All Access - The David Frangioni Collection

Backstage Auctions Presents The All Access David Frangioni Collection 

Featuring hundreds of pieces of rare music memorabilia, including historical drum kits, drums, gear and more 

Terry Bozzio Drum Kit

Houston, TX - February 12, 2019 – Backstage Auctions, Inc presents the upcoming “All Access David Frangioni” auction event which will feature a host of impressive and historic rock and audio memorabilia including drums and drum kits, audio equipment, and more, from award-winning audio engineer, author, and collector David Frangioni. The auction will go live on March 16, 2019 with a special VIP preview of the entire online catalog beginning on March 9, 2019.

Complete, historic drum kits will be up for auction, including those from legendary drummers such as Carl Palmer, Carmine Appice, Eric Singer, Terry Bozzio, Gregg Bissonette, and Mike Portnoy. There is an overwhelming assortment of Carl Palmer, Asia and ELP road cases, gear and equipment, as well vintage road cases that belonged to Cozy Powell from his Black Sabbath years. Dozens of collectible snare drums and an exciting offering of vintage recording studio equipment will be up for auction.

The exclamation point to this auction will come in the form of a broad selection of A-level memorabilia related to KISS, ELP, The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, RUSH, AC/DC, Michael Jackson, Aerosmith, Black Sabbath & Ozzy Osbourne, U2, Van Halen, Metallica, Motley Crue and many others.

Frangioni is a music industry veteran who amassed this collection through years of professional drumming and audio expertise. After beginning his career working with Aerosmith for 13 years, Frangioni received many gold and platinum albums as technical consultant, engineer, and/or programmer, who later worked with industry icons including the Stones, Ringo Starr, Elton John, Sting, Bryan Adams, Journey, Styx, Phil Collins, Shakira, Rascal Flatts, Ozzy Osbourne, and Chick Corea. The majority of his unmatched collection of historic drum kits, equipment, and memorabilia, which have been either acquired at auction or through his music industry relationships, was on display in his book “Crash: The World’s Greatest Drum Kits from Appice to Peart to Van Halen.”

Backstage Auctions owner Jacques van Gool comments: “David’s collection is a fascinating mixture of historic drum kits, snare drums, recording studio used equipment, legendary road cases, and an impressive offering of traditional music memorabilia. Whether you’re a drum enthusiast, gear head, or straight-up collector, this auction will offer something for everyone. David Frangioni is a top authority on everything drums, and his private collection is second-to-none. Combined with his credentials in the recording and music technology arena and you know that you’re hosting a most intriguing auction.”

“Working alongside many of these legends has been a dream, and I’ve been fortunate to have and appreciate many of these amazing pieces that are monuments of the rock industry,” said David Frangioni. “I wanted to give back some of the music history that I’ve collected to the audio, music, and drumming fans around the world.”

The All Access David Frangioni Auction beings with a preview of the catalog on March 9, 2019, and is open worldwide from March 16 to March 24, 2019. The auction will be accessible here: Backstage Auctions

For more information and to register for your VIP All Access Pass visit: Backstage Auctions 

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David Frangioni is an award-winning veteran of the music industry, with expertise ranging from being a drummer and producer himself, to an audio consultant, technologist, integrator, and recording engineer. Starting out as a drummer at age 2 and then established his own audio consulting business put him on the map with Aerosmith and led to his work with music icons including the Stones, Ringo Starr, Elton John, Sting, Bryan Adams, Journey, Styx, Phil Collins, Shakira, Rascal Flatts, Ozzy Osbourne, and Chick Corea, to name a few.  David has authored two books under his company Frangioni Media including his books Icon and Crash published by Insight Editions, and continues leading the industry at his company Audio One as well as All Access IDA and his non-profit Frangioni Foundation.



BACKSTAGE AUCTIONS is a boutique online auction house specializing in authentic rock memorabilia and exclusively representing legendary musicians and entertainment professionals directly. Every auction event is unique, reflecting the artist's legacy and chronicles their legendary career. Backstage Auctions has represented dozens of notable and very talented musicians, producers and managers in the music industry.
Backstage Auctions Press Contact:


David Frangioni Press Contact:
Laura Shubel
Caster Communications
frangioni@castercomm.com
401-792-7080

CD Review: Asia – Gravitas

CD Review: Asia – Gravitas

Frontiers Records

All Access Rating: B+

Asia - Gravitas 2014

As reflective and almost solemn an album as Asia has ever produced, Gravitas is perhaps the perfect word to describe a recording that examines matters of the heart with such overarching drama and lovelorn longing.

Still technically a super group, although guitarist Steve Howe has seemingly departed for good to concentrate on his work with progressive-rock icons Yes, Asia welcomes a newcomer into the fold in Sam Coulson, joining lead vocalist/bassist John Wetton (King Crimson, UK), drummer Carl Palmer (ELP) and keyboardist Geoff Downes (The Buggles). 

It was Mr. Big's Paul Gilbert who recommended Coulson, and the match is a good one. Coulson's melodic leads and fluid playing fit like a glove, although at times it seems he's straining at the leash to really let loose here and shred like there's no tomorrow. Or maybe he's simply trying to force Asia out its comfort zone, maybe inject some fresh blood into a body that's been in need of a transfusion, even if nobody realized it until his arrival. And the band does seem rejuvenated, making big sweeping epic compositions that have all the hallmarks of past Asia outings.

Immediately apparent is the attention to detail Asia gives to crafting lush arrangements and exquisite, windswept vocal harmonies on the airbrushed Gravitas, such as those that usher in the soaring first single "Valkyrie." Suffused with light and full of amiable hooks, "Nyctophobia," "Heaven Help Me" and the dazzling flood of synthesizers, rich piano, pulsating bass and serrated guitar that make up the bombastic title track are bright, intoxicating aural paintings, all of them written with tighter structures than Asia's prog-rock brethren would ever dare to attempt. If only their tempos weren't so damn sleepy.

Lyrically, Gravitas, out now on Frontiers Records, is extraordinarily introspective, addressing subjects like regret and loss with candor, emotional vulnerability and a graceful ennui that comes with maturity, although it's rather clinical sonically and not at all warm. A particularly harsh self-excoriation, the soul-baring, golden slumber of "Joe DiMaggio's Glove" becomes a metaphor for a soft heart, while the spindly acoustic guitar and Old World imagery of "Russian Dolls," with its trains and vauxhalls, lends an air of mystery, intrigue and forlorn hopelessness to an album that, at times, has a heavy heart. The aching piano ballad "The Closer I Get," so reflective and tender, seems especially sad. 

Some will always dismiss Asia's overblown romanticism, their earnest sentimentality and their lightweight pop inclinations, which always belied their instrumental complexity. Gravitas has all of that. And the scornful might scoff at the fantastical cover art of Gravitas, as Asia has always gone for that Roger Dean look but with a slightly less sci-fi influence and more mythical serpents and dragons, although this one appears to have come straight out of "Avatar." Still, there was a time in 1982 when they were as big as anybody in music, their debut album surprisingly becoming Billboard's No. 1 album of the year. The people have spoken when it comes to Asia, who sound more and more like the Moody Blues every year. And there's something about them people seem to like.
– Peter Lindblad

CD Review: Carl Palmer - Working Live - Volume 3

CD Review: Carl Palmer - Working Live - Volume 3
Eagle Records
All Access Review: A-

Virtuoso drummer Carl Palmer pulls out all the stops on the third installment of his Working Live series, taking on some of the most complex pieces his old band, the classical-rock adventurers Emerson, Lake and Palmer, ever attempted.

Never ones to shy away from a challenge, ELP was, perhaps, the most daring threesome of all the brainy, hyper-ambitious 1970s progressive-rock expeditions, King Crimson included. And though they revered the works of such musical geniuses as Prokofiev and Mussorgsky, Palmer and company didn’t see it as their mission to simply regurgitate their works in those halcyon days. With their imaginations working overtime, they wanted to do them their own way and in the process, make them palatable to audiences whose ears were more attuned to The Beatles than Bach. And if the moment called for it, ELP committed sublime violations that would make classical-music purists squirm – as evidenced by keyboardist Keith Emerson famously stabbing knives into his organs to generate blood-curdling howls from his instruments. Still, ELP won their grudging respect.

Such theatrics, shockingly funny and irreverent as they were at the time, aren’t revived in Palmer’s latest project, another trio that finds Palmer now collaborating with lead guitarist Paul Bielatowicz and bass guitarist Stuart Clayton. A concert album of inspired musicianship and envelope-pushing reinvention, Working – Volume 3 is Palmer and crew at their most ambitious, tackling such touchstones as Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet” and Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition,” as a brazen ELP once did.

Less whimsical than ELP’s original version, but more dynamic and heavy, the centerpiece of the six-track Volume 3 has to be the lengthy “Pictures at an Exhibition.” There’s nothing cautious about how Palmer and company approach this, or any other, composition. It’s sinister and disturbing in parts, with Bielatowicz’s frenzied guitar work going off in unpredictably wild directions but never veering off course and Clayton providing thoughtful and flexible melodic support. Heads will spin at all the directional shifts and changes in mood that occur, and the three handle them all with the utmost skill and feel. It almost sounds like free jazz. And at the heart of it all is the controlled chaos of Palmer’s thrilling stick work, the action reaching a free-for-all around the 16:30 mark.

Naturally, with Emerson’s keyboards replaced by electric guitars, everything sounds more modern and edgy. This time around, Henry Mancini’s “Peter Gunn,” as fun as ever, is propulsive, psychedelic and throbbing with mind-fucking kaleidoscopic color and raw energy, the kind usually found in garage rock. “Romeo and Juliet” has a deep, menacing groove and occasionally, there’s a Hendrix-like schizophrenia that seeps into the track’s carefully plotted action and messes with the chemistry in wonderful ways. And while their take on Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker” is riddled with clichés, the stop-on-a-dime tempo changes and crazed fury of the Emerson and Lake original “Bitches Crystal” more than makes up for the momentary lapse of reason, as does Palmer’s inventive and intricate drum work on “In a Moroccan Market.”

Working – Volume 3 shows that Palmer remains restlessly creative and unafraid of challenging himself and his band. In the liner notes, he says, “Playing in a trio is his passion.” And if nothing else, this set of live renderings of old ELP numbers indicates that “3” is, indeed, Palmer’s lucky number.

Peter Lindblad