2 jan 2010

'New Light' from Great Things available on sound cloud.

24 dec 2009

Great Things continues to get good reviews: Ian Mcnabb's latest album, Great Things got a great review from Record Collector Magazine.

12 dec 2009

Tonight's the night! Ian and band perform the full first album of The Icicle Works plus a selection of Greatest Hits at the O2 Academy in Liverpool. Be there for what's expected to be an XMAS Bash to remember.

10 nov 2009

The Icicle Works final album Permanent Damage (1990) will be re-released on Cherry Red Records and will be available on 23 November. It includes all B-sides for the first time in one place.

9 nov 2009

Ian McNabb's latest album, Great Things, is now available online via The Official Ian McNabb Site shopping page. No sign of it being in shops this year, so get it while you can, either online or at a gig.

27 oct 2009 - ian on bbc leicester

Ian McNabb is scheduled to appear in an interview on BBC Leicester Friday the 30th at 3pm. Remember the Leicester gig is that night at The Musician.

27 sep 2009 - new album available (edited 10 nov)

The new album Great Things is available as of 27 September 2009. Ian McNabb's latest studio album is available at gigs only at the present time. Do not expect it to be in stores any time this year. Pick up your copy at any of the upcoming gigs. (See news of 10 November above)

• Great Things
• Empires End
• All About a Woman
• This Love
• Stormchaser
• New Light
• Pinin'
• I Can't Help It If I'm Great

13 nov 2008 — download-only double-album now released

Ian has released the double-album, Lost Icicles, volumes 1 & 2. This is available online and includes newly found unreleased material from The Icicle Works. Both volumes available through Townsend Records. Ian writes:

The way these tapes came back to me is bizarre. Mike Badger (founder of the La's) was having a cigarette outside a studio in Preston recently when he saw someone throwing a bunch of reel to reel tapes into a skip. Curiosity got the better of him and he leaned over to have a look. They turned out to be a bunch of Icicle Works tapes that we'd all forgotten about. He grabbed them and passed them on to my guitar doctor Belgian John. I then went to retrieve them and was frankly amazed at what I saw. A full concert from Boston 1984 and about thirty other unreleased tracks. I was stunned to see the original masters of 'Are We Dreamers' and 'Irish Soldiers', recorded at Rock City in Shepperton studios, intended to be our debut single but shelved when we fell out with Scratch records who paid for them. A bunch of songs I'd forgotten about: 'Clockmaker', 'All Is Right' amongst them, and loads of embryonic demos that would eventually become songs on our first and second albums. The demo of 'Love Is A Wonderful Colour' with completely different lyrics. I was gobsmacked. I've included 18 tracks on 'Lost Icicles Vol 1' and it makes for a very interesting listen for any Icicles fan (of which I include myself).

'Lost Icicles Vol 2' is an incendiary document of the first Icicle Works line-up blowing the yanks away on our second U.S. outing in 1984. I can't believe there's only three of us playing that music. We worked fuckin' hard. The only live version of 'Scarecrow' to my knowledge. These tapes are a piece of history and I've decided to release them as download only. The digital download is top quality (I tried it myself). For a silly price you get a lot of great music. Don't wait for a physical release — there won't be one.

Crank it up!
Ian McNabb
Liverpool
October 2008

11 nov 2008 — merseybeast (updated 15 feb)

Ian McNabb's autobiographical book Merseybeast is now available at online book retailers, and also at Townsend Records where autographed copies are available.

Ian McNabb is one of the finest singer/songwriters Britain has produced over the past twenty-five years. This is his long-awaited autobiography, spread over 380 pages & packed with exclusive photographs. From his innocent first steps into the music business via the working men's social clubs in the mid-seventies to his success on the world stage in the eighties and beyond, this is one hell of a rock'n'roll rollercoaster ride. Told to the reader as though they were sitting down over drinks with the man himself, this is both an exhilarating, exciting and frequently hilarious account of what it's like to tie oneself to the mast of your dream. Told with a refreshing frankness and self-depreciating candor, the author steers us through his hits and misses seemingly without pausing for ink.

A Mercury prize nominated artist who got to play with many of his childhood heroes, plough his own furrow with seeming disregard for all but the quality of his music, and lived to tell the tale, this is the book for anyone who ever wanted to know what happens when you (almost) get everything you ever wanted.

"The sweetest guy in rock'n'roll. A legend as far as I am concerned." Alan McGee - founder of Creation records.

"A pure energy musician." Billy Talbot - bass player in Neil Young and Crazy Horse.

"He's a genius." Word magazine.

"A great read, I couldn't wait to see what happened next." Paul Du Noyer - author of 'Liverpool - Wondrous Place.'

"There's too many drugs and women get treated very badly." Pat McNabb - Ian's mum.