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September 2008

Melanie Safka, with guitar in hand and a talent that combined amazing vocal equipment, disarming humor, and a vibrant engagement with life, she was booked as the first solo pop/rock artist ever to appear at Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Opera House, the Sydney Opera House, and in the General Assembly of the United Nations, where delegates greeted her performances with standing ovations. The top television hosts of the time — Ed Sullivan, Johnny Carson, Dick Cavett — battled to book her. (After her stunning performance on his show, Sullivan goggled that he had not seen such a “dedicated and responsive audience since Elvis Presley.”)

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The South's finest tribute to the timeless sound of Pink Floyd.

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Performing her international smash Black Velvet…

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Allanah Myles

Her first self titled album (1989) produced four Top 40 hits, “Love Is”, “Lover of Mine”, and “Still Got This Thing”, as well as the number one international smash, “Black Velvet”, which she won a Grammy award for best female rock performance, along with several Juno Awards, a Diamond award for sales in excess of 1,000,000 in Canada - the only artist who still retains this status for her debut record. ASCAP awarded the song a 'Millionaire Award' in 2005 for over 4 million radio plays of “Black Velvet” in the USA. SOCAN awarded the songs, “Black Velvet” and “Lover Of Mine” each with an award for over 100,000 plays in Canada in 2005 with her #1 hit song “Instead Of A Kiss” to follow.

Her follow-up album; Rockinghorse (1992) received a Grammy nomination and three Juno Awards. After the sale of over eight million records, she concluded her alliance with Atlantic and signed on with Miles Copeland's Ark 21 Records to release her fourth record Arrival (1997), which had the top 40, hit Bad 4 You. She also released THE VERY BEST OF ALANNAH MYLES (1999) containing hits from all four albums.

After an eight year songwriting hiatus Alannah has re-emerged, energized, with a new album, and has chosen to call it Black Velvet in order to re-connect with her millions of fans. Black Velvet contains all brand new studio recordings along with Black Velvet 2007, a new recording with a contemporary arrangement of her classic hit. Produced by A Rival co-producer Mike Borkosky and mixed by renown producer Terry Brown, Black Velvet has been released in Europe in the fall of 2007 with an April 8th Canadian release and the USA to follow in 2008.

QUOTES

“A good song lives on til well after we're gone. It has the power to inspire others and move hearts without their even being fully aware."

"Though I never realized it until years later, my art had become a direct reflection of the way I felt about instant fame. Though I was and still seem to have been lauded respect for the accolade my music created, I sure had alot to learn that I was in too much of a hurry to hear. I eventually I learned to use what fame brought me as a weapon against all that is false or low."

"God put me on this planet to accomplish a certain amount of things."

"Right now, I'm so far behind, I can never die!"

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Y & T set the standard for hard rock bands that trailed. Many of the most popular heavy rock bands of the '80s, at the birth of their careers, opened shows for headliners Y&T.

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Before Motley Crüe, before RATT, even before there was a Metallica, when Y&T formed in the early 1970s, they set the standard for hard rock bands that trailed. Many of the most popular heavy rock bands of the '80s, at the birth of their careers, opened shows for headliners Y&T; and they all cut their teeth on Y&T, as evidenced by the Y&T mentions in the tell-all books by acts such as Metallica and Motley Crüe. Hailing from the East Bay, Y&T is one of the San Francisco Bay Area's own innovators of the hard rock sound. World-renowned headliners on their own, for years Y&T remained the most requested supporting act on the hard rock road, touring with rock icons including Ozzy Osbourne, AC/DC, Aerosmith, and Motley Crüe. Y&T was always sure-fired to whip the crowd into a frenzy with their high energy set, performing to overflow houses of fifteen- to sixty- thousand across the U.S. at home, as well as in Japan, Europe, and the UK. Even today, thirty-plus years after the band first formed, the call of Y&T's fans has never silenced.

Dave Meniketti (lead guitar/lead vocals), Phil Kennemore (bass), Leonard Haze (drums), and Joey Alves (rhythm guitar) charged through the '70s and into the '80s with their San Francisco Bay Area brand of hard rock music. After two '70s albums on London Records, a new record deal in 1980 with A&M Records prompted the band to shorten their moniker, and encores with fans chanting "Y&T, Y&T, Y&T" sealed the condensed name. The '80s brought several changes, including Jimmy DeGrasso (Alice Cooper, Suicidal Tendencies, Megadeth) on drums and Stef Burns (Alice Cooper, Berlin, Huey Lewis) on guitar. And today, three decades later, Y&T's legions of fans are still as captivated by the band's melodic heavy rock 'n' roll as they were yesterday, proving Y&T's music timeless.

Y&T's 1985 hit Summertime Girls received tremendous airplay worldwide, played frequently in the BAYWATCH television series and several feature films, remained at length in heavy rotation on MTV as well as MTV's top video playlists, and the hit song plays on today in regular airplay on classic rock radio stations throughout the country alongside other Y&T hits. Y&T songs grace the soundtracks of numerous movies and television shows, and their popular videos, such as Lipstick & Leather, Don't Stop Runnin', Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, and Summertime Girls, are still featured videos on VH1 today.

With career accolades that include performing on American Bandstand, two Bammie Awards, five top 100 albums, songs that tipped into the 40s on Billboard charts, multiple national and international television appearances, and a worldwide fan base, Y&T has sold over four million albums and recorded 16 LPs and three greatest hits collections since their 1974 inception. These rock 'n' roll pioneers survived disco fever, rode the crest of the '80s hard rock insurgence, and remained faithful to melodic power ballads throughout the age of grunge. At any concert you can hear fans calling out their requests from albums including, "Rescue Me" from Earthshaker, "Forever" from Black Tiger, and "Mean Streak" from Mean Streak.

For years, Y&T fans on the very active web discussion forum at www.YandTRocks.com asked the band about previously recorded Y&T songs that had been shelved. Y&T answered their fans' pleas by recently assembling two volumes of previously unreleased material—songs recorded for albums over the past three decades, yet never released. "There's a lot of great stuff that never made it to record," says lead singer/lead guitarist Dave Meniketti. "We always wrote way more material than we ever needed for each record and then those songs just ended up in storage. It was fun to revisit those tunes and give the fans a peek into the archives."

In late 2006, in conjunction with Universal Music Group, Y&T re-mastered and re-issued two of their popular albums from the 1980s: the coveted Earthshaker and In Rock We Trust. These re-releases landed on the heels of two previous re-masters completed by the band in late 2005, considered part of the revered Y&T trilogy: Black Tiger and Mean Streak.

Today, original members Dave Meniketti on searing lead guitar/lead vocals and Phil Kennemore on bass, still take stages around the world by storm, with the addition of John Nymann (Eric Martin, Greg Kihn) on guitar and Mike Vanderhule on drums.

5 Top 100 Albums
HITS: 1983 Mean Streak
1985 Summertime Girls
1990 Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

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"...Cover bands are big business these days, but this quartet are clearly a cut above most with suits, mop-tops and jerking stage manoeuvres all in place as they blast out 'From Me To You', 'Roll Over Beethoven' and 'Please, Please Me' with note-perfect aplomb."

The Daily Telegraph.

There seems to be two different methods employed by tribute bands in copying their heroes. One is to immerse themselves totally in character, become the band. The other is to still do this, but do it with tongue very much in cheek. So how to interpret the greatest pop group of all time? The Silver Beatles go for option B, not taking themselves too seriously and this approach definitely works for them. They indulge in banter among themselves and with the crowd, making the most out of the fact that every Beatle is instantly recognisable. The first half of the gig is the young Beatles, suits and mop tops, covering all the early hits; 'Saw her standing there, Can't buy me love' among others before finishing on 'Twist and Shout'. Then it's a quick break and costume change where they miraculously transform into the older, hippie era Beatles; the period where they wrote some of their finest songs. Just point non-believers to songs like 'In my life' and 'Let it be' which show, more so than the early years, why the Beatles are still held in such esteem. Not that anyone here needed convincing. The 500 plus crowd, arms held aloft, nah-nah-nah-ing during the encore of 'Hey Jude'. Nope, no non-believers were present.

Review by Thomas Christie

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