The SaltyRockz Blog - Trust HoJo

Mark Rumble has just sent me a great photo of himself from this year’s Download Festival wearing his Saltyrockz Trust line-up T-shirt, then followed it up with a fine e-mail outlining his love for the French rockers. Now I know that French hard rock from the late ’70s and early ’80s may be an acquired taste, but what the hell? The reason the T-shirt was on Saltyrockz in the first place is sort of self-indulgent, because it just so happens that Saltyrockz designer Hunnsy and myself are both pretty obsessive about Trust. So much so that we trekked down to Toulouse in France together to see them on their last French tour in October of last year.

My love of the band dates back to 1980, when I managed to get hold of their soon-to-be-classic second album ‘Répression’ - in Germany of all places. Now for a confirmed rocker like myself it was a weird old package. The photo on the back of the album featured the group mingling with a load of English punks, a shot presumably taken on a night off while recording the album in London. Lead singer Bernie looked right at home, his short hairdo and pink punk tee shirt blending in perfectly with the style of the hour. The rest of the band, though, especially guitarist Nono, looked well out of place, yer archetypal rock stars with long curly hair cascading down over leather jackets bedecked with AC/DC pin badges.

This wasn’t the norm, but the whole offbeat style of the thing appealed to me. And once I’d had a listen to what was in the grooves I was totally sold. Has there ever been a band that sounded so angry? Trust’s sound was the purest of hard rock riffing. Those AC/DC pins really stood for something. But the intensity and ire that came from Bernie’s throat - part singing, part political hectoring - gave this band a whole other dangerous dynamic. With my A-level French put to the test I was able to work out that Bernie was writing lyrics that railed against injustice and, yes, repression in all its forms. Sword and sorcery? Do me a favour! This was hard rock that lived in the streets, not on the silver mountain! Trust was rock stripped to its taught and sinewy best and I thought they were the absolute bollocks.

Iron Maiden’s Steve Harris had the good taste to offer them the support slot for the ‘Killers’ tour of the UK (and not just because he fancied knicking their drummer Nicko McBrain, though that might have helped!) and I could hardly contain my excitement. Even better when they announced a headlining date at a little-known venue in Manchester’s Belle Vue area. I was 15 and more than ready to rock.

The rest of Manchester didn’t agree with me. At a time when Trust were massive, massive, massive in their native country the band pulled (and I really did count them) nine people to the show! It was a shock to me, but not as seismic as the shock it must have been to the group. No matter, Trust performed like they were at Madison Square Garden, putting in a stint that is still for me one of the greatest rock concerts I’ve ever seen. To this day I remember Vivi playing bass while sipping on a pint at the bar. He had one of those new-fangled radio mics, you see. Bloody marvellous! The height of cool.

Clearly the band took such rejection to heart and the next Trust album, ‘Marche Ou Crève’ featured a song called ‘Angleterre’ on the French version lambasting jolly old England. I took it very much to heart at the time, but not enough to fall out of love with the band. They didn’t put it on the English version, mind!

Trust has always been something of an exclusive club, a place where real aficionados of the genre could get serious about their hard rock. Snobbery? Maybe. But what the hell, the music was awesome. I remember spending a night with Samson guitarist Paul Samson (God rest…) round at his house years and years ago and all we could talk about was how awesome Trust were. Paul had got hold of a ‘no vocals’ mix tape of the album simply titled ‘Trust’ and without Bernie’s voice you only got more of a sense of how dynamic, tight and loose, raw yet refined the band were. It was, without getting too dewy-eyed, a quasi-religious experience.

Now of course as they say, all things must pass, and sure enough so did Trust. The band kept going, but by the time the album titled ‘Rock ’n’ Roll’ came out the fire had gone out too. Instead of raw energy and taut riffs there was a wimping out and a commercialisation that had nothing to do with the band’s original credo. I was saddened, but not distraught. Your heroes always let you down, after all. But at least these guys had left one hell of a legacy.

The trip down memory lane that was Hunnsy’s and my trip to see the band live in Toulouse last October was even more disastrous. The band had lost all heart, all passion, all drive. They had a bloke on stage with turntables scratching along to the tunes, for God’s sake! The old songs sounded perfunctory and the new songs sounded desperately like old men trying to be relevant and totally missing the point. We left after about 45 minutes alongside a fair number of equally disenchanted punters saying it was nothing short of a scandal. Perhaps it was as good a reminder as any that sometimes memories are better left where they are.

As I write this I’m listening to an awesome live album of the band at their rockingest peak back in 1980. It’s a thing of absolute joy, which means I can forgive any of the rubbish that passes for Trust these days. Trust marked my youth like few others and it’s for that reason alone that I’ll always be a fan! So thanks Mark, for the reminder of a classic hard rock band. Maybe you’ll enjoy the ‘Répression Dans L’Hexagone’ Trust tee that we’ve just released on Saltyrockz. It’s the name of that infamous 1980 tour of France when the Trust juggernaut crushed all before it and marked hard rock history for ever…

Want to email me about this blog? Get in touch at hojo@saltyrockz.com

HoJo rocked as a top journalist on legendary UK metal magazine
Kerrang! and now runs a way-cool rock T-shirt site at www.saltyrockz.com.

Review: IAN GILLIAN - One Eye to Morocco

Far be it from this writer to suggest what a living rock legend should or shouldn’t do with his career. After all, when you’ve fronted Deep Purple and Black Sabbath, not to mention played the lyrical role of Jesus Christ, you really don’t have to answer to anyone. Still, what is this enigma known as One Eye to Morocco?

For Ian Gillan’s purposes, the malleable vocalist brings his own distinct timbre much less a well-known array of chops to whatever he wants to do, be it to belt out “Space Truckin’” for the billionth time or to pull off “Mr. Universe” from his eighties unit Gillan.

Bringing forth his first solo venture in a decade, Ian Gillan went on a veritable tear of songwriting in his downtime outside of Deep Purple, which went on momentary hiatus early last year when Roger Glover paused to mourn his passed mother. The time elapsed during this short recess was amazingly enough time for Ian Gillan to kick back and write an onslaught of 30-some songs.

Devoid of the superfluous guitar andkeyboard solos Gillan has customarily surrounded himself with, his newest album One Eye to Morocco (reportedly based on a Polish proverb) isn’t so much a pure rock album as it is world music planted inside of a knee-swishing, breezy light rock record.

Recorded in a meager three days, One Eye to Morocco is certainly as polished an album as spawned by those artists working relentlessly for weeks. Through One Eye to Morocco, Gillan offers his listeners a glimpse inside of his mind which accommodates (as Sting has historically done in a solo capacity) for the usage of earthy percussion, saxophone and adult contemporary modes into an album that will require a lot of patience.

Sure, you’ll get a chance to rock out with Gillan on the pumped-up “No Lotion for That” and the blues rawky “Texas State of Mind.” Beware, however, because One Eye to Morocco isn’t about keeping your neck bobbing and screaming “My Woman from Tokyo” at lung’s capacity.

What you’re going to get from this record is caliente conga grooves on “Don’t Stop,” a shuck ‘n jive percussive number in spirit to Duran Duran and eighties Stones with “Change My Ways” and calypso outpourings on the slinky “Deal With It.” As usual with Ian Gillan, expect some blues dabbling on one of the album’s cooler cuts, “Better Days” and the midtempo shuffle guiding “Ultimate Groove.”

Keeping in his stable from projects past Michael Lee Jackson (also associated with Animal Planet and Greg Lake of Emerson, Lake and Palmer), and an entire ensemble of players, Ian Gillan should be commended for making an album this rich in tone and this natural in so quick a time. On the other hand, One Eye to Morocco is so anti-rock as much as it operates within a rock framework it’s hard to digest the first couple spins.

If you’re open-minded to what Gillan has teeming within his apparentlyhassle-free body and mind, One Eye to Morocco is a befuddling though reasonably entertaining project. If this doesn’t apply to you, you’re well-advised to turn tail and yank Fireball or Machine Head off of your shelf.

IAN GILLIAN
One Eye to Morocco
Label: Eagle Records

Article by Ray Van Horn, Jr.

The SaltyRockz Blog - Festival Frenzy

Now of course you’d expect me to be a bit of a fan of Saltyrockz tees, but I have to admit to a particular fondness for the ‘Festival Veteran’ design just now. That’s natural enough, of course. It sums up how I feel as a long-standing festival-goer, like I’ve been there in the trenches, have fought the rock wars and have been lucky to make it out alive!

My first ever festival was the 1981 Castle Donington Monsters of Rock event, where I somehow managed to wangle a backstage pass in the guise of Editor of Phoenix Heavy Metal Fanzine, the home-spun mag I put together and sold as a teenager in my home town of Manchester.

I had no idea how to turn up prepared for an English festival. A good idea to opt for a homemade satin tour jacket? Well, that was clearly an idiotic thing to do, not only sartorially, but practically as well. Donington, as I was to discover over the next God-knows how many years, is synonymous with pissing rain and raining piss. Remember that charming habit of filling up the plastic cider bottles that you were allowed to take on site with your own piss, then lobbing them across the sea of fellow festival-goers with the top only half-screwed on? Better to wear a plastic mac than a satin tour jacket, methinks…

Yet despite the weather and despite the urine, I always found myself back at Donington the following year, like some kind of hopeless festival junkie, addicted to the thrill of sharing a communal musical experience with other like-minded souls, most of whom were also capable of laughing in the face of weather-oriented festival misery. I remember particularly enjoying watching Skid Row in a fairly monumental downpour at the 1992 Donington next to legendary promoter Andy Copping. Without an umbrella to hand Coppo – now a big cheese at promoter Livenation and one of the nicest men you could ever wish to meet – had concocted some Arab-looking headgear by winding (I seem to remember) a long-sleeved T-shirt around his head. Looking quite the fool, Coppo was nonetheless pleased as punch and nicknamed himself ‘Madman Insane’ in a warped tribute to the deceased leader of Iraq.

Best festival memories besides? Sitting watching AC/DC from up in the lighting rig at the side of the stage in ’81. How the hell did I blag myself up there? I haven’t the faintest recollection. Enjoying the various fairground rides at the Phoenix Festival in 1993 having indulged in some stuff that I’d best not go into? Dancing for every single minute of every single song at Reading ’92 when my mates The Wonderstuff headlined – on my birthday! Seeing Judas Priest and Iron Maiden on the same bill back in ’83 at an indoor festival in Germany whose name escapes me. Has any stage ever groaned under the weight of so much leather?! Getting invited to drink at the Bon Jovi onstage bar at Wembley Stadium, which is possible not strictly a festival if the truth be told, but damn, it sure felt like one! And performing lived on stage with a French band called Les Vermines in front of 5,000 people at a festival in Rouen when I was doing my year abroad as a student. Cover versions? ‘Breaking The Law’ by Priest, ‘Brand New Cadillac’ by The Clash, ‘Warhead’ by The UK Subs. I wore a fake black and white leopard print jacket to ‘wow’ the crowd, for which I blame Hanoi Rocks!

But that’s the great thing about festivals. They allow you to behave like a total fool and yet still feel that it’s all completely normal and acceptable, thereby giving you tales you can dine out on for years to come. Who cares if the sound is always rank and the toilets look like something that would have been rejected as unhygienic in the middle ages. You’re a festival veteran – and you’re rightly proud of it!

Want to email me about this blog? Get in touch at hojo@saltyrockz.com

HoJo rocked as a top journalist on legendary UK metal magazine
Kerrang! and now runs a way-cool rock T-shirt site at www.saltyrockz.com.

M3 Festival Concert Review from our 2007 Rocklahoma Winner!

Huge high fives to listener Ronna Korotkin, who was one of the winners of our first Rocklahoma giveaway in 2007. (Well technically, her husband Dave won, but it was all in the name of heavy metal love!) Ronna recently entered a contest on her local station (and HOH affiliate) WIYY/Baltimore and scored stage seats for her entire family at the recent kick-ass M3 Festival. Ronna was also crowned Miss M3…we think her favorite House of Hair tank is bringing her good luck!

Ronna’s M3 Festival Review

Saturday, May 30 - M3 Festival at Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia, MD

The weather was just as promised on Saturday morning - 70s and sunny. Although there were 16 bands playing the M3 Festival, we knew we wouldn’t be able to catch them all because there were two stages and the set times overlapped. So, unfortunately, that meant sacrificing the Festival Stage performances so that we could see the Pavilion (Main) Stage performances. This meant that we didn’t get to see:

1pm Jetboy
2:00 XYZ
3:00 Bullet Boys
4:25 Steel Panther
5:50 L.A. Guns
7:00 Keel
8:40 SLAMM

We got to the venue around 1:00 so we missed Gilby Clark who opened the show on the main stage at noon.

As we walked up to Merriweather, we could hear Y&T playing on the main stage, including “Summertime Girls.” The crowd was flowing in and the lawn was filling up. The pavilion was sold out but there were still some empty seats this early in the day. The pit was shoulder to shoulder - SRO.

Slaughter came on next and had the crowd singing along to favorites like “Fly to the Angels” and “Up All Night.” They still could put on quite a show even in the middle of the afternoon. We could tell that this was going to be one rockin’ festival!

What was most impressive about the show was that there was very little downtime between sets. This is good and bad. On the positive side, you didn’t have to wait long for the next band to start. On the negative side, there wasn’t time to go to the second stage or the merch booths. We took a quick tour of the merch booths and, while there were plenty of band t-shirts, there was not M3 merch at all.

After the quick set change,Jani Lane ran onto the stage looking like a man on a mission. We had heard an interview with him from about a week and a half ago and he said he was ready to rock and had put together an all-star band - Keri Kelli (Alice Cooper) on guitar, Kevin Baldes (Lit) on bass, James Kottak (Scorpions) on drums and former Warrant keyboardist Shawn Zavodney. Jani definitely got the crowd going, at one point coming out from stage right into the crowd, working his way across the crowd singing the whole time, and then back to the left side of the stage. He played all of the Warrant hits and a new song called “Changes.” Jani was in serious need of a smoke part way into the set. He found one, had someone from the crowd throw him a lighter just as the county smoking ordinance flashed up on the screen. Great timing! He closed with “Cherry Pie” after pretending that he was finished and starting to walk off stage.

Dokken was on next and he did not disappoint. We have now seen him three times in three years - Rocklahoma ‘07, Rocklahoma ‘08 and M3 and he has delivered every time. With Mick Brown on drums, Jon Levin on guitar and Barry Sparks on bass, he kicked off with “Breakin’ The Chains” and delivered hits like “Kiss of Death,” “The Hunter,” “Into The Fire,” “Alone Again,” “Tooth And Nail” and “In My Dreams” in his signature style. It was hard to believe that it was only 4:40 or so when he finished and we still had four bands to go on the main stage.

Kix was on next and there had been a lot of press about Kix playing the 5:00 slot in what was basically a hometown show for them. A lot of people said that they felt sorry for anyone playing after Kix at M3 because the bar was going to be set so high. Well, Extreme certainly didn’t let up (more on that later) but Kix came out on fire. Literally, on fire. Steve Whiteman kicked into “Midnight Dynamite” with the fuse burning on his microphone. Backed by Jimmy “Chocolate” Chalfant on drums, Brian “Damage” Forsythe and Ronnie “10/10″ Younkins on guitars and Mark Schenker on bass, Steve ran through hits like “Cold Shower,” “Don’t Close Your Eyes” and “Girl Money.” The crowd absolutely ate it up. Kix probably could’ve played for another hour and the home crowd would’ve still wanted more. But it was time to kick the giant balloons out into the crowd, wrap up the Kix set and prep for Extreme.

Extreme kicked off the first of three headliner-length sets and Gary Cherone looked like he’d had a few too many Red Bulls. He came out like a man possessed, jumping onto the amps and riding them like a bull, climbing onto the stage speakers and sitting cross-legged, squatting mid-stage, leaping off of the raised drum platform. It was an unbelievable display of raw energy. And through it all he nailed every note. With Nuno Bettencourt on guitar (and showing off the shape he is in by losing his shirt partway through the set), Pat Badger on bass and Kevin Figueiredo on drums, Extreme put on a show that I guarantee nobody stopped to wonder why Extreme had a headline spot. They mixed up the setlist, playing hits from the earlier albums as well as songs from “Saudades de Rock.” The set list included “Decadence Dance,” “Comfortably Dumb,” “Rest In Peace,” “It(’s A Monster),” “Am I Ever Gonna Change,” “Play With Me,” “More Than Words,” “Cupid,” “Get The Funk Out” and “Hole Hearted.” It was an amazing show that many of the other musicians, including John Nymann from Y&T, came and listened to from the side of the stage.

Ratt came on around 8:00 and a lot of jaws dropped when John Corabi walked out to play guitar. Rumor has it that Carlos Cavazo had a scheduling conflict and Corabi agreed to fill in for just this show. I guess time will tell but it was nice to see him on stage with Robbie Crane, Bobby Blotzer, Warren DeMartini and Stephen Pearcy. The band came out to big cheers from the crowd as Robbie Crane fist-bumped the fans on the side of the stage (including us). They kicked off with “Tell The World” and followed with hits like “Slip of The Lip,” “Back for More,” “Lovin’ You’s A Dirty Job,” “Way Cool Jr.,” “Lay It Down,” “Body Talk” and “Round and Round.” The band members really looked like they were enjoying themselves. Stephen Pearcy and Bobby Blotzer were bantering back and forth all night and Robbie Crane seemed to be saying “hi” to friends everywhere he looked, including Marq Torien from BulletBoys on the side of the stage. At the end of the set, Robbie threw his bass about 20 feet in the air and, fortunately, his guitar tech was there to make the catch. As they walked off, the tech told Robbie to never, ever do that again.

Between Ratt & Twisted Sister, Shiprocked announced the winner of a free cruise. As all of you House of Hair fans know, HoH gave away a Shiprocked cruise earlier this year. With bands like Queensryche, Tesla, Skid Row and Lynam, and destinations like Jamaica and the Grand Caymans, the cruise is booking up quickly. You better head over to www.getshiprocked.com before it’s too late.

Twisted Sister headlined M3 and took the stage around 9:20. It took a little while to work through some guitar kinks but the show quickly kicked into gear. Celebrating the 25th anniversary of “Stay Hungry,” Dee Snider, Jay Jay French, Mark “The Animal” Mendoza, Eddie “Fingers” Ojeda and A.J. Pero came out in full make-up, pumped up the packed house and didn’t stop for over an hour. The set included all of the hits - “The Price,” “I Wanna Rock,” “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and “S.M.F.” The audience was into it and Dee and Mark even came over to the side stage to sing and play to their family members. As the festival ended, Twisted’s pyrotechnics shot off from the floor and then from the rafters - directly over A.J. as he played. He sat tight for the first set of sparks, brushing debris out of his hair. But the second set of sparks sent him around the drum set and up with the rest of the band to say goodnight to the crowd.

It was an awesome festival! Let’s hope M3 - May Merriweather Metal - becomes an annual event.

-Ronna Korotkin
May, 2009

The SaltyRockz Blog - Motley Crue

RUDE CRÜE-D AND LEWD

Mötley Crüe inadvertently gave me my first taste of the life that lay before me. Back in 1981 I was running my own heavy metal fanzine, Phoenix. It wasn’t particularly good as fanzines go, unoriginal in intent and overly keen to ape the mainstream commercial music press and Sounds magazine in particular. But if Phoenix wasn’t very unique, at least it was heartfelt. I lived and breathed rock music, wanted to share my passion for it with almost evangelical fervour, and was prepared to put all my energies and efforts into a vehicle to get the word out. Not bad for someone of 16, I suppose.

Mötley Crüe’s ‘Too Fast For Love’, their independent début album released on Leathür Records, was the first record I ever got for free. When it arrived at my parents’ house I was amazed and thrilled in equal measure. It seemed totally unreal that someone as far away as Los Angeles had even heard of me and my little magazine. And that they’d thought Phoenix was important enough to want to hunt out a review in it. And it seemed incredibly exciting that people wanted to give me albums at all when I was still in the habit of starving myself at school of a lunchtime so I could use my dinner money to feed my vinyl habit.

If I remember rightly the album had been rave-reviewed in the mainstream music press, but to be honest it could’ve sounded like horse shit and I would still have loved it for the photos alone. On that album sleeve the Crüe looked like Gods from another planet. Lee, Sixx, Mars and Neil had their ‘Hollywood Rent Boy For Sale’ image totally down, and while with the benefit of hindsight you could say that they were kinda like a Manga version of Kiss, at the time I thought they were the most original thing I’d ever clapped eyes on.

Two or three years later and there I was working for Kerrang!, receiving all my records for free and loving it, when I remember seeing some Crüe photos of an altogether different variety. The photographer Ross Halfin had just come back from a stint on the road with the band, who’d quickly moved up the heavy metal food chain and were already firmly ensconced in the megastar bracket. Halfin had buddied up with the band to the point where they didn’t give a monkey’s either what he saw or what he took photographic record of. Or maybe they just didn’t give a shit what anyone saw? Anyway, the photos that were being bandied around the Kerrang! office were of various gurning members of the band, mugging it up for the camera while shagging any number of groupies in any number of locations, usually hotel corridors if I remember right. The photos were hardcore all right, leaving nothing to the imagination as the Crüe went all out to show that they’d fully embraced the sex, drugs and rock’n’roll lifestyle. Remember this was in the pre-Internet days, when hardcore sex wasn’t just two or three clicks away, but this was definitely the real deal!

I wasn’t shocked or appalled, just fascinated by Mötley Crüe’s utter brazenness, their complete lack of respect for conventional patterns of thinking. It’s not that I particularly admired them for their behaviour either, but at least I knew they were ‘for real’. The band’s bad boy, rock’n’roll outlaw reputation and image wasn’t some kind of an act. These photos provided the proof.

Of course the band let it all hang out eventually when The Dirt was published – minus photos, though. The telling of old war stories in graphic detail made many people’s hair curl, but not mine. I’d already seen the photos some 20 years before, after all!

Want to email me about this blog? Get in touch at hojo@saltyrockz.com

HoJo rocked as a top journalist on legendary UK metal magazine
Kerrang! and now runs a way-cool rock T-shirt site at www.saltyrockz.com.

Dee Rocks KDKB’s Desert Invasion

Desert Invasion 5/9/09 - Arizona

Well, it’s the day after…and what a day it was…8 incredible bands lettin’ it fly in the wonderful 100+ degree May heat in Phoenix, AZ…we’ve needed an event here like this in a long time, and hopefully it will evolve into a yearly event. Dee was an incredible host, and despite the blazing temperatures, a great time was had by all. Bang Tango kick-started the festivities, and sounded great…they used some local boys to round out the band, but in no way did that deter from their brand of raunch ‘n roll…

Bulletboys followed, and I almost didn’t recognize Marq Torien - JET BLACK HAIR these days! I can honestly say this about all the bands on the bill, but it sounds like they never stopped recording and touring…great show, even tho they didn’t do ‘Shoot The Preacher Down’…maybe next time, guys…but ‘Smooth Up In Ya’ and ‘Hard As A Rock’ were definitely highlights - they even opened up with a killer version of AC/DC’s ‘Riff Raff’ - killer stuff.

At this time, I must mention the awesome staff at the venue; food, security, medical, law enforcement (I only saw one person being forceably ejected…the officers were personable and clearly not there to give anybody any crap…hats off guys…wait…don’t…the top of your head would be as badly burned as mine is today - but I digress)…and don’t forget the awesome stage hands. The time gap between bands was usually 25-30 minutes, and that’s all…it was a very tightly run event, and congrats to everyone involved. And then there was Trixter…talk about a fun live band. I always considered them to be one of those hair-bands that were more pop-ish, and catered more to girls than ‘real’ headbangers, but my opinion of them changed yesterday…some of the best guitar solos of the day, hands down…how can you not love L.A.Guns? Especially when Tracii Guns plays 2 sets during the day? (yep…he played with Bulletboys too…) - I can’t understand why this band didn’t get more props and success back in the day…great songs, great show…the ‘holy triumvirate’ of ‘One More Reason,’ ‘Ballad Of Jayne,’ and ‘Rip And Tear’ was obviously the crowning point, but their extended ‘Sex Action’ (the song, people…the SONG!) was intense…

I don’t know if the heat was killing the Phoenicians up until that point, but that was when I really saw more active crowd interaction with a band…and if you wanna talk about crowd interaction, then Kix is your band. Do yourselves a favor - if you’ve never seen Kix in concert, make sure you see them when they come to your area…absolutely, definitively, positively one of the best damn live bands I’ve ever seen (I last saw them open for Great White and Tesla when they toured for their ‘Blow My Fuse’ album…can ANYONE hook me up with that cd??? I can’t find it anywhere…I have it on vinyl only…dammit!) - this band just OWNS a stage when they get on it…period. Steve Whiteman is easily in my top 10 as one of the best frontmen in metal. He works a crowd like nobody’s business…even if he DID get beat out in the sing-a-long during ‘Cold Blood’ by no other than his good buddy, Dee Snider!! I’ll refrain from stating what Steve called Dee onstage at this time…! All the songs were there, and even stuff from their first couple of discs (I love their 1st album, and it was cool to hear ‘The Itch’) - the only one missing was ‘She Dropped Me The Bomb’ - and Steve was really the only one bitching about the heat…wimpy east coast rockers!!! (Just kidding, Steve…love you, man!) Just be thankful you weren’t playing in freaking June, when the heat REALLY levels you…Kix is awesome, and you need to check them out live. Now, this was supposed to be a ‘hair band’ weekend, but I noticed a lot of the guys are now sporting the ‘we’re reaching middle age, gotta cut the hair’ look…none more obvious than Firehouse vocalist C.J. Snare - did it make a difference? Hell NO! This guy has got a set of pipes that continue to blow me away…I never got the chance to see Firehouse back in the 80’s, so this was a real treat for me. They were frigging AWESOME. Most of the songs were from the 1st cd (’Helpless’ started off the set, followed by ‘Lover’s Lane’ - cool!!! 2 of the most underrated songs from their 1st..) but, of course, you have to have ‘All She Wrote,’ ‘Don’t Treat Me Bad’ - the set ender - and that ol’ tear jerker ‘Love Of A Lifetime’ - they were phenomenal. (Yeah, I probably spelled that wrong…)

Glad to see that Firehouse (as well as ALL of these bands) are still plowing along…little did I know that Skid Row (and no offense here at all) without Sebastian Bach at the vocal helm would be as ass-kicking as they were last night…oh…my…GOD!!! I’ve loved this band since I heard the first chord of ‘Youth Gone Wild.’ And they didn’t disapoint…they rocked so damn hard that I was getting cuts from the shrapnel flying from the stage…one song after another, the crowd was going absolutely nuts by this time (yeah…a bunch of 40-sometings going nuts…scaaaaary, but true!!! - maybe due in part that the sun was down had something to do with it as well!!!) - this band continues to kick ass, and I really hope something new from them will be recorded…

now, I’m gonna admit MY wimpy-ness here…I left after Skid Row. I love Night Ranger, but I was spent…8+ hours in that heat just got to me…

- Patrick Murphy

The SaltyRockz Blog - Oasis

Oasis come from my home town of Manchester, which means that I can’t help but feel a certain affinity with those Gallagher brothers – that and the fact that we all support Man City. It could also have something to do with the fact that they grew up in Burnage, the Mancunian suburb where my school Manchester Grammar just so happened to be situated. I was, I suppose, one of the so-called ‘posh kids’ being bussed in to the grammar school – all slicked-down hair, bright and shiny skin and highly-recognisable school blazer. What with Noel being only a couple of years younger than me I suspect he could easily have been one of the Burnage crew who’d hang around the area where the school buses left at the end of the day. The idea for the locals was to try to lob various items of hard core at people like me as we ran the gauntlet to try to make the bus. Little did either of us know that we both had – or would develop – a liking for loud guitars. I suspect he would have called me a ‘fookin’ grebo’ for having the audacity to wear an AC/DC badge in the heavily New Wave-oriented Manchester of the late Seventies and early Eighties, though. Never mind, eh? Noel got there in the end!

Oasis have always frustrated the hell out of me. Their first album, ‘Definitely Maybe’, was a classic of wild guitar and snotty, attitudinal posturing, brilliant in both its simplicity and its absolute arrogance. It changed the world for millions of English kids, but truth to tell I was just the wrong side of rebellion for it to be truly earth-shattering in the same way that AC/DC’s ‘Highway To Hell’ had been for me 15 years earlier. No matter. It was and still is a more than worthy addition to any rock fan’s musical armoury.

But since that glorious beginning Oasis’s career has been a patchwork of hit and miss albums. When the songs have been brilliant, then man they’ve been truly brilliant. But Gallagher’s self-proclaimed genius hasn’t always been borne out in the grooves. And while millions of would-be Manc pimp rollers (I’ve lost count of the number of well-spoken middle class music lovers from Wilmslow who suddenly started talking like they’d lived all their life in Moss Side) turn out in their mega thousands to bond whenever there’s an Oasis live show, I can’t help but wish they’d do a bit more for their money. Y’know, put on a show. Jump about a bit. Stop thinking they’re too cool for school.

Oasis are, however, undeniably cool, and any band that has songs like ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Star’, ‘Live Forever’, ‘Wonderwall’ and ‘Stop Crying Your Heart’ out knows the meaning of rocking with soul. Liam says a whole lot of daft things, but that’s what rock frontmen are supposed to do. And the brothers took drugs like they were going out of fashion, which is also what bona fide rock stars are supposed to do. At least until they clean up, go all macrobiotic and head into their rural phase, anyway! Which reminds me of a good wee tale to end on…

The missus and I were hanging around in the backstage area when Oasis were playing Earls Court in their absolute pomp of lunacy, fame and drug-addled bad behaviour many years ago. Clearly there was an absolute blizzard of cocaine doing the rounds. Suddenly some wired weirdo came stumbling out of one of the backstage Portaloos with a look of absolute indignation, nay outrage, on his face. Clearly the shovelling of nose candy up his hooter hadn’t gone particularly well.

“Urghhh,” he spluttered. “It’s disgusting in there. Someone’s done a shit in there!” Clearly it hadn’t occurred to our man with the wrap that, well, you know, Portaloos are kind of there for that purpose. They’re not, in fact, designed solely for the taking of Class A drugs in semi-private! Drugs? They do alter your state of perception, don’t they?!

Want to email me about this blog? Get in touch at hojo@saltyrockz.com

HoJo rocked as a top journalist on legendary UK metal magazine
Kerrang! and now runs a way-cool rock T-shirt site at www.saltyrockz.com.

The SaltyRockz Blog - UFO

Have I ever told you the one about Philip Mogg and the feather duster? Well, not on this blog, I haven’t. If, however, you happen to have bought the recently re-issued version of UFO’s 1981 hard rock gem ‘The Wild, The Willing And The Innocent’ and have read the sleevenotes, then most likely you’ll already know the tale. If so, please indulge me while we get everyone else up to speed…

I was asked to write the notes for the re-issue last year. My credentials? Loved UFO’s blend of hard rock muscle and melodic finesse since first seeing them on the ‘No Place To Run Tour’ way back in 1980. Had hung with the band a few times over the years, most memorably at Pete Way’s London paid in the early ’80s when all kinds of deviant doings went on. Had been subjected to numerous prank calls from vocalist Mogg claiming to be ‘The Inland Revenue’. Funny guy!

Anyroad, after chatting to all the other members of the band for the sleevenotes, I wheedled a home number for Mogg out of somebody or other. Turns out he lives in Brighton these days. But despite leaving plenty of messages a return call wasn’t forthcoming.

I’d all but given up on getting Mogg to contribute to the notes at all when one day, out of the clear blue sky, the moby rang and there on the end of the invisible line was The Moggster himself.

“I’m so sorry it’s taken me a while to get back to you Howard,” he said in the kind of ‘arist-rock-racy’ voice favoured by ’70s musos. “I did have your number on a scrap of paper, but it got lost down the back of the sofa. I just bought myself a new duster. It’s got some sort of long stick on the end and it’s brilliant. Have you seen them?” I admitted that I hadn’t. “Well never mind. Anyway, I was dusting with this new duster and I came across your number again, so here I am.”

And there he was indeed. Phil Mogg. What a great man. What a great vocalist. Not as in ‘I can hit the highest note in the universe’ great. Not as in ‘I’ve got the most powerful rock voice of all time’ great. Indeed, not as in ‘I can always sing in tune’ great either. But when it comes to giving it some emotion, to infusing hard rock music with some real soul, there have been few to match Mogg.

Double live albums were, of course, all the rage in the Seventies and there are some classic releases from the era that deserve a prime place in any rock fan’s collection. Thin Lizzy’s ‘Live And Dangerous’ springs to mind. So does Kiss’s ‘Alive II’ and The Scorps’ ‘Tokyo Tapes’. But if push comes to shove I’d have to say that UFO’s ‘Strangers In The Night’ gets the nod as the cream of the crop. Recorded in the States in 1978 and featuring the talents of ‘Mad Mickey Schenker’ – as every British rock mag referred to the German guitarist at the time, ‘Strangers…’ is quintessentially European, quintessentially ’70s hard rock at its very best, brutally riff-oriented yet still possessed of an ear for melody that seems almost quaint when placed in a modern rock context. Who gives a toss if it’s quaint, though, when songs such as ‘Doctor, Doctor’, ‘Lights Out’ and ‘Too Hot To Handle’ form part of the set that was captured?! Brilliant stuff!

More than 30 years after that classic live set, UFO are still at it today, with a new album – ‘The Visitor’ – due at the end of May. No matter that Phil Mogg now weighs in at an astonishing 61 years old, the band is still more than active. And given the kind of shenanigans they got up to back in the day that’s a triumph in itself.

We here at Saltyrockz couldn’t resist the opportunity of producing a classic ‘Strangers-style’ line-up tee as our own little tribute to one of hard rock’s greatest survivors. And you won’t need a feather duster to find it!

Want to email me about this blog? Get in touch at hojo@saltyrockz.com

HoJo rocked as a top journalist on legendary UK metal magazine
Kerrang! and now runs a way-cool rock T-shirt site at www.saltyrockz.com.

The SaltyRockz Blog - Bob Dylan

TRYING TO BREATHE THE SAME AIR AS DYLAN

Bob Dylan has been something of a musical obsession for me for 25 years. But the closest I got to touching the hand of Bob was back in March of 2004 in Chicago.

The circumstances under which I almost got to meet the man were not normal and had a lot to do with Jim Callaghan. Not the one-time Labour Party leader. That would have been just too bizarre. But rather a rock and roll security guy of the same name.

A literary agent I was dabbling with at the time had some contacts with Callaghan and there was talk of him wanting a ghost for a warts’n’all autobiography that was in the air. An interesting project, for sure, especially since Callaghan had worked with the Stones for years and years – and when Keith Richards was at his most naughty and hedonistic.

In fact, I was so enthusiastic for the project that I was even prepared to stump up half of the cost of flights to Chicago, where Callaghan was marshalling Dylan’s security doings. The fact that my potential co-worker just so happened to be working with Dylan certainly weighed in my decision to invest some dough in the venture. After all, Bob was playing a number of nights – four, I think – in intimate Chicago theatres; one to two thousand seaters maybe. Gig heaven. If the book idea didn’t come off, then at the very least I’d have the chance to see one of my all-time heroes in truly intimate circumstances on at least two occasions. It was a real Dr. Pepper moment. What’s the worst that could happen?!

I’ve loved Dylan since a hippie lass from Huddersfield introduced me to his music back in university, around 1983. Up to that point I’d not paid the fella any mind. Dylan seemed old, irrelevant, uncool. To a 19-year-old heavy metal fan in the full arrogance of youth he was nothing more than an overly nasal irrelevance. But The Huddersfield Hippy persevered with Dylan’s latest album at the time, ‘Infidels’, and slowly but surely I started to get hooked. ‘Infidels’ is a million miles away from a true Dylan classic, but it did and still does hold a special place in my heart. First loves and all that. Not Huddersfield Hippy. The album.

From ‘Infidels’ I suddenly got the Dylan bug and swiftly backtracked to what I quickly realised was a back catalogue that was utterly immense. First it was ‘Blood On The Tracks’, then it was ‘Highway 61’, then ‘Desire’, then ‘Blonde On Blonde’ and so on and so forth. I started to understand what a scenester Dylan had been, what a hip dude he was, what bloody unbelievable songs he’d written, what social relevance he had. It hadn’t been an instant revelation, but it was a revelation all the same.

Callaghan was canny. He knew he was working something on Bob’s time that might not have been considered kosher, I guess. Though discussing a book with me was hardly like divulging the notoriously secretive Dylan’s innermost thoughts, there was still no backstage pass for HoJo. The first time I met Callaghan was outside the Aragon Ballroom on March 5, with throngs of Dylan fans milling about. His opening gambit was brilliant. ‘Tell me a joke, then…’ Shit. I’ve always been the world’s worst at remembering jokes. Bar none. I utterly blew my opening lines.

If Callaghan had marked me down with a big fat mental cross right there and then, at least he had the good grace not to let it show. In fact, quite the opposite. We buddied up for the next two or three days, me and Jim, meeting for breakfast in diners, chatting in my hotel room, chatting in his hotel room. I suspect I didn’t do myself any favours, though. Much as I was genuinely interested in Jim’s book idea and found the man charming in a roguish kind of way – he truly did have the most amazing stories – I found it utterly impossible not to be thinking about Dylan all the while. Like a true fan. ‘Oh my God, he’s in this very hotel. Wouldn’t it be great if we bumped into him in the lobby? Will Jim take me backstage tonight to introduce me? What will I say? What will he say?’

Of course nothing of the sort happened. While I got the VIP treatment front of house and enjoyed the shows from privileged vantage points sat at the front of the balcony I never got within a country mile of real human contact with His Bobness. Jim Callaghan, bless him, was doing his job – and doing it right.

Witnessing Dylan for two nights in such intimate surroundings was truly awesome, mind. If I hadn’t been so damned jetlagged the first night it would have been even better. But hey, that’s just nitpicking.

I didn’t even get so much as a glimpse of Dylan, actually. I didn’t get so much as a glimpse of the proposed book either. I think Jim changed his mind in the end. I never saw any book appear, at least. But for me, getting that close to Dylan in his natural habitat was a thrill in itself. And above all the whole experience made me realise that I was glad I hadn’t become so jaded by my rock and roll doings over the years as to forget what it feels like to be a real honest-to-goodness fan of a man whose music I still love and admire to this day.

Want to email me about this blog? Get in touch at hojo@saltyrockz.com

HoJo rocked as a top journalist on legendary UK metal magazine
Kerrang! and now runs a way-cool rock T-shirt site at www.saltyrockz.com.

The SaltyRockz Blog - HAIR METAL

Round about 1989 I sat in a record company office in Hollywood with Warrant vocalist Jani Lane conducting an interview for Kerrang! magazine. Jani was a top boy, affable and articulate, self-deprecating and funny. The band’s début album, ‘Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich’, was about to be released and we were discussing Warrant’s OTT image of make-up and teased hair that had become pretty much de rigeur for any band wanting to make a splash in the American metal scene. “So Jani,” I asked, deciding I’d put him on the spot. “Would you be prepared to walk down the street in your home town back in Ohio like this?” I liked his response. “Fuck no, man! Are you crazy? If I walked down the street like this I’d get my ass kicked in a second for being a fuckin’ faggot!” For someone trying to make his name in the world of Hair Metal, I appreciated the honesty.

Lane’s refusal to embrace the Glam lifestyle 24/7 certainly didn’t hinder Warrant any. The band went on to have two double platinum albums and three Top 10 hits. Not a bad haul by anyone’s standards. But the truth is, anyone who was prepared to live Hair Metal morning noon and night had more balls than most of us, despite looking like some kind of drag queen gone wrong once they’d emptied the entire contents of their sister’s make-up bag onto their ugly-assed faces every morning. I for one didn’t have the necessary chutzpah to be walking down Birmingham New Street looking like that, so by this time had retreated into the resurgent biker look being rocked by bands like The Cult.

It’s kinda weird now, in our post-grunge world, to imagine just how normal it was for bands to adopt the Hair Metal look back in those giddy days of the 1980s. But for a while there the preening and the posing and the hairspray and the make-up seemed to be the most natural thing in the world to accompany heavy rock music. Look at photos from the time of Mötley Crüe, Guns N’Roses, Ratt, Bon Jovi. Pretty much any rock band you choose felt it was an essential part of rock’n’roll culture to get with the Hair Metal picture.

Grunge, of course, killed Hair Metal stone dead in 1992. It seemed that almost overnight looking like a chick with a dick and playing party rock was the ultimate kiss of death. What had once brought record company A&R men swarming like bees to honey suddenly saw them getting all snooty and claiming that rock music was all about ‘keeping it real’. Some bands cut their losses and quickly cut out the Silvikrin. Remember those early photos of Alice In Chains? All of a sudden we were all pretending we were far too mature to be dressing up like a Heavy Metal Widow Twanky. The trouble is, we all realised too late that Grunge was NO FUN. Some great music, sure. But too introspective, navel-gazing and downright miserable. Grunge never seemed to make anybody happy, whereas Hair Metal couldn’t help but put a smile on your face.

Hair Metal is, of course, making something of a comeback right now. rock’n’roll for the sake of rock’n’roll. It’s dumb and it’s fun. And I for one have no problem in saying I have no problem with it whatsoever. Though I suspect I won’t be breaking out the missus’ make-up bag this time around!

Want to email me about this blog? Get in touch at hojo@saltyrockz.com

HoJo rocked as a top journalist on legendary UK metal magazine
Kerrang! and now runs a way-cool rock T-shirt site at www.saltyrockz.com.

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