Northeast Music Guide

"We Love Elvis, We Utterly Love Nirvana"  : What's Not To Like? "Basically we love Elvis," enthuses Danny Cobain, vocalist in Elvana, "and we utterly love Nirvana and we hit upon the idea of combining the two" Elvana are a local Elvis fronted tribute to Nirvana, they've been playing their trade in Newcastle for 2 years and in that time they've done many awesome shows including headlining the Academy. "Some people don’t quite know what to expect at first," explains Danny, when asked about what the crowd thought, "after one song people get it and then they really enjoy it!" Elvana's next gig is a bit of an interesting one.  They are playing the Cluny on Saturday 5th of March with Tragedy : A Heavy Metal Tribute to the Bee Gees. "You can expect to be covered in glitter and not be able to stop smiling for days," promises guitarist Royce from Tragedy, "You may hate disco. You may hate metal. ...

A Night of Rocking Tunes and Also, Lovely Hair! The bands and audience gathered at Trillians for the first heat of the competition to get the chance to play Bloodstock Festival. It was a superb night of diverse styles of rock and metal, with every band giving an outstanding performance.  My personal marks out of 10 for the competing bands: Shards of Ruin….dramatic guitar and falsetto vocals reminiscent of Helloween. Great looking band. 7.5 Guilt City….fast guitars, volume up to 11. Harmonising riffs and aggressive tones. Still somehow manage to be catchy and worth putting on in the car. 8.5 Black Nevada have evolved and  polished their sound and have a danceable hard rock style in the same musical continent as Papa Roach. They have really grown musically since I last saw them.8 Dogsflesh… tuneful thrash,  had me thinking it's years since I listened to that Nuclear Assault album...

THE ROAD TO BLOODSTOCK STARTS HERE... We are just days away from the very first Newcastle leg of the Bloodstock Metal 2 The Masses competition. Metal 2 the Masses is an annual, regional, competition where the winner of each region goes on to play at Bloodstock Festival on their New Blood Stage. This has proven to be a big opportunity for many bands, with bands such as Evile, Bloodshot Dawn and Saturnian signing major deals or going on world wide tours. A total of 25 bands will pit their way through the rounds aiming to make it to the final and then on to Bloodstock. The final takes place in The Cluny on June 17th, but before that, bands have to navigate some tricky heats and semi finals. Black Nevada "Some of these groups are going to be really tough," enthuses Kev Morris, of RFTK Promotions, who are organising the events for this region, "But in being tough, it's going to be exciting as fans are sure to get a night of good quality bands - and bands...

MORTIIS ANNOUNCES UK HEADLINE TOUR MORTIIS will be returning to our shores for a run of 7 headline shows in May - the tour kicks off at Newcastle’s Cluny venue on 23rd May and commences at Bristol’s Fleece on 29th May. The tour will follow hot on the heels of the forthcoming release of Mortiis’ new album ‘The Great Deceiver’, which is out on 4th March via Omnipresence. The band comments: ”It´s about time we came back to the UK for some shows. See you in May, you bastards.” MORTIIS 'demons are back' UK TOUR May 23rd NEWCASTLE Cluny May 24th GLASGOW Audio May 25th MANCHESTER Ruby May 26th BIRMINGHAM O2 Institute May 27th BRIGHTON Haunt May 28th LONDON Garage May 29th BRISTOL Fleece    Tickets are on sale now at: http://www.ticketweb.co.uk| https://www.stargreen.com Check out the recently released videos for the tracks ‘Doppelgänger’ & ‘The Shining Lamp of God’, both are taken from the forthcoming Mortiis album ’The Great Deceiver: ...

Richie Ramone plays special Newcastle show  on February 9th. Former Ramones drummer Richie Ramone (nee Richard Reinhardt) is to play a show with his band at The Cluny on February 9th. Richie was drummer with the Ramones between 1983 and 1987.  He is the only Ramones drummer to be the sole composer and writer of Ramones songs. He is also the only Ramones drummer to have ever taken lead vocals, tracks such as 'Can't Say Anything Nice'. Other songs he's written include 'Smash You', 'Humankind', 'I'm not Jesus', 'I know Better Now', '(You) Can't Say Anything Nice' and of course 'Somebody Put Something in My Drink'. Although Richie's band have played the UK a few times in recent years, this will actually be the first time in Newcastle.  However, members of his band are no stranger to the region : Alex Kane, previously of Antiproduct, is involved - AP were a hardworking band who had a very good followi...

RFTK Promotions in Association with  Bloodstock: Metal 2 The Masses presents For the very first time... NEWCASTLE FINALS This is very good news for the region.  Bloodstock Metal 2 The Masses is a battle of the bands contest where a band from each region goes on to play at Bloodstock Festival, the UK's biggest Metal Festival. The contest has been running many years, but this is the first time the region will be represented - taking this year's contest to 26 regions and counting. The premise is simple - it is a battle of the bands consisting of heats, semi-finals and a final - with the regional winner playing the NEW BLOOD STAGE at Bloodstock in 2016.  This stage gets estimated crowds of 2000 fans who are hungry for new music. Bands such as Evile, Bloodshot Dawn and Saturnian are amongst those who've gone on to do world tours or sign to major record labels since coming through this route.  Evile have just toured with Megadeth. The Newcastle final tak...

Last Joker To Play the O2 Newcastle Support: Saints of Arcadia Once More Round A New Nowhere Last Joker was formed by Miguel Mega, portuguese guitar player, in the late eighties in Santos, São Paulo, Brazil. In 1990 Last Joker recorded their first demo tape with the songs  Without You , Last Joker , Hold on Tight and Every Night and started a career playing for eager crowds in the São Paulo state. Because of their musicality , stage presence and sold out concerts they got the attention of Metal Rock Records and recorded their first LP simply called Last Joker and toured Brazil supporting bands such as Sepultura, Angra, Dr. Sin, RDP among others. In the middle nineties the band broke up and Miguel Mega moved to LA and started a solo career and released around 10 instrumental solo cds and appeared on several compilations alongside Greg Howe (Howe II, Michael jackson, Maragold),  Kiko Loureiro (Angra, Megadeth) among others. Photos by Ruth Hindson Ph...