ROX Alive was created by ROX Network. It provides up to minute rock and metal news plus information on audio gear, technology, live venues, record companies and more!
For more than 20 years, BSC has been capturing and exporting the sounds of Memphis and the Delta region. It is our mission to celebrate the culture of our region by sharing our music with the world.
Beale Street Caravan, the most widely distributed blues radio program in the world, attracts more than 2.4 million listeners each week. Produced in the home of the blues and the birthplace of rock & roll, Beale Street Caravan covers the world with The Sounds of Memphis. Each week,our audience experiences the heartfelt sounds and colorful stories of Memphis music in intimate, live-in-concert performances.
Now on ROX Radio every Tuesday from 9pm to stream whenever ya like. First episode is out on 4th October 2022 at www.roxnetwork.co.uk or find us on audio streamers, ROX Radio
Donnington Monsters of Rock loved Dio. His two appearances were both iconic and awe inspiring. Therefore, it's fitting that the two concert recordings from his 83 and 87 shows be immortalised forever.
Ronnie James Dio's band were always great live (and on album!) and these two legendary concerts were no exception. It is strange, however, that we see a re-release of the shows again so soon after they were put out together by Niji as a double album in 2010. But hey, some people may be new to Dio and the shows or want a newer edition.
The original version wasn't exactly new either with some of the songs being previously released as bonus tracks on studio album re-issues. It's still great to have the gig as one album (albeit an edit of the full concerts). It was, however, damn fine!
And now it's 2022 and time for these concerts to be re-issued but this time as two seperate albums. This time the complete concets. Nice!
On September 23rd, Niji Entertainment & BMG will release two legendary live performances from DIO at the Donington Festival in the UK. DIO AT DONINGTON ‘83 captures the original DIO lineup on the HOLY DIVER TOUR and captures a young, hungry band 3 months after the release of their debut album. The set features classic tracks from Ronnie James Dio’s already amazing career as vocalist for Rainbow and Black Sabbath, alongside soon to be classics like “Holy Diver”, “Rainbow In The Dark”, and “Stand Up And Shout”.
Following three hugely successful studio albums and silver, gold, and platinum certifications around the world, DIO AT DONINGTON ’87 captures the DREAM EVIL line up, and features such classics as “The Last In Line”, “Rock ‘n’ Roll Children,” and “All The Fools Sailed Away”.
Additionally, both discs contain killer renditions of both RAINBOW and BLACK SABBATH classics, including “Man On The Silver Mountain”, “Neon Knights”, “Stargazer”, and “Heaven and Hell”, among others.
As the singer of Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Heaven and Hell, and his own band, Ronnie James Dio is often considered to be one of rock’s all-time great vocalists, who sadly passed away in 2010, after battling stomach cancer. However, Dio’s music continues to connect with the masses – the official Ronnie James Dio Facebook page has over 2.5 million followers, his music on Spotify receives over 3 million monthly listeners, and in the most recent season of the hit Netflix series, STRANGER THINGS, the popular character Eddie Munson sports a large “DIO” patch on the back of his beloved denim jacket.
DIO AT DONINGTON ’83 & ’87 is available in both LIMITED EDITION 2LP & CD configurations.
Each features a 3D / Lenticular art print of the cover.
The LP sets feature an exclusive etching on Side D.
DIO AT DONINGTON ’83
Track Listing
1Stand Up and Shout (Live at Donington '83)
2Straight Through the Heart (Live at Donington '83)
3Children of the Sea (Live at Donington '83)
4Rainbow in the Dark (Live at Donington '83)
5Holy Diver (Live at Donington '83)
6Drum Solo (Live at Donington '83)
7Stargazer (Live at Donington '83)
8Guitar Solo (Live at Donington '83)
9Heaven and Hell (Live at Donington '83)
10Man on the Silver Mountain (Live at Donington '83)
11Starstruck (Live at Donington '83)
12Man on the Silver Mountain (Reprise) [Live at Donington '83]
Personnel:
Ronnie James Dio – Vocals
Vivian Campbell – Guitar
Jimmy Bain – Bass
Vinny Appice – Drums
Claude Schnell – Keyboards
DIO AT DONINGTON ‘87
Track Listing
1Dream Evil (Live at Donington '87)
2Neon Knights (Live at Donington '87)
3Naked in the Rain (Live at Donington '87)
4Rock and Roll Children (Live at Donington '87)
5Long Live Rock and Roil (Live at Donington '87)
6The Last in Line (Live at Donington '87)
7Children of the Sea (Live at Donington '87)
8Holy Diver (Live at Donington '87)
9Heaven and Hell (Live at Donington '87)
10Man on the Silver Mountain (Live at Donington '87)
11All the Fools Sailed Away (Live at Donington '87)
12The Last in Line (Reprise) [Live at Donington '87]
13Rainbow in the Dark (Live at Donington '87)
Personnel:
Ronnie James Dio – Vocals
Craig Goldy – Guitar
Jimmy Bain – Bass
Vinny Appice – Drums
Claude Schnell – Keyboards
Both albums are great examples of how and why Ronnie Dio and the boys were so loved by the fans. Dio gave it his all every single night. He held the audience in the palm of his tiny hand as he belted out classics one after the other. Audio quality is spot on and album designs are great too with some clever artwork and fan loving touches.
He never dissapointed. These albums will NOT dissapoint you either
Starting 28th September 2022, Dr Ducks fantastic show "Guitar Prescription" will be available on ROX Radio.
With a new edition released on ROX every Wednesday at 10pm to stream any time ya like!
Dr.Ducks Guitar Prescription Radio Show is a series of one hour celebrations of guitar players and guitar music in general - we play the most incredibly awesome guitar music in the world coming to you one right after another - with commentary, quotes, historical perspective and trivia on the evolution of guitar playing - tying it all together
Coming to you straight from out here in the desert of Las Vegas Nevada USA. - the entertainment and party capitol of the world !!
Presented by John "Dr Duck" Duck, we are excited to bring this great show to our listeners on ROX Radio.
After close to three years in the making, John (Dr. Duck) Duck, the manufacturer of the guitar polish, Dr.Ducks Ax Wax & String Lube, has announced that Dr. Ducks Guitar Prescription Radio Show is now available globally thanks to a number of radio stations carrying the show, who broadcast via conventional air waves and "stream" on the world wide web.
John Duck was 10 years old when he first heard Duane Eddy's 1958 hit "Rebel Rouser." He knew right then he'd found his calling. "It was like getting hit by a grenade," Duck recalls. "My parents had a guitar around, and I knew a few chords, but I actually sat down and made sense of that song. You've got that sax in the back while the guitarist does that growl/twang thing, and the solo is just obscene. I haven't been the same since."
Fifty years later, he remains a devoted guitar-music listener. Every Sunday night at midnight, the Vegas-based Duck bestows his instrumental adoration onto audiences in his hometown and some 15 additional markets in the form of Dr. Duck's Guitar Prescription, an hour of guitar-based music blending genres and eras most non-traditionally.
"I've just got to respect it to play it," says Duck, who began broadcasting his weekly guitar "doses" in January on his show's home station, KUNV 91.5-FM, directly after local mainstay The Lyon's Den. "There's a lot of commercial stuff that's probably not gonna make it onto the show, and there are tunes from certain artists that you won't expect."
Show No. 2, for example, placed rockers Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson, Jeff Beck and Guns N' Roses alongside old-timers Link Wray and Bo Diddley, jazzman Charlie Byrd, country player Vince Gill and flamenco/fusion maestro Ottmar Liebert. "We're all over the map," he acknowledges proudly. "A guy in Great Britain sent in a CD, and it's strong. So we're going to fit him in, right between Django Reinhardt and Herb Ellis."
Between songs, the program relies on pre-recorded sounds-background chatter, bottles clanking and the like-to provide a party atmosphere, bolstered by banter from his "Ducky Girls." "There's some shtick and some schmaltz," concedes Duck, best known for concocting Dr. Duck's Ax Wax, a popular guitar and string treatment product that has been on the market since 1992. "I just want it to seem like there's a live party going on here and we're bringing the party to you."
As a guitarist, Duck, in his words, "played with a number of people and came pretty close to making it," but that's in the past. These days, the good doctor is happiest when he's prescribing a heavy diet of guitar over the airwaves, and describing his handpicked tunes with enthusiastic gusto: "'Smoke on the Water' it's a nasty lick the way it comes on is just like Tyrannosaurus Rex just walked into the living room and he's having a bad hair day." - Las Vegas Weekly / June 12-18, 2008 / Spencer Patterson
Why syndicate Dr.Ducks Guitar Prescription ? -
We're bringing you 2 really "White Hot" topics to present to your audience at the same time -
1)- "Guitar" (check out the sales on all of the Guitar and Musician Video Games - it's done more to spark a new interest in guitar than anything else has in decades) ... and
2)- "Las Vegas" (there's now a poker game going on TV ...it seems like almost every day .. every hour)
... you can hear the party going on in the background whenever the music is not playing ...
... then you hear the Ducky Girls say either "Go Ducky Go" or "It's All About Guitar" or "What's Up Next Dr.Duck?" ...
... then the voice comes on ... it's Dr.Duck himself ... with "Welcome to Dr.Ducks Guitar Prescription ... coming to you straight from the Wild West ... Las Vegas Nevada USA ... the Entertainment and Party Capitol of the World !!"
... and now it feels like Saturday night ... and everything is happening ... the party in the background is at a mild roar now ... you hear the Ducky Girls say something again .... and now you're there ... you're at the party too ... it's warm ...
... and then the most incredibly awesome guitar music in the world ... from the very best players known ... in all different genre of music is coming to you ... one right after another ... back to back ... and the party in the background is really starting to wail ...
... you can feel it all over and hope that you don't loose that radio signal ... at least not now ...
Original Liner notes (now not included due to Waters/Gilmour dispute)
A note from Roger Waters to Pink Floyd fans:
As I am banned by Dave Gilmour from posting on Pink Floyd’s Facebook page with its 30,000,000 subscribers, I am posting this announcement here today and in full on rogerwaters.com.
First, a warm welcome back to our little band of brothers and sisters who have always kept an open mind, let’s hope some of the fans whose access to my words is suppressed by Gilmour find their way here and discover some truth.
What precipitated this note is that there are new James Guthrie Stereo and 5.1 mixes of the Pink Floyd album Animals, 1977. These mixes have languished unreleased because of a dispute over some sleeve notes that Mark Blake has written for this new release. Gilmour has vetoed the release of the album unless these liner notes are removed. He does not dispute the veracity of the history described in Mark’s notes, but he wants that history to remain secret. This is a small part of an ongoing campaign by the Gilmour/Samson camp to claim more credit for Dave on the work he did in Pink Floyd, 1967-1985, than is his due. Yes he was, and is, a jolly good guitarist and singer. But, he has for the last 35 years told a lot of whopping porky pies about who did what in Pink Floyd when I was still in charge. There’s a lot of “we did this” and “we did that,” and “I did this” and “I did that.” So, two things:
(1). I am agreeing to the release of the new Animals remix, with the sleeve notes removed. Good work James Guthrie by the way, and sorry Mark Blake. The final draft of the liner notes was fact checked and agreed as factually correct by me, Nick and Gilmour. Here they are, enjoy, there’s nothing controversial, just a few simple facts.
Mark Blake: Liner Notes
Pink Floyd: Animals
Despite being recorded in London during the long, summer heatwave of 1976, Pink Floyd’s Animals remains a dark album. Its critique of capitalism and greed caught the prevailing mood in Britain: a time of industrial strife, economic turmoil, The Troubles in Northern Ireland, and the race riots of Notting Hill. The album was released on January 23rd 1977, but the roots of Pink Floyd’s tenth studio album go back earlier in the decade. Following the success of 1973’s The Dark Side Of The Moon, Pink Floyd pondered their next move. During a two-to-three week jam session in early 1974, the band worked on ideas for three new compositions. From these sessions the band developed Shine On You Crazy Diamond, (A passionate tribute to Syd Barrett, words by Roger Waters. Added by me, sorry couldn’t help it.) which became the centrepiece of Floyd’s next album, Wish You Were Here, and Raving And Drooling (composed by Roger Waters) and You Gotta Be Crazy written by Waters and David Gilmour.
Raving And Drooling was a tale of violent social disorder, while You Gotta Be Crazy told the story of a soulless businessman clawing and cheating his way to the top. Both were performed live for the first time on the Floyd’s winter tour of 1974. They were both considered for the Wish You Were Here album, but Roger insisted that neither song was relevant to the overall idea, that “Wish You Were Here” was essentially about absence, and as neither song fitted his conception of the record’s overall theme, neither song should be included. The band eventually concurred. Scroll forward two years, and Roger had an idea for the next Pink Floyd album. He borrowed from George Orwell’s allegorical story, Animal Farm, in which pigs and other farmyard animals were reimagined anthropomorphically. Waters portrays the human race as three sub-species trapped in a violent, vicious cycle, with sheep serving despotic pigs and authoritarian dogs. You Gotta be Crazy and Raving And Drooling perfectly fitted his new concept. In the meantime, a year earlier, the group had bought a set of disused church buildings in Britannia Row, Islington, which they’d converted into a studio and storage facility. Prior to this every Pink Floyd studio release had been partly or wholly recorded at Abbey Road studios. Pink Floyd had also found a new recording engineer. Brian Humphries, an engineer from Pye studios, who they had met while recording the sound track for “More”, a movie directed by Barbet Schroeder. Brian had gone on to engineer Wish You Were Here at Abbey Road, and also helped them out on the road, so they had got to know him very well. Using their own studio marked a significant change in their working methods. There were setbacks and teething problems, but also a great sense of freedom.
Following Roger’s instincts about the new songs paid off, the songs had an aggressive edge far removed from the luxuriant soundscapes on Wish You Were Here. It was a timely change of direction. At Britannia Row, he renamed Raving And Drooling, Sheep and Gotta Be Crazy became Dogs. The narrative was completed by the addition of two new Waters songs: Pigs (Three Different Ones) and Pigs On The Wing.
On Pigs (Three Different Ones), the lyrics namechecked Mary Whitehouse, the head of the National Viewers And Listeners Association. Whitehouse was an outspoken critic of sex and violence on British television and a topical target for Roger’s ire. The subject matter was bleak, but Nick Mason recalled lighter moments over dubbing songs with special effects and barnyard noises. While Sheep also made room for Roger’s blackly comic variation on Psalm 23: “He maketh me to hang on hooks in high places/ He converteth me to lamb cutlets…” The music and the performance mirrored the intensity of the lyrics. Keyboard player Richard Wright’s eerie-sounding synths and Hammond organ cranked up the unease. While David Gilmour’s shared lead vocal on Dogs and his guitar playing throughout Animals offered a striking counterpoint to Roger’s brutal lyrics. In contrast, Animals began and ended on an optimistic note. The verses of Pigs on The Wing were split in two and bookended the album. Roger’s lyrics and vocal performance of acoustic intro and outro (“You know that I care what happens to you/ And I know that you care for me too…”) suggested hope for humanity. The idea for Pink Floyd’s flying pig was also Roger’s. He had already commissioned its building as a stage device for the next tour. Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell of the design company Hipgnosis, had produced a number of design ideas for an Animals sleeve and presented them to the band but none of the band, liked them, and when Roger added his disapproval someone said, ”Well why don’t you come up with something better then?” So he did, on the drive from his house in South London to Britannia Row, he regularly passed Battersea Power Station. He was drawn to the imposing brick building, and by the number four. Four in the band, four phallic chimneys, and if the power station were turned upside down then it resembled a table with four legs. He pursued his idea and had a maquette made, a small scale model of the eventual full scale inflatable pig. He then took photographs of Battersea Power station and created a photographic mock up of an album sleeve. The rest of the band loved it. Storm and Po, who had designed all of the previous Pink Floyd album covers, graciously offered to source photographers for the photo shoot, and did. On the first day of the photo shoot, the pig failed to inflate. On the second day, it broke free of its moorings and disappeared into a beautiful brooding sky, prompting a frantic call to the police and a halt to all flights in and out of Heathrow. The pig eventually crash-landed in a farmer’s field in Kent.
The following day, the shoot went ahead without a hitch, great shots of pig in situ but no brooding sky. So Storm and Po stripped Day three Pig into Day two sky, bingo! History. Animals was a hit, reaching Number 2 in the UK and Number 3 in the US. Pink Floyd’s pig, Algie, made its live debut on their subsequent “In The Flesh” tour in 1977. At stadium shows in America, it was joined by another Water’s idea, an inflatable nuclear family comprising a mother, father and 2.5 children, surrounded by the spoils of a consumerist lifestyle: an inflatable Cadillac, oversized TV and refrigerator. Roger called it Electric Theatre. Both the album and the tour signposted the way to Pink Floyd’s next release, The Wall, and to Roger’s ever more ambitious ideas, both in terms of his music, narratives, politics and stage shows. But his themes and ideas explored on Animals have endured. More than 40 years on the album has been remixed in stereo and 5.1. In troubled times and an uncertain world, Animals is as timely and relevant now as it ever was.
Mark Blake
Thanks Mark, sorry you were redacted.
(2). I am in the middle of writing my Memoirs and inevitably some of it contains references to some of the content above. For anyone with a faint heart, I suggest you sit down, but anyone who likes a good laugh, sit back and fucking howl! 😂 🤣 ✊🏼 I’m going to sit back and howl along with you.
At the beginning of this post on the subject of porky pies, I say, “There’s an awful lot of “we did this” and “we did that,” and “I did this” and “I did that.” Right? So here’s a short extract from my memoir:
“As chance would have it I was doing a bit of delving in a book of press clippings and came across an interview David Fricke of Rolling Stone Magazine did with DG in a hotel room in NY in 1982, DG’s talking about the Cash register tape for the defining 7/8 rhythm on Money. The interview was published in Musician Magazine, so even back then DG was sowing the seeds of the false narrative. I quote this bit of the article verbatim:
David Fricke: “You recorded the sounds for ‘Money’ on a loop of tape.” Gilmour explains: ”You’re trying to get the impact from the cash register, ‘the snap, crack, crsssh,” You’d mark that one and then measure how long you wanted that beat to go, and that’s the piece you’d use. And you’d chop it together. It was trial and error. You just chop the tapes together, and if it sounds good, you use it. If it doesn’t, you take one section out and put a different one in. Sometimes we’d put one in and it’d be backwards, because the diagonal cut on the tape, if you turn it around is exactly the same. We’d stick that in and instead it would go ‘chung, dum, whoosh.’ And sound great so we’d use that.”
Well! The reason everything DG is saying here to David Fricke sounds like gobbledygook is because it is fucking gobbledygook. He has no fucking idea what he’s talking about. Why? Because unless he was hiding under the fucking chair, DG wasn’t there when I made that SFX tape loop for Money in the studio I shared with my wife Judy at the bottom of our garden at 187, New North Road, Islington, next door to the North Pole Pub where I used to play darts!
THE FULL STORY OF WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IS IN MY MEMOIRS!
So, I hope that whets your, and David and Polly’s appetites 😂
"Without Warning" is the second album by Decoy, a Danish/Swedish collaboration between songwriter and guitarist Torben Enevoldsen (Fate, Acacia Avenue) and singer Peter Sundell (C.O.P., Ex-Grand Illusion). This new album features Pete Steincke (Fate) on bass and Dennis Hansen (Acacia Avenue, Section A) on drums, and the style is very melodic hard rock, but with a touch of classic rock and metal.
Decoy is a collaboration between Swedish singer Peter Sundell (C.O.P., Ex-Grand Illusion) and Danish guitarist and song writer Torben Enevoldsen (Fate, Acacia Avenue). Enevoldsen reached out to Sundell back in 2006 as he was in need of a singer for a new project he was working on. Several songs were written, out of which 11 tracks ended up on the debut album entitled “Call Of The Wild”, released through AOR Heaven in 2007. Since then, Torben and Peter has been busy working on other projects, but kept in touch and also worked together on a few occasions. In 2020, Enevoldsen and Sundell started working together again, but not on a specific project. The overall style of the songs written was very melodic hard rock, but with a touch of classic rock, AOR and metal. Quickly enough songs were written to constitute a full album. The decision of releasing the album under the Decoy banner was made and Enevoldsen asked his good friend and band mate, Pete Steincke (Fate), if he would be interested in playing the bass. He agreed to participate, and so did Torben’s long time partner, Dennis Hansen (Acacia Avenue) who once again did the drums. The new album, entitled “Without Warning”, is scheduled to be released through Perris Records on September the 23rd.
LINE-UP:
Torben
Enevoldsen
- guitar
and keyboards,
Peter
Sundell -vocals, Dennis Hansen -Drums, Pete
Steincke-bass.
This "Squeeze It Dry" CD is a re-issue of the 1993 JRS/BMG release featuring all new artwork. After the re-issue of the "Self Titled" release selling out in a few weeks Perris Records has decided to re-issue the "Squeeze It Dry" CD. This CD has Erik Turner (Warrant) Tommy Thayer (KISS, BLACK 'N BLUE) & Pat Regan (Kiss, Deep Purple, Shotgun Messiah) producing two tracks "No Doubt" & "Whisky" and Pat Regan remixing previous tracks on the bands "Self Titled" release that are included on this release.
Cherry St. was formed in California by Michigan natives Tom 'Monroe' Mathers & Don ‘Spinner’ Korbecki in 1989 after recruiting Chris VanDahl on vocals and Todd “Taz” Anthony on guitar also from Michigan. Within a year Cherry St. released a 3 song demo distributed by Important/Relativity that sold over 8000 units worldwide. MTV also featured Cherry St. on the "Pay To Play" segment with members of Gun's n Roses, Bang Tango & Warrant. Jaimie Scott on bass guitar & Marc Razzle on drums was brought
in right after releasing the 3 song demo to start headlining Gazzari's, Whiskey, Troubadour, & the Roxy on the Hollywood Strip. Legendary Bill Gazzari presented Cherry St. the first colored star for Gazzari's, many bands like Bang Tango, Razzle (now Lit) also received stars.
In 1990 Cherry St. was offered to tour Texas and soon after the great response from packed shows and hundreds of fans showing up to the instore meet and greets.
More tours were booked in 29 states from Boston, Florida and all the way to Hawaii and sharing the bill with such bands as Dangerous Toys, Foreigner, Warrant, April Wine,Vince Neil, Slaughter, Pretty Boy Floyd, & Sweet F.A.. Cherry St. achieved many goals such as being the only unsigned band to have Music Plus Chain Stores feature 24" x 36" full color poster's & flats in all the stores in southern California to promote their 3 song tape distributed by Important/Relativivity. Many Tower Records also featured the full color poster's & flats in stores around southern California. Also in 1990 Cherry St. recorded a home video with many fans and celebrities and featuring the first video "The Walk'
with cameos like Bon Jovi, Sam Kinison (RIP), Tracci Guns, Jani Lane (RIP), Bret Michaels, CC Deville, & Lemmy (RIP).
In 1991 Kelly James replaced Razzle on drums and the band headed out on a US tour. In 1992 Jaime Scott joined Tyketto he was replaced by Redd Rosell. Soon after the "Self Titled" was released, Cherry St. signed with JRS/BMG to release "Squeeze It Dry". JRS records had The Stray Cats and Asia on their roster. Rikki Rockett offered to record Cherry St. at his studio, but because Sass Jordan and Motorhead were still in his studio, we would have not made the release date for a summer tour. At a past Roxy club show in Hollywood Erik Turner & Joey Allen from Warrant introduced Cherry St. The band kept in touch with Erik Turner and he had a production company with Tommy Thayer (KISS, BLACK 'N BLUE) so they were brought in to produce "Squeeze It Dry". Erik and Tommy had worked with Pat Regan (Kiss, Deep Purple, Shotgun Messiah) so it made perfect sense to finish "Squeeze It Dry" with Pat Regan recording & mixing the CD in his studio.
LINE-UP: Chris
VanDahl-Vocals,Tom
“Monroe” Mathers-Guitar, Todd
“Taz” Anthony-Guitar,
Redd Rosell-Bass, Tom
“Kelly James” Dobrentey-Drums TRACKLIST: 1.
No Doubt About 2.
Jenn 3.
Cherry Street 4.
Sure Was Fine 5.
Mary Goes Round 6.
Ah! 7.
Whisky 8.
Ring Around The Rosie 9.
Here I Come 10.
Shake Down Sally 11.
Speak No Evil 12.
Ahhh!
This week's edition of Rock School is streaming direct from this here page...
Double bill of biographies from two early blues legends!
Duke Ellington
At the end of his illustrious 50-year career in music, Duke Ellington wrote his biography. It’s a behind the scenes plethora of information about himself and the musicians who surrounded him. Those made the Ellington Orchestra unique
Bessie's Jazzy Blues
Although she wasn’t the first blues artist to record, she was most certainly an influential trailblazer. Frequently, her recordings were enhanced with jazz musicians like Fletcher Henderson, Louis Armstrong and many others
Gloryhammer with support from Brothers of Metal & Arion
KK Steel Mill, Wolverhampton, 10 September 2022
With three top metal bands on offer tonight, there were gonna be some sore heads and smiling faces abound!
Arion kicked off precendings with a professional, well timed and great sounding set consists of songs from their three albums to date (the most recent being "Vultures Die Alone from 2021" excellent album -ed.)
The five piece metal band from Finland blasted through the songs with prowess and the audience sang along enjoying every minute of their set. With great songs like "In The Name of Love" the boys kicked ass and got the crowd warmed up nicely. The guitar work of Iivo Kaipainen was a great mix of power and emotion which really helped back up the powerful yet soulful vocals of Lassi Vääränen. An exciting group of musicians who we're sure have a long, great, career ahead of them! 8/10
When Brothers (and one sister -ed! of Metal took to the stage at KK's it was then obvious why tonight called for the longer version of the stage. These load of Vikings were larger than life and used EVERY inch of that stage space. Dancing, headbanging, drinking, singing and playing like this was the last Viking party on Earth! They gave their all tonight for a very appreciated (and innebriated) audience. With such an array of talented, charismatic, musicians as BOM you really can't go wrong. Power, grace, raw energy, chanting, riffs - you got em!
The Viking warriors of the microphone Joakim Lindbäck Eriksson and Mats Nilsson are perfectly balanced by the beautiful and yet powerful voice of Ylva Eriksson and they all work together and work the crowd brilliantly. Talking of talent - let's talk about the THREE guitarists belting out the riffs and solos here, namely, Dawid Grahn, Pähr Nilsson and Mikael Fehrm, were top notch with great sense of both power and space for each other tonally. The pounding viking party beat was kept at all times well too by drummer Johan Johansson and bassist (replied with animal skin loin cloth girls!) Emil Wärmedal . Each song as a sing-a-long epic quality that works so well live. This is Viking party music right here with drink a-flowin' and songs-a-singin' Wolverhampton style. Tonight the Vikings did take Wolverhampton and I'm sure made new fans. 10/10 https://www.facebook.com/brothersofmetalofficial/
And then it was time of some fantasy of the goblin and hammer variety...
Gloryhammer never take themselves too seriously which is good given some of the songs they do!
Another band of highly talented musicians who know all about space, time and power. Each song is crafted to be catchy and anthemic as well as emotive and epic, This kind of power metal is what stages like KKs is built for. The audience lapped up the polished metal songs tonight as well as the obligatory Thor's Hammer and Goblin. It wouldn't be a Gloryhammer gig with that those. Remember though guys, it's not the size of the hammer..
.There's only so far you can with the dungoens and dragons thing so over the years Gloryhammer have added more Sci-Fi elements on their album "Legends from Beyond the Galactic Terrorvortex" from which several of tonight's songs were lifted. Their was of course also hooting. LOTS of hooting. Boy do Gloryhammer fans love a good hoot! This does, however, get a little tiring for the less obsessed metal fan. Their's no doubting that the band are great at what they do and vocalist Sozos Michael has a powerful on-stage presence that works well. The band chemistry is great and fun-loving which is great to see but sometimes they should consider how they all work in the live mix. Sometimes, the guitar sound of Paul Templing was drowned out or sounded really thin. The keyboards of Christopher Bowes were a little too powerful and fighting the guitar for frequences.
I'm certainly not saying anyone played anything but great. Just needed a little space in their "space" if ya'll know what I mean. A fine gig by Gloryhammer who do what they do so very well. 8/10
NESTOR takes you straight back to the golden age of 80's hard rock!
Formed more than three decades ago in 1989 only to fall into a slumbering hibernation lasting until last year, Swedish hard rock outfit NESTORdecided to reunite, reinvent the iconography of rock and restore its glory in 2021 with their debut album – yes, their debut album – Kids in a ghost town. With friendship as the fundament of this unique, seemingly unbreakable bond, NESTORare back for good and better than ever!
Upon its initial release, NESTOR’s acclaimed first album, Kids in a ghost town, sent their fans on a journey back in time to the 80s, both in sound and spirit, as well as with their completely self-produced music videos – all of which spurred a nomination for a Swedish Hard Rock/Metal Grammis-Award! This is an album of such impressive scale in fact, that Napalm Records has decided to re-release Kids in a ghost town in various exclusive editions, set for release on September 30, 2022!
NESTOR embraces influence from the 80s with a sense of nostalgia and authenticity. With glossy production, NESTOR takes you straight back to the golden age of rock music, openly displaying their influences – from Bon Jovi and Aerosmith to Journey and Foreigner. With over 30 years of existence, NESTOR turn back time while being one of the hottest newcomers of modern rock music, with millions of streams on Spotify and hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube to boot, even having shared stages with the almighty ALICE COOPER, hard rock powerhouse H.E.A.T.and supporting the legendary KISS in Stockholm on their 2022 stadium tour!
The re-release ofKids in a ghost town includes the critically acclaimed full-length album as digital album including 3 new bonus tracks, CD, Black Vinyl LP and cassette tape, as well as a limited edition wooden boxset (+ exclusive 7" sun yellow transparent vinyl, 3 guitar picks, CD - Digisleeve & wristband) and Die Hard red transparent vinyl (+ exclusive 7" vinyl & patch).
Kids in a ghost town track list: 1 A Fanfare for the Reliable Rebel (Intro) 2 On the Run 3 Kids in a Ghost Town 4 Stone Cold Eyes 5 These Days 6 Tomorrow Feat. Samantha Fox 7 Signed in Blood (Bonustrack) 8 Perfect 10 (Eyes Like Demi Moore) 9 I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Bonustrack) 10 A Losing Game (Bonustrack) 11 We are not Ok 12 Firesign 13 1989 14 It Ain't Me
NESOTR are: Jonny Wemmenstedt (guitar) Mattias Carlsson (drums) Tobias Gustavsson (vocals) Marcus Åblad (bass) Martin Frejinger (keyboards) NESTOR online: Website Facebook Instagram Napalm Records
The
combination of big riffs, driving rhythms, thick yet lithe bass lines
and rich vocal melodies has made for some of the greatest music of all
time, and in the hands of Kings Of Mercia this recipe
is intoxicating. Best known as the founding guitarist for Fates Warning,
but with countless other projects under his belt - including Arch /
Matheos and most recently Tuesday The Sky - Jim Matheos is incapable of
stifling his creativity. In early 2021, he started working on the songs
that would become Kings Of Mercia’s self-titled debut
album, bringing his distinct style yet doing something a little
different. “I started writing without any real idea of what direction I
wanted to go in or what I was going to do with the material. The first
few songs came together quickly and were a bit more straightforward than
I’m used to, and I really liked that idea, kind
of going back to my early heavy/hard rock roots.” Not having any
pre-conceived ideas of what the record should or would end up sounding
like, at least early on, certainly helped, “as did the fact that it’s our first record, so there was nothing to measure it against or expectations to live up to, even if only in my own head.”
Churning
out songs, Matheos’ next concern was to find the musicians who would
help him realize the material, and his first priority was a vocalist.
Putting together a list of 30-40 contenders he contacted a handful but
none of them worked out for various reasons, and it was his friend Jeff
Wagner who suggested FM’s Steve Overland, and another friend, rock
journalist Dave Ling, who put them in touch with each other. “Jim had
asked Dave for my contact details, we talked about his idea for mixing
the two styles, his heavier background, with my melodic/bluesier
direction,” says Overland. “We decided to try a collaboration on one
song and see how it worked, we came up with the track “Humankind”,
and we both loved it.” The combination of Matheos’ riffs and Overland’s
vocals makes for perfect bedfellows, and the evident chemistry belies
the fact they have never met. “We both wrote on our own, me completing
songs instrumentally and then sending them to Steve who wrote the lyrics
and recorded the vocals on his own. But there was never a moment where
he said, ‘I don’t really like this part, or that song’, and likewise there was never anything that he sent me where I thought, ‘Hmm, I’m
not sure about that…’ Everything I sent to him he worked on as is and
everything he sent back to me ended up being final vocals, first time
around. So there wasn’t any of the usual ‘what if you try this instead?’ that I’m
so used to. That was really refreshing.” Having already settled on this
hard rock direction, it was only once Matheos got the first couple of
songs back from Overland that it became all the way clear of the shape
the record would take, with the vocalist sending over his parts every
few weeks, everything gradually coming together. “I think “Humankind” set a precedent for the way the album would go,” says Overland. “It’s a heavy anthemic track, but it’s
hooky and has melody. Although the songs all have their own identity, I
think they are all very powerful. Lyrically, it’s very varied, and
there is a different subject matter and story in every song, so there’s
no concept or thread that runs throughout the album.”
Behind
the kit for the record is the legendary Simon Phillips (ex-Toto, Derek
Sherinian), one of Matheos’ favorite drummers. “I decided to contact him
on a whim, not really expecting that he’d be
available or interested in this project. But, to my surprise, he liked
the music and was able to fit some recording into his schedule. It’s an honor to share a credit with him and I couldn’t
be happier with what he added to the record.” Rounding out the group is
bassist Joey Vera - Matheos’ Fates Warning bandmate - who brings his
trademark style and professionalism to the table. “My old friend and
co-worker Joey Vera was a natural choice for bass. Not only did I know
he would deliver performance-wise, but it was nice to have a familiar
face among the new personalities.” With these players involved it was an
easy, stress-free process throughout, making music for the love of it,
and coming up with something that sounds familiar yet new, expanding the
repertoire of all involved. This means songs like the half-acoustic
ballad, half-swaggering “Too Far Gone” or the beautiful “Everyday
Angels”, and the soaring “Wrecking Ball”, which opens the record on a
high note, all brought to life in dynamic style.
The hardest part of the whole process was coming up with a name for the band. “We didn’t
want to go with Matheos / Overland, or Overland / Matheos, etc, and
Steve and I probably batted around 50 ideas before settling on Kings Of Mercia. It’s pretty much the only one we both liked. There’s
no specific meaning or message behind it.” It made sense to self-title
the record due to it being the band’s debut, and given how much life
there is in the songs it would not be surprising if it did not become
the first of many, the combination of those involved creating something
special, and with Matheos’ permanent creative hunger you may well be
hearing a lot more from Kings Of Mercia.
LINE-UP: Jim MATHEOS - Guitars Steve OVERLAND - Vocals Simon PHILLIPS - Drums Joey VERA – Bass
Kings of Mercia TRACK-LISTING: Wrecking BallHumankindSweet RevengeSet the World on FireToo Far GoneLiberate MeNowhere ManEveryday AngelsIs It Right?Your Life
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