Paul ‘Tonka’ Chapman

Welcome

So, I can’t say that when I wrote my editorial

THE FIVE FACES OF DEEP PURPLE

They ended their Long Goodbye Tour last year, but with their last three albums putting them on a (rock and) roll, none of Deep Purple are even contemplating retirement

NEARLY LOST YOU

That Mark Lanegan is alive is a surprise - to him as much as to anyone else. His self-destructive days are now behind him, but for years it looked like we would be robbed of one of the stand-out singing voices of his generation

’I’ve Never Done Anything Out Of The Blue…’

After the minimalism of his ‘Berlin trilogy’, in 1980 David Bowie and his longtime producer Tony Visconti went all out for a kitchen-sink art-rock album. “We wanted to make our Sgt. Pepper!” The result: Scary Monsters

SALE OF THE CENTURY

Despite being “a bit stuck for ideas”, Genesis went into the studio and emerged with what may be their artistic peak: Selling England By The Pound. In our exclusive book extract, Gabriel, Hackett, Collins, Rutherford and Banks tell the tale of their ourth album

COUNTRY ROADS

While the Allman Brothers Band are retired and Lynyrd Skynyrd are preparing to follow suit, one of their contemporaries continue to stick to their path. As their heart-felt song title insists: Southern Rock Will Never Die, as long as the Outlaws are still standing

HEAVY GOODS VEHICLE

With touring on hold (thanks, covid-19) and a new album just out, Massive Wagons take us back to the times and gigs that shaped them. Expect booze, blood, band members in drag… and of course plenty of heavyweight rock’n’roll

Tour Dates

Stars always turn out whenever the “guitarists’ guitarist” and Rock

Live Music And The Road Ahead

Are drive-in gigs and pay-per-view concerts the post-pandemic future?

RIP

Thank you and good night

Steve Priest

THE SWEET’S LAST surviving co-founding member has died of an

First Class Delivery!

Queen appear on new Royal Mail postage stamps

Lemmy In The Frame

Biopic of Motörhead man to begin production next year

NEWS

The acoustic guitar played by Kurt Cobain on Nirvana’s MTV

Primal Fear

The band that came about through Judas Priest saying no return with album number (hopefully lucky) thirteen

Girish And The Chronicles

Steeped in the hard rock sounds of the 70s and 80s, they aim to be India’s premier metal band

BURIED TREASURE

Riches from the rock underground

The Dowling Poole

While their tunes shine with the gloss of polished pop, there’s a lot more to their lyrics than cars and girls

MY FIRST LOVE Led Zeppelin LED ZEPPELIN IV

The Goldray and former Reef guitarist on a “fantastic” rock classic

Lynne Jackaman

The former Saint Jude singer goes it alone, with help from musicians who’ve backed some of the true greats

Thundermother

A new approach (and a new line-up) has taken these Swedish rockers to the next level

Dion

The 60s teen idol on the blues, getting Dylan to write his sleeve-notes, and being blown away by Jerry Lee Lewis

Stevie Nicks (with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers) Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around

A song from Tom Petty’s reject pile unwittingly became a Petty/Nicks duet, and the massive hit single that launched the Fleetwood Mac icon’s solo career

The Texas Gentlemen

A band before they were actually a band, having clocked up the miles as sidemen, they’ve got all musical bases covered

Eyes On The Prize

Following high-profile stints with Melissa Etheridge and Lizzo, singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Celisse is now prepping an album of her own

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

The Blinders arrived in 2018 as the incendiary, politically attuned rock band to beat. Now they’re back with their game-raising album Fantasies Of A Stay At Home Psychopath

Bob Dylan

His thirty-ninth album is a masterly late summation of his artistic vision

Alanis Morissette

Piano balladry and serious soul-searching for album nine

Various

Back in the noughts, true believer Sal Canzonieri, of Electric

Fontaines D.C.

Fontaines D.C., the frontrunners of the emerging Dublin punk scene,

Deep Purple

And still they rise. With Bob Ezrin producing again, Purple have fun, stretch out and shine brighter

Nick Marsh

From the gorgeous melancholia of sumptuous album opener Masquerade (pitched

Alan Merrill

Former Arrow Alan Merrill wrote I Love Rock & Roll,

Primal Fear

With 12 albums of thunderous, none-moreclassic heavy metal under their

Ten Foot Wizard

Hot on the heels of an attention-grabbing set at Glastonbury

Magick Touch

This Norwegian trio cite a raft of major British names

The Residents

Forty-seven (or so) albums in, and San Francisco’s always intriguing,

The City Kids

As supergroups go, the City Kids are no Traveling Wilburys

The Jayhawks

Sharing doesn’t always work in rock’n’roll bands; delegation, hierarchy and

Asylums

Southend art-rockers Asylums might have thought it was just them

ROUND-UP: SLEAZE

The enduring beauty of The Erotics is that they make

Alcatrazz

Graham Bonnet’s post-Rainbow project resurfaces on record after a long rebirth

Steve Howe

Given that the outside world appears to be burning to

Dirty Streets

If you could distil the Dirty Streets experience into three

BPMD

Now this is fun: a bunch of top metal musos

Goldray

Goldray’s 2017 debut album, Rising, was a pleasant surprise for

NOFX Vs Frank Turner

Raise twins on opposite sides of the Atlantic and they’ll

Thundermother

When four- fifths of Thundermother quit in 2017, leaving founder/

Cro-Mags

Two decades have passed since Cro-Mags last released a studio

Dee Snider

It may be just a detail, but that exclamation mark

ROUND-UP: BLUES

From busker and addict to solo contender and Stones associate,

Massive Wagons

Lancaster rockers unleash the decibels with studio album number five

Angeles

In 1981, Los Angeles band Angeles co-headlined a show with

Alain Johannes

As befits an artist who has worked in close proximity

Ocean Alley

The sun almost bleached out in a sky of white,

Enuff Z’Nuff

Since forming in Chicago in 1984, Enuff Z’Nuff have had

Seasick Steve

Tenth album from the man formerly known as Steven Wold

Ali Maas & Micky Moody

The follow-up to 2016’s Black And Chrome, Who’s Directing Your

Lonely Robot

Jocular polymath John Mitchell (producer, writer, band leader) has, it

U.D.O. And The Musikkorps Der Bundeswehr

It was written in the stars that ex-Accept vocalist Udo

John Foxx And The Maths

John Foxx and musician/ producer Ben Edwards (aka Benge) have

The Grateful Dead

West Coast hippie jam band’s change-ofdirection album, now with full

The Stooges

A half-century on and we’re still riding the ripples of

Be-Bop Deluxe

A schizoid sprawl of glammed-up histrionics, prog, blues and rustic

Keith Relf

Fragile, charismatic Yardbirds frontman Keith Relf has remained a mysteriously

Joy Division

As the NME commented with wry understatement: “[This album] cannot

Various

Three-disc celebration of British heavy metal’s last big hurrah

Rolling Stone: Life And Death Of Brian Jones

Dir: Danny Garcia WIENERWORLD

Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die

Excellent, lavishly illustrated compendium of Punk & Post Punk Graphics

Echo In The Canyon

The Laurel Canyon scene gets its time in the sun

A Genesis In My Bed

Steve Hackett is late to the autobiography game, and competing

Spencer Leigh

So many have tried to tell Bob Dylan’s tale, that

Ganser

Navigating the choppy waters between post- punk, post-rock and post-

BEST OF THE REST

Other new releases out this month

Frank Zappa

1970 was a busy year for Zappa, having released three

Various

Punk film director Julien Temple’s ambitious attempt to fashion a

INXS

High-definition live document of Australian rock icons at their brilliant

Roger Waters: Us + Them

In a world in which the live rehashing of Pink

Eighties Soundtracks

It was the decade of brat packers, teen movies and films about fast cars and even faster fighter pilots. Many with killer scores

A NIGHT TO REMEMBER

With the continued absence of proper gigs, Classic Rock writers reminisce about some of their most memorable gig-going experiences. Cue vivid, nostalgia-soaked memories of Jimmy Page & Robert Plant, David Bowie, Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers, Europe and more…

The Soundtrack Of My Life

Halestorm singer/guitarist Lzzy Hale on the records, artists and gigs that are of lasting significance for her