Bill MacKechnie: Lead guitar / Vocals
Dave Sweet: Keyboards / Vocals
Tim Costley: Bass
Mick Loher: Drums and Percussion
In addition to the original members, A.S. projects are blessed by the following official A.S. auxilliary members who patiently put up with our sloth-like recording habits and erratic artistic "visions," and yet come through with musical gold every time!
~ MARLON KEMPMANN (Doctor Memory)
~ MIKE WARD (Temporary Power)
~ NEIL HENDERSON (Saqqara Records)
~ JIM RUSTEMEYER (Aardvark Invaders)
~ KATHY STEWART (Random Bullet Records)
~ JP MACGREGOR (Bron-yr-Aur)
Influences
Life. Books about great white whales and nutmeg, Jimi Hendrix, John McLaughlin, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Father Jack Hackett, Led Zeppelin, The Kinks, The Troggs, The yardbirds, The Seeds, The Doors, Love, Radiohead, Pink Floyd, Tool, Ed Wood, Giles Corey, Opeth, Muse, Sigur Ros, Vampira, Eric Dolphy, Nine Inch Nails, ABBA, Sun Ra, King Crimson, Marillion, The Beatles, Katatonia, Rush, Anathema, anyone who wears a viking helmet, Dream Theater, Oasis, The Flaming Lips, Oceansize, The Mars Volta, Coheed and Cambria, John Lennon, George Harrison, Frank Zappa, Herman Munster, Rob Zombie, Zak Starkey, Page and Plant, Robert Plant, Nuclear Plant, Jimmy Page, Betty Page, Congressional Page, Cream, Cake, Humble Pie, Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, Ginger Spice, Mitch Mitchell, Clem Clemson, Stanley Jordan, Bad Company, Glenn Philips, Jethro Tull, Martin Mull, Funkadelic, Prince, George Duke, Queen, Orson Welles, Gorilla Monsoon, Godzilla, King Kong, The Tralfamadores, The Krel, The Darkness, The Animals, Mike Bloomfield, Peter Green, Leslie West, Adam West, James West, Mountain, Liberace, Elvis, Wayne Newton, Peter Lemongello, Boxcar Willie, Slim Whitman, George Jones, Jim Jones, Tom Jones, "Peckerhead" Jones, Father Ted Crilly, Bo Diddley, Bodo the GOOD dog, Beebop Deluxe, Do and Ti, Chuck Berry, Buck Cherry, Buck Owens, Gary Owens, The Rolling Stones, Sly Stone, The Family Stone, Oliver Stone, Stone The Crows, Spirit, Elf, The Pixies, Angel, Smash Mouth, Badfinger, Bad Company, The Knights Templar, Free, The Freemasons, AC/DC, Hawkwind, The Eagles, Budgie, Steppenwolf, Howling Wolf, Wolf Mother, Mothers Of Invention, Blind Lemon, The Lemon Pipers, Brain-dead Johnson, Junior Johnson, Robert Johnson, Lyndon B. Johnson, Johnson and Johnson, Beck, Jeff Beck, Glenn Beck, Thomas A Becket, Popeye, Olive Oil, Popeye Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mrs. Doyle (Go on, go on, go on...) J. Edgar Hoover, Herbert Hoover, J.B. Hutto, Gatemouth Brown, The White Stripes, Deep Purple, Blue Cheer, Vanna White, Pink Floyd, Led Belly, Iron Palm, Bucket Head, Paco DeLucia, Al DiMeola, I wonder if I stuck some secret message in the middle here, anyone would even notice? Maybe something obscure like "Midday Blue Apples" or something...guess I'll never know, Nigel Incubator-Jones, Simon Zinc-Trumpet-Harris, Vivian Smith-Smyth-Smith, Brian DePalma, Morrisey, Jim Morrison, Sterling Morrison, Marion Morrison, Stirling Grey, The Grays, Father Dougal McGuire, Kurt Vonnegut, Jesse Marcel, Jesse Marcel Jr., Stanton Friedman, Kinky Friedman, Marlon Kempmann, Penn and Teller, Edward Teller, Bank Teller, Uri Geller, Ol' Yeller, Gordon Hancock, Gordon Johncock, Wild Bill Hickok, Poppycock, Elton John, Akhenaton, Korn, Peter Gabriel, Porcupine Tree, Weasel Bush, Gerbil Twig, Ra, Sha Na Na, Us, Them, We Three, The Boxtops, Rare Earth, Grand Funk, The James Gang, Hey, I've got an idea..maybe I could put some sort of subliminal in here. Yeah, that'd be GREAT! Something like go buy all our albums right now. Buy five of them. Yeah, that's it...Miles Davis, Sammy Davis, Ray Davies, Dave Davies, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, James "Blood" Ulmer, Sonny Sharrock, King Henry the 8th, William Wallace, Robert The Bruce, Jack Bruce, Bruce Lee, Bruce Springsteen, General George Patton, Danny Gatton, Chuck Yager, George "the animal" Steel, Geronimo, The Beach Boys, Leonardo Da Vinci, The Royal Guardsmen, The Strawberry Alarm Clock, Vanilla Fudge, The Chocolate Watch Band, The Jefferson Airplane, IF, Black Sabbath, Ozzy, C.C.R., Santana, Earth, Wind and Fire, Captain Beefheart, Captain Kirk, Captain America, Alice Cooper, Gordon Cooper, Anderson Cooper, Neil Armstrong, Billy Joe Armstrong, The Ramones, Trombones, Sam The Sham and The Pharoahs, ? and the Mysterians, Pantera, Pants Era, The Plasmatics, The Smiths, Patty Smith, Alfred E. Smith, The Amazing Randi, The Amazing Kreskin, The passably ok Gotti, The somewhat talented Vern, John Waters, Roger Waters, Kraftwerk, Blondie, The Lennon Sisters, Liza Minelli, Mahogany Rush, R.E.O. Speedwagon, O.R.E.O. Speedcookie, Heart, The Monkees, The Archies, The Turtles, Flo and Eddie, Steve and Edie, G.I. Joe, Divine, The Divinyls, X, The Tubes, The Tubs, The little squeeky Birdies, Marilyn Manson, a nice cup of tea and some cinnamon toast. Mmmmmm.....
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ANUBIS SPIRE was formed in 1998 and in the decade since has released three critically acclaimed albums: OLD LIONS (in the world of snarling sheep), BACK TO ABYDOS and CHILDREN OF A FOREIGN FAITH. All are available at CDBaby.com and hundreds of other online and retail stores, as well as digitally in every major digital music service in existence.
~ Children Of A Foreign Faith is the latest album. Here's one of many great reviews:
A dark journey through the eyes of the children we throw away;the long awaited progressive epic from one of rock's most original bands.
"Beware the children that you devalue, humiliate, abuse, reject and push out to the fringe, because out on the edge the air is clearer....and when they look back at you they'll see the truth." ~Anubis Spire
Concept album? Rock opera? Thematic song cycle? Yes, yes and yes. And then some. On the surface, CHILDREN OF A FOREIGN FAITH seems deceptively straight forward. At over an hour in length, it moves through it's sixteen cuts seemingly without time for a pause or even a deep breath. Each song leads immediately to the next, separated ocassionally by spoken word lead in's that require the listener to rise up above the fray and try to see the big picture in order to understand. The big picture is what this album is all about. Many artists have written compositions about child abuse and alienation but none have looked beyond the obvious with the all encompassing thoroughness that songwriter/guitarist/vocalist Bill MacKechnie has. Though cruel and deplorable, it's not just the immediate effects of abuse that Children Of A Foreign Faith addresses. MacKechnie has divided the songs into the sub-headings of: SURVIVAL, AWAKENING, THE WORLD and finally TRUTH. Each section deals with the specific effects of damage done and most importantly, just how that damage continues to ripple through all future interactions and even onto the world stage in the forms of fear, hate and violence. Starting on a very personal internal level, the story runs ever onward through troubled relationships, adult disillusionment, corporate greed, religious insanity and cut throat media manipulation, all the while making it clear that the same seminal principle of might-makes-right exploitation and human devaluing is at play. Once the pieces come together, it leaves us shocked and amazed that we've never recognized that simple fact before.
In the end, MacKechnie and ANUBIS SPIRE offer no magical solutions or feel-good validations, and the listeners are left to find their own truth.
Musically the band again avoids being pigeon-holed and tied down. They speed through diverse styles and genres as if they invented them. Everything from Mahavishnu fusion to Floydian dirge to Zeppelin celtic-acoustic; even Bill's venerable homebuilt ANUBITAR sitar/guitar makes an appearance in the Indian Raga-ish ETERNAL RESONANCE (Part Two).
I was blown away by the level of originality and sheer musicianship of their debut CD (Old Lions) but the band has honestly re-invented and out done themselves on this one. Bill, Tim, Mick and newest member, keyboardist David Sweet sound better than ever.
Featuring a cast of special guests that includes Saqqara Record's NEIL HENDERSON, MIKE WARD of TEMPORARY POWER, MARLON KEMPMANN of DOCTOR MEMORY, the ever-shadowy and elusive JP MACGREGOR among others, ANUBIS SPIRE have fashioned an album that will need more than a few listens to sink in but once it does, if you're like me, you'll have a hard time getting it out of your head.
~ Eric Barron
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