was bound.

As it was ‘The Boys Of Summer’ with it’s credited drum machine intro and atmospheric synthesizer on top of traditional modern pop rock managed the same scoring in the singles charts (number 12 in December 1984) as another ex Eagle, Glenn Frey’s ‘The Heat Is On,’ only a month after in January 1985. Frey had produced, in his single, all the optimism and forward thinking that Henley’s hit had very much lacked. There was something rather sombre within ‘The Boys Of Summer.’ It’s desperate theme of man chasing after woman who has had her eyes looking afar all Summer long, is wearing and very much haunting to the listener. The video that accompanied the track was also a little disturbing. It showed a video film clip of a young couple dancing around on a sandy beach while someone watches on a big screen. With it’s effect rather like swooping vultures and knee shaking heights from the tops of mountains, it stays in the mind with an unhealthily image. Obsessive and morose, this track is excellent in its true form and has become one of those classic themed anthems for every year between now and September. The verses tell of the singer watching ‘you,’ and noticing the things you are doing and the clothes you are wearing. In any other situation, it is something that one could be arrested for, yet in a Don Henley track, it is about full on, hurting love and all very one sided. You want to shout at the record player and yell, ‘Don’t bother! She’s not worth it!’

Perfectly edited that this mean song would be the first track of the album. The cover can be seen as a little unsettling as well. A sepia effect photograph shows our man, with arms folded staring straight at the listen with firm, deep seated eyes. Looking older, and not so countrified since his days as a long haired cowboy in The Eagles. He had brought to his solo career and grittiness in his voice and a dirtiness in his songs. This album is harder and more defiant than anything I ever heard by The Eagles. It will entrance you and probably turn you away from The Eagles Greatest Hits. Anything before will just not sound the same. Usually, when a front man leaves a band, he takes the fundamental elements of that band with him. With Don Henley, we hear nothing of The Eagles within his own music. Like The band had just been a dream, we have a man standing before us, presenting us with something that you wonder may have been suppressed for that decade of Country dirge.

Okay, so the cool, funky rhythms of a band like Level 42 perhaps doesn’t deserve to have a place in my dooyoo Hall of Fame, but, on the other hand, they did have a history worth recording, despite them probably worming their way onto many a ‘yuk’ list.

Around the time of 1980, Isle of Wight songwriter, Mark King decided to embark on a professional, musical outfit along with the help of the Gould brothers, drummer, Phil and guitarist, Boon. They enlisted Mike Lindup to play on keyboards and also backing vocals.

Taking the basis of their passion of jazz/funk, they never strayed far away from this genre from beginning to end of the eighties. Whilst other bands were changing their image every year, Level42 remained sturdy and rather boring, like a suburban Library. Deciding that they glittering career was not going to take off so easily on the Isle of Wight, they all trooped over with their belongings to London on the mainland. Predominately an instrumental set up, their music was reminiscing of middle class cocktail parties. Mark King had only decided after a few flops that it would probably be best if one of them started singing. Compositions had come easily to King and song writing, equally, followed.

Know for they jumpy funk for those chaps in yellow sweaters and white towelling socks, their music was catchy and full of the joys of pop. Caged to the U.K scene, the States didn’t want to know about King’s thumb smacking bass and those feminine backing vocals until the release of their 1985 album, World Machine. Up until then, Level42 had been seen as screamingly wet behind the ears. Fashionable like a jelly bag, the band had held their position well in the pop charts and the disco dance floors. Forever seen as the party band for drunken gatherings, Level42 never failed to put a smile on our faces and springs in our steps. They legacy that they did leave us, unfortunately, was then an endless stream of God awful funky set ups who gave us such incredibly bad records which some how used to find themselves at number 1over night. Because of bands like Level42, we got Steps.

Things were not completely black for us, the listeners. Occasionally, they released something that was so unique, that we couldn’t but help ourselves rush out for a copy of Smash Hits just for the song lyrics. So now, I have either wet your appetites, or you have turned off this page totally. Either way, we had better look at this album, so we can get it over and done with….

We have already decided in our minds that Level42 had been an acquired taste. A band you either loved or hated. During the eighties, everything swung. It was a decade for the free for all, particularly when it came to music. If you weren’t donning black, black and more black and going to all the Bauhaus concerts, then you were probably sitting at home, in your room, twirling your beads in your pop socks and chewed your bubble gum away to Haircut 100. Level42 appealed to the latter. There was something about owning an Escort, stone washed jeans and sporting a bleached flick on your bonce that screamed out for some musical anthem in the form of Level42.