Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2020 i Classic Rock

MY FIRST LOVE The Black Sabbath guitarist on the allure of Hank Marvin and co. By Tony Iommi The Shadows APACHE I actually wanted to play drums, but we lived in such a tiny house that it would have filled up the whole place. So I went to the guitar, which I loved. I started listening to rock’n’roll and anything to do with the guitar. There weren’t actually that many instrumental guitar bands in England at the time. You had [surf-pop pioneers] The Ventures, but they were American. The Shadows were pretty much the only ones, and they really appealed to me – a song like [1960 single] Apache was really adventurous for the time, really classy but moody. We didn’t have the money to buy records in my house.…

HIGH HOPES Starbenders The glam Atlanta mavericks channelling Marc Bolan, Stevie Nicks… and vampires. “It’s more than just music. Starbenders is an art project.” The weirdest gig Atlanta glam-goth crew Starbenders ever played was at the Tulsa Theatre in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Back in the 1920s, it was reportedly the scene of several deaths when it was used as a detention centre following a bloody race riot. Around the same time, the great tenor Enrico Caruso died after playing there – some say he caught pleurisy, others say he hanged himself. “There was this weird energy about the place,” says singer Kimi Shelter. “When we walked in, it was, like, ‘whoah.’” Shelter and her bandmates – bassist Aaron Lecesne, guitarist Kriss Tokaji and drummer Emily Moon – sprinkled sage around the…

6 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT… Broken Witt Rebels They almost define ‘confident’, they have plans way above their station, and they plan to “come, conquer and then f**k off”. Words: Emma Johnston FORMED IN THE West Midlands and influenced by local heroes running the gamut from Black Sabbath to ELO to Duran Duran, Broken Witt Rebels may be “just working-class lads chasing the dream”, but one listen to their second album OK Hotel unveils a deeply ambitious band unashamed in their pursuit of mainstream rock success. Having come up through the blues-rock scene, it’s an about-turn, taking in gleaming pop choruses crafted for daytime radio play. Today, supremely confident lifelong friends Danny Core and Luke Davis (frontman and bassist respectively) are settling down to a lunchtime pint in…

GIUDA COM ON FEEL THE NOIZE Putting a reinvigorating modern spin on a style of music that was all about simply having fun, Italians Giuda are, as glam-rock connoisseur Joe Elliott puts it: “making this totally unfashionable music fashionable again”. Get down and get with it! Words: Dave Everley Photos: Will Ireland Archive listing from TV Times magazine, June 5, 1972: BBC1 Top Of The Pops. 7.30pm, Colour Tony Blackburn and Ed ‘Stewpot’ Stewart are joined in the BBC TV Centre studios by The Sweet, Suzi Quatro, Status Quo, David Bowie, Jo Jo Gunne, Pan’s People and, from Rome, Italy, brand new hitmakers Giuda, who will be playing their in-with-a-bullet Top 3 single Racey Roller. Theme music: CCS Bristol, England, 2020. Up a steep set of stairs at the side…

THE HARD STUFF the Ultimate ROCK REVIEWS section Classic Rock Ratings DANNY CLINCH/PRESS Judy Dyble Weavings Of A Silver Magic CROMERZONE Live tracks from an overlooked mesmerising British vocalist. Fairport Convention’s first singer, Judy Dyble also sang with an early version of Giles, Giles and Fripp, and then disappeared off the radar for many years, only re-emerging fully in the 21st century with a series of mesmerising, jaunty and slightly cheeky-sounding albums that placed her extraordinary voice – like singing porcelain – in a more modern context. This live set from 2016, in which Dyble (it rhymes with ‘bible’) performs with band and orchestra, captures perfectly the charm and scope of her work, with reinterpretations of solo material like the melancholy optimism of Faded Elvis (from her excellent album Earth…

THE HARD STUFF ALBUMS Various Artists Essential state-of-the-nation address from the British rock’n’roll scene. Earache Presents: The New Wave Of Rock N Roll EARACHE Anyone still sniffy about the resurgence of interest in rock’n’roll might as well scram now. Honest-to-God guitar music never went away, but thanks to everything from Rival Sons’ Grammy nominations and the success of Greta Van Fleet, to such closer-to-home success stories as the New Wave Of Classic Rock Facebook group and Ramblin’ Man Fair’s hothouse Rising Stage, it hasn’t been as exciting in a long time. Earache Presents: The New Wave Of Rock N Roll is an essential state-of-the-nation address (just how a small death metal label in Nottingham became the epicentre of this movement is a story in itself). Rightly celebrating the scene’s British…

REVIEWS ROUND-UP: BLUES By Henry Yates James Hunter Six Nick Of Time DAPTONE Gawd bless James Hunter, the aitchdropping, chainsmoking Essex geezer who inexplicably has the most glorious soul voice of his generation; you suspect he could croon a Brexit withdrawal treaty and leave you shivering. And his Daptone output is getting stronger. These blues and soul originals salute the golden age – right down to the sleeve art – but spiced with snarky nods to here and now they never stink of pastiche. Leaving the blocks at a lollop with I Can Change Your Mind, the album’s pace is perhaps a little more stately than its 2018 predecessor Whatever It Takes. Who’s Fooling Who is a snare-brushed stunner that chronicles a relationship’s death rattle. The leisurely Missing In Action evokes…

THE HARD STUFF REISSUES Def Leppard Box set shows that while not always brilliant, Leppard were never less than precocious. The Early Years 79-81 UMC/VIRGIN Re-masters of Def Leppard’s first two albums On Through The Night (originally released 40 years ago on March 14, 1980) and 1981’s High ’N’ Dry were included in the 2018 box set Rock Of Ages Vol 1. But the considerable carrot/excuse for buying them again now are this new box set’s three bonus CDs: a live set from the tour for Leppard’s first album and two discs of collectables. The live disc is a full set from Oxford, April 26, 1980, when only a fool would have failed to predict the band were going places – if not the Rush-inspired direction implied by opener When…

INTERVIEWS Phil Campbell & The Bastard Sons The former Motörhead guitarist keeps it in the family. The Welshman on life as a solo artist, supporting Michael Schenker Fest and memories of Lemmy. Did the positive response to last year’s solo debut album Old Lions Still Roar make you wish you’d begun to do your own music earlier in life? We were always so busy with Motörhead that it was never really possible until now. But the reviews were very positive, which was quite a thrill. Are you planning a follow-up? When the time is right I’ll definitely do another one. I’ve been writing ideas. Some are good, others not so good. And I’m also writing material for the Bastard Sons. What are the best and worst aspects of being in…

Scarlet Rebels Hard rockers from Wales gear up for hometown gig. REDD KROSS: JULIAN FORT/PRESS A five-piece hard rock band from South Wales, Scarlet Rebels are busy promoting a debut album called Show Your Colours. Here we meet their singer/guitarist Wayne Doyle. Reviewers have likened your group to Def Leppard circa 1983 or even to Bon Jovi, though that doesn’t tell the full story. I’ve loved both of those bands, though these days as a band we’re much more into Tom Petty, Aerosmith and the Foo Fighters. You’re winding up a 26-date tour with Revival Black. Clearly, the venues and fans are still out there. Anyone that says the scene is dying is massively wrong. People still come out to see shows and there are lot of really, really good…

Genesis Turn It On Again Trio play UK shows in November and December. PHIL COLLINS, MIKE Rutherford and Tony Banks are back together as Genesis for their first live shows in 13 years. Titled The Last Domino? tour, the band announced 10 dates, then added another six after this first batch sold out in less than ten minutes. The trio will be joinedby long-time live guitarist/bassist Daryl Stuermer, with Collins’s son Nic Collins on drums. Talking to CR’s sister title Prog, Collins said: “There were more reasons to do it than not to do it. If we had to do it the way we used to tour, I don’t think I’d be doing it. But nowadays it can be done differently, and I’ve been doing that for the last couple…

WELCOME BACK Nightwish Keyboard player Tuomas Holopainen on their new album, Downton Abbey and bathing in pasta. NIGHTWISH: TINA KORHONEN/PRESS; GENESIS: PATRICK BALLS & MARTIN GRIFFIN THREE YEARS AGO, Finnish symphonic metallers Nightwish went on hiatus. They were drained from touring and line-up changes, and something had to give. “It was time to take a breather,” explains Tuomas Holopainen. The following year, refreshed, the sextet took their Decades anthology out on the road. Now they’re ready to showcase Human. :II: Nature., an ambitious new double album packed with vocal acrobatics, huge orchestral parts and tribal rhythms. “I’m glad there’s been some serious musical evolution,” says Holopainen. What did you do during the break? I recorded an album as Auri with my wife [singer Johanna Kurkela] and Troy [Donockley, Nightwish], I…

Rush ON THE CREST OF A WAVE After the “soul crushing” slog of making the Hemispheres album, for their next the planets seemed to be aligned. Permanent Waves found Rush at the top of their game and put them in a different league. Words: Philip Wilding FIN COSTELLO/GETTY FIN COSTELLO/GETTY x2 If you take the spiral staircase down to Geddy Lee’s basement studio in his Toronto home, you enter a veritable Aladdin’s cave with guitars and basses hanging from every available space on the tartan-covered walls. Classic and obscure models in every conceivable colour make up a lacquered rainbow of instruments in a room where musical history has been made more than once. At the far corner of the room hangs a hand-tooled bass that holds almost as much history…

“It felt like a party at someone’s house” That was the vibe at the all-star concert organised by Mick Fleetwood to celebrate the genius of guitar great Peter Green. Classic Rock photographer Ross Halfin witnessed it all come together. Everybody had been wondering whether Peter Green would turn up at the Palladium for the special event put together in his honour by his former Fleetwood Mac bandmate Mick Fleetwood, but of course he didn’t. I suspect it would have been too overwhelming for him, but it certainly didn’t ruin the evening. People would have expected him to get up and play, which he was never going to do. In a sense it was better that he wasn’t there. ammett during the rehearsals. They were playing The Green Manalishi (With The…

BRIAN FALLON THE £50 RECORD STORE CHALLENGE Brian Fallon Words: Emma Johnston Portraits: Will Ireland As Nick Hornby illustrated in his novel High Fidelity, a record shop is about so much more than just retail and stuff. A good one is a place to make friends, get recommendations, and bicker about the relative merits of the more obscure corners of the musical universe. It’s about heart and soul. Rough Trade East, located in a fashionable corner of London, has a special place in the heart of Brian Fallon and that of his British wife. When they first started dating, she worked just around the corner, and the then-Gaslight Anthem frontman would spend many happy hours waiting for her here, drinking coffee and browsing the aisles. The band even played their…

THE HARD STUFF ALBUMS Pearl Jam Eleventh album finds the Seattle crew raging against the world. But not losing hope. Gigaton MONKEYWRENCH/REPUBLIC It’s a classic Pearl Jam misdirect. Dance Of The Clarivoyants – the first single we heard from Gigaton – is a track that finds Eddie Vedder channeling David Byrne and his best Once In A Lifetime vocal quirks, over a nagging ECG monitoresque riff (a motif echoed in physical form on the album’s artwork), which left you wondering just which Pearl Jam was going to turn up for their eleventh studio album. Would it be the wilfully contrary one? The classic rock band that stuffed their first two albums with rock club dancefloor fillers? The one that says to hell with this rock nonsense, we’re all about electronica…

REVIEWS ROUND-UP: MELODIC ROCK By Dave Ling One Desire Midnight Empire FRONTIERS Spotted in action again recently as special guests of the Night Flight Orchestra, One Desire made one of the most stylish and spectacular melodic hard rock debuts of 2017. Despite being a work in progress for five years in the rehearsal rooms of Finland, the quartet’s public arrival felt instantaneous – a notion enhanced by a well-received tour with Eclipse. But since then… zilch. Yet again One Desire have resisted the temptation to rush their music, and that patience has paid off handsomely with Midnight Empire. Swathed in pulsating keyboards that complement the forceful, guitar runs of Jimmy Westerlund, the roots of their sound continue to cross over into hi-tech pop territory. Anthems such as Shadowman, After You’ve Gone…

THE HARD STUFF STUFF BOOKS & DVDs Once Were Brothers The story of The Band’s rise and demise, told mainly from Robbie Robertson’s perspective. Director: Daniel Roher Self-effacing as their moniker might be, it says something about The Band’s supremacy. Was there ever a finer band, whose parts were so formidable and yet who added up to so much greater than those parts? Watching the too-scant early footage of Robbie Robertson, Garth Hudson, Levon Helm, Richard Manuel and Rick Danko clinched in sync, it’s as if they were more than ‘brothers’, and were operating at a telepathic level of collective empathy. They rocked, they rolled, they swung, they grooved like no other rock entity. Among the peers director Daniel Roher has assembled to heap praise on them are Bruce Springsteen,…

Richard Marx ‘Gone viral’ means something very different in these worrying times. When Classic Rock spoke to the American singer-songwriter, he was previewing three unplugged UK shows to promote Limitless, his first new studio album in six years. Unfortunately he is one of a number of artists and bands who have been forced to cancel dates and tours due to the coronavirus. Fortunately the dates will be rescheduled. Your press biography says that you’d lost touch with a love of songwriting until making Limitless. How did it feel to recover that joy? I never stopped writing songs, but I no longer wrote them with the specific intent of making an album. All of my attention was diverted into touring. Once I reconnected with the idea of making an album, then…

REVIEWS Eric Clapton & Friends: A Tribute To Ginger Baker Author Nettie Baker reviews a very special memorial show to her late father. London Hammersmith Eventim Apollo ‘Ginger’s son Kofi stuns ’em all with Pressed Rat And Warthog.’ GEORGE CHIN/EPC Guest Reviewer Nettie Baker We take our seats to an anticipatory ‘buzz’. A disembodied image of Ginger in his best Abe Lincoln incarnation hangs smiling benignly over those come to pay their respects to a legend. Then our old family-owned Super 8s begin flickering colour film of the first ‘supergroup’ (Cream) on tour as the ghostly sound of Ginger’s drum solo Toad reminds us of what big shoes there are to fill tonight. Four drum kits loomed along the back line… the one far left proclaiming ‘Kofi Baker’ on the…

Keith Olsen May 12, 1945 – March 7, 2020 GETTY x2 BACK IN THE 1990s, the credit ‘produced by Keith Olsen’ represented not only a massive selling point for a record but also a hallmark of quality. In that decade Olsen was at the controls for Whitesnake’s multi-platinum US breakthrough album 1987 as well as hugely popular records by Ozzy Osbourne, Scorpions, Heart, Sammy Hagar, Starship, Rick Springfield, Santana, Joe Walsh, Pat Benatar, Bad Company, Night Ranger, The Babys and more. Born in South Dakota in 1945, Olsen became a musician before moving to Los Angeles, where he produced the first album from Lindsey Buckingham and Steve Nicks as Buckingham Nicks, and introduced them to Mick Fleetwood, which led to the pair joining Fleetwood Mac. Also in the 1970s he…

WELCOME BACK Nektar The progressive rockers covered by Iron Maiden talk about loss, new music and that they’re “here to stay”. TONY IOMMI: OLLY CURTIS; NEKTAR: JAY PETSKO/PRESS Having been formed 51 years ago by six Hamburg-based Englishmen, Nektar’s nationality is often understandably mistaken. Confusion was also compounded by the awarding of full band member status to an artist and lighting/special effects assistant. Over the course of four separate life spans, their fusion of progressive sounds and space-rock was particularly embraced in Germany, and fanboy Steve Harris convinced Iron Maiden to cover King Of Twilight in 1984. Bass player Derek ‘Mo’ Moore discusses the passing of guitarist/lead vocalist Roye Albrighton in 2016 and new album, The Other Side. Because Roye Albrighton was unwell for some time, did you have time…

THE CLASSIC Rock INREVIEW ROBBY KRIEGER He might have become a trumpet player. Instead he swapped the horn for guitar, joined The Doors and became part of one of the most influential and legendary bands of the 70s, with whom he wrote enduring classics including Light My Fire and wrote his name large in rock history. Interview: Mick Wall JEROME DE PERLINGHI / GETTY CONTOUR The voice of Robby Krieger on the phone sounds like Travis in Paris, Texas. One note. Bone dry. Exhausted and burned by the whole sentenced-to-life séance that the story of The Doors has become. Yet quite cheerful. Robby was always the most easy-going in The Doors. After Ray Manzarek, who spoke of golden vibrations yet jumped at shadows. Far behind John Densmore, who was still…

CHECKOUT WHAT BRIAN ENDED UP SPENDING OUR £50 ON. Lana Del Rey Norman Fucking Rockwell “When I heard Lana Del Ray, I didn’t care where she was from, where the music was coming from, although I felt for sure that she was from England. I did not see her picture and I didn’t know anything about her other than I was like, ‘That’s the coolest name and this is the coolest voice, and this is the coolest music.’ This is the music that I will listen to for the rest of my life. She did a version of Chelsea Hotel by Leonard Cohen that’s not released, for some reason it’s only on YouTube, but I love it. I think it’s as good as his version. I actually think it’s better…

ROUND-UP: SLEAZE By Sleazegrinder Dogshit Boys Flashrock Massacre SELF-RELEASED Finnish savages the Dogshit Boys return with a blistering pile of corrosive rock’n’roll to melt whatever’s left of your mind. Too glam for punk, too punk for glam, Dogshit Boys sound like Hanoi Rocks if they were crazed cannibal killers, and their signature brand of flash-rock is at once seductive and repellent. They’re a belch of glitter, a roar of short-circuiting teenage hormones, hard-core rock’n’roll for hard-core rock’n’rollers. Flashrock Massacre is their Back To Mystery City, the instant fan favourite, a veritable buffet of addictive noise, from the head-slamming Brown Gold to the leather-bound motorcycle sleaze of Color Climax Overdose, from the wildly flailing opener Aivoradio to the feral punk’n’roll of Moral Panic. Some of the tracks are in Finnish too, so…

THE HARD STUFF ALBUMS Joe Satriani Smart, solid seventeenth from the master of instrumental rock. Shapeshifting SONY MUSIC/LEGACY As illogical as it might sound, especially to anyone who flinches at the notion of noodly sixstringers, the most soulful moments on Shapeshifting often occur during solos. Joe Satriani – the man who first made smart, horrifyingly skilled guitar playing cool and fun with 1987’s Surfing With The Alien – seems to stretch out in these livewire fusions of blues, rock, world and jazzy sensibilities. So where does that leave the ‘tunes’ themselves? In truth, Satriani has become a better, smarter guitarist since his prodigious breakout days. He’s also a more thoughtful arranger and producer (he co-produced this album with Foo Fighters/Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers guy Jim Scott), with a glimmering…

THE HARD STUFF REISSUES Marillion Neo-progressive ground zero dusted down and tidied up. Script For A Jester’s Tear Deluxe Edition PARLOPHONE It took the Steve Hogarth line-up of Marillion almost three decades to fill the Albert Hall, and in light of such gentle progress it’s easy to forget just how rapid the ascent of the original band was. Two nights at Hammersmith Odeon on the first album tour? No problem. Second on the bill at Reading the same year? Sure, why not? Without their success, the neoprogressive movement would have been a long-forgotten bump on rock’s long and winding road, rather than a recognised genre – whose other protagonists (IQ, Pallas, Solstice, Pendragon, Twelfth Night) are, somewhat remarkably, still with us. Script For A Jester’s Tear was the album that…

LIVE! Nick Mason’s A Saucerful Of Secrets After successfully touring Syd-era Floyd songs, it’s time to add some post-Syd songs. JILL FURMANOVSKY/PRESS “We’ve a real camaraderie, it’s not just a bunch of session players. It’s certainly not a tribute band.” Although some eyebrows arched in April last year when Nick Mason announced Gary Kemp as the guitarist for his post-Pink Floyd band A Saucerful Of Secrets, the 60-year-old from Spandau Ballet has proved to be an inspired choice for a group sworn to “capture the spirit” of Floyd’s Syd Barrett era. Kemp previews the band’s latest tour and also their multi-format concert release Live At The Roundhouse. When did your love affair with progressive rock begin? It started at grammar school. The working-class kids liked Bowie and Rod Stewart, and…

LIVE! Redd Kross The Californians who inspired Nirvana head for our side of the pond. Ahead of seven UK appearances for their current album Beyond The Door, we place a call to the Californian power-pop band’s bassist Steven McDonald. Congratulations on Redd Kross turning 40 years old, how does it make you feel? Old, obviously. In fact it’s forty-one or forty-two years for us, but forty as a recording band. That makes me feel very accomplished. I was just eleven at our first show. Classic Rock was among those to praise last summer’s album Beyond The Door, saying that it sounded “like a Wes Anderson fantasy where members of Cheap Trick, Kiss, The Webb Brothers, The Boyfriends, Rodney Bingenheimer and Kim Fowley live together in a house without quarrelling.” ‘Without…

LIVE! REVIEWS Those Damn Crows Bristol Exchange Welsh hard rockers with arenas in their sights make a detour to an intimate setting. It’s less than three hours ‘til stage time. Everyone has battled Storm Ciara to get here, and the auditorium at the tiny Exchange is full of gear. Bassist Lloyd Wood is limping on an ankle that’s doubled in size since he leapt off a riser last night. Singer Shane Greenhall is losing his voice and feels like death (he apologises for his pre-show silence in very polite mouthing and improvised sign-language). Completing the picture is Kev the guitar tech, covering for Shane on mic-checks by bellowing “Sausage! One-two, one-two! Arse! Sausaaage sandwich!!” A different band might have been freaking out by now. But Those Damn Crows are made…