WHAT GOES ON
Things flow slower again chez DME. Life gets in the way of running the site. Guess it needs to be more personalised to be a bit bloggish, perhaps. If you agree, get in touch to voice your opinion. Anyway, a person close to DME tries his skills on re-writing the whole of the site’s mechanism, so complete overhaul seems imminent, although not as soon as one may wish. Content keeps on growing, still, with reviews and interviews, and the news, too. On to these now…
GOT THE BLUES
The world becomes poorer on the talent day by day.
Gary Moore went to rock heaven to jam with Phil Lynott, and there’s no words to describe this loss. A successor of Rory Gallagher as the best Irish guitarist, Gary ploughed the hard rock furrow with his old buddy Philo THIN LIZZY and navigated progressive waters with COLOSSEUM II under Jon Hiseman‘s guidance before striking on his own and gravitating towards the blues which he started exploring early on with SKID ROW. Known mostly for power ballads “Parisienne Walkways” and “Still Got The Blues”, there was much more to Moore, so he will be sadly missed.
So will be a rock svengali Don Kirshner, who steered THE MONKEES up the hill and created a popular TV weekly show “Rock Concert” that welcomed many a rock band such URIAH HEEP and UFO to name but two from the “U” chapter of Don’s book. Strangely, the tapes still didn’t make it onto a DVD, yet the problem will surely be addressed now that Kirshner’s gone.
TIME FOR ACTION
While we can’t ressurect the fallen heroes, it’s possible to save those who still is with is. Last summer Roger Nichols, an engineer behind such greats as Johnny Winter, TOTO and Diana Ross and STEELY DAN, to mention just a few, and producer for John Denver, was hit by pancreatic cancer at a serious stage and has been fighting for life ever since, so the medical bills just emptied his family’s saving. If you like his work, donate some dough here.
ALWAYS PLAYING CLEAN
The cancer fighting is everyone’s concern these days. In January, THE WHO headnlined the benefit concert at London’s Hammersmith Apollo, following Jeff Beck, Bryan Adams and other tuneful luminaries, but on March 24th the band’s singer Roger Daltrey, a long-time supporter of Teenage Cancer Trust is to give a special performance for the charity at the Royal Albert Hall. Roger will blast out the whole of “Tommy”, plus THE WHO’s early classics. A great cause, a great artist, a great music.
PRINCESS TO THE WORLD
It’s been almost 10 years since Sarah Birks also known as Cinder Princess, an activist and great – though sadly obscure – English singer graced these pages with her "Spectrum Of Life" album. Now, she decided to turn her face to the public and grace also the stage. So it’s quite a time for the Princess to have a web presence. Pay a visit here and follow the lady’s voice.
MULTICOLORED SABBATICAL
The RAINBOW and BLACK SABBATH camps clashed melodiously for the first time when Ronnie James Dio left the former band and fronted the latter, but now there’s a new connection. RAINBOW’s original bassist Craig Gruber who joined Ritchie Blackmore’s group together with Dio for their first album, thus breaking up ELF, and in the ’80s played with Gary Moore, has a new ensemble now, recently signed ED3N. Their vocalist is Jeff Fenholt, the evangelist who sang the lead part in Broadway staging of “Jesus Christ Superstar” and was in SABBATH for the sessions which resulted in “Seventh Star”, once Glenn Hughes took to the microphone. Not to be overshadowed by his new colleagues is Vinny Appice, also a SABBATH alumnus. He’s also a former DIO member as is the quartet’s guitar slinger Rowan Robertson. May will see their album hit the shelves for the European stages to be hit in June.
SERPENTINE ADO
A lot of noise has been heard recently with regard to a new WHITESNAKE album, “Forevermore”, out on March 25th in Europe and four days later in the US. The fact that prior to that the CD will appear as part of the “Classic Rock” mag special package, with a badge and two live bonus cuts, “Slide It In” and “Cheap An’ Nasty”, is presented as a kind of sensation – as if there wasn’t such giveaways before! Seems like the hype’s covering the other fact: the music’s not special as signalled by a preview of the album’s lead single, “Love Will Set You Free”. David Coverdale‘s been riding the same snake for some extra years now, instead of going for fresh approach like on his 2000’s solo outing "Into The Light". A pity, really, although on-stage the band are still rather hot, hotter than two decades before, with Steve Vai on guitar, and it’s from that era that the bonuses come from. Don’t worry about missing them if you go for the regular edition of the new album, as the whole 1990’s concert is out this summer on a double CD and DVD tagged “Live @ Donington”. As for “Forerevermore”, it includes standardly titled stuff and an epic title closer:
| 1. Steal Your Heart Away 2. All Out Of Luck 3. Love Will Set You Free 4. Easier Said Than Done 5. Tell Me How 6. I Need You (Shine A Light) 7. One Of These Days 8. Love And Treat Me Right 9. Dogs In The Street 10. Fare Thee Well 11. Whipping Boy Blues 12. My Evil Ways 13. Forevermore |
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HEAVY ARTILLERY
He’s not Pat Boone to swing out hard rock hits in his own way, with a couple of heavy guests: William Shatner is going to mark his 80th birthday in the guise of real belter and is recording an album of classics such as BLACK SABBATH “Iron Man” in the company of Ozzy‘s former sidekick Zakk Wylde, and QUEEN’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” with Brian May, as well as David Bowie’s “Space Odyssey”, FOO FIGHTERS’ “Learn To Fly” and Thomas Dolby”s “She Blinded Me With Science”. What a great man! See him in “$h*! My Dad Says” to enjoy the talent in his current state.
OL’ BLUE I’S
When it comes to swinging, there’s few singers in the class of Frank Sinatra who somehow remains underserved in terms of rock star fans, save for Robbie Williams. But now the usual suspects led by ex-KISS axeman Bob Kulick, his band including Billy Sheehan, are paying tribute to the man with a golden voice. The album riduculously titled “SIN-atra” features the following songs and singers:
| 1. New York, New York – Devin Townsend 2. I’ve Got You Under My Skin – Glenn Hughes 3. Summerwind – Geoff Tate 4. It Was A Very Good Year – Dee Snider 5. Witchcraft – Tim “Ripper” Owens 6. Fly Me To The Moon – Robin Zander 7. Lady Is A Tramp – Eric Martin 8. I’ve Got The World On A String – Doug Pinnick 9. Love And Marriage – Elias Soriano 10. Strangers In The Night – Joey Belladonna 11. High Hopes – Franky Perez 12. That’s Life – Jani Lane |
A bit controversial, surely; much better would have been a Gershwin tribute – with no “Summertime”, please. It’s best to take Ritchie Blackmore for example, who turned G’s “Fascinating Rhythm” into a “Burn” riff…
STAR TREKKIN’
Kyoji Yamamoto mightn’t be a name in every aspiring guitarist’s pantheon, yet it was him who lead two cool Japanese groups, BOWWOW and VOW WOW (don’t mistake ’em for Malcolm McLaren’s BOW WOW WOW!), and, with latter even rode the NWOBHM wave. That’s why the veteran’s revered by Lars Ulrich and also Tom Galley, the man behind the PHENOMENA project who invited Kyoji for the second part of the journey. Not the the public paid much attention, and it’s this glaring mistake that “Voyager: The Essential Kyoji Yamamoto” is to correct. The compilation comprises 13 best instrumentals from Yamamoto’s three solo albums: “Mind Arc”, “Requiem” and “Time” spanning 1998-2005 and running the gamut from classical to heavy rock.
SOME WANT MORRE
Melodic Revolution Records has some nous when the cool rock crop arises and now the label’s embraced Canadian power trio MORRE who is following their 2009’s debut “…Out There” with a six-packer “Contrast” this month. Laid down in Ontario, a smoking record will be brought to the European stages in the Summer. Check ’em when they come near ya.
CRIMSON KING SPREADS HIS GOLD
From VANILLA FUDGE to Ozzy Osbourne, you can only imagine how vast Carmine Appice‘s vault is. And now the legendary drummer opens the door to offer many rarities through his site. Alongside “Live In London” album from BBA, Appice trio with Jeff Beck and Tim Bogert, and “Planet Earth” by MOTHER’S ARMY, with Joe Lynn Turner on vocals, there are Carmine’s solo stuff and a fresh track from KING KOBRA, with all proceeds from this one donated to the Ronnie James Dio Cancer Fund. The catalogue will be growing by the month, each track costing only 99 cents and full album offered for a reduced price. A great opportunity not to be missed.
WHEN KAW COME HOME
It was a surprise when, in 2004, a band called PROTO-KAW sprang to life from the back story of one famous band. Led by guitarist Kerry Livgren, the group delivers a new album this spring, called simply “Forth”. Three years of toiling by four original members of an early ’70s version of KANSAS resulted in something reportedly beautiful. We’ll see.
