Epitaph - History Box 3 (The In-Akustik Years 2007-2014) - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

One of the mainstays in the New York Avant-garde scene since 1978, Anthony Coleman releases PUSHY BUSINESS, a CD of classically based chamber works that sheds new light on this misunderstood musical master.

Epitaph - History Box 2 The Polydor Years 1971-1972 - The first two albums from 1971 and 1972 - remastered by Roger Wahlmann (Cliffstudio) & as bonus tracks singles, demos and unreleased masterpieces - The story of Epitaph begins in the winter of 1969/70 at the then very popular Dortmund music club of the time, InchFantasioInch, where the band (James McGillivray, Bernd Kolbe and Cliff Jackson) rehearsed and worked their set while performing weekly at the club among greats like Black Sabbath, Rory Gallagher, Yes and Argent. Even at this time, Epitaph was showing it's full professionalism. Their big chance came when Champion Jack Dupree canceled his gig at Fantasio and renowned blues pianist Günter Boas stepped in with Epitaph as his backing band. - Producer Günter Boas recognized the potential of this band and it didn't take long for Epitaph to sign their first contract with Polydor, Then they moved to Hanover, shortened their band name from Fagin's Epitaph to Epitaph and started recording their first and eponymous self-titled album with Klaus Walz (later Jane) as second guitarist in London's Wessex Studio, which was released in the fall of 1971. Concerts throughout Germany followed, as well as an invitation from Radio Bremen's legendary TV show Beat-Club, which resulted in the first television appearance of Epitaph in 1972. Already in April 1972 the band was back in the studio to record InchStop Look And ListenInch (Polydor). Again, numerous appearances followed, among them the most important German festivals of that time. - Could the band have imagined that 50 years later they would still be one of the hottest bands in the country when they met for the first time in Dortmund's InchFantasioInch music club in the winter of 1969/70?

When we started our musical journey over fifty years ago, no one would have guessed that Epitaph would still be active in 2023. In the late 1970, we lived with our wives, roadies, dogs, cats and bats in the InchAlten SchulhausInch in the small German village of Graue in the Lüneburg Heide and jammed and composed new songs. Our last album InchReturn To RealityInch had been verry successful. So, our record company, Brain Metronome, wanted a new Epitaph production. Our drummer Fritz Randow was impressed by the drum sounds from Hotline Studios in Frankfurt, so we went to record there. It turned out to be a more disco oriented studio with plasmatic people. Not exactly the place for a rock band. But we made the best of it and put out a reasonable sounding recording. Shortly after recording, Michael Karch, our keyboardist, decided to leave the band so we were back to our InchTwin GuitarsInch. We used to play our new songs live before recording. Playing live, our songs had the adrenaline pumping power of Epitaph. This influenced our decision to record the next album live rather than in the studio. I'm not sure if this has ever been done before, but it was born out of a fear of not getting the Epitaph signature sound on an LP. So, we booked Connie Plank's mobile studio for the album InchEpitaph LiveInch and recorded our new songs live in front of an audience. Only two songs had previously been recorded. Altogether, we recorded three shows in three days. The recordings were then mixed in the Horus Sound Studio in Hanover by Jan Nemec as sound engineer. Our drummer Fritz Randow had accepted Eloy's Frank Bornemann offer to join the band. Everyone was dissatisfied with the situation, so the line-up split up and Cliff moved to Dortmund to work again with the original line-up of Bernd Kolbe and Klaus Walz and with Norbert InchPanzerInch Lehmann on drums. This is the line-up which re