Breathing Space get new guitarist

A Note from Trevor Cotterell - At last I can reveal that Breathing Space have a new guitarist. If you want to know who it is, go to the Breathing Space web site www.breathingspaceband.info and all will be revealed!

Also, just in case there are any tickets left, don't forget that Breathing Space, Mostly Autumn and others will be playing at the Duchess in York this coming Sunday May 3rd in aid of the Andrea's Gift charity.

My New Track needs Lyrics!

I've just uploaded a new tune on my Bandcamp site called "Fakin' It" First of many I hope. It's an instrumental - unlike the music I usually write. Its kind of jazzy for me and something different, not the usual Rock or Prog. It started from the drum loop and kind of grew from that. If anyone out there wants to write some lyrics or play some guitar or maybe sax on it, please feel free and let me hear the results, that would be great. Its free to download as a basic mp3 or you can set your own price and get the quality version.

For those of you who need to know stuff:-
I played everything on there except the drums. It starts with a drum loop from a program called Reason (probably a hip hop beat, OMG.) and the keyboard sounds are from the same soft synth. The main drums later in the song I programmed from EZdrummer in Cubase. There's probably 3 guitar tracks on there played with a fender strat and the bass line kind of follows the piano - ish, with a bit of twiddling at the end.

Hope you enjoy it - and like I say if you want to play about with it, remix it, solo over it, whatever you like, get in touch and we can have a little collaboration going on.
Cheers
Chris - http://chrispicton.bandcamp.com/

First Gig With Big W

It was good to start playing "Live" again at the weekend after a few months off. It was my first gig with "Big W" and it went very well. The pub was the Standard Mower in Leigh and was an interesting venue. Just a small pub with a varied age range. Although a little rough around the edges it was a pretty friendly place and everyone seemed to enjoy the music we played. Big W is a Classic Rock covers band, the line up being Waz on Lead Guitar and Lead Vocals, Glyn - Lead Guitar & Vocals, Ian - Drums and Vocals and yours truly on Bass.

We played 2 sets and introduced 4 new songs to the Big W's set list - numbers by The Foo Fighters, Black Crows, Bowie and Cream. Although all the songs were new for me it was good for the guys to play something different as well. We plan to put more new songs in, as we progress and I look forward to that. It was nice to be appreciated by the younger elements in the audience too who were up rocking at the end, although a little too close for comfort a times.

The next gig is the 9th of May at the Market Tavern in Altrincham - hope to see you there. For more gigs and updates you can checkout the website at www.myspace.com/bigwuk

Cheers - Chris

Mark leaves Breathing Space

Here's a copy of a post I received from Breathing Space.

I'm sure most of you will already know this, but Mark has left Breathing Space. Iain and the band are currently considering potential replacements. Recording of the new album should also still be going ahead after Easter, possibly with an interim guest guitarist. Here is an announcement from Livvy:"It is with regret that Breathing Space has to announce the departure of Mark Rowen from the band. We would all like take this opportunity to thank him for the wonderful contributions he made to Breathing Space, both in the studio recording ‘Coming Up for Air’ and during live performances. We sincerely wish him all the very best for his future endeavours.This is a new dawning for Breathing Space, and we are looking forward to entering the studio – initially in April, to start recording our next album."

Panic Room Update

Here's a copy of the latest Panic Room update I just received...

So what does 2009 hold for Panic Room? Firstly, we have an album to record! We've been playing quite a few new songs live and have several more in the pipleline, so we'll be spending the next few months finishing off writing, and then recording, our second album for release later this year. More news, and maybe an exciting offer or two, coming soon!

The downside of this is that we probably won't be playing live too much until the album is done but are planning to hit the road in September and hope to get to as many places as we can. If anyone has any suggestions for venues that might be suitable, please get in touch.

In other news...we are featured in the new Classic Rock Presents Prog magazine which includes a live review as well as features on women in prog music ( including pics of Anne-Marie) and a review of the Icon gig in London ( also featuring Anne-Marie). If that's not enough, the magazine also includes a covermounted CD which opens with an exclusive edit of Elektra City from Visionary Position.

Also, did you know that as well as the official website (http://www.panicroom.org.uk - but you knew that, right?) and here(obviously!) , we also have pages on
Myspace - http://www.myspace.com/panicroomuk and Reverbnation , http://www.reverbnation.com/panicroom, so please pop in and say hi if you use these sites ( Anne-Marie and Alun also have music pages on all these sites).

There's also the forum over at http://panicroom.omgforum.net/forum.htm and both Anne-Marie (LilRedRockChick) and Alun (alunvaughan - not as creative!) can be found on Twitter, allowing you an insight into our adventures ( amongst other things).

Dream Theater "Progressive Nation" EuropeTour

DREAM THEATER TO TAKE THEIR “PROGRESSIVE NATION 2009” TOUR TO EUROPE / UK IN THE FALL WITH SPECIAL GUESTS: OPETH, BIGELF AND UNEXPECT

New York progressive metal veterans DREAM THEATER will take their PROGRESSIVE NATION tour overseas for the first time with a run through Europe and the UK throughout Sept, Oct and Nov 2009.

PROGRESSIVE NATION founder and mastermind, DREAM THEATER drummer Mike Portnoy, once again hand-picked the bands based on musicianship, originality and diversity…not necessarily by popularity and marquee value. He comments: “After the excitement of putting together two very cool PROGRESSIVE NATION packages for North America, I knew it was time to bring the concept overseas and share some of these other great bands with our amazing fans throughout Europe and the UK”.

Joining the tour will be DT’s tourmates from PN08 (and Roadrunner Records labelmates), the legendary OPETH from Stockholm Sweden.

Los Angeles band BIGELF will bring their unique brand of psychedelic, progressive hard rock to PN09.

Opening the show each night will be Canada’s UNEXPECT who will surely blow people’s minds with their insane musicianship and avant garde style of extreme progressive metal.

A festival and headlining run of Europe in June, followed by the two PN09 tours will be the first treks across the globe for DREAM THEATER in support of their newest Roadrunner Records release “Black Clouds & Silver Linings” which is slated for a late June 2009 release.

For more information, including dates to be announced soon, visit:
www.progressivenation2009.

com (coming soon)
www.dreamtheater.net
www.myspace.com/dreamtheater

For Immediate Release
March 26th 2009

DREAM THEATER TO TAKE THEIR “PROGRESSIVE NATION 2009” TOUR TO EUROPE / UK IN THE FALL WITH SPECIAL GUESTS: OPETH, BIGELF AND UNEXPECT

New York... (read more)