Iron Butterfly is an American rock band formed in San Diego, California, in 1966. They are best known for the 1968 hit "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida", providing a dramatic sound that led the way towards the development of hard rock and heavy metal music. Although their heyday was the late 1960s, the band has been reincarnated with various members with varying levels of success with no new recordings since 1975. Their second album, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (1968), remains a best-seller, and Iron Butterfly was the first group to receive an In-House platinum album award from Atlantic Records. Their music has found a significant impact on the international rock scenes, influencing numerous acts such as Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Rush, Alice Cooper, Mountain, Uriah Heep, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots and Queens of the Stone Age.
Kajagoogoo were a British new wave band, best known for their 1983 hit single "Too Shy", which reached No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart, and the Top 10 in numerous other countries.
Men Without Hats are a Canadian new wave and synth-pop band, originally from Montreal, Quebec. Their music is characterized by the baritone voice of their lead singer Ivan Doroschuk, as well as their elaborate use of synthesizers and electronic processing. They achieved their greatest popularity in the 1980s with "The Safety Dance", a worldwide top ten hit, and "Pop Goes the World". After a hiatus for most of the 1990s and 2000s, Doroschuk reformed the band in 2010, and released Love in the Age of War (2012). The group, based in Vancouver, has continued to perform, including tour dates announced in support of the release of two studio albums, Men Without Hats Again , in 2021 and 2022 respectively.
Chris Poland is an American guitarist, best known as the former guitarist of the thrash metal band Megadeth. Since 2002, Poland has been the guitarist of the instrumental rock/jazz fusion bands OHM and OHMphrey, among others, and has appeared on several projects and albums from a variety of different genres.
Trans Am is a three-piece American band from Bethesda, Maryland, that was one of the originators of "post-rock" in the mid-1990s. Their work combines elements of Krautrock, heavy metal, hardcore punk, synthpop, electronic music, and folk music. Since their inception, the group has toured with Tortoise, Pan Sonic, The Fucking Champs, and Tool.
Benjamin Lev Kweller is an American singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist.
The Lonelyhearts is a Fort Collins, Colorado and Iowa City, Iowa-based band featuring John Lindenbaum and Andre Perry. The group has toured the United States and is frequently reviewed in the alternative press. Recent reviews have compared the band to Neil Young, The Kingsbury Manx and Unbunny.
RobertRock is an American heavy metal singer who is best known as the longtime frontman of Impellitteri, a position he has held from 1987 to 1988, 1992 to 2000, and now from 2008 to the present day. Rock has also released five albums as a solo artist, and performed with a number of other notable artists, including M.A.R.S., Joshua, Tobias Sammet, Axel Rudi Pell and Warrior.
Saxon Shore was an American post-rock band consisting of members from Philadelphia, Brooklyn, New York, Los Angeles, and Rochester, New York. The group released five albums: one packaged as an EP and four as full-lengths.
Damien Zev Moyal is an American vocalist, lyricist, musician, songwriter and designer. Originally from Amstelveen, North Holland, Netherlands, he moved to the United States as a child and grew up in Miami, Florida, where he notably fronted such hardcore punk, metallic hardcore and melodic hardcore bands as Shai Hulud, As Friends Rust, Morning Again, Culture, Bird of Ill Omen and Bridgeburne R. Moyal has been based in Ann Arbor, Michigan since 2006 and is the founding member of the semi-eponymously named gothic rock/post-punk band Damien Done.
The Hillbilly Way or THW are an American country music band formed in and around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 2012 and originally consisted of Chris "Abby" Abbondanza, Dave Cramer (keyboards), Ryan Lucotch (drums), Jeff Volek, David "Junior" Guthrie, and Bob "Crafty" Crafton. The band originally started as a Reunion to their previous band name The Povertyneck Hillbillies.
The 5uu's were an American avant-rock group founded in Los Angeles, California in 1984 by drummer-composer Dave Kerman. The group released their first album in 1986 and recorded a second in 1988 with Motor Totemist Guild, a similar band from the area. The two groups merged in 1988 to form U Totem and made two albums. When U Totem split up in 1994, the 5uu's reformed and went on to make two more albums. In 2000 the band became known as Dave Kerman/5uu's and released a further two albums under this name. After a long pause, an album, ‘The Quiet In Their Bones’ was released in 2022.
Do-Ré-Mi was an Australian pop rock band formed in Sydney in 1981 by Deborah Conway, Dorland Bray, Helen Carter and Stephen Philip (guitar). They were one of Australia's most respected and successful post-punk groups. Do-Ré-Mi recorded self-titled EP and The Waiting Room for independent label Green Records before signing to Virgin Records and recording their first LP, Domestic Harmony in 1985 with Gavin MacKillop producing. Domestic Harmony achieved gold sales and contained their most played song, "Man Overboard", which was a top 5 hit single in 1985. This song was notable for its lyrical references to penis envy and pubic hair. Do-Ré-Mi's follow-up singles Idiot Grin and Warnings Moving Clockwise reached the Top 100.
Bigelf is an American progressive rock/progressive metal band formed in Los Angeles in 1991. They have since released four studio albums.
Richard Arnold Pleasance is an Australian rock musician and producer. He was a founding member of Boom Crash Opera on guitar, bass guitar, vocals and as a songwriter in 1985; they released three albums before Pleasance left in 1992. Their hit Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) singles, "Great Wall" and "Onion Skin" were co-written by Pleasance, who also co-produced their second album, These Here Are Crazy Times. His debut solo release, Galleon received four nominations at the ARIA Music Awards for 1992. Pleasance composed the theme music for Australian television series, SeaChange (1998–2001), for 2006 feature film Kenny and more recently he composed the theme music for the prison drama series Wentworth. Pleasance is married to Michelle and, as from May 2009, he was living in Hepburn Springs, Victoria where he has a recording studio.
Kaleb Stewart was an American musician, vocalist, songwriter and former skateboarder. Originally from Talkeetna, Alaska, he moved around in his childhood before settling in Tampa, Florida as a teenager, and later made his home in Gainesville, Florida. While in Gainesville, he notably played bass guitar and provided backing vocals in the melodic hardcore band As Friends Rust from 1998 to 2000, and in the hardcore punk band Bridgeburne R from 1999 to 2000. Stewart took part of As Friends Rust's reunion in 2008 and remained with the band until 2019.
Fairmont is an American indie rock band from New Jersey, fronted by Neil Sabatino. They have released eleven full-length albums, as well as six EPs, and toured across the United States for over a decade of their existence.
The Nikhil Korula Band is an American jam band based in California, known for blending genres as diverse as jazz, world music, and adult contemporary. Also called The NK Band, the original lineup has changed somewhat since the band was founded in 2002, and currently consists of Nikhil Korula, Ray Bergstrom, Matt Spencer, Adam Gust, Zane Musa, Marcus Milius, Chris Lovejoy, and Will Herrington. With a sound described by Relix Magazine as "part Dave Matthews guitar licks and sax solos alongside world-music beats," the band has performed at festivals such as Bonnaroo, the Playboy Jazz Festival, SXSW, and Summerfest. They have also headlined venues such as House of Blues and the Viper Room, as well as numerous college campuses, and have opened for Jason Mraz, John Mayer, The Roots, Erykah Badu, and Rusted Root, among others.
Dear John Letters were a Seattle, Washington-based rock band made up of Robb Benson, Richard Davidson, Cassady Laton, and Johnny Sangster.
Secret World Tour was a 1993–1994 concert tour mounted by British singer-songwriter Peter Gabriel to promote his 1992 album Us. The stage show was designed by French-Canadian Robert Lepage, expressing the themes of tension and union between male and female forces, as represented by two stages linked by moving walkway. Three tour legs with elaborate staging were interspersed with two legs of much simpler WOMAD festival dates. Many of the same songs were performed by Gabriel, and he felt that all of his large-scale performances during these two years were part of the same tour. Secret World was Gabriel's first major solo outing since his tour of 1986–1987 to support the album So. Afterward, he waited for almost a decade before embarking on the next tour, Growing Up, in 2002.
