Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2024 i Classic Rock

When you stop and think about it, it’s amazing how many line-up permutations Black Sabbath have been through in their illustrious, storied career. Of course, I’d wager that whenever Black Sabbath are mentioned, we all immediately think of the classic quartet of Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward. But what of the Dio era? And what about that time that Ian Gillan stepped up to the mic? Or Glenn Hughes? Or when Geezer left? Or Bill… Or, most pertinently this issue, the time(s) that vocalist Tony Martin took the vocal spot. The 1980s were a fractious, crazy time in the Sabbath story, and this issue we talked to Tonys Iommi and Martin all about it (p26). Elsewhere, Jon Bon Jovi opens up in the Classic Rock Interview…

CJ Snare December 14, 1959 – April 5, 2024 The melodic hard rock community mourns the shock passing of CJ Snare, frontman with American veterans FireHouse. Snare sang on all of the group’s five US Top 40 hits, including Don’t Treat Me Bad, Love Of A Lifetime and When I Look Into Your Eyes. The 64-yearold had undergone surgery for colon cancer and was planning to return for the band’s summer shows. “This is so sad,” said Kip Winger. “CJ was one of the most kind-hearted beautiful people I ever met.” Brian Bethell November 18, 1949 – April 3, 2024 Nine Below Zero guitarist/vocalist Dennis Greaves has led the tributes to Brian Bethell, bassist with UK blues-rockers. His death was announced by Greaves, who said: “Brian will be greatly missed…

“Our tour bus caught fire – we lost everything: all of our guitars, merch, equipment…” The Blue Norther is a fast-moving cold front that becomes a tempest when it hits Texas. The storm is marked by violent changes in temperature. “It’s a really powerful thing to witness and feel,” says singer, songwriter and Lone Star native Shane Smith. “You see this whole weather wall coming, and then it’s like, ‘boom!’ It’s scary, but there’s also something really romantic to it at the same time.” Norther is a fitting title for Shane Smith & The Saints’ fourth album. Not only does it signify the Austin, Texas quintet’s eruptive, inclement mix of red dirt country, folk, bluegrass and embattled rock, it also serves as a metaphor for their difficult journey over the…

Fresh from its triumph in the UK, Black Sabbath – The Ballet will visit the Netherlands this year for four dates, followed by a pair of shows in Luxembourg and two in Germany, before heading to the USA for a run of seven performances over five days in 2025. Nightwish have announced a new studio album. The Finnish-Dutch symphonic metal band release Yesterwynde on September 20 via Nuclear Blast. Band leader Tuomas Holopainen says: “Three years in the making, we’re thrilled beyond words to soon share our tenth album with the world.” Vince Neil has taken a swipe at Generation Swine, the 1997 album that saw him return to fronting Mötley Crüe, and which the band had begun with singer John Corabi and producer Bob Rock. “I hated that record.…

November 7, 1979. The Atlantic City Expressway are on stage at the Stone Pony club in Asbury Park, New Jersey, performing a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s The Promised Land, when an audience member jumps on stage, grabs the mic and begins singing the second verse. It takes Atlantic City Expressway’s vocalist John Bongiovi a beat to recognise the interloper as the man who wrote the song. “I’m a seventeen-year-old kid and suddenly I’m sharing a microphone on stage with the biggest rock star in New Jersey,” he – now Jon Bon Jovi – marvels, 45 years on, looking back on that night while seated on a sofa in an upmarket London hotel room. “I’ve got high school in the morning, and the teacher just sounds like ‘Wah wah wah, wah…

During a recent magazine interview, singer Angelo Tristan confided that each day while out jogging in his home town of Ramsgate, Kent, he reaches a point on his route when the sea comes into view and he says out loud: “Collateral will headline Wembley Stadium.” Whether or not this is something that should be confided to a journalist, especially with such a sense of relish, is debatable, although you have to admire the determination of Tristan and his band. Formed in 2018 as a Bon Jovi tribute act, the independent rockers have defied the odds, walking through one brick wall after another, including the one caused by the exit of guitarist Todd Winger in 2022, to continue their dream. There’s nothing wrong with being a tribute band, of course, and…

Johnny Moped Quonk! DAMAGED GOODS Croydon-via-Roxy legend Paul Halford returns (at 70) with longstanding guitarist Slimey Toad and their most satisfying release since 1977’s Cycledelic. An unprecedented musical sophistication fails to sharpen JM’s uniquely blunt, punk-savant bludgeoning. 7/10 Johnny Casino High Stone CHEERSQUAD Imbued with hectic ’n’ frenetic Iggy (living on the) edginess, nomadic, ex-Asteroid B-612, guitar-slinging Sydney rocker/tattoo artist Casino stokes up an obvious debt to Nuggets-era garage with blurts of Farfisa and (digital bonus) an epic assault on Eight Miles High. 7/10 Tommy Hale All At Sea HOLIDAY DISASTER From the doggedly riff-driven, thousand-yard staring, Swervedriver insistence of Hideaway to the eager-to-please, perk-pop My Sharonaings of World Won’t Wait, All At Sea’s hard to pin down, but Texan Hale’s Snakes-supported fourth casually satisfies at every turn. 7/10 Cuffed…

★ In the 25 years since its inception, Roadburn has evolved from stoner/doom haven to an alt. music mecca, with specially commissioned sets and album-in-full play-throughs offering an entirely unique festival experience. That does come at a cost, however. While transgressive acts like Chelsea Wolfe thrive, her genre-blurring 16-song set met with a sense of reverence, more mainstream acts wither on the vine. Royal Thunder enjoy some success with their first set, a stoner-friendly blues jam, but a latenight rendition of latest album Rebuilding The Mountain pulls a sparse audience and the band’s performance comes off as listless. Thankfully there are triumphs over the weekend. Dutch doom progressives Dool deliver an emotional gut-punch tinged with beautiful fragility with The Shape Of Fluidity, and The Keening devastate and enthral as they…

‘The Hives should open an academy to show other bands how it’s done.’ ★ Walking on stage to the strains of Chopin’s Funeral March and repeatedly claiming you are “the greatest in the world at whatever it is we do” requires balls the size of Elgin Marbles, but The Hives brook no doubt. Despite his dodgy references to leprechauns, Howlin’ Pete Almqvist is to frontmanism what Sir Walter Raleigh was to defeating Spaniards. His acumen is matched by the heroes around him on stage, especially brother Nicholaus Arson on guitar who battles for attention like a spoilt child. For both men the stage parameters are more suggestion than rule as they throw themselves repeatedly into the frenzied pit. Dressed in matching suits, adorned with lightning slashes that – of course…

This month The Dirt was compiled by Lee Dorrian, Jerry Ewing, Ian Fortnam, Polly Glass, Rich Hobson, Rob Hughes Jo Kendall, Fraser Lewry, Will Simpson, Paul Whitelaw Ever-present Wildhearts frontman Ginger, who co-founded the band back in 1989, recently recorded an as yet untitled eleventh Wildhearts studio album with bassist Jon Poole, guitarist Ben Marsden and drummer Pontus Snibb, and the four-piece are currently gearing up for a post-hiatus show at London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire on June 6, with soon-to-be-announced tour dates to follow this autumn and winter. When Classic Rock catches up with them – and Ginger’s friendly collie Maggieduring a break from rehearsals in the Glasgow studio owned by local guys Gun, they’re in very fine fettle. “It’s all great,” Ginger enthuses. “We’re all friends anyway, so it’s…

Mike Pinder, the last surviving founding member of The Moody Blues, has died at the age of 82. The keyboard player had been suffering from dementia for several years. A statement from his family revealed that Pinder passed “peacefully” and that his final days were “filled with music, encircled by the love of his family. Michael lived his life with a childlike wonder, walking a deeply introspective path which fused the mind and the heart.” Pinder helped form British band The Moody Blues in 1964 and they had an initial hit with Go Now. But it wasn’t until 1967, by which time Justin Hayward and John Lodge had replaced guitarist Denny Laine and bassist Clint Warwick respectively, that the band began to rise in popularity, shifting their sound from…

James Hetfield has anew tattoo on his middle finger, created using ink mixed with some of Lemmy’s ashes. According to the Metallica frontman, it means the late Motörhead frontman can “still fly the bird at the world”. The Smashing Pumpkins sifted through 10,000 applications before appointing Kiki Wong, as their new guitarist. Wong, previously with LA rockers Vigil Of War, will be with the Chicago alt.rock band on their UK tour in June. Sebastian Bach has once again voiced hope of a reunion with his former band Skid Row, who recently parted with singer Erik Grönwall. Dismissing the “whole narrative that we don’t get along”, Bach believes that all issues between both parties are “one hundred percent a business thing”. Aerosmith are set to return to the road in September,…

DSCHINN Dschinn, Bacillus Records, Germany, 1972. £300. German band The Dischas were active during the 60s, when they released three pop/rock 45s. As the 70s approached, they adopted a heavier, more progressive blues-rock sound, and changed their name to Dschinn. Dschinn’s self-titled 1972 album is a good, solid example of German hard rock of the time. Heavy, bluesy riffs and lively rhythms are topped off by the raspy vocal style of Peter Lorenz, which characterises the band’s signature sound, and the lyrics are sung in English. Unlike a lot of similar albums of the era, which tend to go off in many directions, Dschinn follows a pretty distinctive ‘no-frills’ hard rock approach from beginning to end. Some of the more successful moments include the dynamic, contrasting mellow/heavy atmospherics of Fortune,…

S teve Dawson, Saxon’s bassist from 1975 to 1986, has been jailed for six years for historical child sex offences. In a trial at Sheffield Crown Court, Dawson, 72, was found guilty of repeatedly abusing a six-year-old girl during the 1990s. He had earlier been found guilty of four counts of indecent assault of a child under 14. His six-year jail term included one year out on license. Nicknamed ‘Dobby’, Dawson was a founder member of Saxon. After guitarist Graham Oliver left Saxon in 1995, he and Dawson reunited as Oliver/Dawson Saxon, and played together until Dawson retired from performing in 2021. Oliver said Dawson’s former bandmates were “shocked” and “disgusted” at his “predatory behaviour against a small child”, and hoped the verdict might provide “some closure on her terrible…

Who’s played with Elton John, Bryan Ferry, Paul McCartney and The Wombles? As one of the world’s most versatile guitar heroes, Chris Spedding has defied easy categorisation over his storied 60-year career. As he approaches his eightieth birthday, the Derbyshire-born virtuoso with the silver quiff still enjoys recording and touring, adding tasty, understated licks to whatever project comes his way. “I always try to inject some Spedding element, to make it different,” he says with a smile. You started playing violin when you were nine years old. What made you switch to guitar? I grew up in a household where opera was always on the radio. My mother sang in the local choir, my father played organ in church. That’s why I chose violin. I had an aptitude for it,…

Ginger Baker wasn’t an easy man to deal with, but Chris Goss learned early on how to put his head in the tiger’s mouth without getting it bitten clean off. “It depended on your approach,” Goss says of his relationship with the ex-Cream drummer. “Hit him at the wrong moment, and you’re gonna get an acrid reaction. I knew when the right moments were available for me, and we got along wonderfully.” Baker was a member of Goss’s band Masters Of Reality during the early 1990s, and played on their second album, 1992’s psychedelic desert-blues jewel Sunrise On The Sufferbus. In the end, Baker stayed with Masters longer than he was in Cream. “Oh yeah,” Goss says drily but fondly. “I heard that every day.” Baker isn’t the only notable…

When John Fannon thinks back to the heady days of 1979, when his band New England looked poised to become the next big thing in American rock, he remembers the precise moment when he believed that the dream would become a reality. It happened as the band were travelling from their home town of Boston, Massachusetts to a gig in Denver, Colorado. Their debut single, Don’t Ever Wanna Lose Ya, a melodic rock anthem with a sky-scraping chorus, had just been released. It was a track made for radio, and DJs in Boston were playing the shit out of it. But for them to hear their song ringing out on an FM station near Denver, so far from homethat was something else. “When those power chords came blasting through, it…

David Bowie Diamond Dogs PARLOPHONE Released (again) to mark its 50th, on half-speed remastered black vinyl or pic disc, Dave’s first post-Ronson album (a post-Burroughs/ Orwell vision of street-wise canine dystopia) reliably shines, but another remaster? ‘This ain’t rock’n’roll. This is…’ milking it. 9/10 The Fall Live At The Witch Trials CHERRY RED The mighty Fall’s ’79 debut LP, back on black in its US-vinyl I.R.S. 10-track form, remains as acerbic and jarring as ever-ah. Though Mark E’s audible sneer predominates, Bramah and Riley’s wilful, itchy, Magic Band scratch ’n’ riff guitar and bass interplay never gets old. 7/10 UK Subs The Albums 1979-82 CAPTAIN OI! With all due respect to the sainted Charlie Harper, these five newly clamshelled albums, now fully equipped with all the band’s heyday hits (C.I.D.,…

★ Rock’s true originals rarely get the credit they deserve. Few, however, have lit up the pop firmament as spectacularly as Arthur Brown. A trailblazing influence on every ‘shock rock’ icon from Alice Cooper to Kiss to Marilyn Manson, even at a sprightly 81 his creative flame burns as brightly as ever. Tonight a Continental heaving with fans of all ages is treated to a master class in both set dynamics and vocal delivery. Ably supported by his band decked out as demonic Morris dancers, Brown is a mesmeric presence. A choral opening is the entry point into a set where material from his 1968 debut (Nightmare) and 1972’s Kingdom Come (Sunrise) is interspersed with choice cuts from 2022’s superlative comeback, his multi-octave range veering from booming baritone to horror-flick…

★ When musician, writer and producer Lenny Kaye assembled the Nuggets compilation album in 1972, not only was the genre of garage rock revived, but he also inadvertently kick-started the next generation of three-chord wonders, many of whom perform tonight. Revolving around Kaye’s core band of singer-guitarist Jim Jones (Jim Jones All Stars), drummers Rat Scabies (The Damned) and Marty Love (Johnny Moped), Sham 69 bassist Dave Tregunna and keyboard player Greg Rice, this gloriously chaotic set evokes a bygone era with some 30 songs delivered in just over two hours. With guest performers including Gang Of Four’s Jon King (Woolly Bully) and Doctor And The Medics’ Clive Jackson (Strychnine), rock’n’roll evangelist Jim Jones marshals the band to prevent the whole shebang from derailing. Right from the shimmering opener of…

For a bona fide rock legend, Robert Plant exudes a surprising amount of earthy bonhomie, greeting the cagoule-wearing front rows with a cheery “Good evening and welcome to Gardeners’ Question Time!” And what an evening it turns out to be. On this latest string of dates, Saving Grace have honed their Anglo-Americana repertoire to perfection. The five-piece fronted by Plant and Suzi Dian interpret folk and blues songs, traditional and contemporary. The effect of the whole shebang in an intimate setting is hypnotic. Throw in a quartet of Led Zeppelin numbers, including Four Sticks (believed to be its first airing since 1971) and it’s dynamite. Among the highlights are an exquisite Rain Song, Dian’s shimmering vocal on It Don’t Bother Me and Is That You, a majestic gospelly blues sung…

Dickey Betts, a co-founder of the Allman Brothers Band and one of the most influential and colourful figures in the realm of music known loosely as southern rock, has died following a period of declining health. His passing at 80 years old leaves just co-drummer Jai Johanny Johanson, aka Jaimo, as the last surviving member of the original line-up of the group. A statement on behalf of the band recalled how Betts’s “extraordinary” guitar playing, alongside that of Duane Allman, “created a unique dual-guitar sound that became the signature sound”. Until that point it had been traditional for two-guitar bands to have defined roles for soloists and rhythm players. The statement remembers Betts as being “passionate in life, be it music, songwriting, fishing, hunting, boating, golf, karate or boxing”, adding:…

Foreigner, Ozzy Osbourne and Peter Frampton are among the names to be inducted to the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame later this year. “This is something I never expected,” Frampton responded. “I am overwhelmed. I can’t thank everyone enough for voting for me. You are the best.” Of Foreigner’s induction, band leader and guitarist Mick Jones said: “Membership in the home of my peers is a priceless highlight of my career.” He added that the awards ceremony, on October 19, would be “an emotional day” for him and the surviving members vocalist Lou Gramm, keyboard player Al Greenwood, bassist Rick Wills and drummer Dennis Elliott, and “a very special moment” for the families of former members Ian McDonald and Ed Gagliardi, who passed away in 2022 and 2014 respectively.…

Mike Peters has revealed that his cancer, which had been in remission, has returned. The terrible news forced the frontman with Welsh rockers The Alarm to cancel a US tour. “I’m hoping and praying with all that I have that this is just a pause in the story of my life, and that normal service will be able to resume soon,” he says. Orange Goblin return with their first album in six years. Recorded with Mike Exeter, of Tony Iommi and Judas Priest fame, Science, Not Fiction is released on July 19 via Peaceville Records. In a move that further backtracks on their so-called 2015 ‘retirement’, Mötley Crüe have signed anew deal with Big Machine Records to release a new single, Dogs Of War, nine years after their supposed farewell…

It’s 4pm on a Thursday. We’re sitting outside at The Starman, a Bowie-themed watering hole in central London, tucked away from the shopping bags and tourist streams of Regent Street. It’s a cool spot, for an ostensibly cool band. Across the table, Bobby Bird – shades off, shandy in hand – is expounding on a subject close to his heart. “Most people are afraid to be cheesy, you know?” the Bad Nerves frontman exclaims between swigs. “But cheesy melodies, if you package them right, they’re the best ones because you remember them. There’s loads of bands now that I really like, they have a nice vibe, but I don’t remember the songs. I like having something stuck in my head. It’s like, how catchy can you go, before it becomes…

It was difficult not to notice that something was amiss when Bon Jovi played at Wembley Stadium in 2019. That something was Jon Bon Jovi’s voice – top notes went awry, melody lines fell flat. Not always, but often enough to be unsettling. The girl next to mewho would have once forgiven Jon if he’d accidentally driven his motorbike into her as long as she’d got an autograph – suggested we leave before the end. Jon, who doesn’t talk much, and says even less when he does, has been surprisingly candid of late: Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story, a four-part documentary airing on Disney +, charts his journey to combat his atrophied vocal cord and the major surgery to fix it. As he told The Sunday Times recently:…

Krissy Matthews Krissy Matthews & Friends RUF All-star blues love-ins don’t turn heads like they used to (and Krissy Matthews’s friends don’t exactly have the paparazzi camped out on their doorsteps). But this double-album is a gem, its ego-free cast eating up their tracks and the British-Norwegian bandleader generously delegating some of the best originals he’s written. That the three-hour run time feels pacy and low on flab is down to Matthews’s genre-blind approach. Lead single Queen (featuring a seething Kim Jennett vocal) is a battle-cry opener, our host playing a guitar solo that sounds like a scalded polecat. But it couldn’t be further from the sweet, soulful run-out for Chris Farlowe on Ain’t Got No Troubles On The Road. Likewise, it’s hard to join the dots from the ghostly…

Possibly peaking too soon, Robin Trower’s career-defining second album, came out in 1974 and propelled him into the pantheon of the Second Wave Of British Blues Guitarists. Bridge Of Sighs never made the British chart, but spent over five months in the US chart, reaching No.7. The snobby British blues clique branded him a Hendrix copyist without bothering to listen beneath the surface. Sure, Trower sounded like Hendrix, but he certainly didn’t play like him, eschewing Hendrix’s fuzz and feedback, and focusing on the reverb from his own Stratocaster, his distinctive use of the whammy bar and his own melodic sense with its emphasis on single notes and tone. Bridge Of Sighs also added a new dimension to the concept of a power trio, broadening the boundaries from the opening…

‘Still relevant, still angry, NMA remain at the top of their game.’ ★ Consummate road warriors to a man, you absolutely know what you are going to get with a New Model Army gig: intensity, power, and a sheer, visceral connection with the songs; you don’t just listen to NMA tunes, you feel them. And so it is with the already great-sounding songs from new album Unbroken, now fully road-tested across Europe and honed to thunderous perfection. Coming Or Going is a blazing opener, setting the scene for First Summer After, Language and If I Am Still Me, punctuated by older songs Long Goodbye and Winter, with main man Justin Sullivan in good form and quipping that the latter is probably the last thing we want to hear, given how…

Tucked down a side street, a short walk from the Bucket Fountain (one of the southern hemisphere’s premier tourist attractions, honest) lies Valhalla, Wellington’s equally premiere metal bar. A giant skeletal hand is suspended from the ceiling. A helmet from a suit of armour sits next to the DJ booth, its shining steel embellished with deer antlers. The toilet appears to have been hit by a tornado. And on stage are Orange Goblin. It’s taken Ben Ward and co. 30 years to get to this part of the world, although the stage is so low – and Ward so tall – that the other band members are visible only momentarily throughout the set. This means that Ward is the focus of attention throughout, and he revels in the spotlight, pumping…

Belief is all. There are no songs as such, just occasional modulations in tone or volume, the seismic vibration of the floor and fittings. There are no vocals or brass interludes or anything so trivial as structure to divert the audience’s attention away from the low rumblings emanating from the two hooded figures on stage – two figures mostly obscured from view for most of the 90 minutes of this untrammelled performance by clouds and clouds of billowing smoke, mega-lighting rigs creating basic yet hypnotic trance states. Oh, man. This is as far from commercial as ‘music’ gets, heavier in its own disturbed luminescence than Hawkwind, monstrous in its sweep and monolithic splendour. Primordial. Primitive. Bodies in the audience are rooted to the spot, arms extended, fists clenched, determined not…

“Tom Waits proved that you don’t need a great voice to be a good storyteller.” I turned sixty-five last year and decided to finally become a fucking adult,” Al Jourgensen says, laughing. “So I took out all my dreads and my piercings, all that shit. Now it’s just my natural hair and whatever else I got left.” Jourgensen may have dialled down his distinctive look, but his music as leader of industrial-rock brutalists Ministry is just as uncompromising as ever. Their latest album is the socio-political HOPIUMFORTHEMASSES. THE FIRST MUSIC I REMEMBER HEARING The first song I was cognisant of was the Rolling Stones’ 19th Nervous Breakdown. Compared to The Beatles or The Monkees, the Stones were rough around the edges. Then you’d read about their maniac lifestyle and drug…