Icon Fetch

With a last name like Allman, there’s going to be heightened expectations, but Devon Allman certainly delivers the goods. After spending several years in the band Honeytribe, and more recently the supergroup the Royal Southern Brotherhood, Devon has stuck out on his own for his first solo album, call Turquoise. Recorded in part at the legendary Ardent Studios in Memphis Tennessee, he’s crafted a very classic-sounding soul-rock album, full of honest lyrics, and supple guitar lines, that fit right in with those Allmans that have come before him.

She is the queen of clubs – Kristine W has scored 16 number ones on the Billboard Club Play singles charts, beginning in 1994 with “Feel What You Want.” At one point she placed nine consecutive singles at the top spot. When Billboard magazine tallied their end of the decade results for the 2000s, Kristine came in third only to Madonna & Beyonce. To celebrate, she’s looking back and looking forward with New & Number Ones, featuring past hits, and some brand new tracks, including the hit single “Everything That I Got.”

With the recent passing of Reg Presley of the Troggs, Icon Fetch has put together an hour-long tribute to the band and their influential lead singer. We’ll hear the story of “Wild Thing” from the man who wrote the legendary song, Chip Taylor. From Larry Page, the band’s manager & producer, who wouldn’t give up on the song, even though everyone hated it, Mike Mills of R.E.M., who played with the band on a collaboration called Athens Andover, and Graeme Clark of Wet Wet Wet, who took the Troggs’ “Love is All Around” back to the top of the charts in the Nineties. Also contributing are Richard Barone, Peter Zaremba of the Fleshtones, Tommy Keene, producer Mitch Easter, Debora Iyall of Romeo Void, pianist David Lanz, Jon Weiss of the Vipers, Peter Holsapple of the dB’s, and filmmaker Grant Wakefield, who talked with Presley about his obsession with crop circles.

He is perhaps the biggest artist you’ve never heard of. Herbert Gronemeyer is the biggest selling artist in Germany – racking up well over 18 million records in his homeland. He first gained acclaim for his portrayal of Lieutenant Werner is the classic German film Das Boot (the Boat) released in 1981. But Gronemeyer’s first love was music and he began concentrating more on that, finally breaking through in Germany with a hit record in 1984. Since then, he’s the biggest selling artist in that country. His latest venture is a new challenge – an entire album sung in English titled I Walk, containing English translations of some of his best-known songs. Herbert plans a tour of the States in 2013.

Marshall Crenshaw released his debut album right at the peak of New Wave’s popularity in 1982, when the world was embracing silly haircuts and synthesizers. Full of melodic hooks, it recalled a time when rock was a little more straight-forward, and featured the hit single “Someday Someway.” Crenshaw has parlayed that success into a career that’s lasted over 30 years, with many twists and turns along the way. His latest endeavor is perhaps his boldest yet – a series of vinyl EPs, via a subscription service, which Crenshaw plans to release over the next two years, all funded by his fans through a successful Kickstarter program. We chat with Crenshaw about why he prefers singles over albums, and how he feels about his first album 30 years later.

Dickie Goodman is the King of Novelty – he holds the record for most novelty singles to hit the Billboard charts – at 17. Things began In 1956 when Goodman, along with his partner Bill Buchanan produced an odd record called “The Flying Saucer” – which took snippets of popular songs and spliced them into a fictitious news report about aliens landing on Earth.

The comedy record was a surprise smash hit, jumping to #3 on the charts and spawning a series of followups. Goodman called them “break in records,” and they were full of controversy. Because he was using pieces of other peoples’ music, was he stealing, or was it a new kind of art? In a sense, Goodman was the first artist to use sampling as a way of creating new music – way before those rap guys.

From the late Fifties to the mid Eighties, Goodman’s records were a mainstay on the charts – poking fun at the news of the day – be it political blunders or flavor of the month fads, and each one using the popular music of the time to tell the story. In this sense, Goodman’s records help paint a true picture of the public consciousness at the time – making great time capsules. Now, his son, Jon Goodman has compiled Long Live the King, a collection of 26 of his dad’s greatest hits, plus a newly assembled “Election 2012” which Jon created himself.

He’s taken the Do It Yourself mentality to a whole new level. Australian Claude Hay has built his own instruments, his own studio, even customized his touring van. When he plays live, he’s a one-man show, using looping technology to essentially play all the instruments himself. We talked to Hay when he released Deep Fried Satisfied back in 2010. Now, he returns with his 3rd album, entitled I Love Hate You. The title track is about his touring van, which he’s tricked out with a bar, but also has left him stranded on several occasions. He also talks about recording in his home studio, which is fitted with a giant Darth Vader head which lights up.

Icon Fetch talks with Ann Wilson of Heart about the amazing year that saw she and her sister render a stunning performance of “Stairway to Heaven” that brought down the house during the Led Zeppelin tribute at the Kennedy Center Honors. She tells us how Robert Plant reacted to her rendition, and why she was so excited to do that particular song. She also touches on how surprised she and Nancy were at being 2013 inductees into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame. We also run through the flurry of activity from the band that saw them release a career-spanning box set, Strange Euphoria (review); their memoir, Kicking and Dreaming (review); and a blistering new studio album, Fanatic (review). Wilson also reveals plans for 2013, which include a spotlight on their album Dog & Butterfly, celebrating its 35th anniversary.

Gary US Bonds’ hit “Quarter to Three” still stands as one of the greatest party tunes of all time. That song was one of many smash hits that he had in the early Sixties. Now, Bonds serves up his first-ever holiday album, “Christmas is ON!,” featuring ten tracks – eight of which were written either by Bonds or members of his band. We talk with the legendary singer about how he got in the holiday spirit while recording the album in the heat of the summer. We also talk about how the Beatles put American artists like him out of work in 1964, and how a chance meeting with Bruce Springsteen put him back on the charts.

Ken Scott has worked on some of the most important albums of all time. He engineered Magical Mystery Tour and the White Album by the Beatles, was the producer & engineer for classic David Bowie albums like Hunky Dory & Ziggy Stardust, and worked on records by Elton John, Jeff Beck, Supertramp, Pink Floyd, the Stones, Devo & Missing Persons, just to same a few. Ken has just written Abbey Road to Ziggy Stardust – Off the Record with the Beatles, Bowie, Elton and So Much More from Alfred Music Publishing.

Although there have been hundreds of books written about the Beatles, Scott takes a different approach, substantiating his claims, wherever possible with additional interviews with others who were around at the time. The result is a honest account of what it was like to work with the top musicians in rock. In part one of our conversation, the author debunks several myths concerning the Beatles, including the bad blood surrounding the recording of the White Album (which he says was blown way out of proportion). We also talk about how these amazing recordings came from such primitive technology.