"For The Many"

UB40 To Release First New Album in Five Years 

Just Ahead Of 40th Anniversary Tour

"For The Many" comes to CD and Vinyl on March 22nd

Includes a 24 page booklet complete with photos of the band 

and lyrics to all songs

The 38 date 40th Anniversary Tour starts on March 29th in Portsmouth

Red, Red Wine - That Is All...

For The Many is the Birmingham reggae veterans' nineteenth studio album - their first since 2013's Getting Over The Storm. It features UB40's founding members Robin Campbell (co-vocals/Guitar), Brian Travers (saxophone/keyboards), Jimmy Brown (drums), Earl Falconer (bass/keyboards/vocals) and Norman Hassan (percussion/vocals), alongside long-time members Duncan Campbell (vocals), Martin Meredith (saxophone), Laurence Parry (trumpet) and Tony Mullings (keyboards). Formed in Birmingham in 1978, UB40 named themselves after the UK government's unemployment benefit form. Their debut album Signing Off was released in August 1980 and is considered by many to be one of the greatest reggae albums ever released by a British band. It was the start of a career that led to 100 million record sales worldwide and dozens of hits, including "Red, Red Wine," "I Got You Babe" and "(I Can't Help) Falling in Love with You" which all topped the charts in the UK and in many countries across Europe. The band had a run of hit albums that have spent a combined period of eleven years in the UK's Top 75 album chart, establishing UB40 as one of Britain's most successful bands of all-time.

UB40 Jimmy Brown said, "For The Many is our first original album with Duncan, and a true reflection of where the band are at right now. It gave us an opportunity to go back to our roots and draw on the 1970s-style reggae that inspired us to be in a band in the first place. We intended to make an uncompromising reggae album and I think we have achieved that. There's lots of dub, various guest toasters and a blend of love songs and political songs. I'm really happy with the final result. We're really looking forward to playing some of these tunes live on our 40th anniversary tour in spring next year." Duncan Campbell said, "After ten years of fronting UB40, for us to make an album of our own original material feels like the final hurdle for me. The album and its title reflect how UB40 are all in support of Jeremy Corbyn and The Labour Party. Both of the songs I have written on the album (I'm Alright Jack and Poor Fool) also reflect this. We all feel this album is going back to what UB40 was all about and we are all excited for everybody to hear the album and looking forward to touring it." Robin Campbell added, "For The Many" is a great mix of reggae styles, while the different artists we have collaborated with will appeal to more fans and tastes in reggae - it really is an album for the many. The 2019 UK tour is a continuation of our 40th year celebrations, as well as sharing tracks from our latest album. We're playing all over the UK instead of a few arenas dates, meaning our fans from all over the UK can get to see us much more locally and up close - truly a tour for the many." ONLINE & SOCIALS:  Website: ub40.global Facebook: ub40official Twitter: @UB40official Instagram: ub40officia

Here To Be Heard: The Story Of The Slits

For Those About To Punk, I Salute You!!!

Here To Be Heard: The Story Of THE SLITS

Deluxe DVD package, digital formats, and more coming July 6th

Documentary thoroughly examining the world's first all girl punk band credited with pioneering the musical movement known as "Punky Reggae"

MVD Entertainment Group has struck a deal with UK production and sales outfit Moviehouse Entertainment to bring the music-themed documentary HERE TO BE HEARD: THE STORY OF THE SLITS to North America. 

The documentary thoroughly examines the world's first all girl punk band formed in London, 1976. As contemporaries of The Clash and The Sex Pistols, the band has been credited with pioneering the musical movement known as "Punky Reggae". HERE TO BE HEARD tells the complete story of THE SLITS and the lives of the women involved, from the very beggining to the band's end in 2010 with the death of lead vocalist Ari Up.

HERE TO BE HEARD features appearances by Viv Albertine (Slist guitarist), Ari Up (Slits vocalist), Palmolive (Slits founder / first drummer), Tessa Pollitt (Slits bass), Bruce Smith (SLITS Second/PIL Drummer), Hollie Cook (Slits vocals / keys / percussion), Vivien Goldman (NYU's Punk Professor), Don Letts (former Slits manager and punk rock documentarian), Dennis Bovell (album producer), Paul Cook (Sex Pistols drummer), Gina Birch (Raincoats bass), Adrien Sherwood (producer / long time friend of the band) and many more. This deluxe DVD package includes previously unseen footage of the band, as well as photographs, & newspaper clippings.

HERE TO BE HEARD: THE STORY OF THE SLITS is one of Moviehouse EntertainPament's first in-house productions but is one of many music-related titles handled by the studio since its' inception in 2001. Other films include Live Forever, New York Doll, Be Here To Love Me: The Story of Townes Van Zandt, Scott Walker: 30 Century Man, Who Killed Nancy Moviehouse is also currently working on director Kriv Stenders' (Red Dog) The Go-Betweens: Right Here.

Available now at www.MVDshop.com

 

Chillaxin With Trevor Hall

Trevor Hall Chillaxin
Photo: Emory Hall

Chill dude, Trevor Hall is an accomplished musician. His music with it's eclectic mix of acoustic rock, reggae and Sanskrit chanting – echo with the names and teachings of divinities, while maintaining an incredibly and refreshingly universal message. While on the road, Trevor sees the stage as his moving temple, a place where he can share in the experience of his spiritual journey with his audience. His latest album Chapter of the Forest reflects all of the above and more...it's chillaxin time with Trevor Hall!

MS: Hey Trevor how are you?

TH: I'm good, thanks.

MS: I was listening to your latest album Chapter of the Forest right before you called, I liked that listening to it was like taking a journey, you start one place and end up another.

TH: Thank you, thanks so much.

MS: Your music is very spiritual and a mixture of rock, folk, pop and world music.

TH: Right, right. I had to disguise the world music with more popular forms of music so that people would understand the message better.

MS: You took off on a pilgrimage to India right after a successful run in music, what made you want to do that?

TH: Well I've been traveling to India for, seven years. I got burnt out and needed to get my strength back and India is that place, I just took a long time off and went there for about three and a half months or so. It was out of a need to connect again and get my spiritual strength back and physical strength, so I went on a retreat, no phones, no E-mails, nothing like that.

My healing started to happen and when I came back I really started writing a lot of the songs for Chapter of the Forest. 

MS: You met your wife in India and got engaged to her. Did you meet her on this pilgrimage or before that?

TH: I met her in India the year before. Then when we went back in 2013 I proposed to her then in the same place where we met. 

MS: How cool! Being a spiritual person are you into yoga by any chance?

TH: Not really a lot of Hatha Yoga, what people call yoga today in the West. There are actually many, many limbs of yoga, so I practice kind of different things. I probably should be doing yoga more because my back is tight after being on the tour bus. (laughs) The tour is actually really amazing that were on right now, Michael Franti is super into yoga so before every show during the day they have a huge yoga class for all of the musicians. So if I wanted to get healthy this is the tour to do it! (laughs)

MS: So how is the tour going?

TH: It's going great, last night we were at San Diego State University it was such a nice time because there were so many wonderful bands on the bill. Also I am traveling with a super fun group of guys, it's just a really nice time. Sometimes tours, ya know, you don't know who you are traveling with, they play a different style music and they clash or something, but on this one everyone is like a big ole family it's been really enjoyable.

MS: Tell me a little bit about the inspiration for Chapter of the Forest, something other than your pilgrimage to India.

                                                           "Chapter of the Forest"
TH: Chapter of the Forest is the meditation I did and it's about going back inside. The forest for me is a mystical place for solitude and silence. Obviously I believe in the external forest, but I also believe that all these sacred landscapes are also inside our own body. Chapter of the Forest in our hearts or in our mind is that place of stillness, meditation , reflection and rejuvenation type of thing. I'm really influenced by the Indian Saints, one of the Saints says that you can't live in the world continuously or else you'll drown. From time to time you have to retreat in solitude. Whether that be the corner of a room for an hour, or a forest for a month or a year. 

I took that really literally and said: "Stop I'm burnt out" and went up into the forests of Vermont and Maine with my wife and just really tried to slow down. As that happened after a while I started picking up my guitar, not because I had to but because I wanted to, I love music and that was the feeling I was trying to get again after being so burnt out, it became just a job for me at some point. That's when Chapter of the Forest really started to come to life and as that was happening all the experiences I had, had in other forests all over the world, like India and Nepal, these memories started to resurface and give me inspiration and that's where a little of the Indian element came from on the album. 

But I really wanted to do something rootsy and raw, and not be chasing that number one single. Something that was really pure and from my heart, that's what this album is all about. 

MS: I completely get it, it can become disheartening when you are creating for the sole purpose of making money.

TH: Yeah.

MS: Make yourself happy first, that's the most important thing I think.

TH: Right, right, I agree.

MS: Here's something random, when I did a Google search of your name a meme came up with Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka saying: "You test drove Trevor Hall, tell me about his triangle"
do you know what that means? (laughs)

TH: Tell me about his triangle? I have no idea what that means (laughs) Yeah I have no idea what that could mean. 

MS: Thanks Trevor, have fun on the rest of your tour.

TH: Thanks man.

Join Trevor in the forest at: http://www.trevorhallmusic.com/