The SaltyRockz Blog – Sealed With A KISS
For almost every English kid who first clapped ears on rock music at the fag end of the seventies it was Kiss who set the gold standard. While older brothers grew bum fluff, rubbed patchouli oil into their greatcoats and got all teary-eyed over ELP’s ‘Brain Salad Surgery’, us youngsters simply couldn’t be arsed with
The SaltyRockz Blog – Remembering Phil Lynott
Hopefully you’ll have checked out the new Phil Lynott shirt that we’ve just put up on Saltyrockz by now. Lynott died 23 years ago, on January 4, 1986, so it seems an appropriate time to pay tribute to the Dublin Cowboy. I never got to interview Lynott during my time writing for Kerrang!, so I
The SaltyRockz Blog – Have a Hanoi Christmas
As Christmas approaches they like to tell us it’s a time of peace, love and goodwill to all men. I usually try to go with that one, but at the end of 1984 I have to admit I wasn’t feeling overly charitable towards Mötley Crüe. Not that I disliked the band. I’d always felt pretty
The SaltyRockz Blog – LEMMY – Warts N’ All
It was one of the most bizarre requests I’ve ever had. “Hey HoJo. You know Lemmy, dontcha? Think he’d give us his warts?” I say whaaaattttt? The fella asking the question was called Greg Gutfeld. Crazy name, crazy guy. Gutfeld had just arrived in London fresh from editing American gadget mag Stuff to take up
The SaltyRockz Blog – Guns N’ Roses
In the mid to late ’80s Kerrang!, the self-styled ‘Bible Of Hard Rock’, was manned by a bunch of enthusiastic amateurs counting their blessings to be working on such a great mag while trying – often struggling – to learn how to be journalists. I was one of those guys getting caught up in the
The SALTYROCKZ blog – VAN HALEN
I’d always dreamed the first time I’d see David Lee Roth live he’d be the size of an ant, high-kicking and high-fiving his way through a set of Van Halen classics on the stage of some Californian enormo-dome. The reality, though, was somewhat different. I loved Van Halen from the moment my elder brother shelled
REVIEW: Saxon – Into the Labyrinth
Of all the old school metal bands to remain on a hot streak in the new millennium, it’s Saxon. For the third consecutive album beginning with 2004’s Lionheart, Biff Byford and Paul Quinn keep the sails whipping through the Union Jack in a stoic effort from one of the acknowledged masters of the New Wave
REVIEW: tRnzPrNt – “Iced”
A couple years ago I had the unique privilege of chatting with the late Ricky Parent, best known for his powerful drumming with Enuff Z’nuff, but also his work with Vince Neil, Alice Cooper, War and Peace, Paul Gilbert and Tod Howarth from Frehley’s Comet. At the time, Parent was well into his battle against
REVIEW: Don Airey – Light in the Sky
There was a time in the mid-eighties as Generation X hijacked the scene where keyboards in hard rock and metal were considered taboo. Never mind every one of the great rockers such as Zeppelin, Sabbath, Purple and Rainbow blared their organs and synths with the same razzle-dazzle as their classical and blues-bred lead guitars and
REVIEW: We Wish You a Metal Christmas and a Headbanging New Year
In what is developing into an annual tradition with last year’s Monster Ballads Xmas and A Twisted Christmas the year prior, the heavy metal parade this year lines up somewhere between the North Pole and the hallowed nativity with the marching feet barely out of the pentagram circle for We Wish You a Metal Christmas
REVIEW: Sixx: A.M. The Heroin Diaries Soundtrack Deluxe Edition
Of all the various Motley Crue offshoot bands over the years such as Methods of Mayhem, 58 and Brides of Destruction, much less Vince Neil and Tommy Lee’s solo albums and Lee’s Rock Star Supernova, Sixx: A.M. is the most honest. If you’ve read Nikki Sixx’s rendering book The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the
REVIEW: ROSE TATTOO – Blood Brothers
The name Rose Tattoo may or may not roll off your tongue as quickly as their Aussie brethren AC/DC and certainly the former hasn’t enjoyed the same prolific career as the latter. Still, if you like your rock served greasy and sloppy with a bit of Zeppelin and Faces in addition to the more obvious