Guitar Legend Allan Holdsworth 12 CD Box Set Collection and Accompanying Double CD Collection

THE MAN WHO CHANGED GUITAR FOREVER Box Set and EIDOLON-a 2-CD Best Of To Be Released on Manifesto Records on April 7th.

Los Angeles, CA-based Manifesto Records will release a new, complete 12-CD box set by guitar innovator, jazz, and progressive rock legend Allan Holdsworth titled The Man Who Changed Guitar Forever, along with a 2-CD updated and expanded “best of” collection selected by the artist, titled Eidolon.

Manifesto Records referenced the box set’s seemingly portentous title from the cover story title featuring Holdsworth in Guitar Player magazine’s April 2008 edition.  Given his humble nature, Holdsworth is a bit embarrassed by the title and finds the notion that he changed “guitar forever,” somewhat overblown—more befitting of names like Orville Gibson, Leo Fender, or Ned Steinberger.

Holdsworth, born in Bradford England in 1946, embarked on a solo career as composer and bandleader exclusively in 1979.  Holdsworth’s career as producer, bandleader, and lead composer is documented in this box set, and with the artist’s 28-track selection of favorites in Eidolon. Both packages include extensive liner notes, and an updated 2016 interview with Holdsworth discussing each release, his history, and approach to the instrument.   

From 1982 through 2003, Holdsworth recorded a dozen albums that have been lovingly put together for The Man Who Changed Guitar Forever collection. Featured on the box set are eleven remastered studio albums, starting with the 1982 studio release, Allan Holdsworth, I.O.U., and the archival 2003 live release, Then!, recorded live in Tokyo in 1990.  All feature additional bonus tracks added for special editions or the original Japan releases, along with the original artwork and studio credits.  Also included are the Grammy-nominated Road Games, (1983), Metal Fatigue (1985), Sand (1987), Secrets (1989), Wardenclyffe Tower (1992), Hard Hat Area (1993), None Too Soon (1996), The Sixteen Men of Tain (2000), and Flat Tire: Music for a Non-Existent Movie (2001). 

Holdsworth has been recognized by many of the world’s most accomplished and unique rock and jazz guitar virtuosos. Luminaries including Eddie Van Halen, Carlos Santana, Frank Zappa, Pat Metheny, John McLaughlin, Joe Satriani, Tom Morello universally expressed reverence and astonishment at Holdsworth’s pioneering approach to his playing and vast vocabulary of “uncommon” chord voicings.  

He further expanded the guitar’s orchestral potential with a range of electronic effects, then moved on to become one of the early innovators of guitar-based synthesizer controllers. In the nearly five decades Holdsworth has been touring, collaborating, and recording, he has created an immense sonic and musical legacy.   

In the ‘70s he played with legendary Miles Davis drummer, Tony Williams and Cream bassist Jack Bruce as the band Lifetime, and toured with Soft Machine. He worked with former Yes and King Crimson drummer, Bill Bruford’s first solo project, Feels Good To Me, and subsequent recordings with Jean-Luc Ponty, and Gong. Bruford suggested Allan for the progressive-rock “supergroup,” U.K., which, along with Bruford, also featured John Wetton and Eddie Jobson.  

Both The Man Who Changed Guitar Forever and Eidolon will become precious to those who love the world’s great guitarists. Fans of deeply unique, sonically rich and pristine recordings of great musicians taking their music to the next level and beyond, will also be in awe of these collections.    

Media: Anne Leighton: 718-881-8183, anne@AnneLeighton.com, LeightonMedia@Aol.com

www.Manifesto.com | facebook.com/allanholdsworthmusic |

Amazon Preorder Links: The Man Who Changed Guitar Forever
www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Changed-Guitar-Forever/dp/B01N5P4DLD/ref=pd_bxgy_15_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=114FQBNT8G0S6NJR2KE9

Eidolon
www.amazon.com/Eidolon-Allan-Holdsworth/dp/B01MZ9MJN8/ref=pd_bxgy_15_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B01MZ9MJN8&pd_rd_r=WRMTGKTVCWHHRABY2813&pd_rd_w=XGPWl&pd_rd_wg=pntBS&psc=1&refRID=WRMTGKTVCWHHRABY2813

Daevid Allen, Jan. 13, 1938-March 13, 2015

It is with great sadness that we report the passing away of the great Daevid Allen, for many years the leading light in the anarchic collective Gong. Daevid lost his long battle with cancer, and the world is a little less sunlit as a result.

Daevid Allen was the kind of mercurial, inspiring individual whose free-thinking nature positively touched the lives of all who came into his orbit. When the Australian-born Allen first arrived in England in late 1960, he ended up as a lodger in the home of Robert Wyatt’s parents; the first Beatnik to be seen in the Kent countryside. Allen brought a glimpse of a different world and way of living to Wyatt and his friends, and later, as a founder-member of British psychedelic pioneers Soft Machine, added his unique vision to British rock music at the time.

It is as a founder-member of the sprawling collective Gong that Allen will be most closely associated; born out of the Paris Spring Commune of 1968, their debut album Camembert Electrique was memorably released in the UK in 1974 on the nascent Virgin Records label for the price of a vinyl single. Gong were never blessed with a stable line-up; Allen left the band in the mid-seventies, but reformed Gong in the early nineties. The latest Gong album – I See You – was released late in 2014, and was greeted with universally glowing reviews, a brilliant restatement of Allen and the band’s enduring musical and lyrical values.

Although Daevid Allen’s death at the age of seventy-seven is a sad loss, his lasting legacy – an unapologetic desire to live, explore, entertain and inform through his remarkable body of work, outside of the world of the everyday – will live on.

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This is a February 27 video of Daevid performing a piece from Khalil Gibran's The Prophet in Bryon Bay, Australia where poets and artists gathered to help celebrate his life and work.   daevid allen - poet first and last - Pizza Paradiso - 27 Feb 2015 from Planet Gong on Vimeo.

"For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is it to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountaintop, then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance."

Daevid Allen of Gong writes to his fans

My artist Daevid Allen of Gong has made an important decision in his battle fighting cancer.

Gong's Daevid Allen

I have not changed a single phrase, space, punctuation mark as these are Daevid’s words.

He has posted this note in the news section on his website.  www.planetgong.co.uk

I also want to make you aware while my colleagues at UK’s Snapper/K-Scope music and I were doing the promotion of the new Gong album I SEE YOU this past fall, Daevid Allen fell ill with cancer and its subsequent treatment. Today he posted a message, on the band's website: www.planetgong.co.uk/news/current.shtm 

Anne Leighton, 718-881-8183

  

Hello you Kookaburras,

OK so I have had my PET-CAT scans (which is essentially a full body viewing gallery for cancer specialists, ) and so it is now confirmed that the invading cancer has returned to successfully establish dominant residency in my neck.

The original surgery took much of it out, but the cancer has now recreated itself with renewed vigor while also spreading to my lung.

The cancer is now so well established that I have now been given approximately six months to live.

So My view has Changed:

I am not interested in endless surgical operations and in fact it has come as a relief to know that the end is in sight.

I am a great believer in "The Will of the Way Things Are" and I also believe that the time has come to stop resisting and denying and to surrender to the way it is.

I can only hope that during this journey, I have somehow contributed to the happiness in the lives of a few other fellow humans.

I believe I have done my best to heal, dear friends and that you have been enormously helpful in supporting me through this time 

So Thank you SO much for being there with me, for the Ocean of Love 

and Now, importantly, Thankyou for starting the process of letting go of me, of mourning then transforming and celebrating this death coming up - this is how you can contribute, this would be a great gift from those emotionally and spiritually involved with me. 

I love you and will be with you always

 - Daevid xxx -

http://www.planetgong.co.uk

GONG releases new album, I SEE YOU

Franco-British progressive rock group still creating new music

Gong’s new album I SEE YOU is now out on Madfish (a division of Snapper Music) in North America. 

Please note that Gong co-founder Daevid Allen currently is in treatment for cancer. We will set up interviews with other band members: Orlando Allen on drums, bassist Dave Sturt, guitarist Fabio Golfetti, and horn player Ian East winds. Another guitarist Kavus Torabi (formely of The Cardiacs and also with Gong guitarist Steve Hillage) is new to the band; he is also available.

The current incarnation of Gong comprises vocalist / lyricist Daevid Allen, who, even at the age of 75, still radiates an incandescent creativity, the original anarchic vibe that was born out of counter-culture revolution in the Paris commune in 1968. Allen's own, highly idiosyncratic worldview helped kick-start the classic Brit psychedelic explorers, Soft Machine when the '60s were still swinging. His co-conspirators on I SEE YOU are Orlando Allen on drums, new guitarist Kavus Torabi (The Cardiacs), guitarist Brazilian Fabio Golfetti, horn player Ian East winds, and bassist Dave Sturt (the sonic manipulator).

I SEE YOU is timeless and timely, a welcome antidote to an increasingly homogenized musical mainstream. The playful song "I See You" is fusion and kicks off the album. "Syllabub" could be a hit, and namedrops culture in a fun-loving way. Tracks such as "This Revolution," a spoken piece which namechecks Gil Scott-Heron and picks up the vibe of his "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," articulates the kind of concerns and theories that’ve always inspired Daevid Allen and informed the Gong worldview, contrasts with the ferocious inter-stellar Funk of "You See Me," which is sure to be a live favorite. "Thank You" is a heavy slab of psychedelicised blues, whilst the closing song "Shakti Yoni Dingo Virgin," a moody, melodic instrumental piece with heavy pant-singing--serves to illustrate the immense musical firepower and musical diversity that lurks within the current line-up of Gong.

Gong hopes to take I SEE YOU out on tour in the coming months when Daevid's health will allow. Do listen, because I SEE YOU offers up yet more proof that Daevid Allen's creative wellspring shows no sign of running dry, and that the latest Gong line-up has the kind of musical acumen that matches any of their classic line-ups of yore.

Gong is a Franco-British rock band formed by Australian musician Daevid Allen. Other notable band members include Kevin Ayers. Tim Blake, Didier Malherbe, Pip Pyle, Gilli Smyth, Steve Hillage, Francis Moze, Mike Howlett, Pierre Moerlen, Allan Holdsworth, Bon Lozaga, Hansford Rowe. Mick Taylor & Darryl Way have played on Gong albums, and Van Der Graaf Generator drummer Guy Evans played with Gilli Smythe's Mother Gong Others who have, albeit briefly, played in Gong include Bill Bruford, Brian Davison, Don Cherry, and Chris Cutler.

www.planetgong.co.uk

www.twitter.com/gongplanet

www.madfishmusic.com

Introducing: Shadow To Shadow: Dean Madonia's Frankenstein: Alive In Concert

New Rock Opera/Concept Album and Concert to debut this Halloween 

Dean Madonia designed and painted the album cover
for Shadow To Shadow.

Dean Madonia's new album, Shadow To Shadow: Dean Madonia's Frankenstein will be performed live this year.  Stay tuned for announcements including names of musicians involved.

Dean Madonia's Frankenstein follows the tradition of most progressive bands including Genesis, King Crimson, Yes, Kansas, Kevin Gilbert, Jethro Tull/Ian Anderson, Styx, UK, Dio, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Pink Floyd who have created life-changing concept albums (i.e: The Who's Tommy, Pink Floyd's The Wall, Kevin Gilbert's The Shaming Of the True).

•CD Baby Founder Derek Sivers praises, "great songs that range from the outrageous to sublime... by an accomplished songwriter/performer/producer at the top of his game."  

•La Caja De Pandora states, "progressive rock of the highest quality… a musician and a group at it's peak of inspiration."  

•Arlequins says that Dean Madonia has "succeeded quite effectively to make functional music history."  

Dean Madonia's  Frankenstein is a rock opera and tells the story of "The Monster" from the perspective of Dean and his band.  Based on Mary Shelley's famous novel, Frankenstein: Or The Modern Prometheus, Dean has straightened out the story, chronologically.  Dean Madonia's Frankenstein shows that "The Monster" is still alive after over 200 years, and telling his cautionary tale to a genetic researcher about to make the first human clone.

Copies of the album are available for downloads or as CDs.  Accredited journalists should contact publicist Anne Leighton at 718-881-8183 or via Anne@AnneLeighton.com.

In 2012 Tim Dugger recorded Dean's song (I Called Her) Tennessee (Curb Records) which reached #40 on the Music Row chart.  He's had film placements: Honor Is Ours in the 2013 Threshold Entertainment film Footlight!. His song, Just Like Love from his band Pretty Little Horses, was in the movie, The Stream. Dean has seven albums, including 1995's Third Wish CD distributed by Bon Lozaga's LoLo Records.  

In addition to teaching workshops in songwriting, Dean also presents lectures on horror in music. 

www.deanmadonia.com

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