Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2025 i Classic Rock

Jesse Colin Young November 22, 1941 – March 16, 2025 Born Perry Miller and raised in Queens, New York, Jesse Colin Young found success as lead singer of 60s group The Youngbloods, then after they broke up in 1972 he resumed his original career as a singer-songwriter. His song Sunlight was covered by Robert Plant and Three Dog Night, and The Youngbloods’ Get Together appeared in the soundtrack to the 1994 box office smash Forrest Gump. The 83-year-old Young reportedly died of a heart attack. Gra Scoresby March 22, 1956 – February 26, 2025 The former drummer with NWOBHM band Witchfynde has died in a multi-car accident. He was 68. Born in Derby, Gra Scoresby debuted on Witchfynde’s single and debut album, both titled Give ’Em Hell. He was with…

Iron Maiden’s 50th-anniversary celebrations gather pace with news of I an official documentary and book for release later this year. Created with “unparalleled input from band members and management”, the book, Iron Maiden: Infinite Dreams – The Official Visual History, arrives in hardback form in the autumn via publishers Thames & Hudson. “I’ve been pleasantly surprised at some of the stuff that I’ve managed to unearth for this book,” says Maiden bassist Steve Harris. “I knew I had kept a lot of things from the early days, but they have lasted really well.” As yet untitled, the anniversary documentary was made with the Universal Pictures Group and is set for the same time frame as the book. Maiden allowed director Malcolm Venville unrestricted access to their archive, and the film…

Jizzy Pearl has a fairly simple rule about getting old. “You can go one of two ways,” says the Love/Hate singer. “You can be Billy Idol or Billy Joel. I’m going the Billy Idol route.” The 67-year-old made his name at the dawn of the 90s with inelegantly wasted Sunset Strip livewires Love/Hate, whose brilliance was never matched by their record sales. He’s resurrected the band several times over the years, sometimes billed as Jizzy Pearl’s Love/Hate, but for 2022’s Hell, CA and blazing new album Punk Rock Fiesta!, regular, undiluted Love/Hate. What’s the difference between Jizzy Pearl’s Love/Hate and plain old Love/Hate? To all intents and purposes, I’m Love/Hate now. All the other old guys have retired. The bass player, Skid, lives in the Philippines, he doesn’t do music…

The novelist Peter Matthiesen wrote: “Mountains have no meaning; they are the meaning.” Joe Walsh was struck by similar poetic thoughts when he wrote what would become his breakthrough solo hit, Rocky Mountain Way. It was spring 1972, and the then 24-year old Walsh was in a period of serious career transition. After four years and three albums with the James Gang, he left the band. At the same time, he turned down an invitation from Steve Marriott to join Humble Pie, taking Peter Frampton’s place. Walsh’s manager had advised against it. But really, Walsh didn’t want to relocate to the UK with his wife and two-year-old baby (tragically, the couple’s infant daughter Emma would die two years later in a car accident). Instead the family upped sticks, left the…

One evening in January 1975, at El Carmen, a Mexican restaurant in West Hollywood, John and Christine McVie were sitting at a table, with their margaritas, waiting for their bandmate Mick Fleetwood. Nervous anticipation was in the air, as they were all about to conduct what Fleetwood called a “chemistry test”. It was part one of an audition for two prospective new members of the band. A few months after hearing some tracks on this duo’s album, Buckingham Nicks, Fleetwood had invited the guitarist to join Fleetwood Mac, to replace the departing Bob Welch. But Lindsey Buckingham made it clear that he wouldn’t go anywhere without his musical partner and girlfriend, Stephanie Nicks. Fleetwood drove them both to the restaurant. Christine McVie would later recall to Rolling Stone: “Mick said…

By the summer of 1992, Lollapalooza had evolved from a chaotic farewell tour for Jane’s Addiction into a cultural phenomenon reshaping the American music landscape. At the center of this transformation was Pearl Jam, a band booked as an opener but whose explosive popularity was about to change everything. Initially secured by agent and Lollapalooza co-founder Don Muller despite Perry Farrell’s resistance, Pearl Jam was slotted second on the bill. But as their debut album Ten gained momentum and MTV put Jeremy in heavy rotation, the Seattle band found themselves in a surreal position – playing afternoon sets to increasingly frenzied crowds who would “rush the stage at four o’clock sharp” and sometimes literally tear down venue fences to see them. At the heart of these performances was frontman Eddie…

There Is No Space For Us CHERRY RED Latest studio album finds veterans in cosmic shipshape form. Although Dave Brock remains the sole prevailing founder member of Hawkwind, the ensemble he has gathered around him, including former Coil avant synth wizard Thighpaulsandra, has ensured that they remain fit for many tours around the sun yet to come. There Is No Space For Us is about maintaining their vision, although its dystopian elements take on an unfortunate pertinence in the light of Trumpism, Elon Musk and the catastrophes they might portend. There Is Still Danger There ignites perfectly, with its sequencer scamper, synths rising to a portentous crescendo, reaching full guitar throttle. Space Continues (Lifeform) and its synthscaping reminds us of Tangerine Dream in its sense of humankind in relation to…

Venus And Mars MPL/UMG From his New Orleans Mission Control, McCartney blasts off to colourful new worlds. After several false starts with the albums Wild Life and Red Rose Speedway, and a stumble in 1973 with the departure of two band members, by 1975 the band on the run were hitting top pace. With a new line-up cohering (enter guitarist Jimmy McCulloch and drummer Geoff Britton, the latter swiftly replaced by Joe English once sessions turned sour), Wings fled to New Orleans to make the follow-up to 1973’s careerre-juvenating breakthrough Band On The Run, and were justified in reaching for the stars. Venus And Mars – now reissued in sparkling half-speed remaster with nifty period posters – added few classics to the canon but made for a charming and colourful…

Gillian G Gaar MOTORBOOKS The familiar story of their fourth album. And some nice photos. A Night At The Opera didn’t turn Queen’s fortunes around in 1975 after the previous year’s Sheer Heart Attack had gone to No.1 in the UK and made the US Top 20. Nor would it be their best-selling and highest-charting album, although they would never again fly so high in Australia. The album did, though, establish Queen as a global rock phenomenon. And of course it included Bohemian Rhapsody, the album’s second-longest track. This much we know already. So what can Gillian G Gaar, the vastly experienced Seattle-based author of a fistful of feisty books about Nirvana and a terrific history of the Sub Pop label, tell us in this book that we don’t already know?…

Abroadcaster for more than 50 years, Andy Peebles was a famous voice and face of the 1980s. He worked extensively in radio and TV, and was one of the presenters at Wembley Stadium for the Live Aid concert in 1985. The 76-year-old has died of as-yet unreported cause. Born Robert Andrew Peebles in Hampstead, London, he began DJ-ing in nightclubs in Bournemouth at the tail end of the 1960s. He began his radio career with BBC Radio Manchester in 1974, and from there moved to Manchester’s Picadilly Radio when the station launched in 1974. He joined BBC Radio 1 four years later, and was there until 1992. While working for the BBC he was a regular presenter on Top Of The Pop, and presented Radio 1 Roadshows. A lifetime fan…

Some artists, you can tell, have better record collections than others. And S while Erja Lyytinen has been broadly tagged as ‘blues’ since her 2002 debut album Attention!, the Finnish slide virtuoso was also raised on British prog and thrash metal, and hopes you can hear the spirit of both on this year’s Smell The Roses. What are your thoughts now about your new album. It’s definitely something different. I’ve never done an album like this before. I think it’s a lot more raw, edgy and honest. It’s taking the topic and putting it right in your face. At the same time, I wanted to keep the instrumentation stripped down. It’s bass, electric guitar, drums, Hammond, vocals. That’s it. No fancy keyboard shit going on. What’s the significance of the…

Last year, in front of 65,000 people in Germany, Shane Green hall hit his stride. His band Those Damn Crows were on tour with Böhse Onkelz – virtually unknown in the UK, massive in their homeland – and mega-crowds were the norm. The Crows had German fans from past shows, but they still faced a mammoth task: converting an audience that wasn’t there for them. By this point they were accustomed to playing for thousands, and tens of thousands, across Europe. It was an intense period. They missed Wales. Arguably, though, it was the making of them as a proper big-stage band. “I think I’m better being a bit uncomfortable,” singer Greenhall muses. “I think that brings out something in me, performance-wise, a determination, this focus. I don’t get wound…

Ray Of Light Salute BAYSIS MEDIA The story of Ray Of Light is one of tragedy, persistence and, ultimately, triumph. Back in the mists of time, guitarist/keyboard player Robby Boebel and drummer Stephan Bayerlein were in a long-running yet ultimately doomed band called Frontline. Having teamed up with English singer Gregg Cromack, in Ray Of Light the pair set out to channel the spirit of Frontline’s cultfavourite debut album The State Of Rock, but then Boebel passed away. With new guitarist Joerg Wartmann on board, RayOfLight havenowmadeone of the finest melodic hard rock albums you’ll hear this year. A previously unknown vocalist, Cromack is a fabulous YouTube discovery, while Wartmann splits the guitar playing with posthumous contributions from Boebel. On first play Salute is an outstanding debut, but with repeated spins…

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The Autumn Stone IMMEDIATE/NICE Mod legends’ posthumous swansong returns in bells-and-whistles form. In 1969, Andrew Loog Oldham and Tony Calder’s trailblazing indie label Immediate Records was in free fall due to a combination of unwise business decisions, internal disputes and too many drugs. Their best-selling act, Small Faces, had recently splintered into two new groups, Faces and Humble Pie, so in a desperate bid to make some money they released The Autumn Stone, a double album compiling various Small Faces hit singles, some live recordings and a handful of tracks recorded for an abandoned followup to their Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake album. To mark the 60th anniversary of Immediate, Small Faces drummer and sole surviving member Kenney Jones has overseen this expanded and remastered edition spread over six sides of…

“‘Progressive rock’ might give the wrong impression, though I know I am progressive rock. We take in a whole bunch of genres.” A former member of the bands Ipso Facto and Purson, Southend-born singer, multi-instrumentalist and writer Rosalie Cunningham has been a solo artist since 2007. Voted Female Vocalist Of 2023 by the readers of Prog magazine, she is currently touring album number three, To Shoot Another Day, with indoor shows and summer festival appearances lined up. You’ve just completed your latest leg of touring, which was a success, with four sell-out shows. You must feel like progress is being made. Yeah. At our current level, we’re doing fantastically well. Getting to that next level requires quite a jump, and to be completely honest, without selling out, I don’t really know…

‘There’s a sense of the musical chemistry that made them so exciting.’ London Kentish Town Forum After several years away and personal battles fought, tonight signals a triumphant return to the stage. The cheers go on and on. The headliners have only just walked on stage, but it feels like the sort of reaction typically reserved for the Big Hit, or a surprise guest appearance from a Rolling Stone. It’s the second night of the year’s most anticipated rock reunion tour so far – and all five members are heading for the microphone. Six years, a pandemic and (in the case of their frontman) a turbulent battle with addiction after their last gig, will they pull this off convincingly? Do they want to be here? Do they still… y’know, like…

Original Damned guitarist Brian James’s signature combination of brevity and brutality helped shape the sound of punk. Along with the two Jonesys (the Sex Pistols’ Steve and the Clash’s Mick), James reclaimed his instrument from a jaded generation of noodling virtuosos. Trimming unnecessary fat to the bone, James deployed his cherry red Gibson SG like a weapon of war and returned rock’n’roll to the garage, where it always belonged. As the very first UK punk single to vinyl in October ‘76, The Damned’s New Rose (both written and riffed by James) defined the sound of the nascent scene. And it was a sound that James, notably older than the majority of his punk peers, had been percolating for some time. Brian Robertson was born in Hammersmith, West London on February…

Guitarist Steve Lukather has responded to media reports that he will appear on an album of unreleased Van Halen songs. Although the Toto leader confirms that he has been approached by Alex Van Halen, he says his involvement would be “as a co-producer or something”, insisting: “I will NOT EVER play a guitar note on a VH song!” Spinal Tap II: The End Continues will open in US cinemas on September 12. As yet there is no official date for a UK release. A posthumous album by Bernie Marsden is released on May 9 via Conquest Music. Icons was sanctioned by the widow of the former Whitesnake guitarist who died in 2023 at the age of 71. Guns N’ Roses have brought in drummer Isaac Carpenter to replace Frank Ferrer, who…

A Canadian record shop owner has discovered an audition tape that The Beatles recorded in 1962 for Decca Records, which the label famously considered showed insufficient promise for them to sign the band. Rob Frith, owner of Neptoon Records in Vancouver, unearthed the reel-to-reel tape labelled ‘Beatles 60s Demos’, but originally thought it was just a bootleg. He subsequently learned that he had in his possession a rare, direct copy of an audition tape The Beatles recorded for Decca on January 1, 1962, eight months before drummer Ringo Starr joined the band, replacing Pete Best. Frith isn’t looking to sell the priceless artefact, but he is prepared to give Decca a copy should they wish to correct their historical faux pas and release it. Alternatively, he says that if Paul McCartney…

My name is Alan Niven. I am going to tell you some stories. Random rock’n’roll stories. Populated by an interesting cavalcade of characters. Among them are Guns N’ Roses. I took them from the gutters of Sunset Boulevard to Wembley Stadium. I took Great White from the backwater clubs of Orange County to Wembley Arena. Along the way we all joined the parade of misfits and madmen that strut and fret their hour upon their stage. Every story paints a picture. Of personality. Of an event. I hope that at least they will amuse. At best they might contain the germ of wisdom’s insight. “Hey, Albert Collins is playing tonight. Wanna go with me?” I readily accepted Slash’s invitation. As a general but imperfect rule, I did not party with…

The Blasts The Blasts SELF-RELEASED In 1976, here in the US we celebrated our 200th anniversary of independence from those tea-slurping Redcoats (no offense), which mostly meant we blew shit up all summer long. There was this one kid, Fake Weej (long story), who was always trying to fit in, so it was easy to dare him to do stuff. So naturally somebody dared him to light an M80 firecracker in his mouth. If you’re not familiar, it’s like a tiny stick of dynamite. Listening to The Blasts’ record reminded me of that moment. It’s immediate, exciting, and just a little dumb. Good time rock’n’roll for reckless youth hopped up on AC/DC and life itself. Opener Big Gun is all bravado and swagger, the sound of peeling tyres and the wind…

Make ’Em Laugh, Make ’Em Cry, Make ’Em Wait EMI Some notable numbers on a record that leaves you feeling short-changed. Much like Oasis, Stereophonics made two great albums in the 90s but never did a great one again. Their debut Word Gets Around and 1999 follow-up Performance And Cocktails were full of spine tingling, soaring stadium anthems such as A Thousand Trees, Local Boy In The Photograph, Hurry Up And Wait, Pick A Part That’s New and Just Looking, songs that have endured and ensured that the band continue to fill huge venues and festivals to this day. Okay, singer and sole songwriter Kelly Jones has written the odd banger (Dakota, Maybe Tomorrow, Graffiti On The Train) along the way, but his band have rarely managed to recapture the…

Pink Floyd At Pompeii – MCMLXXII LEGACY RECORDINGS The preserve of late-night viewings now comes striding into the daylight. Back in the days when God was a boy and bath nights were as much a weekly treat as they were a necessity, the local flea-pit cinema would occasionally open its doors late to deviate from its scheduled programming to indulge in all-night horror marathons, cult movies or concert films, catering for those whose tastes and interests ran counter to the mainstream. It may seem rather quaint now in a time of information overload, instant-access entertainment and short attention spans, but for those who made the effort to rock up with smuggled beers, a packet of 10 fags and perhaps something more exotic, these encounters with the counterculture were as meaningfully…

Toby Lee has already packed a lifetime into his first 20 years. At ten, a ‘get well soon’ jam for BB King made for his family was viewed online five million times in a week. After Lee won an award for participating in a West End musical, Jools Holland picked him to join his live band, culminating in a solo appearance on the Hootenanny TV show in 2024. Here the Warwickshire guitarist/singer previews the tour for his latest album, House On Fire. What inspired you to pick up the guitar at eight years old? My first real musical obsession was Buddy Holly, which really led me down the rabbit hole. Me being a nerdy kid was a pretty lonely place. I’d go into school raving about BB King’s Live At…