We are featured in an article about Halton Rocks this week in our local newspaper the "Widnes Weekly News". We get a mention and they have been ever so kind to include a photo of ourselves in the article aswell... Check it out.

MakoMusic who are one of Halton Rocks 2013 sponsors have released this promo video featuring some live footage of the event it also features the music from the Halton Rocks Unplugged CD.

On Saturday night we performed at a hometown charity event in Widnes called Halton Rocks in aid of the Heswall Disabled Children's Holiday Fund.

So we arrived at the venue in the afternoon for the soundcheck, any musician will tell you that the soundcheck is the most boring thing you have to do when performing live but it has to be done or you'll end up on stage with everything sounding either too loud or too low... but this one wasn't to bad we must say. Their was quite alot of friendly faces walking around and it had a nice atmosphere with some really nice people working around us at the event thankfully.

After we did our bit and everthing was sounding good on stage for the live performance we sat down for abit and discovered some delightful acts who were also playing on the evenings bill. One I'd really like to mention is the lovely Tricia McTeague, she is a vocalist based in Widnes like us and she is someone who I've never had the pleasure of listening to prior to Saturday, but in the soundcheck she sounded brilliant and on the stage later on in the evening her performance was great. I really do enjoy live gigs when you get to perform on the same stage as some truely talented people like Tricia and many others to mention like Sarah Whitfield, Ali Ingle plus Junior and Nadine.

We played a small set which started with our grand entrance song 'Pray' which on the night for the first time in the group at a live performance I played guitar live and not once did I make a mistake... the soundcheck performance was a slightly different result, I ended up forgetting what I was meant to be playing but thankfully on the night I was fine. We then greeted the audience and thanked everyone for coming along and went straight into a new song called 'Radio Forever' which got a great reaction, after that we performed our single 'Wings' and then finally we ended with 'The Last Feeling' which was followed by a lovely round of applause from the audience.

The event raised around £1000 for the Heswall Disabled Children's Holiday Fund which is great, we are very happy to be apart of such a good course. We'd also like to thank everyone who came along to the event to support us and to the crowd in general who were very kind and appreciative of our performance. Halton Rocks would never have happened without organizer Si Owens at the helm who really went to big lengths in promoting and arranging the whole thing. We would also like to say thank you to Sean, Ian and Craig from Mako Music for recording the unplugged CD for Halton Rocks and interviewing us on the night and Si Stanley and Amy McCann from IE Audio Hire who were doing the sound on the night and all the other talented sound people and technicians who without them the evening would never of happened.

Photography by Warren Millar Photography

Thank you and see you all soon.

Anthony

Masters of the Radio 

This evening we will be performing in our hometown of Widnes at Halton Rocks 2013 a local charity event in aid of the Heswall Disabled Children's Holiday Fund, the event which takes place at the studio in Lacey Street starts at 6.00pm. Entry to the event is £5 on the door and we will be hitting the stage at 7.20pm, their are lots of different acts performing at the event so be sure you don't miss out.

As part of the promotion for Halton Rocks some of the artists including ourselves each recorded an acoustic track for a special charity unplugged album, we recorded an acoustic rendition of our single 'Wings'. The songs can be listened too and puchased at a name your price deal from the link below:

Listen and Purchase link


See you there :)

Our performance this Saturday (20th April) at the Lomax in Liverpool has unfortunately had to be cancelled due to illness within the band, the event will still go ahead but we won't be there I'm afraid but I do encourage people to still attend what I'm sure will be a great evening of music.

On a brighter note an interview that took place last week with Peff from 1Radio will go out this evening between 6pm - 8pm on The Engineerium show, check it out to hear about the latest activities of the group and to listen to a great show full of top songs and fun chat.

Click here to listen to The Engineerium on 1Radio

First all before we start getting into all the music talk I'd like to wish you all a merry christmas (even though its gone now, but its still christmas time) and I hope you all have a great new year. I like many others have been spending my time over the past week with family and friends, eating stupid amounts of food and drinking lots of alcoholic beverages... My body hates me for it but I always give myself a free pass to do whatever I want in this lovely festive season.

Now I've got the christmas thankyou wishes out the way, I'd like too now say a big thankyou to all our fans and followers for their continued support over the past 12 months. This has been very much a bridge/gap/transition year for us music-wise and I have tried to lots of different things musically with songs and also how the lineup and music is developed from the studio to the stage. Masters of the Radio is very much a solo effort in the studio with me and my piano, a computer and a microphone and that is the way I love it but for me it is and always will be a group performance on stage that is way I always refer to as Masters of the Radio as a group and not a solo act (for the time being anyway). But this year for liver performance I have worked with some great session musicians and I would like to thank them all for their hard work and showmanship during performance and I look forward to working with them again at somepoint in the future.

So as for actual music releases this year we only had the one 'Wings', our first official single release which we a very proud of. 'Wings' was one of the new songs in the live setlist this year and it had been a song that had been played several times and everytime I spoke to friends and family about the band they would always mention or starting humming 'Wings'. So after months of debating what to release as the first single I finally to go for it and get in studio to finish to track off. The reception so far has been great, we've had some really lovely words alot of press people, our first ever play on BBC Radio Merseyside and one of my music idols Vince Clarke's approval on twitter. We released this song as abit of a dip in the water, a little something to wet everyones appetites for more... And more will come :)

Yes more will come next year, I have always had great expectations for the group and although we are still only establishing ourselves in the music industry I think that some of the material that will be released next year will blow people away. We don't know how were going to release the new stuff as of yet but whether it be through a new E.P or Single releases you will be hearing our new music and we think you'll all love it.

Enjoy you Christmas Socks and stay safe.

Merry Christmas

Anthony
Masters of the Radio

Our new single 'Wings' is now available Worldwide as a digital download, links to buying the new song can be found in the music section under 'Wings'.

So this past week has been absolutely incredible and its going to get even better this week with our new single 'Wings' coming out. Last week we decided to start streaming 'Wings' via our soundcloud page, we really couldn't wait any longer for everyone to hear it and we just wanted to peoples reactions aswell. So far the new single has had a great reaction from everyone this makes us very happy, theirs nothing better than knowing people like your music and really want to listen to it.

After getting a great reaction from all our lovely fans we got a very special bit of appreciation from a huge influence of ours, Synthpop God and all round music genius Vince Clarke (Depeche Mode/Yazoo/Erasure). We sent him a tweet saying would you mind giving our new song a listen and he very nicely took time out to give it a listen. He then replied saying "Nice!..V" it wasn't much but that was all we needed to give us a huge smile that lasted all week. We've also received some very nice comments on twitter from fellow Synthpop Artist 'Kid Kasio' he said "I LOVE your music !!! Wings is fantastic! I love your voice too. best voice i've heard for a long while :)" another very lovely comment that we very much appreciate from such a cool guy and talented musician.

So after having all the nice comments about the new single via twitter and facebook etc we got an email this sunday evening saying that 'Wings' had been played on BBC Introducing with Dave Monks on BBC Radio Merseyside. Its the first time we've ever been played on the BBC so its such a huge honour for us, it really did cap off a good couple of days. You can now also see on our homepage the super cool badge saying we've been played on BBC Introducing, its much better than a Blue Peter Badge.

You can hear the show again on the BBC I-Player up until Sunday so have a listen if you get a chance, 'Wings' is introduced by Dave Monks at 1:13:15 but its a very good show so have a listen to the rest of it too.

BBC Introducing Merseyside with Dave Monks:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00zzvzy

Heres two great reviews we've had on 'Wings' so far...

This one is by the fantastic Clive from Electronic Rumors:
http://electronicrumors.com/2012/11/08/masters-of-the-radios-wings/

And the second one is by the lovely Lauren Jones:
http://laurenmusicmanual.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/review-masters-of-radio.html

As I'm writing this post now its less than 24 hours until the official release of 'Wings' as a digital download, the excitement is killing me I can't wait for the single to spread its Wings and fly away.

Anthony Paul Stevens
Masters of the Radio

So as we said in our post a few days ago, the new single 'Wings' will be released on November 14th. The new track will be released through our own newly formed record label/production company 'Radio Hour Productions', our obsession with the word "Radio" continues. Hopefully we be releasing other artists music though the label in the future but for now 'Wings' is the only release on it for now.

Radio Hour Productions

'Wings' will be available for download though the following online stores:
iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, Spotify, 7Digital, Sony Qriocity, Zvooq, We7, 24/7 Entertainment, Rhapsody, 121 Music, Simfy, Rdio, MediaNet, Slacker, Zik, Basepoint Media, iHeartRadio, Deezer.

Their will be two tracks featured on the single, 'Wings' will be the main single and the B-side will be our previously released track 'Powers of Reality' both will be able to purchase together and also separately. But it in your diary November 14th, we really can't wait for you all to hear the new single its a cracker.

'Wings' out November 14th

Our new single 'Wings' will be available to purchase on November 14th 2012 through all mainstream online stores.

The song has a huge disco influence to it, with some deep inspiring lyrics that should have your hearts melting.

We'll be releasing more information on the new single later on this week, so keep your eyes peeled on here so you don't miss out on anything.

So Thursday night we played at the legendary venue Eric's Live in Liverpool supporting U.S Electro-Singer Nite Jewel, I was personnely very excited to be playing at this venue as some of my favourite bands like The Human League, OMD and Ultravox had played there and plenty more great acts aswell so it was a great feeling to get to play on the same stage that they've performed on all those years ago.

We started the set with the grand opening of "Pray" before introducing ourselves to audience, then we went into another new one "Wings" before hitting one of our early songs "We are the Same". We thought it would be a great opportunity to play our new material at this gig and see what the crowds reaction was so we performed a new track called "You'll Never Be Famous" it sounds abit like a synth-based Robbie Williams song mixed in with some of the sounds from Depeche Mode's Violator album, we only had a rehersals with this one but it seemed to get a good reaction from the audience.. thank god. After that we performed "Easy Now" then we went into our very mellow chilled song "Caribbean Love Rise" it really did feel like we where in Carribean on stage because it was that warm from the lighting. After that we unfortunately had to perform our last song of the evening so we played our favourite track "The Last Feeling", we absolutely enjoyed the gig it was a pleasure to play at Eric's.

I would just like to finish off with a big thankyou to Nicola for taking photos of us and our friends Kenno and Catherine for coming to watch us perform we really appreciate it, an to anyone else who watched us thankyou for being such a lovely audience.

Ant :)
Masters of the Radio

Setlist
Pray (with Intro)
Wings
We are the Same
You'll Never Be Famous
Easy Now
Caribbean Love Rise
The Last Feeling