Just a collection of things on a Monday afternoon, things that might be worth a moment of your no doubt valuable time, things that float by that just needed to be grabbed, there is so much floating by, a touch of cherry picking as it were. Killing Joke’s Jaz Coleman is really worth checking out in terms of his orchestration, if it was anyone else doing what he’s doing with Dark Side Of The Moon then we probably would be bothered, he track record with Led Zeppelin and such has always been impressive, I’m not usually a fan of orchestrated rock music but when Jaz is at the wheel then, as he said during that thunder and lightning storm at the Reading festival that time, “the gods are with us”. IQ have always has a special place in terms of Organ, and well, Abstract Concrete, what can be said? Scroll on….

“I am incredibly excited about the performance of Dark Side of the Moon on the 26th February 2025 by the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. As many people know, Geneva is a Killing Joke city (we wrote Eighties and much of Night Time there). When I scored Pink Floyd’s ‘Us and Them’ back in 1994, it was 70% Dark Side and 30% The Wall. For this special occasion, I will present the entire Dark Side of the Moon. I am grateful to the OSR and Antigel Festival for arranging this concert on the day Killing Joke started which just happens to be my 65th birthday!” – Jaz Coleman. More details. Jaz on Facebook

Yeah I know, Switzerland, but hey, we can but hope this is taken to other places and hey, we have readers in Sitzeland don’t we? The stats that we get here say we do…

Meanwhile, IQ are in London this coming week, IQ were a bit part of Organ is those early days. Did we mention it was Organ’s 38th birthday last week, we launched in December 1986 and IQ and Pete Nichols with his other band Niadem’s Ghost were a big part of the early days (Wiggle!), interviewsconducted in thier studio while Nomzamo was being finished and such. The band play a now rare London show this week, here’s a preview piece we wrote for the recently born again London Gigs listings website, good to see that website quietly coming back after years of being missed, we really need a simple gig guide that isn’t cluttered up with other things. Here’s the IQ listing, with the Organ quote…

IQ @ Islington Assembly Hall, Saturday 21st December, 7pm £32adv – “IQ the classic 80s no holds barred proper cutting edge envelope-pushing Prog Rock band who crammed seven stories into eight dans le parc while all around the cats put on leg warmers back there are maybe a little more polite these days and maybe not quite pushing at the outer limits like the did but hey, they are growing old disgracefully and thankfully still too good to be insulted with the godawfully tedious neo prog tag” (Organ) 

Here’s some recent footage, we haven’t seen IQ for years, that recent rather emotional Twelfth Night album as well as Pallas saying they were no longer performing live has us thinking about those glorious Marquee days and that albums on tape scene that fuelled the more than healthy prog scene (no not f&^%$ing neo bloody prog!) back there, that is partly where Organ originally came from. IQ do still regularly feature on the Other Rock Show of course as well as our playlists, might just be tempted…

And a rather fine performance of an early song…

And here’s some recent footage of Abstract Concrete just got posted – ORGAN THING: Abstract Concrete, outside of This Heat or (This is Not) This Heat shows, this feels like the most song orientated Charles Hayward has been for quite some time. of course it is experimental, of course it is, but…

Anything This Heat related is surely worth your time? I always thought IQ were more over there with those post punk bands in their early days, This Heat and IQ shared a lot of musical ground….

ORGAN THING: This Heat or not, that was magical. This Is Not This Heat sounding very big at the Barbican…