There are two NI Rocks Shows uploaded each week on Rock Radio NI. These are the playlists for those shows for the month of March – all of which are still available from the On Demand Player. There are tracks by around 140 different artists on the Shows this month. Playlists for February were published previously and these Shows are also available via the On Demand Player – http://www.rockradioni.co.uk/back-stage/music-reviews/3799-ni-rocks-recommends-album-releases-february-2021.html
There were new interviews this month with Ricky Warwick, Chez Kane, Gary Hughes and Mark Mangold. All interviews can be found here - http://www.rockradioni.co.uk/interviews.html and on the NI Rocks MixCloud page eventually as well - https://www.mixcloud.com/NIRocks/
American singer-songwriter and keyboardist Mark Mangold is a guest on the Friday NI Rocks Show on 26th March. Mark will be best known as a member of three bands – American Tears, Touch and Drive, She Said. On 26th March Touch release their first album of new music in almost forty years when “Tomorrow Never Comes” is released by Escape Music. The band released their first album in 1980, but their second album, recorded in 1982, wasn’t released until 1998. The band opened the first ever Monsters of Rock Festival at Castle Donington in 1980.
I spoke to Mark via Skype at his home in Sweden on 9th March and we chatted for around 25 minutes about the new Touch album as well as American Tears, Drive, She Said and a new project he is working on. You’ll find that interview and four tracks from the new Touch album on the Friday NI Rocks Show on 26th March - http://www.rockradioni.co.uk/hosts/ni-rocks-friday-rock-show.html
Singer Gary Hughes will be best known as the frontman for English band Ten, but over the years he has released a number of solo albums as well as writing and producing for other artists. On 12th March Frontiers Music released Gary’s latest solo album “Waterside” as well as a compilation of tracks from his earlier solo albums called “Decades”. I managed to grab a chat with Gary via Skype on 2nd March and we talked about the new albums, Ten and some other projects that he is working on. You can hear that interview alongside four tracks from the two albums on the Friday NI Rocks Show on 19th March - http://www.rockradioni.co.uk/hosts/ni-rocks-friday-rock-show.html
In the past I’ve posted individual recommendations for albums after they were released; focusing particularly on albums that I’ve been playing tracks from on the NI Rocks Shows on Rock Radio NI. For various reasons I’ve decided to move away from those individual posts and instead do a monthly post focusing on all the album releases that have caught my attention during that month. This is the third of those posts, looking at some of the great albums released during March 2021.
This month there are recommendations for album releases from Mason Hill, Ronnie Atkins, Chez Kane, Thunder, Sunstorm, Heart Healer, Gary Hughes and Touch with some more possibly to come.