Live review: Giants of Rock, Minehead 25-28 January 2019

Glam rock, Live reviews, new wave of British heavy metal, New Wave of Classic Rock, Rock music, , , , , , , , , , ,

This was the sixth annual Giants of Rock weekend hosted by Butlins in Minehead – and my fifth. Here’s a small selection of bands that stood out for me this time, as well as one that I’m afraid just didn’t do it for me at all.

Worth seeing

Sometimes you want to see an artist, at least just the once, for the small part they played in rock ‘n’ roll history. For me, original Thin Lizzy guitarist, Eric Bell, was one of those names who fitted into that category. It meant missing the much-praised ‘New Wave Of Classic Rock’ band Ethyrfield on the other main stage, sadly, (but I made up for this by buying Ethyrfield’s CD from the merch stand later). Eric Bell gave us a run-through of rock ‘n’ roll and blues standards. It’s a little ragged in places but we’re soon into a rendition of ‘Whiskey In The Jar’ – a slightly different arrangement of the old folk song compared to Lizzy’s version that many of are used to but Bell’s unique guitar sound is unmistakable and this is basically what I came in to hear. Ironically, the drum-kit of Bell’s former band-mate, Brian Downey, sits unused behind Bell’s band because Downey’s own take on Thin Lizzy’s heritage, in the form of his Live & Dangerous tribute, was the next act. Anyone hoping for some form of cross-fertilisation between these two performances, however, would have been disappointed. There are no guest jam spots or even any acknowledgement that the two bands are in the same building on the same stage on the same evening. Compared to the revived Thin Lizzy of a few years ago (which ended up morphing into Black Star Riders) this is more faithful copy of classic-era Lizzy in conventional tribute act format. But Brian Downey has more than earned the right to perform and celebrate these songs as many times as he likes and the band get a good reception.

20190125_200118

Eric Bell http://www.eric-bell.com/

Ones to watch

Now performing under their new identity (but still down in the programme as VOiD due to them still using their old name when they were originally booked last year) Scarlet Rebels emerged as one of the stars of the introducing stage this year. “Unfortunately, there are about a million bands called Void and no-one could ever find us,” lead singer, Wayne Doyle, tells the crowd. I had caught these guys doing a support slot a year ago and what has not changed is their brand of classy, melodic hard rock which immediately impressed me first time around. Lead guitarist, Chris Jones, is an absolute live-wire on stage, injecting wave after wave of energy into the crowd with his soloing, while front-man, Doyle, has a great voice that’s just perfect for modern-day classic rock. Let’s hope any identity issues that the band suffered under their previous moniker are now firmly behind them and that Scarlet Rebels get the recognition they deserve. As one of the triumvirate of introducing stage winners over the three days they’ll be back at Butlins on one of the main stages next year. Thoroughly well deserved.

20190127_180144

 

Scarlet Rebels http://www.scarletrebels.com/

Surprise of the weekend

Playing only their second gig in 35 years (the first being at Skegness Butlins the week before) the newly-revived Geordie are one of the biggest surprises of the weekend. The band had a handful of hits in the mid 70s but are now best-known as the band that launched Brian Johnson’s career prior to him being tracked down by AC/DC in 1980. Original members Tom Hill (bass) and Brian Gibson (drums) are joined by Steve Dawson (guitar) and Mark Wright (vocals). Powerful, foghorn very Johnson-esque vocals from Wright with a very well-rehearsed band behind him served to breathe new life into some long-neglected songs. It was great to hear the likes of ‘Can You Do It’, ‘Don’t Do That’ and ‘All Because of You’ getting a live airing after all these years. I’ve seen numerous band revivals at weekends like this, sometimes on some really rather tenuous ground. I therefore approached this with a mixture of curiosity and cynicism but they massively, massively exceeded expectations. A real surprise. I was half-hoping that Geordie would encore with a cover of Back In Black or Rock n Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution as a cheeky little nod to the part they unwittingly played in rock ‘n’ roll history – but it wasn’t to be (Geordie – if you are reading this you should absolutely do it!). The job of delving into AC/DC’s back catalogue was instead left to the next act, Chris Slade’s Timeline when the current (and former) AC/DC drummer ran through a selection of classic songs from his various bands. For sheer impact and confounding expectations, however, the afternoon very much belonged to Geordie.

https://www.facebook.com/GeordieFanpage/

Old favourites

Sweet delivered a blistering set and hopefully gained a few more “oh, I just thought they were just a pop band I didn’t realise they were such a great rock band” converts in the process. However, I’ve written about this band many, many times before and readers of Darren’s music blog will be left in no doubt at all of my affection for all things Sweet. Instead, I’m going to give a mention to Oliver/Dawson Saxon. After they had both walked away from Biff Byford’s Saxon, guitarist, Graham Oliver, and bass player, Steve Dawson, got together and formed their own version of the band. Now I’m not saying Oliver Dawson Saxon are better than the actual continuing Saxon – but they are certainly more fun. With his on-stage patter, lead singer Brian Shaughnessy is more Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club than Hallo Wembleyyyy  and cuts a hilarious and quite bonkers stage presence but he is an absolute dynamo of a vocalist. When it comes to belting out all those old Saxon classics there is always so much energy from this band and Minehead 2019 was no exception. There are no pretensions to be anything else with this performance. It’s just good old-fashioned New Wave Of British Heavy Metal played exactly the way it should be. The perfect party band to end the night with on a weekend like this. Oliver/Dawson Saxon we salute you.

http://www.odsrock.co.uk/

And one that just wasn’t for me

Paul Manzi had quite a busy weekend. He did an excellent job filling in as a temporary member of Sweet on the Saturday night due to Pete Lincoln’s absence and then he was back on the Sunday night fronting Cats In Space. There’s another Sweet connection, too, because former Sweet bass player, Jeff Brown, now carries out that very same role for Cats In Space. Like Sweet, harmony vocals and hook-laden melodies are in integral part of the band’s sound. Rather than the British glam rock era of the early 70s, however, this band very much take their cues from the American AOR/ power pop era of the early 80s, when albums were as shiny, polished and lavishly-produced as an episode of Dynasty. Unfortunately, as with that TV series it’s a genre of rock that simply leaves me cold. It’s clear that Cats In Space love what they are doing and they execute it with total professionalism. I really wanted to like them but three songs in I realise it’s never going to be. If the previous night was Sweet this, for me, was saccharine. I up and leave for the other stage. Raw, raunchy down to earth blues rock from guitar maestro, Rob Tognoni was the perfect antidote to what I’d just walked away from – and someone I look forward to seeing more of.

20190127_203904

Rob Tognoni https://www.robtognoni.com/

Related reviews:

Giants of Rock 2018

Giants of Rock 2017

Rock & Blues weekend, Skegness 2018

Hard rock: album review – John Diva & The Rockets of Love ‘Mama Said Rock Is Dead’

Album reviews, Rock music, , , , ,

This review was originally published by Get Ready To Rock here

Bouncy anthemic keyboards, smooth melodic riffs and catchy sing-along choruses John Diva & The Rockets of Love celebrate and take their cues from that mid-80s era of rock when the likes of Van Halen, Whitesnake (the rebooted American version) and Bon Jovi ruled.

Neither the band nor the album wear their influences lightly so when you listen to these guys there is absolutely nothing, and I mean nothing, to suggest the past thirty-five years have actually happened. The sound, the songs, the riffs, the lyrics, even the names of the band members (I give you guitarists Snake Rocket and J.J. Love) all suggest we are somewhere midway through 1984. This is good in many ways. After all, it was a much-celebrated period for hard rock where a number of bands became absolutely huge. However, some acknowledgement that life had moved on just a bit would not have have gone amiss either. In this post-Jimmy Savile, post-#MeToo era does the world really need a new song called ‘Lolita’ (the band’s single from the album)?

What they do, they do well though and there’s lots to like in tracks like ‘Whiplash’, ‘Wild Life’ and ‘Rocket of Love’ (even if the lyrics of the latter deploy every rock ‘n’ roll cliché known to man). We should also mention the obligatory power ballad ‘Just A Night Away’ – it is the 80s after all!

Frontman, John Diva, describes the album as follows: “It’s a trip for those who have lived and loved Rock ‘N’ Roll, for all those who still do so and for all the millions of people who up to now didn’t even know what they’ve been missing. We’re having a party as big as the eighties and you’re invited to let your imagination take flight by my wild and wonderful life.”

Personally, I think if I was going to travel back in time and permanently inhabit a past era of music, I’d be opting for the mid-60s British R&B scene or the late 70s NWOBHM scene – but if you love that mid-80s American rock scene you will no doubt absolutely love this album.

197037

Released: SPV/Steamhammer 8th February 2019

https://johndiva.com/

Folk: album review – John Smith ‘Hummingbird’

Album reviews, Folk music, , , ,

This review was originally published in the Winter 2018 issue of fRoots magazine

Two years after recording the album Headlong in Sam Lakeman’s Somerset studio, John Smith returned to lay down another new album. Unlike the former, however, which was built around Smith’s song-writing, Hummingbird is very much about celebrating traditional songs and paying tribute to the artists like John Renbourn, John Martyn and Bert Jansch who inspired Smith in the first place. Six of the album’s ten tracks are traditional songs with one cover version and three original numbers.

Less is more was the motto that Smith and Lakeman adopted while making the album. “A folk song’s clarity of purpose is exactly the reason why it has been played in pubs, living rooms and concert halls for hundreds of years,” says Smith. Indeed, this approach has absolutely paid off. Shorn of the typical embellishments we might have come to expect on a modern-day folk album there is beauty and simplicity in the the delivery that gives the lyrics in songs like Hares On The Mountain and Lord Franklin a real resonance.

The lone cover is Anna Briggs’ The Time Has Come which Smith first heard, like many readers will have done, on a Bert Jansch and John Renbourn album. Smith’s three original songs, like the beautiful title track, stand sympathetically alongside the much older material.

A gifted guitarist, a unique vocalist and an impassioned interpreter of traditional material, if John Smith has made this album for his musical heroes then he’s done them proud.

Released: October 2018

https://www.johnsmithjohnsmith.com/

51jwca36orl._sr600,315_piwhitestrip,bottomleft,0,35_sclzzzzzzz_

Folk/indie: album review – Trevor Moss & Hannah Lou ‘Fair Lady London’

Album reviews, Folk music, Hastings music scene, , , , ,

This review was originally published in the Winter 2018 issue of fRoots magazine

An integral part of London’s emerging indie folk scene for a number of years, Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou left the capital for Hastings and are now firmly ensconced in the Sussex seaside town’s thriving local music scene. Three years on from their last album, Fair Lady London is the product of their changed setting and changed priorities.

There is still plenty to showcase the duo’s talent as songwriters here, however. The poignantly bitter-sweet We Should’ve Gone Dancing is immediately and utterly unforgettable while the guitar line on Everything You Need is as beautifully infectious as something that Bert Jansch might have come up with.

For their previous album the duo worked with renowned producer Ethan Johns but now they are back with the trusty 4-track recorder they used on their 2012 album, this time setting up in a castle in the East Sussex countryside. “I’ve never really liked studios,” confesses Moss. “The first one we ever stepped foot in was Olympic as teenagers, the same room as Hendrix, Zeppelin, Stones. I didn’t like it. It felt like a spaceship.”

The lo-fi approach works extremely well and gives the album exactly the kind of understated intimacy the duo’s songs warrant.

Now five albums into their career as a duo Fair Lady London sees Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou continuing to make music that in its own delicate, gentle and thoughtful way continues to demand your attention.

Released: November 2018

http://www.trevormossandhannahlou.com/

173373

Folk: album review – The Trials of Cato ‘Hide and Hair’

Album reviews, Folk music, , ,

This review was originally published in the Winter 2018 issue of fRoots magazine

Energetic, innovative and dynamic the press blurb hailing Trials Of Cato as a band that “arrived fully formed” is not just PR hype in this instance. Hide & Hair is a bona fide sweep-you-off-your-feet debut. The three young men from Yorkshire and North Wales met in Beirut while teaching, quickly enthused audiences in Lebanon and arrived back in the UK two years ago. With Hide & Hair they deliver us a lovely blend of mandolin, banjo, bouzouki and guitar, their stunning instrumentation and rich harmonising vocals breathing new life into traditional songs and tunes.

Older songs like My Love’s In Germany, the seventeenth century window’s lament for a fallen soldier, and Tom Paine’s Bones, Graham Moore’s rousing anthem for rights and liberty, rub shoulders with new songs like the equally rousing These Are The Things. Of the instrumental pieces Difyrrwch is the band’s arrangement of three traditional Welsh and English melodies while Kadisha is their own composition inspired and named after a valley in northern Lebanon.

The trio are Robin Jones (mandolin/tenor banjo/vocals), William Addison (Irish bouzouki/vocals) and Tomos Williams (guitar/vocals) with Addison and Jones alternating lead vocal duties across the album.

Few debuts have as much vitality and impact as this one and they have already been receiving plaudits from the likes of the BBC’s Mark Radcliffe who has lauded them as “one of the real discoveries on the folk circuit in recent times”. We shall certainly be hearing a lot more of The Trials Of Cato.

Released: November 2018

https://thetrialsofcato.com/

dvrlr20x0aacdbq

Live Review: Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel at De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill 19/12/18

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

This review was originally published by The Stinger here

Steve Harley and his band-mates take the stage and launch straight into George Harrison’s Here Comes The Sun, a top ten hit for Harley and co, in 1976. It’s well received by the audience and I’m instantly transported back to the previous (and only) time I saw Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel, one blazing August afternoon at the Reading Festival back in 1983 when that song worked its magic on the crowd. It’s a great start. The trademark combination of electric violin, electric and acoustic guitars and keyboards all in place, the band have the audience on side straight away.

After a couple of energetically performed hits, however, he takes us into some of the more reflective songwriting of his later solo career. Harley is a hugely talented and award-winning songwriter, but my view has always been that with an instantly recognisable but fairly limited vocal range, Harley’s voice is better suited to the more upbeat pop-rock material. That was confirmed for me tonight. There’s some beautifully heartfelt songs and some absolutely superb musicianship. Original Cockney Rebel drummer, Stuart Elliot is still with the band and Paul Cuddeford is an absolute whizz on guitar. Between songs Harley is a witty, sincere and, at times, a surprisingly emotional host. However, much as I admire his evident songwriting skills on the slower, more sensitive material, the delivery didn’t always quite work for me.

After a short interval though we’re back on to some of the rockier material where the band excel, particularly the aforementioned Cuddeford, and where Harley’s vocals are perfectly suited. And as we come to the end we start to get another blast of the hits. Over the course of the evening we are treated to Mr Soft, Love’s A Prima Donna, Best Years Of Our Lives, Sebastian and many more. Struggling to move around following a recent hip operation Harley tells the audience he’s not going to hobble off stage, wait in the wings and hobble back on for an encore as he introduces his best-known and one of the most memorable pop songs of the past fifty years. Now in use by Pfizer as the soundtrack for a Viagra ad, he jokes that he offered them Mr Soft but they insisted on this one.
The normally genteel, all-seated De La Warr audience start to get up and make their way up to the front to dance along to a wonderful, life-affirming rendition of Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me).

I learnt a lot more about what makes Steve Harley tick tonight. For someone who did not always endear himself to the media circus back in the day, he comes across as genuinely likeable and engaging. I’m still always going to love him more in glam rock god mode than in sensitive singer songwriter mode, much as I have a deep love for both genres, but this is a gig I am certainly glad I did not miss.

1545306306170

Photo credit: Sarah-Louise Bowry

https://www.steveharley.com/

Five classic albums whose musical legacy outlived all the people playing on them

Album reviews, Music culture & history, Rock music, , , ,

With so many rock n roll icons leaving us in recent years I find myself playing a hell of a lot of albums that feature musicians who are no longer with us these days. Many historic albums from the 60s and 70s  now only have one or two of the personnel who played on them still alive. On Small Faces albums like Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake only drummer Kenney Jones remains with us, of the classic Electric Warrior-era T. Rex line-up we have only drummer Bill Legend still around and the same can be said for Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars – with only drummer Woody Woodmansey still around to celebrate the band’s legacy.

But here are five classic albums where none of the musicians playing on them are still with us.

1. Elvis Presley – Elvis Presley

Elvis’s 1956 debut album featured his regular backing band of Scotty Moore, DJ Fontana and Bill Black. Bassist, Black, died in 1965, the king himself passed away in 1977, of course, and Moore died in 2016. The final member of Presley’s original backing trio, DJ Fontana, sadly died this year. The album (with its iconic cover later inspiring the artwork for the Clash’s London Calling two decades later) contains classics like Blue Suede Shoes and Money Honey recorded for Elvis’s new label, RCA, as well as some previously released songs from his original label, Sun Records.

51YJuoeYClL._SY355_

2. Chuck Berry – After School Session

Although Chuck Berry stuck around until 2017 most of the musicians on his 1957 debut album (which features many classics like Brown Eyed Handsome Man, Too Much Monkey Business and School Days) passed away some decades earlier. Many would argue Johnnie Johnson’s piano was as much an integral part of that early rock n roll sound as Berry’s guitar. However, by the 1980s Johnson was working as a bus driver until support from the likes of Keith Richards put him back in the public eye. Johnson was finally inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a few years before his death in 2005.

berry01

3. Jimi Hendrix Experience – Are You Experienced

Hendrix’s 1967 debut was praised by Melody Maker for its artistic integrity and by the NME’s Keith Altham for being brave, original and exciting. However, just three years later Hendrix would be dead, followed by bass player Noel Redding in 2003 and drummer Mitch Mitchell in 2008. They leave behind an album that has been held up as one of the greatest and most influential debuts of all time.

51c34jArEaL._SY355_

4. Ramones – Ramones

Critically acclaimed upon its release in 1976 and containing evergreen classics like Blitzkrieg Bop, the album “posed a direct threat to any vaguely sensitive woofer and/or tweeter lodged in your hi-fi” claimed the NME’s Nick Kent. The Ramones would be around for another two decades but at the turn of the millennium Joey (d. 2001), Dee Dee (d. 2002) and Johnny Ramone (d. 2004) would all go in rapid succession of one another, followed by original drummer Tommy Ramone in 2014.

81B47LJOqXL._SY355_

5. Motörhead – No Sleep ’til Hammersmith

A tearful rock world said goodbye to the seemingly indestructible Lemmy in 2015, only one month after the death of Phil “Philthy Animal” Taylor. Just over two years later the last member of Motorhead’s most famous and most memorable lineup, Fast Eddie Clarke, was gone, too. The trio recorded six albums together including this iconic live album. When Lemmy formed the band back in 1975 with a promise that “it will be so loud that if we move in next door to you, your lawn will die” he probably wasn’t expecting to be regularly appearing on Top Of The Pops and releasing a live album that went to number one but that is exactly what happened.

198114

Folk-rock: album review – Merry Hell ‘Anthems To The Wind’

Album reviews, Folk music, Rock music, , , ,

Merry Hell and their rousing brand of folk rock have been around since 2010 now, rising from the ashes of 90s folk punk band The Tansads. Rather than another album of electrified folk the Wigan-based band take a more pastoral approach this time, with the all-acoustic Anthems To The Wind offering reworkings of established favourites alongside some newer songs.

“… although the band has grown in many ways, we have wanted to continue performing in the more intimate venues where the full electric 8-piece would neither fit nor be suitable. The atmospheric hush of the folk clubs inspired a stripping back of many of our arrangements to get to the very heart of our music’s message,” the sleeve-notes tell us.

Much of the album is recorded live: at Bunbury Village Hall in Cheshire and the Lion Salt Works in Northwich, alongside the Music Projects in Wigan.

It opens with a reworking of Drunken Serenade from the band’s first album. Indeed, a memorable line from these lyrics gives this new album its title. It’s clear that songs like this and The War Between Ourselves lose none of their power through the acoustic treatment and, if anything, become yet more anthemic.

The album also proves an excellent showcase for some of the more poignantly reflective songwriting of the band’s Virginia Kettle, and her lovely vocals, on tracks like No Place Like Tomorrow.

Anthems To The Wind shows Merry Hell continuing to innovate and inspire. A fine album that lives up to its name.

Released: 26th November 2018

http://www.merryhell.co.uk/

anthems-cover

Related reviews:

Merry Hell – Bury Me Naked EP

Merry Hell – Come On England EP

 

Singer songwriter: album review – Marianne Faithfull ‘Negative Capability’

Album reviews, Rock music, , , ,

This review was originally published  by Get Ready To Rock here

With a recording career spanning over fifty years ‘Negative Capability’ is Marianne Faithfull’s twenty-first album. Battling arthritis, contemplating bereavement and dealing with loneliness, it’s a highly autobiographical and emotive offering from Faithfull. “It’s the most honest album I’ve ever made,” she says. “I’ve always tried not to reveal myself. There’s nothing like real hardship to give you some depth. I’ve had terrible accidents and I’m really damaged. It’s changed my life forever. I’m in a lot of pain and worked really hard to get strong so I can do my work. The great miracle is I was able to make this beautiful record. I really had no idea how it would turn out.”

Alongside a house band composed of Rob McVey, Warren Ellis and Rob Ellis and Ed Harcourt (who also collaborates with Faithfull on the writing on several of the tracks), Nick Cave also puts in a guest appearance on one track, the magnificent ‘The Gypsy Faerie Queen’ which Cave has co-written with Faithful.

Faithfull’s voice today is a world away from the soft, gentle, wistful lead vocal the world fell in love with when ‘As Tears Go By’ was released back in 1964. Her vocals, aged, deepened and absolutely full of life, love, loss, tragedy and reflectiveness, these songs are delivered with 100% sincerity and conviction. For those wanting to make comparisons, Faithfull even returns to her iconic 1964 Jagger & Richards interpretation, one of two covers on the album, alongside Bob Dylan’s ‘It’s All Over Now Baby Blue.’ Of the new material, the aforementioned collaboration with Cave, alongside the majestic ‘In My Own Particular Way’, the haunting ‘Witches’ Song’ and ‘They Come At Night’ (co-written with Mark Lanegan) are all absolute stand-outs.

With beautiful songs and stunning musicianship in ‘Negative Capability’ Marianne Faithfull has delivered a late-career classic.

Released: 2nd November 2018 on BMG

http://www.mariannefaithfull.org.uk/

61o+z9+AIiL._SX466_

Folk: album review – Daimh ‘The Rough Bounds’

Album reviews, Folk music, , , , ,

This review was originally published by Bright Young folk here 

Launched twenty years to the day after Daimh’s first ever gig, The Rough Bounds sees the Gaelic super-group in celebratory mode. Unlike The Hebridean Sessions, the live album released to mark their fifteenth anniversary, this new album sees the band looking forward and exploring new material, both self-composed and traditional, rather than revisiting songs from earlier in their career.

“Half of the tunes on the record are written by the band and the other half are traditional, the only exception being that of a set of melodies composed by piping legend, PM Donald MacLeod from the Isle of Lewis. We wanted to pay tribute to one our favourite composers, but the set also serves as a stepping stone between the old tunes and our own contemporary pieces,” explains the band’s Angus MacKenzie.

No knowledge of the Gaelic language is required to appreciate the beauty of the exquisite sounds rolling off the lips of singer, Ellen MacDonald, but the lyrics, we are informed, cover those familiar themes of drinking, feuding and loves lost at sea. There can be few more powerful arguments in favour the band’s outspoken passion for preserving and defending Gaelic language and culture than hearing these lyrics delivered so beautifully on songs like Trusaidh mi na Coilleagan and Tha Fadachd orm Fhìn.

Of the tune sets 12th of June and the Donald Macleod Reels showcase some wonderful pipe-playing, while the uplifting Happy Fish contains some gorgeous interplay between accordion, whistle and fiddle.

Strong melodies, exhilarating pipes, enchanting fiddles, hauntingly atmospheric accordion and breathtakingly beautiful vocals The Rough Bounds is pretty much everything you could ask for from an album of Gaelic folk.

Released: May 2018

https://www.daimh.net/

THE-ROUGH-BOUNDS-COVER-IMAGE-450x450