Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2024 i Classic Rock

As I type this, it seems that the summer has finally arrived in the UK. The rain has stopped, the sun is shining… Well, for a day or two at least. All that being said, the dismal British weather hasn’t dampened the joie de vivre of the festival and summer gig season as our rock heroes roll in and out of town and into Europe and beyond. And it shows – our live reviews section this month is an absolute monster, proving that high-voltage rock’n’roll is in a hale and hearty state. There was the triumphant return of AC/DC, Stevie Nicks back in Hyde Park, ZZ Top, Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam and more besides… We caught Metallica delivering the goods in Norway, Smashing Pumpkins smashing it in Portugal. It’s been…

John Mayall has died at the age of 90. A road warrior and torchbearer for the blues music that he loved all his life, he was for so long invincible and irreducible. As a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and interpreter of the deep blues repertoire, he was a powerhouse of knowledge and musical passion. As a bandleader he was a man of exceptional vision and managerial ingenuity who provided an early platform for some of the greatest talents the rock world has known. Mayall’s 1966 album Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton – aka the Beano album – shaped the sound of modern guitar music and could arguably be called the first ‘rock’ album. Subsequent releases A Hard Road and Crusade introduced Peter Green and Mick Taylor respectively to the international stage,…

Steven Wilson has entered the ongoing debate over the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in creating music. “For the last few years I’ve spoken about a scenario that I fully expect to happen, whereby musicians would no longer be needed, nor would pre-recorded tracks,” says the Porcupine Tree leader and solo artist. “Music will be made in real time for listeners by artificial intelligence depending on their requirements. Just choose the singer you want.” The cloning of Wilson’s vocals for ‘new’ tracks only served to remind him how quickly things are moving. “Even I really struggle to hear that it wasn’t me singing these songs,” he adds. “No matter what I might think about the quality of the music, this is almost surreal. “We’re in the midst of a seismic…

“The Band are a big influence for us, as is Neil Young, and Joni Mitchell.” For many musicians, New Orleans holds a particular kind of magic not found anywhere else. “Music is everywhere, the city is steeped in it,” says Meghan Parnell, frontwoman with Bywater Call, a seven-piece Canadian blues-rock band, named after a neighbourhood bordering the area’s French Quarter. That rootsy New Orleans vibe sits at the heart of Bywater Call’s third studio album, Shepherd, where country-tinged guitars meet jazz-funk flourishes and swelling organs in an earthy Americana blend. Parnell’s gorgeous, honey-smoked vocals offer “life lessons” and “a general observation of humanity”. “I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t singing in some form,” Parnell muses. As a child she harmonised with her mother, who would play guitar and…

It’s a bittersweet welcome back for Los Angeles punk legends X. Their new album, Smoke & Fiction, is everything fans could ask for, a wild ride taking in everything from Americana to jazz and beyond. It is also, the band say, the last one they will ever make. Vocalist Exene Cervenka joins us from her home in Orange, California to talk us through their spectacular swansong. Is this really the last record you’ll make? Well, we made a record and we’re going to tour. For us, touring means as many shows as we can string together, so that isn’t a screeching halt. But studio albums are a whole different thing. It’s a lot of work. I think if John [Doe, bassist and co-vocalist] and I write the most amazing song…

Syd Barrett, influential? Just a tad. Young mod Davy Jones, soon David Bowie, tuned in to tales of gnomes and space travel, and was drawn to people articulating in a particular English accent. Along with actor and pop singer Anthony Newley, Syd represented a character and aesthetic that Bowie adored. “Syd was a major inspiration for me,” he told Uncut magazine after Barrett passed away in 2006. “The few times I saw him perform at UFO and the Marquee clubs during the sixties will forever be etched in my mind. He was a startlingly original songwriter. His impact on my thinking was enormous.” Bowie later covered See Emily Play on his 1973 covers album Pinups, and performed a storming Arnold Layne in 2006 for David Gilmour’s tribute to Syd at…

On the ninth, maybe tenth day, God created The American Teenage Rock’N’Roll Machine and he named it Redd Kross. Founded by two underage brothers just before the 80s arrived, the band quickly evolved from their hardcore punk roots to a pastel-coloured explosion of 60s-inspired psych and 70s power-pop, infused with a near-obsessive affection for pop culture also-rans. They made a few films, they rocked a few arenas, but mostly they followed their own wobbly, starry-eyed path, amassing a devoted fan base along the way. Forty-something years later, Jeff and Steve McDonald are set to release their self-titled eighth album. They will also be the subjects for both a major documentary and a sprawling biography. Not bad for a couple of wastrels who once formed a Yoko Ono tribute band. In…

One of this month’s Hot Listees lured Mutt Lange out of retirement. Another met Jeff Beck at Roger Taylor’s birthday party. Another befriended Pete Townshend via the Quadrophenia musical. Another was championed by Slash. Suffice to say the bands/artists in the next four pages have been places – and will continue to go places, or they certainly deserve to on the strength of these tracks that we’ve been particularly drawn to. From a Hollywood Vampire’s new band to the first taste of Massive Wagons’ next album, the return of Bones UK, some sublime Americana and much more, we hope it steers you down some new music rabbit holes. And/or reaffirms some existing rock-shaped allegiances. Check out more of the best new music every week, and vote for your favourite artists,…

Kentucky Gold SNAKEFARM (Relatively) young gun fires up some old-school country rock’n’roll. Maybe there should be a new rule: you don’t get to make your first record until you’re fully formed as a player and person and have something to say. A ridiculous notion, yes, but Kyle Daniel, a few critically acclaimed EPs aside, has waited until his late thirties to release his first fully fledged album. Absurd? Maybe. Excellent? Absolutely. Barrelling out of his home town of Bowling Green, Kentucky, the son of a bluegrass banjo-playing father and a mother who stayed busy with both bass and piano, he was a teenage guitar prodigy by the time he turned 17, before a formative career on the road, playing back-up in bars that he wasn’t old enough to drink in.…

Katie Puckrik Presents A Yacht Rock Odyssey EDSEL It’s a Kenny Loggins world, we just live in it. Satin tour jackets. Aviator sunglasses. Thick shampooed bouffants, and very tidy beards. A universe populated entirely by bronzed studio musicians called Randy. Pacific Ocean sunsets, sparkling champagne and, let’s face it, lots of cocaine. Yep, we’re waist-deep in yacht-rock territory here. Your four-CD or double-vinyl tour guide/curator is writer and broadcaster Katie Puckrick, who hosted an excellent BBC 4 documentary about this sub-genre back in 2022. Much like freakbeat and sunshine pop, yacht rock is a retroactively applied label. It was recognised at the time – basically between 1975 and 1985 – as AOR emanating from the West Coast of America. Slick, polished, meticulously crafted soft rock characterised by oodles of Fender…

The Home Of Metal is treated to a rock’n’roll master class. With celebratory shows for Taylor Hawkins in the rear-view and last year’s not-so-secret Glastonbury set a fond memory, Foo Fighters are back in business, putting on the biggest rock show in town. And business is booming. Coming on to All My Life, they get stuck into the final night of the UK Everything Or Nothing tour like they’ve got something to prove and anthems The Pretender, Times Like These and Breakout get the crowd roaring. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to fucking sing that with you,” says Dave Grohl as a chant breaks out of The Pretender’s ‘Who are you?’ refrain. Ever the rock’n’roll acolytes, Grohl and co. delight in chucking in snippets and covers of everything from…

Paisley Underground veterans hit the UK for the first time since 1985. Even 40 years ago, when Los Angeles neo-psychedelicists The Rain Parade were being hailed as leading lights of the ‘Paisley Underground’ alongside The Dream Syndicate, The Bangles et al, you’d have struggled to pick their members out of a police line-up. That’s truer than ever now for the founding trio of Matt Piucci (bald, rotund, bank manager on holiday), Steven Roback (ageing small-time crook in hat and shades) and John Thoman (bearded hillbilly purveyor of ‘herbal highs’), but their sound remains instantly identifiable. It helps that they open with the hypnotic, shuddering wall of guitars that characterise No Easy Way Down, climax of 1984’s peerless mini-album Explosions In The Glass Palace, then follow it with the gently disoriented…

Veteran songsmith’s past and present. He’s in great voice. Graham Gouldman’s writing skills are so regularly eulogised that it’s almost a surprise to be reminded how deftly he carries a tune. And these are some tunes: the easy-going 78-year-old’s acoustic launch gig for new solo album I Have Notes serves also as a trot through several outstanding moments in rock and pop history. From Yardbirds classics For Your Love and Heart Full Of Soul, via The Hollies’ Bus Stop and Look Through Any Window to Herman’s Hermits’ No Milk Today, he’s composed songs of enduring sweetness and strength. If anything, he undersells his 10cc glory years here, perhaps because he’s usually touring with his current incarnation of the band and fancies a night off. I’m Not In Love is preceded…

‘Nos is a veritable rock panorama but Pearl Jam win the weekend.’ A riverside festival oasis of astroturf and overdrive. On the third and final day at one of Europe’s broadest and most varied bills of 2024, Pearl Jam – after whose most famous song this festival in Portugal was named – are making a record fourth headline appearance. They’re virtually recreating the 2007 launch event by sharing poster space with Smashing Pumpkins. First night headliners Arcade Fire, too, are regular sippers of Nos’s rock-infused caipirinha cocktail. “If I swim in the sea will I get diseases?” asks singer Win Butler, out to celebrate a monumental festival comeback following accusations of sexual misconduct in 2022. While their reputation is blemished, their riotous spectacle still thrills. For all their accordion flinging,…

Setting out on the Black Country blues circuit of the late 90s, the teenage Joanne Shaw Taylor caught the ear of ex-Eurythmics man Dave Stewart, who mentored her through the industry’s shark-infested waters to 2009’s acclaimed debut album White Sugar. Nine albums later this dry-witted road warrior has the mileage and the scars, but she still remembers the formative influences that saved her from the nine-to-five. THE FIRST MUSIC I REMEMBER HEARING When I was four years old, my dad used to play Big Bill Broonzy’s Hey, Hey Baby on guitar to my brother and I when we were going to bed. I can’t remember a time when there wasn’t a guitar in the house. I think that had a large part in me playing too, because I just assumed…

KEN McINTYRE Ken, aka the frankly legendary rock’n’roll writer Sleazegrinder, lives in Witch City USA, aka Salem, MA. He runs the Salem Horror Book Club and the Heavy Leather Metal TV Show. He loves satanic speed metal and sleazy rock’n’roll, and pretty much hates anything else. He plans on living forever. This month he caught up with Redd Kross (p48). You can find his monthly column of weapons-grade Sleaze on p75. JOHN McMURTRIE Award-winning music photographer and Iron Maiden’s official snapper since 2006, John has travelled the world in the name of Eddie and co. This month he stayed a little closer to home, heading to the Royal Albert Hall to capture the Cadillac Three for our in-depth feature (p50). His Iron Maiden ‘LEGACY’ prints, and other works, can be…

John was my mentor, and, as a surrogate father, he taught me all I really know. He gave me the courage and enthusiasm to express myself without fear, without limit. And all I gave him in return was how much fun it was to drink and womanise when he was already a family man. I wished to make amends for that, and I did that while he was alive. I shall miss him, but I hope to see him on the other side. Eric Clapton So sad to hear of John Mayall’s passing. He was a great pioneer of British blues and had a wonderful eye for talented young musicians, including Mick Taylor – who he recommended to me after Brian Jones died – ushering in anew era for the…

On February 7, 1984, Def Leppard’s year-long Pyromania tour ended in Bangkok, Thailand. Forty years on, the British hard-rock institution have no fewer than seven songs from that record - plus brand new 2024 single Just Like ’73, featuring Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello - in the set-list for their Summer Stadium Tour, a co-headlining run across the US with Journey. Leppard Frontman Joe Elliott gives us the lowdown on that and more. We didn’t have a ‘Def Leppard ft. Tom Morello’ single on our 2024 bingo card. How did that come about? We share a lot of business stuff, like publishers, and Tom was talking with one of the guys at our publishing company who played Just Like ’73 to him, and he went: “Oh my god,…

A few nights ago in Belfast, Jaren Johnston had a ‘moment’ with Hollywood actor Paul Rudd. Johnston’s band The Cadillac Three had just played a gig, and their support act, Stephen Wilson Jr, introduced them afterwards. Standard banter and back-slapping ensued, until Wilson raised a point, something these three ostensibly different men had in common: their fathers, all dead before their time. “Stephen looks over at me and says: ‘Hey, Paul’s in ‘the club,’’” Johnston remembers. “We all became this unit, like: ‘How did it happen?’ He’s like: ‘Cancer.’ I go: ‘Covid.’ It was therapeutic for a second, and you’re talking to one of the biggest actors in the world!” He hoots with laughter. “You’re talking to Ant Man! It brought us all right down to the same level really…

Wild God PIAS The wizards of Aus. The last couple of albums from Nick Cave were brilliant but harrowing. How could they not have been, given what Cave went through, losing two sons in the space of seven years. The 2021 Carnage collaboration with (red) right-hand man Warren Ellis continued in a similar vein, although the shadow of the old, howling Cave floated through White Elephant. To say sunlight was peeping through is an exaggeration, but the curtains on his darkened room were at least starting to twitch. Words like ‘acceptance’ or ‘healing’ would be insulting, but Wild God can be heard as an artist living with what happened. Cave uses the words ‘joyous’, ‘happy’ and even ‘unchained’ to describe it, and, remarkably, you can hear where he’s coming from.…

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Woodstock 1969 CHRYSALIS Of its time and on vinyl, the six-song set that made TYA US festival titans. After monsoon-like rain temporarily stopped Woodstock’s final day, Country Joe’s Fish Cheer/I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixing-To-Die Rag had primed the crowd nicely when Ten Years After commenced their 60-minute set at 8.15pm. Although Hendrix is routinely cited as the Woodstock movie’s defining moment, at the time it was TYA’s frenetic rampage through I’m Going Home, which precipitated the London blues band’s US breakthrough. Previously, only buyers of 2009’s 38-CD Woodstock mega-box would have possessed the five tracks TYA played before the balls-out closer that started life om 1968’s UK-conquering live album Undead. Restored and remixed for vinyl (tie-dye pressed for Indie Store Day), it’s interesting to hear the band ignoring recently released third album Stonedhenge, mainly…

Reunited riot grrrl legends continue to thrill and inspire. Midway through this magnificently loud, fast, life-affirming show, Bikini Kill frontwoman Kathleen Hanna gently addresses the audience. Back in the early 90s, when the band first rose to prominence on the US underground’s male-dominated punk scene, men would often tell her to shut up whenever she spoke on stage. These days she’s emboldened by the presence of so many different kinds of people out there in the crowds who turn up to see them. That moment summed up the rapturous mood. A defiant fuck-you celebration of inclusivity and diversity, Bikini Kill in 2024 are still the living embodiment, the ne plus ultra, of feminist punk revolt. After their initial split in 1997, founding members Hanna, Tobi Vail and Kathi Wilcox reunited…

With a catalogue of classic songs between them, even atrocious weather can’t dampen the spirits of the faithful. ‘An old-school double header is the surprise hit of the summer.’ Time has been kind to both Suede and the Manic Street Preachers. The former’s frontman Brett Anderson is as snake-hipped and floppy fringed now as when he first strode into the nation’s hearts all those years ago. As he stalks the stage for the opening of So Young, the woman next to me makes a sound like the air going out of a deflating lilo, a sort of lascivious hissing that makes you think she’s going over the security barrier to bag his fitted white shirt the first chance she gets. Later, Manics bassist Nicky Wire, like a gazelle in sunglasses,…

Eddie Vedder’s got bugs, but Pearl Jam successfully prevail. Eddie Vedder is on the warpath. Only this time his target isn’t a political entity or ticketing monopoly – though with ticket prices well in excess of £100 maybe it should be – but whatever godforsaken sickness has left him speaking in semi-incoherent tones between songs as though fighting the urge to vomit. His soulful baritone soars on openers Of The Girl and Present Tense, but by Why Go he’s struggling to keep up. But Pearl Jam don’t just persevere; they prevail. The 20,000 person choir picking up the slack on the likes of Daughter, Once and Black certainly doesn’t hurt, but Mike McCready looks delighted tolive out his wildest Hendrix fantasies during Even Flow, elongated instrumentals seeing the guitarist solo…

Rush members Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson have paid tribute to their long-time English-born producer after the 73-year-old passed away at home in Nashville following a battle with pancreatic cancer. Between 1985 and 1996, the Canadian band made four studio records – Power Windows, Hold Your Fire, Counterparts and Test For Echo – with Peter Collins in various studios across the globe. Remembering “some incredible musical adventures together,” bassist and vocalist Geddy Lee described Collins as a “dear, dear friend”, while guitarist Lifeson commented: “Peter truly was our Mr Big, with his ever-present cigar and constant good humour. After hitting the record button, I can still hear him say: ‘Okay boys, from the topping… no stopping!’” With one eye very much on transition, Rush had hired Collins as their recording…

“I’m not going to compare our new album to The Great Gatsby or The Old Man And The Sea,” laughs Fastball’s Tony Scalzo. “But it’s kind of a pocket epic - short and sweet, with lots to say.” Indeed, Sonic Ranch has that focused fusion of rollicking guitars and pop smarts that began with singles The Way and Out Of My Head (featured recently on TV sitcom Ted Lasso), and has kept the Austin-based trio consistently in the strike zone over their 30-plus-year career. We caught up with Scalzo, 60, recently to talk about Fastball’s longevity, a lost Yes album, and the importance of singing with a smile. What’s your life like between albums? Pretty easy. I have adult children, but also a young child. Me and my wife are…

After decades of being a place where rock music history was created, the Record Plant recording studio is being forced to close its doors for good, sounding another death knell for the music business as it used to be. In operation since 1972, the iconic facility in Hollywood has been used by a Who’s Who of popular music, inclusing Black Sabbath, Queen, Guns N’ Roses and Deep Purple. It’s where the Eagles recorded Hotel California, and the members of Fleetwood Mac butted heads during the birth of Rumours. Studio engineer Gary Myerberg tells Los Angeles Magazine: “There is no money in the recording music business [any more]. That’s basically like a flyer for your show. There’s very little hope for the recording industry in LA. If you want to go…

“Are you more of a rock band now than funk?” I asked Anthony Kiedis as we sat having lunch by the pool at the Sunset Marquis hotel in Los Angeles. He looked at me askance. “We see ourselves as this hardcore, bone-crunching, psychedelic sex-funk band from heaven,” the Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman replied, like, ‘duh’. It was 1990 and the Red Hot Chili Peppers had finally broken through to the mainstream with their fourth album, Mother’s Milk: their first gold album in the US; first hit single in the UK with Taste The Pain. But their audience was essentially white, rock/alternative, punk/indie fans. The Chilis had even spawned a musical progeny: funk-metal. Indeed the 90s would soon be festooned with multiple variations of the funk-punk-metal theme, from real-deal trailblazers…

Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band Dirt On My Diamonds Vol. 2 MASCOT/PROVOGUE After a few years in which it seemed his wellspring might be running dry, this unexpected companion album to last year’s Dirt On My Diamonds finds Kenny Wayne Shepherd awash with some of his best material since 1997’s Trouble Is. Clearly galvanised by the mojo particles floating through the air at FAME Studios, the Louisiana bandleader birthed enough original material to hold back a secret second slug. And while it’s hard to spot much that unites the two volumes in concept, the common studio line-up and fire-spitting execution are palpably from the same happy session. In fact, these songs might be better, thanks to the horn section. Tracks like the tearaway opener I Got A Woman and Pressure sound up…

Why / Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing CHERRY RED The sound of an enormous door slamming in the depths of hell. While Crass laid down the DIY blueprint and revolutionary tenets for anarcho punk, it wasn’t until the arrival of Discharge that the genre truly found its voice within the retrospective sub-genre of Dis-core/D-beat – also later known as crust punk. The sonic equivalent of the apocalypse, Discharge’s brutal hardcore burned a permanent shadow into the ground. Their raging ferocity that teetered on the brink of extreme metal would shape and influence multiple scenes: black metal, thrash metal, grindcore and beyond. As this two-CD set demonstrates, without Discharge the subsequent metal and punk scenes would have looked considerably different. All thrash bands – from Metallica to Exodus – paid…

“Across the tour you’ll hear the entire [new] record. In a two-hour show it’ll be maybe four or five new ones.” Since their debut UK show at London’s Barfly back in 2013, Blackberry Smoke have established themselves among the biggest and best-loved bands on the British circuit. Back in February, the six-piece southern-meets-country outfit from Atlanta, Georgia, released Be Right Here, their sixth studio album and the last to feature co-founding drummer Brit Turner, who soon afterwards lost a battle with brain cancer at just 57 years old. Frontman and guitarist Charlie Starr sets the scene for five British dates. Classic Rock sends its condolences over the passing of Brit Turner, whose loss is a huge blow to the band, musically and personality-wise. Brit even designed the sleeve for Be…

GARY CLARK JR. Hipster bluesman, guitar prodigy, political firebrand, multi-Grammy winner… Four of several reasons to catch him live. See below for dates. Currently October 15 to October 19. BOB DYLAN One of the most important figures in 20th-century popular music won’t be doing many more UK tours, so catch a true legend. For dates see previous page. Currently November 1 to November 14. THE STRUTS Fancy a bit of the kind of feelgood rock’n’roll you thought didn’t get made any more? Here’s where to go shopping. See below for dates. Currently September 20 October 6.…

Come On, Kevin. Billed as the launch gig for Dexys’ double The Feminine Divine + Dexys Classics Live!, a recording that (perhaps unsurprisingly) commences with a full performance of the band’s latest studio album, a packed house of sartorially bold Dex-sciples strap themselves in for 45 pre-interval minutes of unfamiliar tunes prior to the pure gold of the reassuringly old. Ultimately, though, the demanding new-album-first template has gone the way of ‘punishing the body to believe in the soul’ as a relaxed, in-form and good-humoured Kevin Rowland leads an on-point Dexys through an opening aperitif of the Bee Gees’ To Love Somebody before Tell Me When My Light Turns Green all but brings the house down. The Feminine Divine isn’t entirely abandoned though as I’m Going To Get Free and…

The Followills and co. conquer the capital with renewed fire. Whispers that Kings Of Leon would be dropping into Glastonbury swirled all weekend ahead of their show in Hyde Park tonight after they made reference to their landmark 2008 headline slot on social media. In the end, those rumours remained just that as the band instead stuck with their own mini-festival inside the confines of the capital. Having finally cast off the shackles of their long term record label RCA, KOL recently returned with some renewed fire on album number nine, Can We Please Have Fun. And it clearly shows tonight as the band confidently rattle off seven songs from the record without a second thought. No longer stuck with the ubiquitous albatross that is Sex On Fire, songs like…