Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2024 i Classic Rock

Eddie Clarke. Or ‘Fast’ Eddie Clarke, I should say. It’s easy to immediately think of Lemmy whenever Motörhead’s name is mentioned, but let us not forget that Motörhead at their absolute peak was the work of the three amigos – Lemmy, ‘Fast’ Eddie and ‘Philthy’ Phil Taylor. This issue we venture back in time to 1979 and take a look at exactly what was going on in the Motörworld at the time of Overkill, an album that definitely made good on its opening lyric: ‘Only way to feel the noise is when it’s good and loud’. Feel the noise we did. And still do… Sadly, I often have to use this space to speak about those we have lost. And this month it’s one that hits close to home among…

Richard McPhail September 17, 1950 – August 27, 2024 The Genesis family is united in grief for a key member of their backroom team. Richard McPhail, 73 years old at the time of his passing, wore several hats on behalf of the band, including tour manager. “We had sixty years of history together,” wrote Peter Gabriel, with Steve Hackett adding: “In the early days of the band many saw Richard as our sixth member.” Corey Sterling November 7, 1970 – August 23, 2024 Noted American blues guitarist Kenny Wayne Shepherd broke the news of the passing of the vocalist featured on his million-selling debut album Ledbetter Heights, released in 1995. “Corey was an amazing singer with a unique voice and a big heart,” wrote KWS. “I pray that he’s up…

“Is playing a sheep-shearing shed really what I wanted out of being in a band?!” In a far corner of Western Australia, Cal Kramer once played a birthday party in a sheep-shearing shed. “You get there, there’s the smell and everything,” he says laughing. “You’re going: ‘Is this what I really wanted out of being in a band?!” Now fronting The Southern River Band, Kramer’s horizons have expanded. The band have just released their new album, D.I.Y, after ripping through a buzzy headline tour of Europe. By turns shitkicking and super-sweet, it plays like a classic-rocklover’s dream, with flashes of Status Quo and Van Halen, the tenderness of Thin Lizzy, and various nods to Bon-era AC/DC. Growing up in a “twenty-five minutes from fucking nowhere” suburb of Perth, Kramer was…

“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench along a plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There is also a negative side.” Hunter S Thompson “I got the call today/I didn’t want to hear.” Don Henley There was a time, not so very long ago, when I would have beaten Jack Russell like a dog. In a fury of incandescent anger. For all the outrages he had inflicted on so many. Supremely self-destructive, he left disasters in his wake as casually as the thoughtless toss fast-food wrappers out of moving vehicles. Icarus had dared the Sun; Russell had strapped a rocket onto his ass and launched himself into its burning core. As others manoeuvred with deceitful calculation along the cruel…

Nikki Sixx turns 66 this year. Which is amazing when you consider how many times he nearly died of drug overdoses in his twenties. Almost as amazing as the fact that this year it will be 43 years since his band Mötley Crüe released their classic debut album, Too Fast For Love. In fact, Nikki and the Crüe almost died so many times over the years it’s a miracle they are not only still going, but bigger and stronger than ever. Currently touring the US, they recently released the three-track EP Cancelled. Cancelled is the first new Mötley Crüe music for five years. Yeah, time just ticks by when you’re not on the old-school grind of you tour for two years, come home burnt out, start working on another album,…

KRIS NEEDS Kris has been a contributor to CR for over a decade now, and this month we feature an exclusive extract about M’Head’s Overkill from Make My Day, the 300-page official biography of Fast Eddie Clarke’s life and career, written by Kris with Eddie’s wife Mariko Fujiwara (p24). Kris was the editor Zigzag, the UK’s first serious music monthly, and one of Motörhead’s earliest champions in the press. JAAN UHELSZKI Jaan got her start as a Coca-Cola girl at Detroit’s Grande Ballroom where the MC5 were the house band. She went on to be one of the founders of Creem magazine, and the MC5 went on to their fiery infamy, something that ended only in 2024 with the death of the final two surviving members, chronicled in her new…

Canadian hard-rock quartet Finger Eleven are one of the most successful bands to emerge from the Great White North, which is maybe why they felt like they’d earned the right to down tools for a few years and put their feet up. Now, though, they are back with a new single titled Adrenaline, a song that proves their scintillating meld of ferocious riffs and anthemic hooks has not deserted them in the interim, and release an album of the same name next year. Guitarist Rick Jarrett got in touch to bring us up to speed. It’s been a decade since you released your previous record. What’s been the hold-up? It was a perfect storm of things. I think there was probably genuine burnout because we’ve been doing this since we…

Jack Russell, the former frontman of Great White, died at the age of 63 on August 7. The news came just a month after Russell announced his retirement from touring, having been diagnosed with the degenerative conditions, Lewy BodyDementia and Multiple System Atrophy. Confirmation of Russell’s passing came in a statement released on social media, which read: “With tremendous sadness, we announce the loss of our beloved Jack Patrick Russell – father, husband, cousin, uncle, and friend. “Jack passed peacefully in the presence of his wife Heather Ann Russell, son Matthew Hucko, cousin Naomi Breshears Barbor, and dear friends Billy and Cheryl Pawelcik.” “Jack is loved and remembered for his sense of humour, exceptional zest for life, and unshakeable contribution to rock and roll where his legacy will forever thrive.”…

With summer now over, we’ve been packing away the festival gear, digging out our ‘big coats’ and, perhaps most gratifyingly, diving into a bumper crop of autumn releases. It’s typically a busy time for new albums and, as our Hot List reflects, this year is no exception. From familiar rising stars to brand new faces, raucous rock’n’rollers to moody movements, it’s a colourful buffet of classic tipples, fresh cocktails and, in one case, a song we could easily imagine drinking from a coconut with an umbrella poking out (two words: yacht rock). Colder climes might be approaching, but with tracks like these at your side the season can be whatever you need it to be – if only for three or four minutes. Check out our picks (many of whom…

The return of Mike Portnoy, co-founder, drummer, songwriter, producer and all-round creative dynamo of Dream Theater, the world’s biggest and arguably best progressive-metal band, has been a long time coming – 14 years, to be precise. Guitarist John Petrucci, a fellow original member, previews the Grammy-winning US/Canadian group’s 40th-anniversary tour, which includes a date at London’s O2 Arena, and looks further ahead to a brand-new studio album. In a parallel life where you work as a bookmaker, what odds would you have given on Mike Portnoy returning to Dream Theater in their 40th-anniversary year? Ha ha. That’s a great question. Not too long ago I would have given very long odds on that. But life is funny that way. Time passes, things change and events unfold. Mike played on my…

Musicians rarely become more prolific with age – but Kenny MWayne Shepherd didn’t get the memo. Having broken out of mid-90s Louisiana as a kid guitar slinger, the 47-year-old has just followed up last year’s Dirt On My Diamonds album with a horn-driven second volume. You’ve released two albums of original music in consecutive years. I do feel like I’m on a roll. Like, I have four different albums I’m working on right now. I look at the Dirt On My Diamonds albums as companion pieces. The songs all came from the same writing session down in Muscle Shoals, and musically, spiritually, the whole vibe, I think they make a cohesive statement. What’s the appeal of a horn section? It started for me when we did The Traveler [2019]. I…

“I want to reinvent glam rock for a modern-day audience.” Siân Greenaway is flying the flag for the genre that hipness forgot: 70s glam rock. “It’s joyous music,” she says enthusiastically and without irony. “It’s not serious, it’s uplifting, it makes you feel good. I want to reinvent glam rock for a modern-day audience.” This hugely admirable mission is embodied in the form of Bobbie Dazzle, the singer’s catsuit-wearing, bellbottom-swinging, Glitter-beat-stomping alter ego. Bobbie Dazzle’s glamtastic debut album, Fandabidozi (yes, it’s a Krankies reference), is an exhilarating homage to the glory days of Sweet, Suzi Quatro, Bowie, Bolan and fellow West Midlanders Slade and Wizzard. Bostin’ anthems Back To The City, Merry Go Round and April Showers are powered by Greenaway’s full-throated voice, epic choruses and her occasional burst of…

Backstage at the gig, blues guitarist Mike Bloomfield of the Electric Flag introduced Eric Clapton to Chess Records producer Norman Dayron and, in the course of a rambling conversation about their blues heroes, Dayron floated the idea that he might be able to put together an album on which Clapton would play with the legendary Howlin’ Wolf. Clapton’s eyes lit up. But there was one catch. Nobody had yet suggested the idea to Howlin’ Wolf. May 1, 1970: Howlin’ Wolf, Hubert Sumlin, Jeff Carp, Norman Dayron and others fly to London. Norman Dayron: When I had first told Wolf what I was thinking of, he thought it was a horrible idea. He didn’t know who these guys were. But we’d worked together, and he trusted me, so he came round…

MC5 Heavy Lifting EARMUSIC Belated return for Wayne Kramer and Dennis Thompson becomes a vibrant joint epitaph. “ Live long and stay creative is my attitude,” Wayne Kramer said just a few months before his death, aged 75, in February this year. While he may have wished to extend his stay on the first count, he did succeed in overseeing an MC5 comeback record before pancreatic cancer cruelly put paid to any further activities. While a lot of Heavy Lifting leans into the hard rock styles that MC5 influenced, what these performances retain is the essential raging-rebel attitude that fired the Michigan firebrands’ original incarnation. When the title track opens proceedings backed by Tom Morello’s guitars, it could well suit an Audioslave-type post-grunge project, yet it’s probably what the MC5…

Drug Church Prude PURE NOISE Crisp, strident, brutal. Albany, NY’s Drug Church are a predictably intense post-hardcore quintet whose fifth album allies elements of vintage Black Flag (if they were in perpetual unarmed combat with Killing Joke) with commercially minded, grunge-era alt.rock. 7/10 The Hard Quartet The Hard Quartet MATADOR A tremendously skronky, outwardly flaky if inwardly tight-as-a-drum debut from a borderline supergroup that features alt. royalty Emmett Kelly, Stephen ‘Pavement’ Malkmus, Jim ‘Dirty Three’ White and Matt Sweeney. It’s mayhem, but glorious. Weird, but adorable. 8/10 James Taylor Quartet Hung Up On You JTI From the sharply Buzzcocked Medway moddery of Hung Up On You through the Dave Allen At Large Theme groovaliciousness of Chicken Leg to the assured acoustic finale of My Wife, the organ-driven JTQ’s thirtieth (surely…

UK Subs Flood Of Lies JUNGLE Unfussily produced, newly remastered for transparent yellow vinyl, available on CD with an extra disc of demos and a Chicago live set, the eternal Subs’ ’83 sixth album is, along with its equally undervalued predecessor Endangered Species, more than ripe for reappraissal. 7/10 Hawkwind Space Ritual ESOTERIC The original Ritual, save for an inevitable remaster, back where it belongs on double vinyl. Essential in every respect, the classic Hawks defining space rock in 1972’s Liverpool and Brixton. Later incarnations may be cleaner and longer, but there’s nothing wrong here. 10/10 Various Popscene: From Baggy To Britpop 1989-1994 CHERRY RED Nicely presented with clean, engaging notes, Popscene neatly encapsulates its era with few surprises but plenty of true classics (Blur, Suede, Pulp, Roses) that connoisseurs…

“We don’t have a ‘hit’. We don’t have headlines because none of us are politically involved or anything. It’s all just music, the live performance.” Poised for a fresh run of shows with their bright and blistering new album LoveCop, Royal Republic can always be counted on for a rollicking, nuclear-grade night out. As frontman Adam Grahn reveals, it’s been an eventful road getting here. You described Royal Republic’s 2024 Download appearance as “pure sex”. It went well, then? There’s an excitement we get whenever we go back to England. It feels like it’s brewing. We just upgraded the venue in Manchester because it sold out. It’s the same all over Europe at the moment. We don’t have a ‘hit’. We don’t have headlines because none of us are politically…

Biffy Clyro Halifax The Piece Hall Scottish and Yorkshire pride collide in an exhilarating live return. The unwritten rule that you don’t wear the T-shirt of the band you’ve come to see doesn’t apply to Biffy Clyro’s fans, a passionate tribe who’ve evolved past cool to embrace something much cooler: demonstrative love and belonging. As they stream into Halifax’s beautiful Piece Hall, full of anticipation for Biffy’s first show in two years, their allegiance is written on their chests. The band, led by kilted, charismatic frontman Simon Neil, have nothing to promote, so tonight they have the freedom to blast through the hits, and they do so with a joy that is unfakeable. Preceded with a chant of “Mon the Biff” and “Yorkshire!”, they launch into the irrepressible singalong of…

‘Blackberry Smoke: the perfect way to medicate your mind.’ London Hammersmith Eventim Apollo Country and rock’n’roll join hands in a potent combination. “There’s so much bullshit going on in the world at the moment. Coming here, you can pay it no attention for a few hours,” opines Blackberry Smoke mainman Charlie Starr to huge cheers, before launching into Whatcha Know Good, one of the more relaxed songs on their latest album Be Right Here. Relief from the stress of everyday reality is such a simple perspective, but the Smoke specialise in transporting their audience into Laidback Central; it’stheir mission to deliver you into the feelgood zone of rock’n’roll where superlative musicianship combines with an unerring ability to express the troubles of the human condition and, for a few hours at…

“The way that he sang and the things he did with his voice made Elvis remarkable.” Via high-profile spells with Yes (in four eras), supergroups Asia and GTR, Yes spin-off Anderson Bruford Wakeman & Howe, the Steve Howe Trio and also as a prolific solo artist, London-born guitarist, songwriter and producer Steve Howe has played a key role in the British music scene across six decades. Here are some of the things that make him tick. THE FIRST MUSIC I REMEMBER HEARING When I was young my parents had many records. They had Les Paul & Mary Ford and quite a lot of dance band music. I’m going to take a shot in the dark that my first experience of music probably would have been something by [light-orchestra conductor] Mantovani.…