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It has been suggested now and then that Status Quo tracks can sound a little, well, samey. But that’s only to those who don’t appreciate them. Yet even Quo diehards might find largely the same set of songs performed four times in the same box set (two of which are literally identical) a little repetitive.
Nonetheless, as a polished-up re-release of a classic live album, a careful remastering of these recordings from Glasgow Apollo in October 1976 (with all three nights’ full performances thrown in), it does a handsome job, heightening the best qualities of the original without smoothing off any essential rough edges.
People often refer to Quo as being ‘at the peak of their powers’ here. But while that might be true of their live potency, as songwriters and their trajectory towards becoming ‘the people’s band’, they’d barely got started. Not only had they yet to write and record some of their best songs when Live! was recorded, it’s also faintly baffling in retrospect that they didn’t play Down Down or Paper Plane, or other big hits (Break The Rules, Down The Dustpipe). But this is a band who were perhaps eager to prove they were a serious rock band and that singles chart success wasn’t really what they were about.
That’s where this expanded Live! set finds it’s USP. The marathon jams through Forty-Five Hundred Times are central to this album, and on three 16-to-18-minute takes on it here they give themselves licence to roam. Francis Rossi’s guitar playing sounds positively possessed at times, and by the end on one of these nights his guitar isn’t even in tune any more. He’s similarly galvanised on the fretboard on the gutsy renditions of Roll Over Lay Down. Elsewhere the visceral aggression of Quo’s performance also punches holes in the speakers, as when bassist Alan Lancaster gets to the mic and pretty much roars his way through Bye Bye Johnny.
As Classic Rock News Editor Dave Ling’s must-read sleeve notes remind us, the band themselves always differed regarding this record’s value, with perennial malcontent Rossi annoyed at the messy performances, which unlike many live albums of the era went unconcealed by studio overdubs. But as drummer John Coghlan concludes: “Ask any Quo fan and they’ll agree. That rawness was the reason they liked it.”
That ragged glory endures. And there’s enough of it here to keep the Quo army headbanging for, ooh, around forty-five hundred hours, give or take.
Johnny is a regular contributor to Prog and Classic Rock magazines, both online and in print. Johnny is a highly experienced and versatile music writer whose tastes range from prog and hard rock to R’n’B, funk, folk and blues. He has written about music professionally for 30 years, surviving the Britpop wars at the NME in the 90s (under the hard-to-shake teenage nickname Johnny Cigarettes) before branching out to newspapers such as The Guardian and The Independent and magazines such as Uncut, Record Collector and, of course, Prog and Classic Rock.
The Black Keys have announced details of their new album, No Rain, No Flowers. It’ll be released on August 8 via Easy Eye Sound/Parlophone Records, and is the follow-up to last year’s Ohio Playerscollection.
The new album was produced by Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney at Easy Eye Sound Studios in Nashville, and found the pair working with songwriters Rick Nowels and Daniel Tashian, as well as keyboardist Scott Storch.
“I had worked with Rick Nowels on Lana Del Rey’s Ultraviolence,” says Auerbach. “We’d never really collaborated with a keyboard player or someone who writes on piano the way he does, but it clicked immediately.”
“We wanted to go straight to the source – into the room with people known for their songwriting,” says Carney. “Daniel Tashian was one of the first people I met after moving to Nashville, and we’ve been fans of Scott Storch forever.”
“This whole album was really laboured over with a lot of love,” adds Auerbach. “We hope you feel that.”
The band have also released the title track of the album as a single (below), which follows the launch of Babygirl in March and The Night Before in February. The album is available across multiple formats and can be pre-ordered now.
The Black Keys’ No Rain, No Flowers tour kicks off in Durant, OK on May 23 at the Choctaw Casino & Resort’s Grand Theater. The tour arrives in Europe in late June. Full dates below.
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The Black Keys – No Rain, No Flowers (Official Audio) – YouTube
No Rain, No Flowers The Night Before Babygirl Down to Nothing On Repeat Make You Mine Man On A Mission Kiss It All My Life A Little Too High Neon Moon
The Black Keys: No Rain No Flowers tour 2025
May 23: Durant Choctaw Casino & Resort Durant: Grand Theater, OK May 25: Colorado Springs Ford Amphitheater, CO * May 27: Morrison Red Rocks Amphitheatre, CO * May 29: Bonner Kettlehouse Amphitheater, MT * May 30: Boise Outlaw Field at the Idaho Botanical Garden, ID * May 31: Bend Hayden Homes Amphitheater, OR * Jun 01: Berkeley Greek Theatre at UC Berkeley, CA ^ Jun 03: Los Angeles The Greek Theatre, CA ^ Jun 07: Austin Moody Amphitheater at Waterloo Park, TX ^ Jun 08: Rogers Walmart AMP, AR ^ Jun 11: Wilmington Live Oak Bank Pavilion, NC ^ Jun 12: Raleigh Red Hat Amphitheater, NC ^ Jun 14: Asbury Park Stone Pony Summer Stage, NJ ^
Jun 26: Odense Tinderbox, Denmark Jun 29: Esch-Sur-Alzette Rockhal, Luxembourg Jul 01: Berlin Zitadelle Spandau, Germany Jul 02: Zurich The Hall, Switzerland Jul 04: Marmande Garorock, France Jul 05: Beauregard Festival France Jul 06: La Nuit De L’Erdre, France Jul 08: Leeds Millennium Square, UK Jul 09: Manchester Castlefield Bowl, UK Jul 11: London Alexandra Palace Park, UK Jul 12: Cactus Festival, Belgium Jul 13: Bospop Festival, Holland Jul 15: AMA Music Festival, Italy Jul 16: Rock In Roma, Italy Jul 19: Benicàssim, Spain
Aug 09: Atlantic Cityn Borgata Hotel, NJ # Aug 10: Bethlehem Musikfest – Wind Creek Steel Stage, PA # Aug 13: Forest Hills Stadium, NY § Aug 15: Gilford Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion, NH § Aug 16: Boston MGM Music Hall at Fenway, MA § Aug 19: Bridgeport Hartford HealthCare Amphitheater, CT § Aug 21: Clarkston Pine Knob Music Theatre, MI § Aug 22: Cuyahoga Falls Blossom Music Center, OH § Aug 24: Indianapolis Everwise Amphitheater, IN § Aug 28: Columbia Merriweather Post Pavilion, MD § Aug 29: Bethel Bethel Woods Center For the Arts, NY § Aug 30: Canandaigua Constellation Brands-Marvin Sands Performing Arts, NY § Aug 31: Toronto Budweiser Stage, ON § Sep 03: Chicago Huntington Bank Pavilion, IL § Sep 05: Milwaukee BMO Harris Pavilion, WI ^ Sep 06: Minneapolis The Armory, MN ^ Sep 07: Kansas City Starlight Theatre, MO ^ Sep 11: Mexico City Pepsi Center, Mexico Sep 20: Atlanta Shaky Knees Music Festival, GA
* = with Hermanos Gutiérrez ^ = with The Heavy Heavy # = with The Velveteers § = with Gary Clarke Jr.
Online Editor at Louder/Classic Rock magazinesince 2014. 39 years in music industry, online for 26. Also bylines for: Metal Hammer, Prog Magazine, The Word Magazine, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Saga, Music365. Former Head of Music at Xfm Radio, A&R at Fiction Records, early blogger, ex-roadie, published author. Once appeared in a Cure video dressed as a cowboy, and thinks any situation can be improved by the introduction of cats. Favourite Serbian trumpeter: Dejan Petrović.
(Image credit: Kevin Estrada / Media Punch / Alamy Stock Photo)
Ronnie James Dio died 15 years ago, on May 16, 2010, less than six months after announcing he was battling stomach cancer. Classic Rock‘s Paul Elliott, who first saw Dio onstage at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1984 and interviewed him many times, paid tribute.
The man whose mighty voice lit up the music of Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Dio and Heaven And Hell was truly a unique talent: a vocalist of immense power, expression and innate melodic flair, an elegant lyricist, and a storyteller of rich imagination. There is magic in the words and voice of Ronnie James Dio.
Music was central to his life from an early age. Although he never received any formal vocal training, as a child he mastered French horn and trumpet, to which he later attributed the breathing control pivotal to his singing power. He played bass guitar in his first professional group, the Vegas Kings, a rockabilly outfit formed in 1957 and based in New York State. But it didn’t take him long to answer his true calling. By the end of 1958, he was lead singer of a new-look band, Ronnie & The Red Caps, later renamed Ronnie Dio & The Prophets after Ronnie had adopted a stage name appropriated from mobster Johnny Dio.
Success did not come quickly. As the rock era dawned in the 60s, Dio toiled in obscurity as leader of the Electric Elves, subsequently shortened to Elf. But in the early 70s came the break that he had longed for, when Deep Purple’s Roger Glover and Ian Paice saw potential in Elf and elected to produce the band’s self-titled debut album. And from there, a strong connection was formed between the two bands – a connection that led Dio to the man who would transform his career and change his life.
Elf in London, 1972. L-R: Ronnie Dio, Gary Driscoll, Mickey Lee Soule, Steve Edwards, Craig Gruber (Image credit: Dick Barnatt/Redferns)
Ritchie Blackmore, Deep Purple’s moody guitar hero, took a shine to Elf – and especially their singer – when the two bands toured together between 1972 and 1974. And when Blackmore chose to make a solo record, having openly voiced his displeasure over Purple’s funk-influenced albums Burn and Stormbringer, he enlisted Dio and the other members of Elf, minus guitarist Steve Edwards. That album, titled Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, was released in 1975 shortly after the guitarist quit Deep Purple. And it was immediately apparent that Blackmore had found the perfect foil in Dio, a singer whose voice and imagery were ideally suited to Blackmore’s baroque taste.
Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow was the album on which Ronnie James Dio came of age. After all the lean years before and with Elf, this was Ronnie’s golden opportunity, and he responded with a performance of complete authority. The album’s opening track, Man On The Silver Mountain, set the template for so much to come: an epic, mystical tale rendered in a voice that soared and thundered. And Dio proved equally adept on the album’s gentler songs, the poetic Catch The Rainbow, and The Temple Of The King, perhaps the most beautiful and elegiac song he ever recorded.
Rainbow – Man On The Silver Mountain (From “Live In Munich 1977) – YouTube
What followed was one of rock’s all-time classic albums, establishing this new band – now simply named Rainbow – as a major force, and confirming Dio as a singer of unrivalled power. Released in June 1976, Rainbow Rising is the model of what aficionados like to call ‘castle rock’: heroic, fantasy-themed, progressive heavy metal built to a monolithic scale, and most potently illustrated by Stargazer, the album’s vast quasi-symphonic centrepiece. Classic Rock’s Geoff Barton, then writing for Sounds, summed up Rising perfectly, describing it as ‘thermonuclear rock’n’roll’.
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How to top that? Ronnie almost did on Rainbow’s third studio album Long Live Rock’N’Roll with the track Gates Of Babylon, another Stargazer-sized set-piece. But that record, best known for its anthemic title track, was to be Dio’s swansong for Rainbow, Blackmore replacing him with dapper Englishman Graham Bonnet as he pursued a more radio-friendly direction. It was hard on Ronnie, being out of a job after just four years with Rainbow. But within a year he would be courted by another world-famous rock band – and this would present him with the greatest challenge of his career.
When announced as the new singer in Black Sabbath – succeeding the much-loved Ozzy Osbourne – Dio faced hostility from the media and from hardcore Sabbath fans. To further complicate the issue, Dio was an American joining a quintessentially British band. But Dio’s debut with Sabbath, 1980’s Heaven And Hell, silenced his critics. In Sounds, Peter Makowski stated: ‘Ronnie James Dio has injected a whole new energy into the group… Just sit back, turn it up and feel your brain implode.
Simply put, Dio made Black Sabbath great again. His gift for melody, and his poetic sensibility, brought a lyrical quality to Sabbath’s music and inspired Tony Iommi in particular, whose lead guitar work on the album’s phenomenal title track is the best he has ever played. And crucially, Dio could also handle the really heavy stuff, as he proved emphatically on Neon Knights, arguably the heaviest of all Sabs songs. Nobody has ever sung a heavy metal song better than Ronnie did with Neon Knights.
He would make another great album with Sabbath, Mob Rules, released in 1981. But as so often happens, a combination of heavy touring and personality clashes led to a split in 1982 amid rumours that the rival parties had been tampering with the mix of the live-in-concert album Live Evil.
Many years later, Ronnie would dismiss these stories as “bullshit”, but on the cover of Live Evil there was a small detail that spoke volumes of the animosity between Sabbath and Dio: the singer was billed not as Ronnie James Dio but as plain Ronnie Dio. It was a cheap shot to which Ronnie reacted by forming a new band under his own name, a band whose first album would blow Sabbath out of the water.
Holy Diver, released in June 1983, is one of the great heavy metal debuts. The band Ronnie put together featured two familiar faces – former Rainbow colleague Jimmy Bain on bass, and fellow Sabbath fugitive Vinny Appice on drums – plus a relatively unknown and inexperienced guitarist in 19-year-old Vivian Campbell, previously of Irish band Sweet Savage. But they made a tight unit: Bain and Appice rock solid, Campbell flashy and fiery.
Dio – Stand Up And Shout (Official Music Video) [HD] – YouTube
With Ronnie now undisputed group leader for the first time since Elf, Holy Diver was the album on which his singular artistic vision was finally realised. It’s a record packed with classic songs, not just Dio classics but genre-defining heavy metal classics: Stand Up And Shout, Holy Diver, Rainbow In The Dark, Don’t Talk To Strangers. By comparison, Sabbath’s Born Again, featuring Dio’s surprise replacement Ian Gillan, was widely regarded as a joke, even before Spinal Tap lampooned the Sabs’ Stonehenge stage set.
Throughout the 80s, Dio – the man and the band – maintained a large and loyal following. Band members came and went, beginning with Vivian Campbell, who went on to Whitesnake and then Def Leppard. In ‘86 Ronnie organised Hear ‘N Aid, heavy metal’s answer to Band Aid, a charity project for African famine relief that produced a hit single, Stars, written by Ronnie and sung by a hairy ensemble cast featuring members of Motley Crue, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. And if no subsequent Dio album ever matched Holy Diver, Ronnie continued to deliver great songs (We Rock, The Last In Line, Sacred Heart, Rock’N’Roll Children) and spectacular live shows. (Nobody who saw Ronnie battling Dean The Dragon on stage could ever forget the experience!)
Then, in the early 90s, came an astonishing volte-face. Ronnie rejoined Black Sabbath. It didn’t last. They made a half-decent album, Dehumanizer, but when Sabbath were invited to support Ozzy on what was billed as the Double-O’s farewell tour, Ronnie pulled out and Rob Halford of Judas Priest acted as stand-in.
Ronnie re-launched Dio in 1994, and in the next 10 years the band recorded five albums with varying line-ups. But for Ronnie, Black Sabbath was unfinished business, and in 2007 he reunited with Iommi, Appice and bassist Geezer Butler as Heaven And Hell. This would prove to be Ronnie James Dio’s last hurrah.
Heaven & Hell – Bible Black (Official Music Video) – YouTube
Initially, Ronnie had intended to reform Dio after Heaven And Hell’s world tour, but such was the success of that tour, and so strong was the vibe in the band after recording three new tracks for the Black Sabbath compilation The Dio Years, it was decided that Heaven And Hell would record a brand new album. That album, The Devil You Know, was released to widespread acclaim in 2009. It would be the last of Ronnie’s recordings released in his lifetime.
The death of Ronnie James Dio has had a profound effect both on those who knew him and those who simply loved his music. For this writer, there are many memories to cherish. Ronnie was the first rock star I interviewed as a professional journalist, back in 1985, when he was promoting Dio’s Sacred Heart album. It was a huge thrill for me to meet him. Since 1980 – when I unwrapped a Christmas present from my brother, a cassette of Heaven And Hell – I have been a Ronnie James Dio fan.
I first saw Ronnie on stage with Dio at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1984, on The Last In Line tour. And across the years I’ve seen Ronnie play so many great shows: at Birmingham NEC with that bloody dragon, at London’s Astoria performing the whole of Holy Diver, and the last time, at Brighton Centre with Heaven And Hell.
My last interview with Ronnie was just a couple of years ago, when he was in London with Heaven And Hell. What I remember most of all was the warmth of the rapport between him and Tony, Geezer and Vinny. I asked Ronnie about a phrase he used many times in his lyrics, a phrase that had become akin to a trademark: ‘Look out!’ He’d used it in Holy Diver, in Rainbow In The Dark, and a record-breaking five times in Sabbath’s Children Of The Sea.
He smiled. “It’s funny. Whenever I play in Phoenix, this one guy is always there, and every time I’m going to sing it he holds up sign that says ‘Look Out!’ I take it as a compliment!”
He was right: it is a compliment. When I had a leaving party after 10 years working for Kerrang!, the invitations featured a photo of Ronnie with a stuffed eagle and the headline: Look Out! It was a tribute to the man who, for me, best epitomises the spirit of heavy metal.
(Image credit: Bill McCay/Getty Images)
In a 2009 issue of Classic Rock, I stated: ‘Of all the legendary heavy metal singers, Ronnie James Dio is the greatest.’ And there are many, all over the world, who share that opinion. I recall a drunken night with friends in Brighton when the conversation inevitably turned to heavy metal, and, specifically, singers – at which point one friend, Andy Hunns, threatened to walk out of the pub unless we all agreed that Ronnie James Dio is the No.1 metal singer of all time. We agreed, Andy stayed. Rob Halford was voted No.2.
Ronnie James Dio sang so many great songs: Man On The Silver Mountain, Sixteenth Century Greensleeves, The Temple Of The King, Stargazer, Tarot Woman, Starstruck, Kill The King, Long Live Rock’N’Roll, Neon Knights, Children Of The Sea, Heaven And Hell, Die Young, Stand Up And Shout, Holy Diver, Rainbow In The Dark, The Last In Line, We Rock. But if there is one song, above all others, with a lyric that best captures the essence of Ronnie James Dio, it is Sacred Heart: ‘Whenever we dream, that’s when we fly.’
He dared to dream, and he flew high. Rest in peace, Ronnie.
Freelance writer for Classic Rock since 2005, Paul Elliott has worked for leading music titles since 1985, including Sounds, Kerrang!, MOJO and Q. He is the author of several books including the first biography of Guns N’ Roses and the autobiography of bodyguard-to-the-stars Danny Francis. He has written liner notes for classic album reissues by artists such as Def Leppard, Thin Lizzy and Kiss, and currently works as content editor for Total Guitar. He lives in Bath – of which David Coverdale recently said: “How very Roman of you!”
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It’s a decade since Daevid Allen left us to take up a new cosmic address. It’s technically 11 years since I See You – Gong’s 13th studio album and his final recording on this earthly plane – was released. The band never were ones to yield to the dictates of time.
Invariably, figures of Allen’s stature have left their best material in the distant past, but I See You stands defiant as a work of towering vitality, a raised fist and even a raised finger on tracks like This Revolution – a denouement fitting for a man who occasionally went by the characteristically bonkers epithet Divided Alien Bert Camembert.
Perhaps the nicest touch on this 10th-anniversary edition is the blackened circular border around the wheel of life of the cover, imitating Gong’s classic debut Camembert Electrique from 1971. That direct homage indicates everything has come full circle, even if the wheel continues to roll without him – or the physical manifestation of him, at least.
It seems remarkable now that Gong formed because of a visa problem in Paris in 1968, the Adam’s rib from Soft Machine, taking a more circuitous, mayhem-strewn route towards enlightenment. Significantly, I See You was not only Allen’s last album, but guitarist Kavus Torabi’s first for the mystic travellers. As such, it feels more like a celebration of the cyclical nature of life – a passing of the baton – than it does a commiseratory tribute to a fallen leader.
This Revolution is a howl at capitalist idiocy that feels more pertinent than ever
Gong are still going strong with Torabi at the helm, a position bequeathed to him by Allen when the latter knew his cancer was terminal. Consequently, the album was less an end than a beginning; although tracks like the shimmering, shamanic closer Shakti Yoni & Dingo Virgin (honouring the group’s founders) might well cause a lump in the throat and a tear in the eye.
Elsewhere, Gong are mercurial and quixotic, rolling back the years on tracks like Occupy, which wouldn’t have sounded out of place on Angel’s Egg. Syllabub finds Allen jiving over a funk groove with an unusual time signature, at least before it careens off to the Moon in a rigid 3/4 formation that turns out to be just an appetiser for some far out cosmic jazz.
And Pixielation is almost hip-hop in its big-beat dimensions, save for the odd hippy flute, cantering coda or intermittent ambient swathe that separates sections of the song with brownian noise.
But perhaps the most memorable moment of all is This Revolution, a Beat-like howl at capitalist idiocy that feels more pertinent than ever. ‘This revolution has already begun inside us,’ Allen intones, and it’s truly inspiring stuff. Shine on, Bert Camembert, shine on.
Patterson Hood, lead singer and guitarist of the Drive-By Truckers, tells Prog how The Edgar Winter Group helped him start collecting records via their influential 1973 hit single Frankenstein.
“The first time I heard The Edgar Winter Group was when I was probably eight years old. I was at my older cousin’s house and Frankenstein was a new single – he’d just bought the 45.
He put it on his record player, and the next day I went out and bought it for myself. It was one of the first records that I ever bought and I’ve still got it – I loved it.
I wear a lot of influences on my sleeve, for sure, but Frankenstein was such a foundational thing and it helped me start my record collection. It didn’t sound like anything else. They Only Come Out At Nightwas one of my first LPs when I started buying albums.
Frankenstein – Edgar Winter Group | The Midnight Special – YouTube
Around that time, The Edgar Winter Group were on the Midnight Special TV show, and that performance just blew my mind! Edgar has albinism; when the lights hit him, it was kind of trippy. And he had that ARP synthesiser on a strap around his neck so he could walk around while he was playing.
I’m sure it opened the door for Focus’s Hocus Pocus, which I also bought
Ronnie Montrose and Rick Derringer were up onstage with him rocking out – God, what a great band! In those days you couldn’t record the show to watch it over so I had to wait for the re-run.
The Edgar Winter Group has had an effect on the music I make. If you think of our more riff-heavy stuff like Lookout Mountain, it’s a different thing, but it has the same kind of visceral impact.
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I’d really love to hear the original jam from which Frankenstein was made. Not a lot of our stuff comes out of jams. Someone might play something while they’re warming up and I’ll think, ‘I’ve got some lyrics that could go with that,’ so I’ll say, ‘Keep doing what you’re doing!’ That kind of shit is fun and I’d like to do more of it.
Frankenstein is probably the only prog or prog-adjacent US No.1 – I’m sure it opened the door for Focus’s Hocus Pocus, which I also bought. I’m sure Focus’ record company looked at the success of Frankenstein and figured they could do the same.
I still have that single and I absolutely loved it too!”
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Was it written in the starlight? Mark Knopfler’s Newcastle pub-turned-arena rockers Dire Straits had certainly built a formidable following by 1985, thanks to his brimstone-and-ambrosia guitar playing on debut single Sultans Of Swing and beyond, the breathless melodic beauties of 1980’s Making Movies album and the immersive tonal song-films of 1982’s Love Over Gold. But 30 million sales? The first CD to shift a million? Somehow, above the cramped Caribbean studio of its making, the planets aligned.
Revisiting their behemoth fifth album Brothers In Arms on this five-LP/three-CD reissue four decades on, its era-defining charms still exude the assured, enfolding warmth that first made it such a massive hit with estate agents testing the limits of their Mazdas on the M11.
Dire Straits – Brothers In Arms (Official Music Video) – YouTube
So Far Away slips down like honeyed malt whisky, subtle and undemanding yet fundamentally satisfying, like the 80s drifting by in fragrant, gaseous form. Walk Of Life still bristles with fairground honky-tonk vivacity; tranquil ballad Why Worry? is rendered even more affecting with the 2022 Dolby Atmos mix enhancing its Mediterranean stillness.
Some tracks are museum-ready now: the shoulder-pad blues of One World, and Money For Nothing, presented in its full eight-minute version and dated by its casual gay slurs and sense of Bruce Springsteen’s Glory Days.
Dire Straits – Walk Of Life (San Antonio Live In 85) – YouTube
But much has grown rewardingly evocative. Jazz-bar torch song Your Latest Trick, recalling Sade, Arthur’s Theme and Moonlighting. Ride Across The River, their take on Peter Gabriel’s electro-fied world music, telling of Latin American mercenaries, swathed in pan flutes, reggae brass and mariachi trumpet. And the war-themed second half, including the lustrous title track and the dramatic impacts of bluegrass confessional The Man’s Too Strong, recalling a time when arena rock aspired to be a force for global political good.
Key to the reissue’s appeal, however, is the inclusion of a two-hour 1985 live show from San Antonio, pure manna for a fan base denied any whiff of a reunion. Here the likes of Ride and Sultans are energised for the stage, Tunnel Of Love stretches out over 20 dense and driving minutes, and we can revel once more in Knopfler’s acoustic refrain rising balletically from the back end of Romeo And Juliet’s chorus, still one of the most wonderful moments in recorded music. It ends with a euphoric Going Home, but this package feels more like the ultimate arrival.
Mark Beaumont is a music journalist with almost three decades’ experience writing for publications including Classic Rock, NME, The Guardian, The Independent, The Telegraph, The Times, Uncut and Melody Maker. He has written major biographies on Muse, Jay-Z, The Killers, Kanye West and Bon Iver and his debut novel [6666666666] is available on Kindle.
“Driving in the middle of the night in North Ontario, someone flags us down. At that same moment, I smell smoke”: Six things you didn’t know about The Damn Truth
(Image credit: Natali Ortiz)
One minute you’re doing a session backing a pop-princess hopeful in the studio, the next you’ve got a kickass rock band. Well, that’s what kind of happened to Lee-La Baum (frontwoman/ guitarist), her partner Tom Schemer (lead guitarist) and drummer Dave Traina.
Rooted in Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin and Jefferson Airplane, Montreal quartet The Damn Truth (now completed by bassist PY Letellier) have just released their fourth album, a self-titled banger, with production legend Bob Rock at the controls. Baum and Schemer tell Classic Rock some lesser-known things about the band.
They started by playing together naked at a hippie festival
“That worked for us, man,” Baum says with a laugh, remembering the event where everyone was naked. Schemer heard someone playing CSN&Y’s Almost Cut My Hair on an acoustic guitar and was compelled to investigate.
“I loved that song, and I’d never heard it played in the open, by a bonfire. I sat down, we started jamming, and it turned out we knew a bunch of the same songs. At the end of the night Lee-La said: ‘Maybe we should start a band?’”
It was the first Damn Truth tour for new bassist Letellier, and Baum and Schemer had brought their young son Ben. The van and trailer were packed with merchandise, music gear, nappies…
“Driving in the middle of the night in North Ontario, someone flags us down,” Baum recalls. “At that same moment, I smell smoke.”
The van was already in flames as the band leapt from it, and another passer-by helped to hoist the trailer from the van, which eventually burned out. Before exhaustedly hitting the sack in a nearby motel, Baum reached out to family and friends online for help, hoping to make enough money to get home. By morning “the whole rock ’n’roll community had come together,” she says. “We had enough money for another van! We finished the tour, and this support made it extra special.”
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Love Outta Luck – THE DAMN TRUTH (Official Music Video) – YouTube
Bob Rock produced 2021’s Now Or Nowhere, and was back on board for The Damn Truth.
“After the first album with him we went to dinner and bonded like family,” says Baum. When she sent Rock some new songs while on tour in the UK, he rang her to say these could be the best songs they’d written so far.
“Even though Bob did all those metal albums in the eighties and nineties that people know him for, he comes from the same place as us,” says Schemer. “He loves the late-sixties, early-seventies stuff, and you can’t hide any reference from him. ‘I know where you’re going with that,’ he’ll say, and he’ll help direct us.”
They hung out with Billy Gibbons – with him in his pyjamas
In 2018 the band were chosen to open for ZZ Top in the US and Europe. For The Damn Truth it was a huge – and scary – deal. “We were shitting our pants,” says Baum. “We were so in awe.”
After going down well on the first night, the band were having a drink in their dressing room when Gibbons popped his head in. “He was in a onesie pyjama with his leather jacket over it, and his fuzzy hat and glasses. He said: ‘Guys! Good job!’ and our jaws dropped.”
I Just Gotta Let You Know – THE DAMN TRUTH (Official Music Video) – YouTube
Thanks to their rhythm section, The Damn Truth have a vodka ’n’ Mexican spice blend aptly called Truth Serum. “That’s PY and Dave’s department,” says Schemer. “They are hot sauce fanatics. They teamed with a maker in Montreal.”
You are what you wear
Baum’s Instagram page is filled with wild, colourful vintage outfits, a visual theme that the whole band embrace.
“I love how it makes me feel. I don’t want to be humdrum,” she says.
“It also connects people to us,” says Schemer. “When we started around ten years ago we were hated in Montreal, we didn’t fit in with the dominant indie scene. So the way we play and dress is timeless, true to ourselves. And that’s the damn truth.”
The Damn Truth is out now via Spectra Musique.
Jo is a journalist, podcaster, event host and music industry lecturer with 23 years in music magazines since joining Kerrang! as office manager in 1999. But before that Jo had 10 years as a London-based gig promoter and DJ, also working in various vintage record shops and for the UK arm of the Sub Pop label as a warehouse and press assistant. Jo’s had tea with Robert Fripp, touched Ian Anderson’s favourite flute (!), asked Suzi Quatro what one wears under a leather catsuit, and invented several ridiculous editorial ideas such as the regular celebrity cooking column for Prog, Supper’s Ready. After being Deputy Editor for Prog for five years and Managing Editor of Classic Rock for three, Jo is now Associate Editor of Prog, where she’s been since its inception in 2009, and a regular contributor to Classic Rock. She continues to spread the experimental and psychedelic music-based word amid unsuspecting students at BIMM Institute London, hoping to inspire the next gen of rock, metal, prog and indie creators and appreciators.
“Getting kinda saucy already. Jeez!” Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham analysing a Charli XCX video with his daughter is the joyous, uplifting online content that the world needs right now
(Image credit: Lindsey Buckingham YouTube)
Fleetwood Mac legend Lindsey Buckingham has given his seal of approval to British pop star Charli XCX after watching her video for Von Dutch for the first time.
This unanticipated development took place during the launch of ‘Lindsey + Leelee React’, a new YouTube series from Buckingham in which he and his 25-year-old daughter analyse music videos, a format which will be familiar to fans of ’90s MTV stars Beavis and Butt-Head.
At the outset, Buckingham admits that he isn’t overly familiar with Charli XCX’s musical output, though he does recall seeing her perform on Saturday Night Live. Leelee Buckingham then asks her father if he has enjoyed a “Brat Summer’ – a reference to the Cambridge-born pop star’s zeitgeist-influencing 2024 album Brat – to which her father gamely replies: “The brattiest.”
Leelee then introduces the video by stating that Charli XCX – real name Charlotte Aitchison – is “coming in fierce”, as she struts through Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. “She’s ripping off her pants in the airport” Leelee then observes, leading her father to respond, “”Getting kinda saucy already. Jeez!”
“That’s not a good place to get saucy,” Lindsey then observes sagely.
The 75-year-old guitarist is visibly taken aback when the pop star appears to head-butt the camera, leaving a smear on blood on the lens.
“Ouch!” he says, wincing, then looks shocked once more when Aitchison spits on the camera.
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When the pop star is filmed climbing on to the wing of a plane on the tarmac at Paris–Le Bourget Airport, Buckingham senior comments, “I can’t believe she got away with all this… I’m surprised the airport let her do all this stuff.”
“Well, she’s Charli XCX, she’s huge now,” Leelee reasons, leading her father to comment that he thinks he’d be told “Get outta here!” if he asked permission to perform in such a manner.
Summing up his reaction to the video, Lindsey Buckingham says, “I thought it was very entertaining. I mean, there was so much going on, and all in the context of a normal restrictive environment, paranoid environment, uptight environment. That set the whole thing off very well, I thought.”
In conclusion, Leelee Buckingham asks her dad, ‘What does it really mean? What is she really saying?”
A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne’s private jet, played Angus Young’s Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.
Alice In Chains drummer Sean Kinney as shared an update on his health with fans after the Seattle grunge legends were forced to cancel shows due to him being diagnosed with a “non-life-threatening medical emergency”.
The group cancelled their show at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut on May 8, at the 11th hour, and subsequently cancelled all additional shows they had lined up in May, including scheduled appearances at a number of major US festivals, including Welcome To Rockville and Sonic Temple.
“While we were all eager to return to the stage,” the group declared on social media, “Sean’s health is our top priority at this moment.”
Kinney posted his update on the band’s social media platforms on May 15, writing: “Firstly, to everyone who came out to the Mohegan Sun show and was affected by the short-notice cancellation, and to everyone who had tickets to come see the band at one of the other shows, thanks for your understanding. It’s not lost on the band and myself that you spend money, make plans and alter your schedules to come and see us, and it’s deeply disappointing to have had this happen.
“I was very much looking forward to getting back out there and playing with the band again, and it’s been a difficult but necessary decision to make. I don’t personally utilize social media and I’m not particularly fond of my health issues being made public, but I understand that people are concerned.
“When the doctors advised me against playing in the short-term, I quickly went through The 5 Stages of Grief:
1. Denial (I’m fine) 2. Anger (F*** this – I’m still going to play) 3. Bargaining (What’s it gonna take for me to hear a better diagnosis?) 4. Depression (This sucks) 5. Acceptance (This sucks, but okay)
“I finally concluded that medical doctors with many hard-earned degrees on their walls might know a bit more about health than a musician with some shiny spray-painted records on his wall.
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“The outpouring of love, concern and well wishes has been both extremely humbling and very much appreciated.
“The good news is that I’m going to be fine and I’m going to live. The bad news (for some of you?) is that I’m going to be fine and I’m going to live.”
The band’s next scheduled performance is at Black Sabbath‘s Back To The Beginning farewell show in Birmingham in July.
The concert will see the original Sabbath lineup – Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward – share a stage for the first time since 2005. It will also features a who’s who of hard rock and heavy metal – Metallica, Pantera, Anthrax, Guns N’ Roses, Tool, Gojira, Mastodon and more – paying tribute to Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne, who will also be making his last bow as a solo artist.
A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne’s private jet, played Angus Young’s Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.
“We need him much more than he needs us. Prog as a genre owes him a huge debt of gratitude”: The lasting impact of Brian Eno, the glorious anomaly who’s a genre unto himself
(Image credit: Getty Images)
In 2019 Simon Godfrey (Tinyfish, Shineback, Valdez) told Prog about his admiration for Brian Eno, listing some of the ex Roxy Music man’s achievements over the years, and saluting the attitude behind them.
“Without the works of Brian Eno, I absolutely wouldn’t be making music today. That might sound a little dramatic, but over the years I have come to realise that all that I hold of interest in the creation and arrangement of sound has its roots in the tools and techniques which were pioneered by this unassuming art student from Suffolk, England.
His first four solo albums after he left Roxy Music completely changed my notion of what progressive music could do. He replaced bombast with erudition, and repopulated the musical landscape with an entirely new menu of exotic sonic entrées for our delectation and delight.
One of the central tenets that excites me most about Eno’s work is his endless quest to confound his own expectations. From his debut record Here Come The Warm Jets, through to his contemporary generative music apps, Eno eagerly invites his creations to take him in unexpected directions.
That was never more apparent than in his 70s masterpiece Another Green World, where he collaborated with the singular talents of artists such as Phil Collins, Percy Jones and Robert Fripp, and ended up using their jams to form an otherworldly melancholy which sounds as fresh and inventive today as it was groundbreaking back then.
With a music production and collaborative portfolio that reads like a Who’s Who of some of the most obscure (Cluster) and famous (U2) bands out there, you get the sense that his thirst for discovering new and interesting things at all levels of music continues unabated to this day.
In short, Eno is a glorious musical anomaly. For me, his curiosity and outlook on the creation of sound place him in a select group of artists who are effectively a genre all to themselves.
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We need Brian Eno much more than he needs us. His pioneering studio techniques and sonic interventions have touched everyone from Genesis to Bowie. Prog as a genre owes him a huge debt of gratitude, and possibly several pints of his preferred tipple of choice at pubs up and down the UK.”
Malcolm Dome had an illustrious and celebrated career which stretched back to working for Record Mirror magazine in the late 70s and Metal Fury in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Dome is also credited with inventing the term “thrash metal” while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. With the launch of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 he became involved with that title, sister magazine Metal Hammer, and was a contributor to Prog magazine since its inception in 2009. He died in 2021.
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