As those of you who follow my site know, I like to pay attention to more than just the well known stuff in Black Sabbath’s history. That means more than the Ozzy & Dio eras. I’m partial to the Tony Martin era, and Tony’s solo band has been the only way that era of Black Sabbath can live on these days. They had a tour jacked up in the US this past summer, which is a shame, as I’ve never seen the Tony Martin solo band live. However, his solo band has been mostly consistent during it’s time. The keyboardist you know, that being Geoff Nicholls. However, also on bass is Jamie Mallender. Jamie had some stuff to say about the tour problems a few months ago, but after he got over that, he got into the studio and recorded an album called “Return to Bass”, and that’s what I’m here about today. I’m letting you know you should go check it out. If you click on the cover art here, you’ll be taken to a page for it where you can buy the CD or download MP3’s. Here’s a bit of what Jamie had to say for himself about the album…
“As many of you Sabbath fans will already know, I should have been doing 3 months of touring the USA, Canada and Brazil Tony Martin this summer. But for reasons I can’t discuss, it didn’t happen. The last night we had in the UK before embarking upon our tour, all but the Brazil section was cancelled. It worked out that they couldn’t take me to Brazil either – just to make matters worse. When I got home I was very down, and I didn’t know what else to do, so I just got out my bass and started playing. Very quickly I wrote and recorded “The Bass Player Answers Back,” channeling all my anger and disapointment into it. That meant I needed just 1 more track to complete my album – “Return To Bass.” Last week I recorded “Theme From nowhere,” and then mixed the finished album. The tracklisting is:-
- Layla’s Funk
- The Bass Player Answers Back
- Theme From Nowhere
- The Amazing Adventures Of An Interstellar Glam Hippy
- Planet Happiness (A Tribute To The Cardigan)
- The Guilt
- Return To Bass
- Kidney Bean
- Captain Blake vs The Lion
All tracks were written and recorded by me and I played all the instruments too. I appreciate that a bass oriented solo instrumental album won’t be to everyone’s taste, and I have no idea if it will ever be properly released – though I do intend to work on that. But if anyone is interested and would like to hear tracks from the album, please check out http://www.jamiemallender.co.uk.
Jamie is also reachable on Facebook, Myspace, & Twitter, too. Enjoy!
UPDATE: The album is now available for download on iTunes, too. Check it out there.
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