Ion Electronic Music

News

12-Nov-09 : Ion Future Forever

Following a surprise rush of orders, we're temporarily out of stock of Ion's Future Forever.

We expect to have a fresh batch duplicated in the next couple of days. Apologies to anyone who is waiting for their copy.

Update : A fresh batch will be here on Monday, 16th November 2009.

10-Nov-09 : Pod Cast news

I've been a fan of Carl Sagan and his wife, Ann Druyan ever since Mr Sagan first appeared on UK TV in 1975, presenting the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures. Indeed, I have many of their books - Cosmos, Comet, Billions and Billions etc, and Cosmos was pretty instrumental in my career choice way back in 1980.

Today, I discovered that Ion's Flying Over Blue Waters has been used as the background music to an interview with Ann Druyan and her son, Nick Sagan over on the sci-fi podcast site Galactic Watercooler.

Wow... As a fan, this was more than just thrilling and after a truly shitty week, this was good news, and perhaps the best news I've had in a while. Today, the towel was well and truly on the point of being thrown in.

I miss Carl Sagan's common sense, his humanity and his sense of optimism. I miss his ability to communicate complex ideas in language that the layman could understand and I'm just over the moon that the producers chose this little choon for their show.

Just a shame that Carl wasn't around to hear it for himself.

28-Oct-09 : Awakenings, Paget High School, Burton-on-Trent II

Pictures and recordings from Saturday's concert continue to flood in. Special thanks to Phil Booth and Martyn Greenwood for their sets, which arrived yesterday. Particular thanks to Xan Morris for his set which are superb, one of which now graces our title page.

However, we've decided that Xan's images won't appear here for the time being. Instead, I'm keeping these back for a future live release featuring the best bits from our recent outings plus any others that we can squeeze in before now and then.

26-Oct-09 : Awakenings, Paget High School, Burton-on-Trent

Despite numerous attempts at setting up gigs in 2009, this was our first proper live outing this year and another in the Awakenings series of electronic music concerts.

The gig passed off mostly okay although there were some obvious nerves during Airlane and I kind of lost the plot during Minerva.

New stuff included a reworking of The Glimmer Room's reworking of Please Be Quiet and that seemed to go down very well. We also played the Mogadon-enhanced version of The Faraway Piano, a slightly speeded up version of the original Comatose mix.

The reworked and revamped version of Mariner sounded better than ever with the addition of Hashtronaut on lead guitar. Superb stuff and a number of people came up stage afterwards to tell us how much they enjoyed it.

We also added a very old track, Hello, Space Boy, originally penned nearly 30 years ago when I all had to play with was a crappy SR88 drum machine, an el-cheapo Taiwanese knock off of a Fender Precision Bass and a home made synth. This version was finished off with a T-Bass theme just to liven the set up a bit. Xan Morris of The Omega Syndicate deputised on keyboards whilst I wandered around the stage posing with my nice, shiny new Yamaha RBX170 bass guitar.

From the back catalogue, we played the afore-mentioned Mariner as well as Call from the Wild Side from the T-Bass album, The Fabulous Neutrinos, which we knew would be a challenge to play live. It was, though I think we aquitted ourselves well on a difficult and demanding piece.

The overall feeling was that the gig was okay, not one of our best, certainly not one of our worst. Indeed, we only seemed to come unstuck with the deeply boring and hugely monotonous Minerva where the backing seemed to drown out everything and everyone.

We finished off with a version of Gary Numan's Airlane, which has been a favourite of mine for nearly three decades.

Special thanks to Jez Creek for organising the even, Mick Daniels aka Hashtronaut for the guitars on Mariner and Xan Morris for helping out on Hello, Space Boy.



Von Haulshoven soundchecking	Jez Creek sorting out equipment

Ion and Hashtronaut sound checking	Sorting out technical issues

Hashtronaut	Hashtronaut

Call from the Wildside	The Faraway Piano

All at sea with The Mariner	Hello, Space Boy

The final set list went as follows:

1. Replica (Ion after Numan)

2. Please Be Quite (Ion/Glimmer Room)>

3. Call from the Wild Side

4. The Faraway Piano (Mogadon mix)

5. The Mariner, with Hashtronaut

6. Future Forever

7. Minerva (Future Imperfect mix)

8. Hello, Space Boy

9. Flying Over Blue Waters

10. Airlane (Composed Numan, arranged Ion)

More pictures of the set are available here: http://s87.photobucket.com/albums/k139/filby22/Awakenings%20Oct%2009/?start=0

04-Oct-09 : You speak, we listen...

Two small issues to comment upon.

Rehearsals are on-going for the forthcoming Awakenings gig in Burton-on-Trent on October 24th 2009. The support acts are Dutch Stone-age Sequencer man Von Haulshoven and Liverpool's rather excellent Hashtronaut.

Right from the start, I suspected that the move towards a more guitar-based sound was a bit of a risky decision and, having spent the last 3 years building a whole new fan base, I also suspected that it might not go down with the punters. That said, I still felt that it was a risk worth taking if (and only if) the journey led somewhere new and exciting.

However, I've received a number of comments in recent weeks that re-inforce the notion that this might not be a wise move and, frankly, one has to consider the practicalilites of this situation, and the fact that Ion is what we in the trade call 'a good little earner'.

Clearly, most fans clearly prefer the ambient, sequenced choonz. Several (some using somewhat public platforms!) have referred to the new guitar sound as 'experimental','raw' and 'a bit rough'.

I think that this is a polite way of saying 'this is crap' and 'Please stop it, Dave. We don't need yet another heavy-metal wank fest.'.

And, ya knows something? I have to agree.

Hence, as of today, all Ion-related flirtations with guitar-metal are a thing of the past.

Normal service has been resumed.

30-Sep-09 : As if by magic...

A couple of months ago, we were delighted to discover that Future Forever had been added to Spotify, which is one of the fastest growing peer-to-peer music streaming services active today. I use Spotify all the time as a means of finding a lot of new music so they carry our full endorsement.

However, it seems that Future Forever's artwork was somehow clobbered in the migration from our main distributor CD-Baby so the package wasn't complete and therefore didn't look very impressive on Spotify's page.

We took this up with Spotify who apologised and said that there wasn't anything that they could do. They said that it was up to CD-Baby to fix the problem. I mailed CD-Baby though, sadly, there was no response. CD-Baby are still recovering from their recent take-over so I cut them a bit of slack and left them to sort the mess out themselves.

The good news is that, on checking this morning, the artwork has finally made it over to Spotify though none of the accompanying blurb is there yet.

Never mind. We'll get there in the end. However, we still need someone, somewhere to give us a review. Is anyone willing to help out?

25-Sep-09 : New track licenses

Five new Ion tracks have been added to the Shockwave library. They are:

The Faraway Piano

Quartz

Please Be Quiet (Glimmer Room Remix)

All the Small Things (Full version)

Flying Frames

Most of these tracks are more-or-less unreleased in that they don't appear on any albums. Faraway Piano was released as a Thanks! to WKVR's Scott Raymond for his consistent support and friendship over many, many years, whilst Quartz and Flying Frames have been played live, either as Ion or SkinMechanix. The version of All the Small Things is the full version and not the truncated version used in the Luna Astronomical Society promo.

01-Sep-09 : More guitar-based antics

I'm kind of thrilled at the minute because I recorded this small section a few minutes ago and it's got me all excited. Again, it's another in the series of guitar-based experiments so see where we go next.

Shiloh

Please forgive the somewhat in-ya-face mix. This is work-in-progress and what sounds great right now will probably sound like a dog's arse tomorrow.

As ever, comments are welcome (though I have no idea where the title came from, honest...)

29-Aug-09 : Update and a small Thank You

I just wanted to add a small message to the fans who have posted comments, both here and on my Facebook page, with respect to the new material currently emerging from the studio. This is a sincere and honest Thank You.

Yes, the new stuff is very Krautrock and has a very European vibe rather than the usual rock 'n' roll feel. The experimental stuff is just what it says - experimental. I may choose to follow some of these ideas to their logical conclusion but, then again, I may not. Just wait and see! :)

I have to say that I am having an absolute ball at the moment. I'm working on new material for both Ion and SkinMechanix, and also for the Awakenings gig in October.

Yes, the guitar is very much to the front at the moment. I began to play the guitar 30 years ago but was seduced by the Cult of Robert Moog towards the end of 1979 so the poor old plank (an cheapo Taiwanese knock-off of a Fender Strat bought for just £15) was dumped to the back of the loft in favour of a new toy (a Moog Prodigy monosynth) though this was a decision I've (sort of) regretted every since.

Truthfully, I lack the patience to be a truly good guitar player but I've come to love the sheer physicality of the instrument and the fact that you can really twat the thing hard and it will respond instead of just breaking, as most synths tend to do when abused.

Anyway, as I said, this is just a small Thank you for your comments. They're much appreciated. Keep 'em coming.

26-Aug-09 : A trip down memory lane

As I've probably mentioned at some point in the last couple of months, I've been trying to integrate guitars back into the overall Ion sound, to try and restore some of the energy that was so much part of the original T-Bass vibe way back in 1995 (though without the backage of an extra band member). I certainly wouldn't pretend to be a guitar player but this tune came to life during last night's studio session. What do you think?

Mountain

Okay, this track perhaps feels just like it could have been written in 2000 as part of The Fabulous Neutrinos sessions so, in some ways, it's mission accomplished but it does feel like I'm retreading old ground a little. That said, I enjoyed this adventure enormously and it still sets a couple of hairs tingling on the back of my neck this morning.

The MP3 file loses some of the bottom end, which is sad. Maybe I'll post the WAV file when my ears have recovered a little.

27-Jul-09 : Interview 4

Version 2 of the interview with DJ Bruce Gall, who produces Sunday Synth for on-line station ARFm, went ahead yesterday afternoon. The first version was ruined by a technical problem (my bad!) that we didn't spot until after the interview had concluded, and so we decided that we would do it again, which also served to get rid of some of my rubbish answers too.

We spent so long talking that Bruce wants to spread the interview over two programmes, the first of which will go out on Sunday, 2nd August 2009 with the second part following a week later on Sunday 9th August 2009.

Picture Left: I was asked to step in at the last minute and operate the mixing desk at the Staggerin' Jon Lee gig at the Bridge Hotel in Newcastle on Friday night. Strange that I look bored, which was absolutely not the case. I was 100% focused on the band (and their lovely sax player)!!!!

That B*h***ger mixer is one of the dumbest designs I have ever used.

Thanks to Mr Speed aka Dave Newton for the photo.

23-Jul-09 : Interview 3

The interview with DJ Bruce Gall, who produces Sunday Synth for on-line station ARFm, went ahead last night. The broadcast is scheduled for Sunday, 2nd August 2009 and not 26th July as stated below.

22-Jul-09 : Interview 2

The interview with DJ Bruce Gall, who produces Sunday Synth for on-line station ARFm, will go ahead tonight for possible broadcast this coming Sunday, 26th July 2009. Bruce has confrmed that the format will be something like a one hour special intercut with music. The topics will include early influences, the evolution of T-Bass and SKinMechanix and then onto Ion itself.

I'll post the full interview in the audio archive section after the broadcast.

12-Jul-09 : Interview

At last, some good news. I was beginning to think that we'd offended some minor diety and was wondering if offering up some kind of blood sacrifice would be sufficient to appease whichever of Satan's little minions I seemed to have offended in order to put an end to this rather shitty run of bad luck we've been going through of late. Thankfully, this is good news, and so the dogs are safe. For the moment, anyway. :)

Okay, DJ Bruce Gall, who produces Sunday Synth for on-line station ARFm, has asked for an interview in the next couple of weeks. The format will be something like a one hour special intercut with some new tracks. That's absolutely something to look forward to. Bruce has been a champion of our music for the last couple of years and it will be good to chat to him about life, the Universe and everything in between.

01-Jul-09 : Lunar Landings canceled

Sadly, the Lunar Landings concert has been canceled and won't be re-scheduled. We had planned to move the gig to another venue (Morden Tower) but they've had their license pulled and are no longer returning my e-mails anyway. I think it safe to assume that this is one less avenue to explore. Arse!

I think that this is a lost opportunity. I think it could have been a really good little gig, something special, something interesting. However, We felt that there were just too many obstacles and, frankly, from a business point of view, it just stopped making sense. From a personal point of view, it also stopped being fun and when that happens, you know you're screwed.

I've decided that I'm taking the rest of the summer off to concentrate on a few other projects, specifically a new Ion album and some new sound track stuff, and also to just get off the merry-go-round for the time being.

30-Jun-09 : Lunar Landings II

We've removed the advert for the Lunar Landings concert for the moment. This is because the venue have not yet confirmed the concert and, unless we hear from them by the end of the week, I'm going to assume that the concert is off. We simply can't get our promotional stuff out to the all-important newspapers and radio stations in less than two weeks.

The news doesn't get any better. Our alternative venue, Morden Tower, have been declined a temporary performance license by the city council and so we can't switch to an alternate venue as a back-up. That's a major blow both to us and to our friends at Morden Tower because they have a major event planned for July.

Right now, we're extremely demoralised. We'll continue on with our preparations on the assumption that something is going to happen but, right now, I don't think it's very likely.

03-Jun-09 : Update

Just a short update.

The Glimmer Room's remix of Please Be Quiet features on the latest Robocast podcast. This version and my original will feature on the next Ambient Live disc. Click here for more information about Ambient Live.

Sorry about the Ghosts in the Machine screw-up. It wasn't our fault. The organisers just couldn't get their act together and admitted as much so we pulled out rather than endure another messy debarcle. The event was pulled a day or so later anyway. Hey ho. These things happen.

I went back into the studio last night to review recent progress. It's more than a little alarming to discover that whilst I recognise the hand writing in my studio log book as mine, I have little or no recollection of making those notes and virtually no memory whatsoever of recording those pieces of music. Quite distressing really.

I put together a quick list of all of the recent pieces and was pleased to find that we have nearly a full album of new material, most of which are in a good state, certainly good enough for a release. However, with a few notable exceptions, much of that material doesn't feel as rich or as rewarding as that on Future Forever. I don't know why this is at the moment. Maybe it's because there's no cohesive flow between the new pieces or the sounds are too similar or maybe it's because I feel there's a lack of new ideas in the melting pot. The Stillstream gig is still a recent memory and I'm certainly having trouble shaking that off. Anyway, I've decided to go back to the drawing board and re-examine what we're trying to achieve. From any angle I look at it, I'm surprised that it's taken so long to get back into the Ion frame of mind.

The gig situation is giving me some concern. With the demise of Ghosts in the Machine, we've been hunting around for a local venue willing to try us out but, thus far, we've drawn a blank. The local music scene is highly incestuous - name one that isn't - and getting your foot on that first step is difficult even if you've got good form so this isn't entirely surprising. I had hoped to grab a reserve spot at the local Green Festival but that has just been cancelled, apparently because of a problem with their accounts and that the Police have been called in.

Anyway, we have one summer gig in the pipeline. The venue has asked for financial planning information and we've given them a huge incentive to make this a success by essentially playing for free so I'm optimistic. However, if they do knock us back then I just hope that they tell us so that we can get a reserve venue all sorted out quickly.

26-May-09 : Ghosts In The Machine III cancelled, Part Deux

The Ghosts in the Machine festival scheduled for Swindon next month has been cancelled. However, as far as we can tell, there's been no formal announcement on their web page and only a passing mention on Facebook. More so, I've not received a reply to my letter of 23rd May 2009 wherein we announced that we were withdrawing, which is more than a little disappointing but just about par for the course, frankly.

We'd like to offer our sincere apologies to the many people who were looking forward to this event. Rest assured that the decision to withdraw was not taken lightly. Given the lack of promotion and the self-confessed lack of motivation from the organiser, we felt that this was just a disaster waiting to happen.

The Facebook announcement does contain the promise of a possible alternative event sometime in the near future. However, following this experience, I have to admit that I'd be reluctant to accept another invitation, even if one was forthcoming.

23-May-09 : Ghosts In The Machine III cancelled

Reluctantly, Ion has withdrawn from the Ghosts in the Machine festival scheduled for Swindon next month.

We're hoping to schedule an alternative gig in the next couple of weeks. Watch this space.

21-May-09 : Fall Comes to Lac La Ronge, Some stills...

Some stills from "Fall Comes to Lac La Ronge", a movie by Randy Johns and Richard Frisky of KCDC featuring The Silent Scream by Ion.

The film airs on the Saskatchewan Communications Network on May 31st 2009.

20-May-09 : Ego-Googling...

Back in the days of The Blog, regular readers would be familiar with my monthly ego-googling sessions. Contrary to popular belief, they do actually serve a purpose.

Firstly, they give me an idea of how many shit bag download sites are ripping off my music. Pox be upon them and their scabby, lice-infested underpants.

Secondly, it's nice to find one or two outfits who are using my music for something just a litte bit different. I like these sites. I might not agree with everything that they do and say but they at least show that someone, somewhere is listening to Ion. I hope they enjoyed the experience.

A good example is the December 2007 issue of The Tarot Connection and their on-going series of podcasts. Tagged onto the end of this episode (number 67) is The Silent Scream from Future Forever, which was a pleasant surprise. I also thought the image of Renfield, the insect-eating Madman from Bram Stoker's Dracula, which features on their deck The Vampire Tarot, was very appropriate. There's even a vague likeness there.

Likewise, it was a delight to find Future Forever used as the backgroud music over on A Mind, Body and Spirit. The track isn't licensed (and it really should be) but I'll cut them a little slack because I like the site. It also reinforced an idea that we've suspected all along - Future Forever is a pretty good relaxation disc. Maybe it's time to cart a couple of copies down to our local New Age shops and see who bites.

Less pleasant was the discovery that Future Forever features on even more dodgy download sites than we previously suspected. This really does stink. These companies don't pay for their goods - they keep everything - whilst lying to their customers that they forward royalities to the artist. It really is time that the government or some such organisation fixed these people for good, ideally with something like a nail gun to the scrotum. If you give these guys a dime then it serves you right if your wife finds out that your credit card was used to pay a Thai Lady Boy for various sexual favours. Just try explaining that one away.

Rant aside, the smile factor returned with this little site, Operation Terra, who used Minerva and Flying Over Blue Waters in their podcast dated 27th February 2008.

I had to smile at this one... "The term "Operation Terra" refers to both a body of information and an operational concept. The information is being telepathically transmitted to Sara Lyara Estes (aka Lyara) by a group of higher-density beings who refer to themselves as "The Hosts of Heaven." It comes to us as a series of Messages - cosmic "lessons" from these celestial beings."

I smile because it's a different take on life and the Universe, and who are we to say we've got all of the answers?

18-May-09 : Short film 'Fall Comes to Lac La Ronge' airs later this month

We received a message from KCDC last week to let us know that their short film, Fall Comes to Lac La Ronge, will air on May 31st 2009 on the Saskatchewan Channel in Canada. See here for more details.

The track The Silent Scream features in this 15 minute movie detailing the cycle of the seasons as they slowly transform from the glory of summer to the splendor of fall.

As the regional public educational broadcaster, SCN delivers programming that reflects the unique people, places and culture of Saskatchewan to 90% of Saskatchewan households and audiences across Canada.

26-Apr-09 : Local Concert

We enjoyed some very successful discussions with a major local educational venue last week. We're attempting to arrange a very special commemorative concert later on in the year and they were extremely impressed with our pitch. This event will celebrate both the International Year of Astronomy and a couple of other major anniversaries that all happen in 2009.

More news when we have it.

23-Apr-09 : Stillstream Concert II

We heard back from DJ Tange at Stillstream last night. He said that Friday's concert had been a terrific success and that they would like us to play again at a future date, which is a good result. I'm certainly up for it.

22-Apr-09 : Stillstream Concert Release

We were very pleased with the overall quality and general reception of the StillStream concert and so we've decided to make the performance available as a limited Edition CDr in time for the Ghosts in the Machine event in June.

Whilst the majority of listeners have been positive and upbeat about the performance, a couple of anal-retentive types have asked how live the concert performance actually was.

Okay, here goes. The improvised tracks were laid down on the day of the recording using a best of three approach. In other words, Jules and I rehearsed the same improvisation three times and then selected the best take.

For the more rhythmic tracks, the backing tracks were pre-recorded, just as they would be in a normal gig, and we played along with those, dumping the results into Audacity on our Sony VAIO. Any editing was limited to just topping and tailing to remove noise, scratches and a couple of weird buzzy noises. The exception was The Missing Link where some mains hum crept in for reasons we don't quite understand. We were not able to remove that though it's only evident at the start and end of the track.

The concert was then assembled from the best of those takes into one performance.

I don't feel that this was in any way cheating. We played as much as two pairs of hands could realistically manage without compromising on the final quality and without feeling that we were taking the piss out of our audience. Indeed, all that was missing was the audience.

One person has suggested that the whole performance came from a sequencer. Undeniably, hand on heart, some of it did, but then that sequencer was a ZEIT which I designed and built by hand. I also wrote something like 130,000 lines of code to support the thing and, yes, I don't deny that we used a sequencer in this recording. Actually, I am quite proud of the fact.

As ever, there's a kind of holier-than-thou attitude to these comments - that using technology in a live context is, in some way, cheating. It's usually based on complete ignorance and an incomprehensible fear of technology. I've come up against this attitude ever since I first took up the synth instead of a guitar in the 80's.

Is this criticism valid? I couldn't give a stuff. All that matters is that we didn't mime the performance. Tell you what! Buy the CDr when it comes out and listen to the solo on The Missing Link. It's quite clear that this isn't coming off backing. It bloody obvious that I'm making this up as the track moves forwards. I would love to call this improvisation but, in all honesty, it's because I've forgotten what I'm supposed to be playing.

Anyway, for those who enjoyed the concert, thanks for listening. We enjoyed it enormously. Tange hinted that we'll be asked back at a future date. I certainly hope so.

17-Apr-09 : Stillstream Concert

Last night's rehearsals did not go according to plan and we've decided that the previous session, recorded 15th April 2009, was much better for lots of reasons, mostly related to my inability to remember what I'm supposed to be playing and when. :)

This is the final playlist.

01. Duma Key (improvisation)

02. All the small things (improvisation)

03. Evensong

04. Future Forever

05. Flying Over Blue Waters

06. The Mariner

07. Audition (improvisation)

08. Please Be Quiet

09. Annoying the neighbours

10. The Missing Link

The concert airs at 7pm CDT, preceded by a 20 minute interview with yours truly.

Special thanks go to Gordon MacMillan (Tange) for hosting the show and to the ever wonderful Jules for playing dem ivories and keeping me right.

16-Apr-09 : Stillstream Sessions

The first of the Stillstream sessions has been finished and uploaded to our server so that the Stillstream staff have something to work around. This is just an interim session, a rehearsal, recorded and crudely edited together last night in case something goes wrong with tonight's recording session and we can't upload the final version for some reason.

We can't do the performance live because Talk Talk have not been able to resolve the issue with our Huawei ADSL modem - external clients can't connect to our Mac so we can't stream up to Nicecast as we'd planned. The pre-recorded performance is a simpler option and, once it's finished and on the server, it's outside of our control. We know what technology is like and it's great for screwing up the simplest of schemes.

Here are a bunch of pics from last night's session. We were trying to capture to mood and spirit of the session, which was quite upbeat and relaxed despite the close proximity to the looming deadline. :)

To listen to the concert/session, go to the Stillstream web page and click on listen. A variety of options are available for a number of different media players. We're Mac people so we tend to use the iTunes link and it works well.

This gig will go out to a prime time US audience, which means roughly 1 am BST for anyone on this side of the Atlantic and so it isn't very friendly for home audiences. We intend to release this concert as some kind of a limited-edition CD or a paid-for download, probably in time for our appearence at the Ghosts in the Machine festival. Or we might just make it a freebie, who knows?

15-Apr-09 : TDFZ Radio Dream Of Peace Special

14-Apr-09 : Ultravox Reunion Gig

Last night was the Ultravox reunion gig at the City Hall in Newcastle. They didn't disappoint. Not one iota. Rock solid performances and Ure's voice was just breathtaking. How old is Midge Ure? He must be up for his bus pass soon! Wow.

I wouldn't normally post this kind of stuff here because it doesn't really relate to Ion directly but then without Ultravox there probably would not have been an Ion (or a T-Bass or a SkinMechanix for that matter) so I guess I can be forgiven this once..

Time flies. All of a sudden, it's August 1980 in a muddy field not far from the village of Bardon Mill in the North Tyne Valley. The sun is shining, the air is still and there's the gentle buzz of bored insects on the wing. There's also a beat-up transistor radio playing somewhere, belting out the usual Top 40 Bollocks of the day, a mishmash of disco and commercialised punk aka gunk, where all of the musos wear C & A sweaters and pretend to be all youthful and disaffected but, in reality, learned their keyboard chops at Eton and/or Harrow, and sing about how their favourite puppy is the wrong colour. Or something like that.

Then the DJ announces a new band with a new single - it's called Sleepwalk and the band name sounds like some kind of domestic appliance - Ultrasonic or Univox. And the song itself is about running down rain-filled streets and screaming at anyone within 30 feet. I have a friend who does that but he's mad and needs medication. I'm intrigued. I want to hear more.

Some days later, and far, far away from that muddy field near Bardon Mill, I catch the same band on Top of the Pops and there's some bloke called Midget, who used to be in a teenie band called Slik, screaming his head off at the front, and some bloke with a big nose called Currie who can't half play those keyboards. Actually, it looks very much as if he wants to fornicate with that ARP Odyssey. Later, he claims that he does. No surprises there.

This event, and an encounter with an embryonic Depeche Mode some months later, results in the casting aside of one's rather crappy Taiwanese knock-off of a Fender Strat in favour of a rather wonderful Moog Prodigy keyboard. (That's it there, on the Thinking Metal title page.) The hair is also cut - a better word would be streamlined - so that I no longer look like a wimpy 70's teenager. I can't play keyboards but at least me and Billy Currie have the same haircut. And the same nose.

Skip forward nearly three decades. The concert hall is packed. Actually, there are more people here than when I first saw them at the City Hall in November 1982. And Ure is worried that nobody would be interested. Yeah. Right.

A good mix of tracks from all four of the Ure-era albums though, mercifully, nothing from The Pink Thing aka U-Vox (or U-Bend as we used to call it) though no sign of any new material either. But maybe the success of this tour will convince them that they should try again. One can only hope so.

12-Apr-09 : Stillstream Gig / The Dark Tower

How many days to the Stillstream gig, David?

The interview for the Stillstream gig is done. Rehearsing and re-arranging are still on-going and the final sections will be added in the next couple of days. Getting very nervous.

In the interview, I mentioned the possibility of a local gig and, at the moment, this looks like a cert. We have to first meet the organisers and then work out a suitable slot in their schedule but they've been so friendly and so helpful that we're hoping that this will be the first of many such events.

This will be Ion's first local gig. The venue is a City Centre landmark with a strong reputation for poetry and small scale concerts. It's also very small indeed and can only take 30 or 40 guests plus it's stuffed away down a small alley way so disabled access is a bit tricky. But it could be a very special event.

Please note, before anyone asks, this is not a substitute for Generations. We just have to build up a local audience before we start pushing Generations hard.

More info when we have it.

11-Apr-09 : Stillstream Gig

The interview for the Stillstream gig will go ahead tomorrow, Sunday. Rehearsing and re-arranging are a priority at the moment with a lot of new material emerging in the last couple of days. Getting kind of nervous.

03-Apr-09 : Shimmer Update / Spotify

Andy mailed me the first test remix from the Shimmer project last night. We're thrilled. Totally blown away. This is exactly where I wanted this project to go.

Click here for a short sample of the first track, Please Be Quiet (Glimmer Room Remix)

Spotify

Discovered Spotify yet? This is a great new facility for exploring on-line music. It's like having my old record collection without the PitA of having to digitise and re-record all of those obscure discs I bought in my student days. There's a lot of very recent material up there too and I find their browser easier to use than say, iTunes. Better still, the adverts are not too obtrusive either - not like some sites where they are too in your face and break your concentration.

Why am I telling you this? Well, according to our latest statement from CD-Baby, we're on Spotify though we don't yet show up in their listings.

Another two pieces of the puzzle slip quietly into place... :)

02-Apr-09 : Shimmer

We're delighted to announce a new collaborative effort with one of my favourite UK musicians, The Glimmer Room's Andy Condon. Andy has generously agreed to remix and rework a collection of pieces, which we hope will form a double album release later in the year.

The provisional title for the project is Shimmer and the first piece, Please Be Quiet, went off for remixing today.

Andy is one of those rare musicians who can just make stuff work and I'm monumentally thrilled to be part of this. This should be something special.

31-Mar-09 : Terry Hawke Interview

In a dazzling display of monumental incompetance, I forgot to post any mention of the interview on The Terry Hawke Show on Harborough FM last weekend.

Worse still, our iMac and/or Firefox dropped the connection after only an hour or so and our Wiretap utility successfully recorded around 10 hours of silence so we don't even have a record or the event.

However, we did take some pictures, and Jules read the weather report, which was fun.

Terry was also kind enough to play 6 Ion tracks...

Future Forever

The Silent Scream (Part 2)

Farscape

Flying Over Blue Waters

Please Be Quiet (unreleased)

Magnificat (composed W. Ions, arr. Hughes)



David and Ron speak...	Ron discusses life, the universe and everything

Ron gets thoughtful as David just continues the usual messing about	Terry, David and Ron

24-Feb-09 : Second Life Concert pulled / Site Facelift

The Second Life concert, provisionally scheduled for April, has been cancelled. I felt that we were being asked to work to stupid deadlines using untried and untested technology. More so, the organisers were not willing to help us work through these difficulties and so, with that kind of attitude going on behind the scenes, I felt it was better to walk away than risk the band's reputation at this stage.

The Ion site has received a much-needed facelift. The old boxy styling has been replaced by something soft and curvy and, well, a bit girly, frankly. This is a test, to see what it looks like and to see if I can live with it for a couple of weeks. We'll see.

23-Feb-09 : Ion on MySpace

Ahead of a general site makeover, I've created a new MySpace page for Ion. It's a bit basic at the moment but will expand in time. Go have a visit. Listen to the choonz. Join the party.

06-Feb-09 : Licensing / New dealer / Canadian TV

Ion's debut album, Future Forever has now been licensed through Shockwave-Sound for use in TV, film and web-based media. With luck, we might just see some TV plays along side all of the radio play!

As part of our on-going policy of expanding our dealer network, Future Forever is now available both as physical CD's and as pay-for downloads from Planet Origo.

Ion's The Silent Scream from the album Future Forever is set to feature in a new DVD/Broadcast by KCDC in Canada entitled "Fall Comes to Lac La Ronge". Broadcast is scheduled for early 2009. Check back here for further updates!

05-Jan-09: ARFm Best Electronic Album of the Year

Staff at the UK's Premier On-line Prog Rock station ARFm have voted Future Forever as the "Best Electronic Music Album of the 2008". This top spot was shared with The Glimmer Room's Home Without The Journey. Congrats to Andy C of The Glimmer Room!

04-Jan-09: ARFm Long Track of the Year

Listeners to the UK's Premier On-line Prog Rock station ARFm have voted Tangents as one of their "Long Tracks of the Year". Tangents was joint 5th in the poll, which is excellent because we feel that the field was very strong indeed. It Bites took the top spot whilst our friends, The Glimmer Room were joint 6th. Here are the full poll results:

1. It Bites, This is England

2. The Reasoning, A Musing Dream

3. Phideaux, Micro Softdeathstar

4. Magenta, The Ballard of Samuel Layne

4=The Tangent, Four Ego's One War

5= Ian Neal, The Lake

5=Black Bonzo, Sound of the Apocalypse

5=Ion, Tangents

6= Mostly Autumn, Glass Shadows

6=Ayreon, Liquid Eternity

6=The Glimmer Room, Cool Blue & The Plough

6=Karmakanic, Send a Message from the Heart

7. Thieves Kitchen, The Long Fianchetto

8. Lyrian, He Who Would Valiant Be

9= Unitopia, Journey's Friend

9=Willow Glass, The Labyrinth

10=Carlton Walker, Excerpt from Everyman

10=Orenda, The Trial

10=Demians, Sand

News 2008 and Beyond

Click here for news from 2007 to 2008