Indholdsfortegnelse for March 2021 i Classic Rock

WELCOME As milestones go, half a century is a bloody good one. And it’s one that Queen were all set to celebrate in fine style in 2020. And then, y’know, 2020 happened. But as a very wise man once sang: ‘The show must go on.’ So this issue we finally get to celebrate the glory and the majesty of the first 50 years of Queen by sitting down with the inimitable Dr Brian May and Roger Taylor for an in-depth conversation to reflect on their incredible story so far. And while I don’t really want to dwell on the fact that we’re all back under lockdown in early 2021 (yeah, yeah, we know), it does seem like an opportune time to give a reminder that you can get Classic Rock…

the DIRT RIP Thank you and good night. Steve Brown Died January 2, 2021 English record producer Steve Brown has died aged 65 following an illness related to a fall in December. Brown worked with The Cult, Manic Street Preachers, Freddie Mercury, The Alarm, The Godfathers and Balaam And The Angel, among others. “We are deeply saddened to hear of the passing of legendary producer Steve Brown,” The Cult said in a posting on social media. Marsha Zazula April 21, 1952 - January 10, 2021 Anthrax have paid tribute to Marsha Zazula, who along with her husband Johnny Z formed Megaforce Records, home to several influential metal acts including Metallica, Raven and King’s X. A statement from Anthrax said: “The Zazulas were responsible for changing all our lives. It’s hard…

William ‘Jesus’ Jellett June 6, 1948 - January 8, 2021 BETTER KNOWN AS ‘Jesus’, William Jellett, the legendary UK music fan known for his frequently naked appearances at UK music festivals throughout the 1970s and 80s, has died at the age of 72. The news was confirmed by Jellett’s brother, Eric, who wrote: “William Jellett was born [in] Poole, Dorset, the youngest of four children. I am his brother and the eldest. I have not seen him for quite a while but one of my sisters has remained in contact with him. “He has always remained in the London area but over the last few years he has not enjoyed the best of health, recently the decline was rapid. Last Friday my sister phoned to tell me that William had…

WELCOME BACK W.E.T. The mostly studio-based supergroup return with a new album, still aiming to keep melodic hard rock alive. W.E.T: TOMMASO BARLETTA/PRESS; SMITH & KOTZEN: JOHN McMURTRIE/PRESS IN THE 12 years since Frontiers Records pulled them together, melodic hard rock supergroup W.E.T. – the one-time trio comprising Work Of Art keyboard player Robert Säll (whose group provide the name’s ‘W’), guitarist Erik Mårtensson from Eclipse (‘E’) and frontman Jeff Scott Soto of Talisman (‘T’) – have made four albums and evolved into a six-piece. With a new album, Retransmission, out, we caught up with Mårtensson. With Jeff based in the States, and you and Robert in Sweden, how did you manage to make the album – and two videos – during a pandemic? The videos were the hardest. Jeff…

THE GOLD STANDARD Brian May and Roger Taylor look back at 50 years of Queen: the incredible journey of four young musicians with “an insane confidence and a precocious belief in our own unique talents” who conquered the world Words: Dave Everley CAMERA PRESS / STEVE EMBERTON Brian May isn’t one to live in the past. But the Queen guitarist has recently been listening to an old tape he didn’t know existed. It features a recording of one of the group’s earliest gigs, in a lecture theatre at his alma mater, Imperial College London. It’s the sound of a band who are far from the finished article, he says. But it’s exciting to go back there, to hear the nascent Queen as they were at that long-gone moment in time.…

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO STEVEN WILSON Look at the world, not at your phone. Make music for the love of it, not as a career. Serial killers are fascinating. The best is yet to come. These are among the things that shape his world view. Interview: Polly Glass Steven Wilson made the most of 2020. He started a podcast (The Album Years) with his old friend Tim Bowness. He began writing a book (currently due in late 2021). He started working on his next record. And another. All in conjunction with “really getting to know” his two stepdaughters, having tied the knot in 2019. “Getting to that point, at the age of fifty-one, and finally being in a stable family with children… it is wonderful,” he says, smiling, over Zoom.…

Lucero When You Found Me THIRTY TIGERS Just like going to the movies. Twenty-plus years into their country-punk career and Memphis’s Lucero make this follow-up to 2018’s Among The Ghosts sound just so damn easy. Like the portentous soundtrack to some gothic southern film noir, When You Found Me simply drips dark cinematic charm. Book-ended by menacing slow-burning opener Have You Lost Your Way and the delicate acoustic shimmer of the title track, the album travels full circle through themes revolving around family, loss, redemption, Irish folktales and mainman Ben Nichols’s daughter’s bedtime fairy stories, with Nichols’s whisky-ravaged drawl sounding absolutely perfect on Outrun The Moon, Coffin Nails, Good As Gone, The Match and All My Life, all compelling minor-key dramas packed with musical detail and heavy tension. When You…

Transatlantic The Absolute Universe: Forevermore INSIDEOUT Acclaimed proggers go for broke on fifth album. Not content with this 90-minute double album, Transatlantic have also recorded a 60-minute version of completely different recordings of the same songs, changing lyrics, vocalists et al. It’s also a concept album, concerning the world’s struggles in 2020. If you’ve ever wondered what a prog supergroup would do during a pandemic, here’s your answer, with full theses, dissertations and annotation. And so, as the title hints, Neal Morse, Roine Stolt, Mike Portnoy and Pete Trewavas take us on a journey through the tropes of modern, technically flawless AOR-tinted prog, the playing proficient, the soul of it elusive. It’s a generous, abundant offering for loyal fans, but the casual listener might wish the band would more frequently…

The Pretty Reckless Death By Rock And Roll FEARLESS/CENTURY MEDIA What doesn’t kill you… New Yorkers The Pretty Reckless’s charmed first decade made stardom seem like their destiny. Until Chris Cornell’s death nixed a support tour with Soundgarden and producer Kato Khandwala died in a bike crash. Death By Rock And Roll is their first attempt to claw back what they had. Fortunately it’s brilliant. Taylor Momsen’s crew kick off on familiar turf, with the title track’s mainstream sleaze, but the album soon forks left. The glowering Only Love Can Save Me Now bolsters its grunge vibe with cameos from Soundgarden’s Matt Cameron and Kim Thayil. And So It Went softens into a country strum, then goes wiggy courtesy of Tom Morello. 25 is a Bond theme with a mosher…

The Besnard Lakes The Besnard Lakes Are The Last Of The Great Thunderstorm Warnings FULL TIME HOBBY Canada’s Flaming Lips return to their symphonic psych-rock comfort zone. After five years of label changes and personal turmoil, the Montreal post-rock collective led by married composer-producer duo Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas return with a double-length exercise in mind-blowing symphonic maximalism. In contrast to their relatively concise 2016 album A Coliseum Museum Complex, Canada’s answer to the Flaming Lips fully indulge their baroque psych-prog experimentalism on richly layered studio confections that include oblique tributes to Prince and Talk Talk’s Mark Hollis. Lacek also commemorates his father’s death, on the opulent, gorgeous electro-orchestral epic Christmas Can Wait. From the dreamy sci-fi doo-wop of Raindrops to the blissed-out noodling of The Dark Side Of…

Jason Bieler & The Baron Von Bielski Orchestra Songs For The Apocalypse FRONTIERS An apocalypse to copy a conventional start with hard rockers Saigon Kick (who scored a US hit with the ballad Love Is On The Way in 1991), Jason Bieler found mixing up styles more challenging, and his 1998 solo debut Houston We Have A Problem was a fine metal/drum‘n’bass mash-up. He’s pursued this policy on various projects, to the point where it’s often difficult to categorise his music. He’s got the ear of other musicians, though, as the membership of the Baron Von Bielski Orchestra confirms; Todd La Torre (Queensrÿche), Dave Ellefson (Megadeth), Devin Townsend and Pat Badger (Extreme), Jeff Scott Soto and Bumblefoot (Son Of Apollo) are just some of those bringing their diverse talents to…

Death Angel The Enigma Years: 1987-1990 HEAR NO EVIL Bay Area thrash pups’ early career collected. Death Angel were the Bash Street Kids of the 80s thrash scene; five teenage brothers and cousins who made Metallica and Slayer look like creaky old men. That callowness shows on the San Francisco band’s 1987 debut album The Ultraviolence, one of the four discs in this box set covering their years on influential US label Enigma. Youthful enthusiasm rather than nailed-on songcraft fires Thrashers and Evil Priest, although the 10-minute instrumental title track is a mark of their ambition. Follow-up Frolic Through The Park, released two years later, delivered on that ambition. Tighter and more melodic, this was the work of a band who had matured exponentially, even if Open Up sparked off thrash’s…

J Mascis Fed Up And Feeling Strange (Live And In Person 1993 – 1998) CHERRY RED Dinosaur Jr shredder goes acoustic in live album box set. Phil Smith, Thee Hypnotics’ drummer, has a fascinating recollection of that band’s first US tour: “The first time we played New York was the Pyramid Club on Avenue A,” he recalls. “We got there for sound-check, and J Mascis was there and he said: ‘How are you doing, guys? I’m going to do the door tonight.’ And he did the door. J Mascis from Dinosaur Jr did the fucking door. I love that!” J Mascis is indeed a man of many facets, chief among them being his undisputed skill at heroic guitar soloing played at ear-splitting volume though stacks that would have made Hendrix…

Byzantium Halfway Dreaming: Anthology 1969-75 CHERRY RED All the Byzantium you need, in one box. CHRIS GABRIN/PRESS Another one of those unfortunate bands that never got a fair crack first time around due largely to music industry indifference, psychedelic proggers Byzantium ended up as a stepping stone by which various members went on to other, more successful things, most notably future Ian Dury collaborator Chaz Jankel. Originally signed to A&M Records, the band released two studio albums – 1972’s self-titled debut and 1973’s Seasons Changing – and 1974’s Live/Studio, a privately pressed showcase album intended to garner label interest once A&M had pulled the plug on them. Vinyl copies of their back catalogue are much sought after This impressive five-CD anthology pulls together all that material, along with the 1969…

Dave Alvin From An Old Guitar: Rare And Unreleased Recordings YEP ROC Master blaster. Whereas many musicians fret over their recording careers, Dave Alvin just books a studio whenever he has some spare cash, rounds up a bunch of his guitar-picking, singer-songwriter, alt.country, honkytonk mates and lays down a couple of songs. Whatever takes his fancy, really. The main thing is to have fun doing it. And then every so often he gathers up the tracks and sticks them out on a record. If the prissy perfectionism of Ry Cooder and his ilk sometimes leaves you unsated, then you should try From An Old Guitar as an antidote. If the first two tracks – a cool, gruff but melodic cover of Chris Smithers’s Link Of Chain, and an apocalyptic cover…

The Seekers: Meetings With Remarkable Musicians John Densmore HACHETTE Doors drummer opens a few. John Paul Densmore is best-known as the drummer with The Doors, who appeared on every one of the band’s recordings, including several made after frontman Jim Morrison’s death. He is iconic in his own regard. He’s the author of New York Times bestseller Riders On The Storm, and is viewed as a seeker and a survivor: a latter-day shaman, closely guarding the flame of mysticism and spirituality that believers feel surround The Doors (“of perception”). In this latest book he goes seeking for the bridge between art and existence, creativity and the soul. In doing so he writes each of its 24 chapters around a spiritual inspiration and/or mentor, including Patti Smith, Ravi Shankar, Robert Bly…

Leonard Cohen: Untold Stories: The Early Years Michael Posner SIMON & SCHUSTER Potrait of the Canadian poetsage as a young man. Author, poet, lothario Leonard Cohen had lived a life before he released his first album, in 1967 at the age of 32. In this excellent oral history – the first of a proposed trilogy – Canadian author Michael Posner drills down deep into the first three decades of Cohen’s life, charting his unlikely journey from scion of Montreal’s upper-middle-class “Jewish aristocracy” to self-proclaimed Grocer Of Despair and poster boy for bedsit-dwelling depressives everywhere. Posner has pulled together an almighty chorus of voices to give life to his portrait of a charismatic figure whose superhuman magnetism enabled him to sail through life effortlessly, although not undramatically. Relatives, friends and lovers…

This month’s contributors JERRY EWING Launch editor Jerry Ewing has been involved with Classic Rock for so long he remembers the days when it was inscribed on tablets of stone. He grew up in Sydney, where aged nine he fell in love with AC/DC, and he still hasn’t grown out of donning a schoolboy outfit and guitar. This issue he explores the story of Bon Scott’s pre-’DC band Fraternity (p72). DAVE EVERLEY This is ‘Diamond’ Dave Everley’s second Classic Rock cover story on the bounce. Last issue he cosied up with the Foo Fighters, and no sooner had the ink dried on that one than we dispatched him (well, got him on Zoom calls) with rock’n’roll giants Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen to talk about the first half-century…

“After Neil died, music didn’t seem important” Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee pay tribute on the first anniversary of Peart’s death. IN AN EMOTIONAL interview with Rolling Stone, Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson have commemorated the first anniversary of the loss of their Rush bandmate Neil Peart, and reveal that the two of them have had little inclination to play music since Peart died from brain cancer on January 7, 2020. “After Neil died it just didn’t seem important,” says guitarist Lifeson. “For the longest time, I didn’t have any heart to play,” adds bassist/vocalist Lee. “I still feel there’s music in me and there’s music in Big Al, but there’s no hurry to do any of that.” “I think I started crying right there,” says Lifeson, who was on…

NEWS The Black Crowes release an expanded, remastered, 30th-anniversary edition of their debut album Shake Your Money Maker on February 26 via American Recordings. It will be available in various formats. Neil Young and Lindsey Buckingham are the latest musicians to sell shares of their music publishing catalogue to the intellectual property rights investor Hipgnosis Songs Fund. In a deal worth around £110 million, Young sold the company 50 per cent of the rights to his 1,180 self-written songs. For an undisclosed fee, Buckingham, who had previously sold a quarter-share of his songs, sold Hipgnosis the remainder, plus a 50 per cent stake of any future compositions. Justin Hawkins is worried that the UK’s entertainment industry may never recover following the destructive whirlwind of the coronavirus pandemic. “It doesn’t seem…

NEWS Sammy Hagar says he is grateful to have buried the hatchet with Edward Van Halen shortly before the latter’s death last October. “Poor Eddie. Thank God we connected before [he passed],” Hagar told Variety. “I said: ‘I love you, man’, and it was like, boom, we were good. It was a beautiful thing.” Geddy Lee is to be a guest musician at the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra’s virtual event The Show Must Go On: Stories Of Resilience on February 18. Lee’s role in the ticketed show is yet to be confirmed. Tune in to the VSO’s website at 6.30pm local time (that’s 10.30am in Britain) to find out. A six-episode miniseries about Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones, based on his 2018 memoir Lonely Boy: Tales From A Sex Pistol, is…

LESLIE WEST Having made his name in the early 70s with Mountain, as a guitarist he was praised by many of his peers, Jeff Beck once describing him as “the greatest living guitarist in the world Words: Dave Ling October 22, 1945 – December 23, 2020 Some of the biggest names in rock music have paid tribute to Leslie West, the guitarist and vocalist who made his name in the early 70s with pioneering New Yorkers Mountain. West died following a cardiac arrest at his home near Daytona, Florida. He was 75 years old. Best known for their 1970 hit Mississippi Queen, covered by artists as diverse as Ozzy Osbourne and Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Mountain made their mark at the Woodstock Festival in 1969, and went on to become one of…

THE CLASSIC ROCK INTERVIEW MICK FLEETWOOD He arrived in Swinging Sixties London as a dyslexic school leaver and aspirant drummer – and discovered a world of blues, booze, women and global success with Fleetwood Mac. But even after a half-century of making incredible music, perhaps his greatest achievement is keeping the wheels on rock’s greatest soap opera. Interview: Henry Yates Portrait: Ross Halfin GETTY You’d never guess that Mick Fleetwood has a starring role in rock’n’roll’s favourite soap opera. Perhaps it’s the island pace of his Hawaiian home, or the relaxation enforced by the pandemic, but a conversation with Fleetwood Mac’s co-founder and drummer is as calming as being in a hammock in a tropical breeze, the fractious life story of his fabled band at odds with his convivial telling…

FRATERNITY Down Under Pressure Before Bon Scott became a star with AC/DC, he sang with rising Aussie rockers Fraternity. Following the release of a new box set from the band, his old mates from those days tell their story. Words: Jerry Ewing VICTOR MARSHALL HAMISH HENRY COURTESY HAMISH HENRY HAMISH HENRY “He was up for anything, Bon. His nickname was ‘Ronnie Roadtest’, a hard-drinking, hard-smoking, rootin’, tootin’ rock’n’roll soldier. That was his public image. It was true of him too. But at the same time he’d be the guy going round in the morning asking if you wanted a cup of tea. He was a genuinely nice fella. He just happened to be a rock star. He had no pretensions. A decent bloke who loved to party.” Sam See, guitarist…

THE HARD STUFF ALBUMS Foo Fighters Medicine At Midnight RCA Grohl’s tightest set yet, with supernatural aid. Dave Grohl has spent the past decade scouring the US for his own spirit. He made 2011’s Wasting Light in his garage to try to recapture his teenage exuberance, 2014’s Sonic Highways in a variety of America’s most storied studios to try to borrow their mythology, and 2017’s Concrete And Gold in California’s spiritual Shangri-la Ojai, as if looking within himself for rock enlightenment. Along the way he’s worked with such luminaries as Justin Timberlake, Alison Mosshart and Ben Gibbard, with Eagles and Beatles and Cheap Tricks, in the hope of crossing the sonic streams. For tenth album Medicine At Midnight, recorded pre-lockdown, he’s even ventured beyond the physical realm, recording in a…

Psychedelic Porn Crumpets SHYGA! The Sunlight Mound MARATHON ARTISTS Worlds collide in a cornucopia of multi-coloured sound. At first glance it would be easy to dismiss Psychedelic Porn Crumpets as some kind of elaborate joke sent over from the former colonies. For sure, their name suggests the results of a three-day bender, while the music – an amalgam of psychedelia, prog, space rock and punk all concocted and mixed in a garage that possibly doubles up as an after-hours LSD lab – can overwhelm and bamboozle. And yet, for all that, there’s plenty here to enjoy and savour once the reorientation of the senses has been achieved. The fourth album from these Aussies gallops at a breathless pace, its 14 tracks crashing into one other with scant regard for personal…

Lonely The Brave The Hope List EASY LIFE New singer signals the sky’s the limit for LTB. Conventional wisdom insists that Lonely The Brave’s 15 minutes of fame are up. After a promising debut (2014’s The Day’s War), the band started to stutter with a less good second record, and live shows that were somehow both hit and miss. Then singer David Jakes left. To say their career trajectory has been uneven would be to understate it a bit. Unshaken, the band went back to their day jobs, found a new vocalist in the enigmatic Jack Bennett, and began again. It’s said that adversity instructs art. LTB’s woes have been rewarded with something remarkable: their best record yet. Buoyed on the metaphorical bloody nose that is 2020, it’s filled with…

Drones Our Hell Is Right Here LOCKJAW Album number two: scorchio. Difficult second album’ seems to be a bit of an understatement here, given the personal and practical trials and tribulations that have gone into creating Our Hell Is Right Here. Nevertheless, London band Drones (not to be confused with Manchester’s or Australia’s The Drones) have come up trumps with an album that takes the fury of debut Exiled and rages even harder. The acoustic Listen proves they can also do quiet and introspective, but for the most part it’s full-tilt modern punk with post-hardcore stylings, and vocalist Lois McDougall exorcising various personal demons through her lyrics as well as taking aim at those in power. A happy album this is not, but the sharp focus of songs like Josephine,…

Inglorious We Will Ride FRONTIERS MUSIC British trad-rockers’ difficult album number four is worth the trouble. Cliché has it that following up your debut album is the tough ask. But London-based quintet Inglorious’s fourth proved to be a considerably bigger challenge, after all but leonine frontman Nathan James and drummer Phil Beaver quit after recording 2019’s Ride To Nowhere. With three new members seemingly contributing more than their predecessors in terms of gnarly riffs and rhythmic gut-punch, the band have also overcome lockdown restrictions to record We Will Ride in a socially distanced Cardiff studio. The results are their best to date, with She Won’t Let Go and Medusa (who apparently ‘gives good lovin”, snakes in hair notwithstanding) taking inspiration from femme fatales to breathe fresh life into an irresistible…

Kiwi Jr Cooler Returns SUB POP A blizzard of hooks and non sequiturs from Canada’s catchiest new wave revisionists. ewer wave, anyone? Toronto lo-fi alt.poppers Kiwi Jr have been reimagining melodic postpunk from 40 years removed since last year’s brilliant debut Football Money. Taking Costello, the Modern Lovers and the Only Ones as their basic framework, they slot in Pavement’s grunge-pop insouciance, R.E.M.’s psych-folk lustre, and angular hooks indebted as much to They Might Be Giants as to The Strokes, to make a more richly textured and culturally expansive update. Then, judging by this tearaway second album, they rampage through this new sonic landscape ruining nuptuals (Nashville Wedding), digging up Richard III (Tyler) and questioning everything from Jack The Ripper’s murder count (Dodger) to whether Woodstock really happened (Omaha). We’ll…

The Dead Daisies Holy Ground STEAMHAMMER/SPV What the Voice Of Rock Glenn Hughes did next. Although The Dead Daisies released The Lockdown Sessions, a digital acoustic EP, last July, this fifth studio album is the full debut of another new line-up. It’s a real tectonic shift, given that Glenn Hughes replaces both singer John Corabi and bassist Marco Mendoza. Only band leader/second guitarist David Lowy remains from the line-up on their 2013 debut. Happily, Doug Aldrich plays stun-gun lead guitar for the third album in succession, and drummer Deen Castronovo completes the quartet, playing on his second studio album with the band, even sharing lead vocals on what could be the definitive cover of Humble Pie’s 30 Days In The Hole. Hughes’s songwriting is much in evidence. Stylistically this record…

THE HARD STUFF REISSUS John Mayall The First Generation 1965-1974 MADFISH/SNAPPER MUSIC Godfather Of British Blues’ golden years. The commercial viability of bumper box sets can be puzzling. Anyone contemplating shelling out a tidy sum for one is almost certainly going to be a big fan of the artist and therefore already have much, even all, of the music; anyone who isn’t already a fan is highly unlikely to throw often hundreds of pounds at a musical blind date. In which case the big question from the former about this 35-disc collection from the Godfather Of British Blues is: “What’s in it?” Because they’ll already know how hugely influential Mayall’s benchmark Bluesbreakers With Eric Clapton was on a whole generation, with ‘God’ on fire. Or how his next (another ‘every…

Tommy James And The Shondells Celebration: The Complete Roulette Recordings 1966-1973 CHERRY RED Cracking compendium of underrated band’s leap from pop to psychedelia. © MICHAEL PUTLAND/GETTY/PRESS From bubblegum hits to psychedelic classics in a nanosecond, from being stiffed by gangsters to collapsing on stage and being briefly declared dead (50 years ago), Tommy James is the very stuff of rock’n’roll legend, and it’s a mystery why there aren’t 11 biopics about him. It’s also baffling that Crimson And Clover and Cellophane Symphony, his two 1969 insane, trippy whirls of experimental genius, aren’t routinely cited as being up there with Sgt. Pepper and Pet Sounds. They’re not just “Huh, didn’t realise he went that far out”, they’re startling, beautiful and inspired. The fact that then US vice president Hubert Humphrey wrote…

The Black Keys Brothers NONESUCH Tenth-anniversary celebration of Akron duo’s career breakthrough, now including three bonus tracks. Trailed by a witty short video lampooning the dire state of the world in 2020 (check it out on YouTube), this lavish multi-format edition of The Black Keys’ career peak is a reminder of how vital their contribution to rock has been over the past 20 years. Recorded mostly at the legendary Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama, their sixth album found Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney dredging both musical and personal swamps for inspiration, delivering their gritty minimalist blues through a sludgy filter of obscure psychedelic R&B and reverb-drenched noir. It hardly screamed “commercial hit”, then. Yet by reflecting the Keys’ own turbulent private lives – Next Girl was a reference to…

Fraternity Seasons Of Change: The Complete Recordings 1970-1974 LEMON Not your usual Bon… Fraternity are best known as the band Bon Scott fronted before joining AC/DC. And like many Aussie rock bands of the late 60s and early 70s, tend to get overlooked in favour of artists that followed in their wake. Yet theirs is a fascinating story. This impressive box set collects the band’s two studio albums, 1971’s raw and slightly roughshod Livestock and the wonderfully titled 1972 follow-up Flaming Galah with a third disc, Second Chance, of previously unheard demos and live material, along with an informative 48-page book. Inquisitive AC/DC fans should be warned! Fraternity’s music bears little resemblance to the driving hard rock Bon would become famous for in DC. It’s a curious hybrid of UK…

Magnum Dance Of The Black Tattoo STEAMHAMMER/SPV Brit pomp-rock warhorses raid the vaults for rarities album. Given the parlous future that many bands currently face, Magnum can be forgiven for cobbling together a compilation album from their live tracks and rarities. This sequel to 2017’s self-explanatory Valley Of Tears – The Ballads flips the picture, focusing on the Birmingham veterans’ rockier side. It’s a grab-bag, for sure, with a motley assortment of live tracks sitting next to assorted radio edits and deep cuts, mostly taken from the lesser-loved second half of their career. But even that doesn’t mask Magnum’s class; Phantom Of The Paradise Circus and Your Dreams Won’t Die are timeless and grandiose, making a case for guitarist Tony Clarkin as one the most underrated songwriters Britain has ever…

Fumble Not Fade Away: The Complete Recordings 1964-1982 GRAPEFRUIT The art of rock‘n’roll. Possessing the sleeve of rock’n’roll revival band Fumble’s 1972 debut album would probably put you on the Sex Offenders Register these days. You could try pointing out the not-so-subtle connection between the Hipgnosis-designed sleeve and the band’s name, but that kind of humour is incompatible with the #metoo era. And if the authorities ever discover the reason why Renaissance singer Annie Haslam’s shrieks and giggles disrupt the pathos of Ebony Eyes, that out-take would be banned. Fumble started reviving rock’n’roll before it had even expired, albeit under different names. And they did so with a gusto and a twinkle that caught the attention of David Bowie, who hired them as the support band on his 1973 Ziggy…

Do What You Want: The Story Of Bad Religion Bad Religion With Jim Ruland HACHETTE White punks, sometimes on dope. Bad Religion have been at it for 40 years now; the intellectual punks who sometimes succumbed to the less-than-intellectual pursuits of drugs (business brains Brett Gurewitz kept his crack cocaine in one pocket of his bathrobe, his heroin in another), drink and such internal bickering that Gurewitz and bassist Jay Bentley went to couples counselling. Do What You Want tells a familiar saga, but, admirably for an official book, it makes no effort to portray band members past and present as anything other than selfish, brattish and, sometimes (as when Gurewitz quit over a guest-list place for Bentley’s wife), intellectually challenged rather than intellectually challenging. Other than characters such as…

Rock Camp, The Movie CEDAR HILLS MEDIA Fly-on-the-wall view of the real-life School Of Rock. “Rock stars were harmed during the making of this movie,” announces a disclaimer for this behind-the-scenes look at the Rock ‘N’ Roll Fantasy Camp. Since 1986, promoter David Fishof has brought together A-listers including Roger Daltrey, Alice Cooper, Paul Stanley, Jeff Beck, Slash and Nick Mason to teach ambitious music fans of all ages. This 90-minute documentary uses an avalanche of talking heads to examine how and why it happens. Having begun at $5,000 a pop in its first year, the experience isn’t cheap but director Doug Blush captures the overflowing enthusiasm of the celeb counsellors and students. Have a box of tissues to hand as the torch is passed and both stars and students…

Resist Phony Encores! Gruff Rhys HAT & BEARD PRESS Super Furry Animals singer transforms sloganeering placards into witty memoir. In 2018, Super Furry Animals frontman-turned-folk-rock absurdist Gruff Rhys hosted a run of musically enhanced PowerPoint shows. Adapted from those, Resist Phony Encores! is an engaging mix of sketchy memoir, political manifesto and comedy monologue. Skipping through his journey from Welsh-language band Ffa Coffi Pawb to SFA fame, solo career and side projects, Rhys reveals how he first began using giant cue cards to counter his naturally deadpan stage presence. These placards lead the singer into droll meditations on working with Damon Albarn and Paul McCartney, marching against the Iraq war, the perils of populist clowns like “racist British Prime Minister Boris Johnson” and more. Artfully assembled with a visually striking…

Alexi Laiho Announced January 4, 2021 GERRY MARSDEN: GETTY; ALEXI LAIHO: TERHI YLIMÄINEN THE WORLD OF heavy metal was shocked and saddened by the unexpected death of Alexi Laiho, the former guitarist with Finnish band Children Of Bodom. Once hailed as “the mad scientist of modern metal” by Classic Rock’s sister title Metal Hammer, Laiho died of unknown causes between December 28 and January 3. He was 41 years old. Nicknamed ‘Wild Child’, Laiho had been suffering with long-term health issues during his last years and passed away at home in Helsinki. Along with drummer Jaska Raatikainen he founded Children Of Bodom in 1993. The band’s fourth album, 2003’s Hatecrew Deathroll, is regarded as a masterpiece that expanded the horizons of the metal genre. After Children Of Bodom’s farewell concert…

NEWS Ozzy Osbourne is close to completing his thirteenth solo album. As yet untitled, it features cameos from Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo and Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins. Producer Andrew Watt reveals: “Some songs are eight or nine minutes long. These really crazy journeys.” Glenn Hughes has admitted that he and fellow former Deep Purple member David Coverdale have a difficult relationship with the current lineup of the band. Although both were a part of Purple’s induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2016, Hughes says: “We just don’t get along with the other guys, at all. Let’s call it personality problems.” A double-disc expanded reboot of Powertrippin’, the third studio album from The Almighty, is released on February 26 via Cherry Red. Frontman Ricky Warwick recently…

BURIED TREASURE Riches from the rock underground PETE BROWN AND PIBLOKTO! Thousands On A Raft, Harvest UK, 1970. £280+ Pete Brown is undoubtedly one of British rock music’s unsung heroes. His literary talents as a poet caught the attention of Cream, and, mostly with with Jack Bruce, he co-wrote many of their timeless classics (Sunshine of Your Love, White Room, I Feel Free, to name just a few), before becoming the main lyricist for Jack Bruce on his debut solo album Songs For A Tailor in 1969. His collaborations with Bruce would continue for many years. Encouraged by close friend Graham Bond, Brown put together Pete Brown And His Battered Ornaments in 1968. The band featured Chris Spedding on guitar and they recorded A Meal You Can Shake Hands With…

Q&A Ricky Warwick The Black Star Riders frontman on his new solo album, his debt to Thin Lizzy, and Joe Elliott telling him how to sing. Interview: Mick Wall Perched in his LA lockdown den, in remarkably youthful good health and looking only half his 54 years, Ricky Warwick is breaking all the rules of rock stardom. He is also about to release When Life Was Hard And Fast, the best solo album of his career so far. That is clearly not how these things work usually, saving all your best stuff for long after you’ve become famous. In Warwick’s case fame came first with his band The Almighty, who started out in 1988, then latterly fronting Black Star Riders with former Thin Lizzy star Scott Gorham. But that’s how…

THE STARS PAY TRIBUTE I will never forget you, my hero. I am your little brother. Thank you for what you have done for me. Rest in peace my dearest friend. Michael Schenker Leslie’s tone could stop a rhino in full charge. Mountain’s sound was massive. Leslie was a warm and lovely guy. Paul Stanley, Kiss Do yourself a favour, listen to the deep cuts. And if you play, learn a few of his licks. Alex Skolnick, Testament Like Albert King, Leslie West just knew how to play one note with feeling. It sounds so simple, but it isn’t Jay Jay French, Twisted Sister Leslie West was a rock and roll hall of fame member that didn’t need a statue nor ceremony to prove it. He just was and will…

BRICK BY BRICK For years they watched other bands get the breaks while they didn’t, but The Dirty Nil’s one-step-at-a-time climb has finally paid off. Words: Dannii Leivers The Dirty Nil have always been outsiders. “We’ve never given a shit about being cool,” says vocalist and guitarist Luke Bentham defiantly. “Our fans love us not because of a fashion or for how trendy we are, they’re into the universe that we built brick by brick.” The band have a few mottos, and ‘brick by brick’ is one of them. Another is: ‘If you’re not bleeding, you’re not trying.’ Those two adages have got them through a slow-burn, 14-year ascent that has lead to the release of their fourth album, Fuck Art. At times, though, it seemed that their dreams were…

The HOT LIST THE 12 ESSENTIAL NEW TRACKS YOU NEED TO HEAR THIS MONTH AND THE BANDS TO HAVE YOUR RADAR Okay, so 2021 hasn’t quite got off to the arse-kicking start we’d all hoped for. Lockdown living has resumed. Perhaps you’re reading this with your kids/partner/dog/Zoom account making themselves known – in delightful or disastrous ways – in the background. Maybe you’re just wondering, as probably we all are, what the hell will happen next. If only there was some new music to get excited about… Oh, wait, there is! Lots of it, as a matter of fact. And we’re pleased to show off some choice cuts right here. So whether it’s funky floor fillers you’re looking for (try the Moon City Masters), hooky garage rock’n’roll (say hello to…

W.E.T. Retransmission FRONTIERS Come on in, the water’s W.E.T. and warm. W.E.T. understand the value of keeping their powder dry. While many in the melodic hard rock genre increasingly prioritise quantity above quality, Retransmission is just the fourth studio album in this band’s 12-year career. Any rebooting of the partnership of keyboard player and guitarist Robert Säll (whose group Work Of Art supply the ‘W’ in W.E.T.), Eclipse guitarist Erik Mårtensson and vocalist Jeff Scott Soto (acknowledged here for his contribution to Talisman) will always be worth waiting for, and, sure enough, Retransmission is a dead cert for those ‘best of 2021’ lists. The zeal and passion with which W.E.T. dispatch opener Big Boys Don’t Cry must be heard to be believed, and once they up the pace slightly with…

The Telescopes Songs Of Love And Revolution TAPETE Kaleidoscopic dream-pop. DANNY CLINCH/PRESS Some bands don’t disappear, but instead drift deep and deeper into the ether, turning up strange new minutiae, odd crawling shapes; far and further they go, fuelled by their own twisted obsessions and a sideboard full of Velvet Underground rarities and whispered rumours of My Bloody Valentine reunions. If it doesn’t feel right framing Stephen Lawrie’s Telescopes and their drifting kaleidoscopic dream-pop in terms of other bands, it’s because they have so clearly distilled and refined their own sound long ago: hidden, spooky, mesmeric, a secret gardening of secret delights. So much so that this, their twelfth album in a 30-year career, can only really be described as ‘The Telescopes’. You couldn’t call it ravishing (although the way…

Steve Hackett Under A Mediterranean Sky INSIDEOUT Acoustic postcards from Hackett’s travels. Steve Hackett never lacks ideas for an album. This one has the master guitarist drawing from his excursions around the Mediterranean, for an acoustic record on which he plays not only guitar but also slightly more esoteric instruments such as the oud and charango. Joined by keyboard player Roger King, flautists Christine Townsend and John Hackett, Malik Mansurov on tar, Arsen Petrosyan on duduk, and Hackett’s wife Jo helping out on vocals, Hackett weaves complex yet engaging music that evokes the romantic spirit of that part of the world. This isn’t the type of album that has to be played constantly, but one to dip into occasionally, when there’s a desire to relax and lose oneself in a…

Death By Unga Bunga Heavy Male Insecurity JANSEN Fifth album from muscular Norwegian power-poppers. Given their name, place of origin (Norway) and penchant for shirtless beer-belly promo shots, one might assume DBYB are Turbonegro-esque phoney-but-real arena rockers. And they are, really, although unlike their denim-demon cohorts they rely less on heaving macho goon-show bullshit and more on frankly stellar songcraft. Heavy Male Insecurity is the band’s fifth full album in 10 years. And while you can safely file it away in the hard rock section of your media library, it flirts openly and suggestively with gooey late-70s power-pop and, less sexily, 90s pop-punk. The good stuff borders on the truly excellent: fully charged opener Modern Man, the Rick Springfield-y perfect FM radio pop of Egocentric, the Archies-meets-Hellacopters bubblegum rawk of…

Black Honey Written & Directed FOXFIVE Sassy Brighton pop-punks make a familiar but fun racket. Brighton guitar quartet Black Honey have followed a familiar indie-rock career path since their 2014 debut, nabbing an NME cover, supporting Queens Of The Stone Age, and pressing all the right teen-friendly tame-rebel buttons to secure Reading Festival slots and BBC 6Music plays. But even if their brightly hued pop-punk sound feels formulaic and conservative, singer Izzy B Phillips exudes sassy frontwoman charisma, while her guitar-fondling boy-slaves make a generally exciting racket on this polished second album. Fuzzed-up stompers like Run For Cover and Believer are shallow, but the fun Summer ‘92 already feels like a future arenasized anthem, and Disinfected is impressively forensic retro-grunge pastiche complete with dynamic loud-quiet structure and humongous, moshpit-rocking chorus.…

Love And Death Perfectly Preserved EARACHE Nu-metal lovers rejoice. Anyone pining for the parachute pants and nu-metal breakdowns of the early 00s will get a nostalgic rush listening to Korn guitarist Brian ‘Head’ Welch’s side band Love And Death (what were you expecting, free jazz?). Sure, nu metal isn’t a genre that’s aged well, usually inciting seething hatred from anyone who wasn’t the right age at the right time. But Welch might be trying to win over a new generation, given that Perfectly Preserved, Love And Death’s second album, includes a cover of dance hit Let Me Love You that features Justin Bieber on vocals. The album displays the more earnest side of Korn’s repertoire – there are plenty of chunky nu-metal breakdowns and grinding guitar riffs that transport us…

Jet Get Born CHERRY RED Bells-and-whistles reissue of Oz rockers’ debut. The Strokes might have been more photogenic and The White Stripes blessed with a better back story, but Melbourne quartet Jet lit up the early noughties with a less strategic appeal: an unshakeable faith in classic rock. As a consequence, 18 years on from release their debut album Get Born (the title taken from Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues) has aged like vintage malt whisky. With Dave Sardy’s no-frills production adding to the timeless feel, breakout hit Are You Gonna Be My Girl? now sounds like a jukebox staple, while Get What You Need, Get Me Outta Here and Cold Hard Bitch expertly straddle the divide between AC/DC and the Stones, the sonic fizz cranked up to 11 thanks to…

Creepy John Thomas Trippin’ Like A Dog And Rockin’ Like A Bitch GRAPEFRUIT Tripped out. After the fnarfnar jokes, the question remains: who is or was Creepy John Thomas? In 1968 he was an Australian who’d been in a couple of rock‘n’roll bands, living in Germany as a DJ in a psychedelic club, selling drugs to Jefferson Airplane (probably not a hard sell). He landed a deal with EMI Germany and recorded an album, Come With Me, as Rust, with an English rhythm section who supplied most of the songs that echoed the British scene from a couple of years earlier. The vocals sound weirdly wobbly, and the psychedelic effects appear to have been added by an elephant on angel dust. The album flopped, and Rust slept. But Thomas had…

Curved Air The Albums 1970-73 ESOTERIC Madly eclectic prog pioneers’ studio output boxed up. It’s not easy being several bands at once. But Curved Air seemed to be attempting it on their 1970 debut album Air Conditioning (8/10), reissued here along with the three other studio sets that followed it. Such eclecticism would put them firmly in the prog firmament, but their debut suggests that sticking to any one sonic identity held no interest for them. The gnarly post-psychedelia of It Happened Today also hints at singer-songwriterish fare in its easy-going piano backing, even as Francis Monkman’s hyperactive guitar licks suggest he’s desperate to show us his skills. In the same song, violinist Darryl Way makes his mark before his fiddle decorates the folk-rock boogie of Stretch. Elsewhere he gets…

Disco Zombies South London Stinks OPTIC NERVE Here-today, gone-tomorrow punks left behind one album and some bits. The Wikipedia entry is brief: Disco Zombies were a UK punk band of the late 1970s. One of the better-known songs was Drums Over London (1979). That’s one way of recounting it. Another is to reference the band’s humble beginnings in a Leicester students’ hall of residence in 1977, plying powerpop punk in the style of The Records, Nipple Erectors or The Freshies, poking fun at discos and Top Of The Pops; a cardboard-box version of The Jam, early single Drums Over London ravishing with its three-word call-and-response refrain. This version ends up by pointing out the band’s links to Blur (second guitarist Andy Ross discovered them) and Mojo magazine (singer Dave Henderson). Lashings…

Seduce Too Much Ain’t Enough PRUDENTIAL/ROUGE Sleazy does it. Perhaps best known for their appearance in Penelope Spheeris’s documentary The Decline Of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years, Detroit’s Seduce ticked all the boxes – the hair, the riffs, the almost comical levels of self-belief – and were the only band in the film not based in Los Angeles. Grittier and heavier than many of their contemporaries, their Detroit brand of glam was a lot darker, punkier and nastier than the likes of your Faster Pussycats and Londons, and second album Too Much Ain’t Enough, which features Crash Landing from The Metal Years, is a fine example of style and substance. Absolutely drenched in reverb – at times it sounds like it was all recorded in a cavernous aircraft…

Jon Anderson Song Of Seven ESOTERIC/CHERRY RED Second solo album from the most famous voice of Yes. His name is rarely mentioned alongside those of Robert Plant, Paul Rodgers, Steve Marriott and other rock greats, but it’s difficult to think of a 1970s English rock singer with a more distinctive voice than Jon Anderson. In a high register he possesses clarity and tone that makes his a supreme instrument. Despite a predilection for whimsical and sometimes baffling lyrics, he also knows a good tune when one comes to him. For all Yes’s pomp, Anderson’s songwriting gave their late-70s albums hit singles – Wonderous Stories and Going For The One, plus Don’t Kill The Whale (co-credited to Chris Squire). Then in November 1980 this second solo album emerged, following another hit…

Every Record Tells A Story: A Vinyl Handbook Steve Carr I40 PUBLISHING Digital features transferred to the printed page. Like the vinyl format beloved of record collector Steve Carr, his first book is very much characterised by A-sides and B-sides. Indeed, with its material taken from his blog of the same name, this is pretty much the literary equivalent of a greatest hits collection. Carr is in his element recounting tales of acquiring the back catalogue of a selected artist within a tight time frame and an even tighter budget. These stories are told with warmth and good humour, and with necessary tips on what to look out for and how to buy them. Alas he’s on shakier ground with the flip-sides in the form of artist biographies, which are…

The Ballad Of Jethro Tull Jethro Tull ROCKET 88 Crest of a knave. It’s only when you start reading the picture captions, which are clearly written by Ian Anderson, that you realise that this is the official ballad of Jethro Tull. Furthermore, Anderson has gone through his archives to furnish it with a wealth of unseen photos including outtakes of album cover shoots. The story is told with quotes from the numerous band members, who are generously allowed freedom of expression, and they all seem to agree that the good times outweighed the bad, even the dark times of the late 70s More emphasis could have been put on the early 70s when Tull were second only to Led Zeppelin in conquering America, but Anderson wants to tell the whole…

On Track… Crosby, Stills & Nash: Every Album, Every Song Andrew Wild SONICBOND PUBLISHING The stories behind the music. This well-researched little book is part of the On Track… series that is exactly what the title suggests: a run-through of every song and album released by Crosby, Stills & Nash – and CSNY, although there’s less focus on Neil Young – from the B-sides to the big hitters. Following a short intro and a timeline of the events that led to CSN forming, the songs are examined through a range of approaches including observations from the author, quotes from the band (there are no new interviews), excerpts from reviews, and details on aspects from lyrics to tunings. Some get more space than others – Suite Judy Blue Eyes has more…

Essential Playlist The Teardrop Explodes Reward The Pogues Sally MacLennane Dexys Midnight Runners There There My Dear The Jam That’s Entertainment Talking Heads Once In A Lifetime Martha & The Muffins Echo Beach Orange Juice Falling And Laughing Joy Division Love Will Tear Us Apart Icicle Works Love Is A Wonderful Colour The Specials Ghost Town Furniture Brilliant Mind Joy Division Atmosphere Kraftwerk Tour De France The Pretenders Back On The Chain Gang New Order Age Of Consent Japan Ghosts Skids A Woman In Winter Simple Minds Chelsea Girl Elvis Costello & The Attractions Tokyo Storm Warning Echo & The Bunnymen The Killing Moon…

The Soundtrack Of My Life Producer and Garbage drummer Butch Vig on the records, artists and gigs that are of lasting significance to him. Interview: Emma Johnston BUTCH VIG: BO VIG/PESS JOHN FOGERTY: GETTY “If I could be a singer and inherit someone’s voice, I’d say John Fogerty.” Having produced some of the most significant albums of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, and also made his mark on the rock world with Garbage and more recently 5 Billion In Diamonds, it’s fair to say that Butch Vig knows a thing or two about the magic that separates the good from the great in music. Calling in via Zoom from his home studio in Los Angeles, which is decorated with vintage tour posters from his heroes The Who, he…