Scott Adams

Rick Astley

@ Canberra Theatre, Wednesday November 21

Nostalgia. Love it or hate it, there would appear to be a big market in 2012 for looking back in time (though not so big in this instance, as Mr Astley was able to perform in the larger of the Canberra Theatre’s two rooms this balmy Wednesday evening). So here we are again, we music lovers of a certain age, ready to have a go once more at partying like it’s 1987 in the presence of one of that era’s most successful faces.

The first thing to note is that, amazingly, Astley doesn’t appear to have aged markedly since his heyday. The jacket that he’s wearing – which he claimed to have worn for the cover shoot of his 1988 album, Hold Me in Your Arms – might be a little on the tight side, but the boyish good looks remain and so, more importantly, does the voice. Throughout the 100-minute performance, Astley puts not one foot wrong vocally, producing a marvellously controlled performance, courtesy of a well-paced set and a backing band that helps out with splendid backing vocals throughout the evening.

Refreshingly, and despite his obviously prodigious talent, Astley is aware of his place in music history and is disarmingly self-deprecating throughout the performance – acknowledging that we are probably only here to ‘listen to songs that go UM-CHAH!’ as opposed to having even a semblance of interest in anything he’s done outside of the halcyon days of Stock, Aitken and Waterman – and whilst there’s a kernel of truth to this, the ‘new’ songs that he does play are met with warm interest and genuine applause. This is only fair, as his modern material – earnest arena rock with hints of Coldplay – is surprisingly palatable, showing a different side to the man’s voice as well as offering evidence of real songwriting talent. Astley is no mere vacuous pop idol, that’s for sure.

But he’s a realist, and he does faithfully trot out the hits to the small but deliriously committed crowd. Pleasingly, the likes of She Wants to Dance With Me, Hold Me in Your Arms and the inevitable final encore Never Gonna Give You Up aren’t rendered as simple eighties rose tinters; it would be oh-so-easy to whack out the sequencers and sing to a karaoke backing tape filched from the original masters, but the man and his band have commendably reworked them so that they still retain the flavour that everyone knows and loves, whilst adding a freshness that was as enjoyable as it was surprising. Indeed, surprise was a major component of the performance; from the off, when a disembodied voice suggests that the band have appeared early on stage because somebody had spotted a beer, there’s an air of warm good humour that permeates the performance. Astley is no po-faced pop messiah a la Ronan Keating; he engages with the crowd (two of whom are gleefully invited up on stage to share in the limelight), coming out with a stream of amusing anecdotes and jokes that place him somewhere in the realms of traditional Northern British Club entertainer and the mighty Vic Reeves.

But perhaps the biggest surprise of the evening comes at the end of the main set when, after effortlessly beguiling the audience with a trio of soul classics from the likes of The Temptations and Al Green, Astley takes up position behind the drum kit and leads his band through a convincing version of AC/DC’s Highway to Hell before bidding the stunned but happy crowd a warm goodnight. As the man himself said: ‘Not bad for a Wednesday night in Canberra!’

Shinobi

Shinobi. It’s quite possible that, were it not for the success of their singer, Eric Grothe Jnr, in another field (he’s played Rugby League on the wing for Australia and the Parramatta Eels), you wouldn’t be hearing about them today. That’d be a shame, because Shinobi really aren’t that bad a band at all. Playing the sort of ‘modern rock’ that finds itself ending up on Channel Ten trailers as much as it does on commercial radio, the only problem is the essentially faceless nature of the music they write.

Against the Brave really could be anyone – any of the dullard post-grunge generation that make up mainstream rock these days. Grothe has a pleasant if ordinary voice, and the songs are just the things you’d want to hear if you think The Foos are the apogee of hard rock music. Best song on the album, The Finding, breaks the mould slightly as Eric and his boys veer off the path foursquare into Funeral for a Friend’s metallic emo way of doing things –  and it sounds all the better for it. There’s more personality in this one track than in the rest of the album combined and, to these woefully outdated ears at least, it’s this direction the band should be pursuing if they want to find gainful employment moving forward.

Not a bad start but, for now, probably only Eels fans really need apply.

Album Review: Kiss - Monster [Universal]

Christ on an all-singing, all dancing bike. If, like me, you’re a dyed-in-the-wool, card-carrying member of the Kiss Army (I remember the day I was conscripted, at Donington’s Monsters of Rock festival in 1987, like it was only yesterday), you’ll have been waiting for Monster for a very long time.

20 years, in fact, for that’s how long it’s taken Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons (let’s not fool ourselves that the sidemen – whoever they may be on any given day – have much input here) to come up with the natural successor to 1992’s rampant Revenge outing. The fact that they’ve lasted this long at all is, of course, something to give praise and thanks for, but the fact most deserving of our supplication is that, after two so-so albums in 1998’s Psycho Circus and 2009’s Sonic Boom (and let’s not even mention the ‘grunge album that never was’, Carnival of Souls), the Starchild and the Demon have finally come up trumps big time with Monster. It’s a massive, gargantuan, stadium-destroying colossus of a record, the sort of record the band used to make in its sleep during the make-up-free days of the early ‘80s, and it’s bloody magnificent.

The reasons for this are manifold, but perhaps most importantly, in stopping trying to make ‘the quintessential Kiss album’, the band has, in fact, created just that. Gloriously, crushingly heavy, yet retaining that ear for a melody that only true songwriting greats possess, every song here is a big-bollocked, roaring classic. From the opening pop sympathies of the anthemic Hell or Hallelujah, through the stomping Zeppelin homages of The Devil is Me and Long Way Down to the primetime Stanley posturing of Freak, there’s nothing here you won’t like (lots) if unreconstructed rock ‘n’ roll thunder is your bag. Despite its size, Simmons’s tongue is firmly inside his cheek at all times (which can’t always be said for the slightly less ironic Stanley), and he delivers extra cheese on the likes of Back to the Stone Age with a pizzazz we haven’t heard from him for many years. The man’s bass-playing is on fire, too, and it’s here that the second big reason for Monster’s success can be found. Simmons is utterly energized throughout; Stanley has always been the heart and soul of this band, and Simmons has often lagged in commitment. Here there’s no such worry, and the man’s enthusiasm lights the touchpaper everywhere.

This enthusiasm has gotten hold of guitarist Tommy Thayer too. Previously straitjacketed in the ‘Ace Frehley’ role, he plays his jumpsuited arse off all over Monster, adding some truly inspired soloing to the likes of the (admittedly Frehleyesque) Outta This World. His blossoming on this record is one of its highlights.

Monster won’t win the band any new converts, but it will put a huge, shit-eating grin on the faces of all old adherents, bar none, and that’s a massive success in anyone’s book. Welcome back!

Doomsday Festival

@ ANU Bar, Saturday October 13

When ANU Bar is full and the bands are rocking, there are few venues in Canberra that can touch its mixture of iconic historical status and intimate small club atmosphere. When it’s empty, however, you can risk having your soul destroyed simply by entering the joint. And this time, on a typical Canberra Saturday night, circumstance tipped the scales in favour of the latter scenario.

Blame it on anything you like – the threatening weather, a Rugby League International on the telly, the lack of anything resembling decent advertising, a combination of all three, perhaps – but the turnout was woeful, with what can only be described as a handful of punters on hand to witness an interesting amuse-bouche from Looking Glass alumnus Marcus De Pasquale. As it goes, De Pasquale turned in the most interesting set of the night, purely because it was not a set comprised entirely of heavy doom. His fleet-fingered acoustic offerings set the ears up nicely for what was to come, but –I can’t say it enough – it’s a tragedy there weren’t more folk on hand to soak up the man’s undeniable talent.

That’s not to say the rest of the evening’s entertainment was dull – far from it. However, programming a set of bands all bent on giving us their take on the doom template (the clue is in the name of the festival, ladeez an’ gentz, and not since MCing at the ‘Boorish Englishmen Loving the Sound of Their Own Voices’ evening in Warracknabeal a couple of years ago have I witnessed a group of artists so hell-bent on doing what it says on the tin) did lend itself to a certain amount of ear fatigue as the evening wore on, even though every band commendably gave everything they had to those dedicated enough to have turned up.

So, this sameness may be a bit problematic, but its happiness incarnate we are to report that, on the night, Canberra’s own Law of the Tongue are first amongst equals. Their muscular brand of sludge, stoner and doom cut through the room like a baseball bat through the face of an over-tenacious shopkeeper defending his week’s takings (the effect on our ears being somewhat more pleasing than on that man’s features, it has to be said). It’s still comparatively early days for this mob, but initial findings say that Brad, DD, Kim and Ben have a bright future ahead of them. Not to mention a loud one.

Sadly, space prevents us from looking too closely into the rest of the underbill, save to mention that Fattura Della Morte, despite the unsettlingly hipsterish ginger beard/checked shirt juxtaposition of singer Benny, almost rivalled the local heroes in terms of sheer unforgiving heaviness. As (thankfully) a few more dishevelled beards had found their way to the venue (though not, it seemed, to the merch stand, which remained deserted all night despite some tasty looking shirts from the headliners, retailing to you, squire, at just 15 dollars), it was time for the headliners themselves: The Atomic Bitchwax.

It’s easy to dismiss TAB as another of those hipster prog-metal bands that seem to be everywhere you look these days, even though they predate the likes of Mastodon et al. by the best part of a decade, and they were certainly the most accessible band on offer to any untrained ears that might have wandered in by mistake on this evening, despite sensibly concentrating on the heavier end of their oeuvre. But they always deliver, this evening being no different, and it was a happy bunch of doomsters that made their way home at the end of the band’s set at the close of Doomsday 2012.

Steve Harris

And so the third current member of Iron Maiden unleashes a solo album on a world waiting with baited breath. How will ‘Sergeant Major’ Harris fair in comparison to messrs Smith and Dickinson in the world of non-maiden musical output?

The answer: somewhere between the two. There’s none of the glorious more-maiden-than-maiden metal bombast that characterised Bruce’s albums put out during his self-imposed exile from the band – though the racy Us Against The World does have the delicious feel of Seventh Son about it. There is, however, plenty of the ham-fisted eighties AOR so beloved of Adrian Smith and his project, and this could be something of a sticking point for younger fans who’ve come to the band only since the Brave New World era reunited Maiden’s classic line-up (and Janick Gers). There’s also a fair amount of the dark, introspectively proggy music with which Maiden have become so enamoured of late. The result being that British Lion is an album that will probably satisfy nobody totally apart from the man who wrote it – but thus was ever the case with this man, right?

The biggest problem devoted Maidenites will have with this record is the vocal performance of Richard Taylor. He can just about handle the pompous pop rock of The Chosen Ones, a song which brings to mind UK hard rock legends Magnum, and he is at home best on the darker, proggy likes of Lost Worlds. However, he just doesn’t have the pipes for heavy metal, and Harris and co-producing/mixing sidekick Kevin Shirley just don’t have the chops (or the care factor) to cover up his multitudinous deficiencies. This is a shame, as there are some genuinely hair-raising moments of brilliance on British Lion; moments of brilliance that deserve a better singer than Taylor.

This isn’t a brain-dead call for Dickinson to be installed on vocals – that would be pointless – but maybe a better idea would have been for Harris to follow the lead of Tony Iommi and draw upon better song-specific vocalists for each song to maximise their impact. Magnum’s Bob Catley, for instance, could have made The Chosen Ones into a stadium-levelling gargantuan, and throughout the album you find yourself idly speculating ‘what if?’ as the hapless Taylor lurches from failure to disappointment and back again.

It’s not all doom ‘n’ gloom in the sideman department however. Guitarists David Hawkins, Grahame Leslie and Barry Fitzgibbon all put in sterling performances, whilst Simon Dawson, Ian Roberts and Richard Cook are all rock-solid behind the kit.

And what of the man himself? Needless to say, we find our hero front and centre in the (rather odd it has to be said) mix, but that’s OK because his playing is a joy to behold. Harris is, of course, one of the greats, and his playing throughout British Lion lives up to its billing. As the dramatic start of Judas crashes forth from the speakers you’ll have no trouble visualising Harris playing the song on stage, and, if as promised he gets to tour this album, there are enough highlights to suggest it’ll be a show worth catching – as long as he has a vocalist along for the ride who’s up to the task. For now though, we’re left with an album that confounds as much as it excites, but one that, in the end and over time, will find a welcome home in the record collection of most Maiden fans. 

Devin Townsend Project

Devin Townsend is a phenomenon. A one-man cottage industry with a legion of incredibly devoted fans, he’s able to exist outside of the increasingly cranky and dysfunctional music industry, flitting constantly from project to project with seemingly not a care in the world. A quirky, Todd Rundgren-style genius, Devin does what he does. And if the rest of us come along for the ride, great – if we don’t, then that’s great too. It doesn’t matter to Devin.

That said, I’ve a feeling more people are going to be hitching a lift on the Devin bandwagon this time around than those who ain’t. Epicloud is an amazing record. Curiously dated in sound, yet extravagantly timeless in nature, there really isn’t anything about this record that you can actively dislike. I’ve never been a big fan of Devin – too much nerd humour lurking in the background for my liking – but when you are swept up in the icily magnificent Euro-pop of Save Our Now, all your gripes and quibbles are swept away in the sugar-rush of perfect songwriting with which you are confronted. And when Save Our Now is swept away by a suitably coruscating (dare I say epic) remake of live staple Kingdom, awash in stentorian riffage, double-kick salvos, and Townsend and guest Anneke Van Giersbergen’s effortless vocal rapport, you’re left smiling like an educationally subnormal loon, marvelling at the scope of it all.

There aren’t many artists around these days with the guts to follow their instincts and write whatever moves them – and damn the torpedoes. Consequently, the whole feel of Epicloud is of something left over from the late ‘70s. It’s self-indulgent for sure, but that almost improves the listening experience instead of detracting from it. The gospel choirs, the ad-jingle earworm catchiness and, yes, even the silly humour of Lucky Animals, all combine to transport you to a world where it’s okay simply to love music for the sake of it without worrying what the cool kids think of you – and that’s a liberating experience in these jaded times. Epicloud doesn’t deserve a run-of-the-mill music review, not here or in any other mag, because it’s worth so much more than that. Just buy the damn thing and wallow.

Tex Perkins: The Man In Black

@ The Playhouse, Fri-Sun August 17-19

How much you take away in terms of enjoyment from The Man In Black depends very much on how much you enjoy the medium of musical theatre. Me? I don’t care if I never see another production of Rent ever again, so there are many elements of this tribute to Johnny Cash your reviewer found jarring at best, flesh crawlingly contrived at worst but generally hovering somewhere between these two points.

Musically, of course, the show is nearly faultless – Tex Perkins in the role of Cash is an engaging performer and his backing band, named for the evening The Tennessee Four in honour of the real Cash’s original backing band, The Tennessee Two, steam through the hour-and-three-quarter set without putting a single foot wrong. They get plenty of time to rest between songs, however, because part of the show – a large part, actually – is given over to Perkins and foil Rachael Tidd (here tonight to play the role of Cash’s muse, June Carter Cash) giving a life story of the great man; from his early days as a son of the deep south working the cotton fields of Arkansas from the age of five, through his hellraising Memphis days to his life as a sometime human rights advocate, TV star and pill popping addict, right through to his final days as the grand old man of American music and his Rick Rubin-produced American Recordings albums. All well and good but, for reasons that are never explained, Perkins and Tidd move in and out of character in the blink of an eye, sometimes narrating in role, sometimes (and this is especially true of Tidd) delivering their spiel as a desperately-wanting-to-be-down-with-the-kids lecturer might deliver to a new intake on the first day of term. Assuming most of the people gathered here on a freezing, soaking wet Canberra Friday night are devotees of Cash, it’s debatable whether this is needed at all, but if it is, the way these factoids are delivered could probably do with some tweaking to make it a bit less contrived. Tidd also lets the side down when, as Perkins talks in hushed tones of Cash’s final days to a you-could-hear-a-pin-drop auditorium, she forgets to turn her mic off and we get to hear her backstage conversation leaking through the PA. It’s obviously an honest mistake, but at 70 bucks a pop for a ticket you’d hope that little hiccups like this could be avoided.

Tidd – and I’m not trying to turn this into a witch hunt, honestly – also lets the side down when it comes to songtime. Whilst Perkins sings not only effortlessly but also so well that if you closed your eyes he could actually be the man in black (indeed, surprisingly, the only track he struggles with is Cash’s reading of Trent Reznor’s Hurt), and the band, as mentioned earlier, play with verve and style throughout, Tidd just doesn’t have the chops to hold her own in this company. When she tries to yodel she sounds like a wolf searching for its mate in a deserted mountain forest and when she tries to introduce a bit of June Carter Cash’s playful wink-of-the-eye gravel into her voice she sounds like she’s dislodging a little frog from her throat. It’s not bad enough to spoil people’s evening – everything, especially the little Folsom Prison tableau that starts off the evening’s second half is met with generous, genuine applause – but it does take a bit of shine off of the more ‘Broadway’ aspects of this largely enjoyable show.

Fear Factory - The Industrialist [Riot]

After two tracks of the latest FF opus, The Industrialist, you could be forgiven for thinking ‘so what?’ and moving on to something a bit more stimulating. Not that those tracks, the title track and Recharger are bad – far from it. It’s just that they offer nothing new to anyone who has been involved with this band for a while, seemingly happy to retread old ground whilst still managing to singe off a few eyebrows in the process.

Track three however, gets the juices going nicely and starts to enthuse the listener about the prospective delights to come. New Messiah is a spectacular success, fusing ice-cold eighties synth lines to the usual rifferama in spine tingling fashion on the instantly memorable chorus add some squelching keyboard parps on the verse for extra atmosphere and you’ve got yourself something of a latter day FF classic.

However it’s back to business as usual for God Eater which is run of the mill Fear Factory in excelsis; extreme background music, but background music nonetheless. Depraved Mind Murder is much more like it. Whereas the previous track just slides through your consciousness without leaving a trace of ever having entered your ears, DMM stoves your head in courtesy of some titanic double kick work (courtesy, I think, of a Doktor Avalanche-style drum machine, though I may be wrong) and a storming chorus that will stay with you for hours after first contact. Add in some stentorian hardcore style-bellowing at the end from Burton C. Bell and you’ll have been jolted fairly and squarely out of your God Eater-induced reverie. Virus of Faith keeps things ticking over nicely, featuring as it does another of Bell’s trademark ‘clean soaring’ choruses and some surprisingly tasteful axework from Dino Cazares. Just when you’re thinking you might be able to do without The Industrialist, it’s these little touches that keep you hanging in there, rooting for the band.

This is especially true of the fabulous Difference Engine. The icy sheets of eighties synthwork that underpin large parts of this song suggest that at last the band are following their hearts and wearing those post punk and gothic influences a bit more to the fore on sleeves that were first revealed all those years ago when the band first covered Gary Numan’s new wave classic Cars; that or they nodded off at some point during mixing, allowing producer Rhys Fulber the opportunity to add some blitz-dancing panache to proceedings. Either way it’s a welcome break from the norm and the album’s high point song-wise.

Disassemble is a bile-spitting, futuristic hardcore romp carried by the sheer spite and conviction of Bell’s delivery, it’s insistent, driving ‘chorus’ will blow the roof of wherever the band plays on their upcoming North American tour, of that I’m sure, and the song – easily the angriest of the album – ends on a pleasantly muted note, bringing some much needed respite to the senses after the battering they’ve just received.

Of course, some might say that the whole ‘loud-quiet’ thing is this band’s only trick, and to a point there’s some mileage in such an accusation. However, while they continue to execute the plan this well I can’t see many long-term fans having many qualms about such matters. That said, the seeds have now been sown, and I for one would like to see the band move away more radically from the norm on their next album and experiment a bit more with those synth sounds found on Difference Machine if this isn’t all going to start getting a little played out. Adapt or die!

The Darkness

Fun Machine at ANU Bar, Thursday May 10

When cocaine-fuelled wrong headedness first robbed us of The Darkness in 2006, the world undoubtedly became a poorer place.

Despite the fact that the various warring parties (bassist Frankie Poullain aside) went to work on other infinitely lesser projects (probably not even worthy of mention here), this was scant reward for the possibility that we would no longer be able to hear the team that brought us such sonic delights as Dinnerlady Arms ever again.

Money talks, of course, (or at the very least it focuses otherwise preoccupied minds), and so six years after the great schism the brothers Hawkins find themselves reconciled and ready to rock us like the proverbial hurricane. They take the ANU stage on a mild Thursday evening in May, every inch the reconquering heroes despite the fact the band has never trod Canberran boards before and proceed to deliver a blindingly entertaining set drawing from both their pre-split LPs as well as a smattering of new material. Despite obviously suffering from a lack of familiarity the band do enough to suggest that the third Darkness album, which will apparently rejoice in the title Hot Cakes when it eventually emerges, will be a worthy successor to Permission to Land and One Way Ticket to Hell… and Back.

But we’re not worried about that tonight – we band of happy rockers assembled in front of the ANU stage come show time. No, we are here to see whether Justin Hawkins’ voice is as good live as we’ve heard and whether they are as entertaining a band as legend decrees. The answer to both questions is an unreserved ‘yes’, as the band crashes through high octane renditions of classics like Friday Night, Growing on Me, Love is Only a Feeling and Giving Up in suitably exuberant style, rolling back the years to the early noughties with a fire and passion found surely lacking in many of today’s contemporary ‘rock’ outfits. Justin Hawkins’ voice defies belief throughout – that storied, piercing falsetto hitting the target time and again. The pipes work in concert with a superior guitar technique that peels off solo after jaw-dropping solo with an ease and grace that will have any viewing axe exponents feeling sorely inadequate. Justin’s brother Dan is no slacker in this department either, though he keeps mainly to locking in the rhythmic punch with amusing four-stringer Poullain and the oft-unsung rhythm machine that is drummer Ed Graham.

Hawkins seems a little reticent at first in his role as frontman, ignoring the crowd as the stage is plunged into darkness between songs. After a couple of selections this shyness, real or perceived, dissipates and he strikes an easy rapport with the crowd that continues throughout the rest of the evening.

Effortlessly charming, he leads both band and audience through a celebration of all things eighties and hard rock, without ever slipping into the sort of hipster-pleasing post-modern irony that retro acts such as his always flirt with. This is no Steel Panther-style comedy turn. The Darkness are a serious hard rock act that happens to possess a wicked sense of humour, and there’s a gulf of difference between the two. Whatever. Such philosophizing is rendered pointless when the band launches into a suitably crushing take on Love on the Rocks With No Ice to round out proceedings tonight, the band exiting the stage under cover of (natch) darkness in triumph and leaving the sweaty, slavering crowd baying for more. An unqualified triumph.

Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens

Rip Rip Woodchip, Turn It Into Metal

The Ripper is coming and if you’re a Canberran and consider yourself a metalhead it’s your duty to greet the man when he (quite literally) screams into the nation’s Capital later this month. For one thing, he virtually saved metal gods Judas Priest from the dumpster when Priest’s iconic frontman Rob Halford upped and left the band in a fit of midlife crisis-fuelled pique in the early nineties. For this alone he deserves our undying gratitude. But perhaps more importantly the man has an utterly devastating voice and it’s a rare treat to be able to view such a talent in such an, erm, intimate venue as Belco’s Basement.

So, ahead of this momentous metallic memory in the making we decided to catch up with TIM ‘RIPPER’ OWENS to find out what’s been going on in his world of late.

Hello Ripper. Can I call you Ripper? You’re coming to Australia advertised as the voice of many of heavy metal’s most loved acts and we assume you’ll be offering selections from all of those artistes when you come down under. Which of the bands you’ve been in was the most challenging for you as a vocalist? And which songs do you find most enjoyable to sing live and why? “Hello there! I gotta say my own stuff is the most challenging. The Beyond Fear songs and solo songs are really tough to sing. Next I would say Charred Walls of the Damned… But whatever bands or songs I have sung I always try and do them to the top of my ability.”

With that in mind, what sort of set will you be playing on this tour? ”It’s a great set. Some songs I’ll be doing that I haven't sung in years. I’ll be doing some Priest songs from my era with the band and some classics, some Beyond Fear, solo stuff, Dio/Sabbath stuff and much, much more! This will be the best set I have done on a solo tour… I’ve got a great backing band with me and they’re primed and ready to make you feel the power!”

I’m feeling it already. As a somewhat limited vocalist myself, and knowing there’ll be a few budding young Rippers in the audience at The Basement on the night keen to find out what it takes to truly be one of the greats, what sort of advice can you give to us lesser singers? “Sleep, drink water and try your best all the time… The goal is blow people away at all times.”

Are you listening, young’ns? Wise words direct from one of the masters. I could talk for ages to this man but the bottom of the page is fast approaching. Any final thoughts on the tour, Tim? “BE READY! Spread the word, this is gonna be a great tour. I have not been to Australia since the tour with Priest in like 2001. So bring it on!”

Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens will flood The Basement with blood Friday May 25, 8pm. Tickets are $35 + bf through Moshtix or $100 + bf for a VIP pass including meet and greet.

Super Best Friends/The Fighting League/Shopgirl

@ Transit Bar, Thursday April 26

It’s a quiet night in the city and Transit Bar is no different when BMA arrives, wearing the kind of grin on its face usually reserved for those of a slightly demented mien. It’s been a while since this reviewer has had his critical acuity challenged by some ‘live attractions’ and to be frank one is armed and ready. The slightest hint of ham-fistedness or (worse still) mediocrity is going to be given both barrels, so to paraphrase any one of thousands of reality TV contestants, ‘BRING IT ON!!’

First up are Shopgirl, featuring none other than former BMA Editor Peter Krbavac doing the drumming. Ha! We sniff hypocrisy! A man used to telling other musos what their deficiencies are getting up and doing it himself—but worse?

Well, no, actually. Shopgirl are actually rather good. Basic, but good. They peddle a neat line in post-grunge riot grrl nirvana (if you’ll excuse the pun), coming on like a hometown Sonic Youth with smudges of The Shop Assistants thrown in for good measure. To cap it all off Krbavac is sporting a rather tasty Dinosaur Jr tee shirt, just for a bit of historical realness. Resolutely indie Shopgirl kick off the evening well.

This run of early evening form is continued by The Fighting League, who bring a smattering of raw Oi! aggressiveness to proceedings. They’s a jolly bunch of neredowells and their strange mélange of eighties styles merge together surprisingly well. They themselves call it tropical punk, which is as good a description as any and certainly better than anything my arid little brain can come up with. If they were English there’s a fair chance they’d already be playing stages bigger than that belonging to the Transit Bar. Keep an eye out for them, and while you are doing so why not buy a copy of their triumphant vinyl LP, Tropical Paradise?

But tonight is of course all about Super Best Friends, who are walking among us to launch their rather splendid new EP, Handshake. It’s a rocking little nugget too, showcasing the band’s aggressive side to good effect. In fact the most remarkable thing about SBF tonight is the heaviness of their approach. Guitarist Johnny Barrington spends most of the night assaulting his instrument with so much force you suspect it’ll be applying to have an ASBO handed down to him, whilst rhythm section Adam and Matt thunder and groove away in what can only be described as a rather good approximation of ‘proper’ music. You can tell they’ve been on the road a while promoting this beautiful, iridescent disc, as each song is delivered with a vicious tightness that hasn’t always been present in their live performances. This is what we know in the trade as ‘progress’ and it is good. The new songs are a progression too. Whilst still sticking to the band’s template enough to make tonight’s set a gratifyingly solid aural and visual treat, it’s hard to see the join between old and new, so committed are the band to tonight’s performance.

Super Best Friends have been hovering around the edges of greatness for a while now, peering at its hulk-like magnificence through the chicken wire fence that surrounds it without ever daring to suspect that anyone would hand them a pair of cutters. It’s not going too far to say that Handshake might just be the sharp, bladed implement they need to help them make the leap to the next level. On the evidence of tonight’s performance, they are ready to give it a red hot go.

Jack Blades

The former Nightranger/Damn Yankees protagonist enjoys such a mighty renaissance it’s tempting to call him Da Vinci. Really, that’s not overstating the case. Despite reaching an age where most superannuated stadium rockers are happy to place their bony buttocks on some convenient laurels and reflect on glories long since evaporated into sepia-tinged memory, Blades has come up with something of a minor hard rock masterpiece with Back in the Game. The title track Rock ‘n’ Roll Ride and Back in the Game are good enough for starters, but by track three, the utterly gobsmacking arena rock of Born for This, Blades has worked up such a head of steam he makes the Flying Scotsman look like the little red engine that could.

This truly is a delirious return to the man’s mid-‘80s best, but he ain’t done there, topping even that piece of excellence with the lighters-in-the-air hysteria-stoker that is Hardest Word to Say. Throw in a bit of Beatles pastiche (Blades has always fancied himself as a bit fab, and Anything for You is one of his better Liverpudlian homages, albeit in a sort of Traveling Wilburys kinda way) and the Survivor-ish Love Life, and what you have truly is Blades back at his polished, stadium-levelling best, and if you love a bit of retro hard rock every now and then you will not – that’s NOT – hear better this year.

Lamb of God / In Flames/ The Black Dahlia Murder

UC Refectory, Thursday March 1

It’s been an incredibly wet week in the nation’s capital, but, when the stars come out to play, we don’t let a few million raindrops get in the way of a night on the rock.

When your correspondent arrives on the scene muttering is rife in the queues, and I hear one person near us in the shorter of the queues (we’re not stupid at BMA, oh no) saying to his mate that he’s willing to forgo the ability to have one or two sherbets – he’s driving – if it means he can get into the University of Canberra Refectory just that little bit quicker.

This clearly isn’t the go, so breaking ranks BMA legs it to the front of the queues to find out what’s happening. As we do this, the band strikes up inside, so now we’re trotting about in the rain whilst simultaneously panicking as to how on earth we’re ever going to get in. Spotting someone we know handing out wristbands to those destined to be dry for the rest of the evening, we ask where the guestlist is. “Through that door,” is the answer. We’ve just quit the queue that’s going “through that door” – do we have to go back to the end and start again? Taking pity on our ever more damp, pathetic visage, she leads us up the stairs, past the nonplussed looking goons and into rock Valhalla, all the while making sure we have the requisite wristbands and stamps to get done what we have to do. There can be no doubt – Anna Wallace, you are a princess amongst women…

And so there’s just time to obtain some liquid sustenance before getting on with the job in hand. The Black Dahlia Murder are going about their business, and mighty impressive they are too. There’s not a lot of fuss or flair going on here, but there’s bludgeon aplenty and avuncular frontman Trevor Strnad leads us through a variety of selections from the band’s past (with Necropolis and I Will Return sounding particularly pleasing to these ears).

Sweden’s In Flames are a different beast entirely. Whilst the ‘Murder revel in their own heaviness, IF are seemingly desperate to get away from their extreme roots and move away to pastures more melodic. They still look comfortingly heavy and bearded however, and their spot on this bill, the melodic meat in a crushingly heavy sandwich, gives them the chance to take advantage of the fact that the moshpit’s having a breather by treating us to the classic radio-friendly likes of Only for the Weak and Cloud Connected.

Unsurprisingly headliners Lamb of God don’t take long to make us forget what’s just gone before. What’s gone before, you’ll remember was two great sets of diverse heavy metal, from bands on top of their respective games. What comes next is a consummate lesson in brutality from a band that is devastating in the live arena. Opening with Desolation from recent release Resolution, they then proceed to level the UC dining facilities with an unbridled force not seen around these parts since Metal for the Brain fell off the metal calendar all those years ago. We don’t get treated to this too often in Canberra, and the punters react accordingly.

It’s great to see big promoters (this bill was brought to the ‘berra by the Soundwave Festival touring operation) finally realising that Canberra has a thriving metal community. The massive turnout on a filthy night surely must act as a pointer for other outfits looking to bring acts our way. A top result all round then.

Van Halen

“Don’t jump to conclusions”.

That’s what my English master Mr DJ ‘Daddy’ Wedd used to say to us in reverent tones whenever we waded in with opinions on the plot of some book or other he’d told us to read. We inevitably came up with hypotheses wildly wide of the mark precisely because we had, indeed, jumped to conclusions. It’s an awful personality defect to possess.

All of which leads me to Van Halen’s A Different Kind of Truth. Like many millions of others across the interwebs, I saw the video for the first single to be released from this album, Tattoo, and chimed in with my own pithy observations about how the whole VH reunion appeared to be dead in the water even before it had properly started. How wrong can a man be? Of course there are still reservations - I will still be very surprised if this unit holds it together long enough to complete an American tour - but for the moment that’s just a potential pifall for the future. For the minute all we have is the music, and it’s a delight to be able to report that A Different Kind of Truth is Van Halen’s best album in a very, very long time.

Tattoo, it turns out, is a bit of a grower, and you’ll welcome it as it ushers in the album as a bit of an old friend. But it’s far from the best track here, as one by one the likes of She’s the Woman, You and Your Blues and, perhaps best of all, the utterly titanic, classic VH of Blood and Fire prove, against all the odds, what a great band Van Halen continues to be in the twenty first century. With David Lee Roth at the helm again, vocally the band is a very different beast to the slick, radio friendly version fronted by Sammy Hagar in the late '80s and early '90s. Hagar is a consummate professional, a great singer, and a great guitarist and songwriter to boot, and his contribution to Van Halen tended to overshadow even Edward Van Halen, who seemed to retreat into a synth-obsessed world of doing just enough to get by whilst Hagar carried the show.

Roth is nowhere near the musician Hagar is, though he’s ten times the showman. Consequently Edward Van Halen has had to up his game considerably to cover all the gaps left by Sammy, and put simply the man hasn’t sounded this good since 1980’s Women and Children First, churning out a series of stinging riffs and gobsmacking solos that are an absolute, genuine pleasure to hear.

Backing this up is a marvellous performance from percussive brother Alex who also hasn’t sounded this good in years. He hasn’t had to, of course – FM radio doesn’t really have a place for double-kick mayhem – but when he fires up the bass pedals behind a classic Edward arpeggio/clawhammer solo on the highly mobile As Is you’ll happily feel like its 1984 all over again.

And what about DLR? Undoubtedly this is the best he’s sounded too since his late '80s solo peak saw him happily ruling the airwaves with the likes of Just Like Paradise. He sounds relaxed and on form throughout, throwing in little laconic ad libs all over the place and contributing a fine set of humorous lyrics far beyond the by-numbers pop nonsense often offered up by Hagar. This is at its most glorious on the bluesy Stay Frosty, which itself harks back to Ice Cream Man from the band's storied eponymous debut album.

I should probably say at this point that I am a massive fan of VH fronted by Hagar and with bass and backing vocals provided by the faintly ridiculous Michael Anthony (Anthony here is replaced by Edward's son Wolfgang, who is similarly rotund but isn't the possessor of anywhere near as silly a face as Anthony), but when this album clicks you realise there’s absolutely no need for any other line-up of this band to exist anymore. Welcome back, and please hold it together!

Casablanca

The great thing about reviewing records is not, as you might imagine, being party to pre-release snippets of the new Veronicas opus. Rather, it’s waking up one morning to find, nestling in the womblike safety of the family inbox, albums like Apocalyptic Youth.

Casablanca are, of course, Swedish – that’s where all the new music of consequence issues from these days – and they are, in two words, bloody brilliant. Of course new music is something of a misnomer, since the band peddles a delirious mixture of late ‘70s Brit rock raunch (frontman Anders Ljung is a sonic dead ringer for venerable pub rocker Graham Parker) and US FM radio cool, this delicious conflation augmented with just a hint of hair metal pizzazz to round things off. It’s a heady mélange, with every song slinking in and out of your consciousness seemingly in an instant yet still leaving an unforgettable chorus as a calling card. Standout track Rich Girl is pure ‘70s arena rock nirvana; a jangling, almost Killers-like guitar figure ushering in a tough, punchy pop song that wouldn’t have gone amiss on albums from the likes of The Knack or The Motors back in the day – make no mistake, this is the real deal, in all its tattered, knowingly retro glory. If you think of yourself as something of a hipster, stay away from this. If you know what’s what, musically, however, you won’t hear a better record all year.

Cavalera Conspiracy / Lynchmada / Contrive

at The ANU Bar, Friday January 27

Good old Max Cavalera; seemingly alone amongst big time metal musicians, he’ll always stop off in Canberra and deliver a show, and for that the black clad community of the nation’s capital should give eternal thanks. That they don’t turn out to do so in huge numbers undoubtedly says more about them than it does about Max, but we’ll worry about that another time. And we’ll talk about Max a bit more later. But first there are a couple of highly contrasting supports to talk about.

First up are Contrive. Will Andrew Haug’s absence from the national airwaves as host of triple j’s The Racket make the punters love or hate this band any less? It’s a moot point, but at this point I’d guess any sort of reaction would be welcomed by the band as they go through their paces largely ignored by those in the building who’ve bothered to turn up early. Compared to what comes later, the band puts in a lifeless, uninspiring performance; if Haug drummed out of his celebrity skin there might be something to get excited about, but he doesn’t, and bassist Tim Stahlmann is really the only member of the trio who tries to pull a performance out of the bag tonight. The band troop off not having done anything wrong but don’t do enough right to kick up a stink.

You can’t accuse Queenslanders Lynchmada of similar crimes however. The moment they hit the stage the bar empties and the faithful jostle to get front and centre in order to have their facial hair burnt off by a truly incendiary performance. Vocalist Joel Harris leads from the front, exhorting both his band mates and audience members into greater effort, and you have to say it pays off. It’s been a long time since a support band has defied your oft-jaded reviewer to stay away from the bar in such strident fashion, but Lynchmada do just that and ya know what? I ain’t complaining. Tonight they put on a devastatingly compelling performance, giving Canberra a lesson in aural violence it won’t soon forget. They are, in a word, masterful.

Of course that gives CC a mountain to climb to top such a performance, but Max and Iggor are nothing if not troupers, and they give it their best, and most brutal shot. Iggor Cavalera in particular plays a blinder tonight – quite simply the man is the best metal drummer I’ve ever had the pleasure to witness combining brute force with stunning precision to absolutely annihilating effect. The same can be said for guitarist Marc Rizzo, whose uber-fluid lead work cuts through Max’s snub-nosed bludgeon not so much like a knife through butter but as a diamond-tipped drill through the most adamantine rock you can imagine. Iggor apart, the band doesn’t seem to be operating at much above cruising speed, yet somehow they lay waste to everything that’s gone before them. That’s professionalism for you, no more or less, of course, but it still sparks something primal in those present over the course of a set that includes tracks from both the Conspiracy’s albums as well as the expected smattering of Sepultura classics. This isn’t Max and Iggor in top form, but it’s close enough, and we all head into the balmy Canberra night pleased to have caught up with Max again.

Prescient

Ah yes, the old ‘polynomial framework’. Something to do with calculating Stochastic Fluid Dynamics, or something… Or, more interestingly, the name of the new EP from Perth prog metallers Prescient.

And, as dense as probability or statistics are, so, though infinitely more satisfying, is Prescient. This EP is made up of half a dozen complex instrumental pieces that, surprisingly for an old straightahead metal man such as myself, are extremely accessible even to a non instrumentalist.

In fact much of TPF brings to mind the late eighties heyday of ‘shred’ albums by the likes of Tony MacAlpine or Greg Howe (although guitarist Drew Shepherd is never as gratuitous in his application of the widdle as the likes of Vinnie Moore and Paul Gilbert were back in the day), with each track being chock full of jaw dropping musical prowess from all three band members (the trio being rounded out by bassist Rob Hare and drummer Taz Buckle). That said, without the odd vocal hook to snag the ear the attention sometimes wanders, though that’s probably as much my problem as any fault in the material. Opening track Revolutions hits the perfect balance of heaviness, complexity and panache, but every track has something to recommend it and, with the market for this kind of material seemingly growing by the day, there’s definitely a future for Prescient – and a bright one at that. In fact, I’d go so far as to suggest it’s a statistical probability.

Metal Magnate Scott Adams Top Albums 2011

Rating highly in my Top Ten Drinking Buddies of All Time, Scott Adams retired from his BMA Magazine And Another Thing column earlier this year to focus on his role as Editor of sister zine Metal as Fuck. If you want to know the best in metal in 2011, then look no further - Bossman Allan Sko

10. House of Lords - Big Money [Frontiers]

Quite simply the best, most consistent work they've produced since their late eighties/early nineties heyday. Melodic hard rock in excelcis, with an earth shattering vocal performance throughout from James Christian.

9. Symfonia - In Paradisum [Avalon/Marquee]

The best power metal album of the year by a country mile. What a tragedy they've already decided to call it a day.

8. Amebix - Sonic Mass [Easy Action]

From out of nowhere, the venerable crusties came up with a scintillating melange of psychedelic punk madness. Equal parts Sabbath, Killing Joke and Hawkwind, this particular Sonic Mass has had your correspondent down on his knees in supplication since the moment he heard it.

7. Brian Robertson - Diamonds and Dust [SPV/Steamhammer]

A set of classy hard rock and blues from the ex-Thin Lizzy/Motorhead axepert.

6. Diamond Dogs - The Grit and the Very Soul [Legal Records]

Gritty and indeed very soulful, the latest outing from these classically styled Swedes is a pleasure to listen to if you're in the market for some smokey, acoustical rabble rousing.

5. Opeth - Heritage [Roadrunner]

Quite literally gobsmacking. The sound of a band going out on a career threatening limb and loving every minute of it. A devilishly good album.

4. Danmaku - Turn Up the Gas [Thrash Lizard]

A brutal, unforgivingly vulgar display of thrash dynamics. If you're looking to do a bit of decorating these christmas holidays, and need some paint stripping, set up some speakiers near the paintwork in question and simply unleash this bugger into the atmosphere.

3. Hell - Human Remains [Nuclear Blast]

A staggering return from the wilderness for these long-presumed-dead East Midlanders. When Jesus brought Lazarus back from the dead, this is what it would have sounded like. Quintessentially British heavy metal as it always used to be made.

2. The Gloria Story - Shades of White [Sound Pollution]

Take a group of Thin Lizzy-fixated Swedes, equip them with a stellar set of pop rockin' tunes than run from Phil Lynott and co, through Cheap Trick to the Foo Fighters and then release them into the wild. You'll find the results are quite staggering.

1. Machine Head - Unto the Locust [Roadrunner]

Taking the majestic heaviness of The Blackening to the next level, Machine Head wiped the floor with the straight-up heavy metal opposition in 2011 with ...Locust. Quite simply this album has everything the discerning heavy metal fan could ever want, and then some.

BMA Magazine Albums of 2011, Machine Head - Unto the Locust [Roadrunner]

Now 17 years into a career that looked for all money to be on the rocks at the turn of the century, Machine Head could well become the dictionary definition of the term ‘late bloomer’, were it not for the fact that their debut, 1994’s incendiary Burn My Eyes, has subsequently been accepted as one of the biggest and best debut albums in the metallic canon. That they’ve come up with their best ever album after such a long gap is a testament to the sheer bloody mindedness and stickability of MH mainman Rob Flynn and his horny-handed band of compadres. Journeymen metallers they may be, but that didn’t stop them coming up with a nigh-on perfect exposition of what true heavy metal should sound like in 2011.

In simple terms this really is as good as it gets as far as straight up heavy metal is concerned. The guitar playing, from Flynn and long-time cohort Phil Demmel, is nothing short of astounding at times, without the album ever falling into the trap of shred wankery that lurks ever present for any band with two virtuoso axemen on board; whilst drummer Dave McClain drives the whole thing with precision, power and panache. If you’re a metal fan and you don’t yet own …Locust, get down to your nearest record n’ tape emporium on Boxing Day and invest. Happy listening.

Def Leppard / Heart / The Choirboys

AIS Arena
Tuesday October 25

I’m not sure what they teach kids in schools these days – my two certainly won’t tell me – but in my day our English Master, Tony ‘backs to the wall, boys’ Stafford, used to bang on at length about something called “suspension of disbelief”, whereby our enjoyment of certain classic works of literature would be enhanced beyond all imagination if only we’d stop putting our hands up in class and saying “sir, but that wouldn’t happen!”.

He was right, of course – you don’t get to parade about in a cape and mortar board without at least a modicum of knowledge – and so, later on in this review I’ll be investigating and indeed applying this principal to tonight’s headliners. Of which more later.

But there are other things to take our attention first, not least the impressive size of the beer queues on both sides of a steadily filling AIS Arena as local (read: Australian) support The Choirboys go about their business. Despite being a charmless shed, the AIS at least allows you to drink inside the auditorium and thousands of likeminded souls are joining your reviewer and confrere ‘big’ Allan Sko in getting as much amber liquid down our throats as is possible before the real entertainment begins. As Run to Paradise’s final chords decay into the rafters we hastily gather up as much booze as we can carry and head to our seats, eager not to miss a second of Canadian classic rock titans Heart.

We’re glad we made this decision, as for the best part of an hour, Heart, led as ever by sisters Ann (whose voice has somehow maintained its strength and clarity despite the passage of time) and (the very, very lovely) Nancy Wilson, give a poised lesson in high class hard rock. It’s years since they tasted success in the mainstream of course, but they rolled those years back in tremendous style tonight with stellar versions of radio rock hits Alone and Barracuda vying alongside marvellous versions of Crazy on You and, improbably, Farn-sy’s iconic You’re The Voice before quitting the stage to a very generous response. Personally I’d have been happy to have seen the billing reversed tonight and got to hear more from Heart but, as my good friend Mick Jagger once told me, you can’t always get what you want.

And so to Def Leppard and the suspension of disbelief. Nearly 30 years ago Dante Bonutto wrote of Lepps singer Joe Elliott in heavy metal bible Kerrang! Magazine “let’s just say some great non-singers have managed to make it to the top, so why not Joe?”. The Leppard trademark – multi-layered choruses, tracked and multi-tracked to within an inch of their lives in the studio but nigh on impossible to replicate in the live arena – has always conspired to make Elliott sound like a hapless buffoon yet here, tonight, he somehow seems to be in good, not to say powerful voice – how can this be? My disbelief is well and truly strung up. Backed up stage left by guitarist extraordinaire Phil Collen and to the right by bassist Rick Savage and second guitarist Viv Campbell, Joe is in positively sparkling form tonight as he leads us through a set that is just about untouchable if it’s ‘80s pop-metal nostalgia you’re after. Foolin’, Armageddon It, Animal, Let’s Get Rocked – all are here present and correct plus a dozen more slabs of the good stuff. Unbelievably good stuff in fact, delivered with verve and style by a group that continues to set the pace in live production despite entering their fifth decade in the business. Believe it.

Amebix

Amebix are a name that you’ll have come up against more than once if you’re a long-in-the-tooth fan of heavy music. Their squalid, uncomfortable mix of anarcho-crust lyrical drive and sludgy death metal sonic dynamics has proven a fertile template for more than one bunch of noisy upstarts since the band’s Devon-based inception in the late ‘70s.

In its 2011 incarnation, Amebix is an altogether more sophisticated beast, plying a riff-heavy trade that, especially on the likes of the strident God of the Grain, comes on like a reggae/electronica-free version of the mighty Killing Joke. There’s literally no fat on this release at all, as each one of the ten tracks gets straight to the point, the result being an album that delivers a constant stream of high quality, intelligently bombastic doom, interspersed with the likes of the quasi-title track, Sonic Mass Part 1 where the band ventures into the kind of neo-folk territory that’s usually the domain of acts such as Sol Invictus. Follow up track Sonic Mass Part 2 adds a bit of Motorhead and Hwkwind to the mix, but this album is more – so much more – than a mere game of spot the influence. Much like Killing Joke’s last album, it’s a record that synthesises bang your head gonzoid mayhem and intelligent lyrical observation to such an effective extent that you’ll find yourself returning to it again and again. Fantastic stuff.

Airrace

Where does it end? 2011 will surely go down as the year when everyone who was anyone in the ‘80s – as well as a few who were complete nobodies – released a comeback album.

Take Airrace, for example; not quite nobodies, they still only managed an amble around the foothills of notoriety in the early ‘80s – and much of that was because they featured Jason Bonham (son of Led Zep’s John) on drums. A perennial support act, they failed to make a dent on the collective consciousness and fizzled out like the proverbial damp squib.

Vocalist Keith Murrell’s day job was for many years the important role of Cliff Richard’s backing vocalist, but that sort of heady rock ‘n’ roll activity only sustains a man for so long, so maybe it should come as no surprise that Airrace reformed in 2009 for another shot at the title. The result, Back to the Start, is a pleasant enough attempt to recreate the mid ‘80s heyday of AOR via a selection of songs that sound like they were plucked from American FM Radio in around 1985. Survivor, Journey, Toto, Foreigner – they’re all here in one guise or another (as well as a plethora of less celebrated names that only AOR anoraks such as myself remember). If there’s a scintilla of originality here it escaped my attention, but that’s not necessarily the point of nostalgia, is it? Pleasant enough, but ultimately disposable.

And Another Thing

Amazing really, isn’t it? Many people thought Jim Morrison a charlatan, a leather-trousered fake good only for sixth form poetry and waving his wang in the face of bemused members of the gendarmerie.

That may well be the case, I wouldn’t possibly have the cheek to claim to know for sure, but one thing’s for certain. Ol’ Crystal Ship was a seer, and the proof is there, italicised for all to see; This is the end.

That said, it’s hard to grasp just how, as Morrison staggered about in a patchouli and fajita-fuelled state of higher consciousness 40-odd years ago, he managed to predict the cessation of this column in one of his most famous works. He certainly got in ahead of Nostradamus, in whose output I can find no mention of my own; and he’s got one up on Old Mother Shipton too – when And Another Thing operatives used the long distance telephone to communicate back to the mother country to see if the old witch had accurately foreseen my writerly demise in some 16^th century tea leaves, the voice at the other end claimed never to have heard of us, much less to have read about us in the venerable crone’s babblings.

They then hung up.

Oh well. It’s been a wild ride of ‘vintage ranting’ and poorly constructed sentences, but it had to end sometime – and sometime is sadly now. This column – or Colin, as he’s come to be affectionately referred to by people around these parts, is ending shortly after you’ve finished reading it. It will cease to be, it will shuffle off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and join the choir invisible. Sela, as the good Doctor HS Thompson might have had it, but there it is.

But don’t cry, it’s all I’m sure for the best. I’ll be replaced by someone who knows what dubstep is. This knowledge will surely make them more attuned to your needs as a reader, whilst into the bargain saving you from having to read about spilling kebab juice on priceless works of art or, in an untold story that will now remain largely untold, how Peter Harrod managed to contract conjunctivitis from the roof lining of a Mini Cooper, but there you go – you take the good with the bad in my experience. It all comes out in the wash.

Actually I don’t think that last bit worked. I think I meant to say it all evens out over time but, as my trembling hands tap out these closing platitudes, does it really matter? Suffice to say I have had a splendid few years boring Canberra rigid with my music industry reminiscences – and let’s face it, who else would print this rubbish but Canberra’s liveliest read? – and where else would you have been able to sit on a bus full of dole bludging bogans whilst my florid prose took you to a place where men stood proudly, trousers around ankles whilst stood atop festival merchandise tents?

Without BMA none of this would be possible, so it’s hats off to the Bossman Sko and his ever-wonderful Edgirl Julia Winterflood for indulging me. I’ll still be giving you my views on albums occasionally, but for the most part I’m off now to continue editing BMA’s sister website www.metalasfuck.net where I promise to dole out more of what made this column great, and if you need me in more concentrated form you can follow me @30yrnr on Twitter.

Ladies and gentlemen – (takes onion from pocket, tears appear) thank you, and goodnight.

Discharge

It’s difficult to summarise in the space of a small album review – especially whilst having to talk about said album too – just how important Discharge is as a band. They invented a genre for a start – d-Beat – but besides that there were few bands plying their trade in the world of extreme music from the mid ‘80s onwards who didn’t owe some sort of sonic debt to this Stoke-on-Trent, UK-based outfit.

Disensitise, originally released in 2006 and now reactivated for your listening pleasure by Candlelight Records, sees the band at their primitive, primal best. Fed up with flirting with heavy metal, Disensitise sees the band returning to its roots for a set that more than makes up in fury what it loses in finesse. As ever guitarist Bones is central to what goes on here, his filthy riffage propelling every song with a sort of simplistic fury you just don’t hear that often any more. He’s no slouch as a soloist (go and listen to his work with crossover icons Broken Bones for proof if you don’t believe me), but for Disensitise he’s stripped his technique back to a thrashing strum that is, for want of a better phrase, punk as fuck.

Original vocalist Cal is sadly long gone, however his broken howl of a voice is replaced (and never aped) by vocalist Rat (who also fulfils the same role with fellow UK punk travellers The Varukers), with the result being an exceptionally fine slab of brutal, simplistic punk rock.

The Gloria Story

Christ on a bike. It's rarely, if ever, these days that a completely new (to me) band manages to take such a complete and utterly ravishing grip on the ol' lugs, but here I am, looking like the bleedin' FA Cup in the grasp of this most utterly astonishing album. In just over one half of your earth hours The Gloria Story, from Sweden, completely and utterly wipe the floor with the power-poppin' opposition, in the process writing those same hapless fools a new set of rules for future reference.

Shades of White is a jaw-droppingly irresistible conflation of what made the late ‘70s such an enticing period for fans of the good stuff. Fusing the guitar dynamism of Jailbreak/Chinatown/Renegade-era Lizzy to the lazy class of the primetime Steve Miller Band would be a good enough starting point; but then, just to make sure, these boys slather on a bucketload of sure fire winner 'modern rock' attitude over the top of the cake to ensure that no-one – make that NO-ONE – misses out on what's going on here.

The likes of Valentino and I Don't Wanna Be Your Bet could easily have come from the mighty pen of Lynott, whilst if I Can Make You Run, with its woozily familiar Foos feel isn't a worldwide radio hit before the year is out then I'm not a slightly overweight man with hyperbole issues. Get out and buy this bugger now!

And another thing...

“I’m sorry sir, but airline policy is that flights before midday carry no alcohol apart from limited stocks to be sold from the duty free air kiosk. I can get you a soft drink, tea, coffee?”

The female flight attendant is doing her best to ignore the miasma of anger and vodka fumes that Bobby is radiating after being told we’re on a dry plane. I take charge and order two black, heavily sugared coffees to go with the rather nice bacon and egg muffins we’ve been given. Bobby, still shaking his head and muttering, pushes his food onto my table, swearing under his breath.

“Not hungry yet? I’ll save it for you and you can have it later. Maybe you should have a little nap. It’s still early after all.”

Remember what I said about looking after kids? I’m just thinking about asking the stewardess for one of those colouring in kits they have for the sprogs when she hands me the two piping hot coffees. Not wanting to cause any more alarm, I smile and take them both, but my tray is now full of two sets of breakfast. Bobby is snoring – loudly – so I figure it’s safe to put his tray back down and leave the coffee on it, just while I finish my own breakfast. Looking back now I guess I should have taken the fact that he was muttering in his sleep as a warning, but I really was hungry and those muffin things were lovely. No one could have been prepared for the stentorian bellow of “FUCKING HELL! THE FILTH!” followed by a frantic thrashing of limbs that saw the coffee shoot up to the air conditioning panel before coming back quickly to the fold-out tray sans contents.

Bobby is now wide awake, staring wildly about himself and clutching his groin, which is now covered in boiling coffee. He looks like he’s ‘had an accident’ as they used to say at infant school, and he’s furious. Child that I am, I start giggling, causing a clearly still-confused Bobby to start flailing at me with his arms. He’s not a particularly muscled man, however, and to be honest more damage is being done by the constant stream of obscenity flowing from his mouth than by his old man’s arms weakly battering my chest. We both calm down when what looks like the entire flight crew – including Captain Lerby, I note, come and stare at us with stern looks on their faces.

“What is happening here?” he demands in clipped tones that make him sound like the Gestapo officer on ‘Allo ‘Allo.

“I’m sorry, Mr Shrubbs has had an accident. He was asleep and I’m afraid I spilt the hot coffee on him. He woke up in a bit of a state. I don’t think he’s badly hurt.”

I invite the attention of all present on to Bobby, hoping some sympathy might mollify him. He’s fuming, covering up the wet patch on his trousers in embarrassment as if he really has ‘had an accident’. When everybody goes back to their business he refuses to look at or talk to me, biding his time. Finally, as we start circling Copenhagen to make our descent, he leans over, half smirking, and hisses,

“You’re fuckin’ fired.”

And another thing...

Travel document trauma over, we return home to pack. It’s almost midnight when we get back to the house, and we’ll need to be up again in five hours to get to the airport in time for the flight to Denmark. I make Bobby sit up while I pack an overnight bag for him, allowing him to make the decisions on wardrobe even though it’s all really been decided by Rhona long in advance. At about one o’clock, he finally flakes out, but I decide after today’s fiasco I can’t afford a missed alarm so I steam into the black coffee and sit down to wade through some old Godhammer footage from the ‘70s. Bobby is meant to be watching this with a view to the band putting together a 40th anniversary DVD package, but the reality is he doesn’t have the patience to sit down and watch the hundreds of hours of tape.

At five o’clock I haul myself off the sofa and set about making the man presentable. At half-past six we present ourselves at check in. Even with Micky three quarters sober, this is a nervy experience; he struggles with almost all human contact that doesn’t take place in a bar, and his efforts at charming the female flight attendant fall on deaf ears. I take him by the elbow and get him away.

After that it’s time to take our shoes off and go through security. In the old days the really good tour managers were able to get their bands through this horrific experience with a minimum of fuss – a signed photo here, free tickets there, meant that any band members accidentally ‘holding’ were met with a blind eye and waved through with a cheery smile and a thumbs up. Nowadays if the sniffer dogs take against you you’re buggered, and Bobby… let’s just say Bobby seems to have a look about him that dogs and security goons alike just don’t fancy.

But he’s not holding today, and at twenty past seven we find ourselves in the VIP lounge with three quarters of an hour to kill and full access to the breakfast buffet. I’m liking the look of the scrambled eggs and bacon, but whilst I’m liking the look of them you know who has availed himself of the airside bar facilities. Looking like a cat that’s just presented his master with a dead mouse, he hands me what looks like a large bloody mary and toasts me.

“No need for food, we’ll get some nosebag on the plane. Come on, ‘ave a little drinky!”

Obviously I shouldn’t, but I won’t be driving when we get to Denmark so what harm can it do?

40 minutes later we’ve had four large ones each, much to the disgust of some of our fellow travelers. I don’t know if it’s paranoia, but I’m sure all of the ground-staff are scrutinising us as we move onto the air bridge. Has someone in the VIP lounge tipped them off? Are we marked men? Of course whilst I’m soaking my clothes in cold sweat, Micky decides to tell me, in a voice that can only be described as ‘loud’ about the time he was banned from all domestic flights in the US…

And another thing...

“He’s done fucking what?”

“He’s thinking he lost it in the pub last week. Hasn’t seen it since.”

I take a deep breath and go through the whole bank account story, interrupted with weakening frequency by expletives bellowed into the earpiece from a by now apoplectic Rhona.

“What the fucking hell do I pay you for, Micky?”

I’m too polite to point out that I haven’t been formally paid, as in monetary reimbursement for services rendered being forwarded to my bank account, for nearly three months now. That would be too much to point out at this point, I decide.

“Are you sober?”

“Of course.”

“Is he?”

“Well, he’s upright. It’s still early. Get him in the car and get up to town. Get him to Declan Beamish’s office. I’ll meet you there.”

Declan Beamish is Rhona’s accountant come fixer. Obviously he’s not so good at his job that he was able to stop me from stealing away with the funds from the sale of the Edgeware Road love nest, but he’s a bit of a hard nut in the old school tradition. He wouldn’t hurt a fly himself, you understand, but he knows literally hundreds of blokes that would – and he’s got something on all of them.

I get off the phone, removed the bottle of Jack from Micky’s trembling hands and usher him out into the deepening gloom.

“We’re off for a little drive Bobby. We’ve got to go and see Rhona.”

I don’t tell him that Beamish is involved. I don’t know the full story but something happened between these two in ‘the good old days’ that has left an indelible stain on Bobby. He becomes agitated at the very mention of the man. God alone knows how I’ll get him into Declan’s office.

80 minutes later we are in London. Micky, who for the whole journey has been taking surreptitious swigs from a hip flask, is a little unsteady on arrival, and the mixture of his refreshed state and the dark means that he has no idea where we are when I usher him into the accountant’s plush Chelsea offices.

This all changes when we get into the inner sanctum.

“What the fuck’s he doing here?” he yelps as he realises where he is, before making a bee line for a Godhammer gold disc that’s hanging on Beamish’s wall. He fails to see a coffee table between him and the wall however, and crashes to the floor, clutching his shin and slurring a succession of swear words that would make a sailor blush.

“Good to see you, Bobby. I hear you’ve had a spot of bother?”

There’s no answer, and Rhona seems to take malicious glee in making me go through the whole thing again to Beamish, highlighting my role in the whole sorry mess.

Declan looks at me, but addresses Bobby, who is now lying prostrate on a fur rug beneath his Gold Disc.

“Do you remember, Bobby, around the time of Godhammer 3? Before we went to America we played a couple of shows for an Israeli shipping magnate in Tel Aviv. After the US tour Wayne had arranged a show in Dubai for you, but I knew you’d all have trouble getting in to the Emirates with an Israeli stamp in your passports, so I took the liberty of having a duplicate made for you, which I’ve kept up to date ever since. You can take that to Denmark.”

He hands the document – forged, obviously – to me with a wolfish grin.

“Would you like a wee drink, Micky?”

Micky wakes up.

Next time – against all the odds, we get to the airport.

And another thing...

“Nice little kip, boss?” I enquire as he grins sheepishly in greeting.

“Not too bad Micky, no. What’s the time?”

“Quarter to five. Hungry?”

“No, not really. I’m a bit thirsty to tell you the truth.”

This last part is said as a request as much as an answer. I hold the keys to the drinks cabinet, and it’s customary after an afternoon on the beer for Bobby to finish the job off with spirits, as he’s very cognizant of the fact that he “needs to look after the old figure, heheh”. I nod my ascent and lead the way indoors, watching him to make sure he shuts the door of the Range Rover properly. Once we are in the bar, I ask the question.

“Any idea where your passport is Bobby?”

He’s smiling at me nervously, as if he hasn’t quite understood what I’ve said but not quite able to bring himself to ignore the question. I ask it again, staying just the right side of the master/servant divide but with enough menace in my voice to let him know that I’m not fucking about. He continues to smile weakly, but screws up his face and shakes his head almost imperceptibly.

“It’s just that we’re off to Denmark tomorrow morning, remember?”

He’s nodding now, but the face is still looking pained

“And you really, really need your passport to get on the plane. It’s not in your room or in the safe. Any ideas?”

Bobby is shifting his weight from foot to foot, looking at the floor. From beneath the fringe, also pointing floorwards, I’m sure I hear him say “I’ve lost it.”

“Pardon?”

“It’s not my fault Micky. When we went to town last week and when you went to do some grocery shopping, I went to the bank. I wanted to try to open an account, you know, just for bits…” he stops talking, eyes moving away from mine and into the middle distance as he remembers this brush with the real world.

“Just a little bit of pocket money. It’s not been the same since Rhona took over. I’m always skint. Anyway, there was too much paperwork to do. I couldn’t hack it so I went and had a pint. I got talking to this bird in the Feathers, and time just flew. I realized I had to meet you, so I legged it out but I left the sheepskin in the pub. I went back and got it. When we got home the passport was gone.”

“She nicked it?”

“Why would she? I don’t think she knew who I was. Nothing else was missing from my coat.”

“Did you ring the pub?”

Silence. I’ll take that as a no. Bobby is now sitting, ashen faced at the bar fiddling with the ice cubes in his already-drained glass of Bourbon. There’s nothing for it. Despite the fact the next call I make could put me out of a job, I bite the bullet and get on the phone to the big boss woman.

“Hello Rhona?”

“Micky? What’s wrong?”

Till now it’s been a good little arrangement. Sometimes we go for a month without speaking to Rhona. She knows the score…

“Oh, nothing much, Bobby’s fine…”

Next time: A dual identity…

Warrant - Rockaholic - [Frontiers/Riot]

Warrant: archetypal one hit hair metal wonders or serious hard rockin’ legacy pedlars? Their new album, Rockaholic does absolutely nothing to decide this most important of questions, but if you’re a fan of brainless, big-chorused gonzo hysteria then you’ll do worse than waste an hour listening to this whilst pretending to get to the bottom of the conundrum. The worst thing that Rockaholic has going for it is that vocalist and main songwriter Jani Lane flew the coop years ago, so there’s absolutely nothing here in the league of a Big Talk, an Uncle Tom’s Cabin or, of course, the ubiquitous Cherry Pie. What there is, is some general issue stackheeled strut that at times sounds like none other than Canberra’s very own Tonk, thanks to a fleeting vocal resemblance between new Warrant throatsmith Robert Mason and the man Jinx. The rockers are of course mixed in with some big production number ballads, the best of which, Home, is almost up there with the bands best efforts in the field.

There’s too much filler mid album – bands still feel the need to fill a CD even if they ain’t gotst the material to do the job – and after the excellent latter-day Jovi pop rock of What Love Can Do the album drifts until a couple of corkers at the end let the it go out on a high and leave you feeling good about the whole thing. Not perfect, but pretty good nonetheless.

And another thing...

We return from the pub after a brief three hour session during which time Bobby has consumed six pints of real ale, a pint of stout and a couple of bourbons. By the time we get back to the house he has slumped, face down, on the back seat of the Range Rover and is snoring loudly. Usually I park up in the garage, but that confuses Bobby when he wakes up so today I crunch the four wheel drive up the gravel drive and park right at the front door, which I leave open so that his highness can get into the house when he wakes up in a panic needing the toilet.

To be honest I’m happy for a bit of peace and quiet. I’ve never had kids - I haven’t even had a girlfriend for about eight years so I guess the chance would be a fine thing- but I imagine that if I did it would be much like looking after Bobby Shrubbs, minus the eye-watering alcohol fumes. As you’ll remember, we’re off to Denmark tomorrow for a ‘where are they now’ style TV Show, where Bobby will perform a couple of Godhammer’s hits with the show’s house band. I’ll use the time I get now while he’s asleep to get out his favourite Les Paul, give it a polish and a new set of strings, and sort out some stage clothes for him (even though Bobby vaguely acknowledges the power of television in forming people’s opinions, if left to his own devices he’s still likely to turn up for any event in his favourite granddad shirt, dungarees, clogs and sheepskin coat, whatever the weather).

At first everything goes to plan. The Les Paul – a 59 Gold Top – is a beautiful, beautiful thing, Bobby’s pride and joy and treated accordingly. Tomorrow’s show is a ‘live’ one – there’ll be no miming, and the boss will be plugged in, so the strings are changed and tuned (I don’t play much myself, but know enough to get the bugger in tune when I do this sort of low-level tech work) and the touring flightcase is got out of the shed for the occasion. Clothes are selected; Rhona takes care of that side of things generally (though obviously not the shoes, which I’m still hoping will make it back to Carlton and his Wii in one piece), and a set of clothes that say ‘man in his late middle age who still knows where it’s at’ are selected and placed in a capacious suitcase which also has a padded section for the safe international transport of duty free booze. At least that’s what goes in there these days. A man-bag is also packed, containing all of Bobby’s many medicaments and an extra supply of sleeping tablets, a hangover from the days when Bobby’s inability to ‘keep normal hours’ meant that a little mickey finn slipped into his drink was the only way to get the man to sleep at all in order to avoid the wild-eyed, bedraggled Bobby that had a habit of scaring housewives in Middle America all through the seventies and eighties when he appeared on their daytime television screens hawking his latest hit album.

It’s then that I realize I haven’t got Bobby’s passport in hand. It’s not in his bedside table, and it’s not in the safe, which are the only two places I’ve ever seen him put it. I go downstairs and head back outside, where the beast is sitting upright but looking slightly dazed. I’m dreading the answer, but I ask the question…

Brian Robertson - Diamonds and Dust - [SPV/Riot]

Former Thin Lizzy and Motorhead guitarist Brian Robertson is one of the legends of hard rock and heavy metal. Part of Lizzy during the halcyon Jailbreak days, his guitar partnership with Scott Gorham is still revered wherever men gather to talk about six strings and the truth. His tenure in Motorhead was less successful, and, in 1984, Robertson more or less disappeared from the radar as far as most people were concerned.

Like all seventies rockers of a certain level of success, Robertson employs a general factotum; Robertson’s goes by the name of Soren Lindberg and, on a trip from London to Stockholm made to ferry some of the great man’s equipment for an upcoming show, Lindberg was listening through a carrier bag full of cassette tapes given to him by Robertson that the famed guitarist had found lying around in his London residence. He didn’t know if anything on them was any good, and told Lindberg to bin them at journey’s end if there was nothing of worth to be found. This album is that journey’s result, and you have to thank the maker that Lindberg had the presence of mind to actually listen to the tapes, for what has come to light is a magnificent collection of eighties-styled hard rock and blues that is an absolute joy to listen to, and pure testament to the man’s supreme talent. If you love Thin Lizzy, you’ll love this record.

And another thing...

I’m driving him to the pub because we’ve got nothing better to do today. Despite the fact that he has a full-sized reconstruction of a ‘traditional English Pub’ built at the house, Bobby still likes to venture out to the local every now and then. Luckily for all concerned, the local is a three mile up-hill-down-dale-as-the-crow-staggers which prevents Bobby from attending unless I’m driving, which saves everyone a lot of bother in the long run, especially Bobby’s bank manager. He doesn’t like to drink alone you see, and before I became his minder, Wayne would often be called by a distressed seventies rock god marooned somewhere having spent all his money on beers for a new set of friends and thus unable to afford a cab to wherever it was he was meant to be going.

Bobby is generous to a fault when it comes to drink. In all other areas of life his parsimony is legendary, but if a man needs a drink Bobby’s your man. Quite soon after I arrived he gave me the slip in Great Manton when we were out shopping for essentials. I found him outside the local Off Licence with two suspicious looking teenaged boys, who were looking incredulously at the crate of export strength lager sitting on the pavement in front of them. Bobby had happened upon the two urchins desperately trying to scrabble together enough cash for a couple of cans of cheap cider, and sensed their distress. He asked them what their favourite tipple was, then marched into the shop and bought them 24 cans of the stuff – around fifty quids worth of booze. “They looked thirsty,” was his sheepish answer when I asked him what the hell he’d done that for.

And so we settle in to the pub for a lunchtime session. Most of Godhammer’s best work was hatched after mid day trips to the boozer, their creativity piqued by the diet of beer, vodka and, remarkably, cheese and pickle sandwiches. So much cheese and pickle was consumed during the recording of Loki’s Demise, their final album in the ‘big time’, that drummer Ross ‘red thunder’ Couling (so called because of his ginger hair, hair he said to anyone who would listen was actually ‘strawberry blonde’) had no recollection of recording the album at all and was convinced he was learning someone else’s drum parts when the band rehearsed for their final tour of US enormodomes. So not only is this a chance to top up on last night’s alcohol levels, it’s also a pleasant, rose-tinted trip down memory lane for Bobby. Occasionally the beer leads to a traffic jam on said cranial thoroughfare, but today seems to be a good one. Greeted by the locals as something of a returning hero, we take our place at the bar (Bobby seated on a stool, me stood just behind him, close enough for Bobby to sense that I’m still there), and the boss gets the beers in. For everyone. Or rather he orders the beers for everyone. We then go through (what I’m sure to everyone present apart from me is an endearingly amusing routine) a ritual of Bobby checking, with growing panic, each of his pockets in turn looking for cash to pay for the round. He then turns apologetically to me, face a picture of innocence.

“Micky, I seem to have left me wallet on the mantelpiece. Can you do the honours?”

It’s his money I’m spending of course, but that doesn’t seem to be the point with Bobby. Like all good rock stars, the artifice is all...

Next time: Passport problems.

And another thing...

Even though I’d only worked there a year, I’d gleaned enough with my own eyes, and by chatting to my predecessor in the job, Hamish, to know that there was an awful lot of Wayne’s life that Rhona had absolutely no idea about at all. As she thundered up the stairs, kids in tow, telling all in the building what she was going to do with Wayne when she got hold of him, I secreted the grease-smeared envelope behind the curtain and tried to look relaxed. The stairs had taken a bit of the wind out of Rhona’s sails, and she staggered through the door, holding Oliver, her youngest, under one arm and dragging Nirvana, the oldest but still only three, in her wake.

“Where the fucking hell is he, Micky?”

I pointed at the phone on the desk and lied.

“He can’t have gone far, he’s left his phone here.”

She picked up the mobile and her eyes devoured the list of recently dialed numbers. I knew she’d get nothing from it that was any use, and decided to make a few soothing noises. Or at least noises to take her mind off things. I ran through a list of jobs that needed doing that I wouldn’t have the authority to do.

“They can fucking wait. I don’t care if Facemeat’s shirts are still at the printers. I don’t care about the Heart Police and their stupid charity show and its lack of a PA which is still in Wayne’s lockup, I-“

And then she broke down and started sobbing. Which made Oliver cry. Nirvana, who for some reason had always liked me, came and sat on my lap and buried her face in my chest. Fucking hell.

After about five minutes of this Rhona seemed to have got it out of her system, and calmed down sufficiently to take charge of the situation. She’d deal with Wayne later. My part of the deal was to make sure Bobby was OK.

I agreed to drive out to his house the next day to make sure he was ok and had everything he needed; Hopefully by then Wayne would have realized what a fool he’d been and come to his senses. Or so Rhona thought. Knowing better, it was with a fair amount of trepidation that I drove out to Bobby’s country retreat that morning. I’d had no further word from Wayne, and I was hoping that he wouldn’t have contacted Bobby because Bobby would have panicked and rung Rhona, and then Christ knows what would have happened…

That was eighteen months ago. And Wayne still hasn’t come back. Actually I don’t know if that’s true or not. Like Lord Lucan, his disappearance has sparked a cottage industry of sightings and theories stemming from those sightings. The most popular has been that he’s re-entered the country and is working as a painter and decorator in Elephant & Castle. I have no idea. After I’d sold his flat for him the slightly surreal phone calls stopped the moment I’d wired him the proceeds. And now I’m here, driving Bobby Shrubbs, lead singer and songwriting prime mover of seventies heavy rock legends Godhammer, to the pub for his regular lunchtime session at his local, The Bishop of Clairvaux.

Of course when we “go for a pint” I don’t actually get to have a pint, because I’m driving. Last year, on my birthday, Bobby offered to drive so I could have a drink, but I spent the rest of the afternoon digging the Range Rover out of a ditch after he panicked when he saw two men shooting clay pigeons and assumed they were coming for him, and he hasn’t offered since. I can always have a can of beer back at the house later, right?

Next time – Danish TV and some home improvements…

And another thing...

Here we go again indeed. Despite his increasingly addled mien and always confused look, Bobby Shrubbs is still the boss. Many people who know or come into contact with us believe that I am actually his manager (I’m not. That particular honour goes to a man, Wayne Smith, who is almost more childlike in character than our hero – and he doesn’t have 30 years of not being able to say ‘no’ as his excuse. Or at least ‘no’ to some things, anyway), and am in a position to tell him what to do, but that’s not the case. I’m just the hired hand, and, although I’m the hired hand who seems to actually also be a wetnurse, butler, chauffeur, sometimes confidante and bodyguard all rolled into one, that is still all I am.

I often wonder how I got the job. Actually, I know how I got the job. What I wonder about is why I said yes. I was working in Wayne Smith’s office, in charge of this and that, and one day, in one of those alignment of planets moments, everything seemed to go tits up at once. Wayne, an excitable man of about 40 who couldn’t keep it in his trousers, had started having it away with a 19 year old Croatian girl he’d met at the merchandise stall during a gig by one of the bands he managed. There was not a lot new here – I’d only worked for him for about a year and I knew of at least three separate occasions when this happened. But this girl, Ana, had had a curious effect on him. She needed a visa to stay in the country and Wayne had offered Pikey Dan (the young work experience boy who came for a week and stayed, despite never being paid a cent for his efforts) a four figure sum to engage in a sham marriage to keep her in England. Amazingly, the Pike turned him down and so, on the day in question, I get a phone call from a more frantic than usual Wayne who, it appears, is at Heathrow with Ana. He’d left the wife.

“ I’ve left the wife, Micky, I’m going to Croatia to meet Ana’s parents and tell them everything’s going to be okay. I need you to take charge of things for me while I’m away. There’s an envelope in my desk for you. I’m counting on you ma-”

Silence. When I got into Wayne’s office I noted he’d left in such a hurry he’d left his mobile there, on the desk. So he must have been calling me on a payphone, hence the abrupt end to our little chat. I looked in the top drawer of the desk and found an A4 envelope smeared with what I hoped was peanut butter marked ‘MICKY’. I looked inside and found a set of keys and a crumpled bit of paper covered in Wayne’s puerile scrawl. The keys were for a flat on the Edgeware Road that Wayne and Ana had been using as a secret love-nest. The instructions told me to ‘flog the place and send me the cash to Zagreb. And don’t tell Rhona. And look after Bobby.’

I placed the keys in my pocket with the bit of paper just as Rhona, Wayne’s long suffering wife crashed through the front door of the office, shouting at the top of her not inconsiderable voice.

“ He’s done it this time Micky, he’s really done it this time. That stupid prick has run off with another of his dirty little slags. Did you know about this?”

More from Mick and Bobby next time...

Whitesnake - Forevermore - [Frontiers]

Whitesnake. For a decade between the late ‘70s and the end of the ‘80s that ludicrous moniker was a byword for by turns bluesy hard rock of the highest order and then swaggering, sleek and sexy hair metal that sold by the bucketload and, in the shape of one album – 1987’s 1987 – came to represent that much lampooned genre in all its blow-dried, power balladed finery.
After 1989’s Slip of the Tongue ‘Snake main man David Coverdale lost his way a little – an ultimately ill-fated collaboration with Jimmy Page and a not entirely convincing solo album being the sum total of his output through the ‘90s – before, as so many of his peers before and since have decided to do, the man decided to have a go at recalling former glories with his old meal ticket. 2008 saw the release of Good to be Bad , an appealing attempt at mixing the two eras of Whitesnake, which was received with good grace by both fans and critics alike; its success left the door open for Coverdale to extend Whitesnake’s run a little longer, which brings us to 2011 and Forevermore .
Put simply, Forevermore finishes with complete success the work started by its predecessor. A scintillating melange of everything that made (and make) Whitesnake the finest band of its type, Forevermore is the quintessential WS album. Equal parts bluesy bluster and screaming heavy metal thunder, there isn’t a second on this release that doesn’t leave the listener baying for more. This is the perfect hard rock album, and I bloody love it.

And another thing...

When I return to the house, something isn’t right. In the driveway, hard against the entrance hall, are two vans belonging to the window cleaning firm we employ to at least attempt to keep all the windows in the place clean and sparkly. The front door is open wide, but there’s no one around and all the ladders and other window cleaning stuff are still lashed to the van roofs or stowed safely inside. Something is clearly amiss.

Bobby isn’t a bad man – despite the rumours he’s never been a practising Satanist, although he’s admitted to me on a couple of occasions that he quite fancies a go at Freemasonry – but he has a highly polished sense of mischief and, because he gets bored, he’s always happy when new playmates arrive. Following the sound of voices, I arrive in the games room to find Bobby – still clad only in his dressing gown, despite it being nearly midday – holding court with the six window cleaners, most of whom are joining our hero in a pre-prandial snifter. I glance questioningly at Bobby. I, you’ll remember, am in possession of the keys to the drinks cabinet.

“ I couldn’t get hold of you. It’s past opening time, so the lads offered to go and get a couple of wets in to start the day!” beams my boss. There are three cases of export strength lager on the floor under the pool table. Bobby’s train set is running and, worryingly, in his drink free hand he is brandishing an air rifle I thought I’d hidden from him. To the huge amusement of the assembled tradesmen, he is by turn slurping at a lager, regaling the lads with bawdy tales and letting off rounds at the train as it makes it’s increasingly precarious way around the track.

I waved the shoe box at him and jerked my head upstairs.

“ I got some shoes for you for Denmark. Do you want to try them on?”

“ Sure!” he says, inviting me to throw him the box. He obviously missed my subtle inference.

“ I’m sure the boys need to get on with their work before it rains. Besides, you’ve got stuff to do.”

Everyone is annoyed with me now for breaking up the fun, but honestly, the prospect of Bobby wandering around in his pants with a gun whilst several half cut men shin up and down ladders is too much of a risk. When we get upstairs I promise Bobby he can invite ‘the lads’ for a go on the quad bikes around the grounds when they finish what he’s paying them to do, which seems to satisfy him for the time being. The shoes fit, and thus, at five past 12 in the afternoon both of us are at a loose end. There’s an awful lot of this in Bobby’s life these days. Godhammer are still a big draw on the nostalgia circuit and most summer weekends the band can be found at one of the big Euro rock festivals on one of the side stages trotting out their greatest hits to an audience whose bellies are expanding in inverse proportion to their hairlines. But these people aren’t interested in hearing any new music from Bobby, and so neither are the record companies. There are no albums to write, or recording sessions to attend, or video shoots to endure, which makes for an awful lot of Bobby Shrubbs down time. Occasionally he’ll pick up his favourite Les Paul and you’ll see his eyes light up, but it’s all too hard.

“ Fancy a pint?”

Here we go again…

Benedictum - Dominion - [Riot]

Female fronted metal bands are surely the phenomenon in ‘our kind of music’ of the last decade; so much so entire record labels have been formed purely to release ‘product’ of this nature, so what, if anything, separates Benedictum from this sea of general pulchritude?

Not much, as it goes. Benedictum are a bunch of US veterans (you know what I mean by that, right?) dedicated to upholding the values of traditional metal, whilst still acknowledging that it’s 2011. To this end, what you, the end user, receives is a sleek, well oiled production (supplied by former Dokken bassman Jeff Pilson) that pushes the guitars of Pete Wells to the max whilst still adding enough bleeps and processed beats to keep the interest of the young people piqued throughout the album. Pride of place, of course, goes to vocalist Veronica Freeman, and it’s her sandpapery growl that keeps things interesting through even the most workaday material (of which there is a fair amount it has to be said). They save the best ‘til last – Epsilon is an excellent slab of icily efficient space metal that really rewards anyone who’s managed to get through the rest of the sturm und drang, whilst lucky owners of copies of Dominion with the bonus track Sanctuary on it will be counting themselves truly fortunate, because that song, which somehow brings to mind Uriah Heep at their very best, may well be yet the best thing this band ever record. Seek it out.

And Another Thing

Before I have time to say something along the lines of “it’s not my fault” she’s off again. “I know it’s not your fault, Mickey love. But you’ll have to explain to Mr Shrubbs that we don’t carry those sort of lines here. Has he thought of maybe looking for something on the internet?”

“I’m afraid Bobby doesn’t do very well with modern things.”

“No, no. I’m sure.”

She looks pensively at me, distributes the foam cups of coffee and shoos (no pun intended) her assistants, both of whom are still trying not to laugh, out into the back room. “I’ve just had a thought. You know my Eugene? He went up to London last weekend and bought a pair of shoes just like the ones you’re after. I’m sure he’d be honoured to let Mr Shrubbs borrow them if they were going to be worn on television.” Before I can say that “Mr Shrubbs” wouldn’t want to put anyone to that sort of trouble, or indeed explain that “Mr Shrubbs” has trouble looking after his own underpants, let alone somebody’s new pride and joy in the footwear department, Nikki has put Gog and Magog in charge of the shop and is ushering me into her car, prior to heading home to speak to her Eugene.

“Don’t worry about the petrol. I’ll put it on expenses. Head office love it when we go the extra mile – quite literally in this case – for our customers!” She gives an excited little giggle, releases the handbrake and we’re off. And we certainly are going the extra mile. Nikki, it appears, lives about 20 miles from her shop, back towards Colehills. I should have just followed her in the Land Rover. I don’t like leaving Bobby any longer than is absolutely necessary. For a start, I’ve got the keys to the drinks cabinet with me. He gets confused when left alone for too long.

“Here we are!” trills Nikki as we pull into the drive of her immaculately appointed Barratt home. It’s the modern equivalent of a two up, two down, and in one of the two downs, Eugene is engaged in the Wii with his mate Carlton. Clearly disgruntled that his mother has arrived unannounced, swiftly appraising him of the situation and the emergency inherent within it, whilst clearing clutter from all around him, he silently moves upstairs, returning with the box, new shoes gleaming inside, and hands them to me glowering. I proffer a tenner for his trouble, and, as he goes to take it, Nikki intercedes. “No, no, no! Eugene wouldn’t dream of it, would you Euge?”

He makes to protest, but shrugs, sits down and starts Wii-ing again. Carlton gives him a look of utter contempt. “Um, well I’ll see if Bobby can, you know, sign a few records or something…” This is the sort of thing I hate, the feeling of uselessness and fraudulence. You see, people literally cannot get their heads around the idea that the man they see on their CD covers, in magazines, and on VH-1’s ‘70s specials can’t even manage to buy himself a pair of shoes. But if they can play a small part in prolonging the magic, at their own trouble and expense, then, well, it’s the least they can do. At least it’s the least Nikki can do. Eugene’s never heard of Godhammer. I promise, against my better judgement, to have them back to Eugene by Friday. He nods, not looking away from the screen, and we depart. Back in town, I thank Nikki profusely and head back to the Land Rover, where I check my mobile. 11 missed calls. Bobby might not know much about modern things, but he has managed to master ringing me when his nose hair needs trimming.

scott adams - thirtyyearsofrnr@hotmail.com

Flotsam and Jetsam The Cold [Nuclear Blast/Riot]

Flotsam and Jetsam, despite some solid efforts – especially their 1986 debut, Doomsday for the Deceiver- in the eighties and nineties, will always be known as the band from whence Jason Newsted sprang to join Metallica after the untimely demise of Cliff Burton in the mid eighties. To their credit, despite that fact overshadowing seemingly everything the band has done, they’ve been an almost constant fixture on the metal scene ever since, releasing nine studio albums. Their tenth, the one you’re reading about now, sees the return of guitarist Michael Gilbert to the fold after a 13 year break, and –coincidentally? - his return sees the band recording their best work in aeons.

It’s meat ‘n’potatoes, thrash-tinged trad metal all the way here, with a man of the match award going to vocalist Eric AK who hasn’t sounded this enthused on a FaJ album since 1992’s Cuatro. He puts in particularly compelling performances on the slightly progressive Blackened Eyes and the epic-sounding Better off Dead, but there isn’t a song on the record that isn’t in some way enriched by his warbling.

Indeed those two tracks are the best on offer here, both slightly deviating from the orthodox path to break things up a little, though really if this style of well-played, thoroughly professional trad metal is what floats your musical boat then you’ll struggle to pin point any real highlights here – as the young people say, it’s all good.

Scott Adams

And another thing ...

My friend Micky Strong, former roadie and general factotum to the stars, is writing his memoirs, and he wants you to be his guinea pigs… ladies and gentlemen, an excerpt from Godhammer PA…

“I left Colehills at nine o’clock this morning – a lie in! – and set off on a shopping trip. I’d got breakfast ready for Bobby (bacon, eggs and a reviving whiskey and soda – it’s only a Monday after all), gone into his room and given him a shake, had some quick nosebag myself (as above, minus the liquor) and made myself scarce as early as possible.

This is the sort of drudgery my life comprises. People in the village think it’s all glamour, celebrity parties and that kind of thing. But life as an ageing rockstar’s ‘man Friday’ is far from what you’d expect. Very fucking far.

Anyway, I digress, shopping it is, because my Master, Bobby Shrubbs, of ‘70s rock behemoths Godhammer, requires some new shoes for a Danish television performance later this week. Colehills, ‘the ancestral pile’ as the old man likes to refer to the sprawling sixteenth century Manor House we inhabit, is in the middle of nowhere. To get anything for either of us, or guests, or the house, requires a 90 minute round trip for me into the nearest town. Internet I hear you say? Home deliveries? No sir. Since John Lennon was sent packing by ‘a member of the public’, Bobby Shrubbs has harboured a deep seated fear of anything beyond his immediate control. When I suggested a weekly supermarket delivery direct to our door, he declined because, as is his way, he’d decided somebody might put anthrax spores in his Rice Crispies.

So, with time at a premium, here I am in a sleepy Chiltern market town on a Monday morning looking for the kind of shoes a heavy metal legend might wear on late night television. Over the years I’ve developed a parallel personality of my own – I switch almost imperceptibly between hard-bitten roadie and addled monster of rock with lightning speed, and myself and Bobby are of similar height and build (sometimes, after the Lennon incident, I think this is why I got the job, if you see what I mean), so on these trips I become Bobby Shrubbs, as opposed to Mick Strong. And I don’t even have to enter a telephone booth to effect the transformation.

Great Manton has two shoe shops – one for the twin set and pearls set, the other for ‘young people’. Bobby saw some snakeskin loafers he liked the look of in a magazine last week, so my target for tonight is a pair of same.

“Snakeskin? I’m sorry, not much call for that here…”

The reply is half chortled, the two assistants smuggling smirks at one another as I make my request.

“Well, imitation snakeskin would do, I suppose. As long as it’s a good imitation.”

“I’m sorry. If you like I could ring head office, see if they have anything of that kind up in London?”

Whilst this is going on the manageress has arrived with coffee and buns for the workers.

“Hello Mickey, shopping for Mr Shrubbs are you?” she looks down at my own, scuffed, battered and nearly ten year old footwear.

“Or is it something for you?”

“Nah, it’s for the boss. He’s after a pair of snakeskin loafers. Off to Denmark to film some sort of ‘where are they now?’ show on Thursday and wants to look the part.”

Nikki, the manageress, rolls her eyes skywards and hoots with laughter.

“Whatever did you think you’d find here?”

I know. I know that two hundred quid pairs of bespoke shoes don’t appear on the shelves of bucolic footwear suppliers. But has anyone tried telling this to Bobby Shrubbs, co-writer of At the Going Down of the Sun In Mordor and I Am Godhammer?”

More next time, if Mick has managed to write anything…

And another thing...

Hello, good evening and welcome to And Another Thing’s 2011 programme of directionless ‘vintage rants,’ pointless reminiscence that interests no one and the self regarding nonsense so hated of the column’s correspondents, both of whom I can see girding themselves for another year of scintillating pseudonymic abuse on the BMA website even as I type.

But first let me take this opportunity to remind you about the upcoming Capital City Punkfest, taking place at Erindale’s Maram just days from now. At least I hope you’ll read this before it’s all gone off but you get my drift.

As the event was seemingly dead in the water after putative headliners – American gothic punk icons The Misfits – pulled their tour, it’s refreshing to be able to help spruik any event at all. But enough of my jocular old man burbling. Here’s Craig from event promoters Ruff n Ready to let you in on some hard facts…

“To be honest after the tour promoters canning the Misfits tour it’s great to get such support for the show that is going ahead.

“I remember growing up and having endless amounts of gigs to go to – gigs at the unis, youth centres, heaps of all ages venues. Things seem to be drying up more and more these days so a while ago I decided to put together a little 16 band show called Punkfest (held, as you’ll remember, at The Basement a couple of years back). It was quite a success and a second instalment has been well overdue for sometime. The opportunity to have The Misfits headline was too good to refuse. The main point of this festival is to put Canberra on the map as far as the punk scene goes, not only to bring some quality interstate and international bands through but showcase some of the hard working local punk bands that are often not given the respect they deserve. When we received the news that the tour promoters were cancelling the Misfits tour we didn’t hesitate and pushed forward, on with the show. The way we look at it is the line-up is massive! A lot of variety, many different styles of punk and rock so Misfits or no Misfits it’s still going to be a damn good day! We have bands playing from Wollongong, Sydney and Melbourne, so it really is a quality showcase of the Aussie punk scene today.

“Keep your eye out for the next instalment of Punkfest… I won’t say too much at this stage but we will be seeing an international headliner.”

Here’s hoping. And whilst the no show of The Misfits is disappointing for sure, it has opened up proceedings for a most welcome headlining performance from NSW psychobilly princes The Casino Rumblers, who have very kindly presented me with this, their ‘recipe for rock’ (serves all).

INGREDIENTS

1 Double Bass, 1 Saxophone, 1 Trombone, 2 Guitars, 2 Marshalls, 5 Drums, 4 Cymbals, 16 Strings, 6 Men.

METHOD

Add one hard slapping, rockabilly double bass to pan, allow to simmer. Add two hard rock guitars. Mix liberally with Slayer-inspired trombone. Add screaming saxophone to taste.

Pour mixture through punk rock blender and allow to cook on high heat for a couple of years over tours with The Misfits, Tiger Army, Reel Big Fish, The Meteors and mix in one full length album, two EPs and another album in the oven for future consumption.

You should be able to tell when it’s ready because it should taste like hard, fast Aussie rock ‘n’ roll with the distinct smell of rock ‘n’ roll, punk rock, soul and metal.

Serve with booze.

Feeling hungry? Hungry for rock? You know what to do.

Diamond Dogs - The Grit and the Very Soul [Smilodon]

Sweden’s Diamond Dogs are fantastic. I can’t put it in simpler terms than that, so don’t ask me to. However, by way of explanation, if you like your rock classic in vein (think Faces, Stones and The Kinks, filtered through Oasis but with the swagger and vibe of The Black Crowes and Hanoi Rocks) yet smattered with the sort of soulful inflections only Van Morrison or, slightly more obtusely, primetime Dexys Midnight Runners can provide, then this will be for you. There’s even a Smiths cover thrown in (a suitably world weary run-through of Please, Please, Please Let me Get What I Want); but that is merely the cherry on a cake that elsewhere features an absolutely riveting collection of heartfelt, hair-raising rock ‘n’ roll. The band have stripped down their sound considerably since the days when their more basic hard rock sound was juiced up with a bit of brass; there are large portions of TGATVS that would even appeal to fans of the likes of Mumford and Sons or Angus & Julia Stone, whilst When the Morning Comes to Get Me is the sort of country blues Keef used to peel off in the days when he could still pen a tune; its lazy, ragged swagger in the end merely providing the perfect vehicle for a marvellous sax solo and a compelling vocal from Sulo Karlsson, whose peerless singing takes this album from something merely excellent to the frankly astounding. A great album. 

Scott Adams' Top 10 Albums of 2010

Scott Adams’ Platters That Mattered – 2010

10. Barn Burner – Bangers [Metal Blade]

Not, as some assumed, an album about the sausage industry, Bangers was a rampaging slab of sludge/stoner/doom metal that, whilst failing dismally in the originality stakes, scored highly in the demented hair flailing/wailing along like a dog with distemper awards this year.

9. Terry Brock – Diamond Blue [Frontiers]

Terry Brock lent his undeniable vocal talents to three albums this year – almost certainly too many in terms of quality control, song-wise – but he had the good sense to save the best ones for this, the only one of the three released as a solo outing. Pure AOR class.

8. First Signal feat. Harry Hess – First Signal [Frontiers]

Harry Hess once sang with hair metal no-hopers Harem Scarem – First Signal deletes all nasty memories of that band in three quarters of an hour of hard rock mayhem that touches all the required bases whilst never coming across as tired or hackneyed.

7. Iron Maiden – The Final Frontier [EMI]

Not the all-conquering return to the mid-‘80s many fans had hoped for but still the best thing they’ve done this century, and in Coming Home they penned the song of the year, in any genre.

6. Issa – Sign of Angels [Frontiers]

Classy hard rock from a relatively unknown Scandinavian songstress of seemingly limitless talent. Every song is a winner, and every chorus will have you singing along like a crazed karaoke king or queen– the whole point of a song, surely?

5. Killing Joke – Absolute Dissent [Shock]

Displaying a shocking amount of fire and passion for middle-aged ‘rock stars’ seemingly in their dotage, Jazz Coleman and co. showed all the young punks how it’s done in 2010 on this album.

4. Kvelertak – Kvelertak [Indie Recordings]

An utterly exhilarating record, mashing up punk fury, black metal ludicrosity, rock ‘n’ roll swing and, most importantly, damn fine tunes in one huge, unholy shitstorm. Hair-raising. Brilliant.

3. Avantasia – The Wicked Symphony [Nuclear Blast]

For pure, unadulterated pomp few can touch Sammet’s Avantasia imprint, and here the likes of Jorn Lande, Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens, Klaus Meine and Russel Allen are given songs of pure gold to warble over.

2. Auras – New Generations [Frontiers]

Brazil? AOR? Two words together, as Dave Mustaine might have said, that don’t make sense. But New Generations, with its perfect synthesis of Journey, Toto, REO Speedwagon and Survivor, makes perfect sense. Oh yes sir.

1. Allen-Lande – The Showdown [Frontiers]

When I reviewed this album for BMA earlier in the year I tried to award it a six out of five rating, such is its beyond-perfect nature. The ‘powers that be’ wouldn’t let me. So I’m doing it now. ******

And another thing...

I’ve had enough. I’m writing something, for another organ, that involves getting people to send me lists. Lists of heavy metal albums. This was in response to a list I’d sent them, containing some ideas about what constituted a ‘classic heavy metal album.’ I asked for their comments – what additions they’d make, but, perhaps more importantly, what albums featured on my list they felt should never, under any circumstances, be let anywhere near such a list.

The list was emailed out, and I waited. Quite frankly I was stunned by what came back.

Only one album was universally reviled – indeed some responses to this album utilized language the like of which I’ve only previously heard on board the ships of her Majesty’s Navy – and that album, astoundingly, is one of the five greatest AOR albums of all time.

I can see a look of confused incomprehension spreading over your faces as you listen. What kind of an album, hailed on the one hand as an all-time classic yet on the other attacked viciously, mercilessly and without pity, could arouse such devotion and loathing? I’ll tell you…

Everybody’s Crazy was released by Michael Bolton in 1985. It was his fourth album as a solo artist – his debut, released under his real name of Michael Bolotin in 1976 had sunk without trace as had the second, whilst the third, released in 1983 to critical acclaim but precious few sales (despite the attractive Anglicisation of his moniker), had conspicuously failed to set the world aflame. Bolton was now on his last legs as a performer, despite having had hits as a songwriter providing chart fodder for the likes of Laura Brannigan – so he threw everything into Everybody’s Crazy.

Put simply, there haven’t been many better albums in the melodic hard rock field than this. From the opening synth drum barrage of first song Save Our Love to the closing chords of the appositely titled Don’t Tell Me It’s Over, the quality – in performance, songwriting, production… the whole nine yards – doesn’t let up for a single second of the all too brief thirty seven minute duration of the album. If you only know Bolton from his constipated, insincerity-clogged soft rock years, the sheer power on offer here is liable to shock you to your very core on first listen. But Bolton, armed only with a leather-lunged bellow and a bunch of songs so good even a talent-free chimp like Ben Drew might sound good, really shows the opposition how it’s done. If you like bands like Journey, Survivor, Foreigner, I implore you to put away any preconceptions you may have about the man and give this album a bloody good listen. You’ll thank me for this advice.

*     *     *     *     *

You may think I bash this rubbish out in a couple of minutes during ad breaks of reruns of Packed to the Rafters, but it takes a team of highly trained researchers to keep me in vintage rants; and one of them has just whispered in my ear that this is the last AAT of the year because everyone is going on holidays for a few weeks. If this is indeed the case – and who am I to doubt one of my gophers? – then may I take this opportunity to wish you and yours a marvellous (if predictably well-oiled) holiday break. We’ll reconvene here in the new year for a fresh round of directionless rambling and, if you’re very lucky, pointless reminiscence on a wide range of subjects that only you and I are interested in. Salut!

And another thing...

Cradle of Filth have a new album out. Regular observers of Canberra’s liveliest read will remember I’m something of a fan of England’s biggest extant black metal band (I’m sorry all you Meads of Asphodel fans – I’ll brook no argument here), so when I was offered the chance of a chinwag with CoF axepert Paul Allender – a man I go back a little way with from my activities in the world of merchandise – I jumped at the chance for a chat about said elpee – Darkly, Darkly Venus Aversa.

The new album is your sixth back in the band since you rejoined for Midian – how do you yourself approach each successive album now, with regards to keeping everything fresh?

“I try to keep any influence from the outside world to a minimum. When I write new material I tend to shut myself away and not listen to any form of music. There’s a danger if influenced by other bands in the same scene as us of sounding like them – and that just can’t happen.”

So much for the present. What about the past? How do you think the industry has changed over the years – is it easier for bands such as Cradle to make headway now than when you first started?

“The industry has totally changed and it’s because of the internet. It’s so easy for bands now to get online and set up a Facebook page to show their band off. There are plus and minus sides to this. The plus side is that it’s so easy now for new bands to be heard. The minus side is that there are so many bands now and unfortunately all the not very good ones can be heard too. Back in the day you had to be good enough to be heard through tape trading otherwise your tape just would get binned!”

If we might go back in time a bit again, the last time I saw you was when I was doing (top British psychedelic doom outfit) The Blood Divine’s merchandise at the end of the last century. You seemed quite happy in that band. What led to you rejoining CoF?

“The Blood Divine was great and it was one of those things I needed to do at that time. When we were recording the second album two of the members had changed their style and everything sounded wrong so I left. I rejoined Cradle because Dani [Filth, the band’s fabled throatsmith and all round leading light] had called me up and asked if I wanted to rejoin, plus I missed playing fast again so I accepted!”

Back to the new album; Cradle of Filth are one of metal’s most recognisable bands, both visually and musically – how aware are you when writing new music, or thinking of new concepts for stage wear etc, that fans expect certain things from the band in both areas, and how much, if at all, does this sway what decisions the band makes?

“To be honest I’m not aware at all, I write music for myself; if you write music for another reason you are cheating yourself and it doesn’t come from within you. Once we have the album written, then we get onto designing stage clothes etc.”

He’s a focussed one, that Allender. But then you don’t get to the top of any tree without that sort of single-minded drive…

Anything else you’d like to say about the new album?

“Errrr – it’s fucking amazing! And I’m so vibed up from this album I’ve started to write the next one!”

Kasey Chambers

KASEY CHAMBERS is one of us. I know this because I’ve met her. Not only have I met her; when this face-off was being set up, her publicist blithely suggested a face-to-face and a cup of coffee to have a chat about her (then) upcoming album and tour in support of same. As you know, coffee doesn’t sit well with BMA – the caffeine excites us and makes us go all shaky – and so, quite reasonably, Canberra’s liveliest read demanded a meet in the pub. And our heroine was only to happy to comply.

“This is a really nice little place,” she smiles as we settle in to the Transit Bar for an expansive chinwag on all things Chambers, like the most recent album, Little Bird – “a really easy album to make for me. I go through phases as a songwriter, and when it came time to make this album the songs were falling out of me!” – recording with brother Nash and father Bill – “it’s such good fun, and all I’ve ever known really. I grew up doing that! So it was really good having dad back in the studio to play guitar on this record.” – that song – “of course I love it – It bought me a house!” – and the possibility of recording another album with husband Shane Nicholson, of which there will be more written about later.

Chambers is happy enough to answer questions on anything BMA can think of, though when the conversation turns to kids she becomes even more animated.

“It just gives you a whole new perspective on things, and new things to write about. The kids love coming out on the road, to the point where Talon [her eldest kid, now eight] thinks people are coming to see him – he thinks it should be him on stage!”

Bless him. But surely touring with school age kids can be a bit of a grind?

“Yes and no. As long as you do it sensibly, I think it’s okay.”

So no plans to decamp to Nashville and the bright lights of the US country scene?

“Absolutely none! Why? I love my life, the kids love where we live on the Central Coast – there’s no need.”

With the new album doing so well, is it too soon to think about another bone rattling outing with husband Shane?

“You know, we were so stoked that people liked Rattlin’ Bones as much as they did, but at the moment I’m concentrating totally on Little Bird. We’re definitely thinking about it though. In fact Shane’s thinking about it a bit too much. He said that because I was pregnant when we wrote and recorded the last one – and it was a success – that maybe we’d better wait till he knocks me up again before we start the next one – can you believe that?”

As Alan Partridge might say – on that bombshell…

Catch Kasey Chambers on the Canberra leg of her album launch tour for Little Bird live at the Canberra Theatre on Sunday November 21. Tickets are $61 and are available through the venue’s website.

And another thing...

It has been brought to my attention by my good chum and sometime drinking compadre Nambucco Deliria that certain people in the A&R (that’s artists and repertoire – the people who used to go out every night to gigs in search of fresh talent) world don’t leave their offices anymore – they simply sit at their desk for eight hours a day trawling MySpace, looking for the next big thing on the interweb. Spurred on by Uncle Nambo’s anger at the moral lassitude of these people, we decided to try it out one day. Could we sit at a desk, for a day, and become involved in a management capacity with heavy metal’s next big thing? “Almost certainly,” I said. So off we went. I typed in the word ‘metal’ into MySpace’s music search engine and off we went.

First up was 3 Inches of Blood, from Vancouver, Canada. I was immediately consumed by the Priest-esque ludicrosity unfolding before my ears, and set about composing an email to the band, offering our representation services. Then Nambucco pointed out that they were already on their third album, and appeared to be doing alright without us. Bugger. Not as easy as I thought… Trying again, and looking to narrow the field slightly, I typed the word ‘goat.’ I’m not sure how these things work, but seconds later we were ‘enjoying’ some plodding black metal – Avail the Autocrat of Evil by Norwegian-based outfit Furze, if you’re interested – and generally letting our minds wander waiting for it to finish, idly throwing rolled up socks at the ever increasing column of empties that was building up on the carpet. At the end, I noticed that the first song in the ‘songs similar to Avail the Autocrat of Evil section was Help Yourself by Tom Jones. Anyways, whether that was indeed the case or not, Nambucco had once again discovered that Furze are also signed to quite a big record label too – where were all these unsigned bands hiding? What ‘open sesame’ style wording should we be using to unlock MySpace’s hidden treasures? Going out on a limb, Deliria typed ‘satan,’ but that was no good because we just got sidetracked by loads of spurious non-satanic music invoking the horned one’s name, for instance Satan by the Zydepunks, which turned out to be a Cajun-klesma wigout (not half bad as it goes) of epic proportions, but wasn’t the jump off point for the purchase of a new palatial southside abode.

We were getting ratty now; or rather I was. Where had Nambucco got this information? Were people really being paid to sit around all day listening to experimental bebop from the Ivory Coast in the hope of finding the new Wolfmother?

Finally we worked out how to use the bloody thing. Clicking on ‘genres,’ then ‘metal,’ then ‘unsigned’… and we were in.

First up was a band of Christian death metallists from St Louis, America – In the Midst of Lions. Despite being in the ‘unsigned’ section, you guessed it… three albums out on Facedown Records… Are these people making their releases up? Finally, we stumbled upon Knightstorm, from Massachusetts, a band that genuinely seemed to be without management or indeed a record company…

…for a very good reason, as it turned out. Promising a heady blend of metal, powerpop and rock, they actually sounded like a bad version of Creed, with all of the terrible associations that band name brings up. Exasperated, we gave up and went back to picking the toe jam out from between our toes whilst reminiscing about the good old days. We won’t give up – we’re professionals – we will make our A&R fortune on the web – stay tuned for more updates.

And another thing...

Tank is one of heavy metal’s hidden treasures. That this state of affairs is a travesty is not in question – had the band got a few breaks in the early ‘80s the high quality of their output at the time would have assured them of godlike status and household renown – what is is whether the band, newly resurgent after years of enforced hiatus and now back with a soon-to-be-released new album, War Machine, are up to the task of restoring the name of one of England’s most enduring metal names. A demo version of the one track (Judgement Day) that BMA had heard at the time this interview was mooted suggests they are, so we decided to look up longtime guitarist Cliff Evans with a view to finding out a little more about this new chapter in the band’s history. Regular readers of this column will remember that I last talked to Cliff a couple of years ago, at which time there were no plans for a new album mentioned – so, I mused, things have moved pretty quickly of late – how did this all pan out?

“Tank had ground to a halt a few years back mainly down to Algy [Ward, the band’s former bassist and vocalist who also featured in late ‘70s lineups of punk icons The Damned and The Saints]’s ongoing health problems and general lack of interest in the band. He would often disappear for a couple of years at a time, so we were used to that, but this time he really had called it a day. Mick [Tucker, Evans’ longstanding six-string partner] and me – we’re getting really pissed off with not touring and the lack of new material and albums. We were constantly getting emails from fans, labels and agents worldwide asking us why we are not doing anything. This was very frustrating for us so we decided to do something about it. The decision was made to move Tank forward into a new era.”

So it’s very important for you to keep Tank progressing? It’d be very easy for a band of this vintage to just trot out on a greatest hits tour once a year and then spend the downtime counting the t-shirt money, surely?

“We’ve got to prove to the fans that Tank is one of the best classic rock/metal bands around today. This new lineup has given us the firepower to do that. The new album War Machine is the proof.”

We mentioned Algy Ward’s inability to get things together earlier. Late last year, when this album was first publically mooted, Algy made some rather intemperate comments about the whole thing being done ‘without his permission.’ Has he calmed down now?

“We felt very let down by Algy. Mick has been a member of Tank for 28 years and I have myself for 26. In all that time I think we only played about 30 or 40 shows worldwide. We all like a drink, but Algy tended to pick rather inappropriate moments to get pissed which led to us being ignored by promoters and, ultimately, losing record deals. I guess that was just his style. There’s an army of Tank fans out there who just want to come and see us play and enjoy the music, new and old. We now intend to give them what they want.”

Stay tuned next time when we’ll be back to talk a little more in depth about the new album, former Iron Maiden vocalist Paul Di’Anno, and about Cliff’s drinking plans for the year ahead…

Allen Lande - The Showdown [Frontiers/Riot]

2010 has been a great year in the world of melodic hard rock and heavy metal, but, just when your reviewer was starting to think about end of year polls, and what was in with a chance of topping the bill from a slew of great releases, this album arrived, and required a complete reframing of the market.

In case you are wondering – and you should be – Allen Lande isn’t a man, but the earth-shatteringly good agglomeration of two of modern metal’s great voices – Symphony X throatsmith Russel Allen and BMA’s favourite metallic voice du jour, Jorn Lande (geddit?) – in one gloriously pompous and overblown package.

Christ on a bike, the opening one-two of the title track and the spine-tingling Judgement Day is good enough, and almost certainly worth the price of admission on its own, but The Showdown just won’t stop. Like I said, there have been some great albums released in this field this year, but none of them can reach the level of consistent brilliance that Lande and Allen manage to purvey here. Both men sing their absolute arses off (though if it comes to push and shove I’d pick Lande to sing for me if my life depended on it), whether it be out and out metal or on some utterly splendid ballads (Bloodlines has to be the greatest song AOR titans Journey never wrote). Very, very exciting stuff.

Unruly - Child Worlds Collide [Frontiers / Riot]

After an initial moment of confusion – the opening bars of Worlds Collide replicate exactly Kraftwerk’s Trans Europe Express before morphing into a gratuitous revisit of Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song - listeners to this album will be immediately comforted by the familiar aural surroundings couched within its environs. Unruly Child initially exploded onto the hard rock scene in 1992, just as Kurt and company were sweeping this kinda schtick out of music’s back door, and were thus lost to the world in short order. This is a shame, because their Zeppelin-infused hysteria was rather fine, and pleased though your reviewer is to announce that not a lot has changed 18 years down the line, it’s hard to see them having much widespread impact now either.

One major change has occurred – vocalist Mark Free is now Marcie Free, but whatever nipping and tucking has taken place has mercifully not had a deleterious effect on Free’s vocal chords, which still deliver a grittier version of Robert Plant with pleasing results. Opener Show Me the Money exhibits this state of affairs perhaps too well; elsewhere the less heavy duty AOR of When We Were Young and Tell Another Lie both allow Free more personality beyond mere lemon-squeezing apeage, whilst the excellent Love is Blind finds Marcie really stretching out on an excellent chorus that brings heady memories of Hard Rock titans House of Lords flooding back into the ol’ memory banks. Good stuff.

And another thing...

It’s been a strange week, starting well with the news that my Mum finally seems to have overcome a protracted struggle with a cancer which has been doggedly harassing her for a couple of years, but ending with some very sad, not to say shocking news in regards to the death of a very dear school friend and regular at Sunday nights at the Pegasus, Simon Stocker.

Forty three years is no age really, and, if one’s own mortality is going to be brought into sharp focus, it’s events like this that do it. Simon, like all of our circle of friends, liked a drink. In fact he liked seven or eight, but the combined assault on his system of various strains of the good stuff had done him no good, and a year or so ago he returned to the family home in Marlow with the declared intent of getting off the sauce and on with his life. That he died of a burst ulcer, an ulcer which almost certainly came as the result of his over enthusiastic love affair with the booze, just as he’d realised the drinking couldn’t go on and had determined to take action is not only a cruel irony but also a sad and very big injustice.

Anyways, enough of the hand wringing, as he wasn’t a hand wringing kind of guy. Simon was always at the centre of activities, an Oscar Wildeian mix of base humour and higher ideals, and, as he wouldn’t want you thinking he was in any way responsible for my rather morose frame of mind, I’ll leave you with my favourite Stocker story.

Simon worked, as a callow youth, a Saturday job in our local high-end supermarket Waitrose. As the very intelligent often are, he was extremely short on patience with those of lower brain calibre, especially when trapped on the shop floor on a warm Saturday afternoon when he could have had a beer in hand whilst watching the cricket with some chums. This day found him at work in the fruit and vegetables area, where the queue was snaking around the aisles, choc full of slavering punters trying to stock up on their saladary needs.

Simon was reaching tipping point just as a ridiculous middle aged woman complained that the stick of celery she was buying was too big.

“I’m sorry madam?”

“This stick of celery. It’s too big. I don’t need a piece of celery this big.”

“I’m sorry madam. Could you not find a smaller piece? We have plenty here.”

“No I couldn’t. They are all the same size. Surely it’s your job to find something more suitable for me?”

At which point she thrust the offending piece of greenery into Simon’s hands, clearly expecting him to do something about it. He looked the celery up and down, savouring the moment as the woman, becoming drunk in her moment of power, turned to the now-even-longer-queue, looking for approbation. When she turned back to Simon to see what he was going to do about things, he struck. Lifting his knee, he quickly broke the celery in half over his jutting thigh, before handing the stunned customer one half of the celery.

“There you go madam, now, please move along.”

Simon threw the other piece of vegetation over his shoulder and flashed a winning smile at the next customer, a man, in the queue.

“Well, wasn’t she a dreadful woman?” he beamed. The man, goggle eyed with shock, stammered a reply.

“Th...at.....was..mmmmy wwwwife!”

I hope wherever you are now, old matey, the shifts aren’t too strenuous.

And another thing...

As I sat on the bus the other day, basking in the early-spring sun that was blazing through the windows whilst the Red Book of Montserrat flooded my earholes in similarly warming style, I noticed something very strange as we cruised into Woden near The Tradies. In front of us was a refuse collection van, flying a tattered, near-pure black flag from its back end. Was it an Australian flag, rendered stained beyond recognition by its close proximity to the detritus being flung into the gaping, ever masticating steel maws just inches to its right?

No. I believe, and this is a far more plausible theory, that our public services are in the grip of something entirely more sinister – what the Americans might identify as a clear and present danger. I believe that a lunatic Anarchist fringe may have infiltrated our bin men.

Really, when you think about it, the facts add up. They trundle about all day, seemingly making our lives easier by getting rid of our excess bits and pieces and making sure the vermin stay in Parliament rather than rooting about in our overflowing wheelie bins for sustenance. Then, as the sun wheels through the sky towards its celestial bed, they retreat to their fortress at Mugga Way to sift through their spoils.

Think about it – Anarchists throughout history have centred themselves in quasi-autonomous zones, or communes, right from the time of Hassan-I-Sabah and his Assassins at Alamut during the Crusades, right through to Allan Sko’s tower-block Utopianist-situationist-loose-faced paradise of today [and long may it reign – Bossman].

In fact, the more I think about this, the more the pieces fit together seamlessly. The Assassins lived – paying tribute to no other lord or master than their own – in the mountain fortress of Alamut (and isn’t Mugga Way just an ever-growing mountain of dross?), a community of Ismaeli Muslims who hired out their skills in espionage and murderous deceit to the highest bidder. They thrived on information and realised its supreme value in a time long before the information age, and were able to go about their business undetected sometimes for years before striking the death blow. They transmitted the information they garnered about their victims to their Grand Masters and then BANG!!...

And who knows more about your domestic habits than your ‘friendly’ local refuse disposal operative? I’m telling you now, once they get behind that fence and into the Temporary Autonomous Zone that is the Mugga Lane Resource Management Centre... Who knows what kind of dossiers they’re building on all of us? When the shit rain falls – and it surely will, and quicker than you or I have made contingencies for – those men will be one eyed when we’re all staggering about blindly. In a world where knowledge is power, and old, poorly-cleansed hard drives begin to hold some sort of infernal influence over life and death (or at least protracted stretches in Stanhope’s Gulags) the black bin men of Mugga Way will be holding all the aces.

To be honest with you I’m surprised they’ve come out into the open quite so brazenly; that flag was enough to give keen-eyed guardians of the citizenry such as myself the heads up as to what might be afoot here. But it’s often the way when ‘secret societies’ become a bit too confident about their powers, leading to the inevitable laziness in the old secrecy department (do you know how to give ‘the handshake’ to a policeman when he’s trying to douse you in Capsicum spray at three in the morning? Exactly). I’m warning you now… The bin men have the upper hand. Treat them with respect.

The Worst Week of My Life – The Complete Collection [ABC Video]

Nobody does the comedy of embarrassment better than the British, and The Worst Week of My Life is an excellent exposition of the art. Following the hapless life of publishing executive Howard Steel – a harrowing, if more loveable, composite of David Brent, Basil Fawlty and Frank Spencer played to maximum comic effect by Ben Miller – this three disc compilation will either have you crying with mirth or, equally likely, unable to watch much past the first episode as Steel’s discomfort becomes more, and more, and more, and more acute.

Originally set in the fraught week before Steel’s wedding to vet Mel (the ever-lovely Sarah Alexander of Coupling renown), the first series was so successful it spawned a spin off and the inevitable Christmas special, all of which are reproduced here. Series one is the best, but there’s something to enjoy on every disc, with particular mention in despatches going to Alison Steadman and Geoffrey Whitehead’s performances as Mel’s increasingly distressed and bemused parents. Steadman is fantastic in any role she plays, although as age catches up she seems doomed now always to play slightly unhinged matriarchs (her role in this show was reprised, slightly lower down the social scale, almost verbatim though no less triumphantly in Gavin and Stacey), whilst Whiteahead plays the tight-lipped stoic straight man to Miller’s desperate buffoonery to a tee. Ronald Pickup, as Whitehead’s brother Fraser is also a comic treat. Indeed, Fraser’s increased appearances throughout series two and the Christmas special inject a vital new impetus just as things look like they might become a tad too comfortable.

Comfortable is of course a relative word where this kind of stuff is concerned and, as mentioned earlier, this may just be a bridge too far for people of a delicate disposition. There’s nothing outright unpleasant or pushing the boundaries of taste here, but if you don’t take pleasure in other people’s discomfort, you’d probably be best advised to steer clear.

Therion

Swedes Therion really came of age on 2007’s immense Gothic Kabbalah outing; a tumultuous mix of churning, gothic metal and big, big choruses, it was a work to cherish, and a work that still, three years later, gets regular spins on the ol’ death deck.
Wisely, then, Therion have not opted to try to compete with that particular musical high water mark nor even to ape it. Rather, with Sitra Ahra, they’ve gone back to their past to present an album that completes a trilogy rounded out by 2004’s Sirius B and Lemuria albums. There’s no space here to go into the concept around which these albums have been constructed, but there is space to reassure you that SA is an album that stands on its own two feet very nicely thank you as an independent collection of songs. It’s a less satisfying listen than Gothic Kabbalah, but when the band get going on the likes of the spritely Hellequin or the stately majesty of the title track (which does however bring to mind the theme tune of Midsomer Murders at the start) this thought becomes merely a fleeting one. The trademark operatic lunacy is here, as is an intelligence and deftness of touch that confounds traditional notions of heavy metal as a preserve only of cro-magnons and Lochy Leonard bad guys; Kings of Edom is the closest this album gets to the melodic glory of its predecessor, but this is an extremely enjoyable album in its own right. Almost essential. SCOTT ADAMS

And another thing...

Kansas.

I’ve mentioned them before. Alright, I often go on about them for hours, but why the hell not? They are, pound for pound, my favourite band of all time, and if you can’t batter on to whoever’s listening about your favourite band, then who can you batter on about?

I’m reminded of them because when I got home from a day of honest toil and a lunchtime of even more honest drinking with the Bossman, there was a jiffy bag waiting for me on the welcome mat, bursting at the seams with musical goodness of a classic kind.

Contained within these straining seams were albums – factory sealed for your convenience – by, amongst others, Journey, Toto, Survivor and of course Kansas. The Kansas album, Audio-Visions, is an overlooked classic. The band had hit paydirt in the middle-to-late-‘70s with two monumental albums – 1976’s staggering Leftoverture (still my favourite album of all time, some 34 years after the fact) which contained the song that will be played as my casket wobbles over the rollers on its way to the incinerator in Carry On Wayward Son, and the following year’s multi-platinum follow up Point of Know Return (which features the band’s biggest hit, the timeless Dust in the Wind).

By the time Audio-Visions was released the band were commonly thought, by those who proclaimed themselves to be experts on such things, to be in terminal decline.

This is pure pish of course. A-V is a marvellous record, chock full of delights for those curious enough to root them out. Opener Relentless is just that – a steady, grinding rocker that introduces us to guitarist and principal songwriter Kerry Livgren’s new found Christian beliefs for the first time, and with a force not often employed by the band. Relentless is backed up by the astounding double-kick mayhem of Loner – two and a half minutes of proto-speed metal, believe it or not. The baroquely crushing Curtain of Iron mark this album as one of Kansas’ heavier outings. Certainly the stentorian riffage in the mid part of COI was the heaviest Kansas had been thus far, but the sturm und drang was balanced by some exquisite balladry in the shape of hit single Hold On. Often unfairly derided as a second division Dust in the Wind, Hold On is in fact a spectacularly successful, poignant song in its own right, detailing Livgren’s desperation at, and disappointment in, his wife’s failure to follow him to Christianity. And the glorious No One Together signified the last knockings of the band’s Art Rock beginnings as the band’s songwriting responsibilities passed from Livgren (who left the band after Audio Visions to become a lay preacher and release Christian rock albums under the moniker Kerry Livgren AD) to the more hard-rock minded stylings of vocalist Steve Walsh.

Indeed it’s Walsh who is the real star of this album, as he turns in a vocal performance that has it all; it’s his voice that adds the flesh to Phil Ehart’s splendidly fleet-footed drumming on Loner, and it’s his voice that tops off the superbly quirky mix of militaristic snare drums and bagpipes that close the album on Back Door. Walsh himself was gone from the band not long after Audio Visions, to form the slickly impressive AOR unit Streets and, though he returned for the 1986 album Power, the damage was done and the band never quite got their mojo back in the eyes of those pesky critics. The band’s fans – known as Wheatheads – thought differently, and thanks to them the band tours to this day; but for many of those fans Audio Visions marked the end of Kansas’ halcyon era.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUF2rlpfAPc

And another thing...

Quite frankly I’m distressed. In about 20 minutes I’m due to be interviewing one of heavy metal’s great modern guitarists, Zakk Wylde, and I haven’t heard a note of his new album, Order of the Black. This isn’t my fault, and for a change it ain’t the fault of the record company either. For reasons that are still to be fully explained, a week after the event and despite probing phone calls, the post office have still not delivered the album. Usually in one of these pieces I’ll give you some intro blather about ‘so and so’s impressive new opus’ or something. But no. To quote my three-year-old niece Alannah Mae Ruyg: “I’ve got nothing”. As I type, even Wylde’s Myspace page is down. What will we talk about?

I needn’t have worried. After apprehensively dialing the number provided for Wylde, I make small talk for a while. But Zakk is an avuncular interviewee, happy to chew the fat on any and all subjects, and before you know it he’s singing D’yer Mak’er from Led Zeppelin’s cruelly underrated 1973 opus Houses of the Holy down the phone to me. He’s a big Zeppelin fan, and is over the moon to hear your correspondent’s story about meeting Jimmy Page in a Gerrard’s Cross pub in the ‘80s (And Another Thing regulars will of course remember this tale from a few years back).

“Man, why are you even interviewing me? There can’t be many people with a better story than that!”

As we’ve now established, I’m interviewing Mr Wylde because his band, Black Label Society, have a new album out. What’s the response been like? And are you pleased with the way things are going?

“Yes I’m pleased. But it is what it is. If people don’t know what we sound like by now, nothing we do is going to change their minds. So yes, the people that wanted to hear it have heard it and they’re loving it! As far as things are going, well… we still haven’t brought peace to the world or ended starvation, but we’re pretty happy I guess.”

These are the answers of a man versed in this sort of thing, so after making enquiries about the man’s touring intentions – “We’re in the US now, but we’re looking at coming down to Australia with Motörhead sometime next year” – I decide to move away from the album chat and onto, as is the wont of this column, more trivial matters. I comment that, despite never having spoken to the man before, I am extremely au fait with the minutiae of Zakk’s life – his battles with the bottle (he’s newly clean and sober after a bender that’s lasted nearly 20 years) being not the least of my knowledge about him. Does that removal of the mystique of ‘rock star’ life make it harder to get on with the business of being a ‘rock star’?

“Undoubtedly. You know we were talking about Jimmy Page earlier? There’s a man who had a bit of mystique about him. And then Ozzy (who, of course employed Wylde for over ten years as his guitarist and songwriting foil), you know, just as big a star, such an important man in the history of rock. Can you imagine Jimmy Page having a camera crew follow him around whilst he’s doing his rituals in his castle? NO! So we just have to keep it real, you know, it’s a different time. But whatever happens, we’re gonna keep it metal!”

And of course, you know you can depend on Brother Zakk to keep his word in that respect.

Issa - Sign of Angels [Frontiers / Riot]

From the moment album opener Angels Crying explodes from the speakers to the last dying notes of closer Fallen Angel  (and no, not every song here has an angelic theme), you will be captivated. Norwegian chanteuse Issa is the possessor of a frankly gargantuan set of pipes, and, with the aid of a stellar set of Euro metal sidemen (including a bassist going by the spectacular moniker of Nobby Noberg, as well as Helloween’s Uli Kursch on timekeeping duties) she has come up with quite simply the best collection of AOR tunes sung by a lady since Cher’s self titled 1987 album. First single I’m Alive is almost perfect; the sort of rousing anthem one of the Scandinavian countries usually throw into Eurovision, whilst the spine tingling Give Me a Sign is the kind of stuff that, if recorded by Miley Cyrus, would sell by the bucketload.

If it were possible, the ante is upped still further by the spectacular River of Love, Issa’s voice propelling the song to heights of aural nirvana rarely heard in these times of lowered expectation, Peter Huss’s guitar solo setting the whole thing up for a key change that’ll have you out of your recliner, singing along and punching the air whether you like it or not; make no mistake – if you like this melodic hard rock/AOR style of musical exposition, YOU WILL NOT, REPEAT NOT, hear any better this year. Perfect.

And another thing...

By the time I got off the train and walked the shortish distance from Paddington to Hampstead, nine o’clock had come and gone. The significance of this was that The Morning Line had started. TML was Channel Four’s Saturday Morning Racing digest, watched by hundreds of thousand of punters. I was desperate to get to a bookies before they mentioned Katy Nowaitee’s chances in the Cambridgeshire, possibly slashing the price about her into the process. Too late. They’d already featured the race when I trotted into Ladbroke’s, resulting in our brave little heroine shortening already from 18 to 16/1. I had another fifty on her to win, doubling my investment at a stroke. Although I’m not one for counting my winnings before a race has been run, I allowed myself a little calculation, just to be on the safe side if I needed to get in and out of the bookies in a hurry later. Six weeks at a fiver a week at 50/1? Fifteen hundred and thirty pounds. Another couple at thirty threes? Eighty six quid. And finally 50 sovs at 16/1? Another eight hundred and fifty sheets. Oh yes – if the little girl rode a good race, the best part of two and a half grand would be making my pockets bulge on the way home after work.

Much like its Australian counterpart, the English racing public loves a battler. Katy fitted the bill perfectly; she was little, she was brave and she had the heart of a Lion, and as I spent the day absent mindedly settling bets and paying out on races I had no interest in, I saw our heroine’s price contract hourly. With two minutes to go to the off it seemed like the whole of the nation had taken the plunge on Katy, and as she took her place in the starting stalls she was ready to go off as third favourite at the shockingly short price of 6/1.

The Cambridgeshire had the biggest field of any race run in England that year – 35 runners- and the Kate-ster was drawn in stall 35, miles away from the pace, and, perhaps more worryingly, a long way away from the two joint favourites: Nooshman and Bound for Pleasure. Many experts thought Katy would have to track across to join the pack – remember she’d made a name for battling through traffic to win her races- but jockey John Reid was confident that if he did that he’d give the favs a five length start, a start Katy wouldn’t be able to reel in.

They were off.

About halfway through Katy was one of only four or five racing on her side of the track. On the other side, Bound for Pleasure was already in trouble, but Nooshman hit the front at about the same time as Katy took up the pace on the far side. By now I was out from behind my desk, cheering the little filly to the line, bemused punters in the shop staring at me as I became almost apoplectic as she strained to reach the line first. The angle of the cameras at the finishing line made it almost impossible to tell who had won. We had to wait…

Of course she won. She won by one and a half lengths. Marlow erupted and headed down to collect its winnings. So many people had backed her in the town that the bookmakers had to close down for the day at four in the afternoon because there wasn’t enough money to pay out all the lucky punters brandishing their winning tickets. Now that’s a result…

And another thing...

The 20th century finally waved goodbye and, as we stood shoulder to shoulder contemplating the new millennium with hope in our hearts and the froth of 1999’s last pint on our lips, our thoughts turned to Katy Nowaitee. We hadn’t heard anything from our brave little filly for a while, but our connections – Peter Baker and Paulie Inman – calmly assured us plans were in hand and the old girl would be helping us line our pockets again in the spring. Sure enough, it was announced that she was off to Doncaster to contest the Worthington Spring Cup on the second day of the 2000 flat season. We formed an orderly queue at Ladbrokes on the morning of the race and settled down for the wait. Or should that be the waitee? Never mind.

Of course she won, in her now traditional style of running up with the pace before exploding away from the pack in the final furlong, leading home 20-odd runners to win at 7/1. The horse was already becoming noticed nationally, her small stature and massive heart winning over punters all around England (though obviously her ability to win at big prices helped). Trainer Peter Harris announced that Katy would take on the best of the nation’s handicappers in The Lincoln, also at Doncaster later in the month. We steamed in to the ante-post betting market, still euphoric after the Spring Mile and keen to avail ourselves of the 20/1 being offered on Katy by the bookies. I extracted a 50 pound note from the pile of cash in a shoe box in my bedroom – the box marked Katy Winnings – and joined in the fun.

But then disaster struck. Katy Nowaitee was balloted out of The Lincoln – the race was over-subscribed and something had to give – meaning those of us who’d taken advantage of the bigger ante-post odds in an effort to maximise profits were now left scratching our heads and counting our losses. But racing is a sport founded on disappointment, and there were sure to be other chances for our plucky little girl. We just had to wait.

March fizzled out, April came and went, and so too did May. Word filtered through that Katy wasn’t feeling too good. She’d had another throat infection, and it had taken a bit longer for her to recover than expected. She’d probably miss most of the rest of the season, but there was hope. Just like the bad old days before she ran a race, connections were left hoping that the frail little racehorse would come good.

She was entered at an early stage for the Tote Cambridgeshire, the first leg of British racing’s autumn double and one of the four original classics of English Racing – a far bigger proposition than anything she’d faced before. The bookies certainly thought so, and when betting markets opened on the race in July she was quoted as being 50/1. There was no chance of her being balloted out of the Cambridgeshire, so at the end of July I started investing a fiver a week on Katy at the bookies down the road from where I worked. Six weeks later, in mid September, Ladbrokes shortened her to 33/1 – there was a bit of interest in the old girl, so I upped my investment to a tenner a week. As race day approached, the buzz began again in Marlow. Has she got a chance? Have you backed her? Will you back her? Cautious punters kept their counsel, mug punters proclaimed their love for Katy from the highest rooftops... Could she do it?

And another thing...

Look. There’s no need to thank me. The fact that I was correct is thanks enough. I refer, of course, to the fact that had you followed my advice and backed the unfancied Netherlands each way to win the World Cup you would be sitting on a tidy pile of cash as you read this. Like I say, no need to thank me, but a pint of Stella always goes down well…

I’ve always liked a bet, but it was never as enjoyable as when my chums Peter Baker and Paulie Inman took a stake in a racehorse – the inestimable Katy Nowaitee.

Peter ran one of the Public Houses that I frequented in Marlow – the Hand and Flowers – and one day he and Paul had taken an interest in a racehorse who would be running almost immediately. We were to await instructions on the punt.

18 months later we still hadn’t had so much as a quid on Katy. She was suffering from a bad back, apparently (or a cold, or a sore throat, or she was off her food), and quite soon we were thinking that a more enticing bet would be to open a book on how long it would take for Katy Nowaitee to end up in a can of Meaty Chunks. All this time Peter and Paulie were shelling out 75 quid a month to fund the horse’s wellbeing, all the while having to put up with the sniggers and jibes of a whole town.

However Katy prospered under the care of trainer Peter Harris, and finally four year old Katy arrived at Nottingham racecourse for her debut run in tricky maiden.

Literally anything could have won the race, and Katy’s price of 14/1 indicated that the bookies didn’t really expect it to be her. But I had 20 quid on her anyway, and put her in with the favourite as the last leg of the placepot. A couple of pints, and then down to Ladbrokes to watch the race.

Whilst I’d been in the pub, all manner of chaos had been ensuing at Nottingham, favourites had been tumbling and the placepot was offering a tidy sum even if the favourite saluted in the last. If Katy won, well...

The race was messy; the 14 runners taking an age to sort themselves out before, unbelievably, Katy Nowaitee stuck her little head bravely out, pinned her ears back, and took them on. She pissed it. She was only a small horse – and we already knew she was a bit frail – but she had the proverbial heart of a lion, fighting her way through the buffeting of her life to deliver a famous win. A win which netted me just under a thousand pounds once the placepot was divvied up. We repaired to the pub and toasted Katy Nowaitee long into the night.

Of course we were hooked on the little filly. We didn’t back her next time out on the advice of the stable – she finished a disappointing fifth at Pontefract – but we were all back on her when she led 21 other gee gees home at Redcar at odds of 11/1.

Three weeks later she failed on her return to Nottingham – costing the entire town a pretty penny – before being put away for the winter and a well deserved rest.

Katy Nowaitee was already a legend in the sleepy riverside town of Marlow, but the following year was to be unbelievable, feel-good film material – I’ll tell you all about it next time.

Live Evil

The world of heavy metal was rocked to the core by the death of Black Sabbath/Rainbow/Dio/Heaven and Hell vocalist Ronnie James Dio. Despite the fact he was 68 when stomach cancer finally did him in, he seemed, like all the great rock vocalists, to be timeless, ageless – somehow immortal. But he’s gone, and with the period of mourning now over, we turn to remembering and, in the case of Canberra’s own LIVE EVIL, paying tribute to the great man.

Live Evil’s drummer, Duncan Beard, is clearly as upset as I was about the great man’s demise and wanted to do something about it. So the band came up with the novel idea of playing two separate tribute shows to the man – one on the Northside, at Belco’s Basement, and one in the South, at PJ O’Reilly’s in Tuggeranong. When I suggested something more central would have been ideal, we both came quickly to the conclusion that there isn’t really anywhere left in Civic to put on a show of this kind, given the propensity of certain city hotels for trying to have anywhere closed down within a five mile radius of their portals if anything louder than a sneeze emanates from a live music venue.

So, North and South it is. What can we expect?

“Everything, really! We’ll be covering material from all of Ronnie’s career – Sabbath, Rainbow and Dio stuff.”

That’s a big repertoire.

“Yes it is. But it’s all classic stuff! It’s really tough to learn some of it, but I think we’ve come up with a pretty good balance of material.”

It’s almost impossible to calculate the amount of influence someone like Ronnie had, has, and will continue to exercise over metal musicians, young and old, don’t you think?

“Yes it is. But I think he’s also held in such regard because he was genuinely such a good person. Our singer Matt met him.”

Let’s let Live Evil vocalist Matt Davis take up the story.

“He signed birthday cards for us, shared his rider – poured drinks for us like he was hosting us at his own home. He was happy to talk for 40-45 minutes about life, kids, his community projects. When I spoke to [former Dio guitarist] Craig Goldy in LA this January, we seemed to think Ronnie was pulling through.”

But, as we know now, it wasn’t to be. Heaven and Hell, the band Dio formed with former Black Sabbath compadres Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Vinnie Appice, are slated to play a tribute set to Dio at the High Voltage festival with vocalist Glenn Hughes in London the same night as our own boys play PJ’s – kinda fitting one feels. Davis again:

“I’m just happy and kind of proud we are able to play these gigs. Not only is it fun, but it has some kind of meaning for us too.”

Amen to that.

See Live Evil perform their tribute to Ronnie James Dio either at PJ O’Reilly’s in Tuggeranong on Saturday July 24 or at the Basement in Belconnen on Friday August 6. Tickets are $15 on the door.

Terry Brock - Diamond Blue [Frontiers/Riot]

3 out of 5

Terry Brock is one of rock’s perennial nearly men. First emerging in the early eighties as a backing vocalist for pomp rock gods Kansas, Brock then went on to add his considerable vocal elasticity to Scottish also-rans Strangeways (who have recently, for reasons best known to themselves, reformed). He then joined up again with elements of Kansas in the Seventh Key project before fronting a reformed Giant for their poorly received Promise Land opus from last year. Which brings us to the here and, indeed, the now. For Diamond Blue Brock has teamed up with former Streets guitarist Mike Slamer (that’s Streets the eighties  AOR Gods, not the pasty-faced rapper of the same name), and the results are predictably incendiary.

Melodic hard rock is the name of the game, and Brock and Slamer deliver the good stuff in spades. The title track is, simply, spine tingling in its simplicity – great vocal +brilliant solo+ massive chorus= instant classic in my books, and this rudimentary blueprint is used time and again throughout the album. It’s You is a gargantuan mix of Bryan Adams before he turned into a twat, whilst elsewhere Brock’s measured vocal brilliance lifts slightly more workaday material such as No More Mr Guy to heights of which you wouldn’t think such meat and potatoes fare capable. There’s absolutely no place for DB in the modern marketplace – but if you like great songwriting delivered with style and panache, then maybe you should give this a go. 

Diabulus In Musica - Beyond Infinity [Metal Blade/Riot]

3 out of 5

It seems odd to think now that there was a time, not so very long ago, when the idea of a girl singing with a full-on heavy metal band would have caused snorts of derision of the ‘it’ll never happen’ kind down at your local rock pub; of course we now live in more enlightened times and such bands have become so popular that some record labels have been formed to only sign female-fronted HM outfits... which must be a good thing, surely?

All of which brings us to Spain’s DIM. Beyond Infinity is massive in scope, faultless in execution but slightly soulless as a result. There’s an air of by-numbers about this, despite vocalist Maite Itoiz’ efforts to add something out of the ordinary; despite their grandiose pretensions, the likes of Come to Paradise and Ishtar come and go with little to catch the ear or hold the attention. That’s not to say there’s nothing to like here. Album closer, the superbly Gothic St Michael’s Nightmare succeeds where all before have failed, and there are moments – a riff here, a keyboard flourish there, some impressively orchestrated baroque floridity everywhere, which give you a sniff that something special may well eventuate from this project.

Will our patience be rewarded on future releases? I hope so, but for now there just isn’t enough going on here to recommend DIM to anyone but the most fervent fan of female vocalism.

Max Power

It’s been a filthy day in the nation’s capital, so when BMA arrives at this far-flung outpost of rock ‘n’ roll we’re heartened by the not too shabby late afternoon turnout. The bar, despite not serving pints, is doing great business and every man jack of us, if slightly damp, appears to be in good spirits. There are many reasons why BMA is keen to see tonight go off like the proverbial Scoutmaster at a Gang Show, not the least one being that, since the untimely and tragic demise of the Green Room there simply hasn’t been a credible over 18s southside rock venue. We’re all rooting for MP guru Gary Peardon to make a go of things here in Erindale – and so should you be.

Super Best Friends do nothing to spoil the happy atmosphere. They play a raging, heavier than usual set which really demands attention from those who have ventured into the venue’s inner sanctum to see what’s going on. Like that bottle of vintage port that’s been sitting under my sink for the last couple of years which I’m too scared to drink, Super Best Friends are getting better and better with age.

I Exist have been making waves in hardcore circles for a little while now, with an album, I: A Turn For The Worse, that is quite possibly the finest recorded product to have emanated from Canberra in recorded history. The Maram’s small stage doesn’t afford the band the full opportunity to do it justice tonight, but there’s enough venom and bile in evidence to suggest that they could be the real deal given a following wind and a few breaks. Exciting.

The Escape Syndrome, like Super Best Friends, never let you down. Tonight they deliver a tight half hour of classy hard rock, but they need to start putting themselves about a bit further afield if they are to realise their full potential. They definitely have it in them.

There’s no draught beer on sale in the performance area at the Maram, which means Spoil are missed in the queue for Stella, which your reviewer is now purchasing two at a time to decrease the wait time, before we return to the fray for tonight’s main event – The Variodivers launching their EP. They are the first band of the evening to entertain in the truest sense of the word, with the show as important as the music, and the ever-swelling crowd likes what it sees...

...As they do as well for the uber-slick Switch 3. It’s a taut, professional performance they deliver, and they are good at what they do, but tonight they wash over our heads a little.

Which the ever-excellent Tonk, of course, don’t do. They rarely have an off night, tonight being no different. Every song hits the spot, they’re tight as ever, and the crowd lap them up.

A good day/night then, but with fatigue setting in your reviewer feels the need to head off into the soggy night for some kebabular relief – of which, incidentally, could be found none. Organiser Peardon is to be commended for putting on something like this FOR FREE in Canberra’s deep south. Let’s hope the projected Wolf & Cub show here is just the first of a long line of ‘Green Room’-style nights at the Maram – as long as the management invest in some pint pots...

And another thing...

It’s World Cup time again. Don’t say “which World Cup?”. I am equally passionate about Football, Rugby Union and Cricket, all of which stage their own quadrennial beanfeast… but there is only one ‘real’ World Cup, and by the time you read this it will have started in South Africa – brilliant.

Who will win, I hear you screaming… Well, I can confidently inform you it won’t be North Korea. Past that I can’t really be much help. According to SBS Football guru Les Murray, it’ll be Brazil, and ol’ Laszlo didnae get where he is today by making wild-eyed guesstimates, that’s for sure. Diuretic-loving leggy Shane Warne has plumped for Australia, proving that whilst the man is cricket’s leading idiot savant, in just about every other walk of life (save birding and Poker), his opinion is best left unrequested.

However, I’m never one to shirk a challenge, so here are a few pointers if you’re looking to invest a few quid here and there in the tournament.

In Group A, France, despite a shambolic qualification round which culminated in a dodgy handball-assisted win over Ireland in the playoffs, should start as favourites ahead of Mexico and Uruguay. Uruguay’s lack of adventure will probably doom them to third place in the group in front of hosts South Africa… France and Mexico to progress.

Group B is similarly intriguing. Argentina’s class on the pitch should cancel out Diego Maradona’s coaching off of it; whilst Greece, like the Uruguayans, may find a lack of goals hampers their ambitions. Nigeria could be the dark horses in this group, unlike South Korea.

Next up are England, the USA, Algeria and Slovenia. As usual England carry the weight of expectation of their fans; they’ll win this group, but they won’t win the whole thing. USA have enough about them to edge out the other two for progression to the knockout stages.

Despite the growing tabloid TV/paper mania surrounding them, Australia face a tough task to even get out of their group. Germany must be considered shoe-ins for leadership, but after that… who knows? Serbia qualified well but have since looked shaky in their warm ups, and Ghana are without their talismanic captain Michael Essien but on their day can knock over anyone. If the Aussies can nick a point against Germany, they might just get into the next round, where they’ll probably face England.

Group E should be a cake walk for And Another Thing’s bet of the tournament, the Netherlands. They’re 10/1 for the title as I write this, which is top each way value (ask your father…). Denmark or Cameroon will follow them into the knockout stages, with Japan some way distant in fourth.

Group F sees Italy battling Paraguay for first place, with the Azzurri’s experience tipped to see them through, despite Paraguay’s strong qualification. Slovakia and New Zealand make up the numbers here, and whilst both are capable of shaking up big sides, don’t expect too much from them this time around.

Group G should be exciting. Brazil will win it, but with North Korea only here for the beer, one of the matches of the tournament could be the Ivory Coast playing Portugal for second place… It’s on tonight if you’ve picked this up on Wednesday June 16!

Rounding things out in Group H, Spain – with whom a lot, make that a mountain, of smart money is currently resident – should be Kings of the hill. Chile could spring a surprise by finishing ahead of Switzerland and Honduras for second…

It’s going to be a great month – good luck to you whoever you support or have a punt on!

Indica - A Way Away [Nuclear Blast/Riot]

4 out of 5

Finnish all girl gothic pop bands aren’t exactly ten a penny, so, whilst Indica are undoubtedly large fish in a very small pond, they are still really rather spiffing – and they pack enough crossover appeal to conquer the mainstream if handled the right way. For their fifth release they’ve decided, for the first time, to record in English and, whilst this decision means some of their quirky (to the English-hearing ear at least) charm is immediately removed, there’s still a huge amount on A Way Away to become enamoured with.

Album opener Island of Lights sees the girls at their heaviest (think: some of Nightwish’s poppier moments – Amaranth f’rinstance), whilst elsewhere the pure pop sensibilities of Scissor, Paper, Rock won’t fail to get you grinning like a loon. But the band is at its best on a pair of aching, melancholic ballads, the second of which, the album’s title track, is so good it wouldn’t have gone amiss on one of Kate Bush’s late seventies/early eighties ouvres. The other, Lilja’s Lament, is pure whimsy, containing a compelling performance from vocalist Jonsu that will delight and unsettle in equal parts. Add all this to the likes of the strangely insistent Straight and Arrow – an eerie, blackened nursery rhyme that wouldn’t seem out of place on the soundtrack to something directed by Tim Burton – and you have a surprisingly enchanting, beguiling release. I’m hooked.

And another thing...

I was a slave to Holy Diver. For a couple of weeks prior to the album’s release Tommy Vance had been playing tracks from it, teasing his Britain-wide Radio 1 listenership with its brilliance, and I’d salivate like a metallic Pavlovian pooch every time I got a sniff of one of the tracks. I couldn’t buy it on its day of release – I’d already spent my pocket money for the week – but the following Saturday there I was in Tescos in Northampton, handing over five pounds and 29 pence for this hotly anticipated slab of metallic grandeur. It didn’t let me down.

The needle dropped onto the vinyl. My jaw dropped onto the carpet. Stand Up and Shout is still one of the best album opening tracks in the history of metal, but in 1983 it was quite simply one of the best tracks I’d ever heard. Guitarist Vivian Campbell’s coruscating riffage transported me to another plane as I battered away at my cardboard guitar in time to the music, but it was the vocals, courtesy of the timeless Ronnie James Dio, that were what Stand Up and Shout was really all about. For Holy Diver, the first album by Dio’s eponymous solo band, is one of the great expositions of metal singing. If not the greatest.

The title track, for all its faintly ludicrous allusions to riding tigers and drowning vicars, is pure brilliance; Dio exhibiting his mastery of the art of epic metal in five and three quarter minutes of pure vocal nirvana. But whilst Dio even in 1983 had something of a (deserved at times) reputation for penning silly dungeons and dragons ditties for a non-critical legion of dopey bedenimed followers, Holy Diver demonstrates a keen ear for melody and, above all, songwriting smarts that most of his contemporaries couldn’t touch. Caught in the Middle is a great pop song swathed in crashing drums, throbbing bass and razor sharp axework, whilst the album’s show stopping piece de resistance – Don’t Talk to Strangers – shows what can be done with a stellar riff, a songwriter’s ear and the best set of hard rockin’ pipes this side of… well, the best set of pipes period, actually. Put simply, DTTS is perfect heavy metal.

But why all this misty-eyed reminiscence? Because when I woke up today I found out that Ronnie James Dio had died at the age of 67 after a brief but savage battle with stomach cancer. I mentioned earlier that Dio seemed to me as a young headbanger to be ‘timeless’ and, over the next 27 years that has always been my sense of the man. He was already a veteran when I first entered the wonderful and frightening world of heavy metal, and for nearly 30 years, whatever modern musical mores have come and gone, he’s accompanied me on my sonic journey. Sure, he’s birthed a few turkeys over the years, but the bottom line has always been a legacy of involvement in three of the classic hard rock albums of all time (the man’s vocals can be found on Rising by Rainbow, Heaven and Hell by Black Sabbath and the aforementioned Holy Diver) and a voice that for many sums up an entire genre. The man was gracious, generous (his single-handed stewardship of heavy metal’s contribution to Bob Geldof’s Live Aid/USA for Africa projects – Hear ‘n Aid – earned him many plaudits from many outside of metal’s sometimes wilfully ghettoised community) and, perhaps most importantly, a lover of both beer and curry. I’m sad as I type this, but perhaps to prove to myself that the man lives on in his music, I’m cranking Rainbow in the Dark at neighbour-bothering volume – and it feels good. Rock in Peace Ronnie.

Rhapsody of Fire - The Frozen Tears of Angels [Nuclear Blast / Riot]

I love Italy’s Rhapsody of Fire. I love everything about them – their ambition, their vision, their pomp, their circumstance... but mostly I love their music. This is fortuitous, because here they are with their eighth full-length outing, the superbly OTT The Frozen Tears of Angels. After the obligatory cinematic opening, the album proper kicks off in frankly superb style in the shape of Sea of Fate, an old school slice of operatic power/speed metal that’ll have the veins in your temples throbbing as you sing along, after a fashion, with consummate throatsmith Fabio Lione. Follow up Crystal Moonlight is no less gargantuan, Luca Turilli’s superb fretwork framing Lione’s spectacular vocalising to devastating effect.

In fact that’s pretty much the story of the whole album – Turilli and Lione are the stars here, as the band power through slab after slab of fast and furious magnificence; it’s almost a given that TFTOA is just a part of a sprawling, multi-album fantasy (it’s the third part of The Dark Secret Saga, if you’re interested), but that’s of no real matter if you’re arriving to the band late. The music here is so vital, so thrilling, so compelling, that it stands quite nicely on its own two feet outside of the concept; if what you’re after is complex, passionate, rousing music of the first order then this album fits the bill, with or without its companions.

And aother thing...

He is coming. Don’t look so confused and worried. You know who I mean. What? You haven’t a clue what I’m clearly so excited about? I say again, louder and slower this time: H-E I-S C-O-M-I-N-G.

That’s right. I am in a state of high excitement because MICHAEL BOLTON IS COMING TO CANBERRA! Oh yes. One of the great hard rock voices of all time will be expositing his wares amongst us at the AIS on Friday May 21.

I hear you sniggering. I see you wiping the flecks of spittle from your smug chops as you contemplate my clearly demented excitement. Hard rock? In a chimp’s cock…

But it’s true, brothers and sisters, it’s true. After a brief false start in the mid ‘70s under his real name, Michael Bolotin, when he released two soul-influenced elpees, Bolton hit paydirt at the end of the decade in the band Blackjack.

Blackjack also featured Kiss guitarist Bruce Kulick, and the band produced two sterling slabs of Bad Company-styled bluesy hard rock on the Polydor label. Their biggest hit, the strutting Without Your Love still occasionally gets a run out on Rage in the weekend small hours.

Of course, the cream rarely rises to the top in the music industry, and Blackjack withered on the vine thanks to some rubbish record company decisions. By the start of the ‘80s Bolton was out on his own again. In 1983 he released his third (self-titled) solo album, and reminded the world once more that here was a set of lungs to be reckoned with. Combing the hard rock elements of his Blackjack days (Kulick again lending his not inconsiderable six string skills to the Bolton bellow) with a slicker pop sensibility, Michael Bolton is an absolute classic of ‘80s AOR, with every track featured delivering the goods. But the album only got to number 89 on the US chart, despite good reviews, and once again Bolton was forced to question his direction.

Taking stock of the musical environment in America, and its seeming turn to a harder-rocking style, Bolton decided to return to the arena rock stylings of Blackjack for his next release.

Put simply, 1985’s Everybody’s Crazy is one of the greatest melodic hard rock albums ever released. Written and performed by our hero and an absolute who’s who of AOR royalty, EC quite literally had it all – bone crushing rockers (the title track and the devastatingly tear-jerking Save Our Love), achingly yearning ballads (Desperate Heart and the majestic Call My Name, later covered by Jennifer Rush) – there literally isn’t a bad song in the set… but since when has that actually made any difference to an album’s success?

Everybody’s Crazy inexplicably stiffed, leaving Bolton propping up the bar in the last chance saloon. For what would probably be his last shot at the big time, he changed tack again – and the rest, as they say, is history.

1987’s The Hunger was Bolton’s first platinum album and, sad to say, its success was largely derived by getting rid of the rock. Sure, some highlights for fans of the good stuff are still in evidence – the title track and Gina both bring the hairs on the back of the neck to attention – but for the most part the man’s banshee wail was reduced to a cocktail lounge croon as soul classics (Bolton’s version of Otis Redding’s (Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay is here) and big production numbers became the order of the day…

And that’s what he’ll be singing at the AIS, of course. But I’ll be there, just in case he decides to crank out some of ‘our kind of music.’ I can dream, can’t I?

Calling All Cars - Hold, Hold, Fire [Shock]

It may have been because they were supporting masters of tedium Cog when I saw them live, but I really had CAC down as being something a little more unusual than the usual workaday modern Australian rock outfit. 

In the live arena they make a hell of a lot of racket for a ‘mere’ three-piece, and their dynamism made them a far more compelling proposition than the headliners that night at the Hellenic Club... all of which makes Hold, Hold, Fire something of a disappointment.

It’s not bad, but the transition from all guns blazing live outrage to the more polite, measured confines of the recording studio has left the band at something of
a disadvantage.

Opener Disconnect suggests we may be in for a ride of exciting proportions, but the band can’t quite back up this early promise and in fact it’s not until final track Little Red Hands that you really get a glimpse of what this mob are actually capable of.

In between those twin peaks it’s all a little safe, all a little samey and all a bit commercial radio friendly. The title track blusters a bit but never quite breaks the shackles, This Ship Will Sail Without You almost makes the grade but doesn’t quite... are you getting the picture? Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot to like about CAC - so maybe next time?

And another thing...

Ignorance, according to my old Physics master Ronald ‘Harry’ Boardman, is bliss. And of course he was in part correct. All through my schooling I was blissfully unaware of the works of Archimedes, Boyle’s Law and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principal; a willful ignorance that often led to Mr Boardman hurling a board rubber at me whilst screaming his catchphrase – “IDIOT! NO! YOU’RE NOT EVEN THAT CLEVER – YOU’RE A QUARTER HALFWIT!”

And it wasn’t just Physics. I was convinced Euripedes, the tragedian of ancient repute, was a Greek tailor…

“You rippa dese trousers, I menda dese trousers.”

Sorry. I just slipped into stand-up mode there, I’ve been watching a lot of DVDs recently of old British comedians and they have a habit of rubbing off when one starts holding forth on matters.

Now, where was I? Ah yes. Bliss. Events over the course of this past weekend have led me to question Mr Boardman’s aeons-old law of bliss, and I’ve come up with the following examples:

Bliss is pottering about in one’s underpants in the morning, looking forward to the day ahead.

Bliss is putting on some sharp threads when you don’t normally need to.

Bliss is meeting up with some friends, old and new, to have a couple of swift ones as the moment of truth looms.

Bliss is arriving at a wonderful venue, in wonderful weather, with the sense of anticipation hanging heavily in the air.

Bliss is the wonderful staff at the wonderful venue opening the bar just a little bit earlier than they wanted to, so the friends, old and new, could have a swift livener to settle any remaining pre-match nerves.

Bliss is the Lady Wife turning up, looking as beautiful as the day we got married.

Bliss is a gathering of faces from all over the world, even with ash clouds gathering, to be in this one place at this one time.

Bliss is watching two valued friends say their wedding vows to one another in the afternoon sun.

Bliss is the celebration starting in earnest.

Bliss is bellowing Don’t Stop Believing at the top of one’s voice.

Bliss is sumptuous foodstuffs being brought to your table repeatedly, until you feel like Mr Creosote.

Bliss is watching people throw caution to the wind and make fools of themselves on the dance floor, swing-style.

Bliss is the light dimming, slowly, and the realisation that you’ve had enough.

Bliss is going home with the one you love after a perfect day.

Bliss was Allan and Elisa’s wedding – thanks guys, and all the best for the years to come.

*          *          *          *          *

But enough of the dewy eyed reminiscing. There are campaigns to be fought and this column would like to exhort you, if you haven’t done so already, to get over to Facebook and join the group I Want to Help Shape the Future of Music in Canberra. There you’ll find some likeminded souls concerned about the way things are going in this town viz a viz live music, its venues and the hounding thereof by the cloth-eared forces of repression that pass for a government in the nation’s capital. It also has some handy tips on how you can get involved in the democratic process by submitting your own thoughts to the ongoing government inquiry into Canberra’s live entertainment scene. There are a lot of people around in positions of power that would not worry a bit if live music withers on the vine in Canberra and, if you don’t voice your opposition to them, they’ll assume you agree with them. Let’s go to work!

Asia - Omega [Frontiers/Riot]

In 1982 British rock supergroup Asia stood, seemingly alone, stemming the new wave tide on behalf of the arena rock dinosaurs of the seventies. Fused from elements of Yes, King Crimson, Emerson,Lake and Palmer and, um, The Buggles, they ruled America’s airwaves for a couple of years with streamlined tearjerkers like Only Time Will Tell and Heat of the Moment.

Egos inevitably intervened, and Keyboardist Geoff Downes was left to guide the band through a quarter century of revolving door lineups and performances in Midwestern Irish Pub venues to ever diminishing crowds of the faithful.

Then, somehow, the man engineered a reformation, and in 2008 Asia Mark I, with vocalist/bassist John Wetton, guitarist Steve Howe and drummer Carl Palmer rejoining Downes for the gloriously pompous Phoenix, which became the first Asia album to chart in 20-odd years in the US and led to a successful bout of touring worldwide.

In 2010 the unit has held firm, and returns with Omega, a collection of songs that, whilst not so immediate as its predecessor, is still rather good.
Asia in 2010 is less bombastic than of yore, though opener Finger on the Trigger starts off proceedings in spritely enough fashion, preferring to ease back on the extraneous noise in favour of some tastefully restrained arrangements that really allow the listener to enjoy throatsmith Wetton’s marvellous performance, both vocally and lyrically. As ever, a welcome treat.

Deep Purple

Steve Morse is, in my (not so humble) opinion, the greatest guitarist in the world. Starting out in the early ‘70s in jazz rock outfit the Dixie Dregs, Morse carved a name for himself as one of the most versatile axemen in rock. But, as is ever the way, though critically acclaimed, the Dregs didn’t sell enough records for the liking of the man, and by the mid-‘80s Morse was looking for a new gig. Fittingly, the best guitarist in the world was asked to join the best band in the world – Kansas. But after two albums it was clear once again that record company politics were going to conspire to stymie a band above such things and, after the release of the greatest album ever recorded – 1988’s In The Spirit of Things – Morse was on his way again. A noted workaholic, the man spent a while as a commercial pilot whilst keeping a solo band on the road before, somewhat surprisingly, being asked to join DEEP PURPLE in 1994.

Which is why I’m on the phone to him now. Y’see the Purps are headed our way again, and I’ve heard it may be for the last time – is this true Mr Morse?

“I haven’t heard that rumour. Did you get that from a hitman? Because, you know, the only way I can see this band stopping playing is a direct hit from a cruise missile!”

This is of course comforting news for Purple fans such as myself. So what kind of set should we expect this time around?

“Well, the set we’re playing at the moment is different from the last time we were in Australia, but it’ll be different again by the time we get back there. It depends a lot on Ian [Gillan, vocalist]. On any given night on the road we meet and greet with a hundred or so people, and he sometimes comes down with a bit of laryngitis, or sore throats, so sometimes we tailor the set to get the best out of him, to help him get through the hard times. Obviously there are always some old classics we have to play, as well as five or six new songs that we like to throw in… then there are seven or eight songs that we rotate from night to night throughout a tour, plus me, Don [Airey, keyboards] and Ian [Paice, drums] throw in some improv, so it can be anything from those four groups that we come up with.”

So perm 15 from 120 then! But, I’m supposing, this must be the only way to prevent rigor mortis from setting in on the brain?

“Exactly. Because as much as someone coming to the band as a young kid for the first time might just want to hear Smoke on the Water or some really fast playing, it’s that ability we have as musicians to keep things fresh, just little things like phrasing within that song, that keeps things exciting. I still love touring. Or the playing part at least. I think as I get older I appreciate the good things about it more. You know the bad stuff, like travelling or waiting around, is coming, and you get through it. And you feel lucky to still be able to play for people at the end of the day!”

You’ve joined two of the biggest rock bands in the world, replacing founding members along the way. Was it difficult to join Purple after Ritchie Blackmore, one of heavy rock’s iconic guitar players? You have a very different style.

“It wasn’t difficult. There will always be people who don’t want you, who only want the original lineup or whatever. But there have been eight lineups of Deep Purple, you know? Generally people are pretty good. And we’ve still got three guys in the band who were there in 1969 – which is pretty good going! But it was a lot easier I think to join Kansas. Kerry [Livgren] is a great guitarist and a good man. Kansas’ heartland is the heartland of America, and maybe people were a little more accepting there initially.”

I’ve been listening to your work since about 1982 – in many ways you’ve formed the soundtrack to my life. Are you ready to call it a day now? In between stints with Purple you still tour your solo band and hold guitar clinics – what drives you?

“You know, it’s almost like I’ve earned the right to do this. When I was young, all I did was practice, practice, practice. When everyone else was hanging out, drinking beer… I was practicing. I love playing. And I get the chance to play with some great guys. My new solo album is called Outstanding in Their Field – on the back cover there we all are, standing in a field. I love this stuff!”

After we’ve finished chortling I remark that those guys who were hanging out drinking beer all those years ago aren’t now in Deep Purple…

“No, and I don’t want to disrespect those people. There’s a good deal of hanging out and drinking beer in Deep Purple – I’m involved too!”

I remarked earlier that Morse was, in my opinion, the greatest guitarist in the world. This isn’t just me though. In the ‘80s the readers of Guitar Player Magazine voted Morse their favourite guitarist in their end of year poll on five consecutive occasions, a run that in the end had the poll organisers ‘retire’ Morse from the running to give someone else a chance. So who are the man’s idols? I’m giving him the chance to curate his own time travelling, money-no-object festival, featuring the five artists he’d most like to see on stage together. Steve – curate away!

“Wow… that’s too hard! Let’s see. Opening up, I’d have Crosby Stills and Nash. Then, um, I’d like Led Zeppelin from around the time of their first album. Can I reform the Beatles?”

You can have whoever you like. You’re in charge.

“Okay, then The Beatles. Then I have to get a little left field, so I’ll put in [jazz fusion legends] The Mahavishnu Orchestra…”

Maybe they could jam with George Harrison? Morse laughs nervously. I’ve offended the maestro?

“Um, I don’t know. Maybe, depending on their set list…”

I move on. Headliner? There’s a pause, and some audible umming and ahhhing.

“Erm, really, it’s too hard. Lynyrd Skynyrd or The Allman Brothers. You decide.”

Tell you what, as a thank you for 30 years of peerless entertainment – I’ll let you have them both.

“Thank you! And see you in Canberra!”

Catch Deep Purple at the Royal Theatre on Saturday May 1. Tickets through Ticketek.

And another thing...

I elected not to go to the Folk Festival over the Easter Weekend, despite repeated assurances in the Canberra Times that ‘it’s not all beards and sandals’ over at EPIC anymore; that may well be some sort of audited fact, although from the photographs I’ve seen of the event at least 50 percent of the women attending were still in possession of facial hair despite the best efforts of the organisers. The fact remains that the music is still largely dull as ditchwater, being as it is a documentation of assorted malcontents’ (usually Scottish or Irish) tedious attempts to escape paying tax to their English overlords, so myself and the Lady Wife were obliged to cast further afield for our dose of holiday culture.

This is how we found ourselves at the Llewellyn Hall on Easter Sunday, thanks to the largesse of ABC’s Classic FM station for an extremely beguiling programme of choral music stretching, as the blurb had it, ‘from the renaissance to the modern day.’

Classical music – it’s not all twinsets, pearls and Zimmer frames anymore, you know.

Actually it is, as the vast majority of performers and audience would have been able to travel to the ANU by bus for free this particular Sunday (should such a service actually run with any reliability), but that can actually aid your enjoyment of an event when you’re used to being one of the oldest persons in a room observing a live exposition, and we took our seats with a spritely spring in our steps in readiness for the performance.

And what a lovely performance it was. The Canberra Choral Society took us on a whirlwind, hour-long trip through 500 years of musical history, the highlight of which was a delightfully unaccompanied reading of Monteverdi’s Quell Augellin Che Chanta, although two settings of the Te Deum – one by Benjamin Britten, the other by Ralph Vaughan Williams – were also rather splendid.

The whole thing was being recorded for broadcast by the ABC as part of their Sunday Live series and so – and here’s the best part if you’re feeling the pinch in these recessionary times – to ensure healthy applause in between pieces ADMISSION WAS FREE! Because it’s being recorded and broadcast live you have to be settled in your seat with moby switched to silent by ten to three, but I guarantee you’ll have a lovely time should you choose to go to either of the performances that will be still to come by the time you read this.

* * * * * *

In further proof that time flies while you’re having fun, BMA head honcho Allan Sko will be a married man by the time you read this. Yet it barely seems five minutes since I shambled into the Mag’s old offices for the first time in search of some CDs to tell you all about, to find the little ‘un, by then already lord of all he surveyed (approximately three feet five inches of industrial carpet and some filing cabinets), deliberating in magisterial fashion over something or other. And now, sah, the lil’ massa is gon’ become a man! That is of course, if he survives the privations of his Stag Night (sorry, Buck’s Party) which, if rumour is to be believed, promises to be a drink up of biblical proportions.

Be that as it may, I’d like to take this opportunity to wish the man and his soon to be Lady Wife, the delightful Elisa, every happiness in their future life together – as long as I can still book Al for a drink on the first Thursday in every month…

Massive Attack / Martina Topley-Bird

And another thing...

I was talking to Clint Boge the other day. You know Clint, erstwhile lead singer of The Butterfly Effect, and now also frontman for the deliciously heavy Thousand Needles in Red, of whom more in the future. Anyways, TNIR are managing themselves, and the boy Boge was commenting on how much hard work it is getting that sort of thing up and running, even when you’ve made a bit of a name for yourself. I could only concur, having had a hand in managing a few in my time, but as we were meant to be discussing the more exciting aspects of his new band, I didn’t really have the time to go into just how mundane managing a band can be. So I’ll bore you with it instead.

Many years ago, I worked for a company called Brilliant. Brilliant owner, Mark ‘Spitty’ Walmesley, had many fingers in many pies; a successful merchandise company (visitors to his home might be billeted in the ‘Bad Religion’ extension or the ‘Napalm Death’ wing, both names a tribute to the number of shirts sold by both bands throughout the early ‘90s, the proceeds of which contributed to the purchase and improvement of his domicile) and a management company amongst them. Though I was brought on board to add to the merchandise empire, Brilliant was run so tightly (some might say ‘on a shoestring’) that one was often roped in on the management side. This might involve booking studio time for bands such as Huge Baby, or, as you’ll doubtless remember, spilling kebab juice all over priceless original album artwork by Saxon. What came as a surprise immediately was how little money there was available to do all this, even for bands that had supposedly ‘made it’.

Management turned out to be not one long round of champagne, cocaine and women of loose virtue, more an extended lesson in fibbing to creditors, testing people’s patience and explaining to the band why people were knocking on their doors at the most ungodly hour of 7.30 in the morning asking where the mortgage money was. It was forwarding on royalty statements to band members in America, the cost of which in stamps outstripped the amount on the cheque within (and I’ll come back to the price of stamps later), and then fielding the inevitable reverse charge call explaining that no, there hadn’t been a mistake – people just didn’t like your last record as much as we expected; then taking a boxload of that record down to the record ‘n’ tape exchange on a Friday afternoon so you had enough beer money to go out that night and schmooze on behalf of them for that dream tour support they’ve been banging on about for months.

But for all that, we were a good company who always did what we could for our bands. Years earlier even than that, a bespectacled figure approached me in the dressing room after a show I’d just done with my then band, Scit Scat Wah, promising us the moon. We’d heard it all before of course, but were tired of being a DIY outfit and thought it might be fun for someone else to do the hard yakka. The next week we turned up to our usual rehearsal space to find High Wycombe’s leading jazz funk outfit using our slot. Our ‘manager,’ Ruprecht, had forgotten to ring the studio to book out our usual Sunday morning four hours. The next time we saw him, he handed us an invoice for 79 pounds for ‘labour and stamps.’ He’s still in the business today, apparently – friends in the industry tell me you can tell it’s him by his odd, invoice-up-the-rectum gait…

And Another Thing

Are you familiar with the excellent British television series Spaced? It’s brilliant, far too brilliant to go into at length here – if you see repeats on UKTV, watch them… or, better yet, buy the DVDs, available at all good etc – they’re worth the money.

Anyways, having said that, remember this phrase, idly scribbled by Spaced’s main protagonist, Tim Bisley, on a portfolio of his cartoon artwork:

I AM A MASSIVE WANKER

As I say, remember this, because it will come in handy later on...

In (apparently) unrelated news, Western Australian/Californian hippy icons the John Butler Trio have released a new album, revolutionarily entitled The April Uprising.

It’s an unintentionally amusing moniker, given the fact that John and his trio would probably be as close to any form of organised insurrection as Tony Abbott would be to being found in one of the stalls in the gents at Cube, but what really raised And Another Thing’s hackles were the instructions that accompanied the review copies of said album.

Remember, then, that most uprisings usually have some form of natural justice, freedom of speech and/or release from oppression at their core… but the JBT, protectors of huggable trees the nation over, brewers of mung bean tea par excellence and general all round opposers of oppression and it’s earthly facilitator, ‘the man,’ have a different idea.

Y’see, every review copy of their new album comes with a piece of paper, which has to be signed, stating the user will only use the album for review purposes (shit… I could be taken to court already – there’s a hot cup of coffee resting on my copy even as I type), and – I’m not making this up – reviewers will only listen to the album in public places via the gift of headphones.

Now, that last piece of advice I’ll buy – I really don’t want people on the 318 to Belconnen and points North in the morning thinking I’m actually listening to this drivel because I’m enjoying it, but, really, sometimes I can’t control the overspill from my earpieces, and who knows who’s earwigging in the next seat? Where do these people get off? Could I be prosecuted by the same revisionist forces that John professes so much loathing for (hey man, those pigs and lawyers, are like, really bad… we should stage an uprising or something… if mom pays for it) simply by having the stereo cranked up and the back door open whilst my neighbours – none of whom I know, much less trust – stand concealed in the herbaceous borders of my backyard brandishing Dictaphones? Do they really have such an inflated opinion of themselves that they think bootleggers are lurking everywhere, desperate to get a sneak preview of the new John Butler Trio album?

The answer, you would hope, is no. But you really have to wonder about anybody prepared on the one hand to try and make a humble street press journalist sign all manner of spurious ‘confidentiality’ clauses just to review their bloody album (which is utter rubbish, by the way – I know because I happened to be standing outside someone’s window the other night whilst they were playing it) whilst on the other hitching their wagon to some sort of vague green/hippy/left of centre free thinking lentil-infused anti-establishment love-in, don’t you?

There’s a simple answer here – go out and buy the most recent Levellers album, Letters From the Underground – musical proof that you can hold sincere leftist, revolutionary political views, over decades, yet still not sell out, and then go back to Spaced, with John Butler and his Trio in mind, and remember that graffiti.

And another thing...

Keel The Right to Rock - 25th Anniversary re-issue [Frontiers / Riot]

It may be hard for you youngsters to comprehend, but when TRTR first came out, the forces of repression were abroad in the world, and heavy metal was under the cosh from politicians and ‘religious’ people everywhere – and a band proclaiming that we all had ‘the right to rock’ was nowhere near as crass as that statement now appears on paper, a quarter of a century after the fact.

Of course good won over evil in the end, and it’s the right of all humans of voting age to rock as they go about their daily business. But will they be rocking to Keel?

Probably not. Despite its shinily re-mastered appearance, The Right to Rock is what it is – a top-of-the-second-division eighties metal record. Of course it has its moments – the title track is an absolute, of its time metal CLASSIC, but elsewhere there’s a lot of ham fisted posturing going on, saved only by vocalist Ron Keel’s impassioned bellowing  and some occasionally enticing guitar work from the amusingly named Marc Ferrari, both of whom do their best to enliven some workaday outings which often sound like offcuts from the Kiss albums of the time – no surprise when you know that the album was produced and in parts co-written by ol’ Mr Tongue himself, Gene Simmons.

More misses than hits, then, and not without some period charm – but you can live without this.

And another thing...

And another thing...

Wig Wam - Non Stop Rock ‘n’ Roll [Riot/Frontiers]

Those of you with elephantine memories may well remember Norway’s Wig Wam from their triumphant Eurovision Song Contest entry from 2005, the fabulous Bon Jovi pastiche In My Dreams; but it matters not one whit if you don’t – the words Eurovision, Bon and Jovi tell you everything you need to know.

Actually they don’t. Well, not entirely. Walls Come Down, the album’s second track, actually brings to mind the superbly classy, heavy melodic rock of Swedes Europe, especially the fine, full-throated vocals of singer Glam, whilst the title track does a good job of replicating the gods of this kinda mullarkey, the ever huge Whitesnake; and in Chasing Rainbows the band attempts, largely successfully, to join the musical dots between Queen, Aerosmith, Judas Priest and Tesla in under four minutes flat – no mean feat.

It’s not all barefaced tributing, of course, though the name of the game with WW is undoubtedly eighties nostalgia; You need to be supremely talented to even get in the same post code as Edward Van Halen (and there are a lot of nods to the man from guitarist Teeny throughout the album), and the band give just enough vent to these talents over and beyond mere apeage to warrant repeated listens – not just to spot the influence, but to enjoy the show as a whole. Enjoy this for what it is and you’ll have an absolute ball.

And another thing...

Blkout - Total Depravity [Resist]

And another thing...

And another thing...

And another thing...

Stylish Beer is the final proof that we in the West have got things all wrong. Just like cigarette manufacturers in the immediate post-war period who promoted their menthol-infused wares in advertisements as aids to clearer breathing which were 'good for the throat,' the makers of 'Stylish Beer,' a brew of which I sampled a goodly amount on my recent flight to Madrid from Seoul, are spruiking said elixir as 'for the benefit of young people.' Now, you and I have known how good beer is for us for years, but it's a fact that seems to have escaped the medical profession. At least the medical profession outside of South Korea. The reason, according to Stylish Beer's manufacturers, for the promotion of health and vitality in Korea's under-30s through the massive ingestion of their product is this - they've added fibre to it.

That's right. Now, thanks to the diligent research of the men in white coats at Stylish Beer's secret laboratories, drinking six cans of beer is the equivalent to eating an entire loaf of brown bread - quite literally, as Alanis Morrissette would have had it, a 'best friend with benefits.'

And so I tucked in with confidence as we headed over the Russian Steppe towards Europe, the ingestion of fibre bolstered by a regular succession of splendid meals - I kid you not, if you're thinking of heading to Europe, give Korean Air a whirl; their stringent excess baggage limits are only in place because you yourself will put on an extra stone whilst travelling with them, which is clearly another example of forward-thinking Korean enlightenment - and, before we knew it, we were descending through Dutch airspace in order to land at Amsterdam's Schipol Airport in order to take on a few new passengers and spruce ourselves up.

Of course, since 9/11 air travel isn't that simple anymore, Korean Air's plan for our 90 minute stay in the Netherlands didn't tally with mine at all. In the days before Osama a stop-off such as this would have merely constituted a chance for more duty free shopping in the airport or simply the opportunity to whet one's whistle with another as-yet-never-tasted foreign beer. In 2009, you are merely herded into a 'transit lounge' (basically an inadequately-seated space with a toilet and a Coke machine) and told to sit quietly until it's time to get back on the plane. The lady wife isn't having this - we've just been sat down for ten hours after all, and really would like to take a thrombosis-smashing turn around the terminal - and luckily a friendly member of Korean's ground staff has a plan.

"Pretend you need a cigarette," she advises. "Someone will take you to a smoker's area."

A marvellous idea. Neither of us smoke, of course - in my new role as a healthily fibrous drinker I'm utterly opposed to anything that pollutes the system like fags - but moments later we're out and about, being led to the small perspex-walled hut that constitutes Schipol's smoker's area. Luckily as adults we don't need to be supervised, so once our attendant leaves us we are effectively loose in the airport. Off we go!

Except, due to the 'transit lounge' arrangement, and the fact there are no longer bewildered tourists (possibly insensible due to stylish beer), there's nothing to do here. Everything has closed. And when we get back to the transit lounge all the seats are gone. Damn our enquiring minds...

Next time: The Prado Museum, and "I'm sorry Señor Adams, but your room has been let"...

And another thing...

First of all, may I take this opportunity to apologise for the break in normal transmissión - I'll return to my story about going to see Kansas in Germany at a later date. For now, I'm writing to you from the palatial splendour of the business centre of the Hotel Palacios VIP in Madrid, where I am domiciled in the Penthouse Suite at the moment on route to the mother country to attend my sister's wedding. I've only been away for a few days, but already it's a journey that's assuming epic proportions. Why don't I fill you in?

Having deposited the kids safely with the lady wife's parents, we set off optimistically, cases heaving under the weight of wet-weather protective gear and thermal long johns, and checked in to our Sydney Airport hotel in a collective state of high excitement. The hotel advised us that their Áeronautic Bar was the place to be in the airport precinct, so after having a quick wash and brush up we took our place in the excitement. What the blurb obviously meant to say was that the AB was the place to be if you were dressed in high viz vests, were on your lunch break from heaving luggage onto the carousels and needing to swill down seven or eight jack and cokes whilst leering at Pussycat Dolls videos on the big screen. Feeling old, myself and the good lady mounted the stairs for an early night and a bit of Hunter on the ABC - check in tomorrow at 7 AM!

Of course it's never that easy, eh? Standing in line at 7.15 next morning we become vaguely aware of the announcement, made by someone evidently underwater and speaking not in their mother tongue, that our flight had been delayed, for reasons that still, four days later, have not been made clear, FOR SIX AND A HALF HOURS. The apologetic member of staff who checked our bags through issued us two meal ticket vouchers with an apologetic smile and wished us bon voyage, without a trace of irony.

Airports, as I'm sure you're aware, are pretty rubbish places these days. The time when international air travel was a passport to excitement and the inevitable heavy drinking that goes with it are long gone. Now you have to remove your shoes in order to get through security and be frisked by stone-faced Eastern Europeans who take every weak joke you make as compelling evidence that your rectum is full to bursting point with contraband before being let loose airside in a world where, apparently, Crocodile Dundee is still King, and invited to drink in the Bondi Bar whilst clutching your duty-free beanie baby platypus. My wife, of course, doesn't drink that often so my first task is to find her some drinking water for the wait. Although I consider myself something of a newshound, I'd missed the announcement that the next Jihad starts with a bit of Evian, and was at a bit of a loss to understand why her bottles of Mount Franklin had been confiscated at Passport Control. Unfortunately every single water vending machine in the International terminal is out of order, which means I have to waste ALMOST ONE HALF of one of our precious vouchers to purchase something that should be provided FOR FREE to struggling pilgrims such as ourselves in times of stress like these - we is not happy.

NEXT EPISODE: Beer with added fibre that's good for young people, and exciting tales of Seoul after midnight...

And another thing...

It all started when I got a phone call at about eight o'clock one Monday night from my friend Martin.

"Michael's just rung me from Germany. Kansas are touring there next April, with Blue Oyster Cult. If you'd like to go he can put you on the guest list at one of the shows."

Michael was, and still is, a music promoter in Germany. He used to come over to England and visit Martin occasionally - just a couple of months earlier we'd gone to see QPR play West Ham followed by a trip to the Reading Festival to see Magnum and Status Quo. The chance to see my favourite band of all time, Kansas, was too good to turn down. Without thinking, I said yes.

This would have been late in 1988, just after Kansas had released their finest album, In the Spirit of Things, and I was, quite literally, in the grip of Kan-mania. They never toured in England in those days, believing no one was interested (possibly they were right about this - save for me, obviously), although they did occasionally make forays over the Atlantic to play for US troops stationed overseas. Earlier in that same year I'd been refused entry to USAAF base Dawes Hill, which was just down the road from where I lived, trying to convince the meatheaded goons on the gate to let me in because "Kansas are my favourite band." They laughed at first, but as I became more persistent they became frankly menacing and I was forced to slink off into the night (the Morning Star pub, actually) for an evening of intimidation at the hands of the local skinheads.

But I digress. I booked the time off work (I was in those days what is known in Australia as a 'public servant,' still dreaming of the day when my own glittering career in the music industry would take off) and counted down the days to the great adventure...

Unfortunately counting down the days took up so much of my time that I forgot to save any money for the trip and, when the day dawned (an archetypal English April morning - it was snowing), myself and my travelling partner Richard Hall, were skint. Not skint enough to stop us going you understand, but still short enough on the ol' readies front to make eating a luxury. We arrived at Victoria Station in London without any tickets for the boat-train to Holland, but got on it anyway. As you'd expect, we were soon challenged by an inspector, who miraculously accepted our excuse that the ticket clerk we were waiting to buy our passages from was taken ill just moments before we were due to hand over our money, leaving us with a death-or-glory chase down the concourse to board the train before it left, and processed our return tickets on board, using Richard's Mum's cashpoint card (which he thought was a credit card) to pay for the tickets on one of those old push-me-pull-you machines they used to use in 'the old days' for such things. We were up and running. The train journey to Harwich, where we were due to board the night boat to the Hook of Holland, passed quietly, the time spent drinking beer whilst Richard attempted to chat up two German girls who had the misfortune to be sharing our carriage. The look of horror on their faces when he attempted to ask if we could 'stow our bags in their cabin' on the Ferry led me to believe that the boy's High School German had led him to request something far less innocent, and, despite being booked on the same ship, we never saw them again.

And another thing...

In between reminiscing about how we met our respective spouses through The Levellers, I was keen to speak to Jon Sevink about his band's new outing, the gargantuan Letters From the Underground. It's an album that has completely refreshed my love for the band, an album that weaves all the things that make The Levellers special - the no-frills punk fury, Sevink's own spirallingly labyrinthine fiddle playing, lyrics that make you think, make you smile, the whole gamut - but it's also an album that sounds, for those very reasons, unlike much of the band's output over the last ten years or so.

The new album, to me, in fact, is the best thing the band has done since 1991's Levelling the Land; Behold a Pale Rider in particular sounds like 'classic Levellers.' How do the band go about recording an album in 2009 - is there pressure to stick to a 'recognisable' sound for the fans, or is that sound unavoidable given the resources at the band's disposal? And do albums really matter in 2009 when such a strong touring band as The Levellers could just post a few new songs on their website and then go out on the road regardless?

"Letters From the Underground is a record for the fans really. We wanted to get back to the 'positive message/tunes to dance to' style of our older songs. Yes, these days we do post new stuff up on the web and go touring regardless of having a new album out, but we're old (!) and still love putting a body of work together as an album. And yes, I think albums still matter, it's the best way to spend 40 minutes. Well, one of the best!"

I'm loathe to keep returning to the 'soundtrack of our lives' theme, but it's a valid one, especially for a band that maintains such close links with its fans. Does it feel strange to have that level of interaction with so many people across the globe, an influence even? And does responsibility come with that influence?

"I'm very proud to have been part of what we've done over the last 20 years, it's been a lot of fun and on the whole I've always had positive feedback from people. As far as responsibility goes, I only feel I have a moral responsibility as a human being to live my life in peace and spread love."

Fine words from a fine man. Anyways, the end of the page is looming, and if I'm not to get cut off in my prime I'd better start thinking about putting a stop to all this rosey-tinted loveliness and start winding things up. Mr. Sevink, anything else you'd like the denizens of Canberra's liveliest city to know about this splendid record?

"It rocks! Before I go, I have a statement to read out... Ahemm...

To the people of Canberra, and indeed all the people of Australia, I would like to apologise on behalf of The Levellers for never having toured in your country. It is shameful, unforgivable and something we are not proud of. If anybody reading this knows of a way of bringing us over to play, we would love to hear from you... if you see Leo Gribbon again can you tell him he owes me a tenner?"

That last bit was a little comment for me, concerning the man who used to co-manage the band, and whom I spent many hours drinking heavily with in the days before we entered the business - there are some stories there people - but they'll have to wait for another day.

Dream Theater - Black Clouds and Silver Linings

Another year, another (excellent) Dream Theater album – and, as the band’s heroes Rush would say, “plus ca change, mais plus de la meme chose’. Really, you know exactly what’s lurking within the portentous sleeve – another hour or so of majestic, pompous heavy rock – so what’s on offer that’s going to make you thrust your paw pocketwards in preparation for the big shell out?
Quite a lot, actually. Black Clouds… easily outstrips its predecessor, the uneven Systematic Chaos, although too often we hear the band treading water when they have the chops to break new ground just as easily. It’s telling that the ballad, Wither, does more in it’s five minute duration than any of the songs clocking in at between ten and twenty minutes manage to do, though in the nineteen minute epic The Count of Tuscany the band lay down the finest tribute ever recorded to Rush, in the process recording a true DT classic. Elsewhere a surprisingly direct quote from Megadeth’s In My Darkest Hour perks up The Shattered Fortress as it rambles to a rather directionless conclusion, whilst The Best of Times, despite it’s borrowment of a Styx title, actually rather resembles the pomptastic Kansas at their very best – and you won’t find me moaning about that.
At the end of the day, you’re either a fan or you’re not, and the band’s crossover appeal isn’t big enough to reel in hordes of new fans at this stage in the game with a big ‘hit single’, but this is a strong, strong release with something to appeal to all fans of metal music in 2009, and as such comes glowing ear to ear with references from yours truly. Marvellous stuff overall.

And another thing...

The crying shame of it is even though they've just celebrated their twentieth anniversary, as a going concern, you probably haven't heard of the Levellers (for background here, go to BMA's fabulous website and read my review of their latest album, Letters From the Underground). They've been part of my life - certainly part of its soundtrack - for nearly as long, whether it be just as a fan from the time of their first album, the excellent Weapon Called the World, or as indirect employers (when I moved to London to earn fortune and fame in the merchandise business, the company I worked for, Underworld, was funded in part from the sales - massive, it has to be said - of Levellers Longsleeves and Tees in the early '90s). Fast forward a few years and the lady wife, seeing a profile of mine that said something crass like 'I like the Levellers, me,' decided to drop me a line because she too likes Brighton's finest folk-punk export. The rest, as they say, was history.

I mention this in passing, because only the other day I was chewing the fat with Levs' fiddler Jon Sevink in honour of the new album.

"My life has a soundtrack too. I met my wife 20 years ago at one of our gigs and I've met and played music with other bands that have been hugely influential on my life (The Pogues, The Stranglers and Hawkwind to name drop!), so I know how it feels."

Did you ever, in your wildest imagination, think that the Levellers would be a twenty-years-plus going concern when you first joined the band?

"After our first gig I wanted to give up immediately, it was terrifying. I walked home with a couple of people who saw the show and they persuaded me to carry on. Once we realised that we weren't completely shit, it was always our intention to be together for at least 20 years."

I remember going to see the band in the very early '90s when it looked like world domination was on the cards, though the band was still playing small venues. Given the band's well known political/social integrity, was there a lot of angst about how big the band was getting, and what that would entail in terms of 'getting into bed' with major labels to maintain the momentum? Or did that merely provide a bigger platform for the band to espouse its message?

"By then we had already signed a six album deal with China Records who were an independent. We would never have signed to a major label. There were some great bands around at the time who got stuffed by the big corporations who dictated release dates, band image etc. We wanted 'COMPLETE CONTROL!' (yes, we were paranoid). The only decision we made regarding avoiding world domination was not playing arenas (upwards of 5000 people). We tried it once and didn't like it."

More from Jon next issue - meanwhile, buy the bloody album, peoples!

*                                  *                                  *                                  *

In unrelated news, I'm writing a book, and I need your help. Do you like heavy metal? I suppose you must do otherwise you wouldn't have stopped by. If you're so minded, drop me a line with a list of your top 20 heavy metal/hard rock songs of all time - even if you like Nickelback. Pop in a bit of blurb about why your number one selection is your number one selection and I'll try and fit it in. Send your submissions to the usual address, viz thirtyyearsofrnr@hotmail.com. Thanking you!

The Levellers - Letters From the Underground

Whilst ‘return to form’ is an over-used phrase in the world of music reviewage, it’s bang on the money here. English folk-punkers The Levellers have been in a bit of a trough of late, but with LFTU you get the sense of a band completely revitalised and ready to face the next chapter in their history.
Formed in 1988, the band’s halcyon years ended around 2000, but the band is a massive draw on the live circuit (they host their own outdoor festival, Beautiful Days, every summer in the UK), and it’s this popularity that has seen them continue to prosper even in the face of indifference from the wider record buying public. If there was any justice, the situation would all change with Letters…,comfortably the best release from the band in nearly a decade and a half.  It’s a record that sees them, on tracks like the coruscating Eyes Wide, Burn America Burn or opener The Cholera Well regaining some of the righteous anger that was formerly such a trademark. There really isn’t a bad track on offer here, and in Behold a Pale Rider the band has recorded a song that equals (and possibly betters) anything they’ve recorded since 1993. There’s very little out there at the moment that presents sincerity of belief and musical integrity as a calling card, but if that sounds like the sort of thing that might provide your ears with some relief in this age of cancerous blights on the soundscape like Jet and Nickelback, then I implore you to get out and get this now. In fact buy enough copies to distribute to all your loved ones – they’ll thank you for it.

And another thing...

"Music was better in my day." It's an oft-used put down, employed (usually) by parents in the face of hopeless odds as their kids, deafened and rendered insensible by the useless music they're listening to, go about their business with nary a nod of respect or indeed understanding of the music of yesteryear. I know, as I repeatedly shout the phrase at my 15 year old stepson as he gyrates, slack-jawed and drooling to the 'beats' of Flo Rida. And that's okay, because I'm 27 years older than him and, yes, Judas Priest are better than Flo Rida. It's merely an extension of the nature of things. I would imagine our grandfathers standing in the public bar with their own dads during the six o'clock swill discussing the relative merits of the Buddy Rich big band and Richard 'Salome' Strauss in much the same fashion.

So imagine the amount of chortlement I was indulging in on the bus the other day when I heard two young people loudly debating their own particular taste in choons. Kid B, about 15 and resplendent in some sort of spike/tartan arrangement, was being lambasted by the older Kid A who, and I'm not making this up, was expounding, at high volume, his theory that all of B's music was substandard (the actual word he used was "shit") and his views invalid because, and I quote:

"Limp Bizkit are the greatest fucken band that ever lived, dude."

The conviction in his eyes was frankly alarming - and let's face it, who's going to argue with a man mad enough to risk embarrassing himself on the bus in front of a packed audience of old age pensioners, the unemployed and what looked like a lost trade delegation from the Sri Lankan embassy? He'll probably stab you with a chocolate starfish as soon as look at you, but Kid B was not taking this lying down. Although we'd now established that Fred Durst's brave yeomen and, to a lesser extent, Hot Action Cop had chiselled the way we listen to modern heavy metal in their own, acne-ed visage - nothing before or since has or ever will come close to these twin musical apogees - and handed down this wisdom for the use of the young people for ever more, he persisted in fighting his corner.

Arch Enemy?

"Shit." (I have to say I disagree again with ol' Mr Rollin here, but anyways, on with the story)

Dimmu Borgir?

"Fucking gay shit."

And so on. Kid B was, by now, almost in tears as everything he thought he knew was ruthlessly dismantled by his older counterpart. I briefly entertained thoughts of informing my stepson that he was listening to 'fucking gay shit' in the form of the Hilltop Hoods when the final and unutterably last word was spoken in the argument just as we motored past Woden Tradies.

"Anyways, youse had better stop listening to that crap, man. I'm telling you. Your mum and me love each other and I'm moving in next week, you fucker. Give us the smokes."

And so they stepped down from the pantechnicon, like a modern day Vladimir and Estragon, heading for the bright lights of Woden Westfield and leaving me reeling at the stupendous conversation I'd just heard. People keep telling me I should learn to drive, but frankly, when you can get entertainment like this for 'less than the price of a cup of coffee' AND help the environment, why would you bother?

The Specials

Seemingly every middle-aged Englishman in Sydney is milling about in the Enmore's august foyer this evening - and if there's a single piece of Ben Sherman or Fred Perry clothing left unsold in town tonight I'd be very surprised indeed. Still, well dressed as we all undoubtedly are, there's always room for more in the wardrobe and the merch stand does a roaring trade as we consume our six buck cans of Australia's favourite full strength beer and wait for the entertainment to commence.

After an hour or so of rock steady, ska and blue beat over the PA (there's no actual 'support' tonight), a son et lumiere representation of Enjoy Yourself (It's Later Than You Think) alerts us to the impending appearance of our heroes - and the place goes spare.

Despite the fact that frontman Terry Hall would appear to rather be anywhere other than on the Enmore stage (unless he's singing, he spends the first three songs with his back to the audience, gesturing angrily at an unseen side stage lackey), it's hard not to be sucked in as the rest of the band (in particular vocalist Neville Staples and rhythm guitarist Lynval Golding) go about their business like men possessed. They churn out all the hits and more in a high-impact 80 minutes (so high-impact in fact that Staples knackers his ankle two thirds of the way through - unsurprising since he doesn't stay still for a minute - and has to apply an ice pack to the tortured ligaments). Highlights include Friday Night, Saturday Morning, a rousing sprint through Concrete Jungle and a brilliant version of The Pioneers' Long Shot (Kick de Bucket), all rounded out by guitarist Roddy Radiation's immaculate lead guitar work, which brings a marvellous rockabilly edge to proceedings.

They don't hang around for long, but by the time they sign off with a 'proper' version of Enjoy Yourself, even Hall has joined in with the mass grinning and as we leave the hall, all smiles, the lady wife remarks that she feels seventeen again, which is the whole point of these reformation things, no? Brilliant.

And another thing...

You'd be forgiven for thinking that 1976 was purely a year of importance in music because it's the year Punk became a viable commercial proposition for the major record labels worldwide. But of course, phlegm-based outrage aside, there was a whole lot more going on in 'the underground' in the mid-to-late '70s - and I don't just mean busking.

In England, heavy rock bands were transmuting the genre to new heights and, by the end of Johnny Rotten's Annus Mirabilis, the likes of Iron Maiden, Saxon, Samson and Motorhead were joining already established acts such as Judas Priest and UFO and taking their first steps towards the foundation of a major new force in contemporary music - the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (or, for all you abbreviators out there, the NWOBHM).

Amongst this group of na'er do wells and chancers were our heroes Praying Mantis, who you'll doubtless remember have just released a new album, Sanctuary, which is the best thing they've put their name to in years. Amazingly, in 1979-80, those 'in the know' in the industry saw PM as a bigger chance for lasting success than the mighty Maiden, a fact seemingly borne out by the fact that, at one of the crowning moments of the NWOBHM - a show at London's prestigious Music Machine venue (now named Koko, and the venue for ABC2's series London Live) - it was Mantis's moniker at the top of the bill, lording it over 'Arry's Irons and Samson - surely, though, for a bunch of mates just out for a laugh, headlining a London show must have seemed like just about the best a band could hope for? Did guitarist Tino Troy think, even in a wild moment of optimistic abandon, that he'd be gearing up, thirty years later, for another Japanese tour?

"Haha, we had dreams! We had dreams... and we've realised a small portion of them I suppose (like playing the Music Machine for one!) but I reckon we've still got loads in us. My youngest daughter, who is seven, keeps on telling me (and everybody) that I'm a rock star so believe it or not, I've started acting like one again. She's probably protecting her investment 'cause she wants to play keyboards in the band..."

But thirty years? What makes for the longevity? Hasn't the golden era been and gone for you?

"Thirty years! More than a third of the average life eh! The love of it I suppose. The trouble with Chris (Troy, Tino, brother, PM bassist and fellow band stalwart) and me is we've got pretty responsible decent paid jobs and mouths to feed. It's a real shame we didn't punt it around a bit more in the old days and got ourselves a decent manager to take the bull by the horns and steer it in the right direction. But the future looks bright - never before have we had so much positive feedback on one of our albums... We think that golden era is yet to happen."

See what I said about wild, optimistic abandon? Come on Tino - one golden memory then, from the good old days - just for me?

"If there was a time I really remember, it was that long walk up the stairs to the Reading Festival stage preparing to meet our fate with the 'Executioner,' AKA the audience, who we thought were all armed with two litre plastic bottles filled with a strange cloudy yellow liquid... Hmmmm!! Actually none came our way and we went down a storm. Fantastic memories!"

Scott Adams

And another thing...

I’m eighty per cent sure you’ll never have heard of English heavy rockers Praying Mantis. This is, of course, a great shame because over the last thirty-odd years they’ve stoically been providing ears across this shining globe of ours with sheer listening pleasure. However all is not lost – the band have a new album out NOW (it’s called Sanctuary, and it’s brilliant) and, via the good offices of Sydney’s Riot Distribution, you can nip out (or indeed in, if you’re standing outside JB whilst reading this) and buy it when you’ve finished with Canberra’s liveliest read. But first, here’s PM guitarist Tino Troy – and he’s here to talk a bit about the new reckerd!

We’re all eyes Tino – tell us a bit about the new record, and where it fits in the Mantis canon?
“Do you mean... ‘what calibre is it?’ Haha! Sorry!

“We recorded Sanctuary in Atlanta, USA. We could never get everyone to agree to meet in the same place at the same time back home. Geographically we live quite far apart (not in terms of Australian distances, you’d probably laugh yer tits off and call us a bunch of pom homos!) and when one could make an engagement the other couldn’t for no reason other than he was washing his hair… Definitely not guilty!

“Benjy [Reid, drums], Andy [Burgess, guitar] and myself all knew [producer] Andy ‘Riles’ Reilly for some years and contacted him with regards to recording the album out there. We did most of the groundwork back in the UK including recording some of the vocals, guitars and bass and went to the States for a good ‘ol jolly up!! Haha! Actually, we were only there for just over two weeks and bashed out the remainder of the stuff. The main aim was to get a real drum kit down on one of our productions for a change. We left the whole thing with Riles for a couple of months (it seemed like an eternity) with [European label] Frontiers breathing down our necks but in the end it was delivered ‘piping hot’ – we were totally blown away, we knew we had a potential monster in our grip.”

Indeed it is. Whilst many bands of the Mantis vintage are happy to tread water these days, touring once a year and trading on former glories, it’s great to hear a band actively trying to move forward – and succeeding so well. So what makes PM take the ‘hard road’?

“I like that… ‘vintage’ bit, it gives the band a certain air of ‘Je ne sais quoi’ (like...old gits!). Again, it’s a great buzz to write new material and experiment with newer recording techniques which I happen to be really into. At this rate we’ll be playing marathon shows a la Springsteen… Aaarggh! What’s with all this French mullarkey!”

I have to say I haven’t the foggiest. We’ll talk about the old days in the next issue, but for now, anything else to declare?
“Yeah, there is nothing we’d love more than to come over/under and hit you with this stuff! If you all make enough noise about the band then we’ll be there like a shot!!

Please check out the following links and thanks for your support, hope to see you soon guys. YOU ROCK!”
http://www.praying-mantis.com
http://www.myspace.com/prayingmantisrock
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXA2XkWb4dk

Out Loud, We’ll Rock You to Hell and Back

Basically, the premise is this; form a Euro-metal super group, throw together some mid-eighties Bon Jovi/Europe soundalikes and then sit back whilst your accountants count the cash. Are Out Loud a success? Not entirely. They may well be a ‘supergroup’ in their own eyes (and there are Helloween, Kingdom Come and Firewind connections here), but a true supergroup needs super material, and too much of WRYTHAB is second division, songwriting wise. When they do hit the target, as they do on the deliriously OTT Tonight or the aching ballad This Broken Heart, there’s enough going on to suggest this might be a project persevering with, but for now you can do without Out Loud in your life.

And another thing...

That Sabbath album cover story in full - Krusher?

"The Born Again album sleeve was designed under extraordinary circumstances; basically what had happened was that Sharon and Ozzy had split very acrimoniously from her father's [Don Arden] management and record label. He subsequently decided that he would wreak his revenge by making Black Sabbath [whom he managed] the best heavy metal band in the world, which, of course, they had been but back then in the early '80s they weren't quite the International megastars that they had been in the '70s. His plans included recruiting Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan, getting Bill Ward back in on drums and stealing as many of Ozzy's management team as possible; I was designing Ozzy's sleeves at the time so I of course got asked to submit some designs.

As I didn't want to lose my gig with the Osbournes I thought the best thing to do would be to put some ridiculous designs down, submit them and then get the beers in with the rejection fee. But no, life ain't that easy. In all I think there were four rough ideas that were given to the management and band to peruse. Anyway one of the ideas was of course 'the baby' and the first image of a baby that I found was from the front cover of a 1968 magazine called Mind Alive that my parents had bought me as a child - so in reality I say blame my parents for the whole sorry mess. I then took some black and white photocopies of the image that I overexposed, stuck the horns, nails, fangs into the equation, used the most outrageous colour combination that acid could buy, bastardised a bit of the Olde English typeface and sat back, shook my head and chuckled. The story goes that at the meeting Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler were present [the others were absent]. Tony loved it and Geezer looked at it and in his best Brummie accent said, "It's shit. But it's fucking great!" Don not only loved it but had already decided that a Born Again baby costume was to be made for a suitable midget who was going to wear it and be part of the now infamous Born Again Tour.

So suddenly I find myself having to do the bloody thing. I was also offered a ridiculous amount of money if I could deliver finished artwork for front, back and inner sleeve by a certain date. As the dreaded day drew nearer I kept putting it off until finally the day before it was due I sprang into action with the help of a neighbour, a bottle of Jack Daniels and the filthiest speed that money could buy. We bashed the whole thing out in a night, including hand lettering all the lyrics, delivered it the next day whereupon I received my financial reward. But that wasn't the end of it. When Gillan finally got to see a finished sleeve he hated it with a vengeance [see lat issue]. Gillan might have hated it but Max Cavelera (Sepultura, Soulfly) and Glen Benton (Deicide) have both gone on record saying that it is their favourite album sleeve and Kurt Cobain told a story of his mum taking him to Walmart for his birthday and telling him he could pick any album he wanted and she'd buy it for him. He chose Born Again and his mother refused point blank to buy it for the cover alone.

And that, my friend, is the story of the Black Sabbath Born Again sleeve."

Saint Deamon Pandeamonium

Two or three albums like Pande-amonium are released worldwide every week, so the trick for us listeners is to weed out the chaff and get to the wheat. This isn't always easy - the general rule of thumb for bands like Saint Deamon is that their instrumental dexterity is a given, as is the heavily-accented vocalistic hilarity offered by their singer. Where the variations begin, and where the war is won and lost, is in the song department, and I'm happy to report that in this respect these particular saints are indeed blessed. Sitting on the hard rock side of Euro power metal, the likes of the tremendous Way Home points to a bright future for this Swedish outfit.

Kissology 1974-77 (Eagle Rock DVD)

Unless you are Paul Stanley or Gene Simmons (or one of their mums), it's debatable as to whether you need over six hours of footage of their band from its salad days. When you further take into account the fact that every track here is repeated seven or eight times, it's increasingly likely that you'll be able to turn your back on this 'new' release (it's been available in the US for nearly three years now, so any 'real' Kiss fans will own this anyway) and use your already-stretched financial resources more usefully elsewhere.

What you get is at times rudimentary footage of a band learning as it goes along. Paul Stanley in particular suffers here, with many of his now trademark raps coming over here as frankly ludicrous, whilst the 'homemade' nature of many of the set piece stunts won't fail to disappoint those brought up on the band in its later, more polished entities.

That said, it's worth a squizz once, if only to see (and hear) that Peter Criss was rather a good singer before the madness took hold (he easily outstrips Simmons vocally in the early footage), whilst the bits and pieces culled from obscure US and UK TV shows (and therefore never seen here before) are all of some interest. Is that enough to charm the cash out of your wallet? Only you can decide whether to buy, but if you do I'd be surprised if you watch this more than once or twice.

And another thing...

You'll remember of course that last time my good friend Krusher Joule was holding forth about his days at genre-defining metal magazine Kerrang!. We're in his deserted lunchtime office, waiting for someone to appear... who walks in, Krusher? "Who walks in? Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top with (absolutely legendary - we're talking beyond Zeus and Hercules here - photographer) Ross Halfin. They enquired as to where everyone was, to which I replied 'the White Swan.'" (NB: for the uninitiated, TWS was a well known local Covent Garden boozer).

"They left, but not until after Billy had requested some Kerrang! letterheaded paper as a souvenir. In return, he gave me a badge reading 'I made it to the Top!'... fookin magic!" I'm sure it was. But last issue, you mentioned that you blagged your way into the Kerrang! gig by mentioning your glittering career as an album cover designer - how was your CV reading at that point and what were some of your favourite designs at that time? "My first ever album sleeve was Hawkwind's Live '79 and others that followed included Ozzy Osbourne's Diary Of A Madman, Speak Of The Devil and Bark At The Moon, Girl's Wasted Youth and Japan's Tin Drum. All can be seen at my website www.krusher.co.uk. The ones that I'm really proud of are the Ozzy covers, plus the Japan one."

But of course Krusher is being modest here. He's most renowned for his work on the cover of Black Sabbath's 1983 effort, Born Again - an album that incumbent vocalist Ian Gillan was said to have launched a box of fifty copies out of an upstairs window in disgust at being associated with such "rubbish" - but we'll look at this most famous of covers in more detail next issue. Inevitably, the Kerrang! gig came to an end when the ridiculously successful magazine was subsumed by the EMAP publishing empire - "they didn't like the fact that sometimes we'd have so much fun in the office we had to come to blows with one another" is an explanation Krusher gave to me a few years ago as to why his association with the magazine came to an end - and so our hero embarked on a new career in radio, with predictably chaotic results. His first show, on BBC local radio station Radio London, was moved from its original Sunday afternoon slot to a late night weekday berth to accompany the more "lurid" tales of his rock 'n' roll guests, but even that wasn't enough for the good burghers of Broadcasting House.

"Pete Way from UFO was recalling a Michael Schenker tale which ended with him saying 'Michael broke away from the police officers, goose-stepped across to the hotel receptionist and said "You're a fucking cunt!" which resulted in him spending a night in the cells!' I got hauled into the programme controller's office and received my first written warning. Eventually I told him to stick his job up his arse when he again dragged me into his office and questioned why I wasn't playing the new Def Leppard album Adrenalize. I told him that I had played a track from it the week of its release, oh and of course it was a pile of regurgitated shit! He then informed me that he'd received a letter from the band's record company saying that I wasn't doing my job properly. I told him if he was going to allow record companies to tell me what and what not to play he could shove his job up his arse, which he did and has been walking strangely ever since.

Harrrrrrgh!! Haaaaarrrrgh!!"

And another thing...

I've known Krusher Joule for years. He's an album sleeve designer, graphic artist and bon viveur of legendary repute, and I thought you'd like to hear some of his tales. So, I asked the questions and off he went - enjoy.

I first became aware of the man through his work with august metal tome Kerrang! How does one get a break with such a genre-defining publication?

"I started working on Kerrang! in February 1983. The first issue that I did was number 35 with Tony Iommi on the cover for an interview about Black Sabbath's Live Evil album. Ironically the last ever cover that I designed for Kerrang! some ten years later also featured Iommi and Black Sabbath.

"I got the job by phoning the then editor (and one of the finest men to ever draw breath) Alan Lewis and telling him that I was a freelance designer and had worked for Motorhead, Girlschool, Hawkwind and Ozzy Osbourne, to name a few, and asked if he would be interested in seeing my portfolio, and to my great surprise he said yes he would. This would have been December 1982. We arranged a lunchtime meeting in one of the pubs nearest their offices, which were above Covent Garden tube station and after several pints and rock 'n' roll tales he asked me to go away and redesign the mastheads (the regular headings that they used) and to come back in the new year and we'd take it from there if he liked them.

"As it turned out he loved them and asked me if I'd like to work freelance as their designer, I of course said 'too foooookin' right boss!'

"When I did the mastheads I also redesigned the Kerrang! logo which for some mysterious reason never got used until issue 36 and wasn't used the way I'd designed it until issue 38 which had Rock Goddess guitarist Jody Turner on the cover."

Was Kerrang! A fun magazine to work for?

"Was it fun to work for? Shit, apart from the last year I was there it was the BEST job I'd ever had.

"I couldn't believe how much we were allowed to get away with, just as long as the magazine came out and there were no major fuck ups in it we could do ANYTHING that helped our creative streaks (a bit like life at BMA, then).

"Bottles of Jack and Mescal were everywhere, drugs, spontaneous air guitar freakouts on top of the desks could occur at any given moment, pub lunches that lasted days, a party or gig to go to seven nights a week and every goddamned rock star that you'd ever wanted to meet walking in and out of the office and not because they had to be interviewed but because they just wanted to come and hang out with the Kerrang! gang."

Again, I'm thinking this is exactly like life at BMA HQ!

"Here's a perfect example of that, when I first joined the mag I was well behaved for the first couple of weeks, finding my feet and observing just how far one could go. So when it came to lunchtime I would grab a sandwich and stay in the office and get on with my job, whilst everyone else headed to the pub for their alcoholic fix. So there I am alone, munching on my cheese and pickle sarnie when who walks in?"

Who walks in? That, my friends, is just the beginning of a new column - see you next time.

Hell City Glamours

By now, of course, you’ll be aware that BMA, in its boundless beneficence, is hosting another night of Riffage at the ANU on Friday June 19. And of course, what would Riffage be without Sydney’s own sultans of sleaze, the HELL CITY GLAMOURS? The natural order of things dictates that an appearance in the nation’s capital by Oscar McBlack and the boys warrants in-depth discussions about something or other, so I immediately contacted Robbie Potts via the gift of electronic mail and posed the questions that need answering. Let’s go…

The last year has seen the band make real progress. How does it feel to actually get some recognition from all over the world? “It’s been really great. I’d still want to play drums if tomatoes were flying through the chicken wire every Saturday night, so to be able to tour overseas, play to some awesome crowds, receive some great reviews and get involved in the general mayhem that is being a rock ‘n’ roll band in a foreign country is just awesome.”

Ah yes. Foreign countries. You’ve just been to the US haven’t you? Tell me a little about the South By South West festival. How does playing something like that help a band? “They’ve got an ‘Artists Lounge’ that has beer… for free. Plus corn chips. That’s how it helps a band like HCG. In addition to that, there’s all the industry people you can poke a fedora at; a seemingly unlimited array of venues and other bands to see, countless varieties of Mexican food, good times and free beer.”

Time to change tack. The album’s been out a little while now – how is writing for album number two coming along? ”There’s quite a few songs in the pipeline and now we’ve finished touring I think it’s a good time to concentrate on working on them. We, like most bands, have a sort of revolving life cycle that has three parts: 1. Write songs. 2. Record songs. 3. Tour, playing said songs. The point of the band to us has always been touring. But obviously it’s not much fun driving all over the countryside playing half-baked songs to ambivalent audiences. So the harder we work in writing, the more fun we have touring. Not to mention that working out new songs gives us back that exciting spark you only get in a rehearsal room when you’re jamming out a new song. We haven’t been in ‘songwriting phase’ for a while so I’m quite excited about it.”

We all are, Robbie, we all are. Anyways, looking forward to the Canberra show? “Absolutely. Everyone in HCG loves coming to Canberra because they’re always great gigs... the people down there just seem a little more bonkers.” If the cap fits, as they say, prepare for a night of bonkers behaviour on the 19th, people – don’t let the boys down.

Make sure to catch Hell City Glamours, Hancock Basement and Escape Syndrome live at the ANU Bar on Friday June 19. Tickets are $10 on the door.

And another thing...

Where were we? Oh yes, Black Sabbath were about to offload British vocalist Tony Martin after 1990’sTyr album had stiffed, but who to select? Stalwart band leader Tony Iommi, now becoming almost as famous for his vacillation and indecisiveness as his adamantine riffwork, was in a quandary. Elements outside the band suggested the time was right to stop fannying about with unknowns, but Ozzy, the obvious choice, was making too much money as a solo artist to be tempted back into the fold which left… Ronnie James Dio. The diminutive crooner, though in the midst of a successful solo tour of duty himself, needed no real persuasion and thus, it is he who appears behind the mic on 1992’s Dehumanizer. Hailed by critics (especially in the US) as something of a return to form after the best part of a decade in the wilderness, Dehumanizer was a crushingly heavy affair, though not so heavy that one song, Time Machine, was able to worm its way onto the soundtrack for Wayne’s World – but, as you’re doubtlessly becoming aware, a successful Black Sabbath album doesn’t guarantee a stable Black Sabbath lineup. Ozzy Osbourne, increasingly plagued by ‘forgetfulness’ and a dodgy knee, had decided to call it a day, announcing a farewell tour, the last two dates of which would feature the Prince of Darkness supported by… Black Sabbath.

Except nobody had told Ronnie James Dio. Enraged that Sabbath would effectively be paying homage to Osbourne (with whom he had a long enmity) by supporting him, Dio flatly refused to have anything to do with the shows, and Iommi promptly sacked him. Dio was replaced temporarily by Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford, whose appearances on stage inevitably sparked rumours that the metal god may become Iommi’s new right-hand man.

He didn’t of course. As the smoke cleared from the Dio debacle, other rumours started circulating that the real reason that Dio had left was that he’d discovered Iommi and bassist Geezer Butler had been in negotiations with Osbourne concerning a possible reformation of the classic lineup; if this was true nothing came of it, because by the time Sabbath released a new album – 1994’s Cross Purposes – Tony Martin was back in the band! CP was another fine record – the band hadn’t really delivered anything ropey since Seventh Star – but, as Paul Weller so accurately put it, the public gets what the public wants – and, after the inevitable live album and the awful, awful Forbidden (produced by Body Count’s Ernie C, and featuring Ice T on guest vocals with hilarious, if somewhat wearying consequences) Martin was finally shown the door in favour of… Ozzy Osbourne.

The Reunion tour with Osbourne was a roaring success, at least at first, and the accompanying live album, Reunion, was greeted rapturously, not least because it featured two new tracks from the ‘classic’ lineup, recorded in the studio as bonus cuts for the release. But they were the only tracks Osbourne managed to record with the band, as fans were forced to content themselves with ever shorter live sets and a procession of repackaging and rereleasing of the band’s ‘70s output. Iommi and Butler became increasingly frustrated with their inability to record any new music with the ever-more ludicrous Osbourne and, when record company executives decided the time was right for a look back at Sabbath’s Dio-led years (with accompanying new material), the pair jumped at the chance of writing with the little man again. Which, if I’m not much mistaken, was where we came in…

scott adams

thirtyyearsofrnr@hotmail.com

Paul Dianno

“Whatever he has been taking, please get me a coupla bags of it. When you next visit him (in the high security mental hospital facility) please ask him if he wants me to send him some pink feathers to go with his new yellow dress.”

PAUL DIANNO is bemused. The above was the answer he gave when I quizzed him about a claim my mate John Monaghan has made for years concerning the great man – something along the lines of the former Maiden vocaliser having been the telephone engineer responsible for fitting the new phones in his house in the early ‘90s. Despite barely stopping for breath since leaving the Irons in 1982, these odd stories often crop up – another being Dianno’s spell working for petrochemical giants BP. With him being on tour so much, it’s a wonder anyone would wonder what the man’s up to. How does he keep going? How does the body keep together?

“I keep it together with tape and chewing gum!” he enthuses. “I’m not sure myself how it is holding together after the pummeling it’s taken over the years. But I don’t know how to do anything else apart from performing music and I’m not about to go home and take up stamp collecting, so my poor body will have to keep taking the torture I guess!”

Dianno is about to descend on Canberra for a show at that noted venue of legends, The Basement. What should the keen-eared punter expect to hear from the voice behind the first two Maiden albums in the ‘09? “You’ll just have to come to the show to find out!” he responds with gusto. “But of course I’ll be doing some Maiden classics. People can expect to hear stuff like Wrathchild, Prowler, Murders in the Rue Morgue, Phantom of the Opera, Killers, Running Free and Remember Tomorrow.”

Given Dianno likened being in Maiden to being looked after by “Hitler and Mussolini,” how does he like the freedom managing one’s own affairs gives him? “I just want myself in control now; that way I don’t have to ask various arsebags how my career is going or whether they’ve managed to save any money for me. This way I am the boss and I can make appointments to see myself whenever I want…”

So there you have it. Dianno is one of metal’s true legends, an ironclad trouper of the first order who deserves our love, respect (and a little bit of ticket money) and admiration in equal measure. Who said no one ever comes to Canberra? Batten down the hatches people, this’ll be a good’un.

Paul Dianno will put on a brutal metal performance of epic proportions on top of an equally brutal signing session at 5.30pm at The Basement in Belconnen on Monday June 1. Tickets through Moshtix.

And another thing...

Black Sabbath has a new album out, although things are a bit complicated. Y'see, the Sabs aren't allowed to call themselves Black Sabbath anymore because the band's original vocalist, the inimitable Ozzy Osbourne, whilst not willing to write or tour any new material with the band, isn't willing to vacate the mic in favour of someone more game. So, in order to actually get some stuff out for you to enjoy, the band - now featuring the classic Heaven & Hell lineup of guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler, drummer Vinny Appice and vocalist Ronnie James Dio - has taken to calling itself, somewhat fittingly, Heaven & Hell.

This isn't the first time this has happened, of course. Sabbath had tired of Osbourne's antics as early as 1977; duly fired, the prince of darkness was replaced by Birmingham throatsmith Dave Walker (most famously the voice, over two spells, of blues-rock outfit Savoy Brown), who lasted long enough to record a British TV show with the band before being replaced by... Ozzy Osbourne.

Ozzy's second spell in the band didn't last long, however, and by 1979 Dio was in the band for what became recognized by many as the band's second golden age. Three great albums flowered under Dio's vocal leadership before, as became the norm, the band foundered amidst ego-driven misunderstandings and the singer was shown the door.

Dio's replacement was, somewhat improbably, former Deep Purple yodeller Ian Gillan. Gillan's arrival in the band shocked even himself - "I went to the pub with Geezer and Tony. When I woke up the next morning I was in Black Sabbath" - but once again the association didn't last long. After one album, the much maligned Born Again, Gillan was paid off and replaced, very briefly, for the act's Live Aid performance by... Ozzy Osbourne.

After Live Aid Sabbath hit the skids, with Iommi forming an American version of the band (fronted by the ludicrous 'male model' David Donato) before opting to put out a solo record to buy himself some time. Succumbing to record company pressure however, the guitarist agreed to put out the resultant elpee, Seventh Star, as a Black Sabbath record. Iommi had settled on another former Purple vocalist, Glenn Hughes, as the voice of SS, but two dates into the tour the former Trapeze singer got involved in a full and frank exchange of views with the band's production manager and had to leave the band after sustaining injuries that left him temporarily unable to sing. Hughes was replaced on the hoof by American Ray Gillen (who later went on to find fame with former Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Jake E. Lee in Badlands), who then went on to record vocals for the next Sabs oeuvre, 1986's Eternal Idol.

Of course, Gillen didn't last the course, and left before recording of the album was completed. Iommi went through three producers and eight musicians in the recording of this next 'Black Sabbath release' but his selection of a new vocalist, the relatively unknown British singer Tony Martin, was an important one. Martin, a fine vocalist with a voice heavily redolent of Ronnie James Dio, helped Iommi resurrect his somewhat battered band with vocals on three excellent late-eighties albums, the best of which, 1989's Headless Cross, sits proudly with anything the more lionised Sabbath lineups have recorded. But the fans in the US didn't take to this lineup, and with ticket sales drying up and the band beginning to flounder, Iommi stated to cast his net once again. The weak link was deemed to be Martin, and his replacement? I'll tell you next time...  

And another thing...

I was talking to Stevie Blaze the other day – Stevie, you’ll remember, is the guitarist and main songwriter in American metal legends Lillian Axe (of which you’ll read more about next issue) and we got to talking about a mutual friend, the rock DJ Brian Pithers.

Pithers was a legend. He presented a rock show out of Reading in the South of England on Saturday nights (The Saturday Night Rock Show was what it was called, to avoid any confusion) on local station 210 FM and from the proverbial small Acorn he’d constructed a veritable Oak of a show. There was no side to Brian – what you heard was what you got – but if you’d have been minded to cut him up he’d have bled liquid metal.

He lived for the stuff and his programme on a Saturday – to which you’d listen religiously in the hope you got a namecheck – was an oasis of sanity in a world of Tiffany and Debbie Gibson. Somewhat improbably, Brian Pithers’ star rose, so much so that he became A-List in the world of rock, with many stars of the late ‘80s making the trek out to Calcott to be interviewed by the great man. No local gig poster was complete without a starbust featuring the words ‘GUEST DJ BRIAN PITHERS – 210 FM!!’ Indeed at one such show in 1990, where my band at the time, Saffire, was supporting AOR Titans Romeos Daughter, Pithers, who’d been enjoying the backstage hospitality enthusiastically for some while, lurched across the room and started spraying vol-au-vents into my fastidiously coiffeured mane, informing me that ‘Saffire are a great pub metal band’. Praise indeed…

Anyways, I digress. By 1999 Pithers was a bona fide part of the furniture in the world of British rock broadcasting, but he’d failed to stick a recently-wetted finger in the air to see how the wind was blowing and his radio station, which had recently been through some sort of ‘re-energising’ process, was changing. No longer was it run by ‘into the music’ enthusiasts content to play anything their listenership wanted to listen to. Now, ’the new 2-10 FM’ was broadcasting a rigid ‘hits and memories’ format, with no space for the latest White Sister release or an in-studio unplugged set from Little Angels.

The men in suits had taken over and they were gunning for Brian, whose bumbling approach to ‘driving the desk’ and yokel accent weren’t part of their plans at all. Minutes before he went on air, Brian (who’d recently lost his mother, the only person that meant more to him than the members of Magnum and the Almighty) was told his services were being dispensed with. Brian did what only a true pro would do and went on with the show. But he barricaded himself into the studio and, mid-way through the show, announced that he wouldn’t be broadcasting on this wavelength again. With a wavering voice he started making varied claims and accusations and, as the radio security men broke the door to his booth down, a producer faded Brian out and replaced him with some ‘rock’ music by Queen.

He was never heard from again in a broadcasting context. I later found out he’d been unemployed for a while – he sold his huge vinyl collection to get by – and then, very sadly he passed away in November 2001 at the age of 51. I was reminded on hearing the news of Brian’s own phrase that he used whenever one of rock’s greats died – “R.I.P. – not rest in peace… rock in perpetuity.” Let’s hope there’s no radio formatting in heaven.

And another thing…

The phone rings.
“Hey! It’s Joacim from Hammerfall! How are you?!”

Now, this sort of thing happens all the time in the Adams household as I’m sure you’d imagine. Giants of the Euro power metal scene are always grabbing the jellybone for a bit of a chinwag about matters musical but – and here’s the rub – IT’S FOUR O’CLOCK IN THE PISSING MORNING!

Someone in a press office somewhere has fucked up badly and chirpy Joacim Cans - after all, it’s only six o’clock in the afternoon in Gothenburg, Sweden, from whence he calls, so he can afford to be chirpy - wants to shoot the shit with regard to his band’s ‘comeback album,’ the effortlessly impressive No Sacrifice, No Victory. But at four in the morning? Oh well, I am, after all, a professional, and this is what professionals do. Grabbing the bull by its viking horns, I wade into the questioning, groggily coming up with this prize pearl of interrogation as my opening gambit:

“So, Joacim, it’s been 12 years since (debut long-player) Glory to the Brave saw the light of day - did you ever dare believe you’d be on the phone to Australia a decade later spruiking your seventh studio album?” (Obviously I didn’t couch the question as incisively as this. I couldn’t find my glasses and it was dark in my bedroom, so I was feeling my way a bit - I filled in the blanks later, as I type this report for you).

“Australia! I thought we’d be lucky to get even one record out, and maybe play some shows in Sweden. You have to remember, when we started, in ‘96, this kind of heavy metal was dead…”
I chime in, agreeing that even the likes of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest were experiencing their own global downturns around this time.

“You’re right. I remember when they (Maiden) came to Gothenburg then, they struggled to sell 800 tickets. Now they’re back to football stadiums!”

So really, this is the proverbial dream come true. But what, I ask, turning the conversation on a dime, of this new record? To my ears at least - and I’ve been a fan since day 263, if not day one - this is a different sounding Hammerfall in 2009.

“Do you think so?” Cans sounds surprised, but thinks things over. “Maybe. You know, because of what happened…”

He’s alluding here to the fact that longtime members Marcuss Rosen (bass) and Stefan Elmgren (guitars) jumped ship after last outing Threshold. “We were maybe three tired old guys left in the band, and the new guys (guitarist extraordinaire Pontus Norgren and returning former bassist Fredrik Larsson), well I shouldn’t complain - like you say this is our dream - the new guys revitalised us. Fredrik plays bass with a pick, not his fingers, so you might hear a difference there; and Pontus. Stefan was a great guitarist, but Pontus is something else again! And Anders (Johansson, drums), his drumming on this album is amazing!”

So, it really is the comeback album it’s been touted as. I remark to Joacim that I’d had to go to the Netherlands to see the band ‘back in the day’ as they were convinced there was no market there for them - they were wrong. So what are the thoughts viz-a-viz a little jaunt down under?

“It’s too dangerous! I hate spiders! There’ll probably be some dangerous spider parade being held when I step off the plane! I don’t know, we’ve talked about it a couple of times – we tour Asia this year and maybe we could come then. We’d like to!”

Here’s hoping…

And another thing…

Whatever. It’s the great panaceaic word of the noughties. Sassy teens use it when they realise they’ve lost an argument and want to bring a ‘discussion’ to a close without resorting to knife crime. It doesn’t actually mean ‘this is the end of our discourse’, of course, but that’s the beauty of our wonderfully flexible mother tongue, right?
I’ve wandered off topic. During the last decade, in a previous time, ‘Whatever’ meant something else entirely. Whatever was a marvellous band from Newcastle, in England’s misty and cold Northern wastelands.
I can here you shuffling restlessly, bursting to ask ‘but what did they - do they - sound like?’

And there’s the rub. Whatever were one of those bands that were impossible to categorise or, indeed, pigeonhole. On the face of it they were a heavy metal band. In fact, my first exposure to them came when they were the unlikely support act to Swedish noodleist Yngwie J. Malmsteen at a poky little club in London’s West End in late 1995. They went down like a lead balloon of course - the leather-jacketed faithful waiting to develop RSI by playing air guitar to Yngwie’s pompous sturm und drang were bemused by a bunch of dreadlocked, mohair jumper toting nobodies invading their space, but to my ears at least, there was something special going on on that cold London night. Invigorated by the uniqueness of their sound, I sought further audiences, telling my bosses along the way that this was a band to look out for in the future.

Of course they got signed, and in 1996 their debut album, Sugarbuzz, was unleashed. Again it emphasized how difficult this band was to place - something that ultimately, I think, led to their demise - being as it was a tasty mélange of muscly metalliriffs (the album was produced by today’s metal producer du jour Andy Sneap to full-horned effect), shards of jangley indie pop, slacker lyrics and, crucially, a vocal performance by frontman Nick Parsons that brought to mind the soaring melodies of Irish punkers Therapy? rather than the guttural Hetfieldesque roar one might have expected from a band on legendary metal label Music for Nations. And if there wasn’t enough confusion over the sound, then the actual songs weren’t much different. Whatever were quite literally able to do it all; from chugging thrash (Sams Creation Bulldog .44 comes straight from the Master of Puppets school of battery) to soaring, pop-informed nuggets like the peerless Hooked on Mondays, Sugarbuzz covered all the hard-rockin’ boundaries. But it tanked. The band worked the album hard, supporting a wide range of much-touted ‘big names’ from across the Atlantic - kicking many yankee arses into the bargain - but somehow they never seemed to capture the imagination of the wider musically-enthused public. I remember seeing them one night play an absolute blinder at Nottingham’s Rock City venue, absolutely crushing a crowd ostensibly there to see American grunge whinesters Pist.On, and the local billies went absolutely apeshit. And then went home and forgot to buy the album. The label gave the band a second chance, but by the time Sugarbuzz’s successor, Lies and Gold Dust appeared in 1997, the game was effectively up. L&GD, whilst good, was what you’d now call a pop-punk record, its testicles largely neutered by a spangly production, and the young metal crowd to whom the band should have been appealing had moved on. There are many bands who should have made more of themselves, but few who actively deserved success as much. Do yourselves a favour and run down a copy of Sugarbuzz on the interweb. You’ll love it.

And another thing…

I’m rarely moved to tears by music, although the recorded output of Natalie Bassingthwaite often comes close to achieving such an outcome for very different reasons, but, recently, I’ve been getting a bit sniffy when listening to Joaquin Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez, especially the adagio of same. You’re probably familiar with the piece yourself, even though you may not know it, as it’s been featured in countless films and adverts over the years, even popping up in the Fawlty Towers episode Basil the Rat… It’s a spectacularly evocative piece of music, written by Rodrigo in 1939 after his native Spain had spent four years ripping itself apart via a bloody civil war, and for me it totally sums up Spain and Spanish music.

The adagio is a wonderful, wonderful thing; if you get the chance, listen to Flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucia’s version, which was hailed by Rodrigo himself – even though the piece was conceived as a ‘classical’ rather than flamenco one – as the most brilliant interpretation he’d heard. I first came across the piece in the mid seventies, when the British bandleader Geoff Love, capitalising on the boom in cheap tourist package holidays to Spain from England, had a hit with it under the guise of ‘Manuel and his Music of the Mountains’. I’d just been on my first trip, with the olds, to the Iberian Peninsula, where we stayed in the delightfully named resort of Tossa, a small seaside hamlet dominated by a magnificent reconquista castle, and had fallen in love with all things Spanish. It was before the age of VCR technology, but if it had have been possible I’d have watched the marvelous Charlton Heston/Sophia Loren film El Cid over and over again. I couldn’t, so I made the best of the situation by listening to Manuel over and over again on the stereogram, possibly to the frustration of my parents, but who cared? Whilst listening I would deploy my toy soldiers – 1/29th scale – and re-enact the Moorish loss of Castille and Granada on the living room floor.

Ten years later, Spain was our yearly ‘boys week out’ holiday destination, whereby anywhere between four and a dozen of us would embark on a week of merrymaking (ok, boozing, and, if lucky, which in my case was not at all often, fornication), usually in Ibiza or Mallorca. Being lucky enough not to suffer from hangovers, I would steal away in the late morning whilst the rest of my party slept off the night before and visit whatever local churches or castles were nearby, walkman plugged into my ears and Rodrigo accompanying me all the way. Happy times. It’s a tribute to the power of Rodrigo’s piece that I’m still transported whenever I hear it.

Should you be minded, go to www.geocities.com/fredje222000 , where you’ll find excerpts of the piece as played by guitarist Regino Sainz de la Maza, the instrumentalist to whom Rodrigo dedicated the piece, recorded over fifty years ago and taken direct from the crackling vinyl. It’s brilliant.
*     *     *     *     *

As this is the last time you’ll be hearing from me for a while – I believe ‘Christmas’, whatever that is, is soon upon us and BMA is closing down for a month of booze-fuelled rest and recreation – may I take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy holiday season, and hope that whichever deity you burn offal in honour of delivers you all that you wish for. I’m asking for a box set of season two of Minder, but I don’t suppose it’ll come. Cheers!

Hell City Glamours @ The Basement, Saturday October 25

By the time the Hell City Glamours vacate the stage at about five past one in the morning, The Basement resembles the Cantina at Mos Eisley Spaceport. Wild eyed youths are lurching around the venue, strides at half mast, all bearing a slack jawed grin after one of the finest expositions of hard rock they’re likely to have witnessed all year. Hell, some of them are even clutching FREE SKATE DECKS and BASEMENT ENTERTAINMENT PACKS that they won in the raffle (they love a raffle at the Basement). Sadly, not one of these loose-faced loons are likely to remember just how good the evening was, so… to recap: after The Vee Bees primed the baying (sold out) crowd with a neat blast of oi! infused Aus brutality, Sydney’s Hell City Glamours were utterly, utterly marvelous. Touring in support of pub rock legends The Angels has left them sharp, tight and utterly devastating. Songs from their new, self-titled album are delivered with an assurance and venom not heard in aeons – High Brow, Josephine and Ready to Fall all take line honours tonight, but there really isn’t a dull moment here, whilst old favourites such as Hey Man and White Trash, Hot Love simply wipe the floor with any band on the planet trotting out this kinda schtick and holding their paws up in competition. HCG really are the business, brothers and sisters, and it’s up to you, me, us – all of us – to spread the joyous word amongst the naysayers and unbelievers. As my old sparring partner Frank Davies might have had it as we lay in the gutter outside a Camden Town pub at the height of Britpop one sticky summer night – This is Rock n’Roll…

The Butterfly Effect @ UC Refectory, Friday October 24

Out on the town with BMA boss ‘Big’ Allan Sko, one finds oneself outside the Refectory at UC enjoying the balmy night air swathed in other people’s fag smoke; it’s one of the unwelcome side effects of our nanny state’s insistence on the death of passive smoking that support bands the nation over are destined forever to play only to third full houses whilst everyone else makes like a laboratory beagle in an effort to stock up on nicotine before a nerve wracking ninety minutes without a puff when the headliners are on. But there you go. And so to the main event. The Butterfly Effect are touring on the back of an utterly monstrous elpee, Final Conversation of Kings, and consequently you’d think they’d be lording it over the assembled throng with a degree of well-deserved smugness; but it ain’t so. It takes the band a while to break through the shackles of a tepid sound – when you’re weaving sonic tapestries of the calibre this band manage on wax, the least you expect from your soundman in the live environment is a grasp of sonics – and even when they do get going there’s a hint of ‘going through the motions’ about their performance, which isn’t to detract from the quality of the fare on offer. It’s just that, in my world at least, a little more commitment to the cause is always appreciated from those up on stage, and tonight’s performance lacked a little spark from a band that generally delivers in spades in the live environment.

And another thing…

Well, it’s that time of year again. And here, after gathering all the nominations in from various parts of my brain, are the results, viz, my top fifteen albums of 2008. Once again I’ve added the salient parts of my reviews to help you digest my decisions, plus, should you be so minded, the best track from each album – get downloading!

1. Whitesnake - Good to be Bad (Stomp): “Coverdale is in fine form here, throatwise… and with the benefit of a beefy production job he manages to recall his glory days with some style and no little panache. And that makes this album a pleasure to listen to.” Download: Can You Hear the Wind Blow.

2. Metal Church - This Present Wasteland (SPV/Riot): “As a whole TPW is shot through with a steely ‘classic metal’ sensibility that makes it accessible to even the most timid of hard rock fans… Absolutely brilliant.” Download: Breathe Again.

3. Grand Magus - Iron Will (Rise Above/Riot): “There’s a seam of class running through this record that’s so big I’m surprised BHP aren’t mining it and attempting to flog it to the Chinese.” Download: Iron Will.

4. Avantasia - The Scarecrow (Nuclear Blast/Riot): “Even before you have time to dust yourself down the album’s epic title track is upon you; eleven minutes of pure pomp metal nirvana with a simply massive chorus that’ll have you out of your seat, punching the air and frightening the kids before you realise what you’re doing.” Download: Twisted Mind.

5. Extreme - Saudades de Rock (Stomp): “With vocalist Gary Cherone giving an absolutely earth shattering performance throughout and axepert Nuno Bettencourt redefining the term ‘shred’, there’s an air of downright brilliance permeating this album.” Download: Star.

6. Asia - Phoenix (Frontiers/Riot): “Shadow of a Doubt – surely the best song from 1984 never heard before – is, frankly, tearjerking in its perfect reconstruction of Thatcher-era teen abandonment soundtrack music.” Download: Shadow of a Doubt.

7. Motorhead - Motorizer (SPV/Riot): “Return to form is an overused phrase, but that’s really the most accurate way to describe what is a very good album indeed.” Download: When the Eagle Screams.

8. Evergrey - Turn (SPV/Riot): “Evergrey combine melody and crunch to devastating effect… These Scars may well be the best goth-metal-pop-rock song ever.” Download: Soaked.

9. Hell City Glamours - Hell City Glamours (Own Label): “A frankly stunning aural assault that is unequivocally Rock and Roll. You’ll love it.” Download: Ready To Fall.

10. Melodyssey - The Two Windows (Own Label): “You may never have heard of Melodyssey, but – if there’s any justice in this crazy world we live in – that’ll all change soon.” Download: The Constant Rain.

11. Opeth - Watershed (Roadrunner): “The word ‘progress’ often infers a cold, calculated attempt at change for change’s sake, but there’s a warmth to Opeth that sets their ‘prog’ apart from, and ahead of, the pack and as such this is the best album of its kind you’ll hear all year.” Download: Hessian Peel.

12. Cavalera Conspiracy - Inflikted (Roadrunner): “Put simply, this is the best record either Cavalera sibling has been involved with since Sepultura’s landmark release, 1996’s Roots.” Download: Bloodbrawl.

13. Black Crowes - Warpaint (Stomp): “This could be their best work since their two opening statements of intent in the early nineties.” Download: Locust Street.

14. Ayreon - 01011001 (SPV/Riot): “If you like your metal on the thoughtful side, then Ayreon is undoubtedly for you. Marvellously overblown.”Download: The Fifth Extinction.

15. Steve Lukather - Ever Changing Times (Frontiers/Riot): “What you get here is, in effect, a better (i.e. more guitar-orientated) than usual Toto album – and that’s a delight to hear.” Download: Tell Me What You Want From Me.

Kaiser Chiefs - Hail to the Chief!

Kaiser Chiefs

You know how you frame an opinion about a band, usually without full possession of the facts? I’ve been a casual fan of KAISER CHIEFS since they started – that’s right, I liked them before you’d ever heard of them – drawn in passing to their knowing commentaries on British ‘Chav’ culture and the minutiae of everyday ennui, but until I talked to keyboardist Nick ‘Peanut’ Baines I clearly didn’t really grasp what this band was, and is, all about.
And what they’re about, it transpires, is the joy of it all. Baines, despite being forced to talk to yours truly at TWENTY PAST NINE IN THE PISSING MORNING, is erudition and courtesy itself. And that’s because he loves being a Kaiser Chief. “You know, you can’t wake up and think ‘I’m a Kaiser Chief!’, but take today for instance; I’m up, I’ve done one interview already, I’m speaking to you and then I’ve got a couple more, then the day’s my own – you couldn’t do that if you had a ‘proper’ job!”

So recording three albums isn’t a ‘proper’ job? How different is life now that, like it or not, this is what pays the rent? “It is different, yes. I mean, you do still think how lucky you are, but if anything that makes it more fun. Recording this album (the brand spanking new Off With Their Heads) was definitely the most fun we’ve had doing a record. You can’t complain.” But lots of people are complaining – you really do split opinion right down the middle – I’ve read some extremely vituperative reviews of the new record on the web – why? “Who can say? I think some people don’t like the fact that we’re not ‘rock stars’, in as much as we are exactly the same off stage as on, and also indie critics often like their bands to be quite dour, whereas we’re genuinely quite sunny individuals.”

So this chirpiness isn’t an act? “No. Obviously you don’t always want people coming up to you on the street when you’re at the chip shop or whatever, but I think generally we’re the same whenever. I’d like to think so anyway. And some people don’t like that.”

Silly people. Moving the conversation along, I ask Baines to expand a little on his influences, and where they fit in as a chief ivory tinkler. “Well, before we were the Chiefs, we were all five of us in a different band – all together, but with a different name, and I was actually a guitarist who filled in on keyboards occasionally, so I guess my influences would really have been Nirvana, The Smashing Pumpkins, (Irish noiseniks) Therapy?, and Rage Against the Machine. Definitely Rage Against the Machine. Tom Morello. But I couldn’t work out his noises.” At which point Baines starts squeaking in a rough approximation of the Harvard communist’s ‘uniquely percussive’ guitar attack. I comment that now, thanks to the Guitar Hero phenomenon, we can all work out Morello’s noises. “It’s great isn’t it? The fulfilment of a dream! When I got a bit older and Oasis were in the charts it made me go back a bit, start listening to the Beatles, the Kinks, stuff I probably wouldn’t have listened to otherwise. But as a keyboard player, if you’re asking about ‘electronica’ then it’s got to be The Chemical Brothers. Dig Your Own Hole is great, it sounds like a proper band doing electronic stuff. And I’ve got a room upstairs in the house where I do stuff like that, Tangerine Dream…”

German hippy instrumentalists aside, it’s no surprise to see that the active ingredients in the KC sound are predominantly British, what with the band often being tarred with some sort of ‘quasi-Britpop’ brush. It’s an appeal that’s easy enough to explain here, what with us sharing the mother tongue, but how does such an overtly British band succeed in those heathen lands that don’t speak the Queen’s? “We do very well, though you’re right – we do go down well in Australia and America, but I don’t really think it matters. English is the rock ‘n’ roll language isn’t it? We gave it to the world, but it’s still great when you go to somewhere like South America, and even though they might not actually know what they’re singing, they’ve taken the time to learn the words anyway and sing along. It’s very touching. And let’s face it, it’s just as much the music that matters – when you’re bouncing up and down, and shouting at the top of you’re voice, you’re getting it – it doesn’t matter whether you understand or not!”

It’s interesting, I muse, that Peanut mentions ‘getting it’, and we laugh at the prospect of 20,000 Argentinians bellowing ‘I Want Crisps!’ in unison. It can’t have escaped his notice that he plays the ol’ Joanna in what is now, in England at least, an Arena band. Given some of the band’s amusingly scathing lyrical musings on what we know here as ‘bogan culture’ – I Predict a Riot and We Are The Angry Mob in particular pour scorn on the sort of people you’ll be familiar with if you watch Shameless on the Special Broadcasting Service – how does he cope with playing in front of vast swathes of the bastards every night whilst keeping a straight face as they sing along? Is this the dictionary definition of irony? Do the Chavs ‘get it’? Peanut chuckles. “It is ironic, isn’t it? And yes, it has been remarked upon. Sometimes you do, you know, look out at all these people singing, well, they’re chanting really, ‘We are the angry mob!’ and you just think ‘well yes – you are!’”

Anyways, enough of this levity – we don’t want the indie frownsters kicking our door down just at the minute. In closing, I mention to Mr Baines that, what with the band being named after an (albeit differently spelled) South African football team, it must have been a thrill this year to have performed at two of English football’s most historic arenas – Elland Road (home of the band’s beloved Leeds United) and Anfield, home of Liverpool. So Nick, not many non-footballers get to get on the pitch at two of the world’s great footballing Cathedrals, which one was best? “Elland Road, obviously! But we supported Sir Paul McCartney at Anfield, and I was able to introduce my dad – who’s loved the Beatles since 1964 – to him. That was brilliant. I really felt a sense of achievement being able to do that. Moments like that are what makes this ‘job’ so brilliant!” Nick Baines – all round good egg, eh? You bet. On yer way, frownsters.

he Kaiser Chiefs’  new album, Off With Their Heads is out now through Universal.

And another thing…

I write this issue’s column for you though I can barely see the screen as I type. Why? Because tears are streaming down my face having seen my pick for this year’s Melbourne Cup, Honolulu, finish the race in a different postcode to the winner Viewed. Last in fact. I’m writing this piece topless, as I did indeed put my shirt on the horse, and a cold wind tickles the hairs under my armpits as I type, each follicle a frosty reminder of what a prize mug I’ve been.

It wasn’t always thus, however, I like a punt, in fact I like two or three, and I’m often reminded of the Squeeze song Up The Junction, “the devil came and took me/from bar to street to bookie” as I leave the safety of the pub on my way to the Trans Australian Bank, intent on making a deposit. When I was your age, it didn’t seem so satanic, however, and I avoided having to get a job at university by judicious punting; nothing extravagant of course, but enough to keep me in cider and baked beans for the duration, which surely rates as a result when compared with donning a pair of polyester slacks and selling electrical appliances to make ends meet.

You meet the world in betting shops. For a while after deciding the music industry was killing me in the late nineties I managed betting shops in North London, and, whilst it wasn’t the most pleasant of jobs – very long hours, very little pay, you certainly met a few characters. Our favourite regular was known only to staff and punters alike as ‘John the Bull’, a man generally insensible to drink by lunchtime who regarded himself as the shop’s unofficial ambassador. He would greet newcomers with a cloud of fumes and a short bow, followed by a slurred and heavily accented “welcome to our betting shop”. If prospective new punters weren’t repulsed by his Calibanic appearance and otherworldly stench they were generally welcomed to our little community. Like many of our poorer punters, he was always first to get the drinks in when he had a winner, even though, as we found later, he was what the local constabulary referred to as NFA – no fixed abode. This never seemed to get the man down however – the money he saved in rent could clearly be better spent on the geegees, though never the dogs. Oh no. As John regularly explained to anyone who would listen, greyhound racing could only ever be made to appeal to him if monkeys – wearing a fez and ‘brocade waistcoat’- w ere strapped to their backs to ride them. And who wouldn’t pay decent money to see that?
I later found out that John had given many years service in the Royal Navy and never really took to life ashore. He went missing shortly after getting into trouble with the police for rummaging around in people’s bins (one of our other regulars was convinced he’d been following him home and sleeping in his garden. It turned out he was right), never to be seen again. The last time I saw him he was celebrating having backed Rogan Josh in the 1999 Melbourne Cup (two pound each way),  by placing a two pound coin on the counter and telling me to “get the boys a drink”, despite the fact that all my staff that day were female. We never heard from him again, but every now and then when I’m laying down my lobster, I put a coupla bucks on for John the Bull. I certainly could have done with his advice today…

And another thing…

“When the world falls apart some things stay in place, Levi Stubbs’ tears run down his face…”

Thus spake Billy Bragg on his 1986 album Talking With the Taxman About Poetry, on the song Levi Stubbs’ Tears. There won’t be any more tears from Levi, of course, as the man died on October 17, and his passing could go unmarked by this column, dedicated as it is in the most part to rambling about the musics of times passed. Stubbs’ impassioned baritone was one of the voices that soundtracked my childhood days and young adulthood. As lead singer of the Four Tops, his was the main voice behind such Motown classics as Standing in the Shadows of Love, Reach Out (I’ll Be There), Bernadette and Baby I Need Your Loving, amongst others, all of which were favourites of my parents, and I grew up with the idea that Stubbs’ urgent, impassioned delivery was the, make that THE, way to sing. Of course, later on I decided that Rob Halford and Bruce Dickinson were the only men worth following, but interestingly, on the only two times I’ve come up against the forces of reaction whilst busking, it’s been Four Tops songs that I’ve been singing when the long arm of the law has moved me on.

But I digress. Like Mr Bragg says in his song, there was a gratifying solidity about the music of the Four Tops, a certainty that Levi was singing of your pain when he sang of “Standing in the shadows of love / Waiting for the heartache to come” that somehow always got you through adversity. Girlfriends could, and inevitably did, come and go, and when they did, as they did to both me and Richard Hall in the otherwise glorious summer of 1986, you could console yourself by bellowing drunkenly (though in close harmony), tears streaming down vodka-reddened cheeks, whilst doing the washing up:

When you feel lost and about to give up (to give up.),
‘Cause your best just ain’t good enough (just ain’t good enough),
And you feel the world has grown cold (has grown cold),
And you’re drifting out all on your own (drifting out on your own),
And you need a hand to hold,
Darlin’, (reach out) come on, girl,
Reach out for me (reach out).
Reach out for me.

I’m sure both our respective former partners would’ve been reduced to quivering masses of love had they been party to this spine tingling performance – they’d almost certainly have returned tearfully to our arms for one final embrace at the very least – but that’s the effect that Levi had, has and, despite his demise will continue, hopefully, to have on normally functioning human beings. It’s rare, in these days of Idol fame, dullard adulation and the appalling Human Nature, to come across anyone that can convey real emotion – especially hurt, aching and longing – in the space of a three minute pop song, but Levi Stubbs could, and the world is undeniably a poorer place now he’s gone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC4DKNfR0b4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HQEhuylZmg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbF3RASX02o

And another thing…

Those of you not suffering from ADHD or short term memory loss due to a surfeit of ‘the booze’ may remember that a couple of issues ago I was banging on about a Metallica show in London in 1984. Well, in the strange way these things work out I ended up ‘in conversation’ shortly afterwards with none other than the mighty Cliff Evans, erstwhile guitarist of Tank, one of the support bands on that icy night nearly a quarter of a century ago. We like to keep a theme rolling in this column as you know, so I asked him if he had any recollections of the Bang That Head That Doesn’t Bang Tour.

“The 1984 Ride the Lightning tour with Metallica was a real eye-opener for us. Walking into Metallica’s sound check on the first date, we heard a sound that we’d never heard before. These guys had the heaviest guitar sound ever. A wall full of brand new Mesa Boogie stacks and Big Mick Hughes at the mixing desk, had created the now legendary Metallica sound. We knew we had to step our game up a notch to compete with these guys. We gave them a good run for their money and the tour brought us a lot of new fans. We also taught the Americans how to drink, apart from (legendarily mayhemic bassist) Cliff Burton, who seemed to have mastered the art already.”

I agreed that Tank certainly did push the young thrashers hard on the night I saw them, indeed the band was a pretty serious proposition in the mid eighties, never seeming to step out of the shadows of their management stablemates Motorhead. Why did Cliff think that was? Honour and Blood, their album from 1984, in particular was worthy of a place in metal’s first division, so what went wrong? “ The one thing I remember about the recording of Honour and Blood was the unfeasible amount of beer that was consumed during the sessions. I can’t remember much else. The album still sounds awesome though. Tank always had cult status, but we never seemed to be able to get to the next stage, a higher level. Looking back, now we’re older and wiser, we can see that the main thing that held us back was bad management. You’re right – we had the same manager as Motorhead which meant we were not top priority and usually overlooked so we had to fend for ourselves. Also label support was a bit thin on the ground. Oh, and did I mention (former Damned bassist and Tank mainman) Algy (Ward)’s ability to get very drunk, piss everybody off then disappear for months at a time on a regular basis? About once every 6 months …”

Evans hasn’t always been a pure metal guitarist, indeed immediately prior to joining up with Algy Ward he’d featured in the far more sedate blues outfit Chicken Shack. I wondered how neatly those two tours of duty fused together. “Haha!  Playing with Chicken Shack was a strange experience. A lot of rock/metal names became part of the lineup at some time including Australia’s own Bob Daisley (ex-Ozzy, Ranbow etc) Paul Raymond (UFO) and of course Christine McVie (Fleetwood Mac). I lasted six months in the band before being fired the day before a show at Sussex Cricket Club. I later found out that my replacement on guitar for the evening was a certain Mr Eric Clapton. I’m sure he doesn’t tell this story in his interviews!” There’s a possibility that Tank may end up down here in 2009, in the meantime go to www.tankfilthounds.net to soak up some classic metal.

Supergrass @ The Forum, Sydney, Saturday October 4

On entering Sydney’s Forum, an odd little box-like venue in the heart of the Fox Studios ‘entertainment quarter’, after an all-action day of shopping which included a very friendly wheat bag vendor in Paddington Markets humming the theme tune to seventies soccer show Big League Soccer to me in full earshot of the passing public, it seems like literally everyone is here – I’m here, for instance, accompanied by the lady wife; former BMA editor Peter Krbavac is here, accompanied by a harem of cute young things whom he describes as ‘impossibly drunk’; members of the local constabulary are here, wandering freely through the venue staring in frankly accusatory fashion at anyone who appears to be having a ‘good time’, which, at eight and a half bucks a pop for a can of sherbetty ‘bourbon flavoured’ drink isn’t many of us; but perhaps most importantly Red Wiggle Murray Cook is also here, adding some showbiz glamour to the ’Grass’ second show at the venue in lieu of their cancelled Great Escape appearance.

And what an excellent show Mr Hot Potato (sadly clad in rock and roll black for the occasion) and the rest of us witnessed. Not a long one, mind – it’s only sixty five minutes after they started when they take the stage for their first encore; but during this time they’ve rolled out a number of meaty selections from new album Diamond Hoo Ha (significantly heavier than anything they’ve attempted thus far in their almost-fifteen year career) alongside the old favourites we’ve come to know and love (Sun Hits the Sky and Caught By the Fuzz being particularly effective), all played with style and verve. The thing many people forget about this band is that in amongst all the frivolity and lazy feelgood Britpop madness (Alright and Going Out, Moving and Late in Day represent those particular categories tonight), there’s actually a demon troupe at work, with everyone displaying marvelous chops, especially bassist Mick Quinn, whose fluidly bubbling basslines underpin Gaz Coombes’ crunchy axework to marvelous effect. There are three Coombes siblings on stage tonight, with Gaz being augmented by longtime keyboardist Rob and new (ish) arrival and youngest of the three adding second guitar to the mix alongside some sterling tambourine/cowbell percussive interludes.

A Supergrass show is always a good night out, and tonight, in less than ideal circumstances for a band that was expecting to trot out a greatest hits festival set, was no exception. Excellent stuff.

And another thing…

When I were a lad, and just starting out on my musical journey, Asia were about as big as it got outside of the wonderful and frightening worlds of Michael Jackson and Dire Straits. A true ‘supergroup’, fused from elements of English pastoral pomp rock Gods Yes (guitarist Steve Howe and keyboarder Geoffrey Downes), Emerson, Lake and Palmer (the eponymous human Octopus Carl Palmer, drummer extraordinary and wearer of disturbing spangly shoes) and featuring bassist/vocalist John Wetton, a cornerstone of such seventies Britrock icons as King Crimson and Roxy Music and alumnus of Uriah Heep and Wishbone Ash, this band literally bestrode the rock scene – especially the American rock scene – like four hippy colossi, a band so comfortable within their reputations that they could churn out four minute pop nuggets of the calibre of Only Time Will Tell and Heat of the Moment on the one hand whilst still coming up with prog classics like Time Again and Cutting it Fine, all within the confines of one spectacularly successful debut album, the masterful Asia, which came out in 1982.

Asia was followed by the only marginally less successful Alpha, which, whilst still featuring the hit singles (this time in the form of the perky Don’t Cry and the rather more tempered The Smile Has Left Your Eyes) was a little light-on in the effortless noodlery department so beloved of the mulleted and moustachioed male element of their fan base. Sales faltered, egos came into play, Steve Howe left before third album Astra appeared and the bands headlong descent towards ‘reduced circumstance’ appearances in Irish pubs in the Midwest began. He returned for 1992’s Aqua – by which time Wetton had legged it – but the spark had gone, and for the next decade and a half Downes carried the flame manfully but ever-less-succesfully – until now.

That’s right. The original lineup is back for Phoenix, the band’s tenth album, and whilst it isn’t quite up there with the first two, it has to be said that this album comes as a complete breath of fresh air to jaded forty-year old ears. Opening up with the strident Never Again – perhaps the most overtly ‘traditional’ Asia song on offer here, rolling in as it does on a stentorian Howe riff before giving way to Wetton’s honeyed delivery and a stone-gold ‘eighties’ chorus – Asia really don’t put a foot wrong here; much of the lyrical content is optimistic, written in the aftermath of Wetton’s open heart surgery, and the words complement the uplifting nature of the music perfectly. Never Again aside, most of the songs here are propelled by Downes’ symphonic keyboard work – the whistful Nothing’s Forever in particular benefits from some prime parping from the man behind Video Killed the Radio Star, whilst Shadow of a Doubt – surely the best song from 1984 never heard before – is, frankly, tearjerking in its perfect reconstruction of Thatcher-era teen abandonment soundtrack music.

Once you’ve dusted yourself down and dried your eyes after…Doubt, it’s into the home straight and the more familiar ground of three-part epic Parallel Worlds – at eight minutes the longest track here (although your interest won’t wane for a single of the 492 on offer in this song) – before ending with the tremendous parting shot of An Extraordinary Life which, somewhat incongruously, quotes Green Day’s Wake Me Up When September Ends in its spine tingling chorus – but without any ghastly mascaraed emo inference, obviously. It’s not often a record moves me to give over my column in it’s entirety to enthuse about the goodness within its grooves, but hell, when a record’s this good… enjoy.

And another thing…

By the time you read this, Death Magnetic will be upon us. I refer, of course (and I’m surprised I have to explain this, you loose-faced freaks), to the new Metallica album, an opus which has loomed on the horizon like some sort of dirty wraith for the last two years, filling headbangers the world over with equal amounts of hope and trepidation as they wait for a sign from their heroes that some sort of normality reigns again in the halls of Hetfield and Ulrich… and the other two.

Of course the fact is (and I don’t want to be too rude here, in case Lars tries to buy the mag purely to close us down in a Napster-style fit of pique), the bands last output, the highly comedic St Anger, was so bad that DM can’t fail to be an improvement. But the stakes are higher here, and the cold fact is thus: Metallica, arguably the biggest and most important heavy metal band on the planet, haven’t made a decent record since 1990’s Black album (although, to be honest with you, I didn’t think that was much cop at the time, either, though it’s grown on me over the years) – that’s nearly twenty years ago, during which time we’ve seen the fall of hair metal, the rise of grunge, an album from Lee Harding – surely the apotheosis of the pop-punk era – the coming and indeed going of nu-metal, rap metal, funk metal, skatecore, handbag pasadoble, liquid d ‘n’ b and the inexplicable demise of Wolfmother.

So, after all this time and with all this other stuff going on, are they still worth the worry? Even if, as we read repeatedly on the interweb, Death Magnetic is a return to the sound and attitude of the band’s finest moment, 1986’s epochal Master of Puppets, should we really be getting out our stretch denim and hi tops (oh, sorry, I see you already have) in readiment for a bona fide THRASH METAL EVENT?

Of course we should. I remember the first time I saw Metallica, at London’s Lyceum Ballroom on 1984’s Bang That Head That Doesn’t Bang tour, in support of the Ride the Lightning album. It was December 20, college had broken up just two days previously, and I was in love; not with a girl, y’unnerstand, oh no, although Emma Wood was a pretty fine girlfriend, she didn’t come close to the sheer visceral, neck-trembling excitement that was Creeping Death (which I’m listening to as I type, tears of nostalgia flowing down my beer-reddened cheeks as I croak out the timeless Die! by my hand! refrain), listened to at high volume with your arm around another man’s shoulder, pints held aloft in tribute… hang on, I’ve lost my train of thought…(turns down stereo).

nyway, yes, the first time. RTL sounds positively timid now, sonically, compared to, say, the new Helmut Lotti album, but in 1984, by cracky, they were quite literally as good as it got. Of course, mad as a goose bassist Cliff Burton was still alive and thrashing the ‘four string motherfucker’ to within an inch of its lacquered existence, but the whole band (of which of course three quarters still remain to this day) were simply the most dangerous, vital, energising band I’d ever seen for those two teenaged hours more than half a lifetime ago.

And Christ, if DM can cause me to raise a glass to thrash metal again like the pundits have promised, then of course Metallica are worth the worry. I’m still believing, for a little while longer at least.

And another thing…

My mate Morty McCarthy (you may know him from such bands as The Sultans of Ping FC) was working on the merch stall, and it was he who pointed out the step ladder at the back of the tent. Morty was a mischievous teetotaller who gleefully goaded his less controlled chums into action, before stepping back and enjoying the show. He also ran a neat line in telling everyone else what you’d done after the event, which in those far-off pre-interweb and email days was no mean feat. Setting up the ladder outside, I found by standing on the top step I was able to reach over the board displaying the various t-shirts on sale. I hauled myself over and onto the roof of the tent. Lying flat on my back in the comparative peace and quiet of the tent roof should have been the moment where I saw sense and got back down to earth, but I was here now, so why not? Why the hell not?
Neil Young began cranking out the riff to Rockin’ in the Free World, and I was away.

Swaying precariously, holding a can aloft in salute and singing along out of tune, I soon became aware of the fact that people were pointing at me, laughing and cheering – I was in the full beam of a spotlight that was flashing across the site (something to do with security, I later learned, and not simply something which had been rigged up on spec to highlight my reckless genius). I soaked up the adulation, doffing the knotted hanky that still sat proudly atop my sweaty hair and bowing like some sort of wallet-chained restoration fop. At which point I noticed a burly, bald headed security man glowering at me like some sort of steroid-crazed chad (Google it) from behind the t-shirt board. He was gesturing and shouting – in like-minded adoration along with the rest of the crowd I assumed, before realising that, as his gesticulation became wilder, he was actually ordering me down. I jeered at him and flicked the V’s, much to the amusement of the hundred or so people now finding this scene more interesting than what was going on on the main stage.

Bouncer number one had been joined at the parapet by an offsider who was receiving instructions through a walkie talkie and relaying them to baldy, who was now waving a torch at me apoplectically. He hauled himself over and onto the roof and began crawling up towards me. I was hanging on to the central pole which held the whole structure up, and I found that by gripping tightly and bouncing up and down I could create a ripple effect that was preventing the snarling goon from being able to get to me. Doggedly, like incy-wincy spider, he kept returning to the task, gradually edging up the canvas skin until he was almost within touching distance… and then he was.

All that bouncing had tired me out and, more significantly the vibration, coupled with the weight of a full beer can in either pocket, had loosened the drawstring on my trousers. Baldy made a grab and touched my cloth, getting a handful of ankle and trouser. I toppled over, sliding down the opposite side of the tent. I felt a burning sensation to both knees as I realised he was still holding onto my trousers, in which I no longer resided. I landed, para style, in a pile of empty boxes at the back of the tent. I decided to lay low – inside a box, actually - until the hubbub died down…

Paul Weller @ The Forum, Melbourne, Sunday August 17

As BMA absent mindedly peruses the merch stall in this fine venue’s foyer, an intriguingly pleasant sound punches through the excited chatter every time the door to the auditorium opens. Interest piqued, we move through and find that the admirable Even are just finishing their set, and I’m very miffed. I hadn’t bothered to check who was supporting, and once again my inability to do journalism has cost my ears dear.

But never mind. We’re here because we’re here, the lady wife and I, and we’re here to see Woking’s finest in action, as it were. At nine on the dot the man himself is walking amongst us, agreeably husky voice to the fore and pulling all manner of shapes from the Gibson 335 dangling from his shoulders in best ‘rock god’ style. Before you know it Weller and his band have peeled off the likes of Changing Man, a stellar version of the Style Council’s Shout it to the Top and many people’s highlight from his latest offering 22 Dreams, Echoes Around the Sun, and the crowd, agreeably pissed-up on booze and looking for a good time, are lapping it up. Of course, Weller being Weller, the crowd pleasers are interspersed by a fair amount of Paul-pleasers, but just as the attention begins to wander, he masterfully pulls out the first Jam cover of the night (a rousing That’s Entertainment), which, to paraphrase the song, really does come as a ‘kick in the balls’ after some of the more meandering dad rock we’ve been subjected to in the 20 minutes prior to this rather splendid moment of effervescence. Add in a marvellous Eton Rifles, a marvellously bucolic Wild Wood, a broodingly portentous Light Nights, a set-climaxing run through Town Called Malice and some hilariously diverting crowd antics and you have overall probably the best set I’ve seen from Mr Weller in a dozen years. Well worth the trip in fact.

And another thing…

Phoenix 1996 was one of the few festivals I’ve ever attended that wasn’t in some way interfered with by rain at some point – in fact, the temperature was in the mid-30s for the whole weekend – but of course, this total reversal in our weather fortunes brought its own set of challenges – how to drink beer all day without succumbing to sunstroke for one. I’d turned up at the site with a big bag of clothes, none of which looked like being necessary, but no sunglasses or headgear. After my exciting day travelling up to the festival I was in no mood for trawling about the site markets spending money on frivolous safety accessories, so, knotting a hanky and placing it atop my glistening forehead, I bade farewell to my bar-locked compadres and headed out into the throng…

Ten minutes later I was back in the safety of the backstage compound. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the festival vibe, but a hundred degrees plus, and queues for the beer tent that have queues to get on the end of the queue before you start queuing, and chemical toilets recently vacated by a succession of pulse-eating sufferers of dysentery don’t set my fun meters tipping into the red. Add to this the fact that the Super Furry Animals had set up a tank – a real, albeit painted blue, tank – next to the Megadog Dance Tent that was pounding out techno at a volume usually reserved for jumbo jets and people talking about themselves into mobile phones on buses – had led to me scurrying back to the safety of ‘the industry’. How could the real world have become so damn weird in little over an hour? Why was everyone wearing sarongs and jester hats? But what did it matter? I could watch Britrock hopefuls Terrorvision churning out their grunge-lite on the telly, in the safety of our exclusive compound, whilst sitting on a plastic chair and sweating heavily all at the same time. Multi tasking at its absolute apogee.

This went on for some while, but sensing that the likes of Feeder and the Foo Fighters were going to keep up their disturbing racket whether I was watching or not, I decided it was better if I was (watching, that is) and headed out for another try. The sun was going down, the heat was abating a little, the more ‘enthusiastic’ festival goers had headed off for a look at the cruelty-free shoe stalls prior to a night of handbag pasadoble in the dance tent and, as I stood at the merch desk, snakebite in hand, the stage lights began to take effect as Massive Attack launched into Unfinished Sympathy. A magic festival moment was happening before my very eyes, and I felt myself merging into my surroundings, man… I swayed in time to the repetitive beats, accepted a can of Guinness from one of my fellow merchandisers and went for it.

Of course there are degrees of going for it, and, with the added vigour afforded me by the cool night air, I decided to get on top of the tent in readiness for Neil Young’s imminent set. I’d been waiting all my ‘adult’ life to see Shaky in action, and what better way to enjoy one of the all-time greats than atop a canvass marquee with a convenient supply of lubricant at hand?

The answer to that, sir, is there’s no better way. And, next issue, you’ll find out just how good it was…

Pod People - Prepare to Meet Thy Doom

Pod People

So here we are, a Thursday afternoon in the nation’s capital. As is my wont, I’m standing at the bar in my favourite watering hole, picking my nose and casually sipping on the requested pint of Stella whilst attending to the cryptic crossword. This goes on for ten minutes, myself wrestling with four across (pseudo Danish wordsmith sounds like footwear 4, 5), whilst the staff dissects limes and we both listen to The Meters and Faker.

Idyllic? Possibly not, but close enough. And then Josh Nixon, erstwhile hard rock journo of this parish AND guitarist with Canberra metal stalwarts POD PEOPLE wanders into the place and everything changes.

I’d like to say that this is a result of the man’s magnetic personality, but it isn’t. Everything changes because he’s come into the pub and placed a set of headphones on my ears. And now, thanks to the gift of said technology, my world is full of Pod People, quite possibly the best Australian extreme metal band ever to break free of the Marsupium and flood our ears with their lead-lined sludge in the name of rock and roll.

I’m calling it ‘lead-lined sludge’ because ‘doom’ seems too narrow a name for the genre that The Pods always get billeted to… So, Josh – what is doom?

“I don’t know. And it’s really funny, because everyone thinks Pod People is a doom band – which we’re not – but what can you do? This is the third interview today I’ve been involved with where I’ve been asked that question, so that’s obviously an important question that people want the answer to because everyone has asked me the same thing…

But I have to just ask the question back – what is doom?”

Before I get involved in this circular debate, I suggest that ‘doom’, in its modern incarnation, is simply what old fuckers like me refer to as ‘true’ heavy metal? “You know as well as I do that there’s something in that, but Pod People is about more than just a genre or anything like that. We do our music, and on this album we’ve gone to make the heaviest music we’ve ever made, but to call it ‘heavy metal’ or whatever makes the whole thing sound a bit limited. For this album we did set out to record the heaviest music we’ve ever done. But I think it’s still wrong to call it out-and-out metal.”

OK Josh, we’ll leave it at that. All I will say, independent of your thoughts is that if you, the listener, want to term this as doom metal, or just heavy metal, or whatever, then be my guest – but it’s imperative that you call it something, because that means you’ve been listening, and that is the least you owe to one of Canberra’s most important outfits. And if you haven’t yet encountered them, get down to Slaughterfest and do yourself a favour this weekend.

The Basement hosts Slaughterfest on Friday August 8, featuring Pod People, Looking Glass, Blood Duster and Space Bong. $15 entry. Pod People’s LP Mons Animae Mortuorum is out on CD/vinyl from August 9 through Goatsound.

And another thing…

Great Train Journeys of the World: Part Three

The platform at Leamington Spa looked like one of those simulations the emergency services undertake every now and then to reassure the public that they are up to the task if a disaster occurs in ‘real life’. Bodies lay strewn all over the concrete, their owners manfully struggling to retain consciousness for just long enough to get onto the freedom train to a weekend of debauchery. At this stage me and the ginger ninja, though severely debilitated, would have been classed as ‘walking wounded’ and, slightly buoyed by the recent infusion of a couple of slugs of ice cold electric lemonade, we climbed aboard. I’m guessing here, but I’m thinking the time was about 3.30 in the afternoon, and there wasn’t a person left on the special who wasn’t insensible due to an over-indulgence of whatever. Jim was in his element, bonding with anyone who crossed his path, whilst I sat, minding the bags, ingesting the Diamond White and staring determinedly at fixed points in the middle distance to try and take my mind off things. Not long now, I kept telling myself.

Just hold on, and soon you’ll be with people who can help you…

When we got to the festival Jim and I wished each other well, promising to meet up sometime during the weekend. The trip from the station to the site had taken nearly as long as the train journey, during which time my system had recovered and, as I strode purposefully onto the site, AAA laminate dangling round my neck, it would be true to say that I felt like a new man.

1996 was, for me at least, a time before the advent of mobile telephony, and it took an hour more to hook up with my compadres in the sprawling backstage area. Many of them had already been here for a day, having journeyed up early to see David Bowie on the Thursday night, and some of them already wore the haunted looks of people already too long on the lash. I soon found out why.

“There’s a free bar – open 24 hours a day – for production people,” muttered my mate Dax, gesturing to a tent absolutely heaving with what looked like every roadie in Western Europe. As he gestured, the contents of his plastic glass escaped their moorings, depositing themselves all over a girl who I recognised to be a PR girl for Warner Music.

“It doesn’t matter,” continued Dax, now pointing in the opposite direction. “There are showers over there as well, love. Go and freshen yourself up.”

Oh dear. I had arranged to stay in the Winnebago belonging to two men from the company responsible for hauling the gear worldwide for bands such as Kiss and The Rolling Stones, and I’d been told that somehow they’d managed to drive the thing into the backstage compound, only 500 feet from the bar. This was going to be a long weekend…

I found the RV – it wasn’t difficult, as it was the only one in the area that came complete with two men taking an afternoon nap on the roof – and, dumping my bags, I returned to the fray. Not only was the bar free, but it had CCTV coverage of what was going on on the main stage which meant that you quite literally didn’t need to leave the hospitality tent for the entire weekend, should you have been so minded - which my boss Maria was. I am, however, made of sterner stuff – of which more when Great Train Journeys of the World continues next issue.

Paul Weller - 22 Dreams (Shock)

English songsmith Weller comes to us here with 22 Dreams, his ninth solo effort – and a mixed bag it is too. Early signs are good, as opener Light Nights, a storming piece of English modernist folk music, is as good as anything the man has put his name to since he folded The Jam in another lifetime. Showcasing his smokey, Steve Winwood-style vocals perfectly, this is the sort of stuff we want and need from Weller. The title track follows this up, all stax horns and Humble Pie soulrock sensibility, and you, the listener, are starting to think ‘we could be onto something here…’ But whilst what comes next is good – his best work for ten years, in all probability, it’s too scattershot, too disjointed to make this a truly satisfying listen. This is actually a good thing as far as Weller’s development as an artist is concerned – everything he’s done, the excellent covers album Studio 150 aside, in the last decade has been stodgily dependable, so the at times explosive unpredictability here is interesting, to say the least – but it means that unless you’re a committed fan, this may be a touch too much for you.

The Offspring - Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace (Columbia)

The Offspring: Vacuous and facile, outdated and tedious.

Melodyssey - unchained melodyssey

Gold Coast quartet MELODYSSEY have been ‘at it’ for ten years now, and have to their credit stuck to their guns in the face of almost universal apathy… which is good news, for the wait for their new album The Two Windows has indubitably been worth the blood, the sweat and, indeed, the undoubtedly shed tears that such an undertaking inevitably takes as it’s due. Put simply, if you love that vague genre ‘modern rock’, then you’re going to worship this sucker. Hell, fans of any form of rock music from AC/DC to ZZ Top (or, probably more suitably given the modern nature of said opus, from AFI to Zarach ‘Baal’ Tharagh) will find something to like, if not downright love, within the ten tracks to be found on TTW, so I decided to find out a bit more about the band and it’s impending Greenroom appearance via the gift of what we in the trade term an ‘interview’. Take it away, then, singer Lance Howard – this is a very varied, and forward looking album, no?

“It’s rock music - it is what it is. I love everything from Björk to death metal, so…” Bassist Dan Vincent, anything to add to that? “We didn’t set out to write to a specific style or genre. I think our songwriting process is influenced more by feelings, emotions and experiences as opposed to tastes and music.” Hang on, drummer Luke Williams is jostling his way forward to add his ha’porth on the subject. “We all listen to an incredibly diverse cross section of music; I guess the varied sound of the record is a result of that. We also like to push ourselves artistically and prove that we’re not just one trick ponies. We definitely went for a more musical approach on this record to try and convey the kind of emotions that these songs were bringing us.”

Before I get the chance to change tack I have to give way to guitarist Clint Vincent (in the interests of fairness, you understand), who also has views on what may just have become the most pertinent (to interviewees) question I’ve ever asked. “It is the result of different tastes, different goals, different feelings and many other things. We all write these songs, yeah some people have more ideas than others, but all in all Melodyssey is like a stew. You put a little of everyone in. In some songs your flavour might be stronger than in others. But also, I think a lot of our sound on this album came from emotions and things happening in the world rather than music.”

And there’s the rub. It’s no fluke that three out of four members used the word ‘emotion’, or variants thereof, in their answer to that simple question, for on TWW you’ll find some of the most rawly emotional and sincere music you’ll hear this year. Indeed, this writer’s hairs were positively priapic in their back-of-the-neck stiffness on the first hearing of such soon-to-be-classics as The Constant Rain and Same Insane, and I’m positively salivating at the prospect of seeing such bona fide stompers in their live incarnations.

pace prevents me from enthusing further about the record, but in closing I’ll leave the last word to Lance: The Greenroom – should we be excited?

“Yes! If you come to the show be prepared to sing along. I don’t care if you think you sound like you’ve swallowed a large echidna… at a Melodyssey show everyone’s in the band!”

Melodyssey play at The Greenroom on Friday August 8 with Sydney’s Kindrid and locals Moh Van Wah. Tickets are $10 plus booking fee from Moshtix or $15 on the door. The Two Windows is out now on Modern Music through MGM.

Star Assassin / Tonk / Escape Syndrome @ The Greenroom, Friday June 20

After a highly agreeable couple of pints of Guinness downstairs in O’Sheas bar, your correspondent hauls himself upstairs to The Greenroom, more out of dutiful ‘professionalism’ than anything else, in order to catch tonight’s warm up, the Escape Syndrome.

But, and hell’s teeth this is a surprise, they’re bloody good. Melding a smooth soulful vocal style that places this act firmly at the end of the ‘80s to a rhythmic guitar crunch that is very much of the moment is a masterstroke, and whilst at the moment there aren’t quite enough killer tunes in evidence for my liking, this was a very good first contact indeed. More please, and soon.

And so to Tonk, the reason for my being here at all. Last time out in support to Helmet the band were a little off-colour, trying a bit too hard to prove they’ve got the rifferama (they have) whilst easing back on the melodic side of things to no good effect. Tonight, however, they’re back and firing on all six, and, with plans afoot to record a second elpee and sniffs of interest from that ‘overseas’ you’ve doubtless heard so much about, the future’s looking good in Tonkville at the moment.

After such a rousing kick-off, Star Assassin can’t help but disappoint, which they do, failing on all counts to match their predecessors and leaving us slightly disgruntled as we sloped off into the night in search of fried sustenance. Oh well, as ol’ meaty would have it - two outta three ain’t bad.

And another thing…

Great Train Journeys of the World: Part Two.

As we headed deeper and deeper into the English countryside, the effect of the sunlight beating through the large toughened glass windows and flooding the carriage with its noxious UV rays was doing me no good at all. Thirsty, I thought, so very thirsty. By now the cider was all gone and we were getting through the home brew like there was no tomorrow. Which was a shame because tomorrow was when the Sex Pistols were due to perform at the Phoenix Festival – which I’m sure you remember is where I was headed – but as we hurtled through Bicester I felt as if my head had somehow been detached from the rest of my body and I really wasn’t confident on anything other than the probability of spending the night unconscious in a siding somewhere just outside Manchester. So very, very thirsty…

Jim’s body was still intact – I could tell this because I was watching him lurch back from the toilets, swaying in time with the rhythmic shunting of the train, grinning maniacally at the people now having to share the carriage with us because there was no room anywhere else on the train. Every now and then he stopped to breathe fumes over a ‘lucky’ punter, exchanging pleasantries in a virtually unintelligible slur, gesticulating wildly and laughing fit to burst at any response he managed to garner. His ebullient reaction to this satanic distillation he’d introduced me to was markedly different to mine – I was attempting to burrow down into the lining of my seat to escape the sunlight, the glares of utter disgust from normal people nearby and the inevitable offer of another, “just to keep us going”, but eventually I settled on a plan. The tannoy announcer informed us that Banbury was the next stop – and I was going to make a bid for freedom.

The train began decelerating, and, seeing that Jim was shouting at a petrified woman about the evils of battery farming, I hauled myself out of my seat and began gathering my belongings. When I came to, I opened an eye to see Jim staring at me at a distance of roughly one nose hair. “Wake up mate, we’re there!” I’m surprised his breath didn’t remove the eyebrows clean off my forehead – it was like being blowtorched with molten rotting vegetables – but as I came to, I realised my escape bid had failed. Miserably. Pulling myself together as best I could, I shambled off the train behind my own personal guardian angel. “You passed out at Banbury; I had to get someone to help me get you back into your seat. People are very nice if you take the time to just talk to them. People don’t talk enough these days.”

We alighted on the platform. Jim appeared miraculously to be completely sober, whilst even simple words were getting to the edge of my mouth and then turning back before they made garbled fools of themselves in the world outside my head. I nodded and grinned. “We’ve got twenty minutes before our connection. If I remember rightly there’s an off licence the other side of that footbridge. We can get some fresh supplies.”
So very, very thirsty. “I’m thirsty, very, very thirsty,” I gibbered. “Me too. Come on, no time to waste!”

To his credit, Jim negotiated the offie masterfully, even resisting the temptation to slip a couple of bottles of the good stuff into the inside pockets of his greatcoat. We made it back onto the platform at Leamington Spa just as the ‘special’ bound for the Phoenix Festival pulled into the station…

Next episode – Part Three: Ever get the feeling you’ve been swindled?

Jimmy Barnes / Mahalia Barnes @ Canberra Theatre, Wednesday June 25

Still reeling from the shock of witnessing Transport Minister John Hargreaves spilling curry down his tie just moments before we set off for the show, BMA finishes the last flavoursome morsel of Keema Naan and strides out into the night. To the wrong venue. This has happened to me before - I once made a beeline for entirely the incorrect part of London expecting Motorhead to be there waiting for me on arrival - and so after some frantic phone action we arrive, panting and sore of foot, at the correct venue, just in time for support act (and daughter of the main attraction) Mahalia Barnes.

We needn’t really have risked our blood vessels. Ms Barnes has a good voice (although backing vocalist Juanita Tippins upstages her on a couple of occasions), but seems happy just to coast along, not really attempting any connection with the audience, all of whom seem genuinely keen to see what she has to offer. Maybe first night rust? We’ll see.

Of course Barnesy suffers no such problems. One of Australian rock’s true icons, the master puts in the solid performance you’d expect, songs from the new album Out in the Blue fitting in seamlessly alongside old favourites. Stopping off occasionally to recount an anecdote or two, and backed by a great band, he doesn’t exactly pull out all the stops - he doesn’t need to - but does deliver over two hours of high class entertainment. Set closer Working Class Man finishes things off in style, and as we leg it out into Civic to catch the last bus home (at 10.30pm - no wonder Hargreaves was in the Curry House so early), the crowd are still baying eagerly for more.

DVDevotee Joy Division A Documentary

(Madman)
Grant Gee’s Joy Division is, as it says on the cover - and indeed, in the title - a documentary. But it’s so much more than this; Rockumentaries have been done to death over the years since MTV first coined the phrase and, whilst the (all too short) 74 minute duration of the film is packed with historical fact, it also serves as several other things - not least of which is its excellence as an epitaph to vocalist Ian Curtis, whose suicide ended the band as they teetered on the verge of world domination. It also documents the resurgence of a city - Manchester - which, before the advent of punk in the mid-‘70s, had languished as a sort of cultural Marie Celeste, adrift in a sea of violent Northern English apathy and hopelessness (the footage of bomb sites and terraced housing here being eerily reminiscent of an episode of Life on Mars). Regular interview snippets with Manc culture guru Tony Wilson and former NME journalist Paul Morley really grease the storytelling wheels here, in a way which Anton Corbijn signally failed to do in his JD biopic Control - also recently committed to digital versatile disc - whilst the whole tone of the film, reverent but never toadying, is a breath of fresh air.

Surviving members Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris - who went on to form New Order a week after Curtis’s death - are given full time and sympathetic editing to tell their sides of the story, whilst a long-as-your-arm list of contemporary talking heads wax lyrical about what was very obviously a very special time and place for all concerned. Add to this an excellent hour and a quarter of bonus interview footage and you’ve got a nice little package.

And another thing…

Great Train Journeys of the World: Part One.

“If you hurry, the 12:37 goes via Leamington Spa. You can change there.”

Thanking the man at the information desk, I gathered my kitbag and made a run for it. I made the train with seconds to spare. Leaving Marylebone Station on an early Friday afternoon, the train to Birmingham was sparsely populated, leaving me the choice of seats in my compartment. Marvellous. I stowed my bag, pulled out the new copy of Q Magazine and cracked open the first of what I hoped would be many cans of Cider as I embarked for a weekend at the Phoenix Festival, where I was ostensibly meant to be working.

At Wembley Stadium, the first stop, a dreadlocked young man boarded the carriage and, spying my open can of cider, decided to sit next to me even though I was the only person in the whole bloody compartment.

“Mind if I join you?” he said, waving his own container of ‘electric lemonade’ cheerfully at me.

I couldn’t say ‘yes, I do mind,’ as he’d already sat down and so we travelled in silence for about 20 minutes until we’d both finished our respective cans. Sitting as I was by the window, I couldn’t now get to my bag and the precious supplies therein, which my companion clearly sensed.

“Here, try some of this, I make it myself.”

From inside his army greatcoat he produced a pewter hip flask which he eagerly proffered.

Looking dubiously at the container but nevertheless quite thirsty, I took it and had a slug. Fucking Christ almighty. Were I to have been a cartoon character, the top of my skull would have opened to reveal a small mushroom cloud whilst my eyes would be standing a foot out from their sockets accompanied by a klaxon noise. This was evil stuff.

“It’s great, isn’t it?” said the red-headed stranger, obviously pleased to have broken the ice with his generous gift. I couldn’t answer him, because the skin had been burned away from the inside of my throat. I grinned weakly, nodded, and tried to give the hip flask back to him.

“No. No no. You keep that one. Plenty more where that came from!” he burbled happily, standing up and rooting about in his own kitbag. After a couple of minutes he triumphantly brandished what appeared to be an industrial size jerry can full of the stuff, which he revealed to be “like moonshine, but stronger. I make a variation of it that’s like gin but a couple of my friends have passed out on that one after only a can full, so I’m sticking to this. I’m Jim, by the way. Are you going to the Phoenix?”

I nodded, still unable to speak. I looked out of the window, tears streaming down my cheeks as the ‘stronger than moonshine’ liquid did its stuff.

20 minutes later we’re passing through High Wycombe and things don’t seem so bad. After a couple more swigs you get used to the taste both during and after consumption, but I decide it would be polite now to offer him some of my Cider, for safety’s sake if nothing else.

“Don’t mind if I do,” says Jim, who appears to be holding up remarkably well at this point. We tuck into the Cider, having discovered a mutual love of crust punk titans The Levellers. Jim is excited to learn that I work for said combo, and spends the next 20 minutes quizzing me about their every move in the last year or so. Then it hit me.

Next issue: Banbury to Long Marston, changing at Leamington Spa, police willing.

Hell City Glamours - Hell City limits

To borrow a phrase from my old mates Saxon, it’s been a long time coming but it’s here at last. Brothers and sisters, boozers, losers, children and wild ones of all ages, I give you the debut long player from Sydney’s finest keepers of the rock and roll flame, THE HELL CITY GLAMOURS .

Those of you who’ve followed the band like me over the last few years will doubtless be heaving a sigh of relief that this record, which has had a gestation period that would’ve had an elephant screaming for the induction stirrups, is finally hitting the racks. If you’ve not taken any interest in the band, firstly shame on you, but secondly, in the interests of your continued rehabilitation and education, I decided to act as an interlocutor on your behalf and ask HCG bassman and all round good egg Jono why you should be as happy as those of us ‘in the know’ about July 5th’s joyous events.

“Y’know, you’re right. If you’re already a fan of the band, I’d like to think you’re excited because you’ve been waiting so fucking long for us to make this record and you can finally get it. If you’re coming to this record as a newcomer, you’ll be jubilant as you discover an album with just the right mix of old school rock with dashes of every little thing that’s come rock’s way since Chuck Berry worked it out. And it’ll be a pleasant surprise for anyone who thought they knew what we sound like without ever having heard us, ‘cause we don’t sound like that at all.”

Too true me ol’ China. But back to the glacial speed of this baby’s arrival. Did you ever despair that it wouldn’t eventually drop? “Haha, you’ve got no idea how close this album has come to not happening, even since we started recording! Being an independent band, as well as wanting to give our fans (and ourselves) the best record we possibly could, ain’t easy! But, fuck, it’s here, enjoy!”

Is that because the four of you are such distinct personalities musically? Did that make piecing together the album problematic? Does anyone ever exercise the power of veto and say ‘I’m not playing that!’ “Not too much actually, though there were definitely a few points in the writing process over the last 12 months before we hit the studio where we got very stuck on things. Everyone has their babies and wants them to grow and to thrive. The biggest problem was getting the songs whittled to a listenable length as some of them started off at the plus five minute mark! We’re a little too early into our career to write the next Bohemian Rhapsody!”

And where was all this sweating and straining taking place? “It was tracked mostly at Sing Sing South in Melbourne with the finishing touches done at Lord Street Studio in Sydney all by the inimitable Matt ‘Hoigty Toigty’ Voigt - a more wonderful man behind the desk you could never ask for.”

Indeed no, Mr Voigt has a list of credits as long as your arm, including the likes of Kiss, The Living End, Cat Power and, erm, Russell Crowe. Rarified company indeed for our quartet of ragamuffin heroes. And now the inevitable – Canberra has always reserved a warm welcome for Da Glams, looking forward to The Green Room, I presume?

“We always, always look forward to Canberra shows, for the coldest place we play, it’s definitely got the hottest crowds; it’s been ages since we played The Greenroom too and of course we’re going to go hit Transit Bar after the show and party on with Marc as late as we can!”

Great news. But the best news is that we’re all invited too. See you there.

The Hell City Glamours launch their debut LP at The Greenroom on Saturday July 12 with The VeeBees and Stilton Detox. From 8pm, $10 entry.

And another thing…

I’ve been drowning in a sea of sports statistics recently (for those of you who care, my ‘real’ job involves what is nowadays known as the provision of ‘sports information’ for use by punters in betting shops), and I needed a change of scenery. So, having established that England were getting royally buggered by the All Blacks in Auckland, I headed out to the highway. My good chum Mo Mayhem of the Hell City Glamours was in town, albeit not in his usual capacity as leading tight-trousered provider of rock; oh no, this time Señor Mayhem was to grace the stage as fill-in axeman for the Casino Rumblers at the inaugural Capital City Punkfest at The Basement in Belco, and, as these cud-chewing chances don’t get thrown up too frequently, I had to be there.

Stopping off only to whet the whistle at Canberra’s award-winning live entertainment venue the Transit Bar, where some form of catastrophe had rendered the Stella unfit for human (or even my) consumption, I made it to The Basement at about nine. It’s a venue that’s starting to get a reputation – even unto my palatial southside abode – as a place worth going to for an exciting night out, and the floors are indeed agreeably sticky underfoot, which means something is being done right. And, perhaps most importantly for a ‘punkfest’ – there is cider available on draught at the bar.

Ah, cider. Despite the fact that when I arrive, ACT punk stalwarts the Bladder Spazzms are avoiding the fact that it isn’t 1985 anymore with a manful singlemindedness that is, frankly, invigorating (their repeated attacks on the straight edge lifestyle and the Pope of dourness, Fugazi’s Ian Mackaye, were particularly amusing), it wasn’t the snub-nosed brutality of their crossover assault that left my mouth watering and my mind twitching back to the heady days of Circle Jerks shows at the Klub Foot in Hammersmith – it was the cider. And the fact that there was a bloke walking around picking fag ends off the floor, inspecting them and then pocketing them for later use if they looked to have a promising tobacco content. Now that’s punk, matey…

But I digress. Cider is, or was in my day at least, the punk drink of choice, especially in its more refined, ‘chemical’ forms. We used to drink one called Diamond White, which despite toting a strength of 8.2% by volume, cost the equivalent of a bag of crisps for industrial quantities of the stuff. Binge drinkers? Christ on a bike, they’d shit their pants and soil their pink polo shirts if they were asked to consume this in place of their designer ‘alcopops’. It was perfectly clear in colour, like the duplicating fluid they used to make the school ‘banda’ machine work its magic, and it came equipped with a smell which got to you before the taste and made your eyes water like you’d just come out, victorious, natch, of an eight-hour charity onion-peeling competition. But it got the job done, sir, and no mistake.

Sorry, I got sidetracked again. Where was I? Oh yes, the Punkfest. Brilliant, and great to see such a goodly turn out to boot. The organisers are looking at making it a yearly institution, and they certainly get my vote, whatever that’s worth. What an absolute pleasure it was to blow the cobwebs out with some bona fide ROCK music of the highest order, in the company of one of the finest guitarists this parched land has to offer, with a cider at hand. As Kurt would have had it, Nirvana.

And another thing…

Once again I am able to type THEY! ARE! COMING! But it’s not about Iron Maiden this time, oh no. The metal gods JUDAS PRIEST are the latest in a long line of genre titans to announce Australian appearances and with this in mind, coupled with the knowledge that you can pick up most of their albums for the price of an alcopop, here, in very strict order, are my top five Priest elpees of all time:

1. Screaming for Vengeance (1982) – still one of the top five ‘trad’ metal records of all time, even a quarter of a century after its release, SFV is quite literally what it’s all about. From the epic opening strains of The Hellion through to the pumping pop sensibilities of You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’, there isn’t a duff note anywhere to be heard here. Guitarists Glenn Tipton and KK Downing mesh incredibly well on the likes of Electric Eye and the title track, whilst singer Rob Halford tops the whole thing off with a faultless performance. Breathtaking.

2. British Steel (1980) – Priest’s first million selling album, BS opened with the startling speed metal attack of Rapid Fire, a track which provided a blueprint for the thrash explosion of the mid-’80s, yet also contained three huge (in the UK anyway) pop singles in United, Living After Midnight and the ubiquitous Breaking the Law. A strange mix, but it worked.

3. Sin After Sin (1977) – The band’s major label debut saw them leaving their prog roots behind for good, fusing the more metallic strains of previous outing Sad Wings of Destiny to a (for its time) sleek production (courtesy of Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover), with pleasing results. Opener Sinner remains in the set to this day, whilst Dissident Aggressor was later covered by thrash giants Slayer.

4. Defenders of the Faith (1984) – Whilst The Sentinel remains my all time favourite Priest track – the duel guitar interplay by Tipton and Downing here is worth the price of admission alone - its place in the Priest canon as follow-up to the titanic Vengeance means that it has always been seen as something of a disappointing album. But that is bollocks, frankly, as one listen to the ludicrous proto-power metal of Freewheel Burning or the biker anthem Rock Hard, Ride Free will attest – this is the good stuff.

5. Killing Machine (1978) – Renamed Hell Bent for Leather in the US because of the ‘murderous’ nature of the original title, KM was the album that saw Priest adopt its now infamous leather ‘n’ studs image. Songwise, this is one of the band’s strongest outings, with the likes of Running Wild, both title tracks and the ultimate terrace anthem Take on the World all bringing home the bacon. This was the album that really put Priest on the map, and though it isn’t as overtly metal as what was to come, it was certainly a massive step in the right direction. It’s also the first Priest opus I ever bought – on red vinyl, obviously.

So there you have it. What!? No Painkiller? I hear you scream. No. No Painkiller. And no Stained Class, either, both of which usually find a place in these kind of lists, but you know, I’m a contrary bugger, and for me, whilst both of those albums contain some utter out-and-out Priest classics, speaking to you as an undoubted non-Priest devotee, I think you’ll find these albums more rewarding. Trust me. You can buy me one of those alcopops at the Acer arena in September as thanks if you like.

And another thing…

Iron Maiden have released another album. By my reckoning, it is the 30th one they’ve brought out. It is called Somewhere Back in Time – The Best of 1980-1989, and it purports to be a celebration of the current world tour of partially the same name which has, by anybody’s standards, re-ignited the flames under the legend that is the Maiden.

But here’s the rub. From very early on, fans of the band have carried the vaguely unsettling feeling that the band to which they are so fiercely loyal are taking them for every penny they’ve got. And so, ladies and gentlemen, after February’s merchandise jamboree which offered you 30-odd t-shirt designs at 50 bucks each, $150 Maiden branded football shirts, the whole nine yards, plus $200-a-pop tickets which we all happily shelled out for, some of us at multiple venues, and a cunningly-timed re-release of the Live After Death DVD (30 DOLLARS TO YOU, SIR!), Rod Smallwood’s band of minstrels (actually I should clarify what I wrote earlier; it probably isn’t the band looking to fleece us, but rather Rod Smallwood, the band’s redoubtable manager and bean counter extraordinaire) are now offering us the chance to further re-invest in the stocks of Iron Maiden Holdings plc with this, their ninth compilation elpee.

At first glance, the tracklisting looks mouth-watering, until you notice there is only one song on it from 1983’s Piece of Mind, an oversight of criminal proportions given that the band are airing multiple tracks from the album on the current tour, night after night, even as we speak. Then you note the four songs lifted direct in audio form from the new version of Live After Death you purchased three months ago, of which three, the classics Phantom of the Opera, Wrathchild and Killers, all sung originally by vocalist Paul Di’Anno on the band’s eponymous debut from 1980 and sophomore, the ever underrated Killers (1981), are now offered to us with Bruce Dickinson singing – ask any Maiden fan worth their salt and they’ll tell you the originals would’ve been more welcome. Which leads us to rump of the album, 11 songs taken from The Number of the Beast (1982), Powerslave (1984), Somewhere in Time (1986) and Seventh Son of a Seventh Son (1988). Of these, a whopping five, viz 2 Minutes to Midnight, The Trooper, The Number of the Beast, Run to the Hills and The Evil That Men Do, have appeared on EVERY MAIDEN COMPILATION EVER RELEASED!
However, somewhat strangely, the song around which this entire tour has hinged, the grandiosely magnificent Rime of the Ancient Mariner, can find no place on the disc at all, a fact as shameful as it is inexplicable. I’ve been wracking my brain for a while now, and I just can’t see why your average Maiden fan in the street is being asked again to fork out for songs they already have. When you also take into account that every album has been released and re-released, and then released again in re-mastered form with ‘bonus’ tracks, and that most of the tracks here have been released as singles as well, many of them as picture discs or in coloured vinyl, you are looking at a record collection with maybe 15 bought-and-paid-for versions of Run To The Hills. And that’s not good. Even for someone as clinically dependent on hearing Maiden once or twice a day as me.
* * * * *
I’ve been ill in bed all week, unable to sleep because of night sweats and shaking. Thanks, then, commercial TV, whose daytime programming has had me sleeping like a baby all day. Much needed, I can tell you.

And another thing…

I woke up with a start, mainly due to the fact that my face was wedged up against the cold glass. I couldn’t move my head away from the glass because what appeared to be a flight case full of drum parts was resting on it. From what I could make out through the steamed-up window, we were travelling, at speed, along a main road in the middle of the night, which was strange because the last thing I remembered was getting stuck in the revolving doors of the hotel as I tried to get away from the party in order to get some air.
I didn’t have a watch on, but I guessed that that was some hours ago. A watery dawn was breaking and I just managed, as it flashed past, to make out what the sign said on the roadside:

A2

Dover 38

Not good. The hotel I’d been at was in Kensington, West London; I lived in Cricklewood, North London. By my reckoning I was heading at speed away from where I wanted to be; at this point about 45 miles away from where I wanted to be. I heaved the flight case off me, determined to take action. I was met with a blast of cheers and handed a bottle of export strength lager. The cheers came from the band Hed P.E., an American nu-metal outfit I’d been doing t-shirts for. Having gone back to their party after a ‘triumphant’ debut London show, I had become a little worse for wear and, realising I’d left my coat in the van, gone out to ‘take the air’ before doing a disappearing act before things got too messy. (BMA fruit expert Allan Sko will tell you all about my skill at ‘disappearing’). Apparently, I’d nodded off in the back seat where the band found me as they assembled to take the ferry to the continent and points east on their European tour. Not wanting to wake me, they’d decided to head off with the ‘swag guy’ in tow.

So here I am, passport-free and bound for France, feeling much as a press-ganged Roger the cabin boy must have, having woken to find he was on his way to Trafalgar. Still, England expects, and as luck would have it, the band, all resourceful souls, had hatched a plan.

“We’ll hide you in the trailer. No one will think to look in there after they’ve shaken the minibus down. You’ll be fine.”

Of course, her Majesty’s Customs and Excise department take a dim view of human traffic, and as I didn’t feel like becoming another pixellated head on the next episode of Border Patrol, I decided to make a break for it at the next available opportunity. I’d had a few close shaves in my time as a merchandiser – guns poked up my nostril by bootleggers in Italy, German men of ‘specialist’ interest taking a shine to the pertness of my leather-clad buttocks, etc etc - but I really didn’t want to have to explain to Mr Plod or, worse still Monsieur Plod, what I was doing attempting to cross the channel with no passport without being covered in Goose grease and accompanied by a support vessel.

Luckily, the band were almost as distressed as I had been hours earlier and, on stopping at a service station to empty aching bladders, I was able to make good my legs and effect a quick exit and hitchhike back to the metropolis. A close shave, I’m sure you’ll agree. Like the man at ANU said the other night – always be with your photo ID, brothers and sisters.

Lee Kernaghan / The McClymonts @ The Royal Theatre, Friday May 9

The Royal Theatre is buzzing tonight, with boys (and girls, and mums and dads, kids and grannies - this really is family entertainment) from the bush and all over descending on the Nation’s Capital for their big night out, and those in charge have stocked the venue bars accordingly - Crownies on ice for those looking for some big city glamour, Cougar and ‘cola-flavoured product’ for the less discerning amongst us. Of which I am one, obviously, but that’s by the by, everyone looking for some down-home fun ‘n’ games for the $70 entry fee. So, after a bit of controversy at the guest list (BMA’s plus one had somehow become a plus five, and I looked like an utter fool standing on my lonesome exuding bourbon fumes. Plus five? You? Friends? On yer way sir.). Anyway, a trip to the dunny in case of emergencies and it’s off to the music.

Ah, the music. The McClymonts are a big noise in Australian country music at the moment, and not without reason. They look great (indeed, were I a 15-year-old RM Williams devotee stuck on a property in the middle of nowhere, my bedroom wall surfaces would be covered with pictures of Brooke, Samantha and Mollie. Especially Brooke.), they sound utterly fantastic - their three-part harmonies are bang on the money time after time after time - but, picky git that I am, there’s still something missing. Stagecraft - the girls are all anchored to instruments and their mics and the three man strong backing band have clearly been told to remain in the shadows so as not to deflect any glory from the siblings - is at a premium, with all three girls slightly nervy in their badinage with an audience that is fully behind them come what may, but, hey, they’re young and that’ll come. Their songs are identikit nu-Nashville, but again a couple more years under the belt will help there, and when they launch into their recent hit, the very marvelous My Life Again, all doubts are swept away for a golden three minutes. When they return, they’ll be better for the run and headlining venues like this.

And now for the main event. Lee Kernaghan is one of the nicest interviewees I’ve ever encountered, a thoroughly deserving Australian of the year and a human being who’s integrity is solid gold grade A material… But.

And it’s quite a big but. Like many products of the Australian country music scene, there’s an air of America lite about much of the man’s oeuvre, which leaves you wondering if he’s either opting for a watered-down George Strait approach deliberately, or, and this is the greater of two evils, whether he’s not much good at all. Kernaghan is a master of the crying in your beer genre, with the ludicrous (but very good) Missin’ Slim possibly the most maudlin song written about a human man ever, and it’s the ballads that strike paydirt each time. When Lee turns to rock, he comes unstuck badly, with tripe like Love Shack straining so hard to emulate Kernaghan’s obvious reference point Garth Brooks it actually seems a little desperate; That said, I’m the only person in the nearly-full venue who isn’t enjoying the entertainment on offer, so it’s a problem for me to deal with rather than the artist. But I’ll not be back unless he can come up with something with a bit more personality and verve - certainly as far as the ‘rockers’ are concerned - which is a shame because I came tonight to praise Lee rather than bury him. Sorry…

And another thing…

Somebody on Facebook invited me to ‘Name That Bass Player’ the other day, a refreshing change from the usual ‘What Sitcom Character Are You?’ or ‘If You Were Baby Sick, What Would You Smell Of?’ type questionnaires that usually get referred to me. I took the test, and disappointingly scored only 86%, a laughably low score for someone who knows that the wielder of the ‘four string motherfucker’ for Mississippi punks The Cooters is the splendidly monickered Neuter Cooter. Here then, in the spirit of such things, is a short list of bassists I have known who may, or may not, turn up in such quizzes.

1. Nibbs Carter
I first met Saxon bassist Timothy ‘Nibbs’ Carter in the dingy upstairs dressing room of a backpackers pub in London’s Kings Cross. Nibbs soon got with the program, realising that I was to be handed a beer immediately on arrival at any venue, anytime, if things were to be done properly, much like himself, and so we became firm, if necessarily fleeting friends. Our slick professionalism made us a dynamic combination in backstage areas all over Europe.

2. Dee Dee Ramone
By the time I got to know Dee Dee his time was nearly at hand, and the years of neglect were starting to catch up with him. It was one of the saddest days of a generally chirpy career to see the man blundering about in our London office spilling scalding hot tea down his trousers. Stay off the pills, kids…

3. Val.Ium
Valerie Cannerozzi was the bassist for American goths Pist.On, and I took something of a shine to her after we spent a lot of time in the back of a van together on the band’s first cheaply undertaken tour of Europe. The feeling was vaguely mutual, and after a long spell corresponding together via the gift of fax machines it was agreed that, prior to the band’s next tour, she’d come and stay with me for a few days. Except that matters became confused and she ended up stranded in a crack den by the seaside in Brighton, from which I had to save her, white knight style. Our relationship ended in Cologne, Germany, after my addle-headed drunken buffoonery became too much for her. I wasn’t there, but people who were say that her expletive-laden trashing of my tour bus ‘coffin’ was a sight to behold. We never spoke again.

4. Keith Curtis
‘Brother’ Keith Curtis was brilliant. Once guitarist of punk legends The Membranes, I knew him as the bass player of Manchester style gurus Goldblade. The ’Blade were legends in their own right, purveyors as they were of a heady mix of DC Hardcore, psychobilly and the blues long before Rocket From the Crypt ever donned a pair of brothel creepers, but Brother Keith was a man apart. He never drank, preferring instead to observe the hilarity from its perimeter, safe in the knowledge that the information he would obtain during these revels would come in handy later – he was an incorrigible gossip – but this temperance meant he was an excellent man to know when you needed a lift somewhere. It also meant that he could intervene on your behalf with the local constabulary, as he did once for me during a particularly hectic train journey back to London after some ‘discussions’ in the Levellers’ Bar that very afternoon had dragged on longer than intended. For saving me from a spell in the cells alone the man would be accorded legend status, but he was truly one of the finest men ever to draw breath. Keith, I salute you…

Saxon - Tribal Rule

When he realises who is on the other end of the phone, SAXON frontman, the granite-visaged Biff Byford, permits himself a chuckle. We share a quick remembrance of our past association (I provided tour merchandise for the band for a while in the late ’90s) before diving into the matter at hand – Saxon’s upcoming trip down under. Sorry, make that SAXON ARE COMING TO AUSTRALIA!

It beggars belief. In the last eight months the likes of Motorhead, Iron Maiden and now Saxon – stalwarts of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal – all have made the journey to these shores, not to mention lesser lights (though not much lesser, it has to be said) such as Helloween and W.A.S.P., all finding rabid, slavering audiences ready to party like it’s 1989.

“We’ve heard a lot about the standard of Australian audiences, and we’re looking forward to meeting them. It’s just a shame that it’s taken so long,” intones the man in his unmistakeable Barnsley brogue. “But you know, heavy metal fans are the same everywhere – Japan, England, Germany, Australia. They’re good, loyal people and we love to play for them.”

It wasn’t so long ago that the band were only playing to two of those fans a night (even the dog couldn’t be bothered to turn up), as the band entered a fallow period that lasted all through the first half of the ’90s. It’s a testament to Byford’s single-minded stickability that the band turned things around so spectacularly, to the point where, in terms of concert attendance, the band is even more popular now than it was in it’s early ’80s heyday.

“I suppose so, but, we’re not just a band, we’re a group of songwriters, you know? We play rock and roll every night, sure, but songwriting is what we do. And I think we do it very well. So yes, things were tough, but when they get tough it gives you more time to think, to hone your skill as a songwriter. I believe the material we wrote, and are writing, after our ‘slump’ is the best music we’ve ever written. And if you look at some of our concerts there’re 40 or 50 thousand people a night, of all ages, who seem to agree with us.”

He’s bristling now, our Biff, chest puffed out ready to take on all comers. I decide to calm things down by asking about the makeup of the set for the upcoming jaunt. “That’s another thing that annoys me. People think – Saxon, ’80s band, concert, must be some kind of nostalgia trip. But we only tour if we’ve something to promote, and we always mix in new stuff with the songs we have to play because we and the audience love them. I hate bands that come out every year and play the same set each time you see them.”

Is this a jibe at the ongoing Maiden nostalgia fest swamping the world at the moment?

“No, no no. Bands like us, Judas Priest, Maiden, Motörhead, you’d never see us doing shows like that. You’ve seen us how many times?”

Christ, um, At least 15 to 20.

“And have we ever played the same set twice, even on the same tour?”

No.

Silence. The man need say no more. He’s right of course, and I can’t wait to see what they play for Australia. As a sign off I remark it’s been a pleasure to talk after all these years. “Yes, it was really good to talk again. Make sure you come and see us in Sydney, we’ll have a beer!”

Saxon play at The Forum in Sydney on May 7, as well as Brisbane and Melbourne on May 5 and 6 respectively.

Don Letts - Dancehall Don

The great thing about this ‘job’ is that occasionally the chance comes up for you, the journalist, to talk to someone you go back a long way with. You might not actually know them, but they’ve been there popping up from time to time as a reference point in your life. For me, DON LETTS is such as man. One of Britain’s artistic survivors, you may know him best musically for his work with Mick Jones of The Clash in Big Audio Dynamite or for films such as Dancehall Queen, Punk: Attitude or the marvellous Clash doco Westway to the World, or for the well known fact that it was Letts’ DJ sessions at London’s Roxy club that sparked the whole punk/reggae cross-cultural exchange in the mid ’70s. He has carved a unique niche as a multi-media artist over the last 30 years and, luckily for us, is coming down under (though not, obviously, to Canberra) for a series of shows that cover all the areas of his multi-media creative life.

I put it to him over the early-morning phone line that it’s been a varied and, no doubt, interesting life. “You say multi-media, but for me, although they are very distinct areas that I’ve worked in, they all run from the same core, which is me. I think when you’re someone from the left of centre, like me, diversity is the key. I’ve got a lot of tentacles, but they all run from the same body!”

While the Octopus Don image sinks in (not so difficult to envisage, actually, when you remember the extravagant dreads in evidence during the BAD old days), I ask Letts which of his ‘tentacles’ has given him the most satisfaction over the years. “It’s hard to answer that sort of question, isn’t it? I think overall, and although I’m very proud of the work I did with Big Audio Dynamite, feature films are the most satisfying thing. Certainly for me, as a first-generation black living in England, to make a film like Dancehall Queen and to receive approbation and respect from Jamaicans, to be told that you’ve had a culture-changing impact on the whole island, the island that your parents came from… that was a pretty big thing for me, and I feel I can be pleased about that. But then I’m very proud of my work with The Clash too, so…”

Ah, The Clash. Although it’s the Don we’re here to talk about, I ask in passing what he thought about Julien Temple’s Joe Strummer documentary, The Future is Unwritten. So far Letts has been the consummate ‘up!’ interviewee, but now he audibly catches his breath and takes a second to compose himself. “It was very confronting. And difficult for me. A lot of footage of Joe, who obviously I was very close to… a lot of the footage of him talking about his early life I actually shot myself. Some of the stuff there was actually outtakes from Westway, so yes, it was difficult.”

I remark that the film had a tremendously emotional affect on me – I didn’t even know the man, yet it simultaneously uplifted and saddened me to watch. He had a big impact on those who knew him. “Definitely. And, as you say, if it had that effect on you, without that ‘intimate’ acquaintance with Joe, you can imagine how it felt to watch as a friend.”

Indeed. But enough maudlinness, back to the Don. How’s this upcoming tour shaping up?

“Very well. Although I’m a big technology fan, I do really enjoy the cultural exchange that comes from getting out and meeting people, anywhere in the world. Even though the world is getting smaller and, to a certain extent, more samey thanks to the internet and everyone watching the same TV shows, I’m constantly encouraged by the fact that – and whether this is because I’m totally linked with the punk movement I don’t know – I seem to meet lots of young people who aren’t celebrity obsessed, who are determined to be different and achieve success outside of the norm, and that’s a fact to be celebrated.” So punk is alive and well? It hasn’t been swallowed by the machine? “Well, of course that depends on your standpoint. For me punk was something that predated the whole late ’70s thing anyway, so yes, people who stay outside the norm who are like me, slightly more left of centre, those people are still alive, of course. So yes.”

It’s interesting to hear this from a man who, at 52, could easily be slipping into ‘grumpy old man’ territory. This assertion brings a cackle. “I was asked the other day about that. I’m not grumpy, but I do get angry about things. I am an angry old man. In the ’70s, we used to say never trust anyone over the age of 30. Now I’m not so sure. Maybe it’s the other way around!”

Enough of this generationism. After such a time in the spotlight as a multi-media artist, is there anything Don Letts hasn’t done that he feels he’d like to turn his hand to? Again, a pause for thought. “You know, if I was really pushed I guess I’d say I’d still like to make a feature film based in, around and about London. I love this city, its buzz, its multiculturalism, and I’d really like to reflect that in film. Other than that, I do what I do – like I said, there are many tentacles, but I’m like a shark, always moving forward. So I do what I do. I don’t think too much about it. When you are like me, a left of centrist, you need to diversify to pay the mortgage, so this week I’m DJing, I have a radio show, whatever it takes. But a London film I like the idea of. It’s a movie in pre-production, like so many are!”

But while I’m happy to chew the cud in this scattershot fashion with a man who is easily one of the most interesting interviewees I’ve come across in a long while, we still need to talk more about the show. Don – the show? “From what I can gather, the running order goes like this: we’ll show two or three of the films I’ve made, after each of which I’ll take questions from the audience, then I’ll be reading from my book (the recently released Culture Clash) – I don’t particularly enjoy that, but they’ve asked me to do it so I’m happy to oblige – and then I’ll finish the night off DJing, much in the style in which I made my name in the ’70s. I’m really looking forward to it!”

And so should we all be. Just one last question Don. These Q&A sessions, do you find that, wherever you are in the world, there’s someone in the audience that knows more about Don Letts than Don Letts himself? “Always. Which is good, because, even though much of my public persona is unusually well documented, I have actually forgotten most of what happened!”

Don Letts, The Rebel Dread himself, presents Dread Walkabout, an evening of film, music and word at on Saturday May 10 at the Manning Bar, Sydney University. Doors from 8pm, tickets from Moshtix.

And another thing…

Ocean Colour Scene. Whaddya mean ya never heard of ’em? Whaddya mean you never charted their rise from hopeless baggy wannabes to useless dad-rock tossers? Am I really to believe that BMA Editor and all-round illuminatus Peter Krbavac is the only person apart from me in this appallingly ill-educated town to have ever heard of them? In the words of Nicko McBrain, erstwhile drummer of Iron Maiden, world-renowned forward thinker and auteur, “Fack my old boots.”

The Colours painted themselves as victims of the music business, repeatedly backed into corners by a heartless process dedicated to industrially removing the very soul from their marrow in pursuit of dirty profit before spitting them out like so much dirty pith onto the ‘whatever happened to?’ college ball scene. The more cynical amongst us saw their movement from the loved-up sounds of Madchester to the more fiscally rewarding pastures of mid-’90s Britpop as mere bandwagon jumping, but what did we know?

What indeed. I worked for Underworld Merchandise in London from 1995 to 1997 – the halcyon days of Britpop. And though my view on the scene was obviously stunted by the fact that I was, and am, a heavy metal fan completely devoid of the necessary critical faculties required to appreciate the bittersweet ironies of Suede, Cast and, um, Menswear, I felt I had enough about me to grasp that the point of Britpop was its tip of the titfer to London, and indeed Britain, and it’s music, in the ’60s.

The music of Lennon and McCartney, Jagger and Richards, Ray Davies and Cliff Richards (the last pair weren’t, of course, a song writing team – but we are permitted at times to peer misty-eyed into the middle distance, soundlessly mouthing the words ‘what if?’ every now and then, aren’t we?). Imagine my surprise then, when Steve Craddock, OCS guitar man and sporter of some of the most truly horrendous strides ever worn (think Rupert the Bear in human form and then multiply the horror of your reaction by 100), turned up at the office with his dad in tow. Like his all-time hero Paul Weller, Craddock was managed by his old man, who was a blustery old bugger, a bully to boot, but at least spoke the Queen’s English. When Steve opened his mouth what came out was incomprehensible. He kept referring to my friend Emma, who was in charge of the band’s account, as ‘mi bredren’, and finished off every sentence with the salutation ‘aye…’

All of which made fathoming his t-shirt design requirements quite difficult. The sound of suppressed laughter from the rest of the open-plan office in which the meeting occurred made the place sound like it was the venue for the 1996 London tittering convention, which made things worse for the poor girl. We were later informed by a suitably amused third party that Craddock had become convinced that he was from Trenchtown, the notorious spiritual home of Reggae in Kingston, Jamaica rather than Birmingham, England, despite having a complexion that would have made Vince Noir’s Alabaster Retard look like one of the Black and White Minstrels, and it was a merely accepted point amongst the rest of the band that Steve was to be humoured at all times.

It does indeed take all sorts, not only to make the world go ’round but also, apparently, to play stiffly white r’n’b infused middle-of-the-road ‘rock’ music too.
*    *    *    *    *
This column is repectfully dedicated to Charlton Heston, a grumpy old man if ever there was one.

Ron Sexsmith @ Tilley’s, Tuesday March 18

When we arrived at Tilley’s at a quarter to eight on an unseasonably warm evening, the venue was already packed, with not even the sniff of a seat to be had. This was, of course, a good sign, and my mind was immediately cast back to the only other time I’ve seen Canada’s finest living singer-songwriter (does Neil Young count? Hasn’t he spent too much time down south to be counted as a true son of the Northern sky? He has in my book, and as I’m writing this you’ll have to put up with such arbitrary rulings), on a similarly sultry night in London in 1996. Back then, Sexsmith was something of a hot ticket, with the cream of London’s ligging crowd in attendance for what was billed as one of the shows of the year for those in the know.

That night in the big city Ron delivered in spades and now, in a tiny Canberra café 12 years later, the hype may have dissipated somewhat, but he’s still delivering. The slavering faithful were treated to just over ninety minutes of pure aural bliss, punctuated regularly by the man’s self-deprecatory musings, and at times as his doleful, fragile tones floated over the venue there seemed a real danger of there not being a dry eye in the house.
Accompanying himself on guitar and piano with a sparse bass and drums backing when required, Ron traversed his whole back catalogue with a quiet assurance borne of many years at the top of the tree, but there’s never cockiness lurking, never an air of over-confidence to taint the beautifully simple oeuvre on offer. This was great stuff, and, as ever when Sexsmith is in attendance, a special night was had by all.

And another thing…

Look, I don’t know how it happened. It had been a busy day, but nothing out of the ordinary. Wake up in a flea-bitten B&B, pile into the bus and spend the morning bickering with each other. Arrive at the venue about two, set up the merch stand, have a bit of a kick around in the car park with the support band, back inside the venue for a spot of nosebag supplied by the promoter, all the while desperately trying to stay off the booze (hey, this was 1996, and I considered myself a professional in those days - no drinking till after the show). I wandered out from the venue to say hello to my friends in the Earache Records office but they were already striking camp and heading to the pub, so I wandered back to the venue. It was a hot day so, breaking my own rules, I soothed my fevered brow with a nice pint of Lowenbrau when I got back inside.

Nottingham’s Rock City is one of the classic heavy metal meccas of England: spread across three levels it can, and often does, stage three shows simultaneously and, whilst the band I was touring with, American goth metallers Pist.On, were situated on level two in the medium-sized room, downstairs was hosting an ’80s metal night (WAHHAAAAYYY!!) whilst the big room saw a show by former Hanoi Rocks frontman and all-time major dude Michael Monroe. I’d shared a pint with Monroe at the University of London Union only a couple of months before but had no expectation of him remembering who I was, so imagine my surprise when, on spying me walking past his dressing room, he shouted at me to come in and have a beer… Obviously, it never stops at just one, so when I finally took to the stairs to man the merchandise stall at about half eight I was severely relaxed.

Rather helpfully, Monroe had stuffed a bottle of premium strength lager into every pocket of my combat trousers to “keep me going”, with the agreement that we’d meet up again after our respective duties were discharged. The rest of the night passed, I believe, uneventfully. The band, despite being at the height of their popularity at the time, only sold about 20 shirts so I was back on deck and ready for action relatively early, but events started to become blurry at this point. Suffice to say I was having such a good time I missed the bus back to our overnight accommodation, a Travelodge situated some 30 miles up the M1.

Somehow I managed to convince a somewhat dubious cab driver to take me to said inn, but sadly it was one of those cut price joints with no concierge or 24 hour check in and, as I had no key, I was required to effect what is known in the trade as a ‘toilet door entry’. I had no idea what rooms we had been billeted in, and so, finding myself in the relatively comfortable confines of the disabled toilet, I flicked the lock and settled down to sleep, sitting upright on the pan.

The next thing I know, I’m woken by an outlandish siren - I’d nodded off with my head on a big padded alarm button - and the cries from a member of the Nottinghamshire Fire Brigade who was busy putting an axe through the toilet door in order to save me, my drunken protestations from inside doing little to convince him that I wasn’t severely palsied and in need of rescue.

Moral: please, kids, don’t get on the sauce before going to work. My sleep in a hotel khazi cost me A LOT of money. Believe.