Tag Archives: Tim Izzard

Glam rock: album review – Sir Prize & The Twomorrow Knightz ‘Glitter, Gum & Bubble Pop’

Album reviews, Glam rock, , , , ,

A collaboration between UK-based singer-songwriter , Tim Izzard, and US-based lyricist, DJ and owner of Dandy’s Stardust Dive online radio station, Gregory Dobbins, Glitter, Gum & Bubble Pop is twelve tracks of shiny, sparkly, retro pop. It’s an album that unashamedly celebrates both the late ’60s US bubblegum scene and the early ’70s UK glam scene, while also paying homage to the golden age of Hanna-Barbera cartoons through the creation of the duo’s animated alter-egos, Sir Prize & The Twomorrow Knightz.

Tim Izzard and Gregory Dobbins:

“Hear ye, Hear ye!……..The future of the music of the past has arrived……50 years in the making, ‘Glitter Gum and Bubble Pop’ is an album that takes the lyrics of a young American teenager in the 70’s to create a retro-modern Bubble Gum Pop and Neo-Glam sound. The 12 original songs are performed by the fictional, ‘cartoon-like’ Sir Prize & The Twomorrow Knightz just like the old, Saturday morning cartoons of the past.”

“Imagine being young again. A new, weekly cartoon is on TV on Saturday mornings. Each episode includes a song that you can’t help but sing along to till next week’s episode …..when you hear another new song!!!”

“The memories of Hanna-Barbera hang with the ghosts of US 60’s Bubble Gum pop and UK 70’s Glam Rock to produce something for the future from the spirit of the past. Arise ‘Sir Prize & The Twomorrow Knightz’……and strut your stuff!!”

The collaboration came about because Dobbins has been playing Izzard’s solo music on his station for the last three years. A friendship grew out of their shared love of 70s pop with the idea for an album eventually emerging.

Lead single, ‘Automatic Satin Circus’, is an irresistible slice of glam-inspired pop with a crunchy riff, an infectious beat, a Bowie-esque vocal and lyrics celebrating many of the Glam heroes of the era.

‘Little Lambs Dressed As Mutton’ is more the art-school glam favoured by the likes of Roxy Music et al, while songs like ‘Bubble Gum Kisses’ and ‘Stewy Stewy’ nicely capture that archetypal bubblegum sound of The Archies and early Sweet. 70s space rock and the middle of the decade’s Doo-Wop revival also get a look in on the album, too

Packed full of instantly-recognisable sounds even if the songs themselves are unfamiliar, If I didn’t know any better I’d have assumed this was another of those ‘Junkshop Glam’ compilations that had unearthed and repackaged yet more delightfully obscure singles of the era. But it isn’t. These are all brand-spanking-new songs, and Sir Prize & The Twomorrow Knightz are here to inject a much-needed dose of glam-pop into our twenty-first century lives.

Released: 1 July 2023 and available digitally via https://sirprize.bandcamp.com/album/glitter-gum-and-bubble-pop

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21st Century Exposé: New EP from Tim Izzard celebrates fifty years of Glam Rock

Tim Izzard and the new glammed-up Ziggy-esque album ‘Starlight Rendezvous’

21st Century Exposé: New EP from Tim Izzard celebrates fifty years of Glam Rock

Album reviews, Glam rock, Music news, Rock music, , , , , ,

A year on from the release of his well-received debut album last year, Sussex-based singer-songwriter/musician, Tim Izzard, has a brand-new EP out. 21st Century Exposé builds on the themes explored in Izzard’s debut album, Starlight Rendezvous, an album of original songs inspired by David Bowie in at the height of his Ziggy period. 21st Century Exposé is a full-on celebration of the glam era in all its glory and the sparkling, luminous trail it has left across music of many different genres over the past fifty years.

Tim Izzard: “Starlight Rendezvous had its origins very much rooted in Glam-era Bowie. The follow-up EP, 21st Century Exposé further celebrates the man and the old and current glam scene, mixing up old school new wave, power-pop, glam, neo-glam, futuristic ballads and a slice of cabaret to muse on twenty-first century living.”

The lead song on the new EP is the wonderful ‘Glam Rock Star’, a tribute to glam rock’s first half-century – a genre that is still influencing music today.

Izzard: “Whilst it is recognised that T. Rex’s 1971 No.1 Hot Love gave birth to UK glam rock it was in 1972 that it escaped into the playground with Bowie, Roxy, Alice Cooper, Mott, Slade and many others pushing the musical and make-up boundaries! I still remember vividly watching an alien Bowie perform Starman on TOTP and later on the futuristic , 50’s throw-back of Virginia Plain by Roxy Music. Fifty years on and there are still many bands and artists producing new glam and neo-glam music such as the UK’s The Voltz, Sweden’s SilverGlam and, in the US, Creem Circus and Gyasi. Like the influence of Bowie on my music you can hear Bolan’s vocal, Mick Ronson’s guitar or the wall of sound of Slade and much more in the ‘New’ Glam sound.”

Released 24th January 2022

21st Century Exposé can be found on Bandcamp at: https://timizzard.bandcamp.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TimIzzardMusic/

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Tim Izzard and the new glammed-up Ziggy-esque album ‘Starlight Rendezvous’

This week’s featured artist: Tim Izzard and the new glammed-up Ziggy-esque album ‘Starlight Rendezvous’

Album reviews, Glam rock, Hastings music scene, Music news, Rock music, , , ,

Based in Hailsham in East Sussex, Tim Izzard is a musician who has worked across a variety of musical genres but Starlight Rendezvous, released last month, is his debut rock album. Taking glam-era Bowie as its starting point the album makes nods in the direction of pop, prog, rock and garage, and delivers something that is both creative and original yet unashamedly wears its influences as unselfconsciously as Mick Ronson in his golden Starman costume.

Izzard tells us: “It’s a play-it-loud, 40 mins concept album (remember them!) where the time is 632 AF, we are in a Brave New World and ‘The Visitor’, Thomas Jerome Newton, is still alive and still waiting to find his way home after nearly 200 years.”

Izzard adds: “I wanted to write an album that sounded like what first and still excites me musically and that I’d want to listen to once finished. So back to Bowie playing Starman on TOTP and the album, Ziggy. Roxy Music’s first two albums, Transformer/Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground. Bowie’s live Beeb version of Waiting For The Man still does it for me.“

“The chords and melody for Man Who Fell To Earth came easily to me one day, and just sounded immediately like it should be a tribute. So the title Man Who Fell To Earth I chose as he appeared like an alien on TOTP and left us so dramatically two days after Blackstar, almost as if his mission had been accomplished. The lyrics name-check his songs but also the impact they had on me ‘listening in my room’.“

That self-penned Bowie tribute, the excellent ‘Man Who Fell To Earth’ has already been picking up airplay including here on BBC Radio Sussex and in the US on glam rock internet station Dandy’s Stardust Dive.

Tim Izzard’s album Starlight Rendezvous is available on Bandcamp here:

https://timizzard.bandcamp.com/

Released: 13th January 2021

https://www.facebook.com/TimIzzardMusic/