Classic Rock (February 2020)

In January 1970, Jimi Hendrix pulled the plug on stardom to chase
a funkier, freer direction with his Band Of Gypsys. In the trio’s brief

existence, they helped redefine the nature of the rock gig.


Words: Bill DeMain

































I n his last ever interview, in September 1970, half of them still unfinished and untitled. And
Hendrix himself, dressed down in a blue silk shirt
Jimi Hendrix said: “I have this little saying:
and bell-bottomed jeans, cut a surprisingly
‘When things get too heavy, just call me
helium – the lightest known gas to man.’”
understated figure on stage, eyes closed, digging
Eight months earlier, in that spirit, Jimi
had begun the decade with four New Year deep for fiery licks. His Stratocaster remained
cradled against his hip, never once flying behind
performances at New York’s Fillmore East with his his head or through his legs.
newly formed trio Band Of “I don’t want to be a clown
Gypsys, the ‘helium’ vehicle any more,” Jimi famously
which he assumed carried told Rolling Stone in late ’69.
him away from what he “I don’t want to be “I don’t want to be
called the “ego-tripping” a rock’n’roll star… a rock’n’roll star.” A month
dead end he’d reached with later, he said: “I consider
the Experience, and into I consider myself myself first and foremost
uncharted territory. a musician. My initial success
In a true ‘’Scuse me while first and foremost was a step in the right
I kiss the sky’ moment, a musician.” direction, but it was only
everything about Hendrix a step. A couple of years ago,
seemed up in the air. His Jimi Hendrix in 1969 all I wanted was to be heard;
former bandmates, ‘Let me in’ was the thing. Now
drummer Mitch Mitchell and bassist Noel Redding, I’m trying to figure out the wisest way to be heard.”
two white English guys, were replaced by black Engineer Eddie Kramer, who mixed the 1970
Americans Buddy Miles and Billy Cox. Out went album Band Of Gypsys, said: “When Jimi did
the three-minute hits, in came hard funk jams that concerts he was in the embarrassing position of:
expanded to eight minutes or more. The set-list ‘I don’t really want to get down on my knees and
ignored proven favourites in favour of unheard spray lighter fluid on my guitar and put the guitar
songs such as Machine Gun and Who Knows, at least behind my back and play with my teeth, and GETTY

52 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM



BAND OF GYPSYS





Jimi Hendrix and
Buddy Miles.
































































put on a big show.’ He obviously was brilliant at struggle to build his own studio, Electric Lady; Jimi,” Eddie Kramer said. “Jimi would show Billy
doing that, but now he just wanted to stand up and the suspicion that his manager Mike Jeffrey was a riff, and he would rehearse it until the bass and
play music.” embezzling money; and the unravelling of the guitar melded into one instrument.”
And music in the cosmic sense. Beyond Experience. The trio, assembled by former To complete the trio, Hendrix chose drummer
personal reinvention, Jimi was now out to reshape manager Chas Chandler, was never one built on Buddy Miles. They’d met on the chitlin circuit
the very nature of the rock concert. He hit the stage bonhomie, and bassist Redding had formed his years before, when Miles was playing with Wilson
without a set-list, spontaneously calling tunes to own competing group, Fat Mattress. Chandler Pickett and Jimi was with the Isley Brothers.
Miles and Cox, often making time and tempo observed that they’d devolved into “three guys The three rehearsed and experimented in New
changes on the fly, conducting them with a head soloing at the same time, their former unity gone”. York studios from October until December 1969.
nod or raising of his guitar neck. It was more like On his way toward Band Of Gypsys, Jimi briefly Jimi told the guys he wanted them to be the earth
a jazz gig at the Blue Note than a big rock show at tried a bigger group, the Gypsy Suns & Rainbows and water to his air and sky.
the Fillmore. By modern standards, this kind of ensemble that backed him at Woodstock that “They loved to jam,” Kramer said. “In the studio,
radical deconstruction would be career that’s all they did, just play for hours and
suicide. Today, stakes are too high, attention hours, experimenting. And running up
spans too short and concert tickets too huge bills. It would be unthinkable today.”
expensive for an artist three albums into “They loved to jam. In the This sense of exploration was inspired by
their career to suddenly walk such a public studio they’d just play for hours Jimi’s two biggest heroes: Bob Dylan and
tight rope. But for Hendrix it was the jazz great Miles Davis.
direction his artistic compass insisted he go. and hours, experimenting.” Dylan was a master skin shedder,
changing directions and leaving new genres
imi’s liberation began on a mutinous Engineer Eddie Kramer on Band Of Gypsys like folk rock in his wake. He was also
note months earlier, with the Jimi a Greenwich Village neighbour of Jimi’s, and
JHendrix Experience’s now infamous August. And all of this personal struggle unfolded one day the star-struck Jimi bumped into him on
appearance on Lulu’s TV live variety show on against an equally turbulent backdrop of civil 8th Street. “Bob, I’m a singer, you know, uh, called
January 4. Halfway through Hey Joe, they stopped, rights and the Vietnam War. It was also surely why Jimi Hendrix…” he stammered. Dylan said: “I don’t
and he said: “We’d like to stop playing this rubbish Jimi looked back for something familiar before know if anyone has done my songs better,” then
and dedicate a song to the Cream (who had just moving forward, tapping his old army buddy Billy hurried off. Jimi felt like he’d been blessed by the
announced that they had split),’ and they tore Cox to join him on bass. The two met in 1960 in Dalai Lama.
abruptly into Sunshine Of Your Love. As Lulu and her the 101st Airborne, in Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, Jimi met Miles Davis at a hair salon. Davis liked
producers panicked, Jimi said with a laugh: “We’re when Cox heard a guitarist who sounded “like Jimi’s ‘blowout’ Afro and wanted the same. The GEORGE RODRIGUEZ/CACHE AGENCY-DALLE/ICONICPIX
getting put off the air.” John Lee Hooker meets Beethoven”. They played two musicians occasionally double-dated with
That set the tone for a tumultuous 1969, marked together in a band called The Kasuals in the R&B their girlfriends. There was mutual admiration,
by a drug bust and trial that saw Jimi narrowly clubs of Nashville. but the older Davis was more of a father figure
escape a 20-year prison sentence; a disaster-laden “There was a tight integration between Billy and to Jimi, recommending records and dispensing

54 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

Billy Cox with Jimi Hendrix
Studio portrait of and Mitch Mitchell at the
Buddy Miles. 1970 Isle of Wight Festival.


philosophical advice. What fascinated Jimi was the This promising start aside, Jimi’s new direction theft, continued to gig, and found commercial
way Davis approached his sessions and live gigs. was actively discouraged by manager Mike Jeffrey, success as the voice behind the California Raisins.
From Davis’s groundbreaking album Kind Of Blue who loathed Buddy Miles, and was angling to get He died in 2008 of heart failure. Billy Cox, now 80,
onward, he adopted the approach of providing his the Experience back together. It was also lives in Nashville and still tours with the Experience
musicians with bare-bones sketches of tunes, then complicated by Jimi’s drug use and his coterie of Hendrix Tribute, and will be promoting the
let them evolve organically with each player’s enablers. On January 28 the Band of Gypsys played anniversary of Band Of Gypsys in 2020.
personality on display. The live Band Of Gypsys their final gig, at the Winter Festival For Peace at Jimi’s story, of course, ended tragically. It’s worth
would be released the same week as Davis’s electric Madison Square Garden. Jimi was foggy and restating that he was 27, if only to put him in
fusion album Bitches Brew. obviously drugged as opener Who Knows collapsed perspective with similar musical innovators. When
An intriguing aside: in October 1969, Jimi and in a mess. Mid-solo on the next song, his guitar jazz great Louis Armstrong was 28, his Hot Five
Miles sent a telegram to Paul McCartney, inviting howling with feedback, Jimi stopped, and said: recordings redefined the nature of pop singing.
him to New York to play bass for a collaborative “That’s what happens when When Miles Davis was 30,
album session. Macca was on holiday and missed Earth fucks with space.” he changed jazz with his
the invitation. The session never happened, leaving Buddy and Billy asked for the album The Birth Of The Cool.
us with one of rock’s most tantalising ‘what if’s. audience’s patience while “I want a big band, Jimi was on the brink of
they “try to get things full of competent new horizons, and Band Of
he Band of Gypsys’ Fillmore shows together”. But by then Jimi Gypsys was, as he might have
supplied material for Band Of Gypsys. The was off stage and doubled musicians I can said, “a first step” at not only
Talbum was part of a court agreement to over with stomach cramps. reshaping his direction but
fulfil the final obligation in a contract Hendrix Buddy accused Jeffrey of conduct and that of rock performances.
signed, foolishly, in 1965. Over the four sets they slipping Hendrix tabs of acid write for.” The spontaneous improvised
played, all completely different, the trio displayed to sabotage the group. Jeffrey spirit was definitely picked
a kind of funk telepathy, jamming without much fired him, saying: “Your trip Hendrix in September 1970 up in the 70s by the Allman
visual interaction, locking into that elusive groove is over.” Brothers Band, Led Zeppelin
that musicians forever chase – a loose tightness. If The Band Of Gypsys album was released on and the Grateful Dead, among others.
there was one hitch, it was Buddy’s tendency to March 25, 1970 to good reviews and sales. But Jimi A comment Jimi made in September 1970
overdo the James Brown-style vocalising. At times, said: “If it had been up to me I would never have makes his absence in that evolution more
Jimi looked visibly perturbed by his showboating. put it out. From a musician’s point of view, it was bittersweet: “Thinking that this era of music,
At the heart of each set was Machine Gun, which not a good recording. Not enough preparation sparked off by The Beatles, has come to an end,
Jimi had introduced six months earlier. Dedicated went into it and it came out a bit grizzly.” something new has got to come. And I will be
to soldiers ‘in Chicago and Milwaukee and New York… Late last year, a 50th-anniversary box set, Songs there. I want a big band, full of competent
and Vietnam,’ it remains, as promoter Bill Graham For Groovy Children, was released, which included musicians I can conduct and write for. And with
GETTY x2 called it, “the most brilliant, emotional display of the complete Fillmore performances. the music we will paint pictures of earth and space,
so that the listener can be taken somewhere.”
virtuoso electric guitar playing ever”.
Buddy Miles, who did jail time in the 80s for
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 55

How psychedelic outlaws the Flying Burrito Brothers

mixed rock with country and in the process paved the way for the Eagles and more.

Words: Rob Hughes

56 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

Psychedelic posse: (l-r) Michael
Clarke, Pete Kleinow, Chris Ethridge,
Chris Hillman, Gram Parsons.


Wendy Carlos brokered the worlds of ready for it either,” Hillman sighs. “It was too gritty
Bach and electronica; Captain Beefheart and raw for most people.”
took free jazz and blues way out The Burritos were a far less focused playing live.
beyond. But it seemed as though the Having brought in another ex-Byrd, drummer
marriage of country and rock was Michael Clarke, they lived hard on the road.
a step too far. Parsons, Clarke and Ethridge were particularly
Country was viewed as establishment fond of booze, mescaline and cocaine, resulting
music, the soundtrack to straight- in erratic shows that were either brilliant or
backed, conservative America. And in forgettable. An added distraction was Parsons’s
the age of student riots, Vietnam and burgeoning friendship with Keith Richards and the
civil unrest – with battle lines drawn Rolling Stones. “That’s when he decided to become
between the counterculture and those a rock star,” Hillman laments. “Gram just wasn’t
in power – it represented the enemy. a person you could work with any more.”
Parsons and fellow Byrd Chris Hillman Against this backdrop, the Burritos recorded
were nevertheless undaunted. Keen to a second LP. Burrito Deluxe, released in April 1970,
further explore the links between rock lacked the intensity and ambition of its predecessor,
and country, the pair quit to form the although it still had its moments. Guitarist Bernie
Flying Burrito Brothers in late ’68. Leadon, brought in as replacement for Ethridge,
Adding pedal steel player ‘Sneaky’ was an extra songwriting foil. This was best
Pete Kleinow and bassist Chris Ethridge, illustrated by the sublime Older Guys (co-written
the Burritos moved to California. There with Parsons and Hillman), while Parsons gave Lazy
they set about realising Parsons’s vision Days, one of his earlier songs, a chugging Stones
of a place where gospel, soul, R&B, makeover. As a gesture of goodwill, the Stones
country, psychedelia and rock could gifted them Wild Horses, which eventually appeared
co-exist, each genre informing and on the Stones’ Sticky Fingers album.
shaping the other. “Gram had this idea Sales-wise, Burrito Deluxe did just as poorly as The
of ‘cosmic American Music’,” says Gilded Palace Of Sin. By July, Parsons’s recklessness
Hillman. “In the late sixties, when had become too much. Hillman fired him after
record labels were run by real music a disastrous gig in Los Angeles, for which he
people, you were allowed to develop showed up at the last minute, drunk. Hillman,
and experiment. Music had no rules who likens their final shows with Parsons to “the
back then. People borrowed from other Keystone Cops crashing into a wall”, carried on
styles. There was so much freedom.” with the Burritos for another couple of years before
Rleased in February 1969, the joining Stephen Stills’s band Manassas. Frustrated
Burritos’ The Gilded Palace Of Sin at their lack of success, Leadon had already left to
introduced the West Coast hippie form the Eagles – which is where the Burritos’ true
aesthetic to juke-joint country. Most of value started to become apparent.
the songs emerged from an accelerated The Eagles smoothed the rough edges from the
creative spurt between Hillman and Burritos’ sound, ditched the pedal steel and aimed
Parsons at Burrito Manor, a house they themselves squarely at mainstream America.
shared in the San Fernando Valley. “It Their platinum-selling debut of 1972, featuring
was one of the most productive times in Take It Easy and Peaceful Easy Feeling, made country
my life,” Hillman recalls. “We came up rock palatable for mass consumption. The Eagles’
with some of the best things either of us Glenn Frey recalled studying the Burritos when
ever wrote – songs like Sin City, Christine’s they played at the Troubadour in LA: “We got to
Tune, Wheels and Juanita, which conjures see them play live, watch what they were doing
up some wonderful imagery.” and check out the harmonies.”
Particularly striking were their covers Others followed suit, among them Linda
of two Chips Moman/Dan Penn songs Ronstadt, the Doobie Brothers, Pure Prairie League,
– Do Right Woman and Dark End Of The and Firefall, who included Michael Clarke and
Street. “Gram opened up these other another ex-Burrito, Rick Roberts. Further down the
areas to me: the real R&B coming out of decades, the Burritos were cited as a key influence
re you ready for the country? So Memphis,” explains Hillman. “For the Burritos to on the alt.country boom of the early 90s; Uncle
asked The Byrds in August 1968, do Do Right Woman in Tupelo, Whiskeytown and
with their album Sweetheart Of The a country style was pretty Wilco were just a few who
Rodeo. On that, their sixth album, far-fetched at the time. But acknowledged a debt.
A partly recorded in Nashville, they it worked so well.” “Music had no In the sleeve notes to a 90s
tackled songs made famous by Merle Haggard, the The album sleeve posited rules back then reissue of The Gilded Palace Of
Louvin Brothers and others, alongside two the Burritos as counterculture Sin, The Long Ryders’ Sid
country-centric originals from the band’s newest cowboys, a psychedelic posse [the late 60s]. Griffin placed its poor
member, Gram Parsons. of desert outlaws in nudie commercial showing into
The answer to The Byrds’ question, most suits emblazoned with There was so a wider cultural context: “Like
emphatically, was: “No.” Sweetheart Of The Rodeo cannabis leaves, peacocks much freedom.” the first album by the Velvet
bombed, having alienated both country followers and flaming crosses. Underground, it would seem
and The Byrds’ core fan base. The album sold just It wasn’t the only thing that Chris Hillman every one of those 50,000
50,000 copies. confused the band’s potential [people] went out and formed
The creative licence of the late 60s had allowed audience. The music did too. Despite a glowing a band inspired by what they’d heard.”
all kinds of musical hybrids to flourish: King review in Rolling Stone and the ringing endorsement Chris Hillman summed up the Burritos’ legacy
Crimson brought heavy riffs to European of Bob Dylan, The Gilded Palace Of Sin was in Hot Burrito, co-written with John Einarson: “The
classicism in the pursuit of prog; Fairport a commercial flop. “It wasn’t slick enough to be on Byrds invented country-rock. Gram and I refined it
GETTY Convention gave trad folk a fiery electric jolt; country radio, but the rock crowd weren’t quite in the Burritos and the Eagles took it to the bank.”


CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 57

She could have ended up a classical pianist, but then one day Suzi picked up a bass guitar, and

found herself on the road that would lead to her becoming a glam-rock icon. Along the way she’s
appeared in a smash TV show, been a published poet, a DJ, a West End star and much more…


Interview: Ian Fortnam Portrait: Kevin Nixon

rriving into an early-70s landscape a place to be. I had to separate myself somehow.
of clearly defined gender roles, And I found I could hold an audience at a very
where rocking was the exclusive young age. Because we were a big musical family,
preserve of the male of the species we used to do family shows, and when I was seven
A (all then caked in catastrophic or eight years old I noticed that whenever I did,
glam-rock slap), and music’s pop-confined women whatever I was doing, I held them. So I developed
were invariably reduced to simpering Stepford it. It wasn’t a case of being an egotist, it was more
encouragements while trussed up in pinafore a case of just going: “Oh, I can do this.”
dresses of quite astonishing ugliness, Suzi Quatro
was impossible to ignore. Bursting on to the UK Your father was a semi-pro musician who also
scene, fresh from an invaluable apprenticeship on worked at General Motors. There were four
the Detroit garage circuit, Suzi dyed her hair pink children in the house; from time to time foster
and went on tour with Slade. brothers and sisters came in and out of your
Having hooked up with Nicky Chinn and Mike life. Presumably solitude became something
Chapman, glam’s premier tunesmiths, she made you craved?
her Top Of The Pops debut in ’73 poured into Oh God, yeah. You were never alone, even in the
a figure-hugging leather catsuit that stopped bathroom – my sister could pick the lock, and she
clocks. Her single Can The Can immediately often did. So you’re in there thinking: “I have my
rocketed to No.1 in the UK (similar chart-topping space.” You don’t. It’s fun in a way: crazy, loud,
success followed across mainland Europe, and opinionated, argumentative and warm. But this
even in Australia, where Suzi’s star soared to [indicates her surroundings] says it all, doesn’t it?
unprecedented heights), and a run of perfect hits Here I am in this Elizabethan manor house, most
followed that set her legend in stone. of the time by myself. My husband [Suzi married
Today’s Suzi – a published poet, novelist, star of German concert promoter Rainer Haas in 1993]
West End musicals, TV chat show sofas, Happy Days, and I live in two countries a lot of the time, so I’m
Radio 2’s Rockin’ With Suzi Q and Wake Up Little Suzi, is exactly what you’d expect: a room full of racked often here on my own with my peace and my
touring solo rock star (with new album No Control), vintage sunglasses. Hundreds of them… And it’s space, and I love it.
and the Q fronting Q.S.P. (her glam supergroup with very probably the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.
the Sweet’s Andy Scott and Slade’s Don Powell) – When you took up bass playing it was
lives in an Elizabethan manor house in Essex. As Growing up in the Quatro family, did you considered a very male-dominated discipline,
we prepare to settle down for our chinwag, Suzi have to be an extrovert to get noticed. so for you to adopt the instrument was… SHUTTERSTOCK
takes me on a detour into her Ray-Ban room, which I didn’t want to be just another child. I had to find Unusual, weird. I’d already played drums,

58 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 59

SUZI QUATRO
































Suzi (on bass) with the
Pleasure Seekers, circa 1968.


I could read and write for percussion and classical Suzi and her band
piano. But when the band started I picked the bass on a British tour
up and, like seeing Elvis on Ed Sullivan, it was an with Slade in 1972.
epiphany. When I put it down I went: “Yeah…” It
was just correct. You can see by the way I play and
hold it that it’s just part of me.
“I didn’t want to be just another child. I had to find
How was it attending Catholic school, and did a place to be. I had to separate myself. And I found
your interest in rock’n’roll immediately set
you at odds with authority figures? I could hold an audience at a very young age.”
My mother took me out of Catholic school after
the first year because I was driving the nuns crazy, Weiss had a lot of balls, with the we began, my eldest sister’s first
but then she made me go to the Catholic after- leather waistcoat, and I thought: husband, who was managing us,
school once a week for all the training, so that I was “Yeah, there’s something happening said: “We need to put more lights
raised Catholic. I can’t ever remember rock’n’roll here.” As you’re coming through, on Suzi.” Everybody went quiet
being at odds with my beliefs. It’s my profession, you get your bits and pieces from – and I never asked for this
it’s what I do, it’s rock’n’roll and it’s natural. a lot of people. Everybody does. conversation, I was just up there
As an artist you soak things up. doing my job. He said: “She is the
Rock’n’roll seemed synonymous with focal point.”
rebellion back then, so an interest in the music The Pleasure Seekers, started Then in Cradle, my brother
might well have cast you in the role of a rebel, by your elder sister Patti after [Michael Quatro, an independent
however unintentionally. seeing The Beatles, was soon to include two entertainment executive and songwriter with 11
When it began in the fifties it was very tribal, more Quatro sisters: Arlene, and you albums to his name] put us on at these big
very sort of ‘we have our own music now’, – Suzi Soul – singing and playing bass. rock’n’roll festivals. Now we were a show band,
but by the seventies, when I started to have It was a promising start, contracted so we went on dressed in our club outfits and we
my success, the most rebellious thing to Mercury. So how was life in died. People were going: “What?” because we didn’t
about me was that I was female. a mini-dress and wig in the fit. Then I saw this other girl band go on after us in
mid-sixties? T-shirts and blue jeans, barefoot and jamming, and
Meanwhile, elsewhere in sixties The mini-dress thing, that was the I went: “Wow, I like that.”
Detroit, Berry Gordy was sending sixties. I looked quite cute in it. But So we went home, had a big band meeting, and
The Supremes to charm school, mainly we had to dress in that era’s everybody agreed that it was time to change
teaching them deportment. style because we weren’t successful. direction. Which I agreed to. The drummer decided
I didn’t go to charm school At recording, anyway. We were she wanted to write her own songs, I agreed with
[laughs]. a successful working act, and that. Let’s get a bit heavier, and let’s bring Nancy
club owners always into the group, my little sister, to be singer. Nancy
But women in music wanted us to dress like was of this generation coming up, three years
were expected to women. There were younger than me, and it was decided I’d better step
smooth off their some cute outfits, back from the main limelight, which I was happy
rough edges, to be but I always felt to do. So she started to sing, it became a different
demure. Did the more comfortable band, and I concentrated on my bass guitar for
Shangri-Las offer in T-shirt and eighteen months, I only sang a few songs a night.
a refreshing blue jeans. And it was invaluable. I became really good on my
glimpse of the instrument. So when Mickie Most discovered me
shape of things The Pleasure [producer Most signed Suzi to his RAK Records
to come? Seekers split in label in 1970] in that band – he picked me out
They were edgy. I used to ’69 and transformed from doing two songs a night – I was able to marry
dance on a TV show when into Cradle. the performer, the upfront person, with the bass.
I was twelve and thirteen in Detroit, It was a big, pivotal moment So now you’ve got Suzi Quatro.
part of the regular audience. We’d in my life. From age fourteen,
see all the acts up close. And 1964 to ’68, I was the main Mickie Most was a confirmed hit-maker, and
I remember The Shangri-Las focal point of the Pleasure while he saw enormous potential in you as an
impressing me. I thought Seekers, I sang 98.9 per cent of artist, he didn’t really know what to do with
[Shangri-Las lead vocalist] Mary the songs. About two years after you at first. Ultimately, isn’t it fair to say that GETTY x2

60 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

Songwriting
partners Nicky
Chinn and
Mike Chapman.



























Suzi and her guitarist (and
then husband) Len Tuckey.


he just allowed you to be an ever-so-slightly
exaggerated version of yourself?
The image always was me. I found my image more
in Cradle, because it was tie-dye T-shirts and blue
jeans and really more tomboy. When I was in
London and I wasn’t having success right away,
I’d sometimes question what I was doing. And
I would always come to the same conclusion:
‘Mickie saw me in that band and saw something,
and if I can’t make it just like me, I don’t want to
make it at all.’ So I stuck to me. Mickie never
moulded me, he let me develop. There was no
blueprint, no Suzi Quatro prototype. I was the Suzi on Top Of
prototype, and a lot of people came after me. Joan The Pops in 1973.
Jett took a lot of stuff from me. She’d be the first to
tell you. And why not? She saw me, like I did Elvis,
and said: “Oh my God, I can do that.” As indeed
she could. But I had to be my own blueprint, and “Doing something brand new, you have to really
that’s lonely and scary. Doing something brand believe in yourself or you can lose yourself.”
new, you have to really believe in yourself or you
can lose yourself. But I didn’t, I stuck to it, no
matter how hard it was. and Nicky Chinn along to a show and see if they Chinn and Chapman a scenario to work with;
can write you a hit single?’ So they came, Mike saw they weren’t just writing for Suzi Quatro the
How did you come to work with Chinn and a rock chick boogie-ing, wrote Can The Can and artist, they were writing for Suzi Quatro
Chapman (an established hit machine Nicky pushed the bass right up. He saw me live and was the character.
Chinn and Mike Chapman had already taken able to translate that into a hit record, which That’s exactly what they did. And everything
New World, the Sweet and Mud into the UK Mickie Most couldn’t. from there on is history. Once Can The Can was
Top 10)? done, we had everything: the sound, the look, it
Before I finally formed the band in late 1972, I said When putting the backing band together, was all made sense.
to Mickie: “I’m going crazy here. We’re recording, creating a visual image of yourself surrounded
using session players, and I’m writing, but I gotta by a gang of physically robust men, but with And that sassy Suzi Q character endured as
gig. I’ve been doing it my whole you clearly in a dominant role, the central protagonist of 48 Crash, Daytona
life.” So I got a band and started a deliberate thing? Demon and Devil Gate Drive. It was timeless,
doing all my own songs. I was Absolutely. Start as you mean to yet very reminiscent of the fifties.
writing all the time, I’m a very go on. If you look at me as an artist, although I started
prolific songwriter. But then Mickie having hits in the glam period, I’ve never been
admitted he didn’t know how to get It was an interesting dynamic, glam-sounding, I’ve always been rock’n’roll, my
me on record. Then, after we casting you as the gang leader, love was for Elvis, and my love of rock stems from
GETTY x3 supported Slade on tour, he said: holding dominion over these that. There are some weird things along the way,
but that’s who I am.”
big, beefy guys, and it gave
“Why don’t we get Mike Chapman
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 61

SUZI QUATRO





Kicking the can down Devil
Gate Drive in the 70s.



























As Leather Tuscadero with
The Fonz (Henry Winkler)
on the set of Happy Days.



You’d answer the phones sometimes, I used to go
and babysit the publicist’s kids…

Was your first wedding, to your then guitarist
Len Tuckey, a grand showbusiness event, and
was getting married in ’76 emblematic of an
intention to settle down, to take some time
out and maybe raise a family?
It wasn’t a big event. I’d been with my first husband
since ’72. We got together on the Slade tour. It was
pretty immediate. I proposed to him on the Slade
tour. But Mickie [Most] didn’t want me to get
married right away, he wanted me to live together
first to make sure. He was very much a father
figure to me. We got married in ’76. We had it at
the house we lived in, so it was quite a small affair.
And it was never a case of settling down. It was just
a case of being married. I’m a married girl at heart.
Twenty years with him, and twenty-five with my
husband now [Rainer Haas], so I’ve only had one
year single in my entire adult life.

RAK Records’ And both times it was you who proposed.
Mickie Most.
Yes [laughs]. I’m that kind of person. If I’m in love
and I want it, I just say: “Marry me.” And they both
said okay.


And then, as Leather Tuscadero, you’re
“Although I started having hits in the glam suddenly co-starring in Happy Days, arguably
period, I’ve never been glam-sounding, the biggest TV show on the planet at the time.
You were even offered your own spin-off
I’ve always been rock’n’roll.” series, which you ultimately turned down.
Do you ever wonder: “What if…?”
Elvis 1968, Gene Vincent, but beyond such Looking back on the Mickie Most/Chinnichap/ No. I would have liked to have done more Happy
tributes you must have been aware of the RAK set-up, it echoed the Motown hit factory Days, but the decision was made without me
effect that a leather catsuit would have on ethic of everybody mucking in and helping knowing about it. Stumblin’ In was big in the charts,
sweaty-palmed adolescent males. out on everybody else’s sessions. I believe you and I was with Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn’s
I never realised until recently, because now I come were on Cozy Powell’s Dance With The Devil? Dreamland Records at that point, and Nicky
into contact with the people who had me on their I was. Before Can The Can, Mickie used to give us thought that playing a character so close to my
wall, and they always say the same thing: “You were sessions to help us out. I was on New World own personality was interfering with the public’s
on my wall.” Thank you. “Do you know…?” Thank sessions, Donovan’s Cosmic Wheels album, I was perception of me. I didn’t think so, but he did. The
you [laughs]. They all do it. Do they really think the female voice on Emma by Hot spin-off was originally my idea,
I want to hear the details? But if you go a step Chocolate. I happened to walk into then as it got closer I had a lot of
further, I guess they think, well, you were there. the studio while they were discussions with Henry Winkler
recording, and Mickie said: “Suzi, about how he couldn’t lose The
In their mind, at least. get on the mic… Okay, sing this Fonz. Not that he’s not proud of it,
You gotta laugh. [British actor] Berwick Kaler once line…” Mickie was a big fan of the he’s very proud of it, but it defined MAIN: SHUTTERSTOCK; INSETS: GETTY
said to me: “Suzi, you helped me through puberty.” Motown that Berry Gordy created, him. And I thought, do I want to be
“Is that a compliment?” “Yes.” “And the music?” including the family atmosphere, Leather Tuscadero for the rest of
“Oh yeah, that too.” and it was very much like that. my life? No, I don’t. Doing three

62 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

“UNDER THAT SCHOOLYARD BULLY


AFFECT, ROGER WAS ACTUALLY




QUITE A SWEET GUY…”




Forty years on, Nick Mason, Gerald Scarfe and



Bob Ezrin revisit the Pink Floyd masterpiece to talk


about how they helped build The Wall









































































ISSUE 105
INCLUDES…
FREE



10-TRACK CD


Featuring Oak, Dave Foster
Band, Stuckfish, Moriarty,
Sonisk Blodbad,
Zeelley Moon
and more…
New issue on sale now!



SUZI QUATRO






































years in that show was enough to establish that
character. But if I’d stayed, maybe my whole career
would have taken a different turn and I wouldn’t
be creating the music I’m creating now. I could
have ended up being just an actress.

There was a country slant to Stumblin’ In and
If You Can’t Give Me Love, your preceding duet
with Smokie’s Chris Norman, that served
to broaden your audience, and finally, to
conquer America.
Country rock, yeah, it did. There are more facets to
my personality than just rock’n’roll. I do a lot of
things. There’s my poetry, my radio career, my
novel. My base is rock’n’roll, but any artist who
sings rock’n’roll like I do – very natural – can also
do country. Jerry Lee Lewis? Great country. Elvis? Living the dream: Suzi Quatro
If you can embrace rock’n’roll like I do, you can do at home in Essex, shot
country. And my voice suits country. It’s got that exclusively for Classic Rock.
kind of twang to it. It was never my intention to just
do rock’n’roll. I’m a very creative person, I always like I was a woman trying to show you that I could You seem to be enjoying the ultimate rock star
need to be creating something or I’m not happy. beat the guys?” And they say no. Did I look like happy ending, chilling in the country house
A song, a poem, a radio show, it’s just who I am. I was natural? Yes. Did I look like I was trying to be with a wall full of gold discs, still fit and hungry
sexy? No. So yes, whatever I do, it’s me. That’s why enough to keep rocking for some time yet. You
Despite the early eighties being a busy period I’ve lasted so long, because it’s not manufactured. recently played at your daughter’s wedding. Is
in your professional life, it was when you also this the kind of success you always hoped for?
started a family. You’ve also remained refreshingly clear of any Yes. I always wanted to reach as wide an audience
A lot of things happened at once. I did want to problems rooted in as possible, to be creative in
have babies before I was thirty, but it didn’t substance abuse. every area I chose, and I’ve
happen. I tried, but then I had a miscarriage, Yeah, not me. I come been allowed to do that, but
and that takes up a year. Then I had my kids, from the sixties, so of “I’ve never been into I wanted to have a normal
so I didn’t tour in ’82 and ’84, but I did tour in ’83 course I smoked marijuana drugs. It’s a waste life as well. And I’ve got that
and ’85, so as soon as the kids were born I was and did whatever too. I’ve a place for my ego,
back on the road. Then I wanted to start everybody else did at that of time and I’ve too a place for my humility and
spreading a little bit more. Annie Get Your Gun came time, but it never grabbed it’s just what I always
into the picture [in ‘86 she starred as Annie Oakley me. I didn’t like the much to do.” wanted. I’ve got a normal
in the West End production of the Irving Berlin out-of-control factor. life, full of exciting things to
musical], and I really wanted to I didn’t like that somebody could do, full of accolades and full of good friends and
do that. I love musicals, I was give you a puff of a joint that was so just full of everything. I’ve had two good marriages,
raised on musicals. Then I had strong you were out of it for days. It two beautiful kids, a lovely grand-daughter, you
my own TV talk show [ITV’s happened to me, I hated it and I know? Can’t complain.
Gas Street in ’88]. thought, no, this isn’t who I am. I like
a drink, but not to excess, but I’ve just You seem very comfortable within this life
Perhaps the most interesting never been into drugs. It’s a waste of that you’ve made for yourself.
thing about your pioneering time and I’ve too much to do. I’m comfortable within me, that’s the key.
story is that you’ve done it
all simply by being yourself. Like conquer Australia? You come from blue-collar Detroit, your
Yes. I’ve had that discussion Australia and I have had a love father worked for General Motors, so now,
with numerous musicians down affair since the beginning. I might as logically here you are…
the years. We’ll end up in a bar after well live there. I outsold The Beatles …In an Elizabethan manor house in Essex
a show, and while we’re talking and there, and then ABBA outsold me. [laughs]. Yeah, how does that work?
I’ll ask: “When you first saw me on That’s the hierarchy, and it’s not
Top Of The Pops, did it look to you a bad place to be. No Control is out now via SPV/Steamhammer.

CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 65

Blue-collar poets and shitkicking rockers for the new

age, Canada’s the Glorious Sons are on anthemic
form with their brilliant new album.


Words: Grant Moon MAIN: AVALON

on the US Modern Rock chart) and S.O.S. (Sawed Off
Shotgun) as if at a stadium show.
Both songs are on Young Beauties And Fools, The
Glorious Sons’ 2017 album, which won Best Rock
Album at 2018’s Juno Awards (Canada’s Grammys).
“Honestly, award shows never really appealed to
me,” says Emmons. “It’s nice to get a tip of the hat
from our fellow countrymen and the people in
the music industry, but it’s gone the way of the
Grammys – they don’t even put the rock award
on during the televised night any more! But I’m
grateful, it does you a lot of good and people do
find your music through it.”
Back in 2001, Emmons was into the first year of
his English Literature degree at the University Of
Halifax. He says he was there mainly to appease his
parents. He really wanted to be a musician, and felt
unsettled. When he began experiencing panic
attacks, he quit and returned home to Kingston to
join the Glorious Sons, formed by his elder brother,
Rising Sons: (l-r) Adam Paquette, guitarist Jay. And that’s another way the Emmons
Josh Hewson, Chris Koster, Brett,
Jay Emmons, Chris Huot. boys buck rock‘n’roll tradition – they’ve been best
friends all their lives.
“Jay wants to bring a cohesive piece of art
ive years ago, the Glorious Sons made the decision forward,” Brett says, “so he plays for the song. I tend to be the
to not sound like a band from the 1970s. From creative leader, and when it comes to business I don’t touch the
their beloved home town of Kingston on the damn thing, I leave that to Jay. People talk about us having
north shore of Lake Ontario, they’d watched as catchy music and depressing lyrics. And that’s natural – he
F countless young bands got their retro, Deep comes up with these singable melodies, and I write the lyrics.
Purple groove on, and so resolved to give their own music It’s a good dynamic.”
a 21st century heartbeat. While their 2014 debut The Union attracted plenty of guys to
“For me the rock genre needs to talk about now,” singer Brett their shows, after Young Beauties And Fools Emmons noticed a lot
Emmons tells Classic Rock, “and exploit some of the stuff they more female fans catching on to the band. “I’d gone through
didn’t have in the seventies. Modern tech can really break a song more life experiences, the songs were more introspective and
wide open, you can let your imagination run wild and be free.” sensitive, and it drew a female audience in,” he says. “The Union
The Canadian quintet’s superb third album, A War On was a little more meat-and-potatoes, and maybe women can
Everything is full of catchy tunes with a classic rock punch and smell the bullshit more than guys.”
a present-day sheen, among them One More Summer (a toxic love At their best, his lyrics reflect the music’s blend of new and
affair set to a crunchy bass/organ riff) and the sleekly produced old tropes, throwing back to the storytelling, blue-collar poetry
Kingdom In My Heart. Fans of Rival Sons and local colour of a Bruce Springsteen
and The Black Keys will latch on to Wild record, but broaching 21st-century
Eyes’ modern verse, but on the chorus concerns. The biographical Panic Attack
Emmons channels Jagger circa Sticky “Rock needs to talk hit No.1 in the US Mainstream Rock
Fingers, yelling a timeless: ‘The colour on your about now, and Chart. Kick Them Wicked Things is about
lips is the same as the blood on my hands/These the hopelessness Emmons sees in his
wild eyes are yours’. exploit some of the peers who go to college, come out saddled
The Glorious Sons have supported with debt and also drastically reduced
the Rolling Stones twice since forming stuff they didn’t have prospects of employment. “That’s my love
in 2001, just two gigs among hundreds in the seventies.” letter to Canadiana,” says its writer.
across North America and beyond. Classic “I know plenty of people working in a bar
Rock watched the band in action at Brett Emmons after college, trying to pay off their debt
London’s Scala late last year, supporting for a degree that’s worth nothing. It’s
Ohio blues rockers Welshly Arms. On record the Sons are a tough place to be, and people wonder why rates of depression
slick and anthemic, while live there’s a danger to them, their and anxiety are so high, and why mental health is so bad.”
performances teetering on the brink, the energy threatening It’s interesting to think that Emmons – a compelling and
to push it over the edge, but they claw it back, thrillingly. complicated Son – was something of a jock as a kid, playing
Emmons, for one, has struggled with the whole touring baseball and boxing (a skill that hasn’t left him; Everything Is
thing. “You tend to overdo it when you’re excited and young Alright’s line ‘I punched a man on his wedding night’ refers to an
and don’t know how to tour,” he says. “I took a break from actual event). He also spent too many red-eyed hours alone
drinking last year. I wasn’t an alcoholic, but I certainly had playing videogames obsessively. And if he initially got into
a drinking problem. It’s easy to get swept up and find yourself music to impress the girls, he has discovered something more
a prisoner to a lifestyle. We do still party, but we’ve matured profound altogether.
– have a drink before the show, but not ten drinks. I’ve been “I have an addictive personality – you get that idea for a song,
there, and it doesn’t make for a good show.” and you can spend twelve hours working on it and it feels like
When chatting, Emmons, 27, is open, softly spoken and can forty-five minutes. You walk around talking to yourself, chain-
smoking cigarettes, and after a series of many miracles you’ve
wax eloquently on the literature of David Foster Wallace and
INSET: JONATHAN WEINER/PRESS the music of one of his heroes, Layne Staley. Live, he channels got something you created in your brain from thin air. Nobody
Staley, Axl Rose, even Kurt Cobain, singing, screaming, hurling
can ever take it away from you.”
himself around the stage and into the front row. The
The Glorious Sons – bringing rock’n’roll back to now.
predominantly young audience chants along to the choruses of
A War On Everything is out now on Black Box Music.
their best-known songs such as Everything Is Alright (a No.1 hit
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 67

Bauhaus performing at the
Roundhouse in London during
the shooting of their video for
Ziggy Stardust, August 1982.




























































































































68 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

As punk’s light faded, something new began to stir in the

darkness. After goth’s early days as a look/fashion/scene rather
than a music genre came some of the greatest music of the 80s.


Words: Dave Everley

















































































GETTY


CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 69

The Mission


THEY WERE THERE




Some of our goth feature’s commentators.



Roger Nowell Olli Wisdom
Bassist with Skeletal Family. Before splitting Singer with 80s glam goth rockers Specimen,
in ’86 they released four albums, Burning Oil and co-founder of legendary London goth
topping the indie chart. They reformed in 2003. club The Batcave (in 1982).

Nik Fiend Jonny Slut
Frontman with Alien Sex Fiend, Keyboard player with Specimen.
who had five albums and 12
singles in the UK indie Top 20 Gregor Mackintosh
charts from ’82-87. Guitarist with Paradise Lost,
widely regarded as a driving he 80s was the decade when musically
Wayne Hussey force in gothic metal. anything went. From the preening
Guitarist in Dead Or Alive before poseurs of the New Romantic
joining the Sisters Of Mercy and Simon Denbigh movement to the sonic extremists
then forming The Mission. Co-vocalist with the March T of the grindcore scene, it was
Robert Smith Violets, and former touring a kaleidoscope of sounds and styles.
Siouxsie Sioux member of the Sisters Of Few genres were as celebrated and reviled at the
Vocalist with Siouxsie And Mercy. same time as goth. Crawling from the suburbs and
The Banshees, one of the provincial cities of the UK, this was the poker-faced
goth groups who achieved Andrew Eldritch antidote to the yuppie decade. The media mocked it
mainstream success. Sisters Of Mercy frontman, relentlessly, although its most famous bands – The
who has been called the Cure, The Cult, the Sisters Of Mercy, The Mission,
Peter Murphy Godfather of Goth. Bauhaus, Siouxsie And The Banshees – made the
Frontman with Bauhaus, leap to become household names. There also was a
whose first single, Bela Billy Duffy generation of bands who never got the recognition
Lugosi’s Dead, in ’79 helped Andrew Eldritch Guitarist with The Cult, who they deserved, among them The March Violets,
kick-start goth. achieved huge success on the Flesh For Lulu, UK Decay, Alien Sex Fiend and
rock scene, and post-punk/ Balaam And The Angel. Today, goth’s tentacles have
Kevin Haskins gothic rockers Theatre Of Hate. crept into mainstream culture, influencing
Bauhaus drummer. everyone from Nine Inch Nails to Tim Burton.
Jim Morris Forty years after its birth, it’s time to give this
David J Guitarist/keyboard player with ultimate outsider scene the respect it deserves.
Bauhaus bassist. Birmingham-based Balaam
And The Angel.
Steven Severin
Banshees bassist/songwriter. Carl McCoy Goth eventually became an amalgam of
Dave Vanian Longstanding frontman with unlikely influences: the theatrical glam of
Robert Smith Fields Of The Nephilim, a highly Bowie and Bolan, the unhinged garage rock
Best known as guitarist, singer and songwriter influential goth band in terms of both their of The Stooges, the nihilistic electro-noise
with The Cure, another goth band who had look and their sound. of Suicide, even the cavernous echo of dub
major mainstream success. reggae. But, like so many other subcultures,
Dave Vanian it all initially sprang from punk.
Christian Riou The often Vampire-caped lead singer of
In the right places at the right time and punk rockers The Damned, whose look was Roger Nowell (Skeletal Family bassist): Like
witnessed the scene develop. Went on the widely recognised as a massive influence on everybody else, I got into music in 1977 cos we all GETTY x4; THE MISSION: ALAMY
be the singer in alt.rockers Claytown Troupe. the goth subculture. thought we could be in punk bands. But punk
burned itself out pretty quickly.

70 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

The Cure playing in
Belgium, October 1980.


























































Nik Fiend (Alien Sex Fiend): After the punk
thing, there was a three-or-four-year period where
you had Bauhuas, the Birthday Party, The Cramps,
Killing Joke. My mind was wide open, just soaking
it up like a sponge.

Wayne Hussey (the Sisters Of Mercy guitarist/
The Mission frontman): I can’t remember the Siouxsie Sioux with Siouxsie
first time I heard the word ‘goth’. It might have And The Banshees at Park
been a word that had been bandied around about West, Chicago in 1981.
Joy Division or the Banshees or The Cure.




“With Seventeen Seconds, we honestly felt that we
Siouxsie And The Banshees and The Cure had
formed in 1976, in the throes of punk. But by were creating something that no one else had done.”
1979, both bands had moved beyond their
scrappy beginnings to unknowingly help Robert Smith, The Cure
usher in this new movement with their
respective second albums: The Cure’s like that. A song like Premature Burial from that psychological; nothing to do with ghosts and
Seventeen Seconds and the Banshees’ Join Hands. album is certainly gothic in its proper sense. ghouls. We were quite confident with the image
we were putting across, and were starting to play
Siouxsie Sioux (Siouxsie And The Banshees Robert Smith (The Cure singer/guitarist): with it a bit.
singer): My first love affair with With Seventeen Seconds, we honestly
a record was with John Leyton’s felt that we were creating something Siouxsie Sioux: Juju had a strong identity, which
Johnny Remember Me [1961]. It had that no one else had done. With the goth bands that came in our wake tried to
these amazing, ghostly backing [landmark 1979 single] A Forest, mimic, but they simply ended up diluting it.
vocals, a great melody, and it was I wanted to do something that was They were using horror as the basis for stupid
about a dead girlfriend, basically. really atmospheric. rock’n’roll pantomime. There was no sense of
tension in their music.
Steven Severin (Siouxsie And Nik Fiend: [The Banshees’ third
The Banshees bassist): We’d album] Juju definitely had goth
described Join Hands as ‘gothic’ elements. It was quite progressive
at the time of its release, but and dark. The Cure and Siouxsie And The Banshees
journalists hadn’t picked up on it. both played a significant part in the genesis of
Certainly, at that time we were reading Steven Severin: If Juju had this new movement. But if one band warrant
a lot of Edgar Allan Poe and writers a horror theme to it, it was the accolade Godfathers Of Goth, then it’s

CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 71

Goths at London’s
Batcave club, 1984.

Looking more corpse than
goth: Alien Sex Fiend.










































I heard anything that could be classed as ‘goth’,
most definitely.


David J: We were elated and excited that we were
capable of conjuring such a beautiful monster.


Peter Murphy: It’s very kitsch and tongue-in-
cheek, but very serious too. ‘Bela Lugosi’s dead!’ It’s
beautiful, isn’t it?





By the early 80s, the tendrils were starting to
coalesce into something recognisable. In
1982, soon-to-be-notorious Soho club The
Batcave was opened by members
of Specimen, a bunch of Bowie-
loving freaks recently relocated
from the provinces. The Batcave
swiftly became the haunt of choice
for the scene’s prime movers, from
Bauhaus and the Banshees to Alien
Sex Fiend, whose cadaverous
frontman Nik Fiend doubled as the
club’s unofficial mascot.


“We were the anthesis of everything that was Olli Wisdom (Specimen singer, Batcave
co-founder): Specimen started doing a few shows
fashionable then: all that screaming-about-nothing here and there, and we were constantly being shat
on, so we thought we’d establish this thing, which
protest that was punk.” Peter Murphy, Bauhaus turned out to be the Batcave. It cost us about six

hundred pounds to open.
Bauhaus. Formed in the comically un-gothic David J (Bauhaus bassist): Our sound, and to
environs of Northampton, they arrived a degree our aesthetic, was stark and stripped- Nik Fiend: Goth was New Romantic’s dark
with theatrical flourish, all razor-sharp down. Everything was honed as to exclude excess. cousin, and the Batcave was like the poor man’s
cheekbones and crow’s-nest hair. The title Which is ironic, as that’s the opposite of gothic. Blitz club – it was the people who couldn’t afford
of their first single gave the game away: Bela those posh outfits. It was a stinky place.
Lugosi’s Dead. Christian Riou (future Claytown Troupe
singer): In the autumn of 1979, I saw a copy of Olli Wisdom: It was in a strip club in Soho, on the
Peter Murphy (Bauhaus singer): We were the Bauhaus’s Bela Lugosi’s Dead with the DW Griffiths fourth floor of a building. It was a gorgeously tacky
anthesis of everything that was fashionable then: Sorrows Of Satan cover, and the title grabbed me. place. Upstairs they had a little theater, and
all that screaming-about-nothing protest that I bought it, and heard music that seemed to pull downstairs was a total sleaze pit.
was punk. from everywhere and nowhere but was like
a soundtrack to a film I wanted to see. Nik Fiend: You had to go up in a lift that could
Kevin Haskins (Bauhaus drummer): We were only carry two people at a time, then you’d walk
the kids who didn’t fit in at school. Nik Fiend: Bela Lugosi’s Dead was the first time in through this coffin-shaped door. GETTY x2

72 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM





Southern Death Cult
on The Tube in 1982.






























































Jonny Slut (Specimen keyboard player): It was landscape. It has that really romantic side and that
a light bulb for all the freaks and people like myself really depressed, miserable side.
who were from the sticks and wanted a bit more “The London scene was
from life; freaks, weirdos, sexual deviants… Andrew Eldritch (the Sisters Of Mercy): I was
much more fashionable; in a band when every other person was in a band,

Nik Fiend: What attracted me? Alienation. maybe because of the Cold War and we didn’t
I realised I was not gonna fit into normal society the Leeds club scene was expect to live for long. We didn’t expect
as long as I’ve got a hole in my arse. all the post-punk stuff.” employment, because half of us had no skills and
the other half didn’t know how to apply the skills
Jonny Slut: At the time, the Batcave wasn’t Simon Denbigh, The March Violets that we had, and we reacted to the world because it
a doomy, gothy, droney, grungey sort of place. It weighed heavily on us.
was more Gotham City than Aleister Crowley. becoming its twin northern epicentres,
home to bands such as the Sisters Of Mercy, Billy Duffy (Theatre Of Hate/The Cult): The
Nik Fiend: It was all a mish-mash of music and The March Violets, Skeletal Family and first time I met Ian [Astbury, Southern Death Cult
cultures. Specimen asked me to run it while they Southern Death Cult. singer/future Cult frontman] he was running
were out on tour. I’d be playing Alice Cooper or through the woods at Keele University, wearing
Cabaret Voltaire or Psychedelic Furs. It all felt like Gregor Mackintosh (future Paradise Lost buckskin chaps that he’d made himself and
a ball of energy and friction. It made no sense to guitarist): I got into goth when I was twelve or a blanket loincloth he’d wrapped with a belt so it
me at all, which was what I loved. thirteen, through my older brother’s record looked like a nappy. And moccasins with bells on
collection: Sisters, Skeletal Family, Southern Death them. He looked like Daniel Day Lewis in Last Of
Robert Smith: When it first started up I used to Cult, that kind of thing. Plus a lot of it was from The Mohicans, except he jangled when he walked.
go, but I only went a handful of times, mainly around our area. We’re from Halifax, and it was I thought: “That’s a bit interesting.”
because the bar was open till two in the morning. happening in Leeds and Bradford.
Roger Nowell: Southern Death Cult appeared.
Nik Fiend: Alien Sex Fiend played there loads. It Simon Denbigh (The March Violets): The They were mates with Sex Gang Children. Then
was a chance to expriement and free-form. We London scene was much more eyeliner, a much the Sisters appeared, then we appeared. Then
picked up a load of TVs that people had dumped, more fashionable scene; the Leeds everybody’s running around
knocked the guts out of them, then we’d put heads, club scene was all Gun Club, loads looking like Bauhaus and it’s
hands and cobwebs in them. of Bowie, Stooges, all of that kind good times for everybody.
of stuff, all the post-punk stuff.


Gregor Mackintosh: With By the time of Bauhaus’s
This nascent scene wasn’t exclusive to
Yorkshire, you have that mixture of
SHUTTERSTOCK London. In West Yorkshire, the neighbouring the rolling hills and countryside and fourth album, 1983’s Burning
From The Inside, they had

cities of Leeds and Bradford were rapidly
these industrial blots on the
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 75

Balaam And The Angel
on The Tube in 1986.






































Lisa Gerrard of
Dead Can Dance.


already split up. But there were plenty of
bands ready to step into the breach. The ranks
of the goth army swelled, increasingly
dramatic and flamboyant names added to the
roll call every week: Gene Loves Jezebel,
Balaam And The Angel, Fields Of The
Nephilim, Dead Can Dance, Salvation…

Wayne Hussey: At the time, the alternative music
scene was so broad and all-encompassing. There
weren’t the same genres as there are now. It was
absolutely exciting. But none of us had any idea skulls. You couldn’t get that stuff off the peg then:
that there was a movement starting. “Oh, I want to be a goth this week.”

Gregor Mackintosh: The music had this Carl McCoy (Fields Of The Nephilim): We had
melancholy, bittersweet edge to it that you didn’t to develop something, because we were such an
get in normal pop songs that you listened to at odd-looking bunch. We didn’t look like a band, so
twelve or thirteen years old; you would have got we mixed the Victorian clobber that we tended to
angry punk stuff or plain cheesy pop music. This pick up from charity shops for everyday wear with
had a darker edge. some sort of Spanish/Mexican spaghetti western
“You put on eyeliner, and vibe and basically covered it all in a load of shit, so
Nik Fiend: Nobody mixed heavy guitar with we at least looked like we belonged together.
synth and drum machines like Alien Sex Fiend. people start screaming at
Depeche Mode had the synth and the drum you. How strange, and Dave Vanian (The Damned): Long before I was
machines, but it was a tiddly little sound. I’m in a band, I had black hair and was wearing black
talkiing heavy – Girl At The End Of My Gun, Attack, how marvellous.” clothes and make-up. It’s nothing today, but back
Dead And Buried. Nobody was doing shit like that. then it would get you a whole barrage of insults.
Robert Smith, The Cure I only bought a car because I was getting into so
Jim Morris (Balaam And The Angel): When many fights on the train at night. But I stuck with
we started, around 1984, we wanted to create Robert Smith: You put on eyeliner, and it, because that is who I was.
something that picked up on the bands that we people start screaming at you. How strange,
liked – post-punk stuff like Joy Division, Magazine, and how marvellous. Billy Duffy: I got by on a big white guitar and
Killing Joke, but also things like The Doors, T.Rex. a cool haircut.
We were attempting to marry all those kinds of Greg Mackintosh: I used to see people dressed up
influences and create something that people like us like Siouxsie around in the shopping centres in Christian Riou: It was still dangerous to look
would enjoy on a Friday or Saturday night. Bradford and Leeds when I was a young. You goth. Often, goth nights were situated in the
thought: “Wow, they’re really going upstairs room of a bigger club, with
out on a limb.” casuals wandering in to look at the
girls and then starting something
Although the music was still a kaleidoscopic Nik Fiend: The Alien Sex Fiend with a lad dressed to the nines.
mix of styles, the look was beginning to look came from mine and Mrs
solidify. In every town there was a cluster Fiend’s repertoire of clothing. She’d Roger Nowell: There was a guy in
of disaffected, black-clad teens and put leopardskin on my leather Chester who used to put on bands
20-somethings, an array of Siouxsie Sioux or jacket, or I’d get a T-shirt and slash like us. When people started SHUTTERSTOCK x1
Robert Smith mini-mes. it up, potato print crosses and chicken-dancing at the front, they

76 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

Carl McCoy with
Fields Of The
Nephilim circa
1988.









































a little drink and a talk, but it was
mainly me and Craig and Wayne.





Thanks to the growing success of
the Sisters and their contemporaries, the mid-
80s was the point where goth began to come
Gene Loves Jezebel into its own as a scene. The all-powerful
in the mid-80s. weekly music press celebrated and reviled
it in equal measure.
used to steam in and start thumping people. Like: was sat in a darkened room, curled up in an
“What the fuck are you doing?” armchair. I thought it was a little contrived, but Nik Fiend: Goth was a derogatory thing. When
then I’d known a lot of other contrived personas. we was first around, all the reviews were about
I’d probably contrived a bit of a persona for myself “these goth wankers”. ‘Goth’ basically meant ‘shit’.
by that point. I didn’t mind being called shit. At least you were
The key band in goth’s second wave were the being called something.”
Sisters Of Mercy, formed in Leeds in 1980 by Andrew Eldritch: I had to change my name
drummer-turned-singer Andrew Eldritch because of the dude in Duran Duran called Wayne Hussey: We didn’t christen it ‘goth’, it was
(né Taylor) and guitarist Gary Marx (born Andrew Taylor. you lot in the press.
Marc Pearman). By 1983, they included bassist
Craig Adams and guitarist Wayne Hussey, Wayne Hussey: He was already Eldritch by the Roger Nowell: Back in the day, everyone was like:
formerly of Liverpool goth-pop band Dead Or time I met him. I dunno, maybe I saw fleeting “We’re not a goth band.”
Alive. Few did as much to shape the sound and
look of the subsequent goth scene as the Kevin Mills (Specimen/Flesh For Lulu):
Sisters – to their frontman’s eternal chagrin. Everybody goes: “Oh yeah, Flesh For Lulu, goth
“I don’t like being a band.” But goth wasn’t really a look then. Flesh For
Andrew Eldritch: With the Sisters Of Mercy Lulu were really a rock’n’roll band with big hair.
there was no plan. We would certainly have done poster boy for something Loads of jewellery and make-up and stuff, but
it differently if it had been done properly. I would I wholeheartedly essentially a rock band with punk influences and
probably be like the person from The Darkness lots more – a lot of soul and country. All kinds.
or Freddie Mercury, and more confident and disagree with.”
more flamboyant. Carl McCoy (Fields Of The Nephilim): Goth
Andrew Eldritch, Sisters Of Mercy was architecture to me. The whole ‘goth rock’
Wayne Hussey: I was terribly ambitious. I always thing started in the late eighties. In fact it’s the fans
wanted to be a pop star. That was the prime glimpses, a momentary sensitivity that was out of that are categorised as goths. We’re a band, and
motivator for me from the very beginning. character. I’m putting that down to Taylor. And the we fit their idea of ‘goth’. We’re quite a diverse
speaking voice was very different to the singing band, but if we’re called a goth band, that’s alright.
Andrew Eldritch: We thought we belonged to voice. It reminded me of Rigsby from Rising Damp. Why deny it?
a bloodline that stretched back through glam to the
Stones to Gene Vincent. In our early interviews we Roger Nowell: We didn’t know the Sisters until Andrew Eldritch: I’ve got a dictionary with
name-checked the same people we’d name-check they asked us to support them on the Black a whole chunk ripped out around the letter ‘G’.
now: Motörhead, Hawkwind, Suicide, The Fall. October tour in 1984. I didn’t know Andrew before I don’t like being a poster boy for something
GETTY x3 Wayne Hussey: The first time I met Andrew, he and I didn’t know him afterwards. He kept himself I wholeheartedly disagree with – and, frankly,
something we did for one week.
to himself. One night where me and him had
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 77

reached No.14 in the UK chart. But shortly
afterwards, Anrew Eldritch announced that
the band would be splitting up – partly the
result of friction between him and Wayne
Hussey and Craig Adams – after they played
a farewell gig at London’s Royal Albert Hall
that June.


Wayne Hussey: First And Last And Always was
a difficult album to make, but sometimes the end
result justified the human relationship you have to
endure to get to that point.


Andrew Eldritch: I like some of the songs on the
first album. I’m just not keen on the production
or the style of playing or my singing – particularly
my singing.


Wayne Hussey: Andrew was a big figure in my
life. Still is, even though I’ve not seen him for years
and we don’t have any communication.

Andrew Eldritch: He was only in the band
The Cult in 1985.
for a year. We’ve been going for thirty years.
Draw your own conclusions from that.

Wayne Hussey: When I left the Sisters,
I went to see Andrew and said: “I’m leaving.
The Mission. I’m going to join up with Craig and form
a band.” He wished me luck and asked if
Roger Nowell: We’re all running round I would play on his next album. I said: “Yes,
dressed in black, calling ourselves Skeletal absolutely.” I don’t think he bargained on us
Family and Sisters Of Mercy, and we getting a band together and making records
wondered why we got labelled ‘goth’. so quickly.





Punk’s DIY attitude was embedded The band Hussey and Adams formed
deep within goth’s DNA. With little were called The Sisterhood, until
major label interest, bands had no Eldritch rush-released an EP under the
option but to sign to indie labels such as 4AD same name, forcing them to change it to The
and its hothouse subsidiary Situation 2 – or Mission. Eldritch reconvened the Sisters Of
even start their own label, as the Sisters Of One of the reasons I’d Mercy as a two-person operation featuring
Mercy did with Merciful Release. himself and American bassist Patricia
bonded with Ian in the Morrison, instigating a long-running spat with
Simon Denbigh (The March Violets): The way Hussey that would become one of the decade’s
it worked in those days was with independent first place was because great rivalries. Together with The Cult, who’d
records, and ‘independent’ then meant you doing it he’d heard me playing had a hit single with 1985’s She Sells Sanctuary,
yourself. I had a deal with Red Rhino where they The Mission represented goth’s rock’n’roll
paid for you to make the record, and then they’d Jimi Hendrix riffs.” wing – in sound and attitude.
take most of the profit but give you some back and
you’d reinvest or just go: “We want to make Billy Duffy, The Cult Wayne Hussey: Did we want to be Led Zeppelin?
another record.” It was a good way of doing it. I would totally agree with you.
They made an awful lot of money, but we got to at Driffield, who went on to produce loads of
do it the way we wanted to, with no interference, thrash bands. Billy Duffy: One of the reasons I’d bonded with
make our own decisions, do our own sleeves. Ian [Astbury] in the first place was because he’d
Jim Morris: We set up our own label, Chapter 22, heard me playing Jimi Hendrix riffs for a laugh, cos
Roger Nowell: We did the first with our manager at the time. All our it wasn’t allowed. He later told me he’d thought:
Skeletal Family record ourselves. early releases came out on it. The first “That’s very unusual, that somebody would dare to
We tried to do it for about twenty EP we did stayed in the NME Top 40 play this forbidden music, without having long
pence, and it sounded like it. for fifty-odd weeks. Once we got hair and flares.”
signed by Virgin for our first album,
Simon Denbigh: Snake Dance The Greatest Story Ever Told, we thought: Wayne Hussey: Generally my attitude has been,
was our best-selling single. We “That’s it, we’ve made it.” We ‘Yeah, it’s fun.’ There’s a faction out there that
bought a Linn drum – which cost realised pretty quickly that there resent people having fun. There are certain people
three or four thousand pounds at was still a lot of work to do. who think that what we do should be taken
the time at the time. It was the seriously. The only thing I’ve taken seriously is
Rolls-Royce of drum machines. the music.
Snake Dance was produced by Gil
Norton before he was famous. We In 1985, the Sisters Of Mercy Billy Duffy: We were friendly with Wayne, so we
worked with unknown guys who released their debut album, invited The Mission to tour with us, sharing a tour
later became famous. Colin Wilkinson First And Last And Always. It bus. It got very messy very quickly. GETTY x3

78 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

The Sisters Of Mercy’s Patricia
Morrison and Andrew Eldritch, 1988.

CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 79

The Cure at the 1989
MTV Video Music
Awards in Los Angeles.


Wayne Hussey: Within the first twelve months, We went to [hip New York club] Danceteria, and
The Mission become the most talked about all the cool kids wanted to meet us. America
alternative band. Reviled as much as we were “The Cure turned into loved us.
revered. Oh, the press still hated us. Probably hated
us even more because we were getting successful. the goth Pink Floyd. Nik Fiend: We played the Club Masque, which
Good luck to ’em. was a heavy-duty gay club. I’m looking like
Carl McCoy: I met Robert Plant years ago, and he a fucking banker compared to some of the people
said: “Keep getting those bad reviews. It’s a good It worked.” who turned up there. It was fantastic.
sign – we used to get that with Zeppelin.” That was
good encouragement. Billy Duffy, The Cult Billy Duffy: We made Electric with Rick Rubin in
America. We were hanging out with the Beastie
Jim Morris: Fields Of The Nephilim supported us football ground, in 1987]. We started drinking Boys, people like that. It was a cartoon party
at Stevenage Bowes-Lyon. It was a really early gig early and just carried on. By the time we were on album. We were pirates. Like Captain Pugwash.
for them. Certainly from the start they were a band stage we were completely pissed. We’d been touted We were having a good laugh on this cartoon
that considered what they looked like. as the new pretenders to the throne and we blew it pirate ride.
in front of forty-five thousand people.
Wayne Hussey: Reading Festival eighty-six was Wayne Hussey: With The Mission, we had crazy
a pivotal gig. We’d released one single, maybe two, times in Britain and Europe, then we got to
and we were fourth or fifth on the bill on the America and it was tenfold. We were off the leash.
Friday. There were curtains across the stage. A parallel goth scene, dubbed ‘deathrock’, had It was the climate of Just Say No. We were the band
I remember putting my head out of the curtains sprung up in the US in the early 80s, centred who Just Said Yes.
before we started, and this big cheer went up. on bands such as Christian Death and 45
That was one of those moments I thought: “Wow Grave. But American audiences were hungry Billy Duffy: The Electric tour was wanton
we’re popular.” for British bands. A steady stream of British destruction. Tellies out of the window, drinking
groups crossed the Atlantic for much of the until you pass out then being stripped naked and
Jim Morris: We played that year. It was great. decade – and it would ultimately change goth left in the elevator of the Holiday Inn.”
Like a gathering of the tribes. at a genetic level.
Wayne Hussey: Me and one of our crew guys, we
Wayne Hussey: It was an awful show for us. Nik Fiend: America was fucking brilliant. The got into ice, which is kind of like crystal meth but
We weren’t used to playing first time we went over, this car pulls it’s pure. You do a little line and it sends you
festivals. We vowed never to up and I think: “Fuck, we’re gonna doolally for three or four days.
play again unless we headlined. get shot.” Then this bloke leans out
And they asked us to headline the window and goes: “Fucking Jim Morris: We supported Kiss at some massive
the next year. Us, Status Quo and Halloween!” I was, like: “Yes!” festival in New Hampshire. Sixty thousand-odd
Alice Cooper. people there, the most we ever played to. Kiss
Billy Duffy: I’d been over to breezed into the stage area in a white limousine
Wayne Hussey: We supported America before, but when we with a swimming pool in the back. I’m not even
U2 at Elland Road [Leeds FC went with The Cult it was different. making that up. GETTY

80 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

Billy Duffy: The Cure turned into the goth Pink
Floyd at that point. Good luck to ’em. It worked.

Carl McCoy: I liked the idea of being a cult act.
Huge commercial success didn’t interest me at all.
And I had a fear that things were going that way
around the time of Elizium, so I split the band up.


Wayne Hussey: The problem with any youth
movement is that when it starts to become more
popular, that’s what it starts to lose its essence and
vitality and power. That’s what happened at the
end of the eighties.


Billy Duffy: I was believing for a hot minute that
we were gonna be the next Led Zeppelin on Sonic
Temple. And why wouldn’t I? And [poorly received
follow-up album] Ceremony was: “Oh, that’s why
you’re not.”





Goth’s boom time was short-lived. As the
80s drew to a close, the musical and cultural
landscape in the UK was changing massively.
Many of goth’s key players had
either split up or changed their
sound beyond recognition, and
the scene was sidelined by the
triple threat of late-80s hard rock,
acid house and the emerging
Sonic Temple-era Madchester movement. But
Cult in 1989. across the Atlantic a new
generation of bands were picking
Wayne Hussey: Musically, part of the problem that sort of sound anyway. We up the torch and carrying it into
for The Mission in America was that we fell come from the Midlands, we were the new decade.
between the cracks – we weren’t pop enough for brought up on Black Sabbath and Thin Lizzy.
the pop stations, we weren’t rocky enough for the Christian Riou: I was at Nine Inch Nails’ first gig
rock stations. We never had that one hit that every Robert Smith: I got really depressed, and I started at the China Club in New York, October 1989, and
other band had. doing drugs again – hallucinogenic drugs. When I saw a band that would have been perfect for 1983
we were gonna make Disintegration, I decided in London. There was about forty people in the
The influence of America irrevocably altered I would be monk-like and not talk to anyone. It audience, but it shows the huge international
the DNA of goth, propelling it to a commercial was a bit pretentious, really, looking back, but influence of goth. It was taken on by the next
pinnacle in the late 80s even as it drifted I actually wanted an environment that was generation who, on the whole, would have no
further from its roots. The Sisters Of Mercy’s slightly unpleasant. knowledge of where it had come from.
second album, Floodland, found Andrew
Eldritch working with Meat Loaf Siouxsie Sioux Kevin Haskins: [Nine Inch Nails’] Trent
collaborator Jim Steinman on several in 1992. Reznor told me that Bauhaus were a huge
tracks and notching up a string of Top 10 influence on him. Kurt Cobain had all our
hits in the process. Even bigger was The albums. Jane’s Addiction, Marilyn Manson,
Cult’s 1989 Sonic Temple, a full-blown Al Jourgensen.
arena-rock album that would sell more
than three million copies in the US. Sales Nik Fiend: I remember someone I knew
of The Cure’s magnificently gloomy saying: “I went to see Marilyn Manson,
Disintegration, released the same year, and he’s doing what you’re doing.” And
weren’t far behind it. I said: “Mate, anybody is entitled to put
on make-up and do fucking rock’n’roll.”
Andrew Eldritch: [The Sisters’ 1987 hit] This Everybody is a bastardisation of what has
Corrosion is ridiculous. It’s supposed to be. It’s gone before, whether they are aware of it.
a song about ridiculousness. So I called That’s a fucking fact.
Steinman and explained that we needed
something that sounded like a disco party Dave Vanian: Tim Burton seems to be
run by the Borgias. And that’s what we got. working his way through iconic eighties
frontmen. Robert Smith: Edward
Billy Duffy: I’d gone into another world. Scissorhands; Dave Vanian: Sweeny Todd.
You’d see Bon Jovi: “Hi guys, how you doing?” Who’s next? Flock of Seagulls?


Jim Morris: We were leaning towards biker Wayne Hussey: Thirty years ago, no one
rock with [1988’s second album] Live Free Or was going: ‘‘Yeah, in thirty years’ time we’re
Die. I don’t remember thinking: “The Cult gonna look back at this and think: “What
GETTY x2 has done Electric or Sonic Temple, we want a bit a great movement.” But that’s what we’re
of that.” I think there was a move towards
doing. Funny, isn’t it?
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 81

THE


ODD COUPLE
















They’re the masters of ambient, melancholic alt.rock, with roots in disco records and NWOBHM

pub gigs. Tim Bowness takes us inside the surprising world of No-Man.

Words: Polly Glass


im Bowness used to sing so loudly own way, bonded over NWOBHM, obscure and but respected career. “Because it actually gave us an
he’d cough up blood after shows. classic disco, jazz pioneers… audience,” Bowness reasons.
Long-haired and aggressive of voice, “I could tell Steven I’d seen Witchfynde or Still, in the midst of the aforementioned chaos
the no-man singer’s formative live Ornette Coleman and he’d be jealous [of both],” the disco epic idea was shelved, as further No-Man
T experiences – as a performer and Bowness says. “I guess that’s one of the reasons albums interspersed their respective solo careers
punter – were fuelled by much heavier, shoutier why we’re still in touch.” over the coming years.
material than he’s known for now. Sneaking into “When you’re making an album, you’ve got to
gigs as a teenager in the north of England, the oday we’re catching up with Bowness in be obsessed with it, you’ve got to be in love with it,”
similarly underaged Diamond Head would smuggle light of No-Man’s new album, the Bowness reasons. “I’d always kept a lyrics folder for
him backstage to chat about… prog classics. T“melancholy progressive disco” record it, and I was continually refining the words or
“They were very nice. They loved [Yes’s] Tales Love You To Bits. Comprised of two side-long writing new sections, so the folder was expanding
From Topographic Oceans,” he enthuses brightly. tracks, and confidently walking the line between until about July 2019. In some ways it’s nice – to
“Where I lived in the North-West the only music we brilliant and batshit crazy (think Pink Floyd use that dreadful word – to get ‘closure’ on it.”
really got was NWOBHM, so all my early gigs, crossed with Tears For Fears and Chic), it’s He winces audibly. “I might even use the word
when I was about fifteen, it was going to see No-Man’s first album in 11 years. In that time, ‘journey’ next…”
Diamond Head and Iron Maiden at the local pub. Wilson has moved from his ‘other old band’ The project was rekindled in earnest during the
It was fantastic to see about three hundred Porcupine Tree into solo work, while Bowness making of Bowness’s 2019 solo album Flowers At
northerners chanting: ‘Am I evil?’ And of course has developed his own solo career. The Scene, which he was co-producing with
we were. Completely evil.” Much of the new record came together over the Wilson. Lyrically documenting the break-up
This was before he became the Bowness we past year, but its roots stretch back to 1994, when of a relationship, from both perspectives, it was
know today: the man with the melancholic, Bowness and Wilson conjured up vague notions of informed by the ending of Bowness’s own 19-year
crystal-clear croon (a distinctive tone, somewhere a ‘disco epic’ – part Donna Summer’s I Feel Love, relationship. The end result, however, is bittersweet
between Scott Walker and Peter Hammill at rather than downright depressing.
their bleakest; you probably adore it or loathe “It was something that Kate Bush said
it) behind No-Man’s innovative, avant “I liked the idea of electro-pop about Pink Floyd,” he says. “She said The Wall
cocktails of ambient rock, pop, trip-hop and was possibly her favourite album of all time,
more. In conversation he’s chattier and songs with visions of grandeur, but she really wished there’d been some light
funnier than you’d expect from the in the gloom. So I sort of forced myself to
unsmiling photos and highbrow, often with ideas above their station.” write about the positives: ‘Why were you
heartbreaking music. Then again, subverting Tim Bowness there in the first place?’ ‘Why were you in
expectations has always been part of the love in the first place?’”
No-Man deal. part Pink Floyd’s Shine On You Crazy Diamond. Seven albums and more than 30 years down
Growing up in a turbulent household in working- “All we had at that stage was grand ideas,” the line, it’s this mix of grand ambition, intimate
class Warrington, Bowness’s first tastes of music Bowness explains. “I liked the idea of electro-pop storytelling and lack of concern for commerciality
were through films and singing in the choir at his songs with visions of grandeur, with ideas above that makes No-Man compelling. Two friends with
“very strict” grammar school. When he was 11 he their station.” different lives, united by a mutually idiosyncratic,
fell in love with, among others, Pink Floyd’s Echoes At the time, they were about to show No-Man’s free-spirited approach to music.
and Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir through a friend’s second album, Flowermouth, to execs at their label. Asked what’s kept him and Wilson coming back
father’s cassette collection. In his late teens he Knowing that they were expected to produce to one another all these years, Bowness replies:
started writing “awful poetry” and singing songs something commercial – and that their ideas “I think it was the first relationship for both of us
into a tape recorder. Then, in 1987, his band Always absolutely weren’t – they decided to accept that where anything was acceptable. I’ve had a lot of
The Stranger were reviewed as Demo Of The Month this might be their last release to have label muscle really good musical collaborations, but Steven is
in Electronic Musician magazine. It read: “An emotive behind it, and make exactly what they wanted. the one person I can mention absolutely anything,
crooner sits atop a mad computer bastard.” First-class musicians were hired. The first track from Archie Shepp to Journey to Soft Cell to Kate
Down south in Hemel Hempstead, a similarly was 10 and a half minutes long. Bush, and he’s not going to be remotely turned off.
nerdy, aspiring musician called Steven Wilson was Chaos ensued. The label heard the record, and A lot of musicians I work with are very good, but
intrigued, and wrote to Bowness to see if he’d be immediately dropped the promotion budget. they have much more set musical tastes and much
interested in contributing to an album he was Within about three months, No-Man had been more set areas that they’re prepared to work in. But
compiling. A long, involved phone conversation dropped by their American record company, their I’ve never found it embarrassing to name what I
and the pair’s first meeting later, at Wilson’s studio, English record company and their publishing like, and neither has Steven.”
they’d written an extremely raw piece of funk- company. Their manager left soon after.
punk called Screaming Head Eternal and become firm Somehow the album sold more than their debut, No-Man’s Love You To Bits is out now via
friends. The two teenagers, both misfits in their and effectively forged the basis of No-Man’s quiet Caroline International.

82 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

CARL GLOVER/PRESS Steven Wilson (left)
The No men:

and Tim Bowness.



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ALBUMS The Flower gaps for light and oxygen to


Kings
sneak in. It’s anxiety given form
Waiting For Miracles
reclaimed to create something
INSIDEOUT and substance, its crippling power
Fêted Swedish proggers return positive and empowering.
to comfortingly familiar form. QQQQQQQQQQ
Who knows Emma Johnston
quite how Roine
Stolt sees the Wolf Parade
band with Thin Mind SUB POP
which he is Canadian trio up for a fight.
synonymous. He seemingly put The fifth studio
The Flower Kings on hiatus after album from
2013’s Desolation Rose, released Montreal’s Wolf
2018’s Manifesto Of An Alchemist Parade comes
as ‘Roine Stolt’s Flower King’, fully-polished
then played shows as ‘Roine and listener-friendly with
Stolt And Friends Play The production courtesy of seasoned
Flower Kings’, while expressing US rabble-rouser John
ambitions to be more of a free Goodmanson (Bikini Kill, Sleater-
agent, all bets seemed off. But Kinney, Unwound). Synths,
now all is as it was, and fans of ricocheting drums and wired
Yes-fixated harmonies (Wicked claustrophobic vocals from
Old Symphony, Steampunk), Spencer Krug and Dan Boeckner
obstacle courses-worth of all sound like they could’ve been
gnarly, stop-start riffs (The Rebel lifted from a slice of Bowie vinyl
Circus, Miracles For America) and circa ’73. Neu romantic almost,
plenty of sweet melodies except neu romanticism rarely
(although non-fans of loudly sounds this ugly, this anxious.
farting fretless bass may wish to Songs like Out Of Control and
British Lion tread carefully) can rejoice: Under Glass feel tempestuous,
embedded with pathos and
Waiting For Miracles is an
85-minute serving of prog rock broad sweeps of emotion. Think
The Burning PARLOPHONE
comfort food. Roxy Music, The National. Think
‘Arry’s other army return on sizzling form. QQQQQQQQQQ of the disconnect between
Johnny Sharp physicality and social networks.
Think of everyday life, a constant
InMe striving for escape from the grey,

Jumpstart Hope KILLING MOON the mundane. Dreams bordering
s Iron Maiden fans will be more conspicuous as ever, but thanks to Essex rock crew harness the on the nightmarish, the state of
than aware, Steve Harris has been a brighter, breezier sound and power of their own fears. independent music at least 10
Arather busy over the seven years unmistakable hints of looseness and There’s years outside its comfort zone
that have passed between the first British swagger, everything from the briskly something and flailing around in search of
Lion album and the arrival of The Burning. uplifting title track to the brooding hulk of wonderfully a home. Now a trio, following the
Frankly, it’s hard to imagine exactly how Bible Black sparkles with freshness and plucky about departure in 2018 of multi-
instrumentalist Dante DeCaro,
InMe. Emerging
the bassist found time to write and record weirdly youthful vigour. While many from the UK’s post-hardcore Wolf Parade sound alert, ready
this new material, but fans of oh-so-classic contemporary classic rock bands seem boom of the early 2000s, the for a bruising.
rock will be very thankful that he did. fixated on reproducing the aesthetic Essex band have remained QQQQQQQQQQ
In truth, the first British Lion record specifics of bygone eras, songs like steadfast, returning now with Everett True
didn’t exactly set the world alight, despite motoring opener City Of Fallen Angels and a seventh album of their metallic,
being pretty damn good. A stoically preview single Lightning clearly favour emotional take on the genre. Paul Vickers
straightforward and melody-driven hard timelessness over nostalgia. Similarly, Frontman Dave McPherson And The Leg
rock record, it was full of great songs and melancholy closer Native Son wears its has always been open about his Jump TENEMENT
moments of gritty flash, with Harris’s prog influences with pride and dares to struggles with mental health, Surrealist, genre-twisting
finger-powered rumble dominating the saunter down a more restrained, acoustic and here he touches on antics from indie hero with
sonic background and vocalist Richard path, but the sum of those parts is simply everything from love and comic sideline.
Taylor’s engaging croon leading from the an irresistibly downbeat rock ballad, friendship to depression and “Gorilla, gorilla,
front. If there was a downside, it was that worthy of any era you care to mention. self-doubt, his voice capable of gorilla!” Ten
a slightly vexed and muddy production It may be significant that Harris’s bass is switching from ursine growl to years
ensured that the album was an acquired less domineering second time out: his choirboy croon to panicky, performing as
proggy warble in an instant. In surrealist
taste and, despite widespread great absurdly nimble fingers still propel the
reviews, wasn’t as celebrated as you might songs along, augmenting everything with The Next Song, the changes Edinburgh Fringe stalwart Mr
come so rapidly that it screams Twonkey has rubbed off on the
imagine a Steve Harris side-project might those trademark chords and flourishes,
of a soul freefalling in chaos, the solo projects of cackle-voiced
be. Fortunately, The Burning sounds vastly but never muddying the sonic waters with riffy core bolstered by strings ex-Dawn Of The Replicants
more punchy and powerful than its a surfeit of rumbling bottom end.
and fluttering piano to add to the frontman Paul Vickers. His
predecessor, while also giving the distinct Meanwhile, Taylor sings with unfussy sense of claustrophobia. Clear fourth album with his Edinburgh
impression that British Lion have evolved aplomb throughout, clearly thrilled to be History, meanwhile, sounds like cohorts The Leg makes pretty
into a fiery and characterful ensemble part of such an honest, unpretentious Strangers In The Night reimagined random references to great apes,
with a strong identity of their own. enterprise, and blessed with a generous in the middle of a 4am panic the joys of mixing sherbet and
We are still firmly in traditional rock helping of brilliant songs to sing. attack brought about by chilli and sleeping in a fridge.
territory here, and Harris’s love of UFO QQQQQQQQQQ a crashing comedown. Unhinged stuff matched by the
and Golden Earring remains as cheerfully Dom Lawson Jumpstart Hope is an intense music, a courtly clatter which
listen, a barrage of noise with no veers between cranky, corroded

88 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

Beefheart rock’n’roll (Hearing My Part 1: Thunder Rise is a rollicking being true to your goals with edge. Veteran players – drummer elsewhere. It’s an exercise in sun-
Voice, Chicken Church), wonky dose of pure stoner psych, Eagle, Build It And They Will Come Gene Chrisman and keyboards baked mood in which Hackett
country rock (Xmas In The replete with spiralling acid-rock and Shoot For The Sun all fuelled wizard Bobby Wood – enhance plays his disciplined, varied part,
Jungle), glam jig, hellish music solos and a skittering rhythmic by endless self-belief and wide- the authentic mood and nail the another decent footnote in his
hall, reggae noir and bits where undertow, while the title track eyed defiance. Clearly driven to required sound. Tasty. recent renaissance.
the deranged violas sound like proclaims ‘the power of the mojo succeed, Electric Black’s first QQQQQQQQQQ QQQQQQQQQQ
early ELO on Motörhead’s worst hand’ before erupting into some effort holds plenty of promise Max Bell Nick Hasted
amphetamines. It’s never less of the cockiest-sounding proto- for the future.
than attention-grabbing, and metal riffs you’ll hear this QQQQQQQQQQ Djabe & Steve Stone Sour
contains real magic when millennium. The rest follows Essi Berelian Hackett Hello You Bastards:
hyperactive new wave rattler Do a similarly exhilarating path: Back To Sardinia ESOTERIC Live In Reno COOKING VINYL
Your Best recalls early REM, balls-out and traditional, but Marcus King Hungarian jazz reunion for Full on Sour mania.
Sherbet And Chilli drifts in on peppered with smart, quirky El Dorado ex-Genesis globetrotter. It seems a while
gentle country vibes or the Wild ideas, from Rainbow Ridge’s SNAKEFARM Steve Hackett ago that people
West themed, Neutral Milk snotty, Black Betty stomp to El Southern jukebox delights. has matched regarded Stone
Hotel-like Little Turtle Wars Hombre Dorado’s spiky, lysergic The 23-year old Peter Gabriel Sour as nothing
reaches its epic prairie battle strut. There’s no mistaking the guitar slinger for musical more than
climax, with the cowboys real deal, and Kamchatka make Marcus King curiosity, taking Corey Taylor’s distraction from
convinced they can ‘imagine it look easy. puts his band his guitar to intriguing places, Slipknot duty. Now, after six
ourselves invisible’. Unlike this QQQQQQQQQQ aside here for and lacing global sounds into his albums, the band have long
unignorable record. Dom Lawson a solo album produced by Black own albums. 2016’s Life Is since thrown off ‘Knot’s shadow,
QQQQQQQQQQ Keys-man Dan Auerbach in A Journey – The Sardinia Tapes establishing their own style.
Mark Beaumont Electric Black Nashville and it’s mostly a soul- was a productive summit with This is their first live release,
The Calm Before SELF-RELEASED drenched country cracker with jazz-world fusion veterans and it’s packed with fury,
Kamchatka Determined and dynamic pedal steel and fiddles to spare, Djabe, recorded in a Sardinian passion and venom. And it’s
Hoodoo Lightning debut. underpinning a set of songs that priest’s house. Relentless touring all delivered with a measured

KAMCHATKA MUSIC Solid, no-frills sound like someone’s favourite forced Hackett to forego the hard rock stance that brings to
Fuzzy blues fury from hard rock from record collection. The title track island sun for this sequel, adding mind AC/DC, Motörhead and
Sweden’s earthiest power trio. start to finish, is a hefty borrow from Neil his improvisations in Budapest. early Metallica.
This Swedish Electric Black’s Young’s Harvest Moon while This is very much a Djabe jazz- Taylor is in full cry on a set
trio’s debut is elsewhere King tips his Stetson rock album, all languid grooves that spans their career to date,
rambunctious a showcase for economical to Willie Nelson (Too Much and atmospheres, with Hackett while Josh Rand and Christian
brand of bluesy to-the-point songwriting. And Whiskey), Bobby Bland and as the featured, contrasting rock Martucci’s guitars kick up a
stoner rock will it’s been a long old slog this far if Amazing Rhythm Aces. The kid player. Lonely Castle is more storm. They roar through 16
never struggle to find an the lyrics to Homecoming are really is that old school but he about Aron Koos-Hutas’ songs, offering little respite and
audience. Their seventh studio anything to go by; almost every carries it off without too many Milesian trumpet, until Hackett plenty of manic action. Stone
album certainly doesn’t waste band has some sort of lonesome clichés, wearing his heart and intervenes with electric trills and Sour understand how to get
time trying to reinvent tales-of-the-road tune and influences on his sleeve until the a sudden saurian roar. Girl In The their fans moving and shaking,
Kamchatka’s ever-turning wheel, Electric Black have turned the formula gets a tad flimsy on Palau Wood, too, is transformed and as such this is
but there are precious few bands trials and tribulations of being Beautiful Stranger. The MKB by dramatic rock heaviness, like a fine representation of what
playing this stuff with anything a hard-working band into one of sound surfaces on the full-tilt (Don’t Fear) The Reaper dropped they do best.
like the same degree of ingenuity their best tracks with a distinctly boogie The Well and Say You into relaxed keyboard ripples. QQQQQQQQQQ
and verve. Opener Blues Science southern rock feel. It’s all about Will, jammy concoctions with He’s more understated Malcolm Dome




ROUND-UP: MELODIC ROCK By Dave Ling

King Of Hearts Passion

King Of Hearts MELODIC ROCK Passion FRONTIERS
Fronted by Tommy Formed from the ashes
Funderburk, whose voice of Night By Night by
has graced records by frontman Daniel Rossall,
Boston, Whitesnake, who now favours the
Toto and many more, name of Lion Ravarez,
KOH boast links to some of the biggest Passion aim to mix early 1990s classic hard
names in popular music, hence this album’s rock with the AOR of the previous decade.
cameos from Timothy B Schmit, Peter Cetera Besides playing most of the instruments
and Phil Collen. No surprise, then, of a pitch and producing, Rossall/Ravarez has just
somewhere between the Eagles and Chicago. the voice for the job, and the addition of
On first listen it’s just too laid back, but in a permanent line-up elevates Passion’s
time those riches will surely seduce. future prospects.
QQQQQQQQQQ QQQQQQQQQQ

Dirty Shirley Storm Force
Explosive stuff:
TNT’s Tony Harnell. Dirty Shirley FRONTIERS Storm Force ESCAPE MUSIC
Rendered lukewarm by Although Brighton
Lovekillers feat. The End Machine (the Rock have given up
Tony Harnell rollercoaster of highs and downs… seems belt of writers. With the likes of Don Dokken-less Dokken on new music,
to have put an end to their collaboration”). Hurricane, Higher Again and Now Or band)? Well, George guitarist Greg Fraser,
Lovekillers FRONTIERS Now Nashville-based, the singer pursues Never echoing the soaring airiness of Lynch is back again. The a co-founder of the
Tony Harnell hates a variety of different projects, but given TNT’s most commercial endeavours ex-Dokken guitarist hits the bullseye less Niagara Falls-based quintet, still feels the
having words put into that Harnell has been in the Norwegian it’s an enjoyable album. Harnell still and less these days, though by holding urge to create. Fraser is joined on this
his mouth. The former band five times before, anything can sings like a man half his age, apparently onto Croatian singer Dino Jelusick (Animal highly impressive opening statement by
TNT singer recently happen in the crazy world of TNT. deriving pleasure through Drive, Trans-Siberian Orchestra) and a rather fine singer named Patrick
nixed claims that he Which brings us to Lovekillers. Its 11 reconnection with his past, rather upping the ante with a follow-up album, Gagliardi. Together in Storm Force they
would never again work with that band’s songs see Harnell collude with Frontiers than pinning any career hopes upon the promising Dirty Shirley might just dig forge a rousing, melodic sound that’s likely
Ronnie LeTekrø, a suggestion repeated Records’ in-house tunesmith/producer its fortunes. Don out of a pretty deep hole. to please followers of Triumph or Dokken.
in the promo blurb for this album (“a Alessandro Del Vecchio and a conveyor QQQQQQQQQQ QQQQQQQQQQ QQQQQQQQQQ


CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 89

ALBUMS
…And You Will Black Keys or recent Johnny
Know Us By The Marr, but the poppier moments
Trail Of Dead are far more hit-and-miss. Better
X: The Godless Void And Man sparkles like a synthetic
Other Stories INSIDEOUT R.E.M., and Previous Parties finds
The prog-hardcore interface Liam Fray carrying off a motoric
reaches new highs on its synth-pop romp about 80s
silver jubilee soirees attended by new
It’s strange to romantics, Nico, Sylvester
think that Texan Stallone and George Best. But
rockers …And the big ballads are way too boy-
You Will Know band, and the title track aims for
Us By The Trail Foals doing New York disco and
Of Dead have reached their 25th hits cheap Arctic Monkeys
year, a period of time that remix. They’re also still some
usually finds bands looking over way off leading any packs, but
their shoulder. And although they’re making up ground.
their six-year absence from the QQQQQQQQQQ
studio found them doing just Mark Beaumont
that with the live revisitation of
their second album, Madonna, Fitted
the experience has evidently First Fits ORG MUSIC
served to reinvigorate this Fit for purpose.
singular outfit as they now Originally
adjust their gaze on the road assembled
ahead to have a steely and for a largely
determined focus. spontaneous
X: The Godless Void And Other performance at
Stories doesn’t sound like the Wire’s 2017 DRILL Festival in Los
work of a band finding their way Angeles by Wire members
Magnum back; they know exactly where Graham Lewis and Matthew
Sims and Minuteman’s Mike
they’re going. This means
a consolidation of their strengths Watts with drummer Bob Lee,
The Serpent Rings SPV
– muscular guitars that alternate Fitted have taken the next logical
Magnum force. from hardcore styling to more step and made an album.
sensitive delivery – and a greater Typically, each track starts with
sense of melody. All Who a bass groove (not surprising
Wander sets out the album’s stall given that both Lewis and Watts
early, while the anthemic Who are bassists), the drums chase
lthough many fans gravitate vocalist Bob Catley told this writer of Haunts The Haunter delivers in them down and the semi-spoken
towards harder rock partly to Clarkin’s meticulous standards regarding full. Elsewhere, Don’t Look Down vocals weave their way in and
Aavoid trend chasing, which is Magnum’s material, and of their shared is a defining moment on what is out of the atmospherics. It
prevalent in mainstream pop, our beloved desire to maintain the momentum of their one of the strongest albums of sounds like it was recorded in
loud-and-hairy genre isn’t immune to second wave of success. The jackhammer their lengthy career. an empty swimming pool with
such attitudes, at least where record power chords resonating on the anthemic QQQQQQQQQQ the mics and mixer set up at the
Julian Marszalek shallow end and the instruments
companies are concerned. By 1985, You Can’t Run Faster Than Bullets and piled up at the deep end while
Magnum had repeatedly proved their through the cinematic sweep of Crimson The Courteeners the singers walk up and down
ability to create hit albums that brought On The White Sand are a means to ensure
More. Again. Forever. IGNITION between them. It gets murky
together radio-friendly choruses and that the essential hallmarks of Magnum’s Electro-rock charges, with at times but never succumbs to
brawny guitars, and they scored again that sound are presented intact without things some poppier stumbles. metallic or industrial bestiality.
year with the independently released On becoming formulaic. Similarly, the band Nothing has Mostly they have a clear vision
A Storyteller’s Night. Nonetheless, in the succeed in weaving subtle twists into the evinced indie and seem almost eager to draw
press release for The Serpent Rings, guitarist song structures without taking outlandish rock’s you in with pop/punk hooks.
and songsmith Tony Clarkin reveals that risks, keeping things fresh without capitulation to QQQQQQQQQQ
after signing to Polydor that same year, straying too far. The Archway Of Tears builds pop more than Hugh Fielder
“the label wanted us to sound as pop- gradually with harmonious layers of The Courteeners’ gradual inching
oriented as possible. I used to hate that, keyboards and guitars to deliver away from their electric guitars Apocalyptica
despite the success.” a 10-storey chorus, retaining the orchestral like they’re ticking credibility Cell-0 SILVER LINING MUSIC
Freed from such constraints in recent flourishes of previous album Lost On The time bombs. Having built Back to their best baroque
years, Magnum have shown that cranking Road To Eternity, and strings also enliven a weighty fan base as a surrogate and roll.
Oasis in the 00s, they rightly Infamous for
up the guitars need not be an impediment opening rocker Where Are You Eden?
to cracking the charts, and have enjoyed Clarkin’s skill in crafting enduring recognised that Kasabian were their inspired
the future of lagered rock, but reworking of
a steady commercial renaissance in the melodies is in plentiful evidence; Not
have tended to slip into cheesier portions of the
last decade that, with 2018’s Lost On The Forgiven and Madman Or Messiah featuring pop territory as they scrambled classic metal
Road To Eternity reaching No.15 in the UK especially keen hooklines, belted with grit
to stay electro-relevant. catalogue and for breathing
chart, gave them their highest placing by Catley. As ever, the lyrics alternate This sixth album redresses new life into Metallica’s better
since Goodnight LA in 1990. between fantasy (the title track) and stark the balance a little. The songs, Apocalyptica have staked
Although on The Serpent Rings Clarkin’s reality (Man). Free of any filler, The Serpent stormtrooping Heart Attack, the their own, peculiarly unique,
guitar packs an even heftier wallop this Rings looks set to continue Magnum’s gnarled electro-rock of Take it On plot in music’s knotty landscape.
time out, the ramped up amps aren’t hard-won late-career revival. The Chin and a takedown of Frustratingly, they’ve often been
masking a drop in quality. On the release QQQQQQQQQQ social media called The Joy Of overlooked as the most refined
of 2014’s Escape From The Shadow Garden, Rich Davenport Missing Out reflect the future- of cover bands or as the outfit
rock fire of Kasabian, Muse, the you hire to add a veneer of

90 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

respectability to your music; singing exactly like the young Shrieve and Free man Simon assertion that “we are the the languid Howl At The Moon
strings make almost anything Steve Perry, some fine songs, Kirke bash the kits, there are fat, disease”, there’s a positivity and the more up-tempo Overpass,
sound elegant. Which is to notably When The Heartache Has funky horns, Bobby Darin underlying it all. Punchy, poppy where Nielsen creates a rich,
undersell these Finnish musicians Gone, feel second-hand. It’s references, a finger-clicking punk melodies carrying a plea layered world that’s entirely his
somewhat. The experiment of when Blades sings, solo or with Sharks v Jets serenade to for love to beat hate. Don’t Let own. He may not sound like his
recording with different singers Castronovo, that Revolution 8th Avenue (and the Velvets), The Bastards Get You Down, for father (although both Nielsens
has passed, covers are passé, and Saints hit on something truly and a magnificent homage to one, is set to be chanted on collect guitars), but Ohbahoy
Cell-0 is the dizzying work of four their own. With more of that, the Magenta Street that smells like every human rights march going. (titled after an imaginary
classically trained musicians at band could really fly. the Bronx. If you can get over the They may not change the world, childhood friend) shows he’s
the top of their game. Nods are QQQQQQQQQQ fact that he isn’t reinventing the but they’ll give it their best shot. more prodigy than prodigal.
given to Mozart as much as they Paul Elliott wheel on the yellow taxi, then QQQQQQQQQQ QQQQQQQQQQ
might be to Metallica, infusing fun time awaits. If you don’t, Emma Johnston John Aizlewood
songs like Ashes Of The Modern Handsome then you don’t know Dick.
World and En Route To Mayhem, Dick Manitoba QQQQQQQQQQ Miles Nielsen DeWolff
with a rare snap and verve and Born In The Bronx Max Bell & The Rusted Tascam Tapes MASCOT
marking Apocalyptica out as LIBERATION HALL Hearts An album really recorded on
leaders in a field of one. Noo Yawk Noo Yawk. L’Chaim. Anti-Flag Ohbahoy MILES NIELSEN INC. a shoestring.
QQQQQQQQQQ Richard Blum, 20/20 Vision SPINEFARM Cheap Trick guitarist’s son Going even
Philip Wilding aka HDM, was Pennsylvania punks take aim steps out. Doesn’t sound like more lo-fi than
the legendary at the system once more. Rick Nielsen. usual, DeWolff
Revolution Saints lead singer with Pittsburgh Miles Nielsen have pulled off

Rise FRONTIERS The Dictators, punks Anti-Flag is a busy boy. the kind of
The AOR supergroup with one of the few true NYC punk have been Unlike his album that sounds more like
a familiar sound. rock groups. Now a sprightly 65, around in one brother Daxx, a dare than anything else. Using
There’s serious he’s still sifting through the form or another he hasn’t nothing more than guitar, drum
pedigree to sidewalk detritus. since 1988, yet it feels that their joined Cheap Trick, preferring sampler and synth, the band
Revolution Working with lyricist Jon Tiven, time is very much now. With instead to raise a family, lecture recorded album number seven
Saints, with Dick wanders over a bunch of activism central to their existence in creative writing and be half on an ancient Tascam four-track
drummer and tunes about daytime TV, Chuck as a band, their return at a time of Willow & Weep with wife tape machine, mostly at the
lead singer Deen Castronovo Taylor’s Converse, Yankee when people are marching Kelly Steward. back of their bus while on tour.
formerly of Journey, guitarist Stadium, the lure of the warm against a racist, misogynist, There’s also the Rusted Hearts, The result is supremely groovy,
Doug Aldrich ex-Whitesnake, California sun, crack cocaine and homophobic US president, the closest he gets to a day job. the band’s typically psychedelic
and bassist/vocalist Jack Blades entertaining if unreciprocated against climate catastrophe and They’ve been at it for six years take on classic 70s rock stripped
the co-founder of Night Ranger. glances at the local talent, all against division suggests that now, crafting a post-Americana down to the essence of an off-
Castronovo and Aldrich also delivered with his customarily much of the population is joining blend of celestial Jellyfish-style kilter lounge band with top
play together in the Dead lecherous crash-’n’-burn like them in speaking out. harmonies, Tom Petty-esque tracks It Ain’t Easy and Blood
Daisies. But in this band the he’s Larry David’s even less woke Naturally, 20/20 Vision is twang and, as grumpily Meridian I leading the charge,
focus is on pure AOR. And while younger brother. a deeply political album, showcased on Life Is (Hard followed closely by Rain, Let It
these guys are masters of the The weird stuff arrives on Big beginning with a clip of Donald Enough) and I Don’t Care For You, Fly and Blood Meridian II, the
art, there are times on Rise, their Army Brass and a demented take Trump looking back on the “good a bleak lyrical world view. While minimal set-up enabling the
third album, when they sound on Eve Of Destruction that old days” when protesters were Old Enough takes the Petty quality of the tunes to shine.
like nothing more than a Journey features the songwriter PF Sloan. “treated very, very rough”. But appreciation too close to its QQQQQQQQQQ
tribute act. With Castronovo Santana drummer Michael despite a very real anger and an source, they’re at their best on Essi Berelian




ROUND-UP: PROG By Jo Kendall

Udo Pannekeet Psychic Lemon
Electric Regions Freak Mammal DRONE ROCK
IN AND OUT OF FOCUS One night, after a show,
Bassist Udo Pannekeet is I had a Psychic Lemon
in the current line-up of flyer pressed into my
Dutch masters Focus. hand. I lost the flyer, and
While not Hocus Pocus- later thought I’d dreamt
sing around the world, the band’s existence. But here they are,
he’s put together this excellent prog jazz trippy psychedelicists from Cambridge,
set with other Focus folk, plus brass and with their dense five-tracker. With Goat,
busy, bubbling electronics, which is almost Hawkwind and The Heads as possible
like an album in itself on Electric Regions influences, Afrotropic Bomb and Free
Pt 1, running into early Santana and Herbie Electron Collective are funky and
Hancock territories over 23 minutes. overdriven wah-wah standouts.
QQQQQQQQQQ QQQQQQQQQQ

Guranfoe: putting their Sonar Storchi
own spin on some
classic sounds. Tranceportation RARENOISE Outside FREIA/DUTCH MUSIC WORKS
For Zurich minimalists Prog metal with flute,
Guranfoe Sonar, now on album from Israel? Yep, that’s
Temple. And looking at photos of the four But this ain’t retro cap-doffing. There’s number five, pairing where we’re at with
The Sum Of Erda APOLLON
young men in their ‘rural practice cabin’, depth and dynamic grit in Guranfoe’s with veteran improviser Storchi, with flautist
It’s always nice to get sitting on orange sofas surrounded by sound, with weaving twin-guitar lines, and composer David Danielle Sassi (daughter
in on the ground floor piles of analogue gear, it’s evocative flute, clarinet, violin, lap-steel and Torn has been highly fruitful. 2018’s of ex-Orphaned Land’s Yossi) fronting
with a new band. Well, enough to whet our appetite. vibraphone adding colour, lightness and acclaimed Vortex set the blueprint, and a mainly teenage virtuoso quartet. Jazz,
we say ‘new’, Norwich From The Sum Of Erda’s first track, sparkle to masterful and melodic zig- now Tranceportation takes the cyclical fusion and world music all feature on these
four-piece Guranfoe Eventitide, the sound and style is the zagging compositions. Near-10-minute ticking and picking and adds more of Torn’s superb seven tracks, all instrumental
have been going since 2012, but wonderful, warm 70s prog that we hoped album closer Etsinta Harvest In The Thar spacey interjections – subtle, raw, wild - to except for Outside, which comes across
ploughing away steadily on the live circuit for, where touchstones seem to be Frank Sands is just gobsmacking. An album well create a kind of cosmic-experimental-jazz a little as Tull’s Bourée meets Metallica’s
supporting like-minded sorts such as Zappa’s Hot Rats, Mike Oldfield, Gentle worth the wait. Tool. Worth having on repeat. All day. Ride The Lightning.
Caravan, Soft Machine and Acid Mothers Giant and the classic Canterbury sound. QQQQQQQQQQ QQQQQQQQQQ QQQQQQQQQQ


CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 91

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Various of Uriah Heep’s classic sound
Live At The Roxy London during his 10-year tenure with

WC2 (Jan – Apr ’77) RHINO the band. In addition to playing
Legendary punk compendium on 13 Heep albums, Hensley
revisited. made two solo records before
The urgency, his departure in 1980, and
speed and another soon after, each
immediacy of presented in this set with bonus
1977’s UK punk tracks and a DVD of interviews
scene was conducted by Classic Rock’s
head-spinning. The rock media, Malcolm Dome.
both mainstream (four weekly Proud Words On A Dusty Shelf
inkies) and Xeroxed (countless (1973) is a must-have for fans of
fanzines, from the Glue on down) vintage Heep. The acoustic Go
were all over it, but the major Down and From Time To Time
labels were too cumbersome to show a more reflective side of
react to its ever-changing Hensley’s writing, but the brash
landscape of bands and to title song (check out the searing
supply actual recorded evidence slide guitars) and the slow-
of its rapid progress. burning blues of When Evening
Consequently, during its most Comes offer a stripped-down
fertile period, punk happened variant on Heep’s sound,
live. More specifically, it Hensley favouring piano over
happened live at The Roxy. his trademark Hammond
Situated in a run-down, pre- organ. Eager To Please (1975) is
redevelopment Covent Garden, elaborate at times, with strings
The Roxy was a snug, squalid embellishing gentle ballad
David Gilmour: taking
the helm of Floyd after breeding ground for countless Through The Eyes Of A Child, while
Roger Waters left. neophytes bound for greater displaying a pronounced Heep
things, where the capital’s kids vibe on rollicking rockers Winter
Pink Floyd would gather to exercise their Or Summer and Who Will Sing For
You. Free Spirit (1981) is poppier
inner Sid while pogoing (and,
latterly, posing) to punk’s finest overall, but hits the mark with
The Later Years PINK FLOYD/LEGACY
exponents. Despite not coming a bunch of upbeat rock numbers
The post-Waters era collated, with the out until July, Live At The Roxy including New York, Brown Eyed
WC2 was still fresh enough to Boy and Telephone.
odd gaping gap. capture the imagination of QQQQQQQQQQ

provincial punks who’d as yet Rich Davenport
only seen albums delivered by Geordie
“ quite clever forgery,” Roger spectacular riffs on The Wall: Signs Of Life Damned, Clash, Jam, Stranglers Reissues DEMON
and 999. Live At The Roxy
could be Shine On You Crazy Diamond Part
Waters said of 1987’s
AA Momentary Lapse Of Reason, X, One Slip a stumbling sequel to Run Like introduced many to X-Ray Spex Newcastle noisemakers who
the first Pink Floyd album following his Hell and The Dogs Of War a more action- (shrill), Johnny Moped (basic), included one of rock’s most
1985 departure. His comment showed packed Welcome To The Machine. Eater (snotty), Wire (artful), recognisable voices.
a possessive arrogance, Waters believing Set alone, and with some drums and Unwanted (chancers), Slaughter There were
And The Dogs (savage), The
many early-70s
himself to be the heart, soul and spirit of keyboards re-recorded for added punch Adverts (bored) and, to those hard rockers
the band. And certainly those fans hooked here, Reason makes for an impressive unfamiliar with their Spiral who in their
on the oppressive autobiographical rebalancing of the Floyd canon to honour Scratch EP, the newly Howard hearts wanted
dramatics of The Wall and The Final Cut were Gilmour’s contributions, but when its Devoto-less Buzzcocks (brilliant) to be Led Zeppelin or Deep
best advised to follow him into his dark draggier second half is pitted against the and – with snatches of vérité Purple but in their heads knew
conceptual solo world. The Floyd that deathless classics of Waters’s prime period dialogue recorded in the Roxy the way to getting on the TV
reconvened without him – David Gilmour, on the live album Delicate Sound Of Thunder toilets secreted in between its was to be Slade or Sweet.
Nick Mason and a returning Richard (here in audio and video forms), it comes tracks – the essential ambience Geordie, like Nazareth, briefly
Wright – were a brighter, more weightless up noticeably short. The second half of of the club itself. Here re-pressed pulled it off, expectorating
proposition. And although they would immaculate 70s Floyd has virtually no on (pink and blue splattered) gravelly hits like All Because Of
produce only two proper albums (Reason slack, even when an eight-minute Money vinyl, this once essential parish You and Can You Do It all over
and 1994’s The Division Bell) and the drifts off into jazz and reggae segments. mag of punk retains an the nation’s pop kids. Nazareth’s
ambient reworking of studio offcuts that Among the videos, documentaries, unpolished charm and tangible USP was of course the unholy
was 2014’s The Endless River over almost 30 memorabilia and live footage from electricity that’s a timely shriek of Brian Johnson, which
years, their tenure is still respected enough Knebworth and their floating Venice show, reminder of significantly more made Noddy Holder sound like
passionate times. Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant. You
to warrant an 18-disc retrospective box set. of greatest interest to completists will be
Big it is, comprehensive it ain’t. The the seven unreleased tracks from The QQQQQQQQQQ probably know what became of
Endless River isn’t in it, and fans of The Division Bell sessions, largely listless and Ian Fortnam Brian after Geordie floundered
as the 70s came to an end.
Division Bell might already own the 2014 insubstantial prog and blues workouts but Ken Hensley Geordie’s first four albums are
reissue mix and the Pulse live DVD, slightly involving a charming church-bell flamenco
The Bronze Years now excavated on quirkily
tweaked here but still most notable for the version of High Hopes and a half-written riff
1973-1981 CHERRY RED/HEAR NO EVIL coloured vinyl, and emphasise
full, stadium-sized run through The Dark rock piece called Nervana with some fiery A heep of solo Ken. that they were fiery in spurts if
Side Of The Moon. Mostly, we’re Gilmour weight behind it. A few more Ken Hensley’s not regularly inspired. Hope
encouraged to revisit Reason, where fresh gems like that would’ve pushed this songwriting, You Like It (1973) landed its hit
Gilmour solo material was repurposed to beast of a box towards being essential. keyboards, singles, while 1974’s Don’t Be
throwback to his wonderfully airy QQQQQQQQQQ slide guitar and Fooled By The Name stomps ALBERT WATSON/PRESS
influence on Wish You Were Here and his Mark Beaumont occasional lead solidly but slumps around its
vocals were an integral element dreary version of House Of The

94 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

Rising Sun. By 1976’s Save The in the US chart. Enter superfan poignant farewell single The album doesn’t quite stick in Nottingham, featured Jimmy
World they’re torn between (and soon to be superstar) Saturday Gigs. to the New Orleans blueprint Page joined by Charlie Watts,
glam and metal, but certain David Bowie, who wrote All The Neophyte or not, these tracks – although there is a fine version Jack Bruce, Paul Jones, Ian
that they want naked women Young Dudes for them while belong in any collection. of St James’ Infirmary – and Stewart and Ruby Turner. It’s
on the cover. 1978’s try-hard producing their breakthrough A golden age and then some. instead lives in the night space generally old-school stuff –
No Good Woman was cobbled fifth album of the same name. QQQQQQQQQQ of that city, with country songs representatives of a generation
together with Johnson hugging While it’s probably even less Ian Fortnam such as Lou sitting next to of rock stars who were made by
the exit door. Their Tyne was likely that there’s a new spoken-word excursions like the blues, taking a dip in the
fogging over, but the birth of generation of kids gagging to Michael The Heat Of The New Orleans primordial source of their sound
that shriek has to be hailed as buy a two-LP set of Ian Hunter- Moorcock & The Night and The Effects of Entropy. and success – although swing
a landmark. driven, lads-rocking 70s glam Deep Fix It’s an eclectic and oddly gets a nod in the cover of Neal
All QQQQQQQQQQ brilliance in the 21st century than Live At The Terminal Cafe warm collection that doesn’t Hefti’s Splanky.
Chris Roberts it is for a Classic Rock reader to not PURPLE really sound like anything else, And so we get the familiar
already know the story of Bowie Sci-fi novelist/Hawkwind except possibly Raymond trucking-down-the-dirt-track
Mott The Hoople ‘saving’ Mott, let’s suspend collaborator goes New Orleans. Chandler and The Mekons in of When It All Comes Down, the
The Golden Age Of disbelief and see how much bang Michael a philosophical mood. You revelling, raucous Got My Mojo
Rock ‘N’ Roll MADFISH any such mythical creatures Moorcock has could, if you were in the mood, Working and the relentless,
The glam Clash at their might get for their buck. been around call it country and noir, which is club-footed stomp of Willie
very best. The Golden Age Of Rock ‘N’ the block so as good a description as any for Dixon’s Hoochie Coochie Man,
Perpetuating Roll’s 20-song track list writes many times, he this set of urban swamp tunes. while Ruby Turner brings the
the grand itself. Side one comprises five pretty much is the block. He QQQQQQQQQQ plaster off the ceiling with Bring
tradition of from Dudes (including the single started out writing Sexton Blake David Quantick It On Home. The only complaint
ignoring the version of its epochal title track), stories, and went on to write is that the sleeve information is
band’s first followed on side two by the some of the most inventive and Jimmy Page a bit perfunctory. Surely there
four Guy Stevens-produced A and B of Honaloochie Boogie influential sci-fi of the 20th & Friends was room somewhere to name-
albums for Island Records, this (the seven-inch where Hunter century, as well as the Tribute To Alexis Korner check the members of the
inarguably brilliant double vinyl proved he could fly comfortably astonishing Mother London and STORE FOR MUSIC wonderfully named Alexis Light
collection of Mott’s finest CBS- solo post-Bowie). Six more from other non-SF, and has been 1984 tribute to late bluesman Orchestra, who put in a fine
era recordings is the ideal entry the incomparable Mott album a long-time collaborator with and broadcaster, now available shift on brass? As for Page,
point for any young dude of take us deep into side three Hawkwind. The next logical on CD, 25 years on. despite getting his own Jimmy
a curious disposition. where Roll Away The Stone departure for the author, then, Intended not as Page Jam, he plays within
After a grim five-year grind concludes guitarist Mick was surely to record a cajun a wake but himself, with no Dazed And
of much work for little reward, Ralphs’s tenure. Ariel Bender album in Paris. Which is what a “celebration Confused-style histrionics.
Mott were all for kicking their arrives to riff a quintet from The he’s done, with musical of the fact that Probably not what Korner
less-than-burgeoning career Hoople (and Foxy Foxy), before collaborator Martin Stone Alexis was here would have wanted.
into touch after 1971’s Brain Mick Ronson closes proceedings (Mighty Baby, Savoy Brown) in the first place”, this concert, QQQQQQQQQQ
Capers album ‘peaked’ at No.208 with the dazzling closing solo of and a host of other musicians. live at the Club Palais Ballroom David Stubbs




Muse


Origin Of Muse – Super Deluxe Edition WARNERS

Space-rocking maximalists revisit their roots
with mammoth multi-disc archive set.





emember the innocent time at the turn rough demos recorded in 1996 and
of the millennium when Muse were 1997, when the embryonic Devon
Ra baby-faced power trio who specialised trio were just emerging from their
in heartbroken post-grunge confessionals rather Nirvana-loving long-hair phase.
than planet-sized future-metal prog-punk Matt Bellamy’s sky-scraping
operas about genocidal alien overlords? This musical ambitions are only dimly
mammoth box sex, featuring four coloured discernible in Pixies-infused ear-
vinyl albums and nine CDs, is a handsomely bashers like Balloonatic, a ragged
packaged and mostly excellent excavation of blueprint for Twin, and Crazy Days,
this period. But with a price tag north of £100, which later evolved into Yes Please. But
Origin Of Muse will blow a super-massive black more fully rounded, melodic creations
hole in your savings, so it really needs to be like Good Time and the Radiohead-
a majestic musical banquet. tinged Boredom hint at grander
Thankfully, there is plenty to savour here, horizons beyond suburban indie-rock
including expanded versions of Muse’s first two convention. A more rocky, guitar-
albums: Showbiz and Origin of Symmetry. It’s hard centric prototype of Plug In Baby, with an entirely prosaic, but a full-length anniversary live run-
to argue with crisply remastered evergreen different lyric, is the most intriguing curio here. through of Origin Of Symmetry from 2011 is
anthems including the vaguely Mediterranean Further engaging rare cuts scattered across much closer to the stadium-rocking maximalist
oompah-chanson Muscle Museum, the Rage these discs include agreeably gnarly alternative Muse of today. That said, even the most ardent
Against The Morricone widescreen melodrama takes of Recess and Uno, plus pared-down collector will struggle through an entire CD of
Uno, and the rocket-powered roller-coaster thrill acoustic versions of Cave and Muscle Museum, instrumental demos. The killer-vs-filler ratio is
ride Plug In Baby. But serious fan interest will rare examples of Bellamy favouring fragile high here, but then again so is the price.
inevitably focus on the 40 tracks of previously understatement. A brace of Radio 1 concert QQQQQQQQQQ
unreleased material, including an entire disc of broadcasts from 20 years ago sound tinny and Stephen Dalton
GETTY


CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 95

REISSUES
Dickies there are a couple of tracks to

The A&M Years CAROLINE interest lovers of the obscure.
San Fernando Valley One is this collection’s title track,
bubblegum punks’ first flush. which was turned into a hit by
You only need Graham Bonnet, the other is
witness the vox- Lovin’ On Borrowed Time, which
pop audience was covered by Gladys Knight
member and Bill Medley for the Sylvester
interviews Stallone movie Cobra. But the
captured in D.O.A. (Lech fact that it turns up here twice,
Kowalski’s chronicle of the Sex in contrasting versions, suggests
Pistols’ American tour) to that Fast Buck didn’t really know
understand how long it took the what to do with it.
majority of punk-curious The fourth CD is two gigs that
Californians to truly get to grips go some way to explaining the
with what the actual fuck was band’s popularity live.
going on. QQQQQQQQQQ
LA’s Dickies, meanwhile, were Hugh Fielder
early adopters (they caught the
Damned’s pioneering ‘77 US Jack Bruce
shows and clearly studied & Friends
Ramones as if it were a holy text) The Bottom Line Archive
who got it more than most. So THE STORE FOR MUSIC
while X, The Nuns and Avengers Jack gets jazzed up.
were still doing whatever the hell New York’s
it was that they were doing in Bottom Line
local clubs, the Dickies were hosted
busy having actual hits in the everyone from
UK. Granted, they were only Ravi Shankar to
ironic punk-paced adenoidal Bruce Springsteen before closing
The Stooges covers of Paranoid, Nights In in 2004. The Bottom Line Archive
White Satin and the Banana Splits
series is performances captured
theme cynically pressed into there, from club owner Allan
The Stooges (50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition) RHINO
en-vogue coloured vinyl, but Pepper’s extensive collection.
Download-only expansion of milestone first album, they were hits all the same. And Jack Bruce blended a diverse
here they all are on two CDs range of styles throughout his
with sped-up John Cale mixes. comprising the band’s first two career, and this 1980 show finds

albums. There are also original him in jazz-rock fusion mode,
compositions, many of which alongside drummer Billy
“ ere’s a track from a new album No Fun and epic hallucino-drone mantra are ‘funny’, so while the Dickies Cobham (Mahavishnu
Orchestra), David Sancious on
got it more than most, they
coming soon on Elektra,”
We Will Fall, built on an Indian guru’s
Hannounced John Peel’s dulcet chant. Needing more songs, they knocked didn’t get it completely. keyboards and guitar, and former
tones one August 1969 Sunday afternoon, up Real Cool Time, Not Right and Little Doll. QQQQQQQQQQ Humble Pie/Colosseum guitarist
as he brought in the slavering wallop of Adding sleigh bells and viola, Cale then Ian Fortnam Clem Clempson. The quartet
Little Doll, the first time The Stooges are found his druggy, reverb-swamped mix Fast Buck shared a tight, fluid chemistry,
reinterpreting Cream favourites
heard in the UK. rejected by Elektra’s Jac Holzman, who Night Games – The such as Politician, Born Under
Bludgeoning, nihilistic and horny, these remixed it back upfront with Iggy. Complete Recordings A Bad Sign and Sunshine Of Your
four Ann Arbor degenerates stripped rock Unusually, Rhino mark The Stooges’ half
LEMON/CHERRY RED Love with clipped, funky rhythms
to its bare chassis like ghetto car-jackers century with a digital reissue of its The buck stops before this. and jammed-out instrumental
denuding a high-end motor and hot-wired 40th-anniversary edition, the original Eking out four sections. Post-Cream Bruce
the engine. Iggy let the dirty dog out to album joined by Cale’s mixes (remastered CDs from songs including Post War and
dump on music’s inhibitions, while at the right speed after appearing slow a one-album Theme From An Imaginary Western
guitarist Ron Asheton channelled Who- before), alternative versions (including career might receive similar treatment, and
fuelled aggression into a merciless, extended Ann and No Fun) and Asthma be regarded Clempson whips up a storm of
scabrous churn as brother Scott Attack’s free-form wheeze-up, adding Little as a bit of an extravagance, a solo on Cobham’s Quadrant 4.
pummelled drums alongside Dave Doll and Real Cool Time takes plus another particularly when the album Not for casual fans, but for die-
Alexander’s malevolent bass rumble. We Will Fall. in question caused barely a hards it’s a fine live document
If Led Zep were touting the sprawling Half a century on, The Stooges sounds ripple when it was originally of an intriguing experiment.
blues-rock that would dominate the early more brutally simplistic than ever, released in 1976. QQQQQQQQQQ
70s, The Stooges’ primal nihilism, particularly Iggy’s blank-generation lyrics Classic rockers Fast Buck had Rich Davenport
built up a reputation on the
welcomed by the underground but of teenage lust and terminal boredom Mercury Rev
ignored by the mainstream, predicted the inspired by observing the behaviour of London circuit, but their self-
titled album on Jet Records All Is Dream CHERRY RED
punk revolution to come. kids in a burger bar.
failed to capitalise on it. They Oh, man. This is some treat
Entering New York’s Hit Factory with Imagine if The Stooges had played
John Cale on his first assignment as Woodstock after their album was were clearly musically for the holidays.
competent, but couldn’t seem to A lavishly
Elektra’s staff producer, the band had released. They could have changed nail their style or a clear identity packaged
forged songs from the stage mayhem that rock’n’roll history a few years earlier in the studio. The lacklustre – four CDs plus
enticed Danny Fields to sign them. Cale instead of influencing Bowie to ignite production doesn’t help. limited-edition
loved the band’s anarchic avant-garde glam. By the time, punk caught up with So that’s half the first CD taken (500 copies)
edge as Iggy mounted speakers and their 1969, they were gone. care of, and there’s nothing on seven-inch single, poster, signed
Asheton cranked overkill volume QQQQQQQQQQ the next two and a half CDs of lyric sheet and more – reissue of
savaging I Wanna Be Your Dog, 1969, Ann, Kris Needs unreleased material to make you NY swoon-psychedelic Mercury
change your mind, although Rev’s 2001 fifth studio album GETTY

96 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

All Is Dream – the album that Paris concert, plus sundry other have a certain charm, but what They even made it on to MTV. Prince had. But throughout that
should have pushed these stuff. And frankly… oh man! they lack is the sort of high- Cut to 1992, and labels were decade, as both a solo artist and
masters of delirium into the QQQQQQQQQQ grade anthemic poise which so looking to Seattle for their the drummer and lead singer
same stratospheric reaches Everett True many American bands of that musical fix, Junkyard dropped with Genesis, he was a hit-
as their brothers in arms the era had in abundance. out of sight and Old Habits was making machine. And from
Flaming Lips… but still did very Heavy Pettin In truth, this sums up perfectly put on the shelf. Where it MTV to Live Aid, that round face
nicely, thank you. Rock Ain’t Dead why Heavy Pettin had so much remained until now. was everywhere.
Built around the twin wonders BURNT OUT WRECKORDS unfulfilled potential. Maybe a top- Time has been kind to the …But Seriously, his fourth solo
of Jonathan Donahue (vocals, Nearly-men of 80s British rock. end producer would have got album; everyone else changed, album, released in 1989, was
guitar) and Sean ‘Grasshopper’ For a short while more from the material? Perhaps, but Junkyard clearly didn’t. a No.1 in 15 countries and went
Mackowiak (guitar, keyboards, in the mid-80s, but we’ll never know. Their ragged glory is there for on to become the UK’s biggest-
clarinet, tettix wave a lot was QQQQQQQQQQ all to see. Stones and Skynyrd, selling album of 1990, shifting
accumulator), All Is Dream is expected of Malcolm Dome ZZ Top, the influences and close to three million copies. But
more capacious, sprawling and Scottish band grooves are self-evident. The it wasn’t his best solo record,
lush than its equally wonderful Heavy Pettin. They’d made an Junkyard band trample through Pushed with nothing of the art-rock
predecessor Deserter’s Songs, impact in 1983 with debut album Old Habits Die Hard ACETATE You Too Far, do some soul sensibility that was in evidence
mostly thanks to the caprices Lettin Loose, and Rock Ain’t Dead Previously unreleased 1992 searching on Tried & True, and on his 1981 solo debut Face Value
of in-demand producer Dave released two years later was album finally comes out. drink their way through the and nothing as powerful as
Fridmann. Think of songs such presumed to be the album that Back in the melancholic Hangin’ Around 1982’s I Don’t Care Anymore to
as opening single The Dark Is would prove the band could mists of time, With My Dreams, the glimmer reassert his authority as the
Rising, piano-engorged Chains compete with the likes of Ratt a band had only of old Hollywood still sparkling drummer’s drummer.
and drop-dead cute Spiders and Dokken. But things didn’t to so much as in their eyes. With cameos from some big-
And Flies as one part Daniel quite work out that way. tie a bandana QQQQQQQQQQ name friends, including Eric
Johnston, one part beloved Now, 35 years later, it’s clear around their noggin and affect Philip Wilding Clapton and Steve Winwood,
US children’s TV presenter why Heavy Pettin fell short. Yes, a rasp and, it seemed, Geffen …But Seriously was a slick adult
Mr Rogers, one part Leonard there’s a lot of dynamism and Records would swoop down Phil Collins rock record with a broad range,
Cohen, one part the dark side power on the album, and from the sunny Californian skies …But Seriously RHINO uplifting on Something Happened
of 1950s Disney soundtracking, guitarists Punky Mendoza and and sign them up there and then. A big hit, now on snazzy On The Way To Heaven, and
one part Jägermeister after Gordon Bonnar have But for every band like Warrior turquoise vinyl. sombre on Another Day In
midnight on Avenue C… and a distinctive flair. But none of Soul there was a Roxy Blue. Phil Collins was Paradise – the latter a song about
you’d still be nowhere near to the songs reach the heights that Junkyard were one of the the unlikely homelessness, for which Collins,
capturing Mercury Rev’s might have broken the band into bands who fell through the superstar of the an outspoken Tory voter, was
unique, elusive appeal. the million-selling elite. cracks, although alcohol and 1980s. With duly hammered by left-wing
The four CD includes the Having said that, Rock Ain’t drugs didn’t help. That said, their receding hair critics. Even at his peak, the little
original album, the required Dead is a somewhat entertaining 1989 self-titled debut was a gem, and ‘Man At C&A’ tailoring, he fella couldn’t win ’em all.
B-sides, demos and out-takes, collection of songs. The title all swaggering rootsy rock’n’oll had none of the glamour that QQQQQQQQQQ
a live recording of an entire 2001 track, Angel and China Boy do with hints of country and blues. Michael Jackson, Madonna or Paul Elliott




The Dukes Of Stratosphear


Psurroundabout Ride:

The Complete Recordings APEHOUSE

Surround-sound splendour from psychedelic XTC.




t the back end of 1984, three members treatment, and the results are little
of XTC – Andy Partridge, Colin short of fantastic.
AMoulding and Dave Gregory – hooked The tracks that make up the
up to make an album that sounded like it was collection – which also includes new
made as the original summer of love reached its stereo mixes, instrumentals and
paisley-patterned zenith. The foursome were demos – are as good as the source
rounded out by Gregory’s brother Ian on drums, material being so accurately
and the resulting mini-album, 25 O’Clock, paid mimicked, and the production (by
tribute to the music of early Pink Floyd, Magical a clearly up-for-it John Leckie) is
Mystery Tour-era Beatles, The Move, The Nice and kaleidoscopic. Throw in cows, birds,
the Small Faces, and one-hit wonders like The rain, thunder, snatches of speeches
Electric Prunes and Tomorrow. Two years later and radio broadcasts. Loop it, phase it,
they followed that with the album Psonic flip it, reverse it. Add an ocarina solo
Psunspot, and both were repackaged almost and a snatch of slide whistle. Nothing
immediately as the single collection Chips From is off-limits, and everything works.
The Chocolate Fireball. Mole From The Ministry is literally as
The two albums have now been repackaged good as anything The Beatles did under the freedom to be utterly fearless. None of it’s very
again, with the almost obligatory phrase influence, You’re A Good Man Arthur Brown out- original, but that isn’t the point. It’s music made
“Featuring Steven Wilson 5.1 Mix” marking this Kinks The Kinks at their psychedelic Kinksiest, with love and affection, recorded without
reissue as being different from any of its and Pale And Precious sounds like Brian Wilson inhibition. It all sounds like a band having more
predecessors. 5.1 might essentially be a marketing at the creative height of his sand-pit period. fun than is medically advisable. And Wilson’s mix
gimmick to attract those with deep pockets and Somehow, in the mid-to-late 80s XTC made enables you to sit in the centre of the insanity.
expensive audio set-ups, but Psurroundabout Ride: their two finest albums by pretending to be QQQQQQQQQQ
The Complete Recordings is perfect for the someone else altogether, as if doing so gave them Fraser Lewry



CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 97

Morning Glory the massive LA Dodgers
On The Vine: Stadium in 1975 fuelled the
Early Songs imagery of the Rocketman movie
& Drawings and constitute the heart of this

Joni Mitchell CANONGATE celebratory book.
A private gem for belated His intro is a eulogy to the
public consumption. singer, but then the pictures
Riding high on take over as he catches both
rave reviews for candid and charismatic scenes.
her fourth album Elton plays camp dress-up,
Blue in 1971, Joni leaning in to the role. It’s when
Mitchell decided we get to LA that things get
upon a very really weird: Elton pretending
special Christmas present for to attack Billie Jean King with
the friends who had contributed a baseball hat; one Cary Grant
to her burgeoning success. She turning up backstage (other
self-published this compendium stars were “starstruck”). Across
of handwritten lyrics, poems years, we see poses with Diana
and pictures, limited to a run Ross, Michael Caine, the
of just 100 copies; an almost McCartneys, Watford FC
mythical artefact among fans. players, Miss Piggy, a rabbit and
Now everyone can get their even Elton’s mum (with whom
hands on one (sturdily bound, he had a complex relationship).
as opposed to the dossier-like This is just one strand of
original held together with clip O’Neill’s wry, witty work, but
rings). It’s a beautifully even here you can tell he had
packaged item in which, the eye.
intriguingly, the lyrics to such QQQQQQQQQQ
classics as A Case Of You and Chris Roberts
Both Sides Now seem to take
Big Balls: Rare And on an extra intimacy when The Treasures
Of Queen
presented in her own delicate
Unseen AC/DC Images scrawl. Of arguably greater Harry Doherty CARLTON BOOKS
interest, however, are the
Standard-fare bio, lifted by
previously unseen watercolours, fantastic visuals.
From 1976-1981 especially the portraits of her Although Brian
close colleagues David Crosby, May tells us in
Rufus Stone Limited Editions Judy Collins, James Taylor and his foreword that

Neil Young. journalist Harry
Fleetingly fascinating but ultimately overpriced Other sketches act as Doherty was free
“limited edition” photo collection. illustrations of the times; the to “tell the truth
artists’ dining area at the as he sees it” in this coffee
Newport Folk Festival, an avid table-ready tome, you sense
fan reclining on her lawn, or that – as with the Bohemian
or a band with such a determinedly extensive repetition in order to fill up the
no-nonsense musical style, AC/DC book – entire reels of minor variations of images that either represented Rhapsody film before it – nobody
wants to dig too much dirt.
or inspired songs (This Flight
Fnever underestimated the value of the same unremarkable picture of Tonight). Quite why it’s taken so Doherty is a fine writer, and the
visuals in rock’n’roll. From the day a contract signing or backstage larks long to be made public is not text does the job, but you’ve
Angus first pulled on his schoolboy are presented as if we’re witnessing known; all Mitchell says in her heard this slightly sanitised
uniform, this has been a band inviting the supermodels throwing shapes. foreword is that “work is meant timeline – and the potted
photographer’s lens. Even in their latter They do back up Johnson’s view that, in to be seen”. bandmember bios – many
years, from Brian Johnson’s flat cap to the these early years, this was a band who QQQQQQQQQQ times, many ways.
cannons to the pillar-like stance of really were having a blast. And Bon’s Terry Staunton Where Treasures does score
Malcolm and Cliff either side of the drum devilish charisma shines through even in is the visuals – these 160
riser, there has remained something black and white. But if they were in an Elton John pages are sprinkled with old
satisfyingly photogenic about them. exhibition you’d probably pick out Terry O’Neill OCTOPUS ticket stubs, rare posters,
So a photobook devoted to AC/DC a dozen or so, and when you look at other New book from great, recently headshots, fan club ephemera,
makes sense, even if it’s only covering shots these photographers have taken of deceased photographer charmingly quaint record label
the Bon Scott era and a few Johnson-era the band, they’re not even the best ones. focuses on Elton. mailouts, even a map of the
sessions. And when it’s accompanied by And as a reader, without any captions or Terry O’Neill’s band’s 1974 European tour
a sizeable introductory essay by rock explanation for the majority of shots, their death in itinerary, hand-drawn by
November at least May’s father and strangely
writer and long-time Acca Dacca fan appeal is frustratingly limited. Any stories
Howard Johnson, it is certainly worth behind the shots? We may never know. reminded us of moving. Most of all, there are
the range, insight some knockout photos, from
further investigation. Which might not be such an issue if
and humour of his photography. Freddie in prawn get-up and
And as it turns out, the story he tells, this was a mass market book, but this
although relatively brief, is the most limited edition collection (500), From helping to present The banana head-dress for
Beatles’ personalities to that assorted music videos, to an
illuminating thing about the book. admittedly signed by early bassist Mark image of Faye Dunaway the extraordinary fisheye lens shot
After that we get 250 pages of photos Evans, retails at £175. And when lacklustre morning after winning an of the crowd at Slane Castle in
from quality rock snappers Dick design reinforces the feeling of something Oscar, he glorified showbiz 1986. The nudie cyclists shoot
Barnatt, Michael Putland, George produced at no great expense, they’ve while slyly hinting at its is here, too, and feels more
Bodnar, Fin Costello and Martyn certainly got balls to be demanding that. underbelly. He shot Elton on jarring and boneheaded DICK BARNATT/RUFUS PUBLICATIONS
Goddard, which, while containing some QQQQQQQQQQ and off for over 45 years, than ever.
fine shots, are milked to the point of Johnny Sharp reckoning he’d taken over 5,000 The overall impression is of
photos of him. His captures at a brilliant pick-up-and-flick

98 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

book, but fans wanting the guts passable Spanish. The same
and grist will be better served can’t be said, however, for
by Mark Blake’s rather less a guesting Bob Dylan, who
official Is This The Real Life?. flubs the first line of Like
QQQQQQQQQQ A Rolling Stone and gets worse
Henry Yates from there on.
But as the titular bridge
Outside View: extends for a Chuck Berry
The Secret Life tribute in the round, Argentina
Of A Teenage is crying (and screaming) for
Punk Rocker them, and the home straight

Andy Blade DAYS LIKE TOMORROW of big ones absolutely isn’t
Eye-witness account of punk’s fumbled – that is unless you
early days from Eater frontman. count Keef hijacking Chuck
“It most definitely Leavell’s keyboards on Honky
wasn’t supposed Tonk Women.
to be like this,” QQQQQQQQQQ
laments Andy Henry Yates
Blade, recalling
the day Eater Where’s My
walked out of their own Guitar?:
(nightmarish) record deal in An Inside Story
1978, and this sense of punk Of British Rock
losing its way is mirrored by his And Roll
own band’s premature demise. Bernie Marsden
Having formed Eater at 15, FOURTH ESTATE PUBLISHING
Blade was there from the very Scandal-free tale from one
start, hanging out at punk of rock’s survivors (good
mecca The Roxy as a wide- with guitars, not so good
eyed convert while his peers with money).
were either scheming An amiable soul who’s stayed
a pathway to the top (The married to the same woman
Clash) or lying about their since 1980; a man who
ages (The Stranglers). willingly admits that “Rory
While bad management and Gallagher was always going to
teenage naivete put paid to his be a sartorial role model” and
rock star ambitions, Blade’s acid who mostly avoided the siren
wit makes him a captivating calls of drugs and drink,
narrator, the grimy, back-biting Bernie Marsden is a rock
nature of the early punk scene survivor. His scandal-free tale
summed up in the hilarious – if is undermined by misspelling
heart-breaking – tale of him Marianne Faithfull and Hollies
waking up one morning to find singer Allan Clarke, but it
his idol, Johnny Rotten, spraying centres on Whitesnake – to
him with urine. whom Marsden brought blues
QQQQQQQQQQ authenticity as well as Here
Paul Moody I Go Again.
Yet, for all that relations
The Rolling remain cordial, even after his
Stones financial naivety led to
Bridges To Buenos Aires a successful court case, he’s
EAGLE VISION never quite recovered from
Uneven set list in Argentina, leaving them in 1982 and he’s
redeemed by megawatt insufficiently ruthless to lead
energy. his own band. Along the way,
River Plate there are cameos from the likes
Stadium ’98 is of John Hurt, Pat Cash, Shirley
perhaps not the Bassey, BB King and David
most mouth- Cameron, who claims to be
watering entry a Thin Lizzy fan.
in Eagle Vision’s Here I Go Again means
historic Stones concert series. Marsden will never be on his
The band were touring the uppers, and to his credit he’s
so-so Bridges To Babylon album far from bitter, although Phil
(released in 1997), and the Mogg, Great White and Ginger
setlist has its frustrations: Baker are roundly trounced.
room for Flip The Switch, Out Of Curiously, had he joined Cliff
Control, Thief In The Night and Richards’ band (which almost
Saint Of Me, but not Street happened back in 1989) his
Fighting Man? Yet the lineup career would have taken a most
power on through, with Keith unexpected twist. But the man
Richards on tight-but-loose who’s allergic to lobster
form in a floor-length coat deserves his contentment.
evoking a mangy tiger, and QQQQQQQQQQ
Jagger a blur of bark, twirl and John Aizlewood

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Devin Townsend Essential Classics



The Canadian enigma’s catalogue spans extreme metal, sublime

prog-scapes, colossal riffs and extra-terrestrials. Where to begin?

t’s not hard to see why virtuoso claustrophobic intensity of Strapping
shredder Steve Vai plucked a 20-year- Young Lad’s Alien (2005) and the mind-
Iold Devin Townsend from obscurity mangling indulgence of ambient projects
and employed him as lead vocalist on his Devlab (2004) and The Hummer (2006).
Sex & Religion album in 1993. With a Townsend’s already singular vision
multi-octave range and enough seemed to blossom tenfold after he
personality to sink a ship, the young disbanded SYL in 2007. Surrounded by an
Canadian was plainly a prodigious talent. all-star cast of collaborators, most Epicloud Empath
But even the benevolent Mr Vai could not notably vocalist Anneke van Giersbergen, HEVYDEVY, 2012 INSIDEOUT, 2019
have foreseen the extraordinary musical his solo work has veered off in numerous If you’ve ever wondered where to After years of attempting to
career that would unfold. 27 years later, directions, but with a tireless dedication start with Devin Townsend’s compartmentalise his various
Devin Townsend is firmly established as to writing huge, uplifting tunes, even the daunting catalogue, this is the musical styles, Townsend threw
one of modern heavy music’s most most bizarre and ingenious of one. A sustained blast of glorious caution to the wind and
unique and irrepressible talents. Townsend’s ideas seem to hit the target. melody and effortless ingenuity, everything else for his eighteenth
An eccentric but compelling artist From a four-album concept piece about Epicloud encapsulates everything studio album. Empath has
from the start, Townsend kicked off his a cheeseburger (Ki/Addicted/Deconstruction/ that has made him such an grandiose prog metal epics
steady rise to glory with a dual approach, Ghost) to an album of ghostly country unassailable cult hero. After (Borderlands), absurdly uplifting
launching industrial-tinged metal crew rock (Casualties Of Cool), everything that a fizzing, choral kick-off, the sing-alongs (Spirits Will Collide)
Strapping Young Lad and his own solo bears the Devin Townsend stamp seems sublime voice of Anneke van and even a twinkly-eyed Disney
efforts simultaneously. In 1997, the to add to the richness of his reputation. Giersbergen (one of Dev’s regular ballad (Why?), so it should be
release of SYL’s second album City and Increasingly ambitious and theatrical collaborators) ushers in 50 a rambling, incoherent mess.
solo debut proper Ocean Machine: Biomech live shows have also become central to his minutes of gleaming, flawless Instead, it’s dazzling from start to
confirmed that the still-young muso was appeal. Quite what sci-fi alter-ego ‘Ziltoid prog metal that feels custom- finish; flowing beautifully from
constructing his own sonic universe. The Omniscient’ (essentially a phallic built to make even the moaniest Castaway’s shimmering intro to
That universe expanded beyond sock puppet with a dangerous coffee goth feel better. From the the jaw-dropping 22-minute
recognition over the decade that habit and a penchant for fart jokes) rollicking glam-metal stomp of Singularity suite via a bewildering
followed, with albums ranging from the represents is open to debate, but Lucky Animals to the sparkling number of brilliant ideas and
epic, cerebral prog-scapes of Terria (2001) Townsend even squeezed two albums out bombast of Grace, it’s one ruddy massive tunes. He’s a very clever
and the immaculate alt.rock bombast of of him. You want unique? Here he is. great CBD enema for the ears. sausage, isn’t he?
Accelerated Evolution (2003) through to the Dom Lawson

100 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM