Brand X

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Brand X is a British jazz rock group founded in 1975. In her active time she played almost exclusively instrumental music and experienced numerous line-up changes in the history of the band. Although Brand X has so far not appeared in the new millennium with appearances or recordings, there is no official breakup of the band. The most prominent member of the formation was the musician Phil Collins .

Band history

Beginnings

Brand X was founded in the mid-1970s as a loose formation of musicians with no professional ambitions. The founding members were John Goodsall , who was known from the Alan Brown set and had already recorded a record with Atomic Rooster , and bassist Percy Jones . He got to know Phil Collins , then drummer in the progressive rock band Genesis , while recording Brian Eno's Another Green World (1975). Collins became the third member of Brand X instead of the originally intended Yes drummer Bill Bruford .

In the same year, the three musicians played on the production Peter and the Wolf by Robin Lumley and Jack Lancaster, a jazz-rock adaptation of Sergei Prokofiev's classic, in which a number of well-known musicians such as Gary Moore , Cozy Powell , Stéphane Grappelli , Alvin Lee , Manfred Mann , Julie Tippetts , Jon Hiseman and Brian Eno attended. This was followed by the project Marscape (1975) by Lumley and Lancaster, in which the original line-up of Brand X played as a backing band for the first time . It was agreed to make some demo recordings with this line-up, which should have been leaked to the record company Charisma Records . Robin Lumley was also accepted into the band as a keyboardist.

1975-1982

The debut LP Unorthodox Behavior was released in 1976 and a surprise success with 100,000 copies sold in the UK . The participating musicians Goodsall, Jones, Lumley and Collins were no less astonished, as the titles were not very commercial and were more oriented towards jazz than rock.

Percussionist Morris Pert joined the band and shortly thereafter the LP Moroccan Roll was recorded and released. It is considered the band's best production in the 1970s. The compositions were given more structure than on the previous album, and for the first time a track ( Sun in the Night ) was sung by Phil Collins.

After various appearances, a small tour was undertaken during which Phil Collins was temporarily represented by Kenwood Dennard on drums due to scheduling problems with Genesis . The recordings of the tour were quickly made into the LP Livestock in 1977 . Of the five issues, only two had previously been published. Collins plays the drums on three and Dennard on two.

Masques followed in 1978 , with Dennard being replaced on drums by Chuck Burgi. The keyboardist Peter Robinson , who had already played with Quatermass , was added. Robin Lumley produced the LP. A tour in Japan followed. The record received good reviews and commercial pressure on the band slowly increased.

In 1979 there were further recording sessions at Ringo Starr's Startling Studios . Two new musicians were added: John Giblin came on as bassist for Percy Jones, who had moved to New York and could not be present all the time, and Mike Clark on drums. The recordings lasted two weeks and were made in shifts , so that two very different line-ups could be heard on the final product. The pressure to succeed came mainly from the fact that Collins' level of fame had an impact on the band, and Brand X was seen as its backing band. They also produced two very atypical songs and provided them with the vocals of Collins, so that the record entitled Product was a very inhomogeneous result. It received little positive feedback from most critics and fans. Soho , sung by Collins , was released as a single, but did not meet with any significant response. Nevertheless, a tour of the USA was carried out in 1979 .

As a result, the separation of the band became increasingly apparent. In 1980, with additional material from the product sessions, the LP Do They Hurt? published, which, however, did not do much better than its predecessor. In the meantime, Collins began his steep solo career and could hardly participate in the band's activities. The initiative Lumleys 1982 by CBS Records LP published Is There Anything About? was panned by the critics and ultimately led to a suspension of all live and studio activities.

1992-1997

In the mid-1980s, John Goodsall and Percy Jones focused on solo projects. Goodsall recorded an LP with his band Fire Merchants in 1989 and 1994, while Jones released Cape Catastrophe in 1990 as a one-man band consisting of a bass and drum computer . In 1992 they decided to reanimate the Brand X project . They brought in Frank Katz on drums and released the CD X-Communication in 1992 as a trio on the small label Ozone Records . The production differed significantly from the publications of previous years - also due to the cast.

Manifest Destiny followed in 1996 . The Xylophonist Marc Wagnon was added to the band, which made the sound fuller. Wagnon was also able to contribute various compositions. In 1997 a tour of England , Italy , Germany and Switzerland was undertaken.

Percy Jones had already founded the band Tunnels in 1993 , which basically consisted of the same line-up as Brand X (Jones, Wagnon, Katz), but whose music was freer and more experimental. This formation had released three studio and one live CD by then. On the third Tunnels CD Progressivity , released in 2003, John Goodsall also played on a song ( Wall To Wall Sunshine ).

1997 – today

Various projects followed, some of which Goodsall and Jones worked on together, for example the 1997 production Schizoid Dimension , a tribute CD to King Crimson , on Goodsall as Brand X West and Jones with Frank Katz as Brand X East one song each contributed. "West" and "East" refer to the different places where the musicians live. John Goodsall lived in Los Angeles , Percy Jones in New York.

Percy Jones finally left the band in 1998 and was replaced by Mick Stevens on bass. Goodsall and Jones played together again in 2000 on Sarah Pillow's Nuove Musiche , a collection of Renaissance songs that, with the accompaniment of Brand X musicians, represented a rare mixture of classical, jazz and rock.

John Goodsall announced in 2005 that he would record a new CD from Brand X with Mick Stevens on bass and Brock Avery on drums, but this has not yet happened. There has not yet been an official breakup of the band, however Brand X has not been active as a band since the turn of the millennium.

occupation

Discography

Studio albums

  • Unorthodox Behavior (1976)
  • Morrocan Roll (1977)
  • Masques (1978)
  • Product (1979)
  • Do They Hurt? (1980)
  • Is There Anything About (1982)
  • X-Communication (1992)
  • Manifest Destiny (1996)
  • Missing Period (1997), recordings from 1975 to 1976

Live albums

  • Livestock (1977)
  • RATED X USA - Live in New York Bottom Line (1978, 1992 release)
  • Live at the Roxy LA (1979, 1995 release)
  • Timeline (2000) (2-CD)
  • Trilogy (2003) (3-CD)

Compilations

  • X-Trax (1986)
  • The Plot Thins - A History of Brand X (1992)
  • Brand X featuring Phil Collins
  • Brand X - A History 1976-1980 (1997)
  • The X Files (1999)

Singles

  • Soho (1979)

Projects

  • Nice N 'Greasy by Atomic Rooster (1973) (Goodsall)
  • Another Green World by Brian Eno (1975) (3 Tracks Collins, Jones)
  • Peter and the Wolf by Lancaster & Lumley (1975) (Collins, Goodsall, Jones, Lumley)
  • Marscape by Lancaster & Lumley (1975) (Collins, Goodsall, Jones, Lumley, Pert)
  • Voyage of the Acolyte by Steve Hackett (1975) (Collins, Jones)
  • Before and After Science by Brian Eno (1977) (Collins, Jones)
  • Music for Films by Brian Eno (1978) (Jones)
  • Pleasure Signals by Danny Wilding & Pete Bonus (1978) (Goodsall, Collins, Giblin)
  • Skinningrove Bay by Jack Lancaster (1981) (Collins, Lumley)
  • Fire Merchants by Fire Merchants (1989) (Goodsall)
  • Percy Jones with Tunnels by Tunnels (1993) (Jones, Katz, Wagnon)
  • Landlords of Atlantis by Fire Merchants (1994) (Goodsall)
  • Supper's Ready ( Genesis- Tribute) (1997) (1 Track Goodsall)
  • Schizoid Dimension ( King-Crimson- Tribute) (1997) (2 tracks Goodsall, Jones)
  • A Tribute to the Music & Works of Brian Eno (1997) (1 Track Jones)
  • Painted Rock by Tunnels (1999) (Jones, Katz, Wagnon)
  • Nuove Musiche by Sarah Pillow (2000) (Goodsall, Jones, Katz)
  • Progressivity of Tunnels (2003) (Jones, Katz, Wagnon, Goodsall)
  • Remixes by Sarah Pillow (2004) (Goodsall, Jones, Katz)
  • The Art of Living Dangerously (Live) von Tunnels (2005) (Jones, Katz, Wagnon, Goodsall)

Web links