Tabla de contenidos para Issue 20 en Planet Rock

FaLL to your knees and repent if you please! As track one, side one on Unleashed In The East, Exciter was my introduction to Judas Priest. I’m listening to it again now as I type this. What. A. Song. Those double bass drums! Those guitars! Rob Halford’s scream on the final lyric… This, friends, is Heavy Metal in its purest form, and nobody does it better. It’s a huge honour to welcome Priest to the cover of PR20 for a world exclusive celebration of the Metal Gods’ 50th anniversary: we hope you enjoy the epic oral history laid out here, and fire up our ultimate Priest playlist while reading it. The world has taken some frightening turns since we began work on this issue, so forgive us if there’s a certain…

MASSIVE WAGONS will release their fifth album, House Of Noise, on July 17 through Earache Records. The follow-up to 2018’s Full Nelson, it’s “the absolute best of us to date,” says frontman Baz Mills. “We have given it everything we could,” the singer insists. “We’ve been able to go at it all guns blazing. Colin Richardson and Chris Clancy, who together produced the album, grafted their asses off for us. We are so stoked for the release.” Asked about his expectations for what is one of the most hotly anticipated British rock albums of 2020, Mills offers a thoughtful, community-minded response. “I hope the album will bring joy to people and unite them through these tough times,” he says simply. “Here’s to the best fans in the world, this album…

Metallica have launched ‘Metallica Mondays’, a new concert-streaming series, to help ease Coronavirus-related woes. The gigs will be streaming via the band’s YouTube and Facebook pages. Deep Purple will release their 21st studio album on June 12 via earMUSIC. Recorded with Bob Ezrin, the band say that Whoosh! is “putting the Deep back in Purple”. Nine Inch Nails have made two new albums free to download via their website. Ghosts V: Together and Ghosts VI: Locusts are described by Trent Reznor as “two different records for two different mindsets”. Rush’s Permanent Waves album is to get a deluxe 40th anniversary reissue. Featuring previously unreleased 1980 live recordings from London, Manchester and St. Louis, the set is due on May 29, via UMC/Mercury/Anthem.…

Liberty Lies Formed back in 2008, West Midlands alt.rockers Liberty Lies have been pricking up ears with their 2019 album It’s The Hope That Kills You. The quartet are already booked to play both the Dementia Aware festival in Cannock and Bloodstock Open Air in August, so why not get acquainted now? Find out more at: libertyliesofficial.com Tomorrow Is Lost Recently featured on the Earache Presents: The New Wave Of Rock N Roll compilation, Tomorrow Is Lost formed in 2017 and have just released their debut album Therapy. Check out their storming Wildchild single for a flavour of their ferocious alternative metal and Cass King’s killer vocals. Find out more at: tomorrowislost.com Buffalo Summer Featuring a guest appearance from R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck and production by Walking Papers/Screaming Trees drummer…

Choose your friends carefully I started playing in bars around New York when I was 16 years old, and I signed up with a local booking agent when I was 18. He and his friends were straight out of mafia movie typecasting, and if it hadn’t been so scary it was kinda comical. We rehearsed at a club in Long Island which no one ever came to, but at the end of every night we’d hear the sound of hundreds of bottles of booze being smashed, and I realised that we were the house band for a money laundering scam. My agent eventually went to jail and I started thinking, “I need to find a new gig!” Avoid drugs and alcohol I consider myself extremely lucky that alcohol or drugs…

1 SEE EMILY PLAY (Single, 1967) “Float on a river for ever and ever,” implores Syd Barrett. Floyd’s second 45 remains the perfect evocation of 1967’s lysergic Summer Of Love. 2 SET THE CONTROLS FOR THE HEART OF THE SUN (on A Saucerful Of Secrets, 1968) Shivery space-rock and Nick Mason’s favourite Floyd song. Features the Saucers’ boss playing drums with mallets and stroking a gong. Cosmic. 3 REMEMBER A DAY (on A Saucerful Of Secrets, 1968) Charming first-generation Britpop, written and sung by Floyd’s unsung hero Rick Wright. Mason’s drum rolls are a treat, and his Zapata moustache was at its peak in ’68. 4 THE NILE SONG (on More Original Soundtrack, 1968) Floyd go metal on this lost gem from their late-night movie soundtrack phase. Sounds like a…

IF YOU’RE NOT INTO METAL, you are not my friend. Say what you like about Manowar, but they weren’t afraid to take a stand. Arrogant, confrontational and utterly convinced of their own innate superiority, the New Yorkers saw the world in the starkest black-and-white terms. Dick-swinging alpha males, the group viewed their contemporaries on the ’80s metal scene with rarely concealed contempt, believing, like Robert De Niro’s tightly wound cabbie Travis Bickle in Martin Scorsese’s bleak New York morality tale Taxi Driver, that they were on a noble crusade to wash away the scum from our streets. ‘Scum’, in this instance, meant any band guilty of peddling ‘false metal’, a classification broad enough to include pretty much every metal band not called Manowar. And Motörhead, at a push, but then…

BEING AN IN-DEMAND rock star can have its drawbacks. On the road almost constantly since the summer 2019 release of his band’s third album, Truth And Lies, Tyler Bryant is craving some home comforts. “I got married pretty recently [to Larkin Poe vocalist/guitarist Rebecca Lovell],” he reveals, “and I feel like the luckiest guy in the world, but I swear I’ve spent more nights in hotel rooms with Caleb [Crosby], the drummer from The Shakedown, than I have with my beautiful wife.” The Shakedown’s schedule isn’t easing up anytime soon: the quartet will spend the summer opening for Nickelback in America. “We’ve got a stack of new tunes that we’ll record when we get a break,” Tyler promises. “But we’ve gotta keep the train rolling!” Here, then, are eight songs…

AVAILABLE IN S/M/L/XL/XXL FREE DELIVERY TO YOUR DOOR Terms & Conditions: Gifts are only available when you subscribe directly with the publisher (Bauer Media) by phone or on their website (Greatmagazines). Subscriptions will start with the next available issue. The minimum term is 6 issues. Recurring payments will continue to be taken unless you tell us otherwise. This offer closes on 4th June 2020. We reserve the right to provide an alternative gift or a 3-issue extension if stocks are exhausted. Please allow 28 working days for the delivery of your gift. This offer cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer. Cost from landlines for 01 numbers per minute are (approximate) 2p to 10p. Cost from mobiles per minute (approximate) 10p to 40p. Costs vary depending on the…

“Well managed and beautifully sculptured…” Rejuvenated British rock veterans give fans what they want. THE INITIALS FM have been a trademark for hard rock quality since the Londoners released their 1986 debut Indiscreet (an album so good they ended up making it twice, re-recording it 30 years later). Synchronized is their 12th release, and while it doesn’t quite stand up to the set-in-stone AOR standards of yesteryear, it’s another collection of well managed and, at times, beautifully sculpted tunes. The title track is thoroughbred FM – pulsing keyboards and guitars plus Steve Overland’s assured, smokey vocals, all geared towards an immediately memorable hook. It’s the kind of agile, mid-tempo rocker FM major in, and give or take a H.E.A.T it’s hard to think of anyone who does this better. A…

VENN Hertfordshire quartet get serious on beefy second. Panic Machine’s focus on fear of the future feels timely; but, thankfully, Gold Key’s second features other, more granular lyrical targets, both personal and universal, to ensure it’s as interesting as the climate of its release. There’s musical variety too, hardly a surprise, perhaps, given that Gold Key features members of caustic punks Gallows and progmetallers SikTh. Despite exercising the many styles of these constituent members, none of Panic Machine’s songs feels short-changed by the resulting busyness. That’s admirable when they’re as disparate as the pummelling Sweet Darkness, the Radiohead-esque Shallows or moody, bluesy closer The Best Of Luck. This is thanks to the connective tissue provided by Steve Sears’ voice. BEST TRACKS: Sweet Darkness, Shallows…

ROCKET Dates with the devil and blood-splattered anthems. Their third album proper finds these Newcastle noisers in particularly venomous mood, their super-confrontational sludge-metal cranked up way past 11, their lyrics doubledipped in acrid wit and nightmarish visions. On New Body, for example, frontman Matt Baty finds himself in the company of the devil, discovering him “all flaccid red anger” but confessing “I like him a bit”, while Halloween Bolson sees him bellowing “Bastards, beat their wings!” like the wicked witch from the Wizard Of Oz. Yes, irony is one of the tools at Pigsx7’s disposal, but that doesn’t blunt their guttural attack any. Their blend of psychedelia, Krautrock and unabashed heaviosity calls to mind the bloody-minded genius of Todd, Pissed Jeans or Part Chimp, though there’s also an undeniably bluesy,…

SLIPTRICK God bless The Children Of The Beast. While the Norwegian west coast town of Bergen may be synonymous with black metal bands like Immortal and Abbath, it’s also giving rise to four glam metal upstarts by the name of Notorious. With a tasty five-track EP under their belts, they’ve just released their first full-length album, and it’ll take you right back to the Sunset strip circa ’81-’82. It’s obvious from the get-go that these boys worship at the altar of Mötley Crüe. From Chris Höudini’s high-pitched vocals, through to Nikki DiCato’s rampant riffing, it’s all very Too Fast For Love in its delivery. Recorded on a shoestring budget, Glamorized is raw and rough round the edge which only adds to its overall appeal as the garage-hewn charms of Notorious,…

SONYCMGUK Guitar god continues to do unnatural things with wire and wood. Joe Satriani’s 18th studio album is aptly named, for throughout its 13 tracks the 63-year-old guitarist displays a restless spirit. While certain song titles signpost their creator’s musical intentions – Ali Farka, Dick Dale, An Alien And Me paying tasteful tribute to both the late Malian musician Ali Farka Touré and surf-guitar pioneer Dale – unexpected excursions into dub reggae (Here The Blue River), emotive jazz-fusion (Teardrops) and bluegrass-country (Yesterday’s Yesterday) help illustrate the man’s versatility and range. Though Nineteen Eighty tips a hat to Eddie Van Halen’s revolutionary fretboard skills with its Eruption-style finger-tapping intro, Shapeshifting isn’t an album concerning itself with showy ‘shredding’, but rather it boasts a succession of brilliantly constructed dramatic mood pieces, each…

PROVOGUE JBo pays tribute to mentor with new band project. If you missed the last Joe Bonamassa album, don’t worry, you’ll never have to wait long before another one rolls up. This time around, the guitarist turns his hand to a collection of instrumentals, with a few unexpected flavours thrown into the mix. Conceived as a tribute to Joe’s friend and mentor, the late “greatest unknown guitarist” Danny Gatton, it has elements of jazz, funk and rockabilly across its nine tracks. The jazzy swing of Fun House – a Gatton original – is followed by an eclectic selection of cover versions including Ace Of Spades (not that one, Link Wray’s), Polk Salad Annie and even S inatra’s It Was A Very Good Year. While it’s refreshing to hear Joe step…

UMC/VIRGIN “Leppard very quickly outstripped their provincial NWOBHM peers…” Box set laying out Leppard’s origin story, with remasters of On Through The Night and High ‘N’ Dry, plus radio sessions, rarities plus a 1980 concert recording. FOR HARDCORE Def Leppard fans, two songs included in the band’s set at Oxford’s New Theatre on April 26, 1980, a recording of which is released here for the first time, will have special significance. On their own terms, Medicine Man and When The Rain Falls are nothing special, the fact that neither song featured on Leppard’s 11-track debut album, On Through The Night, released just six weeks earlier, suggesting that the Sheffield quintet knew as much. Yet buried inside these two seemingly unremarkable early compositions were the seeds of future greatness. That producer Mutt Lange was…

ALUCARD Cult British prog record kicks into the cosmos on 180-gram vinyl… Though they never came anywhere near the critical and commercial peaks set by ’70s progressive rock rivals Pink Floyd or King Crimson, Gentle Giant were arguably just as forward-thinking. When it came to pushing music to the extreme, perhaps even more so. This landmark fourth full-length, not long ago remixed by Steven Wilson and currently being reissued with the three LPs before it, typified their resistance to boundaries – switching from groovy blues to funk, jazz and baroque in a myriad of head-twisting yet masterfully cohesive detours. Moments of The Boys In The Band and A Cry For Everyone swing like early Deep Purple at full throttle, while Knot and Raconteur Troubadour teleport back to more medieval sounds…

White Rabbit “It makes The Heroin Diaries read like The Cat In The Hat.” Brutally honest, unflinching and unforgettable memoir from grunge’s hard-bitten survivor. GIVEN HIS reputation as the Dark Lord Of Grunge, Mark Lanegan’s autobiography was never likely to be a rollicking chuckle-fest. It is, in truth, possibly the grimmest, most unsentimental, harrowing and terrifyingly honest account of a rock’n’roll life ever penned, a memoir so devoid of glamour that it makes Nikki Sixx’s The Heroin Diaries read like The Cat In The Hat. You won’t read a more beautifully written book about self-annihilation all year. It may not come as the biggest surprise to learn that Lanegan’s childhood was not a happy one. Born to schoolteacher parents in the Washington town of Ellesburg, the youngster becomes accustomed to…

BACKBEAT The inside story of Fleetwood Mac’s infamous 1979 grand opus. Perceived for years as the group’s self-indulgent Rumours white elephant (but latterly recognised as an enigmatic masterpiece), Tuskpost-’s epic, traumatic gestation period almost destroyed the band, as singer/guitarist Lindsey Buckingham took creative control and pushed the group into uncharted waters. It’s a story retold here by the album’s coproducer and his engineer, who spare no salacious detail, from coke-fuelled sessions and steamy costume parties, to their sneaking in a legendary groupie to pleasure Buckingham in the studio (though Caillat’s Alan Partridge-esque descriptions of female characters’ physiques make for embarrassing reading). Aside from Stevie Nicks – who Rojas shared an affair with during the sessions – the band themselves are roughly sketched rather than fully realised. But the production team’s…

Brian Hickey grew up in Boyle in Ireland, avidly reading Sounds magazine and listening to Tommy Vance. Moving to England to be a nurse enabled him to realise so many dreams, seeing so many bands and making great mates. He reviews Winter’s End on page 120. Borja Bonafuente Gonzalo is a figurative painter, illustrator, record designer and Beatlemaniac. This Spanish music-lover lives only to find rare vinyl records to add to his collection. In the meantime he spends his time painting. His illustration of Tyler Bryant is on page 73. Ethem Onur Bilgiç, a multi-award winning artist, works in his studio in Istanbul, producing illustrations for publishing houses worldwide. His animated short film Salkim Sögüt (Weeping Willow) won awards in several film festivals. His illustration of Ozzy Osbourne is on…

WHO: Robin Trower WHERE: Liverpool Stadium WHEN: February 8, 1975 I suppose everyone is blown away by their first gig – I certainly was. It was a couple of months before my 16th birthday and I went with my best mate. The atmosphere in the place was electric. The sound was deafening and his playing unbelievable. It remains to this day, the best gig I’ve ever been to. I’ve seen some of the great guitarists – Page, Blackmore, Gallagher, Van Halen, May, Iommi, Gilmour, etc – but Robin Trower was untouchable live. If I ever think I may be exaggerating my memories of that night, I just put on the 1975 Live! album, which was recorded five days before I saw him. Also, the show he played at Winterland in…

DATE OF BIRTH: 1981 WHEN RETIRED: 1990 WHERE FOUND: Portsmouth “I used buy a lot of albums in the late ’70s/early ’80s,” says Kev Turner, now resident in Cornwall, “and one day I went around to a guy’s house to buy albums from him after he put an advert in the Portsmouth Evening News. While I was there he said, ‘I might have something that would interest you’, and he brought out this jacket from his loft. He didn’t want anything for it, so I ended up bringing it home too. The embroidery was done by his wife, and some of the patches are his, but fortunately they were also bands that I liked!” Don’t be shy. Raid that wardrobe, shed or loft and email us a photo of your…

GENE SIMMONS never switches off. Every waking moment presents an opportunity for a performance, a chance to assert his dominant, alpha male personality. As hugely entertaining as it is to meet the God Of Thunder in his full stage garb, as a mere mortal he always has you at a disadvantage. “We’re no more relevant or deep than a fireworks show and we don’t want to be your goodwill ambassadors to Bosnia-Herzegovina,” he cheerfully told this writer backstage at Helsinki’s Hartwall Arena in 1997, his sizeable girth sheathed in silver armour-plating. “We have a back-beat, but we never comment on whales or rain forests. Frankly, we’re just here to get laid.” A trumpeting egoist in seven-inch leather heels and ‘Demon’ greasepaint, Simmons seemed to tower above me even though we…

Battle Hymn (on Battle Hymns, 1982) “By moonlight we ride, ten thousands side by side…” This is how you make a first impression. A romantic classical intro, swashbuckling guitars, and a vocal to stir the blood. Epic. Hail And Kill (on Kings Of Metal, 1988) Did the lyric “May your sword stay wet like a young girl in her prime…” ever sound like a good idea? Let’s not dwell. Dangerously close to a Bad News-style parody, this is definitive Manowar. Black Wind, Fire and Steel (on Fighting The World, 1987) Like Game Of Thrones condensed into a cosy five minutes of slashing, slashing and pouting. Scorching guitar work, plus Eric Adams hitting notes to shrivel the balls of unbelievers.…

No other band has done more to define the sound, image and attitude of heavy metal than Judas Driest. Forged in Birmingham in 1970, the metal superstars are celebrating their 50th anniversary this year, while laying the foundations for what will be their 19th studio album. In a Planet Rock world exclusive, over the next twenty pages, Rob Dalford, Blenn Tipton, Jan Dill, Rirbie Faulkner and Srott Drabis talk us through five extraordinary decades of defending the faith. “The magic is still there!” an excited Rob Dalford tells Daul Brannigan. 10 am is no bour for rock‘n’ cool… …WHEN JUDAS PRIEST RECEIVED A PERSONAL INVITATION FROM Robert Plant to open for Led Zeppelin at the quartet’s brace of Day On The Green concerts on July 23 and 24, 1977, the…

Columbia “Proof of the magic music can conjure up even in the darkest times…” IT’S BEEN a decade since Ozzy’s last solo album. In truth, until last summer, the notion of making a follow-up to Scream was very, very far down the Double-O’s list of priorities. A fall resulting in neck surgery, a staph infection, pneumonia, cancelled tours, and now the announcement that he’s been diagnosed with Parkinson’s have all made the past 12 months or so, in his own blunt words, “The worst fucking year of my life.” And yet, here we are, with something fresh, vital and full of life, surprising in its brilliance, impressive in its cast of characters, and joyous in its proof of the magic that music can conjure up in even the darkest and…

BMGS4 “A thrilling reminder of how edgy early Floyd were…” Venerable drummer reanimates Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd with a little help from his friends. PRIOR TO forming Saucerful Of Secrets in 2018 Nick Mason was ostensibly retired. “I was doing a lot of what one called ‘gardening the catalogue’,” he told the Financial Times in February. “It’s nearly always the 40th anniversary of something.” Worth some £70 million according to The Times Rich List, Mason hadn’t played a gig since Pink Floyd’s Live 8 spot in 2005, and who could blame him? Flying his Aerospatiale helicopter or taking one of his Ferraris for a spin was pleasure enough. Then, seemingly from out of nowhere, came an interesting idea: wouldn’t it be great to reanimate Pink Floyd’s pre-The Dark Side Of…

UNIVERSAL Californian veterans down the electrics. Recorded at Abbey Road last year and named in homage to their million-selling Five Man Acoustical Jam, this latest live release from Tesla gives the unplugged treatment to both songs old and new – as well as a Beatles cover “that was recorded in this room back in 1965”. It’s easy to detect Phil Collen’s input on the latest material, the skyscraper melodies on California Summer Song and Forever Loving You proving just how fruitful was their 2019 collaboration with Def Leppard’s guitarist. Elsewhere, the likes of Cumin’ Atcha Live and Love Song, from Mechanical Resonance and The Great Radio Controversy, respectively, sound like all-American classics. At 61, singer Jeff Keith’s voice has aged incredibly well, his nasal croak falling somewhere in between Axl…

FRONTIERS AOR sets out on another amazing Journey. Put together by vocalist Rudy Cardenas, a former American Idol finalist, and guitarist August Zadra, who has worked with Dennis DeYoung (Styx), Waiting For Monday were brought to the attention of Frontiers by Jeff Scott Soto (Journey, Sons Of Apollo). Driven by the impressive vocals of Cardenas, Waiting For Monday supply the kind of AOR that will evoke memories of Journey in their late-’70s pomp. The timbre of Cardenas is especially reminiscent of Steve Perry on the likes of the emotionally charged Pick Your Lies or Must Have Been. While Love You Forever could be a distant cousin of Journey’s Lights, the likes of Inside Your Head sees them aping Aerosmith at their most glossy best, and the frantic Make It Better…

THREE HANDS Sparklingly diverse, panoramic fourth album from cult Glaswegians. In a fair and just world, Baby Chaos’ superb second album, 1996’s Love Your Self Abuse, would have made the young Glasgow band superstars. Emerging in the midst of Britpop as it did, however, the album got lost in the shuffle, and a re-brand as Deckard did nothing to boost a waning profile. The group’s return, in 2013, was a welcome surprise, with 2015’s Skulls, Skulls, Skulls, Show Me The Glory a potent reminder of frontman Chris Gordon’s songwriting gifts. The kaleidoscopic, sharply produced Ape Confronts Cosmos is even better, with BC’s newly expanded three-guitar line-up offering myriad angles of attack on the thumping You Won, You Won, the undulating, Smashing Pumpkins-esque I Belong In Battle and the deliciously melodic…

MASCOT Former Doors guitarist embarks on his jazz odyssey, with intriguing results. As a member of one of the most iconic bands of the ’60s, Robby Krieger forged a unique guitar style that breathed life into many of The Doors’ biggest hits. Considered to be among the most inventive and unpredictable players of his generation, Krieger returns with his ninth solo album, a 10-track collection of instrumentals. Recorded at his own studio in Los Angeles with long-time writing partner and co-producer Arthur Barrow, it’s a distinctly jazzy affair as the guitarist explores the music which first inspired him in those hazy, heady days. Krieger’s mercurial guitar lines snake around a cool brass section on opening track What Was That, a fluid, improvisation-heavy dynamic that continues for the entirety of the…

AFM Ex-Manowar guitarist Ross Friedman lets loose a fourth RTB album. While Manowar remained good following the departure of Ross The Boss in 1989, there was a part missing that they’ve never quite managed to replace. Something in his New Jersey street attitude rode off from the Kings Of Metal’s tower, never to return. At least, not to them. As a solo artist, Ross remains Boss, and though he has developed a niche of his own, he still pumps out gloriously hard, pounding heavy metal riffage as he did back in the day. Glory To The Slain and I Am The Sword surge with steely power, all testosterone and boiling hot blood, as the big man shows what a phenomenal axeman he is. His guitar playing’s not bad, either. Joking…

FRONTIERS The band’s 1976 breakthrough performed at Red Studios, Hollywood in 2016. Featuring the much-vaunted centrepiece (Don’t Fear) The Reaper, Agents Of Fortune was both BÖC’s platinum-selling commercial peak and a record that proved you could have a hit single about death. Here, reproduced in its entirety, with co-founding band member Albert Bouchard guesting alongside BÖC’s long-term custodians Eric Bloom and Donald ‘Buck Dharma’ Roeser, it still stands as a winningly eclectic and wonderfully mysterious album. While FBI alien cover-up song E.T.I. is possessed of a truly monster riff, death of the hippy dream affairs Tenderloin and This Ain’t The Summer of Love are a reminder of all that was cryptic and unique about classic-era BÖC. The performances are great, too, the Cult’s long-held practice of touring widely and extensively…

PARLOPHONE Classy 4CD/Blu-ray reissue of Marillion’s trail-blazing 1983 debut album. Anyone dumb enough to swallow the oft-repeated lie that punk killed off progressive rock must have been confused to see the Genesis-worshipping Marillion in the UK Top 10 in March 1983. Who allowed this? While the quintet’s hulking, face-painted frontman Fish was loth to acknowledge Script For A Jester’s Tear as a touchstone for a resurgent British neo-prog movement – his caustic lyrics savaging the class system (Garden Party) and critiquing military intervention in the North of Ireland (Forgotten Sons) being closer in spirit to Killing Joke than Pallas – there’s little doubt that Marillion’s debut proved both invigorating and inspirational for a new generation of similarly ambitious virtuoso musicians. This expansive set packages a new ‘2020 remix’ of the…

High and low times with The Who’s eccentric bass player. Until his death in 2002, John Entwistle lived in the shadow of his Who bandmates: Moon, Daltrey and Townshend. Yet Robert Plant biographer Paul Rees makes a strong case for this book’s subtitle, The Last Of The Great Rock Stars. Here, The Who’s story is re-told, with contributions from its subject’s unfinished memoir, and ex-wife, Alison, and son, Christopher. It seems Entwistle, a former trainee tax inspector, loved being a rock star, often to the detriment of his family and bank account. The final chapters, after The Who’s goldrush has dried up, are especially good. Here, Entwistle sequesters himself away in his Cotswolds mansion, with suits of armour, a priceless collection of guitars and a cocaine habit he can no…

EAGLE ROCK Glorious double DVD set of Leppard live shows. ANY DOUBTS as to why Def Leppard picked up two Planet Rock Awards earlier this year can quickly be answered by screening either of these lavish live shows. Available in the usual multitude of formats, the concerts in question are the final performances from 2018’s Hysteria anniversary tour at the London O2, and the concluding night of last year’s 12-show residency in Las Vegas. The first showcases a perfectly choreographed revival of 1987’s 25 million-selling Hysteria, with each track performed in sequence amid the usual widescreen arena splendour – raunchy floor-filler Pour Some Sugar On Me, classic ballad Love Bites and rarely played gems like Run Riot and Excitable. The Vegas show is even better, partly because frontman Joe Elliott is in such fine voice and also because…

THOUSANDS OF GIGS, tours and festivals worldwide have been cancelled or postponed as the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has swept the planet. Among the events affected are Planet Rock’s own Rock The Boat cruise (rescheduled for October 9) and Zeppelin Symphonic show at London Palladium (postponed until October 4), alongside major festivals such as Download, Glastonbury, C2C and more. Stay safe everyone. Keep informed of updated tour and festival news at WWW.PLANETROCK.COM…

1 Maynard Keenan, frontman with arty US prog-metallers Tool, once participated in a Native American peyote ritual, describing the hallucinogenic experience in their song Third Eye. Trippy. 2 Heavy author Dan Franklin suggests UK extreme metal band Cradle Of Filth’s music is “part of a gothic tradition of transgressive lust” stretching back to Christabel by 18th-century poet and Rush’s favourite bard, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 3 The cartoon skull on the cover of US thrashers Stormtroopers Of Death’s 1985 LP Speak English Or Die was partly based on Drill Instructor Hartman in Stanley Kubrick’s brutal Vietnam War flick Full Metal Jacket. 4 Pantera’s alpha male vocalist Phil Anselmo has named heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson as his inspiration, for being the living embodiment of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s Superman. 5 Franklin believes…

“WHEN I joined Iron Maiden in 1994, Steve Harris said to me, ‘It doesn’t matter who writes the songs, as long as they’re great Maiden songs.’ At that point no music had been written for the band’s next album, and Steve wanted a completely fresh start, so he encouraged me to write and said, ‘Let’s see what happens.’ Janick Gers had been the ‘new boy’ in Maiden before I joined, and he’s such a lovely guy, so he took me under his wing. Man On The Edge was written in the home studio of his house in London. I had a book of lyrics and poems and ideas, and when Janick started playing the riff, I started flicking through my book, and I remembered this idea I had for a…

My first album was Elton John’s live album, 17-11-70, which I bought from Woolworths in Hadleigh, Essex in 1978 for about £1.29. I was 14 years old and bought it with the money from my first week’s paper round. I either couldn’t find or, couldn’t afford, the ‘proper’ release known as 11-17-70 (the US date format). My friends and I eschewed the music of the day, and were catching up with rock from the early ’70s – Zeppelin, Purple, Floyd, etc. I was just getting into collecting post-Beatles singles but a mate, who lived round the corner, had already begun to acquire a decent Elton collection and we’d listen to them during the school holidays. This was around the time of A Single Man. I remember his ‘performance’ on Morecambe…

NICHOLAS BERKELEY MASON BORN January 27, 1944, Edgbaston, Birmingham OCCUPATION Drummer Producer Author YEARS ACTIVE 1964-Present ASSOCIATED ACTS Pink Floyd Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets Mason & Fenn 1966 WAS A MOMENTOUS yEAr FOr NICHOLAS Berkeley Mason. That summer, the 21-year-old architecture student from London took a Pan Am 707 to New york. His trip was supposed to be educational: an opportunity to study the Guggenheim and Lever Building up close. But Mason was also the drummer in The Pink Floyd Sound, alongside fellow trainee architects, roger Waters and rick Wright, and their art-school friend, Syd Barrett. By then, the group were performing at hip underground venues around London, soundtracking the first stirrings of the Summer of Love. In New york, Mason stumbled across a copy of counter-culture newspaper East…

TOBY JEPSON is the frontman of melodic rockers Wayward Sons and, since March 1, the presenter of a new weekly show on Planet Rock radio, airing every Sunday from 5pm to 7pm. Formerly the vocalist of Little Angels, Fastway, Gun and Dio’s Disciples, the Lincoln-born musician has also served time as a producer, working with artists such as Saxon, The Answer and The Virginmarys, and shared the screen with Hollywood superstars Johnny Depp, Tom Hanks and Michael Fassbender during a career-break from music. Naturally, he’s got a few stories to tell… It seemed as if Little Angels arrived fully-formed on the British rock scene in the 1980s, but as with most ‘overnight sensations’, presumably there were years of preparation before the band started getting attention… Massively so. We started playing…

IT SEEMS ENTIRELY appropriate to learn that Jaren Johnston, Kelby Ray and Neil Mason first shared a stage on America’s Independence Day, for few bands celebrate life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness with quite so much joyous enthusiasm as The Cadillac Three. This lust for life is displayed throughout the Nashville trio’s fine new album, Country Fuzz, which, with its tireless commitment to having a good time, all the time, is effectively a concept album themed around Southern hospitality, BBQs, beer, whiskey and fun-loving ladies in ‘Daisy Dukes’. There’s a certain calculation to this relentless ‘Party on Wayne! Party on Garth!’ schtick: four albums into their career the band know exactly what hits the spot with their audience, and when on the track It’s Hard Out Here Out For…

1 Never Satisfied (on Rocka Rolla, 1974) Vintage swagger from Priest’s debut LP. First played at Hucknall Miners’ Welfare Club in Nottingham, apparently, and revived for their 2011 tour. 2 Victim Of Changes (on Sad Wings Of Destiny, 1976) “Whiskey women don’t you know that you are driving me in-s-a-a-a-ne!” announces Halford, blueprinting the high drama of future Priest epics. 3 The Ripper (on Sad Wings Of Destiny, 1976) Inspiring Spinal Tap’s fictional rock opera Saucy Jack, this ode to the Victorian serial killer drips camp menace like blood from a butcher’s knife. 4 Tyrant (on Sad Wings Of Destiny, 1976) Textbook late-’70s headbanger, suggesting Genghis Khan and his murderous hordes laying waste to 11th-century Eurasia. Peerless Halford shriek at 4:28. 5 Sinner (on Sin After Sin, 1977) Howling banshee…

SILVER LINING MUSIC Raunchy debut served with lashings of piss and vinegar. By heeding the call of the almighty riff, Naked Six’s Seb Byford may have unwittingly wandered into the family business. However, his gritty trio have more in common with the ripped jeans and shredded tonsils of Big Black or Nirvana than the NWOBHM heroics of his Saxon-leading father, Biff. As the title track of Lost Art Of Conversation amply illustrates, Naked Six are all about Seb’s sneering rants, shit-kicking drums and hooks that often feel too polished to match their authors’ ratty trainers. Far more compelling is Song Of The City, a classic punk travelogue of urban hedonism that stumbles into a saxophone meltdown. Elsewhere, The Change’s languorous psychedelia channels Jane’s Addiction before Outside Looking In delivers an…

BMGS4 A bespoke coat of arms for your 50th anniversary. Though such talents as King Crimson/Uriah Heep’s John Wetton and Bowie’s Spiders From Mars-era bassist Trevor Bolder have passed through their ranks, Andy Powell has remained Wishbone Ash’s one Gibson Flying V-wielding constant. Still, as he himself acknowledges, the addition of Mark Abrahams – he learned guitar from playing Wishbone songs from the age of nine – has been salubrious, and Coat Of Arms is a fine return worthy of this old English classic’s halfcentury. Full of folksyelectric guitar hooks – witness the title track and that cracking instrumental break in Too Cool For AC – the album also packs an Asia-like ace in Drive, and a neat self-homage to Wishbone’s 1976 track (In All Of My Dreams) You Rescue…

HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS Ex-Kyuss man goes back to basics on album 13. Brant Bjork is a jack of all trades when it comes to lo-fi desert rock. Although he’s best known as a drummer (Kyuss, Fu Manchu, et al), Bjork’s solo output sees the multi-instrumentalist performing everything himself. His master-ofnone approach is a good thing, creating an uncomplicated vibe with songs built on simple rhythms and melodies. In fact, Bjork’s warmly unpretentious blues rock on the likes of opener Jungle In The Sound and Jesus Was A Bluesman is laid back to the point of inertia, though drums and percussion drive the likes of the sultry Mary (You’re Such A Lady) or the jazzy overtones of Stardust & Diamond Eyes. Brant Bjork is a contrast to the funk and psychedelia…

SELF-RELEASED Rising Brighton rockers go for gold on third full-length. If you’re going to have a frontman who calls himself Nikki Smash, you’d better make sure your music is as every bit as hard-hitting as the name calls for. Thankfully in the case of this Brighton trio, there are no disappointments on that front – as evidenced by their third album’s opening title track layering synths and strings into its own orchestra of nu-metal guitars and grunge-y hooks. With Chris Sheldon (Therapy?, Foo Fighters, Biffy Clyro) behind the desk for the mixing process there was always going to be more depth and sh….een to these recordings, his treatment intensifying the dimensions of their heaviness – from moments of pure Rage Against The Machine worship to the more emo-leaning melodies heard…

CHESS/UMC Previously unreleased Gallagher of maximum potency. “When was the last time you heard a guitarist really play guitar?” ran a Chrysalis Records ad promoting Gallagher’s Calling Card tour. Listening to Check Shirt Wizard, a stunning document of said jaunt, you can hear what Rush’s Alex Lifeson would call Gallagher’s “ability to transcend the moment”, the Irishman’s jaw-droppingly ‘on it’ performances wonderfully alive. On stand-outs such as Moonchild and Calling Card, there is an extraordinary, ‘anything’s possible’ confidence to Gallagher’s soloing, and even the traditional acousticguitar breather slot featuring Out On The Western Plain has the Sheffield City Hall enraptured. To these ears, this set is right up there with his classic live album Irish Tour ’74. BEST TRACKS: Do You Read Me, Moonchild, Calling Card…

RHINO Thrash classic gets a deluxe repackaging after 31 years. The ’80s were an exciting time for extreme metal fans. While thrash raged in the Bay Area of San Francisco, death metal was rising from the swamps of Florida. Yet those two worlds collided in an unexpected place – Belo Horizonte in Brazil. Locals Sepultura were already two albums and an EP old, but their hunger for more took them to New York to sign a deal with Roadrunner Records – Beneath The Remains being their first release for the label in 1989. From the frenzied riffing on the title track to the brutal blasts of album closer Primitive Future, the young Brazilians displayed nuanced songwriting beyond their tender years – then featuring brothers Max and Igor Cavalera and mainstays…

OMNIBUS PRESS Yes guitar man tells all in somewhat odd memoir. “To my utter disgust, he strummed it,” says Howe of a Russian border guard who dared to inspect his prized Gibson 175. Documenting at length which guitar he used where and his love of stats in airplane mag Interavia, Howe’s book can be a tad insipid, but encounters with Spike Milligan, George Harrison, Les Paul and Eric Clapton enliven his meticulous, personnelproblems-dense account of his years in Yes and Asia, and more colourful moments include Howe bonding with some chickens while on LSD. If the guitarist’s pop at his almost universally loved bandmate Rick Wakeman over the length of his 2017 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction speech seems a tad bitter, more fun reveals here include Howe…

JANIS JOPLIN I Got Dem Ol’ Kozmic Blues Again Mama! COLUMBIA, 1969 SINGERS HAVE been leaving bands to go solo since the beginning of rock’n’roll, so when in autumn 1968 Janis Joplin announced she was departing Big Brother And The Holding Company, then at Number 1 in the US albums chart with Cheap Thrills and Number 12 in the singles chart with Piece Of My Heart, there were cries of ‘sell out’, but not surprise. Joplin had joined the San Franciscan hard-rockin’ psychedelic blues band in 1966 and her status quickly elevated from queen of the counterculture to bona fide rock star after her devastating vocal performances on the aforesaid Piece Of My Heart and Ball And Chain at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. The transition from band leader…