Indholdsfortegnelse for October 2022 i Classic Rock

Have you ever stopped for a second to think about Peter Frampton’s amazing career? No? Well, to be completely candid I’m not so sure I really had, either. He’s always been the respected musician, always there, always delivering the goods that I also just sorta took for granted… But, as our feature interview this issue proves, he has had an unrivalled, incredible rock’n’roll life – from being lifelong pals with Bowie, to his teen-idol time in The Herd, to rockers Humble Pie with Steve Marriott, and having one of the biggest albums of the 70s (one of the biggest-selling live albums of all time), to hanging out with Beatles and frequenting film sets, and so much more. But enough of my wafffle, let’s let Frampton himself do all the talking:…

THE LEAD SINGER with Grim Reaper, Onslaught and Lionsheart, among others has passed away unexpectedly at 62. Born in Swindon, Steve Grimmett’s first band was the short-lived Medusa, before hooking up with the Droitwichbased Grim Reaper in 1982. The following year he sang on the debut album by Chateaux, and later Grim Reaper’s See You In Hell, Fear No Evil and Rock You To Hell, after which he was with highly regarded UK thrashers Onslaught. He then fronted Lionsheart and made five albums with them. He was also considered as a replacement for Bruce Dickinson when he left Iron Maiden. In January 2017 Grimmett had his right leg partially amputated in order to “remove an infection from his foot and bones”. “I’ve no regrets whatsoever,” he told VWMusic earlier this…

ALTHOUGH DETAILS WERE scarce at press time, guitarist Ray Majors has passed away, together with his singer-songwriter partner Sandy Dillon. Born on July 16, 1949, Ray played guitar first with Opal Butterfly and then Hackensack, Mott and that band’s spin-off British Lions, and the Yardbirdsassociated group Box Of Frogs. He toured with John Coghlan’s Diesel Band and played on that band’s only album, Partners In Crime. Sandy Dillon was born in Massachusetts in 1960. Her career began when she was signed by David Bowie’s former manager, Tony DeFreis, who spotted her playing Janis Joplin on Broadway. From 1995 she released several albums, the final one being Shipwrecked in 2013. News of the pair’s deaths was announced by Majors’ son Carl Shaw, who posted on Facebook: “Ray and Sandy have never…

FOLLOWING JONI MITCHELL’S surprising live comeback at this year’s Newport Jazz Festival, the singersongwriter’s first full-length show since 2002, it seems she is planning new music. Mitchell had been out of the public eye after suffering a brain aneurysm in 2015 which left her unable to talk or walk. The 78-year-old re-taught herself how to play guitar by watching online tutorials. Despite being nervous, Mitchell enjoyed the experience of playing live again so much that she’d love to push on. Her most recent album, Shine, was released in 2007. When Mojo asked her ex-husband, musician/producer Larry Klein, whether Joni might record any new music, he replied: “I wouldn’t be surprised. She’s working at regaining the ability to play guitar, and what that means is that she’ll start experimenting, and who…

IT’S MAY THIS year, and the Black Heart pub in London is jam-packed with rockers awaiting a hotly tipped American band about to make their live debut in the capital. “They just packed in as many people as they possibly could. It was insane,” enthuses Spirit Adrift founder Nate Garrett. “After the last encore I was crowd-surfed across the venue – not necessarily of my own accord!” Spirit Adrift had to delay crossing the Atlantic when their May 2020 tour supporting Corrosion Of Conformity was postponed (later cancelled), then again when travel restrictions prevented them supporting Orange Goblin last December. Even the triumphant London debut almost slipped through their fingers when a tanker tipped on the M4, the band making it to the gig by the skin of their teeth.…

Teenage scooter enthusiast Steve Diggle was introduced to Pete Shelley by Malcolm McLaren at the Sex Pistols’ first Manchester show, in 1976, and they formed Buzzcocks, one of the punk era’s most enduring combos. Reluctant Top Of The Pops mainstays, they enjoyed a string of timeless hits, not least the evergreen Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve). Following Shelley’s tragic death in 2018, Diggle has led the band into a new era that’s soon to be defined by their first post-Pete album, Sonics In The Soul. How did a Mancunian background shape you? Growing up in a post-war industrial town – old Coronation Street terraces, a pub on the corner that smelt of booze and fags, factory workers – you’re trying to work out what do I make…

Although Dare’s sound stabilised at the end of the 90s, the Oldham-based band spent the first few years of their career building expectations, only to then go and knock them down again. Following leader, frontman and keyboard player Darren Wharton’s two-year spell as a member of Thin Lizzy, in 1988 Dare emerged with their debut Out Of The Silence – still talked of in hushed tones within AOR circles – only to then reinvent themselves as an altogether harderrocking beast with follow-up Blood From Stone. It was 1991, and the band’s label, A&M, craved their own equivalent of Guns N’ Roses or Whitesnake. This enforced change in direction would ultimately sink the first incarnation of Dare, although Wharton maintains that they never broke up. Then with their third album they…

ANIMAL (FUCK LIKE A BEAST) (1984) The track that kicked it all off, a sweaty, sticky, just-the-right-sideof-dubious 80s shock-rock classic. Despite that provocative subtitle, Lawless only drops the F-bomb twice in the whole song. I WANNA BE SOMEBODY (1984) An exhilarating drum barrage introduces the track that kicks off WASP’s debut album. ‘I wanna be somebody, be somebody soon,’ Lawless rasps, like the world’s most unlikely self-help guru. BLIND IN TEXAS (1985) On second album The Last Command the rough edges were smoothed out, although the fuck-you attitude remained. This uproarious pub crawl around the Lone Star State found our hero getting into it with a bunch of good ol’ boys who presumably didn’t very much like men whose arses hung out of their Spandex. WIDOW MAKER (1985) WASP turn…

All The World Is A Stage is as you like it: Slade banging it out with loose, licentious ferocity, so brutish and raucous that you begin to question whether punk needed to happen, and you keep checking that a fleet of jumbo jets hasn’t landed in your ear canals. There’s Noddy Holder defying the laws of biology with a larynx made of sandpaper; Dave Hill convinced that if the same guy signed Hendrix and him then he himself must be a mean guitarist (at one show he bursts into a blast of Purple Haze); Jim Lea just about holding the gang together musically, bringing violins to thrashing mobs; and Don Powell somehow both keeping it grounded and racing ahead so the others have to turn it up from 11 to…

Asking how many people are seeing The Bronx for the first time, frontman Matt Caughthran sees at least three quarters of those at this sold-out gig raise their hands. Which is rather disconcerting, given that these LA punks have been kicking ass for 20 years and have yet to release anything even approaching a bad album. But it’s never too late to gain new fans, and tonight The Bronx do so with ease. While there are loads of Amigo The Devil shirts in the audience, others have never even heard of this one-man band and his dark-humoured tales of life, death and tripping on acid. Again, it’s never too late. Opening with Four Simple Words, the headliner clearly needs no introduction. But while playing 50 states in 50 days –…

Killing Joke’s ever imposing, ever ebullient frontman, Jaz Coleman is preparing to take a flight to Morocco. There he plans to kick back in his regular one-star Marrakesh bolt-hole for a much needed recharge prior to unleashing a fresh KJ assault in the new year. There’s a Royal Albert Hall show on the horizon, and a new album, but prior to that there’s the serious business of selecting for Classic Rock the prime examples of the music that defines him. Although, in the case of one question, he doesn’t appear to fully comprehend what it is that he’s being asked, admitting: “My guilty pleasure is being diabetes one, eating things I shouldn’t eat, and shooting up more insulin to compensate.” THE FIRST MUSIC I REMEMBER HEARING Bach’s St Matthew’s Passion.…

BLACK SABBATH… BY ROYAL APPOINTMENT? Birmingham MPs demand the band are honoured. Following Iommi and Osbourne’s appearance at the Commonwealth Games, seven MPs representing the city of Birmingham wrote to the Queen to request that Black Sabbath be honoured for their services to music. Khalid Mahmood, Labour representative for Perry Barr, is backed by MPs from across the spectrum, including Labour’s Jess Phillips and Tory Gary Sambrook. Together they believe that Her Majesty should “recognise the great contribution made by these fine and groundbreaking musicians, who were made in Birmingham and who have not just entertained Birmingham, the United Kingdom and the whole of the Commonwealth, but perhaps the world.” FOUR OF CLASSIC rock’s biggest stars surprised their fans by returning to a stage last month. Ozzy Osbourne and Tony…

THE LARGER-THAN-LIFE singer who replaced Bruce Dickinson in the NWOBHM band Samson has died at the age of 75. Nicky Moore had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and lived out his final years in a nursing home. Born in the West Country, Moore began his career in rock bands in ’69 when he co-founded Hackensack. After they split, in 1974 he joined Tiger, whose lineup featured the session muso ‘Big’ Jim Sullivan on guitar. The call to join Samson came in late 1981. Moore and Dickinson couldn’t have been any more different. Moore was a big man with an ever bigger voice. His blues-laden delivery propelled Samson in a new, earthier direction with their 80s albums Before The Storm and Don’t Get Mad, Get Even. After Samson, Moore fronted Mammoth,…

“WE’RE USUALLY MISTAKEN for pubs or arms dealers,” says Welshly Arms frontman Sam Getz, laughing. “We’ve had airport incidents where we’re carrying guitar cases that look like they could contain guns, and security have said: ‘What are you doing here? You can’t bring that in!’ ‘No no no – it’s a bass guitar.’” Incidents like that are bound to happen when you lumber yourselves with a name like theirs (it’s cribbed from a Saturday Night Live sketch). But perhaps Getz and the rest of the Ohiobased band won’t have to worry for too much longer. Their chestthumping mix of classic rock, blues and gospel has been gaining admirers for a few years now, and upcoming third album, Wasted Words And Bad Decisions, could be where they reach critical mass. The…

“Sorry, I know this is not quite what we had planned,” Peter Frampton says, aplogetically. For Classic Rock’s cover-story interview, we were set to meet the 72-year old at his recording studio in Berryhill, a hip neighborhood that has become Nashville’s new Music Row. But the night before, one of his studio assistants tested positive for covid. Foremost on Frampton’s mind was the safety of his two-year-old granddaughter Elle, who, with his daughter and son-in-law, was staying with him for the month. To err on the side of caution – and to be able to see each other’s maskless faces – we moved our chat to Zoom. So here’s Frampton, at home on a humid July morning, dressed in a black T-shirt with a silver chain and polished metal-and-wood pendant,…

“ What would David Bowie do?” It’s a question Placebo frontman Brian Molko asks himself on a regular basis when his patience is being tried. The great man was one of the band’s most vocal supporters (along with The Cure’s Robert Smith and R.E.M’s Michael Stipe) from the earliest days, when Placebo invaded London’s lager-soaked mid- 90s rock scene in a starburst of exquisite androgyny, armed with a set of alt.rock anthems that combined a gothic edge with a joyous, riotous sense of mischief. They sounded, looked and acted like absolutely no one else. Which was why Bowie invited them to perform their song Without You I’m Nothing with him at his 50th birthday bash at Madison Square Garden in New York City – amoment that remains a high point…

Son Little Like Neptune ANTI As if his glorious slipping of the blues genre’s straitjacket wasn’t brave enough, Son Little’s latest album is also an excavation of some pretty heavy-duty personal trauma. Reading his childhood journals over lockdown, the man born Aaron Earl Livingston realised that his lifelong lurch between drink, drugs, depression and therapy was rooted in his sexual abuse at the age of five by a neighbour. That trauma – and its closure – is a key strand of Like Neptune. So too is 70s-era Bowie and Little’s self-confessed LSD habit, resulting in some correspondingly out-there material. Drummer is an accessible entry point to his head-space: irredeemably funky, with Coke bottle-sounding percussion, you might cast it as the traditional opener engineered to put more straight-laced listeners under his…

Sun Voyager Sun Voyager RIPPLE MUSIC Occupying the dense, seismic psychedelic void that drones endlessly between Spacemen 3, Allmans, Hawkwind and Sabbath, this second from the New York trio boasts a relentlessly peaking production job that will most assuredly mince your brain to paté. 7/10 Boston Manor Datura SHARPTONE The Blackpool quintet’s fourth is a 27-minute “full-length” that’s “inspired by vocalist Henry Cox drinking too much at the height of the pandemic”. Despite aiming to create immersive noir soundscapes, it’s been effectively produced to death. A cold, clinical experience. 5/10 Mrs Beckett Unattractively Needy SELF-RELEASED Generously infused with the blazing spirit of tight but shambolic, brinkdwelling rock’n’roll, North-East reprobate trio Mrs Beckett ally literate Tom Waits-edged grit with reliably loose, instinctively louche Johnny Thunders guitar swagger, and the result is…

Secret Affair So Cool: The Very Best Of EDSEL Of all the non-2 Tone ’79 mod revivalists, Secret Affair were the most artistically ambitious, which only seemed to irritate the contemporary media, and this 34-track double set (Glory Boys, My World, debut hit Time For Action et al) retains a timeless verve and swagger. 7/10 Eddie And The Hot Rods The Singles 1976-1985 CAPTAIN OI! Now this, or at least half of it, is essential. What happened between Dr Feelgood and the Sex Pistols? This. Maximum R&B at The Marquee for a whole new generation. Teenage Depression. Live At The Sound Of Speed EP. Do Anything You Wanna Do. You need this. 9/10 Abrasive Wheels 1981-1984 CAPTAIN OI! Like most Punk And Disorderly-era bands Leeds quartet Abrasive Wheels call to…

With the death of their keyboard player Dave Greenfield in 2020, The Stranglers announced that 2022 will see their last full tour. But if this is their final bow, they are taking it with all the idiosyncratic brilliance we’ve come to expect from them over the past half-century. A rousing Toiler On The Sea kicks things off, setting a tone of exuberance that suits more punk-inclined material like (Get A) Grip (On Yourself) and Tank. Keyboard player Toby Hounsham ensures that Greenfield’s magic isn’t missing from the band’s sound, while frontman Baz Warne leads the audience like the world’s cheekiest ringmaster. As ever, it’s Jean-Jacques Burnell, the only remaining original member, who provides the sonic bedrock, his funkedup bass lines ensuring Nice ‘N’ Sleazy, White Stallion and Peaches get the…

Judith Durham July 3, 1943 – August 5, 2022 Australia-born Judith Durham was a lead singer and a writer for the internationally acclaimed folk-meets-pop act The Seekers, whose many hits include I’ll Never Find Another You, Georgy Girl and A World Of Our Own. Durham had two spells with the group, from 1962–1968 and 1992– 2019. She was born asthmatic, which led to measles and bronchiectasis, the chronic lifelong affliction which ultimately claimed her at 79. Lamont Dozier June 16, 1941 – August 8, 2022 The famed singer, songwriter and producer Lamont Dozier has died aged 81. Cause of death has not been announced. A member of the Holland–Dozier–Holland writing team, he was born in Detroit and co-wrote a number of chart-toppers for the likes of The Four Tops, the…

SHANE McGOWAN HAS led the tributes to Darryl Hunt, The Pogues’ long-time bassist who had died at the age of 72. No cause of death has been released. Pogues leader MacGowan wrote on Instagram: “I am very, very sorry that Darryl has passed away, we will all miss him, he was a really great person and friend and a great bass player.” Hampshire-born Hunt was a member of The Pogues’ inner circle, his duties involving mixing their live sound and driving the van. After filling in for Cait O’Riordan, he became her permanent replacement when she left the group in 1986. Hunt played on the following year’s smash hit and perennial Christmas song Fairytale Of New York, and brought several songs to The Pogues’ catalogue, including Modern World, Big City…

Next summer’s Wacken Open Air Festival sold out all 80,000 tickets in five hours after an early announcement of its line-up so far, which includes headliners Iron Maiden. Joe Walsh is calling time on the James Gang, the band he left to join the Eagles in 1971, with a charity farewell show in Columbus, Ohio that co-stars Dave Grohl, Nine Inch Nails, The Black Keys and The Breeders . A disbelieving Dee Snider has mocked yet another politician who commandeered Twisted Sister’s track We’re Not Gonna Take It for a cause Snider deplores. “Hey idiots! Read the first line,” he told Arizona governor candidate Kari Lake. “‘We’ve got the right to CHOOSE!’ This is a PRO-CHOICE anthem!” Jason ‘Jase’ Edwards of Wolfsbane has been diagnosed with a bone marrow cancer…

Metallica sold more concert tickets (19,468,173) over the past four decades than any other heavy metal band, according to a report published by live music industry bible Pollstar. The list, topped by the Rolling Stones, also includes Guns N’ Roses (at number 23), AC/DC (27), Kiss (41), Def Leppard (42) and Iron Maiden (44). Rock Goddess have announced their retirement from live performances. Formed in 1977, the pioneering all-female British trio cite “logistical and financial obstacles” for their decision, with a bout of covid that forced them to cancel a spot at the Barcelona RockFest in Spain “the straw that broke the camel’s back”. Bryan ‘Brain’ Mantia has spoken about how he embraced the “chaos” during his time with Guns N’ Roses. “Everyone else was freaking out: ‘Oh my god,…

There’s no avoiding it: September is well and truly under way; holiday season is drawing to a close; the kids are back at school; hot, sweaty days are giving way to touches of autumnal chill, and it’s getting dark earlier. Some may mourn these changes, these little endings. Others… well, others see opportunity. Because in so many ways autumn is a great time for a lot of us; a soul-cooling period of fresh starts, new projects and new music, as bands and artists peel off their summer festival passes and release new albums, EPs and singles and gear up for the winter gig season. It’s a time of creative plenty. A time to reset. All of this gleams through this month’s Hot List, which takes in blues rock, glossymaned AOR,…

LBUMS Skid Row blew through town recently on one of those 80s-revival tours, headlining over Winger and Warrant, and I felt, like most people do in these circumstances, that the Skids deserve better. Sure, in their early days they scored big, lighter-waving, I-justbought-my-first-mansion-in-cash glammetal hits, but by their double-platinum ferocious second album, 1991’s Slave To The Grind, they had settled into a piledriving arena-thrash sound that was miles away from the hair-care bunch. Losing their Adonis frontman Sebastian Bach somewhere in the 90s was certainly a blow to their momentum, as was a spotty discography and a revolving door of singers. You can blame grunge too, if you want. But there is an alternative timeline out there where nobody blew it, where Skid Row soared through fallow times with thunder…

Sick Thoughts Heaven Is No Fun TOTAL PUNK Sick Thoughts is one dude – Drew Owen – from nowheresville, Maryland who releases albums seemingly once a week. He is a true agent of chaos, and the music he churns out is gloriously sleazy, mean-spirited, punky rock’n’roll. This is his latest, at least of this writing, and it’s an absolute belter. From the satanic Ramones of Mother I Love Satan to the dive-bombing trashpunk of Wake Up Drunk, it’s the perfect soundtrack to juvenile delinquency. I mean, half the songs are just threats (I Hate You, Horrible Death, I’m Gonna Waste You etc). Your head will bop, your hip will shake, you’ll probably start smoking cigarettes and drinking beer again. I’m sure most of the people who actually have to deal…

Former Clash man’s vital history, 1999-2002 Back in the 90s, Johnny Cash took his music into the last stages of old age. The lesson was that you might keep your ferocity, grace and art until the very end. Joe Strummer was paying attention. He had also decided to be a man in black, a folk archetype. And so he wrote Johnny a wonderful song called The Road To Rock ’N’ Roll. Cash was confused by the proposal, but the Strummer version is excellent. He was still writing well. His songs with the Mescaleros are braided with stoner jokes, moral rage and the dream of a transglobal resistance. Punk rock could ally with Algerian rai, dub reggae and campfire rave. All the good stuff would fit. Clash fans were sometimes disappointed…

Belfast guitarist’s full and frank history. Gary Moore was 58 when he died of lifestyle-related causes in 2011. He has been remembered with tribute gigs, posthumous releases and TV specials, but a balanced overview of his ever-twisting career has been lacking. Was he essentially a rocker, a blues guy, a Celtic sound shaker, or some other variation? This official biography aims to put a discernible shape to the life. We learn more about the Fleetwood Mac connection and the early mentorship of Peter Green. There are meetings with George Harrison, a couple of Sex Pistols, Albert King and BB King, and a band with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker. Sparks fly and substantial music is created. Moore had memorable collisions with Thin Lizzy, notably on the Black Rose album in…

The double-act headliners are actually a threepiece, with sparkling piano from Carol Hodge. Hodge had earlier performed a set of wry, sad and touching ballads as opening act. When Ginger and Poole later step into the spotlights she is behind them, getting soaked by the wave of joy from the audience in response to the opening Cheers/Taxi medley and second song Boxes. However, that wave leaves Ginger dry as toast. After 20 fabulous minutes he announces: “I’m having a mild panic attack.” We all laugh because we presume he’s joking; everything looks and feels so good from where we’re standing. But depression tells him otherwise. As Poole delivers an insane mini-set that peaks with a hysterical cover of Focus’s yodelling classic Hocus Pocus, Ginger watches lovingly, as if hoping to…