Indholdsfortegnelse for June 2021 i Classic Rock

Lou Ottens June 21, 1926 – March 6, 2021 LOU OTTENS: GETTY; MALCOLM CECIL: AVALON THE DUTCH ENGINEER credited with the invention of the audio tape cassette has died at the age of 94. No cause has so far been reported. In 1963, Lou Ottens changed the course of music with his easily affordable and portable way to capture and recreate sound. An estimated 100 billion tapes have been sold. Ottens also played a key role in the development of the compact disc during the late 70s. The arrival of the CD format would all but wipe out the usage of cassettes, but during the 80s and 90s many bands owed their careers to the tape-trading network. Within the industry there was also considerable paranoia over cassettes and for a…

Reg The Lightning? Elton John and Metallica in mind-boggling team-up. IN A BIZARRE PAIRING, Elton John and Metallica have been collaborating in secret. Sir Elton broke the news via his Apple Music show Rocket Hour, saying: “I’ve just done something with Metallica, during this lockdown period… I haven’t been doing any Elton stuff, but I’ve been doing great stuff with other people.” No further details are available, but, frankly, the mind boggles. In related news, claims suggest that Metallica almost decided to bury their 2004 documentary Some Kind Of Monster. According to its co-director Joe Berlinger, the band watched a preview viewing in stony silence, and initially hated what they saw so much that they debated locking it away forever so that no one else would ever lay eyes on…

THE STORIES BEHIND THE SONGS Otis Redding (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay Written by Redding and his guitarist/producer Steve Cropper, it became one of the Stax label’s enduring songs. Sadly Redding died in a plane crash before he was able to enjoy its success. Words: Rob Hughes Otis Redding was big news by the summer of 1967. Having spent most of his career performing in black clubs, his breakout appearance at the Monterey International Pop Music Festival that year introduced mainstream America to soul music’s most electrifying new star. All that was missing was a major hit. After Monterey, Redding busied himself on the road with his backing band, the Bar-Kays. In August a week’s residency at San Francisco’s Basin St. West finally afforded him some time to…

ON THE WINGS OF A DOVE Forty years ago, Stevie Nicks stepped out from the chaos and control of Fleetwood Mac with a hit-laden debut solo album that showed she could fly just as high on her own. Words: Bill DeMain NEIL ZLOZOWER/ATLASICONS.COM It’s September 1980. From the deck of the Pacific Palisades home that Stevie Nicks was sharing with her new boyfriend, producer Jimmy Iovine, you could hear the hypnotic push and pull of the ocean. Inside, among the tropical plants, Persian rugs and paintings of dragons and gypsies, there was the even more alluring sound of three siren voices dovetailing in perfect harmony. Stevie and Lori Perry and Sharon Celani, her two closest friends, would spend hours around the upright piano, singing everything from old country and western…

MAIDEN VOYAGE Former band members Paul Di’Anno and Dennis Stratton look back at the early days of Iron Maiden and the self-titled debut album that changed the face of heavy metal. Words: Dave Ling ALAMY As we know them today, Iron Maiden are six supremely successful rock stars who, armed with an expansive catalogue of music, travel the world on a jet often piloted by their lead singer, and challenge a rival American band called Metallica for the title of the biggest heavy music act in the world. Forty-one years ago it was very different. In January 1980, when bassist Steve Harris and the rest of Maiden arrived at London’s Kingsway Studios to hammer down tracks in the form of a debut album, he was 23 years old. As the…

THE HARD STUFF ALBUMS Royal Blood Typhoons WARNER BROS Disco devastation from Brighton’s mightiest blues-rockers. For decades, anguished blues rock has been a musical gold standard. No matter what scenes, trends and fripperies come and go, there will always be solid currency and credibility in roaring your troubles through a hairy throat to a strutting riff that’s only recently cooled from its magma form. Of the many bands – mostly duos – that plugged in to the source in the wake of The White Stripes, Brighton’s Royal Blood were among the most intriguing, having the ballast of Muse, the snarl of Queens Of The Stone Age and wrenching an entire Zeppelin’s worth of noise from just drum kit and bass guitar on 2014’s self-titled debut. The follow-up, 2017’s How Did We…

REVIEWS ROUND-UP: BLUES By Henry Yates William The Conqueror Maverick Thinker CHRYSALIS Five years ago, as a modestly successful singer-songwriter, Ruarri Joseph sat outside a Scottish pub, stared at his own gig poster and “heard my younger self sniggering at me, really disappointed at what I’d become”. The three-piece band born from that flash of clarity has proved more than a rebound, and this third album is something to hear. Joseph is an odd fish as a frontman, more spoken-word drawler than singer as such, on minimal moments like Fiction and Suddenly Scared (24 Storeys High). Yet it works brilliantly, whether that conversational vocal is threading through the robotic verse of wiggy indie-blues The Deep End or Alive At Last’s messy jangle of a chorus. On Wake Up and Reasons he…

THE HARD STUFF ALBUMS Gary Moore JESSE WILD How Blue Can You Get PROVOGUE Blue is still the colour. Despite buying Peter Green’s legendary Les Paul as a precocious teenager in Skid Row in the late 60s, it took Gary Moore another 20 years to ‘come out’ as a blues guitarist. During that time he built up a formidable reputation as a rock/metal axeman, much of it within his rumbustious relationship (to put it mildly) with Phil Lynott. But it left him dissatisfied – “like a dog chasing his tail”, as he put it. He finally made the career change with 1990’s well-received Still Got The Blues and never looked back, although his commercial minders managed to eek a few more hard rock throwbacks out of him. Moore released a dozen…

THE HARD STUFF STUFF BOOKS&DVDS Hendrix 1969: Day By Day Ben Valkhoff & Luigi Garuti WWW.JIMIHENDRIXBOOKS.COM Revelatory forensic diary of Jimi’s pivotal year. With Hendrix unchallenged as rock’s all-time greatest guitarist, performer and icon, books continue to roll out that are increasingly divided between mediocre retreads from mainstream publishers, and self-publishing fresh insights from veteran experts. Dutch Hendrix archivist and Univibes co-founder Valkhoff and Italian collector Garuti were motivated by endless recycling of factual errors in high-profile books to produce 2019’s diary-style Hendrix 1968: Day By Day, collating recording dates, jam sessions, interviews, incidents and gig minutiae that set the record straight through exhaustive fact checking and detective work. The pair continue their mission by turning their microscope on the most seismic 12 months in Hendrix’s four-year supernova career, adding more…

Superior Reputation cementing There Is Nothing Left To Lose ROSWELL/RCA, 1999 With Grohl having fired guitarist Franz Stahl, for album number three the Foos worked as a trio. While not wholly devoid of raucous riff-rock, the set largely drew influence from mid-70s soft rock, with songs such the country-tinged Ain’t It The Life and the wistful Aurora conjuring visions of fireside summer camp bonding sessions. “It was the most relaxed and simple and perfect recording session I’ve ever been in in my life,” Grohl later claimed. “I honestly think it’s my favourite Foo Fighters record… It’s such a relaxed, honest, organic and real album.” Wasting Light ROSWELL/RCA, 2011 Recorded by Butch Vig and featuring a guest spot from Krist Novoselic, the album reunited three of the four men who made…

Crowded House ‘Joy is unconfined, and there’s barely a dry eye in the house.’ AARON LEE/PRESS Dunedin Town Hall, New Zealand Meanwhile, back in the real world… It takes a certain kind of confidence to drop the music to a whisper and let the audience take over the singing during the first song, but when the band is Crowded House, the song is Weather With You and the venue is packed in the way venues used to be, there’s very little risk of the ploy not paying off. As support act Reb Fountain (a truly beguiling mix of Stevie Nicks and Lana Del Rey) says: “This is probably the biggest show in the world right now.” In 2021 Crowded House are not so much a band as a dynasty, with…

the DiRT RIP Thank you and good night. Alan Cartwright October 10, 1945 – March 4, 2021 Londoner Alan Cartwright joined Procol Harum in 1971, and was with the band for five years, playing bass on four albums including Live With The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. The 75-year-old died of cancer. “Alan was a very solid, musical and reliable bass player, and a good bloke who gave his best both in the studio and on tour,” said Procol Harum singer/pianist Gary Brooker. James MacGaw Died March 8, 2021 Magma have paid tribute to their former guitarist who has lost a battle with cancer. MacGaw was part of the French progressive group’s live lineup but retired from performing in 2015. “You were ‘a child of Magma’, you found your place with us,…

WELCOME BACK Trucker Diablo With lyrics that are “social commentaries on the times we live in”, don’t expect songs about beer and girls. GEEZER BUTLER: KEVIN NIXON OVER THE PAST 13 years and four previous albums, Trucker Diablo have never held back on delivering bullish, anthemic music that gets right in your face. The Northern Irish foursome have now taken this a stage further on new album Tail End Of A Hurricane. Tom Harte (vocals/lead guitar), Simon Haddock (rhythm guitar), Jim McGurk (bass) and Terry Crawford (drums) still have the big riffs and huge choruses, but are now more diverse than ever. Harte explains the new Diabolical philosophy. The new album veers from the punky pessimism of Insects to the feelgood attitude of Rock Kids Of The 80s. Did you…

WELCOME BACK The Datsuns The Kiwi rockers on the demons, psychedelia and “word salads” behind their first album in seven years. BILLY GIBBONS: WILL IRELAND WHEN THEY SHOT on to the scene 20 years ago with their self-titled debut album, bristling with mammoth anthems, punk rock swagger and a dose of psychedelic fuzz, The Datsuns were hailed as the saviours of rock. Five more albums followed, and then things went quiet – all four members were living in different countries, and their last album was released seven years ago. But just when we thought they were finished, they’ve fired back with killer seventh album Eye To Eye. Bassist and singer Dolf de Borst tells us why the return has taken so long. What’s been going on with The Datsuns during…

WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING A track-by-track look Paul & Linda McCartney’s Ram. “Paul used to do this thing,” drummer TOO MANY PEOPLE An unyielding opening salvo driven by a punchy rhythm track that embodies the spite that begot the song’s lyrics, which are aimed directly at John Lennon: ‘You took your lucky break, and broke it in two.’ A fiery guitar solo leads the track to a crashing climax. 3 LEGS Reportedly inspired by a drawing of a limbless dog made by his eight-year-old daughter Heather, this pleasing acoustic blues number seems to unveil itself as a further dig at The Beatles (‘I thought you was my friend,’ McCartney bemoans, ‘but you let me down/Put my heart around the bend’), although ironically is one Lennon later professed to liking. RAM…

NUMBERS OF THE BEAST A look at Iron Maiden, track by track. GETTY PROWLER Steve Harris’s disdain for punk rock is well known, although the genre’s raw excitement is evident throughout Iron Maiden’s debut. Starting off with a fierce staccato riff, opening track Prowler is an effective introduction for what follows. Although the record’s DIY production is generally considered something of a handicap, it serves to enforce the notion that this was a band doing something a little bit differently to the rest. The minute-long instrumental section that begins at 1.24 is quite extraordinary, hinting at a love of progressive rock that Harris would later own up to. And, for better or worse, the lyrics, which appear to celebrate a stalker – ‘Well, you see me crawling through the bushes…

CAN YOU SEE ME? The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s debut album, Are You Experienced, was pieced together over six frantic months in London. A future classic and a shop window for his genius, it put Jimi on the path to superstardom. Words: David Sinclair SHUTTERSTOCK Are You Experienced is one of the great albums of all time. Over the course of the original UK version’s 11 songs, as well as the three singles and B-sides which preceded it, Jimi Hendrix – the man whose vision and talent both powered it and set it apart from everything else – integrated and manipulated guitar chords, riffs, solos and myriad effects in ways that revolutionised the sound, style and substance of popular music. Less fulsomely acknowledged are Hendrix’s skills as a singer and songwriter,…

THE HARD STUFF ALBUMS Electric Boys Ups!de Down MIGHTY MUSIC A metal carpet ride from the Swedes, sure, just not a funky one. A year ago, Electric Boys’ enduring frontman and part-time Hanoi Rocks guitarist Conny Bloom released a fun but confounding (to most of us) solo album in his native Swedish. The music was mostly 60s-influenced pop with some jazzy moments. It did not sound at all like the rubbery, bass-popping, party-hearty glam of his main band’s late-80s Funk O Metal Carpet Ride heyday, or even their bluesy, 70s-inspired 2018 album Ghost Ward Diaries. So who knows where the Boys would go next, particularly during these exceedingly weird times. Ups!de Down obviously seemed like the most logical choice. Bloom and original bassist Andy Christell are joined this time by new…

THE HARD STUFF REISSUES Paul & Linda McCartney © PAUL MCCARTNEY / PHOTOGRAPHER: LINDA MCCARTNEY Ram EMI Time’s been kind to Sir Macca’s second, relatively understated, post-Beatles solo album. It has been 50 years since Ram was first released, and EMI have given fans the chance to buy it again in a half-speed mastered mix that is, like all the other mixes and reissues, slightly shinier than before. The only other difference is that caused by the passage of time, which has wrought great changes on Ram. When this album – credited to Paul and Linda McCartney for publishing reasons, and beginning Paul’s long career of annoying chart compilers by crediting records differently every time – came out in 1971, it was not greeted, as it has been for most of…

THE HARD STUFF BUYER’S GUIDE Foo Fighters Dave Grohl took his one-man project to one of the world’s most commercially successful bands while retaining credibility. DANNY CLINCH/PRESS On January 8, 1995, Pearl Jam vocalist Eddie Vedder broadcast two tracks, one a cover of an Angry Samoans song, from a demo tape by a new rock band, on his Self Pollution Radio show. This was the world’s first exposure to Foo Fighters, a new group led by former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl. In truth, at the point at which these songs were recorded, just three months earlier, there was no band; Grohl had played every riff, pounded every beat and sung every note on his new project’s demo tape himself. On February 19, 1995, Foo Fighters – now including ex-Germs guitarist…

Good Worth exploring Medicine At Midnight ROSWELL/COLUMBIA, 2021 Ever keen to offer a snappy soundbite, Grohl has sought to draw comparisons between Medicine At Midnight and Bowie’s Let’s Dance, but the title track’s smooth funk-rock grooves owe more to The Power Station, and Cloudspotter is more Foghat than China Girl. Singles Shame Shame (moody), No Son Of Mine (snarly) and Waiting On A War (reflective) make a solid case for the album’s range, but it’s the hazy, largely unheralded Chasing Birds, one of the loveliest songs Grohl has ever written, that leaves the heaviest footprint. Overall a consolidation rather than a revolution. In Your Honor ROSWELL/RCA, 2005 A decade into the band’s career, it was time, Grohl felt, for “something special”. Recorded at his own Studio 606 complex, and featuring…

the DIRT INSIDE THE WORLD OF ROCK FOR MORE NEWS: WWW.CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM FANTASTIC PLASTIC! Record Store Day 2021 to go ahead despite covid uncertainty, and there are gems to pre-order. Now into its thirteenth year, Record Store Day this year takes place on Saturday June 12 and Saturday July 17. As this issue went to press, non-essential shops in England and Wales were enjoying their first day of being allowed to open following this year’s period of lockdown, and queues were forming outside many retail outlets. Record shops around the country could therefore be seeing more people than in previous years coming out to shop on the two Record Store Days. As usual, lots of exciting, exclusive, super-collectable goodies will be made available on a first-come first-served basis, and in keeping with…

NEWS Brett Bradshaw Died March 26, 2021 Brett Bradshaw played drums for Faster Pussycat between 1990 and ’93, appearing on the Whipped! album. Cause of death and his age were unknown at press time. “This one’s going to take a long time, I’m just completely numb right now,” said former Faster Pussycat bassist Eric Stacey. Ethel Gabriel November 16, 1921 – March 23, 2021 The Grammy-winning producer of Elvis Presley has died in New York at the age of 99. Ethel Gabriel was the first female record producer to work for a major record label and also the industry’s first female A&R producer. Malcolm Cecil January 9, 1937 – March 28, 2021 As well as being a record producer and jazz bassist – he played with Alexis Korner in Blues…

6 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT…. Dirty Honey In a world over-sweetened with pop syrup, Dirty Honey tell stories from the darker side of Los Angeles. Words: Henry Yates DANIEL PRAKOPCYK/PRESS A YEAR AGO, an unsigned Los Angeles band sprawled on a downtown fire escape for a photoshoot that accompanied a High Hopes piece in Classic Rock. Having scanned the horizon for rock’s next generation of giants, they decided to take the job on themselves. Back then, Dirty Honey’s yardsticks by which to judge success – Aerosmith, Zeppelin, AC/DC – seemed to doom them to disappointment. But while they’re still operating without a record label, the hooky strut of this year’s self-titled debut album suggests the stadium league might soon have to make a little room. Vocalist Marc LaBelle…

For The RECORD We all love to put on a favourite album, switch off the lights and just totally tune in. So does Colleen Murphy, and with her Classic Album Sundays she’s taken the experience further. Words: Jo Kendall It’s September 2013, a Saturday evening, and I’m at Hayes & Harlington station, about to Google Map my way through an office-block-filled maze to a secluded destination where loud music, soft bean bags and Trooper beer await, at a new vinyl LP listening club called Classic Album Sundays. At an outbuilding by The Old Vinyl Factory, formerly EMI’s enormous HQ and, fittingly, record-pressing plant, excited metal fans are hovering. Then it’s time to file in, grab a drink and flop out as Classic Album Sundays founder Colleen Murphy and Classic Rock/Louder…

THE HARD STUFF ALBUMS Myles Kennedy CHUCK BRUECKMANN/PRESS The Ideas Of March NAPALM Alter Bridge frontman brings hope amid banana bread and glitchy Zoom meetings. Get Along berates the state of our apathetic times with a hefty dollop of Kennedy’s blistering guitar playing, which also underpins much of A Thousand Words. In Stride, inspired by the hoarding of toilet roll and pasta, aggressively encourages us to collectively calm down: ‘Cool down, baby, you know you’re gonna burn out in time/Sometimes you gotta let go and just open your eyes.’ In a world where caution is the by-word as we begin blinking blearily into normal life once again, this core message delivered through the power of slide guitar can serve as a daily mantra. A similar insouciance weaves through Moonshot and Wanderlust…

REVIEWS ROUND-UP: SLEAZE By Sleazegrinder JESSICA SQUILLANTE/PRESS The Devils Beast Must Regret Nothing GOODFELLAS Naples’ glamorous, murderous swamppunk duo The Devils return with their third full-length dose of dirty, gnarly, sex-drenched rock’n’roll. Switchblade Erika’s drums lurch around drunkenly as she either purrs suggestively or howls with red-clawed intensity. Gianni Blacula’s guitar is a blunt-force instrument of corrosive scuzz, like the Cramps’ Poison Ivy dragged through mud and razor wire. It’s primitive but big, and Beast Must Regret Nothing is clearly their most ambitious album yet. At times they give off a heady White Stripes aura, particularly on the catchy, raucous foot-stomper Time Is Gonna Kill Me and roaring anti-anthem Life Is A Bitch. Singles I Appeared To The Madonna and Real Man both drip with venom and palpable sleaze, but The…

THE HARD STUFF REISSUES John Lennon John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band: The Ultimate Collection CAPITOL/UMC Who’d have thought Lennon’s therapeutic confessional could get more exposed? From the ominous church knell heralding the lyrical bereavement therapy of Mother, to the crushed lullaby to no one My Mummy’s Dead, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970) – undoubtedly his most raw and revealing solo album, arguably his best – was always a harrowing, uncompromising listen. Stillprocessing The Beatles’ split, and psychologically taken apart but not yet reconstructed, by primal therapy, John Lennon delivered a sonic exorcism, tackling his childhood abandonment by both parents, a lifetime of grief and confusion, and the torments of Beatlehood in a 40-minute collision of corroded blues desperation (Well Well Well, I Found Out), blank cynicism (Working Class Hero), scarred gospel soul…

Essential Classics The Colour And The Shape ROSWELL, 1997 By the time this album was completed, both guitarist Pat Smear and drummer William Goldsmith had tendered their resignations, and Grohl had been served divorce papers by his first wife. A survivor’s manual penned by a man watching his world crumble beneath his feet, it’s the story of a soul in limbo. “My life was fucking going down the toilet,” he recalled. But the music would be his guide out of the darkness. Everlong, Monkey Wrench and My Hero are the big hitters here, but this is the Foo Fighters’ most complete and cohesive artistic statement and their finest hour. Foo Fighters ROSWELL/CAPITOL, 1995 Following Kurt Cobain’s suicide there were times when Grohl thought he might never play music again. Music…

Avoid Sonic Highways ROSWELL/RCA, 2014 ‘Avoid’ is an overly harsh instruction for an album that is, at worst, a 5/10, but Sonic Highways is much easier to admire than to adore. A companion piece to the HBO TV series of the same name, Grohl’s ‘love letter to the history of American music’, the album was compromised due to the concept: that each of its eight tracks would be written and recorded in a different US city, inspired by the history and musical heritage of its birthplace. A brilliant idea for a documentary, and one beautifully executed. On record the reverential nature of the songs is undeniably heartfelt, but it’s all a bit earnest and dull.…