Category Archives: Rock music

Hard rock: album review – Burnt Out Wreck ‘This Is Hell’

Album reviews, Rock music, , , , ,

This review was originally published by Get Ready To Rock here

After an extremely well-received 2017 debut ‘Swallow’, some barnstorming festival appearances and support slots for the likes of Anvil, Burnt Out Wreck – the band created by former Heavy Pettin’ drummer Gary Moat – ratchet up their impact with a second album.

While Heavy Pettin’ in the 80s (who had their back catalogue re-released recently) took their musical cues from the more polished classic rock albums of the previous decade, Burnt Out Wreck channel the down-n-dirty spirit of Bon Scott and early AC/DC.

As Moat says when I interviewed him for GRTR recently, “At 15/16 AC/DC were just the best thing in the world and Bon Scott was amazing. And so that’s why I sing like that, not because I wanted to copy what he was doing but just because that’s the way that my voice developed.”

As well as Moat on lead vocals the band are: Alex Carmichael on bass, Paul Gray on drums, Adrian Dunn on lead guitar and backing vocals, and Miles Goodman on rhythm Guitar and backing vocals. Moat’s vocal style developed in Mother’s Ruin, the band he put together in the early 90s following the demise of Heavy Pettin’. However, around five years ago he put Mother’s Ruin to bed in order to concentrate on songwriting. A number of songs that had lain half-written were finally completed for this album.

From the faux-dramatic introduction and killer riff on ‘Positive’ to the relentless boogie and tongue-in-cheek lyrics of ‘Paddywack’ to the seen-it-all-done-it-all-tales of rock ‘n’ roll life in ‘Guitars Electrified’ it blasts out the speakers like some long lost AC/DC album circa 1976. But the guys deliver with passion and conviction, Moat proves himself a very able songwriter and vocalist and Burnt Out Wreck easily demonstrate that they are far more than a poor man’s pastiche.

This Is Hell is a perfect album of sleazy, hard-hitting, in-your-face bluesy hard rock. Sure, it sounds like AC/DC but even if Angus and co. do release another album it’s not going to sound like this. Buy it!

https://www.burntoutwreck.com/

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Related posts:

Interview with Gary Moat

Heavy Pettin Reissues

Anvil / Burnt Out Wreck / VOiD at The Underworld, Camden 2018

Burnt Out Wreck at Classic Rock Weekender 2018

Burnt Out Wreck at Classic Rock All Dayer 2018

 

Live review: Diamond Head and Uriah Heep at De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill 6/12/19

Hastings music scene, Live reviews, new wave of British heavy metal, Rock music, , , , , , , ,

Bexhill’s Grade 1 listed modernist masterpiece have had a really impressive programme this year. In the last couple of months I’ve been here to see Justin Hayward and Glenn Hughes – and I’m rounding off the year with a trip to see the Sweet. But tonight we have not one but two classic British hard rock acts.

Filling the support slot for Uriah Heep on this tour are New Wave Of British Heavy Metal veterans Diamond Head. Quite the heaviest band I’ve seen on the De La Warr stage they hit the crowd with classics like ‘In The Heat of The Night’, ‘Shoot Out The Lights’ and ‘Am I Evil’. As with Heep themselves, it’s the lead guitarist who is the mainstay of the band through many line-up changes. But, like Heep’s Mick Box, Brian Tatler has assembled a talented group of musicians and a strong vocalist in Danish-born Rasmus Bom Andersen and they deliver a powerful set. They work the Heep audience nicely and get a very warm response in return.

https://www.diamondheadofficial.com/

With one exception the songs performed by Uriah Heep tonight are either very, very old or very, very new. Apart from ‘Too Scared To Run’, when the band completely re-invented its sound in the early 80s, the set is either songs from the band’s classic early 70s Byron- fronted era or from the band’s latest album Living The Dream.

After experimenting with a more modern sound (the 80s production sheen of the band’s albums from that period now sounds terribly dated, ironically) with the Heep of today it is forever 1972 – in all its progged up, Hammond pounding, era-defining glory. And that is exactly how we love it!

Vocalist Bernie Shaw and Keyboard player Phil Lanzon may have only come on board in the mid 80s – a good decade after the band’s golden period of the early 70s – but they completely get what the classic Heep sound is all about and know exactly what to deliver, whether that’s on songs originally performed by David Byron and Ken Hensley or songs from their latest album. Following the retirement and tragic death of Lee Kerslake and Trevor Bolder respectively, drummer Russell Gilbrook and bass-player Davey Rimmer have also prove worthy additions to the band. Tracks like set opener ‘Grazed by Heaven’ from their recent album sit neatly alongside those from the Demons & Wizards and Look at Yourself albums.

When it comes to introducing one of the real highlights of the set, Mick Box recalls the time the band were in the studio but he had to take a few days out due to contracting some sort of bug. When he returned the band had worked up three separate pieces. Box, however, observed that all three were in the same key and suggested joining the them together and adding a dramatic introduction to create something really special. ‘July Morning’ was born. The band deliver a truly majestic rendition tonight. That’s followed by a much less complex but no less memorable ‘Lady In Black’, Box donning his acoustic guitar and the crowd all joining in with this folky strum-along.

Back for a quick encore of ‘Sunrise’ and the glorious ‘Easy Livin’ the band have certainly delighted their Bexhill audience tonight.

http://www.uriah-heep.com/newa/index.php

Set-list:

Grazed by Heaven
Too Scared to Run
Living the Dream
Take Away My Soul
Rainbow Demon
Rocks in the Road
Gypsy
Look at Yourself
July Morning
Lady in Black
Sunrise
Easy Livin’

Related reviews:

Uriah Heep, London 2014
Uriah Heep at Giants of Rock 2018

Interview with Sweet’s Andy Scott

Glam rock, Hastings music scene, Interviews, Music news, Rock music, , , , , ,

This is a longer full-length version of an interview piece that was originally published by the Hastings Online Times here

Ahead of their gig at Bexhill’s De La Warr Pavilion on December 21st Darren Johnson talks to the Sweet’s Andy Scott who, along with Brian Connolly, Mick Tucker and Steve Priest, was part of the classic 1970s line-up and continues the band to this day.

DJ: The Sweet are well-known for their glam rock singles but there was always a hard rock albums side to the band’s persona as well. Will both of those elements be represented on this current tour?

AS: Yes – more so on this tour than the last one. We’ve had a slight revamp of the band. This revised line-up is certainly more akin to that. A couple of younger guys who are, shall we say, keeping us on our toes again. I would never, ever recommend changing two members of a band. I remember reading an interview with Mick Fleetwood who I got to know in the 70s just before they went to LA and he was saying they were going out there not knowing where the future lay. And he even said to me let’s see what happens. Then I saw what had gone on about two years later and heard, basically, they were looking for a replacement for Peter Green and they’ve got Christine McVie back in the band. They just haven’t got a guitar player who can sing. And it came with the two of them. Stevie Nicks as well (as Lindsey Buckingham). And just look at the way that burst open. So, in my head, I’m thinking Pete Lincoln left to pursue this outfit he’d been using shall we say as a back-up tool to Sweet with two other lead singers from other bands . And all of a sudden that’s taking off and I could see what’s on the horizon. There’s going to have to be a choice made here. And I knew which way he’d probably go because he’d been playing bass and singing with us. And he’s now doing this – because he’s a terrific guitar player and he’s now with a team of people where they’re all in at the starting point. And I thought – well we’re going to have to replace him. Now luckily we had Paul Manzi on the back-burner because he had depped – he’d come in and done a couple of gigs for us so he was an obvious choice.

And then Tony O’Hora at the end of August the bombshell was, “I’m leaving.” And Bruce (Bisland – Sweet’s drummer) and I, who’ve known him for years, were like – oh God, not again. Because we’d had this with him a couple of times, only this time I said there’s only so much you can cry wolf – you know. So I said – I’ll accept it but you’re gonna have to tell me what’s going on. And he didn’t. And then we were doing a couple of gigs in Poland and the Czech Republic and he just walked. So we ended up doing a couple of gigs with my guitar tech on bass and we managed to get Steve Mann who’d been playing with Michael Schenker to come out and finish the dates with us. It was a revelation to see Paul Manzi standing there with no guitar in his hand as a lead singer so the first thing I had to do when I got back – there was was one person on my list of people to call and that was Lee Small. I rang him and he jumped at the chance and so we now have Lee and Paul in the band. And on a temporary basis – but it could become permanent – we have Steve Mann back in the band as the second guitar/keyboard player. And it’s really, really gelling. And now we’ve done three shows in Denmark, one or two in Germany and four in England. We’ve only done nine gigs and my son who’s my sound engineer – I have to take his word because the sound he gets out is always remarkable – he said ‘It’s the best it’s been, Dad’.

Clearly, the line-up change has given the band a new energy but has it led to a change in the set-list, too?

Yes. The driving force for the acoustic part of the set last time we toured was basically me and Pete. And we felt like we ought to go for a bit more like it used to be in the 70s when we did a festival set. You’d get down to the nitty gritty. You play a couple of the heavier rock tunes that people want to hear so that’s what’s happening. It’s a work-in-progress. There will be a new Sweet album next year and we’ll see where we go from there.

And you’re coming to Bexhill on the 21st December which is the last night of the tour. Is that last night of a tour always a bit special or a bit of a relief – or both?

Well it depends who’s around – but I usually try and get some of my mates and anyone who wants to come to the gig and sing a bit or play or whatever. You just never know what happens on a night like this.

The other surviving member of the classic 70s line-up Steve Priest has his own version of the Sweet in America. I believe you tried to get him to join you on stage for the band’s 50th anniversary last year?

I mean look – we can all be angry young men and even grumpy old men. I just don’t like the idea that you can’t mellow in later life. I just don’t know what gets into Steve once in a while. We have contact – every time that I go over to LA, which I do on holiday these days because we don’t do anything in America – he has changed the dynamic of that. He doesn’t do a lot either – but having spoken to a couple of friends of mine who are promoters and stuff in America I said I don’t want to come back there unless it’s as organised as the gigs we do in Europe. And it seems you need specialist help over there. The country is so big you’re not going to end up using your own equipment. Friends of mine in Uriah Heep still go out there and Mick (Box) says you’ve got to get a different head on.

So you’re in touch with Steve Priest but no chance of you performing together?

Well I think the moment has passed. At the end of 2017 I remember I wished him a Merry Christmas and I then said if something’s going to happen it’s going to be next year isn’t it? You know, the fiftieth anniversary of the inception of the band. And then I never heard anything. Then I got a message from him at the beginning of 2018 saying “We are getting involved with a new agent who thinks it might be a good idea if you and I did something.” And my answer to him was sod your agent what do you think about it? If you fancy doing it then we’ve got a starting point but to just do it because your agent says “you should do this, Steve” is coming at it from the wrong angle, I think. I could see where that was going. I would say yes let’s do something but all of a sudden all the rules and regulations come out. And really, if we’re going to do stuff like this, if he’s coming to Europe we have a collaboration and he does it the European way. And I go out to America and I do it the American way – as long as somebody looks after me. But there has to be some kind of continuity within the band as well. And one of the funniest things was a friend of mine from Germany who contacted him said “Would you be willing to come and do a festival?” And the first thing he said was “As long as I can bring my guitar player.” And so we laughed about that. And that never went anywhere. So now I’d much rather be in touch with him saying “Hello, how are you? How are the knees?” you know. And him saying “How are you? How’s your health?”

Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman (writers of many of the hit singles for Sweet) obviously left a huge, huge impact on the band and left you with a slew of songs that people will always link to Sweet. Do you keep in touch with either of them?

Well yeah, I’m in touch with Mike because Mike is still a little bit of a mentor for Suzi (Quatro) and whenever I’ve been in the producer’s chair I talk to Mike about various things. He’s written songs that were on Back To The Drive which was one of her albums. And I’m hoping, because we’ve got a new album that’s coming out, that Mike and I might sit down together. A few years ago he was angling, “Well that could have been a Sweet single.” And we might be able to revamp or maybe write a song together. There’s a man who’s mellowed a little bit and kind of enjoying life again. And I’ve heard he’s back in the UK so, you know, all is possible. I’ve not fallen out with anybody. Life’s too short!

I always thought that Sweet missed a major opportunity for a come-back ion the early to mid 80s? Slade were back in the charts again. Queen were huge. Glam metal was taking off the States but it was the one time in the past 50 years that Sweet were AWOL?

Well you can look at it from all sides. Timing was absolutely everything. We’d reached a point in 81/82 where Steve was now living in America. He didn’t want to be in England. He didn’t want to come back. He feels, so somebody’s told me – I haven’t read all of his book he never sent me a copy – but it’s in there. I remember Mick Tucker saying to me “I don’t know where he got half of his stuff from.” but I said “Look it’s his personal view, Mick. You’ve got to let everybody have that.” It’s almost as if he’s forced to come back to England to record the last album in a studio in West London and he was put up in a hotel that was like a student hostel in Chelsea. And I thought well he stayed with me a little bit of the time and, yes, he was in that hotel for a while because, you know, it was easier and Mick had his problems with his first marriage. And it was a time when, I guess because we were still living our lives in England – this is the way he probably views it, at weekends we would take some time for ourselves and he would be left to his own devices. And any normal guy would be out having dinner with some mates you hadn’t seen for years but I guess he got the feeling that he was just being abandoned. So from that point of view, when the tour finished at the end of 81 – I think it was Glasgow University – we never heard from Steve for ages. He came back to England and it was that next year when Mick had a tragedy. His first wife died. It was a misadventure where she died in the bath. I think she had a glass of wine and was on some medication and he got back to the house and found her there. Well you wouldn’t wish that on anybody, would you? And so he didn’t want to do anything. And I was still out there – producing and writing and playing on other people’s records. And I managed to get a solo deal – first of all with Virgin then it turned out to be Statik. The guy from Virgin had left to form his own label. So for a couple of years – 83/84 – I was releasing some solo singles. And then in 85 – well at the end of 84 – I bumped into our old agent and he was looking after us in 81. And he said, “Oh I’ve got a bone to pick with you. I keep getting loads of enquiries. Are you still working with the Sweet? I didn’t know where you were.” And it just so happened that his office was literally up the Harrow Road from where I was living in Maida Vale.

Then you did the Live at the Marquee album?

Exactly. I managed to get Mick out of retirement. Steve was even at least saying the right things but Mick said ‘He’s not coming back’ so luckily I rehearsed a bass player. The guy who ended up in Sweet actually Mal McNulty. We were using him to rehearse and I said he may not be coming and he said “you’re a mate of mine. I love this”. And, of course, we went to Australia with Mal and the rest is history. We had Paul Mario Day as singer and Phil Lanzon who’s now with Uriah Heep on keyboards.

And with changes of personnel the band has continued to this day.

Yeah. We’ve had a few people come and go but when you look back over thirty-odd, almost forty years of reformation when you say you’ve had six singers hat doesn’t sound too bad really does it?

Other bands have gone through far more haven’t they. Probably Sabbath have gone through far more.

[Laughs]. Well they had a little concept going didn’t they? A new lead singer for nearly every tour.

You’ve had a couple of major scares with prostrate cancer and you’ve been open about that and done a lot for awareness through Rock Against Cancer. How are things health-wise these days?

Pretty good. In fact, I’m due another PSA test so I’d better get that organised hadn’t I? And the other thing is Rock Against Cancer will be coming back next year. It’s coming back on the 12th and 13th of September in the same venue in Wiltshire at All Cannings near Devizes. So it’ll be Rock Against Cancer 8. And it might well be the last one. We’re looking at the moment to see who can come back from previous years and making a real bonanza of a gig you know.

The Sweet play Bexhill’s De La Warr Pavilion on Saturday 21st December 2019.

Tickets: https://www.dlwp.com/event/the-sweet/

sweet-poster-may-2019

Book: The Sweet in the 1970s

If you enjoyed reading this my book ‘The Sweet In The 1970s’ is out on 30th July 2021.

Details here

Related posts:

News: All change at The Sweet

Review: Sweet 50th anniversary concert – Berlin

Review: Sweet live 2017, London and Bilston

Review: Rainbow and Sweet, Birmingham 2017

Review: Sweet, Bilston 2016

The Sweet versus Bowie: the riff in Blockbuster and Jean Genie – origins and influences

Review: Sweet at Dartford 2015

Review: Sweet at Bilston 2014

Heavy metal: album review – Quiet Riot ‘Hollywood Cowboys’

Album reviews, Rock music, , , , ,

This review was originally published by Get Ready To Rock here

“After nearly ten years since the loss of his friend and co-founding member and bandmate Kevin DuBrow, and with careful consideration, soul searching and with the blessings and support of Kevin DuBrow’s family, Frankie has moved forward with the band to bring the fans a new record!” announce Quiet Riot as they release their latest album Hollywood Cowboys.

Always best known for their 1983 smash album Metal Health which included the hit cover of ‘Cum On Feel The Noize’ a song that finally brought the delights of Slade to an American audience, the band is now led by drummer and long-term member Frankie Banali who was part of the Metal Health line-up and has played on every subsequent Quiet Riot release since. Banali is joined by bassist, Chuck Wright, who’s been part of the band, on and off, since the early 80s and guitarist, Alex Grossi, who has been with Quiet Riot since 2004. Vocals are, once again, handled by James Durbin, who also sang on the band’s last studio album (2017′s Road Rage).

With a smoother and more melodic feel than the raunch of DuBrow’s vocals, Durbin a former American Idol frontrunner, has himself now left the band it’s been reported. There are some decent songs on this album and some powerful but hummable fast-paced hard rock. It includes one or two surprises as well. The slower, smouldering, bluesy feel of ‘Roll On’ is actually one of the real treats on the album.

Former lead singer Kevin DuBrow was such an essential component of Quiet Riot that debate will always be a matter of debate among classic-era fans as to whether, without him, it’s really Quiet Riot or not. Nevertheless, this latest release to bear the band’s imprint is an album of likeable, if somewhat generic, 80s-influenced heavy metal.

Released: Frontiers 8th November 2019

QUIET-RIOT-hollywood-cowboys_800x800

https://quietriot.band/

News: Drew & The Devotees ‘Hard Working People’

Music news, Rock music, , , ,

With the general election coming Drew and The Devotees have re-released their single ‘Hard Working People’. A slice of pop punk influenced by the early work of Billy Bragg and The Clash, the song rails against poverty and injustice with all proceeds from the single going to the food poverty charity the Trussell Trust.

Drew Howgill: “Hard Working People was written in 2014/15 inspired by (Green MP) Caroline Lucas’s book in which she criticised politicians for the over-used phrase – which by implication excluded carers, students and others unable to do the 40 hours a week grind. The song is about poverty and observations of increasing use of food-banks. 41,000 in 2010 now up to 1.6 million.”

Drew and The Devotees were formed in 2006 as a songwriting project band, initially with Alef Ahmed in 2008 and from 2010 onwards with US producer Jeffrey Teruel of STIC Studio, Manchester. A follow-up single is due next year with an album out later in 2020.

‘Hard Working People’ is available via digital platforms including Spotify, Amazon and Soundcloud https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hard-Working-People/dp/B00WITORFK

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Live review: Steeleye Span at St Mary in the Castle, Hastings 21/11/19

Folk music, Hastings music scene, Live reviews, Rock music, , , , , ,

Twenty-odd musicians passing through the ranks over the years, twenty-odd studio albums, a top five hit and countless songs depicting the cruel, the gruesome and the other-worldly, the folk rock institution that is Steeleye Span is fifty years old this year. This tour is being billed as a celebration of that and the band’s new album Est’d 1969 emphasises the point further.

The focus tonight, however, is not on self-reverential backslapping but firmly on the songs. As lead singer and founder member, Maddy Prior, said when I interviewed her for the Hastings Online Times recently it is the material that has been at the heart of the band’s success. And what a choice of songs we get tonight: from those like ‘The Blacksmith’ that appeared on the band’s very first album to several (like ‘January Man’ and Mackerel of the Sea’) that appear on their latest. There’s plenty of familiar material, like the wondrous ‘Alison Gross’, from the band’s 1970s commercial heyday, but one of the really nice things about a Steeleye Span gig is they never let the set-list become over-familiar. They mix it up from tour to tour, retrieving old songs from their back catalogue, giving others a rest and introducing the audience to new material. Indeed, the set-list tonight is quite different from the last time they performed at St. Mary in the Castle back in 2017.

The line-up of this constantly-evolving band is pretty much the same as the last time they performed here for us, save for Violeta Barrena filling in on violin for Jessie May Smart who is taking time out from the band on maternity leave. On stage the seven musicians really work well together. The ‘electric’ trio of Roger Carey on bass and Julian Littman and Spud Sinclair on guitars provide some real oomph as the band rock out on some of their harder-edged arrangements and provide a lovely contrast to the elegant beauty of Barrena’s fiddle playing and Benji Kirkpatrick’s mandolin. Long-standing Steeleye Span member and local Hastings musician, Liam Genockey, holds it all together on the drum-kit and all of the band members provide some lovely vocals on the choruses alongside Prior.

Of course, there is one song that never leaves the set. “You know what’s coming next,” says Prior when the band come back on for an encore and they launch into a thunderously energetic and suitably celebratory rendition of their 1975 Top 5 hit ‘All Around My Hat’. Rather than delving into yet another familiar old favourite the band finish the night with ‘Dodgy Bastards’, the title song from their excellent 2016 album and we are all able to leave thanking Steeleye Span for fifty years of incredible music.

Set-list:

First half:

Thomas the Rhymer
One Misty Moisty Morning
The Elf-Knight
Alison Gross
The Blacksmith
The Boy and the Mantle (Three Tests of Chastity)
Roadways
Mackerel of the Sea
Seventeen Come Sunday

Second half:

Tam Lin
King Henry
Black Jack Davy
January Man
Wintersmith
Old Matron
Domestic
All Around My Hat
Dodgy Bastards

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http://steeleyespan.org.uk/

Related posts:

Interview with Maddy Prior

Interview with Julian Littman

Review: Steeleye Span at Ashford 2019

Review: Steeleye Span at Hastings 2017

News: “Thirty years and a lot of hard work” – back catalogue of Heavy Pettin’ released on 29th November

Music news, new wave of British heavy metal, Rock music, , , , , , ,

Scottish hard rock band Heavy Pettin‘ see their 1983 debut and two subsequent releases being reissued on CD on 29th November.

Named after UFO’s 1976 studio album the band was formed in Glasgow in 1981 when guitarist Gordon Bonnar, drummer Gary Moat, bassist Brian Waugh, vocalist Steve ‘Hamie’ Hayman and lead guitarist Punky Mendoza joined forces. They gigged extensively before releasing their debut single, ‘Roll the Dice’ in 1982 on Neat Records. The single caught the attention of record bosses at Polydor and the band soon found themselves with a major label deal and Queen guitarist, Brian May as co-producer. Their debut album Lettin Loose was released in 1983 to very favourable reviews.

Hard rocking but more polished than most of their contemporaries on the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal scene, with their punchy choruses and harmony vocals Heavy Pettin’ took some of their cues from the previous decade’s glam and classic rock era. Touted as a possible next-big-thing after the mega success of Def Leppard two more albums followed: Rock Ain’t Dead in 1985 and The Big Bang in 1989. In the latter part of the 80s, however, things never really quite worked out for Heavy Pettin’ and the band had already spilt by the time their final album was released in 1989.

Heavy Pettin’ (now featuring two original members Gordon Bonnar and Hamie) reformed in 2017 and a brand new album is planned for 2020. Original Heavy Pettin drummer, Gary Moat, meanwhile, now fronts Burnt Out Wreck who released their second album last month.

Reflecting on the Heavy Pettin’ re-releases Gary Moat tells me:

“It’s taken 30 years and a lot of hard work from my management and wife to finally have the three Heavy Pettin albums back in safe hands. This time through Burntout Wreckords the royalties will make it back to Universal & Heavy Pettin!”

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This official licensed re-release of Lettin Loose includes newly written liner notes by Ross Muir and two rare bonus tracks: ‘Roll The Dice’ and ‘Shadows Of The Night’

Lettin Loose, Rock Ain’t Dead and The Big Bang are all released on CD on 29th November by Burnt Out Wreckords via Cherry Red Records.

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Related post:

Burnt Out Wreck – interview with Gary Moat

 

Live review: Glenn Hughes performs classic Deep Purple live, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill 16/11/19

Hastings music scene, Live reviews, Rock music, , , , , , ,

“Ian Paice, Roger Glover and Ian Gillan don’t do these songs” former Deep Purple bass player/vocalist, Glenn Hughes, tells the Bexhill audience, as he explains his decision to put together a tour celebrating the legacy of MK 3/MK 4 era Deep Purple at the urging of many promoters.

Having caught Hughes on one of his more regular tours a few years ago I knew we were in for an absolute treat. The few Deep Purple classics he threw into the set-list when I saw him back then completely set the audience alight and he proved, beyond any reasonable doubt, that he still had the vocal ability to hit those high notes and deliver those songs in a way they deserve to be heard. When the Bexhill date was announced I therefore jumped at the chance to see Hughes perform an entire set of Purple material.

As well as still being in very fine voice and being an absolute legend on the bass Hughes has also got himself a very good band together indeed, particularly guitarist, Soren Anderson, who handles the material amazingly well – from the classic Ritchie Blackmore riffs in the MK 3 material to the more funked up jazzy feel of the MK 4 material.

Material from the MK 3 line-up features more prominently in the set and we get some wonderful versions of classics like ‘Stormbringer’ and ‘Might Just Take Your Life’. However, MK4 Purple and , isn’t overlooked entirely. ‘You Keep On Moving’ and ‘Gettin’ Tighter’ from Come Taste The Band, Hughes’ final album with the band, both get an airing. Introducing the latter, a song he co-wrote with the late Tommy Bolin, Hughes tells us he’s played it at every gig he’s performed since 1976 in tribute to his former colleague who died that same year. The Bolin tribute is followed by a raw, emotive and absolutely majestic version of ‘Mistreated’ one of the truly classic Purple songs from any era of the band.

And while the modern-day Gillan-fronted version of Deep Purple may no longer play any of the material that Hughes originally performed on, Hughes and his bandmates are not quite so churlish. They give us a magnificently rocking version of ‘Smoke on the Water’ and, after encoring with a stunning ‘Burn’, they close with a thrilling version of MK 2’s ‘Highway Star’ – Hughes hitting all the high notes in a way Ian Gillan could now only dream of. Back in the day Bolin performed both of these songs live during his three-year stint with Deep Purple, of course, so it seems only right to include them now.

I grew up with most of the songs played tonight, from albums that were frequently pumping out of my dad’s stereo as a kid. Never having seen Hughes and Coverdale with Deep Purple first time around, however, (they split when I was aged 10 – a good five years before I started going to gigs!) I am very grateful to Glenn Hughes for giving these songs a new lease of life and providing me and many others a chance to hear them performed on stage once more. Glenn Hughes has done the Purple legacy proud with this tour.

Set-list
Stormbringer
Might Just Take Your Life
You Keep On Moving
Sail Away
You Fool No One / High Ball Shooter
Gettin’ Tighter
Mistreated
Smoke on the Water / Georgia on My Mind
Burn
Highway Star

tour-poster-696x984

http://www.glennhughes.com/

Related reviews:

Glenn Hughes, London 2015

Deep Purple, London 2015

Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, Birmingham 2017

Whitesnake – The Purple Album

Interview with Steeleye Span’s Maddy Prior

Folk music, Hastings music scene, Interviews, Rock music, , , , ,

This article was originally published by the Hastings Online Times here

Steeleye Span are celebrating 50 years with an anniversary tour. Ahead of their gig at St Mary in the Castle on 21 November, Darren Johnson talks to founder member Maddy Prior.

DJ: You start your winter tour very soon. What can we expect from this fiftieth anniversary tour?

MP: Well we started in the Spring – this is the second part of it. We do some songs from our new album which is called Established 1969 and some classic pieces which are part of our catalogue if you like, so it’s a sort of a mixture. We always do a mixture actually.

One of the things that I like about Steeleye Span is that you vary your set-list from tour to tour. There are old favourites in there but they tend to be a different set of old favourites each time.

We try to keep it varied. If you sing a song for a long time you want to leave it to ‘green up’ as it were. You leave it fallow for a year or two so it sort of greens up again and you have a fresh look at it. And quite often we do slight readjustments of the arrangements and things like that. Sometimes we completely re-arrange them.

You’re at St Mary in the Castle on 21 November. Steeleye Span has had quite a connection with Hastings over the years, hasn’t it?

Yes we do. There’s Liam (Genockey) our drummer – he’s been here forever. And also now there’s Roger Carey in the band as the bass player – so there’s quite a strong connection. And we’re rehearsing here at the moment in Hastings. And also, of course, Peter (Knight) was here for a long time as well. So, as you say, we’ve got strong connections here and we always come here regularly over the years. It’s strong on our map!

For the benefit of our readers who might not have kept up with who’s in the band these days, can you quickly talk us through who’s playing in Steeleye Span these days?

Well, we’ve got some new blood as it were. Violeta Barrena is on fiddle for this tour. She shares the fiddle slot with Jesse May Smart, but Jesse’s just had a baby so she’s taken a back seat for this tour. They’re both brilliant players and they’re both really good improvisers. We’ve got Roger Carey on the bass, Spud Sinclair on guitar and Liam Genockey on the drums. Julian Littman on guitar and Benji Kirkpatrick on various things – guitar, sitar, mandolin. Julian plays keyboards as well, so there’s quite a lot of variety instrumentally. I think that’s everybody – now we are seven!

Can you see Steeleye Span carrying on without you at some point in the future, or would that be like the Rolling Stones without Mick Jagger?

I don’t know. I’ve no idea. But I think Steeleye is mainly about the material. A lot of which came in with Bob Johnson. Peter Knight brought quite a lot in. Rick Kemp brought quite a lot in. This new band – we’ve done another album of traditional material very largely – which we play around with. We write new tunes and get tunes from all sorts of places. But it’s the material that I think is the point of the exercise really.

So that suggests that there could be some form of Steeleye Span continuing without Maddy Prior?

Are you trying to bump me off?? No, it is something that’s talked about. If you think about it as a small family firm that could go on forever. Just getting to know how the material works is the issue if you like, but I don’t see any reason why it couldn’t.

Have there been times when being Maddy Prior folk rock icon has got in the way of other musical projects you wanted to pursue or are you happy it’s never stopped you doing anything else you wanted to do?

I don’t think it’s stopped me doing anything I wanted to do. It’s usually helpful on the whole. There’s nothing I’ve missed out on. We were on Top Of The Pops. That was the biggest thing of the day. And we’ve done a lot of tours of big venues and we’ve worked with material that I dearly love.

There aren’t many people on the folk circuit who’ve done Top Of The Pops. Was that a bit of a culture shock?

We had done a lot of work by then. Sell-out tours and so on – it wasn’t out of nowhere. We were well-known by the time we had those songs and we were on the same week as Noddy Holder and Slade, so that was quite interesting.

When you look around at younger bands – and a number say they’ve been influenced by Steeleye Span – do you feel optimistic about the future of the UK folk scene?

Absolutely. There’s so many brilliant young players. They’ve got their chops together fantastically well and they’re interested in the music and there’s a big movement, so it will be interesting to see what happens and where it goes. But the music comes in and out of fashion and we have revivals every so often, but it never quite goes away. Folk music became extremely unfashionable but that’s all it is – fashion. I’ve been literally right outside of the curve and then it comes back to the middle a bit. It’s part of our heritage and it comes knocking on the door every so often.

Ahead of the tour and particularly ahead of the gig in Hastings, is there anything else you’d like to leave us with?

The band is really, really good at the moment. I had a look at us on Wikipedia and it was brilliant because every so often it said “They came back to form” and I thought that was a hell of a good way of putting it. Because over fifty years you’re not going to be perfect all the way through and it’s been like that. But we’ve been very largely led by the songs so if the songs are good we’ve tended to be better. But we found with different people coming in, they bring different energies and different musical styles and that’s what we’ve been like in Steeleye – things change!

maddy p

Steeleye Span 50th Anniversary Tour Thursday 21 November, 7.30m. St Mary in the Castle, 7 Pelham Crescent, Hastings TN34 3AF. Tickets £26.95 including booking fee available from 01323 841414 and online.

Related posts:

Interview with Julian Littman

Review: Steeleye Span at Ashford 2019

Review: Steeleye Span at Hastings 2017

Melodic metal: album review – The Ferrymen ‘A New Evil’

Album reviews, Rock music, , , , , ,

This review was originally published by Get Ready To Rock here

Although the name may conjure up images of a Gerry & The Pacemakers tribute act playing package tours to provincial theatres, The Ferrymen are actually a European metal outfit fronted by Ronnie Romero on vocals who, of course, was chosen by Ritchie Blackmore to perform that same task when he embarked upon his return to the rock world and the resurrection of the iconic Rainbow brand.

A New Evil is the follow-up to The Ferrymen’s self-titled debut which was released in June 2017. Polished, well-produced melodic metal of the type that has become almost synonymous with the Frontiers label, the album makes its presence felt in dramatic but not entirely unpredictable fashion. Orchestral-style flourishes and spooky-sounding choral introductions lead us into thunderous hard rock. Romero’s Dio-esque vocals are well-suited to the material, all of which is written by Swedish guitarist, Magnus Karlsson (Primal Fear, Magnus Karlsson’s Free Fall), who delivers all the guitar, bass and keyboards parts on the album. The third member of the trio is drummer Mike Terrana (Rage, Axel Rudi Pell) whose furious drumming (deservedly high in the mix throughout the album) provides a perfect counterpoint to the lush but intensely powerful instrumentation delivered by Karlsson.

While the album can seem a tad predictable at times it does exactly what it says on the tin and delivers classy-sounding melodic metal, appealingly memorable song-writing and flawless vocals. Fans of classic-era Dio et al will really warm to A New Evil right down to the cover art – and won’t be at all disappointed by what’s inside.

Released 11th October by Frontiers Music

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https://www.facebook.com/TheFerrymenofficial/

Related review:

Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow at Birmingham 2017