Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2021 i Classic Rock

WELCOME More often than not, when the name ‘Pink Floyd’ is mentioned I would wager that minds immediately think of The Dark Side Of The Moon or The Wall. Or for early Floyd devotees, thoughts might turn to Syd Barrett. But what about that fertile period post-Syd and pre-Dark Side? It’s an intriguing time for a band who were struggling to get to grips with the loss of their guiding light and principal songwriter; who threw themselves into soundtrack work to try to get a steer on where to go next; who were getting their heads around the emergence of Roger Waters as a songwriter and the ascendance of David Gilmour as a singer and player… It was a time of flux before things went absolutely stratospheric when they released…

the DIRT RIP Thank you and good night. Stefan Cush Died February 5, 2021 The co-lead vocalist and guitarist of the folk-punk group The Men They Couldn’t Hang has died following a sudden heart attack. Of Irish and Welsh descent, Stefan Cush started out as a roadie for The Pogues, whose own frontman Spider Stacy said that he was “cut from a strong and excellent cloth.” Cush was 60 years old. Tom Stevens September 17, 1956 – January 23, 2021 Born in Indiana and classically trained, Tom Stevens was a bassist, singer and songwriter for the Los Angelesbased psychedelic-tinged alt. country group The Long Ryders, who released three albums and an EP during the 1980s. Cause of death was unknown though a band statement said that Tom’s passing was “sudden”.…

BURIED TREASURE Riches from the rock underground FLIED EGG Dr. Siegel’s Fried Egg Shooting Machine, Vertigo, Japan, 1972. £450+ (with OBI). During its iconic ‘swirl’ label era, Vertigo had a series of domestic Japanese releases that, despite their exotic and collectable appeal, didn’t really offer much in terms of creative weirdness or overtly progressive music. Instead, they were generally safe sounding mainstream rock, pop and folk affairs. Among them, Flied Egg (formerly Strawberry Path) are the band that stands out. Housed in Dali-esque artwork, their surrealistically titled debut suggests something truly out-there. This is somewhat misleading, but what we do have is an excellent psychedelic hard rock album. Its title track could be the theme tune to a surreal late-60s kids’ cartoon of the same name. It’s quite a feat…

WELCOME BACK Lucero Ben Nichols on whisky, redemption, fatherhood and recording in the shadow of Elvis. LUCERO: BOB BAYNE/PRESS AS BASTARD SONS and square pegs in the Memphis scene since the late-1990s, nobody has yet found an adequate descriptor for Lucero. And When You Found Me, their tenth album, won’t change that, frontman Ben Nichols says, smiling. Bolstering the band’s Americana-noir with sweeping synth and lyrics about the wrench of leaving his young family, it’s another left-turn in Nichols’s widescreen vision. “But I’m still writing the same kind of songs,” he reassures us. “There’s still yearning and heartbreak and melancholy.” You recorded in the thick of covid. How did that work? We were all in masks on the cutting room floor, any time I wasn’t singing. But we made it…

STAYING POWER “For some reason, Enter Sandman has really stuck around,” says Lars Ulrich. Metallica have played the song in nearly every show since 1991, and it served as the grand finale on the band’s WorldWired tour that ran from 2016 to 2020. It is also the highest-ranking Metallica song on Spotify, with more than six million plays, while the official video has registered close to half a billion views on YouTube. The track also gained unwanted notoriety when it was revealed that the US military had used it during the 2003 invasion of Iraq – submitting prisoners to loud playbacks. As Ulrich stated to US TV news channel MSNBC: “If there are people that are dumb enough to use Metallica to interrogate prisoners, you’re forgetting about all the music…

THE HOT LIST This Or That? White Void frontman Lars Are Nedland takes on the most intimidating quiz known to man. Beatles or Stones? Beatles. AC/DC or Led Zeppelin? Led Zeppelin – a thousand times. Hendrix or Page? [Thinks…] Page. Green or Clapton? Slowhand. Sixties or seventies music? It’s a hard one. The most important stuff started in the sixties, but just the way it was refined in the seventies I think… Yeah, I’ve got to go with seventies. Gibson or Fender? Fender. Van Halen or Guns N’ Roses? Guns N’ Roses. Stadium or sweaty club? Sweaty club. Cigarettes or alcohol? Alcohol. Don’t smoke, never did. Fine wine or cold beer? Cold beer. Love or money? Love. Jesus, of course! Tour bus or plane? Just for the feeling of touring,…

REVIEWS ROUND-UP: BLUES By Henry Yates IVY NEVILLE/PRESS Selwyn Birchwood Living In A Burning House ALLIGATOR Nine years after Alligator Records president Bruce Iglauer took a long bet on a guy from Florida who’d just lost the 2012 International Blues Challenge, Selwyn Birchwood has matured into the jewel in the Chicago label’s roster. Critically, though, he hasn’t matured too much. As evidenced by I Got Drunk, Laid And Stoned – a chest-puffed-out braggadocio anthem spiced with fat brass and rabid slide guitar – Birchwood is still making a rowdy brand of blues, seemingly unlikely to suit up or slow down any time soon. The pepped-up You Can’t Steal My Shine is a hilarious middle finger to a woman stripping him for parts (‘You can have my house, cos I’m always…

Japan Quiet Life – Deluxe Edition BMG Post-glam synth-rock classic, now remastered and expanded into three-disc set. Released at the very end of 1979, Japan’s forward-thinking third album initially had a lukewarm reception critically and commercially, earning recognition only after the South London art-rock fops became major-label pop stars two years later. Swapping mascarametal swagger for androgyne cool and synthpop modernism, Quiet Life now sounds like a prescient stepping stone between glam, postpunk and the emergent New Romantic movement. It also introduced David Sylvian’s remarkable new baritone croon, which would come to define all his later releases. Japan first signalled their futuristic evolution in April 1979 with the non-album single Life In Tokyo, a stately blast of louche synth-rock co-written and produced by Eurodisco king Giorgio Moroder, which is included…

REVIEWS Bob Dylan The 50th Anniversary Collection 1970 COLUMBIA/LEGACY Previously unreleased tracks suggest that one of Bob’s less celebrated years deserves reappraisal. In 1970, Bob Dylan was unquestionably prolific but seemingly coasting. That year’s two knockabout albums – the coversswamped Self Portrait and the self-written New Morning – were a conscious step away from the ground-breaking intensity of Blonde On Blonde. So comfortable was he as New Bob that not until Blood On The Tracks, five years and a marital collapse later, would that intensity be re-kindled. Yet like all Dylan’s coasting periods to come, under the surface there was another tale to be told. The 74 previously unreleased tracks on this clumsily titled collection spread over three CDs include out-takes from both the Self Portrait and New Morning sessions,…

LIVE! REVIEWS DeWolff Studio Tivoli Vredenburg, Utrecht, Netherlands Pandemic-defying album launch livestream rocks big time. DeWolff should be on the road, but instead the core trio of Pablo and Luka van de Poel, guitar and drums, respectively, and Robin Piso on Hammond are taking their timetravelling psychedelic rock’n’roll show into fans’ homes. Everything from the stage design to the 4:3 aspect ratio is focused on evoking a TV broadcast circa 1971, and the result is fab, man. Unsurprisingly the vast chunk of the 90-minute set is from new album WolffPack, alongside a handful from recent albums Tascam Tapes and Thrust. And an array of guests fill out the stage line-up and sound to impressive effect. Top tunes including the funky Black Crowes-y R U My Savior?, Half Of Your Love…

This month’s contributors PAUL BRANNIGAN Being home alone for two months has given Paul Brannigan no end of writing time; expect his Eddie Van Halen biography Eruption and a tenth-anniversary update of his Dave Grohl biog This Is A Call later in 2021. This month we welcome him back to the pages of Classic Rock as he digs deep into the making of the defining Uriah Heep album Demons And Wizards (p46). MARK BLAKE Mark Blake is the author of the definitive Pink Floyd biography Pigs Might Fly (available from all good booksellers!), and this issue he writes about their long, strange trip towards their landmark album The Dark Side Of The Moon (p30). Us And Them, his authorised biography of Pink Floyd’s colourful sleeve designers Hipgnosis, is due in…

Manson Accused Abuse allegations made against the shock rocker. MARILYN MANSON IS the subject of multiple allegations of abuse. Horrifying claims from his former fiancée, actor Evan Rachel Wood, that Manson (real name Brian Warner) had “groomed” and “horrifically abused” her “for years” caused a number of other women to add their voices. Ashley Walters, Sarah McNeilly, Gabriella and Ashley Morgan all released statements of their own. As this issue went to press, Rolling Stone was reporting that the shock-rock singer, 52, had been dropped by his long-time manager Tony Ciulla. As the accusations snowballed, Manson was also let go by his record company Loma Vista Recordings, and had two TV acting roles axed. Manson has refuted the accusations, stating: “My intimate relationships have always been entirely consensual with like-minded…

WELCOME BACK Black Spiders Fan of Motörhead, Sabbath and/or AC/DC? Then you might want to get caught up in this band's web (sorry). BLACK SPIDERS: MARK LATHAM/PRESS; GOLDEN EARRING: GETTY; BRUCE DICKINSON: JOHN MCMURTRIE/PRESS FROM THEIR ARRIVAL on the scene in 2008, Sheffield-based band Black Spiders impressed with their high-octane, heavy rock’n’roll, effectively a superlative meld of Motörhead, Sabbath and AC/DC. Three albums and a ton of touring later – including supports with Ozzy Osbourne, Airbourne and Black Stone Cherry – the Spiders ground to a halt as “creatively, we weren’t progressing”. But a self-titled new album is imminent for Pete ‘Spider’ Spiby (guitar/lead vocals), Andrew ‘Ozzy’ Lister (guitar/vocals), Mark ‘Dark Shark’ Tomas (guitar/vocals), Wyatt Wendels (drums) and Adam ‘The Fox’ Irwin (bass). Lead Spider Spiby spills the beans. The…

WELCOME BACK Damon Johnson The former Black Stone Riders guitarist has finally found his niche. And it includes licking lots of stamps. STEPHEN JENSEN/PRESS IN LATE 2018, Damon Johnson ended a six-year spell with Black Star Riders, the group the Nashville-based guitarist had co-founded from the ashes of Thin Lizzy. Previously the leader of Brother Cane, Johnson has also played with Alice Cooper and John Waite. His latest vehicle the Get Ready is a power trio completed by Jarred Pope, a drummer who has played with Cinderella’s Tom Keifer, and ex-Steve Vai bassist Robbie Harrington. Having played such a big part in the writing of the first three Black Star Riders albums, what made you leave? The short answer is that once again I was ready to tell my stories…

the DIRT HIGH HOPES Wheel With songs revolving around human existence, their music is nothing if not ambitious. VILLE JUURIKKALA/PRESS “We want to mess with music and turn it on its head to see what happens.” IT’S NOT OFTEN that TV talent shows find prog-metal stars of the future, but in a roundabout way that’s what happened with Helsinki-based Wheel. British frontman James Lascelles had been a student in Scarborough, drumming and singing in jazz-folk and classic rock bands but working on his own music in his downtime. Broke and about to give up, he was offered a fresh start when a friend moved to Finland and won the country’s Pop Idol competition, and invited him over to play guitar and sing with him. “I fell in love with the…

Q&A Benji Webbe The Skindred frontman on loving vinyl, coping with lockdown, the Pope’s bling, and not wearing a feather boa to go to Asda. Words: Hannah May Kilroy Portrait: Paul Harries Last year may have scuppered Skindred’s touring plans, but it didn’t demolish their frontman Benji Webbe’s spirit. While so many creatives and artists struggled during lockdown, not least from the financial and psychological aspects of not being able to do whatever it is they normally do, the metal/reggae-mashing innovator worked on new music – writing Skindred songs and also recording a whole album of classic rock covers – and wrote a children’s book about a cool cat named Colin. As for Skindred, they’re re-releasing their 2007 second album Roots Rock Riot on vinyl for the very first time,…

THE EGO HAS LANDED Loved by some, loathed by others, Inglorious frontman/main man Nathan James is no stranger to being the brunt of verbal abuse. But is it deserved, or is he just another innocent victim? Words: Johnny Sharp Photos: Paul Harries For one band member to leave could be regarded as a misfortune. For two to go looks like carelessness. To lose three – on the same day – sounds more like a conspiracy. Either way, even Oscar Wilde would have struggled to script the mass walkout that befell London five-piece Inglorious at the end of 2018, shortly before the release of their third album, Ride To Nowhere. With the album ready and tour dates a few weeks away, overnight they were down to a duo. Thankfully, two years…

TWO GUITARISTS WALK INTO A BAR… …and before you know it they’ve recorded an album together. It’s easier when they’ve both got form, of course, as Iron Maiden’s Adrian Smith and the Winery Dogs’ Richie Kotzen have. Interview: Dave Ling Portrait: John McMurtrie On paper the two guitarists are markedly different. Best-known mainly for two spells cranking out metal riffs with Iron Maiden, Londoner Adrian Smith has also played with ASaP (Adrian Smith And Project), Psycho Motel and, more recently, Primal Rock Rebellion. Born on the other side of the Atlantic and 13 years younger, Richie Kotzen started out as a shredder, then hooked up with Poison and Mr. Big. Now he alternates between a solo career and as a member of the Winery Dogs. And yet there are commonalities.…

THUNDER “IT'S ONLY ROCK’N’ROLL ISN’T IT?” While acknowledging the bigger picture, it’s no wonder Thunder are frustrated at not being able to tour their latest album – seeing as it’s one of the best records they’ve made in decades. Words: Neil Jeffries The hitherto smoothly cropped Danny Bowes is growing his hair again. Although he insists it’s only because, like the rest of us in lockdown, he has no choice. In the nicest possible way, the man staring out of my screen via Zoom shows none of the debonair style we’ve come to associate with the Thunder frontman. Don’t tell her, but he blames his wife. “If I leave it to get longer I look like a homeless guy,” he says, “so I let her cut it. Now I look…

THE HOT LIST Who Are Dumpstaphunk? They might have been voted ‘New Orleans’ Best Funk Band’ in 2014, but that doesn’t mean they don’t rock. Describe your sound in a sentence. Soulful funk music influenced by sounds from the 60s & 70s with a New Orleans attitude, Where did you all meet? In our home town, New Orleans. Let’s talk influences. Who are your go-to guitar and bass heroes as a band? Larry Graham, George Porter Jr., Leo Nocentelli, Freddie Stone. And who has the best voice in rock’n’roll? Robert Plant and Mick Jagger. What’s the defining moment in Dumpstaphunk’s life so far? Opening up for the Rolling Stones at the Superdome in New Orleans. When gigs can finally take place again, what can people expect from a Dumpstaphunk show?…

THE HARD STUFF STUFF BOOKS & DVDs Rock’n’Roll Sweepstakes Campbell Devine OMNIBUS Conscientious second half of epic authorised biography: the ballad of after The Hoople. After the suits and the platform boots, Ian Hunter went solo. The second leg of Campbell Devine’s Brobdingnagian biography tells us the truth, the whole truth, nuthin’ but the truth about Hunter’s post-Mott The Hoople decades. And there’s much to tell. In its 500-plus pages we move from 1975’s Once Bitten Twice Shy, through his mostly impressive albums, to the Mott reunion and Hunter’s sedately increasing stature as a rock icon. He’s never made ‘national treasure’ status, but he’s a cult heroes’ cult hero. Hunter couldn’t ask for a more diligent, sympathetic Boswell than Devine, whose involvement in many Mott/Hunter reissues and retrospectives has been…

The Soundtrack Of My Life Eric Bloom The Blue Öyster Cult frontman on the records, artists and gigs that are of lasting significance to him. Interview: Dave Ling Born in Brooklyn, New York and raised in the neighbouring borough of Queens, Eric Bloom became co-lead guitarist, frontman, keyboard player and songwriter with hard rockers Blue Öyster Cult in April 1969. Over the following half-century he has been an ever-present member of BÖC, performing on all 15 of their studio albums, including their 1976 now-classic hit (Don’t Fear) The Reaper. THE FIRST MUSIC I REMEMBER HEARING My earliest memories of music go back to listening to AM radio at home in New York. The first actual song I have recognition of is Elvis singing Heartbreak Hotel. I’m guessing it would have…

Sylvain Sylvain February 14, 1951 – January 13, 2021 GETTY DAVID JOHANSEN HAS paid tribute to his New York Dolls bandmate Sylvain Sylvain who recently succumbed to cancer at the age of 69. Now the band’s last surviving original member, lead singer Johansen told Rolling Stone that the Dolls “would have been a crappy band” without Sylvain, adding: “He knew what he was doing and he could play the guitar. He came up with really great rhythms. He was very accomplished. He was a natural player. He loved playing.” Sylvain was born Sylvain Mizrahi in Cairo, Egypt, in 1951. When he was young his family fled to New York where, as a teenager, he formed The Pox with future New York Dolls bandmate Billy Murcia. The pair also featured in…

BEST OF THE REST Other new releases out this month. Weezer OK Human CRUSH MUSIC/ATLANTIC Orchestrated, analogue, packed with typically smart, reliably unshakeable River Cuomo compositions, this is Weezer’s social media/lockdown-atuned Pet Sounds. An unlikely masterpiece. 9/10 Reach The Promise Of Life ICONS CREATING EVIL ART Swedes with huge ambition, Reach tap into Muse for falsetto grandeur, Queen for megarock majesty (with a hint of knowing naffness) and Lady GaGa for earworm-driven chutzpah. Immense. 8/10 Evert Snyman Hot Mess MONGREL Coming across like a hyper-psychedelicised one-man QOTSA, Johannesburg’s Snyman (Ruff Majik) is a multi-instrumentalist and producer who writes as brilliantly as he jams (with himself). Recommended. 8/10 Sam Coffey & The Iron Lungs Real One DINE ALONE Like Springsteen before, Sam Coffey’s Iron Lungs, so fresh from the garage they’re…