Box set worth the money

If you've been to the I-94 Bar, a glowing recommendation for the Easy Action label's six-CD "Sonic's Rendezvous Band" box set won't come as any surprise. It's reviewed here.

The great thing about "SRB" is that, given the luxury of half-a-dozen discs, it's not just presenting a narrow of this reverred band at any singular stage of its development. Sound quality is a bit howyergoing in parts, but that's not going to faze the fans (and it's waaaaaay better than the bootlegs you'll find). There's a little cross-over with the previously available Mack Aborn CDs, but not a lot. They're well out-of-print anyway, so including "Sweet Nothing" as in the box is a response to fan demand.

There's been some controversy around "SRB" as to what constitutes a band-endorsed project. It's mostly come from someone who used to be a go-fer for the band, back in the day, and feels like he shouldn't have been by-passed. If you'd like a copy, go here, log-on to Amazon or hit up your local music merchant (a switched-on one like Mojo in Sydney).

Also on our playlist and further to our tribute to Ian Rilen, I'm here to tell you to make sure you grab a copy of the yet-to-be-released studio album by the Love Addicts. You can hear a rough mix of the centrepiece tune, "Family From Cuba", here and look forward to the whole recording being out on Phantom in the near future.

Ian and band were planning to do some more recording this month, until his health rapidly declined, but the album that's in the can will do more than hold up fine - it'll stun many who haven't looked past the man's X past. The song selection re-visits his "Love is Murder" and "Passion, Boots and Bruises" solo albums but these re-recordings are definitive versions. Look out for it.