Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2024 i Classic Rock

Every time I hear Thin Lizzy’s Jailbreak, I always have a chuckle to myself over the opening lyrics: ‘Tonight there’s gonna be a jailbreak, somewhere in this town.’ Somewhere? Um, well, yeah, Phil, I’d wager it’s gonna happen at the jail… All that said, it doesn’t detract for a second from what an absolute banger of a song it is. In fact it’s an album stuffed with ’em – The Boys Are Back In Town, Emerald, Cowboy Song, Warriors, to name just a few. It was the make-or-break album for Lizzy too. They needed a hit record, or it was likely going to be the end of the road for them. This issue their manager Chris O’Donnell writes about the high stakes of that album and the challenges that awaited…

Greg Kihn July 10, 1949 – August 15, 2024 The leader of the Greg Kihn Band, whose hits include the MTV favourite Jeopardy, from his 1980 album Kihnspiracy, has lost a battle with Alzheimer’s disease. He was 75 years old. Of Polish descent, Kihn was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and developed a songwriting style that blended folk, classic rock, blues and pop. He was also a radio personality and wrote several horror novels. Pat Collier Died July 27, 2024 Pat Collier was the co-founding bassist of punk band The Vibrators, and played on their biggest hit, 1978’s Automatic Lover. He went on to produce records by The Jesus & Mary Chain, X-Ray Spex, and The Wonderstuff, among others. Robyn Hitchcock, who worked extensively with Collier, described him as “always level,…

Stars from across the world of rock music have paid tribute to Aerosmith following the iconic American band’s decision to retire from touring. Aerosmith had intended to resume their farewell trek, Peace Out, in September, a year after it had been abandoned due to Steven Tyler’s ongoing vocal issues. Two months ago, a confident-sounding guitarist Joe Perry told Classic Rock: “Steven’s doing really well. He’s in good shape and he’s excited to get back out there.” But with a full recovery impossible the band have had to make the “heartbreaking but necessary” step back from all future touring. The move ends a career of more than half a century. A band statement said: “It has been the honour of our lives to have our music become part of yours. In…

Fate seems to find a way of landing at the feet of former Creation Records boss Alan McGee. Back in 1993, as everybody knows, he famously signed Oasis at King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut club in Glasgow after the gobby Manchester band barged their way onto the bill. With Forgotten Pharaohs, his first signing to his latest label Creation Youth, it took a flying Croc to grab his attention. “I was taking part in an egg-and-spoon race for the dads at a school sports day in Hay-on-Wye in South Wales, and Alan McGee happened to be there,” frontman Christian Pattemore recalls of their chance meeting. “As I crossed the finishing line, one of my Crocs came off and landed on his foot, so that kind of forced an introduction. He…

Formed in Chicago during the late 80s, the Jesus Lizard were one of the most uncompromising noise-rock bands of their era, drawing famous admirers including Nirvana and Fugazi. They disbanded in 1999, with each member involved in separate projects, although they’ve undertaken a handful of reunion tours since. Now the classic quartet of vocalist David Yow, guitarist Duane Denison, bassist David Wm. Sims and drummer Mac McNeilly are back in earnest with the caustic, chimerical and thrillingly belligerent Rack, their first studio album in 26 years. So what brought this album on? Duane Denison: We’ve been playing sporadically since 2009, but I was tired of doing the old songs. I’m always sketching something, there’s always ideas accumulating, and it seemed like now was the right time. So David Sims and…

Jerry Cantrell’s new solo album, I Want Blood, has an impressive cast of contributing guest musicians - Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan, Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo and Faith No More drummer Mike Bordin among them - but from the moment you hear the driving riffs and eerie harmonies of opening track and lead-off single Vilified it could be only be the work of Alice In Chains’ redoubtable leader Cantrell. Pre-release, we caught up with the 58-year-old during the opening week of his summer tour with Bush, and found the grunge veteran “pumped and ready to go”. I Want Blood takes its title from the most aggressive song on the record, which seems like a statement of intent. What does the title track mean to you? The title is very…

The title of Jon Anderson’s new solo album, True, sounds like a statement of intent in an age of disinformation. “As I was writing the lyrics, I kept popping up with ‘true’ this or ‘true’ that,” says the former Yes singer. “One song is called True Messenger. It comes from my time in Jamaica years and years ago, hanging out with Rastafarian characters. Everything they said was ‘true’: ‘It’s true, man.’ ‘Don’t worry, Jon, it’s true.’” Few would have one of prog’s founding fathers down as the sort of person who’d be at home rubbing shoulders with a bunch of Rastas in Jamaica, but apparently that was fairly standard behaviour back in the day. “Oh no, being there was wonderful,” he says. “I was a huge Bob Marley fan. I…

Carter USM Post Historic Monsters CHRYSALIS It’s 1993, and the cheeky A.F. Sarf London duo rose to the bait of critical scorn to make their most adventurous/least Carter LP to date, initiating a long descent into being just another band. Three CDs: singles, mixes, triumphant live disc; DVD. It sold well, but the game was up. 7/10 Larry Wallis Police Car: The Anthology CLEOPATRA A generous 68-minute red vinyl platter celebrating the Mick Farrenesque shades ’n’ black leather career of The Pink Fairies/Motörhead guitarist. Crisp remasters include its title Stiff 7” highlight, proto-punk hard rockers and deep cuts with Shagrat, Steve Took and UFO. 7/10 Various Ring The Bells And Sing: Progressive Sounds Of 1975 ESOTERIC 1975 wasn’t exactly l’age d’or for any genre, least of all for prog, which…

Nineties alt.rock stars still shine after almost 30 years. ’If I had a dick? Would you know it? Would you blow it?’ With 2021’s No Gods No Masters, Garbage proved they were still as provocative and subversive as ever. Godhead is the second song in a career-spanning set, but helps set a tone of wry scepticism on everything from politics to love, sexuality and feminism that would speak to the wisdom of age if they hadn’t been singing from the same hymn sheet for almost 30 years. Anthems are regular and plentiful – I Think I’m Paranoid, Cherry Lips, Stupid Girl – all delivered with charisma and magnetism courtesy of vocalist Shirley Manson. But Garbage’s live sound also transforms their songs. Not in the traditional ‘rawer, louder, harder’ sense, but…

NYC legend reliably beguiles under Buck moon. A dozen years on from Banga, Patti Smith’s last full-length recorded statement, she’s clearly not done. Nor are her audience done with her. At 77, Smith (godmother of… take your pick, save to say there are generations of punters in this packed audience all gazing with unguarded awe at the stage) could be forgiven for wafting on in an age-appropriate hat, reciting a few choice couplets from a careworn volume of poetry and soaking up waves of applause for a half-hearted rendition of Because The Night. But she’s no heritage turn prepared to collect ample cash for fulfilling late-coming rock tourists’ bucket lists with a bare minimum of effort. Smith is a driven soul, yet her innate fire isn’t merely fuelled by an…

Good, friendly violent fun. In the early 80s, the idea of thrash metal’s feral young pups even making it out of the decade alive was insane. Yet here we are, 40 years on, and 800 people have packed out the Academy to pay tribute to first-wavers Exodus and Hirax and the scene they built. Hirax were never A-listers, but in pocket dynamo Katon W De Pena they had one of its greatest frontmen. He’s a blur of leather and studs, headand fist-banging his way through 80s ’Rax classics (Hate, Fear And Power, Blind Faith) and brand new songs (Faster Than Death) alike. Magnificent stuff. Unlike German plodders Exumer with their sleepwalking riffs and snoozesome tempos. Exodus’s exclusion from thrash’s Big Four has always given the Bay Area ragers a fearsome…

Paul Gilbert was just 19 years old when he helped form 80s metallers Racer X in 1985. In the almost four decades since, he’s proved to be a prolific and unpredictable force, playing with rockers Mr. Big and releasing an impressive 18 studio albums as a solo artist. With Mr. Big about to ride off into the sunset after their Big Finish tour, he admits he’s taking the time to enjoy life a little more. Case in point: when he talks to Classic Rock about the music that set him on his musical odyssey, he’s visiting ARTIS Amsterdam Royal Zoo. “I’ve probably enjoyed being a tourist more than I have at any other time of my life,” he admits. “Usually I’m spending every moment I can playing guitar, but this…

DAVE EVERLEY This issue sees Classic Rock’s former Deputy Editor getting into it with two very different but equally nutty musicians: former Yes singer and all-round cosmic pixie Jon Anderson (page 34), and ex-UFO guitarist ‘Mad’ Michael Schenker (page 62). Thankfully, all parties emerged from the encounters unscathed. Dave doesn’t have a podcast, nor does he plan on ever starting one. CHRIS O’DONNELL In the five years between 1975 and 1980, Thin Lizzy undertook seven US tours. This issue, their former manager Chris O’Donnell recounts the story behind the making of the Jailbreak album and how The Boys Are Back In Town became a monster hit and changed everything. It was an overnight success that promised so much… Then they hit the road in the US, and things didn’t quite…

“I wanted to properly speak from the heart, to create something with soul and depth.” Belfast singer-songwriter Louise Patricia Crane sets herself high standards. Her solo debut album Deep Blue, in 2020, was a beguiling entry point into the multi-instrumentalist’s self-contained world, but the process left her feeling incomplete. “It just wasn’t the full-bodied thing that I’d had in my mind,” she explains. “For various reasons, the stars didn’t align. So I felt I had a really big point to prove to myself.” Four years on, Netherworld is the record she’s always wanted to make. A dark fantasia that explores often intensely personal themes through the lens of magic realism – partly inspired by the Brothers Grimm – it’s a feast of dreamlike prog and parabolic psych-folk. “I think this…

A well-known and respected name as a music photographer, Scarlet Page is celebrating 30 years in the business with a new exhibition of her work, fittingly titled ‘30’. Presented by Behind The Gallery at 139 Whitfield Street, London, and open to the public from September 12-15, the free exhibition includes iconic images of David Bowie, Lemmy, Foo Fighters, Chris Cornell and Scarlet’s father, Led Zeppelin legend Jimmy Page, among others. “It bonkers to think that it’s been thirty years,” says Page, whose work has appeared in the pages of Classic Rock, Kerrang!, The Guardian, The Times more publications. “I could probably spend the next thirty years just going through my archives, as I’ve shot so much. But I still have my passion for it, and I still love being active,…

Gill Montgomery has come straight from the mortuary. Her mortuary, to be precise. Some rockers wait tables, others teach music or pick up temp work. The Hot Damn! frontwoman looks after dead people. “It’s interesting,” she muses, of her day job running a funeral home in South East London. “It’s very hands-on. I think you’re either for it or you’re not.” Stiffs notwithstanding, The Hot Damn! seem like a band you’d go to the pub with. So that’s what we’re doing right now. Sitting outside at a London boozer on a balmy Monday evening, we’re meeting half the pop-rock quartet responsible for about 90 per cent of the colour in today’s British rock scene. Drummer Josie O’Toole promptly orders the pinkest drink on the menu. Montgomery is ready for a…

The Art Of Letting Go NAPALM Riffs and sky-high choruses galore on the Alter Bridge frontman’s third solo record. Alter Bridge frontman, Slash… And The Conspirators singer and serial collaborator Myles Kennedy is clearly not a man who enjoys empty spaces in his diary. But for all he’s created with other people, this third solo album shows just how special his work is when he’s given completely free rein to do whatever the hell he wants. Kennedy has a fundamental understanding of what goes into creating a great rock song, and all the elements are present and correct on The Art Of Letting Go: the full-fat riffs, absolutely colossal choruses and that flawless voice all take centre stage. Yet it’s one of the quieter, more considered moments on the record…

Shed Seven Liquid Gold COOKING VINYL The one good thing about being called Shed Seven is you’re always going to sound better than expected. Which is especially true of this utterly storming collection of some of the hit-making Yorkoriginated Britpoppers’ more enduring bangers re-recorded with an orchestra. 8/10 Ruts DC Electracoustic Vol: 3 SOSUMI Firmly entrenched in an acoustic rut they’ve apparently no intention of getting out of any time soon, the reggae-literate, eternally youthful punk stalwarts return with a third set of tastily arranged, starkly reinvented key tracks (Dope For Guns, Human Punk, Jah War). 8/10 Various A Strange Tribute To Taylor Swift CLEOPATRA Twelve opportunist stabs at replicating Swift’s world-conquering, hook-based, catnip country-folk/indie-pop shows just how hard it is to do something that sounds so simple. Ultimately, The…

The 1974 Live Recordings COLUMBIA / LEGACY Dylanology overload on 27 live CDs. When Dylan connected with The Band for his first tour in eight years, he was understandably edgy. That’s what the audio from the Chicago Stadium, January 3, 1974 suggests. The songs pitch and collide, and some of them were removed from future set-lists. The vocals are alternately great and appalling. But, as always with Dylan, there are glimpses of towering art with the havoc. The acoustic section of the night allows him to turn savage with The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll, and to voice respect on Song To Woody. Recorded sections of the tour (chiefly the California shows) were packaged on the double album Before The Flood; clearly the gigs had become more settled over the…

You Are (The Government) Suffer Forbidden Beat Suffer Pessimistic Lines Suffer Kyoto Now! The Process Of Belief Sorrow The Process Of Belief You No Control Anxiety No Control We’re Only Gonna Die How Could Hell Be Any Worse? Fuck Armageddon… This Is Hell How Could Hell Be Any Worse? 21st Century (Digital Boy) Against The Grain Operation Rescue Against The Grain My Candidate Age Of Unreason What Tomorrow Brings Age Of Unreason Fuck You True North Atomic Garden Generator Fertile Crescent Generator Sinister Rouge The Empire Strikes First Los Angeles Is Burning The Empire Strikes First…

The night that the USA’s Deep South visited the Deep South of the UK. Having turned many a head earlier this year as special guests to Luke Morley, followed by a debut headliner, Hillbilly Vegas are back in Hastings again, performing southern rock-tinged tunes that sound equally at home in a sweaty pub or even in during an impromptu unplugged set at a local tattoo parlour. Special guests The Howling Tides keep things heavy and dark, the melodies taught, punchy and edgy. An enterprising and self-assured quartet from Staffordshire, they display bags of future promise. The headliners have had their modus operandi nailed for years. Although frontman Steve Harris (no relation) is sometimes prone to talking just a little too much, he undeniably has the gift of the gab, and…

UK punks regroup to benefit struggling hometown venue. There are enough chandeliers hanging from Bush Hall’s ceiling to populate a whole series of Only Fools And Horses. More than one might expect of a former soup kitchen or a Who rehearsal space, yet despite an embarrassment of crystal it’s in dire need of saving. Consequently, local lads Paul Cook, Steve Jones and Glen Matlock have got the old firm together, with ex-Gallows Frank Carter upfront bravely endeavouring to do the impossible: replace the irreplaceable. Love or loathe him, there’s only one John Lydon. So let’s first address the elephant in the Bush. Beyond a bit of eye bulging, Carter plays it straight. At least 80 per cent of the audience are more familiar with the lyrics, but he does his…

The Weddoes’ two-day At The Edge Of The Sea mini-fest returns. “That was a fiery version,” says David Gedge, as the last blazing chords of Dalliance flame off across Brighton beach. Then, with a modest smirk, he says the quiet bit out loud: “That’s just the genius of me, I suppose.” “Fiery” isn’t the half of it. With an all-new, all-guns-blazing band backing Gedge, the Weddoes are a phenomenal amalgam of power and melody virtually unmatched in modern rock. Night one sees them perform 1994’s genre-flexing Watusi album in full, trying out drone-rock (Click Click), fragile balladry (Spangle) and Monkees go-go pop (It’s A Gas) for size before surf instrumental Hot Pants is swept away by the tsunami of Kennedy. Night two is an indie-rock firestorm. Reaching escape velocity five…

Bruce Springsteen and Heart’s Nancy Wilson are among those who have paid tribute to the acclaimed Seattle-based author after he passed away of natural causes at the age of 67. Besides writing biographies on Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix and Heart, Charles R Cross founded the Springsteen magazine Backstreets and contributed to several leading rock music titles including Rolling Stone, Spin, Creem and Classic Rock. “I truly loved Charley Cross. [He was a] one of a kind class act,” Wilson wrote on Instagram. “We would talk for hours and hours about Heart for the book [Kicking & Dreaming], but we couldn’t stop talking about the impact of the eruptive explosion of rock that wrestled its way out into the culture – like a prize fighter with guitars blazing and the searing…

Alt.country heroes Lone Justice’s career burned fiercely but all too briefly during the post-punk era, the band releasing two essential studio albums before splitting in 1987. Charismatic lead singer Maria McKee subsequently became a successful solo artist. Viva Lone Justice, the quartet’s first album in nearly 40 years, is a raucous set that covers everything from traditional hillbilly tunes to The Undertones, Dolly Parton, MC5 and George Jones. It’s a fitting elegy to drummer Don Heffington, who died in 2021. We caught up with McKee to find out more about the album – and whether it’s the first step of a reunion. How did Viva Lone Justice take shape? Don Heffington’s passing brought so much grief, because he was the heart and soul of the band, the most unique, wonderful…

Former Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason has told the Daily Mirror that a Pink Floyd reunion of sorts may be possible – although only through the medium of artificial intelligence (AI) “It would be fascinating to see what AI could do with new music,” Mason says. “If you tried to run it as a sort of ‘Where did Pink Floyd go after?’ The thing to do would be to have an AI situation where David [Gilmour] and Roger [Waters] become friends again. We could be like ABBA by the time we’ve finished with it.” Mason, whose own group Saucerful Of Secrets recently completed a high-profile tour, is disappointed that the long-running feud between Waters and Gilmour shows little sign of thawing, but overall he harbours few regrets about the band’s…

Los Angeles-born guitarist Scott Gorham joined Thin Lizzy in 1974 at the same time as guitarist Brian Robertson, marking the beginning of the classic Lizzy line-up that found worldwide success two years later with the Jailbreak and Johnny The Fox albums. He remained with the band until its breakup in 1983, and was the longest serving member after founders Phil Lynott and Brian Downey. The first time we met was at the aftershow for the final night of three at the Hammersmith Odeon on the Johnny The Fox tour, in November 1976. Guests included George Best, Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins, Johnny Rotten, several Sun Page 3 girls, various TV stars, and Huey Lewis, then of Clover. Lizzy attracted a high level of celebrity to their shows. Well, I guess we did,…

Guns N’ Roses’ former drummer Steven Adler, as heard on their hit single Sweet Child O’ Mine, never forgot the first time he smoked crack cocaine. It was the spring of 1985 at Bob Welch’s place in the Hollywood Hills. Adler’s girlfriend at the time had told him about a “fun dude” she knew. When they arrived at Welch’s house, they discovered he was recovering from a heroin overdose in Cedars-Sinai hospital. Nevertheless, Welch’s housemate let them in, fired up a glass pipe on the living room table and offered Adler a taste. “I inhaled, and had never experienced such a dire need to get high again, right away, now,” he wrote in his autobiography, My Appetite for Destruction. Adler soon joined the other waifs and strays at the property…

We’re barely a minute into Classic Rock’s Zoom interview with Mark Bowen and Joe Talbot from Idles when we are rudely interrupted. Your correspondent’s cocker spaniel, Barney, is barking at a squirrel he’s spotted at the window. “What’s your favourite breed?” Talbot asks. “Well I like spaniels, obviously, but we also look after a cockapoo and a labrador-retriever cross sometimes…” “Don’t like cockapoos,” he replies, leaning intensely into the camera of a laptop. “They’re a bit stuck up for me. The only dogs I love are golden retrievers. I learned a fact recently. If you died in your house, within hours most dogs would start eating your face, out of hunger. But a golden retriever would wait until it was at death’s door, when it had no option but to…

Faces At The BBC: Complete BBC Concert & Session Recordings 1970-1973 RHINO Rich session archive. Faces doing messy work for the Beeb. The classic Faces discography centres on four studio albums and a bunch of great singles. There have been add-ons to the story, and this new, exhaustive trawl of the BBC archive reaches us with 85 live and session tracks plus a DVD and 48-page booklet. Fresh listeners might baulk at the size of the set, with numerous versions of Wicked Messenger and Had Me A Real Good Time, but believers will hear an important telling of the band’s woozy trajectory. They rolled on blues, ballads and soul, assisted by Pimms, ciggies and Courvoisier. Rod Stewart’s solo record contract pre-dated the band, so this brief era alternated between Faces…

“We are doing my stuff in the first part of the show, and after the break we celebrate nine tunes from The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway.” Since quitting Genesis in 1977, Steve Hackett has walked a diverse path, traversing acoustic sounds, blues, classical and world music, but somehow the London-born guitarist is always drawn back to the music he helped create with Genesis. Hackett’s latest tour follows a familiar format: songs from his latest solo record The Circus And The Nightwhale, plus songs from a Genesis period, on this occasion their 1975 album The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, and also some of that band’s favourites. This latest tour, titled Genesis Greats, Lamb Highlights & Solo, is up and running. How are things going? Very good, thanks. We are…

BETH HART If you like singers who wear their heart on their sleeve as well as having a great voice, then one of her shows is for you. See next page for dates. Currently November 28 to February 22 MYLES KENNEDY With Alter Bridge, Slash and paddling his own canoe, the vocalist always hits the spot. Oddball support Devin Townsend rocks too. See below for dates. Currently November 25 to December 3. OPETH The kings of prog-metal return to extreme metal on their new album, so expect growling vocals as well as lovely tunes. See below for dates. Currently February 25 to March 2. DREAM THEATER The veteran prog-metallers return, now with Mike Portnoy back beating their drum (several, in fact) in some tricky time signatures. London O2 Arena Oct…

Psych rock for the ages. Japanese Television are a post-modern instrumental group fronted by Eléa May Bonnet on lead bass, and also including Tim Jones (guitar), Al Brown (drums) and Ian Thorn (keyboards). Tonight’s set is drawn largely from their latest album Automata Exotica, inspired, they say, by “UFO encounters, ritualism, robots, Northern Soul and nuclear weapons”. Their musical inspirations are conspicuous enough, rock’s psychedelic past flashing before your eyes and ears - Death Waltz sounds like early, Relics-era Pink Floyd, Golden Birds reminds a little of Faust at full throttle, while elsewhere there are reminisences of Neu!, The Sonics and other assorted psych-rockers. The joy of Japanese Television’s ongoing, psychedelic regurgitation is that they take all that’s most propulsive and incandescent about these musics, working them up to a…

Young Turks electrify their home city. James Smith, frontman with Yard Act and a windmilling blend of Alan Bennett’s wit, Jarvis Cocker’s swagger and the young John Lydon’s bile, pauses to absorb the fact that his band are playing to a rapt, rammed city square as homecoming heroes. “Aw, nah, I don’t like to dwell on things,” he decides, and the pugnacious party that is Yard Act’s sweltering stew of indie, funk, art-punk and hip-hop races on. Leeds is not the only place in love with this group, whose energy and snark have already delivered two cracking albums. Fizzing favourites like We Make Hits, Dream Job and The Overload make new disciples bounce, while the epic drama of 100% Endurance blind-sides even regulars. They’re fun and they’re furious; the kind…

‘A sense of otherworldliness makes Opeth unique.’ Scorching sun, rampaging riffs and pendulous prog. Once a bastion for the overlooked and underappreciated elements of the metal world, Bloodstock has also in recent years become a crucial proving ground for some of rock and metal’s rising stars, giving such as Ghost, Opeth and Nightwish top billing years before they broke into arenas. It’s in that spirit that Green Lung make a triumphant main-stage debut. While doomier fare like One For Sorrow and Let The Devil In feel incongruous under a blazing August sun, the sheer anthemic appeal of songs like Maxine (Witch Queen) and Mountain Throne can’t be denied, and the band look increasingly at home playing to massive crowds. Although neither as flamboyant as Hammerfall or Dream Evil, nor gleefully…