Indholdsfortegnelse for April 2018 i Classic Rock

WELCOME Can you believe that the 1990s began nearly 30 years ago? I can’t. During the past couple of years, Classic Rock has delved deep and brought you issues celebrating both The Real Greatest Albums Of The 70s and The Real Greatest Albums Of The 80s, so it seems only right that we turn our focus to the 90s to give it its time to shine. Which is what we’ve done this issue. As a fleeting thought, you may remember it as the decade when trip hop, Madchester, rave, Whitney and Mariah ruled the radio and the charts. And if rock was your jam? Well, then it was all Seattle, all of the time. But that’s a fallacy; the 90s was an amazingly fertile time for classic rock of all…

RIP Thank you and good night. Mark E Smith March 5, 1957 – January 24, 2018 The Fall’s irascible leader has died at the age of 60. Known for his dark humour and provocative demeanour, Smith formed the post-punk band in Manchester in 1976. Over the years he hired and fired 66 members, and the band released 32 studio albums. Pat Torpey December 13, 1953 – February 7, 2018 Pat Torpey played drums for Ted Nugent, Robert Plant, Richie Kotzen and more but is best known as a co-founder of Mr. Big. He continued to record and perform live with Mr. Big despite developing Parkinson’s. He was 64. Jim Rodford July 7, 1941 – January 20, 2018 Rod Argent has led the tributes to his cousin and bandmate in the…

★ HIGH HOPES Ruby Boots The Perth-born, Nashville-based wanderer flips a middle finger to personal tumult. CAL QUINN/PRESS “I DON’T HAVE as much angst or pain as I had maybe five or ten years ago,” discloses singer-songwriter Bex Chilcott. “There’s a sense of self-preservation and resilience that I’ve learned to harness. I can now write about a lot of my life experiences in a different light.” The 36-year-old is talking about the emotional landscape of new album Don’t Talk About It, recorded under her alias Ruby Boots. It’s a record that balances raw vulnerability with fierce vigour, a meeting of twangy Americana with burning rock’n’roll. Chilcott’s redoubtable voice is every inch as pliable as the moods she conjures, ranging from kick-ass sneer to soulful ache. Recorded in Dallas with Lone…

Q & A Myles Kennedy Alter Bridge’s frontman and Slash’s singer on loss, almost being in Led Zeppelin and thankfully not being a Kardashian. Words: Henry Yates Every hard rocker has a heartfelt acoustic album inside them. The seeds of Myles Kennedy’s, Year Of The Tiger, were sown back in 1974, when the early death of his father left him bearing a devastating emotional load. But the singer’s double duty with Alter Bridge and Slash’s solo band means it’s only now that this long-delayed record has arrived, announcing a rootsier flavour and an unflinching honesty. “There were things I needed to get off my chest,” Kennedy tells us, “and that’s why this record was so cathartic.” You threw out your first attempt at this solo album. That’s pretty brave. Well,…

KIP WINGER with WINGER TONY MOTTRAM/ICONICPIX What goals did Winger set themselves with In The Heart Of The Young? [Laughs] I had no specific goals. Back then I largely didn’t know what I was doing. Nobody had expected us to sell two million copies of the debut, and we sold close to a million of the second one. Direction-wise, the band felt like it was time to do something that was a little more progressive. Rainbow In The Rose ticked that box, but did less discerning listeners just think it was more of the same? The album was way bigger in Europe than it was in the States, and I consider European fans to be way more attentive listeners, so that maybe says a lot. What about Beau Hill’s production…

DAVE PIRNER from SOUL ASYLUM Soul Asylum released five commercially unsuccessful albums before Grave Dancer’s Union. Were you getting desperate? I would say yes. The band was flailing. We made these very acoustic-sounding demos and took them to six different labels in New York. It was definitely a bit of a Hail Mary: “We don’t want to fuck this up this time.” I heard the demos again a while ago. I was astonished at how good they sounded for a bunch of guys who had never played anything but real fucking loud punk rock. Runaway Train was the album’s breakthrough song. Were you trying to write a hit single? No, I really didn’t have a fucking clue what people were expecting or what a hit was. I noticed people reacting…

Live And Kicking A small-town teenage band from Pennsylvania with a foundation of The Cure, R.E.M. and spiritual philosophy. It was a moment when Live’s heartfelt anthems could become a beacon. Words: Dave Everley 51 THROWING COPPER LIVE Radioactive, 1994 What they said at the time: “It’s not that they’re calculating imitators. Rather, Live capture the anger and ache of the moment in riveting songs driven home by expert players.” Rolling Stone Ed Kowalczyk was stuck in traffic when the scale of his success hit him. It was July 1995, and Live’s singer was trying to get to a gig at the Hersheypark Stadium in Hershey Park, South Pennsylvania, only to be thwarted by 30,000 other people trying to get to the gig. The snag was that it was Kowalczyk’s…

REEVES GABRELS talks about DAVID BOWIE As well as playing guitar on the album, you were Bowie’s co-producer and co-writer on Earthling. What was the aim with that record? There was talk that the album was jumping on the drum’n’bass bandwagon, but it’s more influenced by what came to be called electronica. David loved [electronic artists] Photek and Tricky. Those influences were in the air at the time. I never told David this, but in my head I was thinking more of Won’t Get Fooled Again – the muscular rock band with sequential information. How did the songwriting collaboration work between the two of you? We were both into collages. I had gotten into Pro Tools [sound recording and production software], sampling – which now seem like ancient technology. So…

Rip It Up And Start Again Thunder guitarist Luke Morley looks back on the transformation of a bunch of has-beens into the first great British rock band of the 90s. Words: Dave Ling 10 BACK STREET SYMPHONY THUNDER EMI, 1990 What they said at the time: “Straight from the Bad Co. rule book we have a classic in the making on our hands. Buy this or be damned.” Kerrang! In the early 1990s, in that overlap between glam rock and grunge, you’d have got pretty long odds on a blues-based British rock band becoming ‘the next big thing’, especially one including former members of Terraplane. Which is why Thunder’s debut album came as such a bolt from the blue. Cocky, charismatic and oozing class, it was the kind of thing…

TWITTER Rock’n’roll goings-on in the twitters phere Glenn hughes @glenn_hughes At G3 in LA this eve with Brothers Chad Smith • Joe Satriani • GH • Phil Collen • John Petrucci #musicisthehealer JOPLIN: GETTY IMAGES Duff McKagan Just watched @theavettbros May It Last on @HBODocs. It is indeed sweet and soulful relief from the noise of life. Inspiring band! Nikki Sixx @NikkiSixx Been building up practicing playing bass with my eyes shut. It really changes how you approach writing bass lines. Obviously you need to know your way around the neck but it also trains your ear. I started with 2 minutes and I’m now up to 10. ANYBODY ELSE ?? Rick Wakeman @GrumpyOldRick Thought my diet was doing really well when I looked down last night as I was…

Spirit It Shall Be – The Ode & Epic Recordings 1968-1972 ESOTERIC Innovative and genre-bending West Coast psych-rockers get boxed. GETTY The teenage Randy Wolfe must have had an inkling he wasn’t destined to have the luckiest of careers from the moment Jimi Hendrix told him that he would henceforth be known as Randy California. I mean, your name is Randy Wolfe and that’s not considered unequivocally ideal for a rock guitarist? When Hendrix left Jimmy James And The Blue Flames for England, Randy’s parents insisted he reject the offer to go along, and instead finish school. At 16 he bounced back, joining Spirit, and the rest is the best kind of rock history – a band of flickering genius, drug-fuelled despair and scant commercial success who can lay claim to…

Heavy Load Heavy questions for heavy rockers Former Police man Stewart Copeland on Policemania, new band Gizmodrome, punk, polo and crying at TV ads. Interview: Paul Lester MASSIMILIANO CARDELLI/PRESS Stewart Copeland – Curved Air roadie-to-drummer, Police drummer, film and videogame scorer, opera composer… – has a varied CV and then some. And now he’s dived back into rock’n’roll as part of Gizmodrome, the new supergroup that also includes Level 42 bassist Mark King, King Crimson guitarist Adrian Belew and prog keyboard player Vittorio Cosma. Tonight, though, he’s looking forward to an informal session at his home studio in LA with “a couple of chuckle buddies”. “I rig my studio up so they can just plug in, then I record everything that moves,” he tells us. “The next day I see…

This month’s contributors MALCOLM DOME Malcolm has been writing about music since 1772… Well, 1979, anyway. He has contributed to a number of publications, written numerous books, and sleeve notes for a variety of album reissues, and occasionally pops up on radio shows and band TV/DVD documentaries. He also claims to make a damn fine cup of tea. (He does – Ed.) JERRY EWING Jerry has been bothering people about prog rock since the early 80s when he founded Court Jester fanzine. After that he founded the more impressive Classic Rock and Prog magazines. His new book, Wonderous Stories: A Journey Through The Landscape Of Progressive Rock, charts the history of the genre. He talks to Steven Wilson for this issue (p38). PAUL ELLIOTT Paul wrote this month’s feature on…

NEWS Quofest Ireland, an event to honour Status Quo, takes place at Kavanagh’s Bar & Venue in Portlaoise over the weekend of May 5/6. Attractions include live sets from Rhino’s Revenge and the Matchstick Men. Former Judas Priest guitarist KK Downing is the latest rock star to write an autobiography. Due in September and, according to the guitarist, “[delving] backstage into the decades of shocking, hilarious, and haunting stories that surround the heavy metal institution”, Heavy Duty: Days And Nights In Judas Priest tells the story of his 42 years with the group, which he left in 2011. Black Stone Cherry release their sixth studio album, Family Tree, on April 20 via Mascot Records. The self-produced set includes 13 songs and features a guest appearance from guitarist Warren Haynes on…

BURIED TREASURE Riches from the rock underground TROYKA Troyka, Cotillion Records, Canada, 1970. £100. Troyka is a weird and wonderful, primarily hard rock album, but which defies description and is all the better for it. Formed in the Canadian town of Edmonton, from the ashes of garage rockers the Royal Family, Troyka consisted of three musicians of Ukranian descent. It’s clear that this was a trio who understood each other well and that their craft had evolved out of intensive jam sessions. The album has a large portion of mind-bending instrumentals, from gorgeous slices of psychedelic rock (Beautiful Pink Eyes) to funky jazz-rock (Life’s OK), trippy semi-classical (Early Morning) and traditional Russian folk (Introduction). Apparently it was the wild and raw singing style of drummer/vocalist Michael Richards that caught the…

Sharp Dressed Man Rock ’n’ Roll accessories This month, @jamiehibbard is elegantly wasted in these three sartorial stand-outs. Cooper Collection Clifford jacket This is based on vintage utility jackets from the Lee Cooper archives – namely a 1940s biker jacket – so the style ticks a lot of boxes. Featuring a selvedge detail internal chest pocket and a curved collar, this is a great combo with raw denim jeans. £350 @LeeCooperTCC TheCooperCollection.lc Wood Wood X Vans Old Skool shoes Collaborations are a huge deal in streetwear, and help brands to get a lot of attention with different audiences. The Wood Wood X Vans collab is to celebrate the former’s 15th anniversary, with two versions – obviously we like the black one best. We particularly like the scribbled-on soles for a…

★ HIGH HOPES The Glorious Sons These boys from small-town Canada write heartland rock singalongs for the 21st century. ROB BLACKHAM/PRESS “We wanted to do something that pushes the envelope for rock’n’roll.” SPRINGSTEEN HAD Asbury Park, Canada’s fast rising the Glorious Sons – who meld Boss-like storytelling with the urgent riffing and drawled vocals of latter-day Kings Of Leon – have Kingston. The small town that incubated and inspired them sits on the north shore of Lake Ontario; its best (nay, only?) claim to rock fame being that it’s the birthplace of Bryan Adams. What it isn’t known for is a thriving local scene. “It’s a lot of hobbyists; a lot of people who are talented but they literally never leave,” shrugs Glorious Sons frontman Brett Emmons, who did leave…

OUT OF Africa Growing up against a backdrop of rave culture and political tensions, and battling personal demons along the way, South Africa’s prime blues-rock export Dan Patlansky hasn’t had an easy ride to success. Words: Polly Glass TOBIAS COETSEE/PRESS I’m sick of people saying: ‘I really like the album but live it’s so much better,’” Dan Patlansky says earnestly. It’s a backhanded compliment that many musicians have had given to them. With his new record, the Johannesburg virtuoso guitarist/singer sought to address this apparent disparity, by bringing some on-stage je ne sais quoi into the studio. The result is the self-produced, appropriately titled Perfection Kills, a swaggering, sharp-eyed amalgam of the non-purist blues rock he deals in. “When you try to make something perfect, you end up polishing away…

The Man Who Would Be King Just a few years earlier, Porcupine Tree’s Steven Wilson was buried deep in the prog ghetto. But with the band’s fifth album his inner pop star broke out. Words: Jerry Ewing 61 Stupid Dream Porcupine Tree Kscope, 1999 What they said at the time: “Their most accomplished and advanced work to date.” Classic Rock It’s quite interesting to cast one’s mind back to 1999 when Porcupine Tree released Stupid Dream and to draw comparisons to the furore that surrounded the release of Steven Wilson’s most recent album, To The Bone, last year. When early reports filtered out onto the web that with To The Bone Wilson was making a sonic shift, all manner of toys were hurled out of the prams of the prog…

ROGER MANNING JR from JELLYFISH JELLYFISH: GETTY Which bands inspired you when you were starting Jellyfish? So many things, from the dawn of punk rock to progressive rock. From Yes and Genesis to The Damned, XTC and The Smiths. They modelled pop as its highest art form. They were a British Steely Dan in that way. It seems that you took songcraft very seriously. That’s exactly what it was, studying a craft. Why, when I listen to a Brian Wilson song like Don’t Worry Baby or The Warmth Of The Sun, do I feel like I’ve taken a drug, and when the song is over the drug has worn off? I wanted to figure out how I could do that, so I could shoot myself and an audience with my…

Saved By The Blues At the beginning of the 1990s, Gary Moore was disillusioned, depressed and effectively washed up. Then he stepped into a sharp suit, returned to the blues and began the most unlikely reinvention of the decade. Words: Mick Wall 18 STILL GOT THE BLUES GARY MOORE Virgin, 1990 What they said at the time: “This isn’t the ultimate party LP, admittedly, but you can’t argue with songs and playing of such a calibre.” RAW By the summer of 1989, Gary Moore didn’t know who he was any more. Nor did anyone else. At 37, he seemed to have shot his lot. Wherever you’d been, he’d been there already. Whatever you’d done, he’d already grown sick of. Blues, rock, jazz, folk, top of the charts, off the charts,…

Greetings From S#*tsville! It was 1993. Grunge was running rampant across the world, but in the UK a bunch of dysfunctional no-hopers were staging a one-band fightback. This is how The Wildhearts made their masterpiece debut… Words: Paul Rees 5 EARTH VS THE WILDHEARTS THE WILDHEARTS EastWest 1993 What they said at the time: “Alongside Rage Against The Machine’s debut, it could just be the most important rock yardstick of the year.” Kerrang! In the summer of 1993 the prevailing sound was of down-tuned guitars and recycled Black Sabbath riffs. Alienation and ennui were lyrical staples and plaid shirts and Doc Martens de rigueur as uniform. Two years after Nirvana released Nevermind, grunge was at its all-pervasive zenith and American alt.rock in the ascendancy. Already that year, Smashing Pumpkins and…

CLASSIC ROCK SOCIAL CLUB Get social, debate and interact with Classic Rock 2,056,480 AND STILL! GROWING! Join us via email (classicrock@futurenet.com), Facebook or Twitter SHE ROCKS #1 Here’s the thing. I personally never differentiated between male or female musicians. I think it’s because the first rock songs that got me into hard music were Iron Fist (Motörhead) and Don’t Call It Love (Girlschool), on a compilation tape(!). Also growing up with four sisters may have influenced my attitude. For me, there is great music and bad music and that’s all. Gender doesn’t decide this, songs do. I understand female musicians get shit from misogynistic fans, but if you look at underground doom/stoner there’s loads of female bands and musicians who are an equal part of the scene and not an…

THE HARD STUFF ALBUMS Myles Kennedy Year Of The Tiger NAPALM Alter Bridge frontman sings the blues. Myles Kennedy’s first solo album has been a long time in the making. The Alter Bridge frontman spent seven years working on a solo project, before realising that the results weren’t right, scrapping the entire thing and starting afresh. It was a bold move, but with Year Of The Tiger he’s finally hit the mark he wanted. It’s essentially a concept album, with Kennedy focusing on an event in his life that he always wanted to explore lyrically but until now lacked the courage to do so: the death of his father when he was four years old. A Christian Scientist, he refused medical attention and as a result died soon after becoming ill.…

Venom Assault! DISSONANCE PRODUCTIONS/NO SURVIVORS LTD The original black metal band’s classic-era EPs boxed. Satan heavily featured. VENOM: GETTY The heavy metal scene of the early 80s had all manner of cartoon characters: fake Barbarians Manowar and Thor, glam rock cross-dressers Twisted Sister and Wrathchild, satanic spooks Mercyful Fate and Venom. The latter were arguably the most OTT and the most ridiculed of all, a trio of Hammer Horror-inspired devil-worshippers from Newcastle with silly names – Cronos (bass/ vocals) Mantas (guitar), Abaddon (drums) – who struggled to play in tune and in time, and wrote songs about the dark side because, as Cronos explained, “Satan were a reet bad lad”. And yet, for all the intrinsic comedy value, this was one of the most influential bands in the entire history of…

INTERVIEWS Michael McDonald The silver fox of yacht rock lays himself Wide Open. MICHAEL MCDONALD: TIMOTHY WHITE/PRESS In a career of more than 45 years, the fivetimes Grammy-winning American vocalist has notched solo hits and worked with Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers, among others. His new album, Wide Open, is his first of original material in 17 years. How do you look back on those early days with Steely Dan? With great affection, so the death of Walter [Becker] blind-sided me. After a year of what was really intense therapy, I had thought that things were looking up for him again. Donald Fagen and Walter could be brutal taskmasters in the studio. Did you have any experience of that? Most of the musicians they worked with took that stuff…

INSIDE THE WORLD OF ROCK the DIRT “No prima donnas, they were charming” Veteran music photographer to spill his secrets at exhibition. ALL IMAGES © GERED MANKOWITZ AS THE PHOTOGRAPHY Show returns for its fifth year, famed music photographer Gered Mankowitz assures Classic Rock that the days of rock photography as a viable vocation are far from over. Mankowitz has spent more than 50 years capturing images of some of the world’s most famous faces, and is aware that with the overwhelming rise of digital photography – especially fans taking snaps at concerts – his is a job that many of us believe we could do ourselves. “The takeover of digital has certainly devalued the profession of the rock photographer,” he admits. “An image on a tiny, colourful phone screen…

NEWS Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow release a double live album and DVD, Memories In Rock II, on April 6 via their own label Minstrel Hall. It’s taken from concerts from last summer. The release is preceded by a newly recorded studio track, Waiting For A Sign that’s available as a single – the band’s first since 1996. James Hetfield is to appear in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile, a film about the notorious serial killer Ted Bundy. The Metallica frontman plays Officer Bob Hayward, a “no-nonsense Utah highway patrol veteran” who arrests Bundy on suspicion of burglary. Zac Efron takes the lead role. Lynyrd Skynyrd, Slayer, Sir Elton John and Paul Simon have all announced that 2018 will be their last year of touring as we know it. However, Ozzy…

NEWS It has been announced that Glenn Tipton is to step down as a touring member of Judas Priest. “I am not leaving the band, it’s simply that my role has changed,” he says. A decade ago the guitarist was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Tipton’s place is being filled by Andy Sneap, co-producer of the band’s new album Firepower and a former member of Sabbat. Presented in association with the European Space Agency, Space Rocks is a new endeavour celebrating space exploration and science, art and music. Astronaut Tim Peake, a noted Marillion fan, is among those confirmed to appear and there will be live music from Lonely Robot and Charlotte Hatherley (formerly of Ash). It takes place at London’s IndigO2 on April 22. Love/Hate’s Jizzy Pearl releases a new…

THE STORIES BEHIND THE SONGS Ramones Rockaway Beach After moving to New York to escape an abusive father, pre-Dee Dee Ramone Doug Colvin wrote a song about the coastal escape he enjoyed and frequented, and it became a Ramones classic. Words: Kris Needs “Who, me? Naaaahh!” Dee Dee Ramone lets out a goofy cartoon chuckle at the very idea of the Ramones hanging ten on surfboards, but confesses he always liked to go to Rockaway Beach, as immortalised in the band’s classic song of the same name. Sitting next to him in a dressing room on the Ramones’ December 1977 UK tour, Joey giggles at the very thought, although Johnny confirms Dee Dee as “the only real beach-goer” in the Ramones and acknowledges the surfing elements that started creeping in…

THE REAL 100 GREATEST ALBUMS OF THE 90S Think you know the greatest albums from this often musically derided decade? Over the next 50 pages we present the albums that really mattered. Words: Rich Chamberlain, Bill DeMain, Malcolm Dome, Dave Everley, Ian Fortnam, Polly Glass, Paul Henderson, Paul Lester, Dave Ling, Siân Llewellyn, Paul Rees, Henry Yates Welcome to our epic rundown of the Real 100 Greatest Albums Of The 90s. The rules are simple: 1. ONLY ONE ALBUM PER BAND/ ARTIST Yeah, we know there are a handful who made more than one brilliant album in the 90s, but that would be boring. We’re giving the other guys a chance. 2. NO TRIP HOP. NO BAGGY. NO BRITPOP* Rave, electronica, the Bristol sound, Madchester… they’re all synonymous with the…

Working-Class Heroes The sonic polish of Poison and Springsteen might have been ruling FM radio, but in a post-Nevermind world Buffalo Tom’s mix of Hüsker Dü and Van Morrison would cause ripples. Words: Philip Wilding 79 LET ME COME OVER BUFFALO TOM Beggars Banquet, 1992 CAMERA PRESS/STEVE DOUBLE What they said at the time: “The most riveting performances aren’t necessarily the loudest – an indication that these guys can write songs that don’t just rely on attitude and energy.” Chicago Tribune The late 80s was an odd time to start a band like Buffalo Tom. If it wasn’t Springsteen hitting his commercial apex on FM radio, then it was bands such as Poison and Ratt who were filling the airwaves, even in Buffalo Tom’s sleepy Boston suburbs. For their part,…

For Those About To Get Rocked In 1992, reeling from the death of their guitarist Steve Clark and facing the onset of grunge, Def Leppard were determined to keep the party going. The result was Adrenalize – hard rock’s last great blockbuster album of a golden era. Words: Paul Elliott Photos: Ross Halfin 28 ADRENALIZE DEF LEPPARD Mercury, 1992 What they said at the time: “Def Leppard remain the ultimate radio rock band and Adrenalize is stateof- the-art.” Kerrang! It began with a question: ‘Do you wanna get rocked?’ The answer came back loud and clear when Def Leppard’s Adrenalize hit No.1 globally in 1992. For one of rock’s biggest bands, it seemed like business as usual. In reality it was anything but. If ever a band had to dig…

THEN VS NOW Oh, how life has changed since the 1990s. GETTY X5; FORREST GUMP + FATHER TED: ALAMY; BB8 + GOT : REX…

This One Goes Up To Ten In 1992, CR’s Paul Elliott hung out with Pearl Jam when they were on the cusp of superstardom, their lives having changed immeasurably after a debut album that struck a chord with a generation. 4 TEN PEARL JAM Epic, 1991 What they said at the time: “Pearl Jam hurtles into the mystic at warp speed. They wring a lot of drama out of a few declarative power chords swimming in echo.” Rolling Stone P earl Jam’s debut album, Ten, was the sleeper hit of the grunge explosion. Predating Nirvana’s Nevermind by a month, it took a while to find its feet. But when it did it turned Pearl Jam into the one of the biggest bands of the 1990s. The reasons behind their success…

CLASSIC ROCK ALBUM OF THE WEEK CLUB Every week we choose a classic album – some obscure, some well known – and share knowledge and opinion. Listen and debate with us at: teamrock.com/aotw. Have your say on the history of rock, one album at a time… And you might just see yourself in print. A Nod’s As Good As A Wink… To A Blind Horse FACES (1971) WHAT YOU SAID Stan West: Faces are one of the most underrated bands ever, they’re much more than just their hits. Ronnie Lane steals the show here with the songs he sings lead on. Last Orders Please, Debris and, in particular, the rollicking You’re So Rude are some of the best songs on the album. Throw in an awesome cover of Chuck Berry’s…

THE HARD STUFF BOOKS & DVDS American Valhalla EAGLE ROCK Unflinching cinematic record of rock’s process in the raw. Co-directed by photographer Andreas Neumann and Queens Of The Stone Age frontman Josh Homme, the sumptuously realised American Valhalla chronicles the collaboration of guitarist/MD/composer Homme with alt.rock vocal legend and lyricist Iggy Pop, from instigation, through desert-bound songwriting process, recording nascency and ultimate live celebration. As remaining band members, QOTSA guitarist Dean Fertita and Arctic Monkeys drummer Matt Helders, complete the recording line-up at Homme’s Rancho De La Luna studio in the Mojave desert, Anthony Bourdain conducts a series of intimate and revealing interviews with all protagonists to reveal the inner workings, trials and triumphs associated with the creative process. Every painstaking step is examined: the formation of relationships, the tentative…

LIVE! Shane MacGowan 60th Birthday Celebration National Concert Hall Dublin ★ A stellar line-up gather to celebrate the punk-folk icon’s life in song. Jesse Malin kicks the night into touch with an exhilarating That Woman Got Me Drinking enhanced by the stellar line-up of Clem Burke, Spider Stacy and Glen Matlock. Next up Carl Barât has a crack at If I Should Fall From Grace With God, giving further affirmation of the punk Behan’s influence on subsequent generations weaned on his London/Irish sagas. The Libertine also does a convincing London Girl, making it his own. Dublin’s Damien Dempsey rattles through Streams Of Whiskey at a canter while Cerys Matthews’ affecting Broad Majestic Shannon is dedicated to Dolores O’Riordan not long after news of her death. ‘Cave and MacGowan’s presence creates…