Table of contents for Issue 243 in Classic Rock

WELCOME Benjamin Franklin said it first, stating: “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” And, sadly, one of the USA’s Founding Fathers was correct. Dealing with death has become something of a depressingly regular occurrence for Classic Rock. This month, though, we’re venturing back nearly 40 years to shed further light on the mysterious circumstances surrounding Bon Scott’s death. Author Jesse Fink picked up the trail from a piece Geoff Barton wrote in a 2005 edition of Classic Rock and tracked down more eye witnesses and key figures who were present on Bon’s final night, and presents new evidence and answers to AC/DC’s final riddle. We have an exclusive extract from Jesse’s new book, Bon: The Last Highway (p28), plus a never-before published…

RIP Thank you and good night. Harold Pendleton Died September 22, 2017 Once a jazz-loving accountant, Harold Pendleton played a huge role in the running of London’s Marquee Club from 1958 to 1988, also developing the Reading Festival from its birth in 1961 as the National Jazz Festival. He and his wife Barbara were partners in the lighting and sound equipment company Entec. The cause of death is yet to be revealed. Jack Good August 7, 1931 – September 24, 2017 Hailed as the man who put rock’n’roll on TV in the 1950s, Jack Good has died of complications following a fall. He was 86 years old. As well as managing several of the scene’s early protagonists, including Cliff Richard and Marty Wilde, Good was the producer of several TV…

Old Stones roll again New album release collects band's 60s radio sessions. A collection of rarely heard radio recordings from the Rolling Stones’ formative years is released on December 1 via Polydor. All the material on The Rolling Stones – On Air was recorded by the line-up of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Brian Jones and Bill Wyman between 1963 and 1965, and was originally broadcast on bygone BBC shows including Saturday Club and Top Gear, Rhythm And Blues and The Joe Loss Pop Show. A version of the band’s first ever single, Come On, released in June 1963, recorded for Saturday Club, is available now on digital and streaming services. The album is available in multiple formats, including limited-edition yellow vinyl, album and book bundles, CD and digital…

HIGH HOPES Rews Playing Glastonbury? Recording an album at Abbey Road? Been there, done that. Next! “For us, rock’n’roll is about the passion of the playing.” Having met by chance after moving to London to pursue their separate music careers, drummer Collette Williams and guitarist Shauna Tohill formed rock two-piece Rews. They met the person who would be their manager at their second gig, they played Glastonbury twice and released debut album Pyro all in the space of just two years. No wonder they wrote Pyro about the “explosive” journey they’ve had so far. “It’s been quite fast and fiery to get where we are now,” says a laughing Williams, who’s from Corby in Northamptonshire and shares vocals in the group with Londonderry-born Tohill. “The songs are about everyday experiences…

RAW POWER Have A Seat A unique guitar made from part of an iconic music venue. Since the Hollywood Bowl opened on July 11, 1922, some of music’s greatest ever artists have trodden its creaky boards. Landmark performances by Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix are just some notable examples. Today the Bowl is a regular stop on many diverse artists’ US itinerary – Queen rocked up there as recently as June this year. When some of the rows of iconic wooden bleachers were removed in 2014, the Fender Custom Shop, based in Corona, California, hit upon the idea of putting together a number of guitars using wood reclaimed from these seats. The result is the Front Row Legend Esquire. “Natural sunlight, rain and wind have made…

HIGH HOPES The Dust Coda Do these Appetite-loving Londoners have the world’s best backstage booze stash? “We’re not trying to change the past, we’re not repeating it. We’re driving it on.” If you’d ambled through the sleepy Cotswolds town of Tetbury back in April, you might have spotted four interlopers spilling out of the pub. “We recorded our debut album in this really chocolate-box English setting,” The Dust Coda guitarist Adam Mackie recalls of making The Dust Coda, “and we stood out like a sore thumb. We spent the sessions drinking like we were on a stag do. We were in the middle of nowhere, so we could make as much noise as we wanted.” ‘Noise’, of course, hardly does justice to the glorious hard rock that this London quartet…

DIRTY DEEDS AN INTERVIEW WITH JESSE FINK BY RICH DAVENPORT Bon Scott’s prowess as a lyricist was such that in his saucier moments he could wield a double entendre with a flair lascivious enough to make Mae West blush and Austin Powers bow down in reverence. With this in mind, we hope you’ll allow Classic Rock the indulgence of blowing its own horn; specifically, the horn of Geoff Barton, whose Classic Rock feature focused on the night and mystery surrounding Bon Scott’s death on the night of February 19, 1980. Geoff raised new questions as to when Bon’s body was eventually discovered in Alaistair Kinnear’s car, and in relation to the identity and whereabouts of Kinnear himself, the combined effect of which was to “…put a whole new angle on…

THE STARS PAY TRIBUTE This is shocking, crushing news. I thought the world of Tom. He was great performer, full of the light, a friend, and I’ll never forget him. Bob Dylan So sad about Tom Petty, he made some great music. Thoughts are with his family. Mick Jagger I’m crushed over the loss of one of my great influences. Jon Bon Jovi Tom was an honest renegade, a rebel and a true original. I read that he only really felt himself in the studio or on the road, and to that I can only relate. Alice Cooper I feel like today, the music truly died. This is unbearable. A great music hero has passed. Tom brought us so much joy. Sheryl Crow Such a wonderful talent and super guy. David…

This month’s contributors JAAN UHELSZKI One of the first women to work in rock journalism, and a co-founder of Creem, Jaan got her start alongside Lester Bangs, Ben Edmonds, and David Marsh – considered the ‘dream team’ of rock writing in the mid-1970s. She is listed in Flavorwire’s 33 Women Music Critics You Need to Read. This month she takes a personal look back at the life and music of Tom Petty (p60). JESSE FINK Jesse was born in London in 1973 and raised and educated in Australia. The author of four books, he is best known for his two works on AC/DC: The Youngs: The Brothers Who Built AC/DC and the new Bon: The Last Highway, both published in the United Kingdom by Black & White, Edinburgh. He lives…

NEWS Scorpions have cancelled their remaining live commitments for 2017 after singer Klaus Meine was diagnosed with laryngitis. A specialist had warned the 69-year-old that he risked permanent damage if the tour had continued. At press time it was unclear whether or not the dates will be rescheduled. As this issue went to press, Michael Monroe announced dates at Manchester Rebellion November 30, London Tufnell Park Dome December 1 and Birmingham Institute 3 2. An audio version of Bruce Dickinson’s just-published autobiography What Does This Button Do? has just been made available. The Iron Maiden frontman jokes that this new edition is for those who might be “embarrassed about being seen with the book in public”. Black Label Society (pictured) release their tenth full-length album, titled Grimmest Hits, on January…

Zappa hologram outrage Frank tour branded “caustic and divisive”. Dweezil Zappa and Adrian Belew have shot down reports of their participation in a controversial Frank Zappa hologram tour announced by the estate of the late music icon, who died in 1993. The Frank Zappa Family Trust is working with production company Eyellusion on plans to bring the musician back to the stage in 2018. “I have never been contacted by the ZFT in any form, nor have I given them consent to use my name,” insists Dweezil, the elder of Frank’s two sons. “I’m not interested in participating in anything with an artificial version of my father.” Guitarist/vocalist Belew, a long-time musical associate of Frank, said: “I will not be playing Zappa music in the foreseeable future in any situation.…

BURIED TREASURE Riches from the rock underground HOMER Grown In U.S.A., Universal Recording Artists, US, 1972, £750+ Formed in 1967 while the members were studying at Texas State University, San Antoniobased band Homer released three decent psychedelic-rock 45s prior to recording Grown In U.S.A. But when their deal with Columbia Records fell through, the album was eventually released locally in late 1972 with a pressing of just 1,000 copies. Recording and producing the album themselves took the best part of a year, which may have cost them some important momentum, as up to this point the band had built up a significant local following and were at the forefront of the Texas rock scene. And they should have had a wider audience, as Grown In U.S.A. is an excellent album…

Sharp Dressed Man Rock ’n’ Roll accessories This month, @jamiehibbard is elegantly wasted in these three sartorial stand-outs. Silver Piston sterling hobo nickel/ Maritime Supply Co pendant Steve West, the man behind Silver Piston, is a true rock’n’roll guy. For this necklace he collaborated with the Maritime Supply Co, adding a solid copper anchor pendant to the Silver Piston solid sterling hobo pendant. It comes on a 24-inch bead chain necklace. Make sure you check out the rest of Steve’s work. $95 (from) @SilverPiston SilverPiston.com Saint Unbreakable fur jacket Winter’s coming! This newbie from Aussie fellas Saint has everything you need in a jacket: comfort, style, warmth and protection. It’s made from their famous unbreakable denim, has a great cut and a lovely warm fur collar too. Best of all…

Heavy Rotation What we’ve been listening to this month KEVIN NIXON 1 We Are The Champions (Alternative Version) Queen When misappropriated from the football terraces and launched into 1977’s punkinfused zeitgeist, We Are The Champions appeared to be an utterly unreconstructed act of regal hubris and chest-beating pomposity. Now, it only exemplifies all that’s brilliant about Queen. On this longer, work-in-progress version Freddie Mercury is on stunning form and May astonishing. 2 Set Me Free James Warren The voice of now sadly defunct prog rockers Stackridge and pop band The Korgis returns with a pleasing, melodious, disarmingly jaunty ditty that once heard will take residence inside the brain for days on end. 3 Master Of The Universe Nik Turner Re-recorded to close Turner’s Life In Space album, this revitalised take…

BON The Last Highway Exactly when, where and, especially, how did Bon Scott die? Thirty-seven years after the event, and 12 years after Classic Rock discovered mysterious events and possible dirty deeds, still no one knows for sure. In his new book, Jesse Fink throws intriguing new light on a dark story. BACK TO BON In 2005, Geoff Barton’s Classic Rock cover story brought to light new information regarding Bon Scott’s movements the night he died, via interviews with former UFO members Pete Way and Paul Chapman. In contrast with the widely reported version of events, Paul claimed to have been visited at home by Bon and his friend Joe Fury before Bon left their company, going on to meet up with the mysterious figure Alistair Kinnear. Bon Scott biographer…

BON SCOTT SILVER SMITH THE GREAT MUSE OF BON SCOTT BY JESSE FINK SILVER SMITH: COURTESY OF JOE FURY; BON: REX Margaret ‘Silver’ Smith was one of the great loves of Bon Scott, the inspiration for many of his best songs, including Gimme A Bullet and Gone Shootin’ from AC/DC’s 1978 masterpiece Powerage. They lived together in Australia and England. They travelled together on the road in the United States. And she died in a hospice in Jamestown, South Australia on December 12, 2016. Bon, separated from his wife Irene Thornton in 1974, had fallen hard for Silver, reputedly spraying her name in silver paint at the headquarters of AC/DC’s Australian record company, Albert Productions, and mentioning her in a letter from the road in 1977: “I haven’t seen my…

The Not So Quiet Quite One Delivering a deafening but dextrous bass-in-your-face assault, John Entwistle was a key part of The Who’s sound – and also of their combustible chemistry. This is his story. Words: Paul Rees GETTY “Bill Wyman said he was the Jimi Hendrix of the bass, which is a good way of explaining what he did.” The Who tour manager Bob Pridden There were good and sound reasons for the two enduring nicknames The Who bassist John Entwistle was given: The Ox and Thunderfingers. The former was bestowed on account of his iron constitution, the other because of the speed, power and volume at which he played the bass guitar. In each of these respects, and most others too, it would be entirely accurate to say that…

Songs From The Heart The Best Of Petty. GETTY American Girl Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers The last track on the Heartbreakers’ debut featured one of Petty’s greatest opening lines (‘Well, she was an American girl, raised on promises’), and he had lots of ’em. American Girl packed all the band’s essential elements – Byrds-like chiming guitars, hard-nosed yet wistful lyrics, widescreen hooks and Petty’s personable southern drawl – into one tight, irresistible package. From Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers (1976) I Need To Know Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers Petty and co. responded to punk with their fiercest rocker yet. But while the band sped out of the gate, Petty’s airy vocals floated over the top like a dreamy counterpoint. He and Mike Campbell jabbed their guitars like they…

THE HARD STUFF ALBUMS TINA KORHONEN/PRESS Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown SPINEFARM Former teen blues prodigy and his band deliver an album of no-nonsense heartland rock. Shit, Tom Petty? Of all the great American icons of the past 50 years, he always was the most underappreciated. Unlike Bruce Springsteen – a blue-collar ubermensch who demands you work as hard watching him as he does performing – Petty made everything look so damn easy. Springsteen is Superman leaping between buildings. Tom was the guy in the crowd wondering why he didn’t just take a cab. But the Heartbreaker-in-chief’s influence spread just as wide as Bruce’s, maybe even wider. You can hear echoes of his songwriting approach – brilliant simplicity elevated to an art form – in…

Essential Playlist Moonlight Drive (Demo) The Complete Studio Recordings Break On Through (To The Other Side) The Doors Light My Fire The Doors People Are Strange Strange Days My Eyes Have Seen You Strange Days Hello, I Love You Waiting For The Sun My Wild Love Waiting For The Sun Wild Child The Soft Parade Wishful Sinful The Soft Parade Roadhouse Blues Morrison Hotel/ Hard Rock Café Waiting For The Sun Morrison Hotel/ Hard Rock Café The Changeling L.A. Woman L.A. Woman L.A. Woman Riders On The Storm L.A. Woman Dead Cats, Dead Rats Absolutely Live The Crystal Ship The Doors When The Music’s Over Live In Boston…

Pumpkins United Helloween then and now pool their resources. When is a reunion not a reunion? When you’re German powermetal pioneers Helloween, who have merged two line-ups: one from their classic Keeper Of The Seven Keys (’87/88) era, and the current band. Why decide to merge the two line-ups rather than just go out with the Keeper Of The Seven Keys band? Michael Weikath (guitar): Because there’s the modern Helloween and there’s the past Helloween. They’re both Helloween. It wouldn’t be fair to what we’ve done for the last twenty years if we just went out with the Keeper line-up. You had a fractious relationship with former singer Michael Kiske for years. How are things between you now? MW: We were both on the bill at a festival in France…

Quicksand The post-hardcore band play a trio of UK dates. While getting ready to play three rare UK shows, Quicksand frontman/guitarist Walter Schreifels discusses the return of the influential New Yorkers. Quicksand have a tendency to keep on breaking up and reuniting. What causes those implosions to happen, and why do the band then get back together again? It’s like every relationship – you try to make things work, but the same problems remain. After we broke up the second time [in 1999] we left it alone for quite some time before, five years ago, all of us felt over the drama of the past. Playing together again, it put all of the bad experiences behind us and we realised that we needed to make a new record if we…

LIVE! Tour Dates FOREIGNER See p104 for dates, currently May 12-16 YES See p106 for dates, currently March 13-25 QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE See right for dates, currently Nov 18-24. JOANNE SHAW TAYLOR See previous page for dates, currently Nov 7-20…

LIVE! H.e.a.t Hard Rock Cafe, Stockholm, Sweden This Swedish rockers play their low-key first gig in nearly three years. Words: Dave Everley Photos Kevin Nixon ‘The gulf between new songs and older numbers is evident.’ There are plenty of nasty things that can happen to a band over the course of their career. Onstage injuries and offstage bust-ups. Car crashes and van smashes. An outbreak of collective herpes. But short of death or contracting a particularly nasty and incurable venereal disease, few things are quite as unpleasant as getting a phone call to say that all your equipment is currently sitting at the bottom of two feet of shitty water. H.e.a.t can vouch for this. The Swedish band had barely begun work on their fifth album, Into The Great Unknown,…

LIVE! The Children Matter Benefit Concert Rock heavyweights unite at charity extravaganza – and Kiss’s Ace Frehley and Gene Simmons even bury the hatchet on stage. CHS Field, St. Paul, Minnesota Doug Brod ‘The former bandmates lock in, and the years of animosity melt away.’ Gene Simmons is a busy man. A flurry of recent activity has seen the Kiss bassist attempt to trademark devil horns, release a movie from his new production company, publish a business manual, revive his S&M comic book and hawk a $2,000 box set. So one wouldn’t expect a reunion with Ace Frehley, with whom he hadn’t played live for 16 years, to be a priority. Yet it does indeed materialise on a beautiful late-September evening at the minor-league baseball stadium CHS Field, for a…

LIVE! Alter Bridge (with the Parallax Orchestra) London Royal Albert Hall Alter Bridge bring a whole new meaning to ‘classic rock’ with an epic RAH show. For all its classical history, formal splendour and Cirque du Soleil performances, the Royal Albert Hall has been enticing rock artists for decades. The Rolling Stones played here in 1966. In ’67 Jimi Hendrix rolled up with Pink Floyd and The Move. In 1970 Led Zeppelin made an appearance. Things came to a halt when the hall banned all rock and pop concerts in 1972 (after a particularly disruptive ’71), but rock was swiftly reinstated and the doors opened to the likes of The Who, Robert Plant, Chris Cornell… Now it’s the turn of four guys from Florida, here for two heavily hyped, resoundingly…

REVIEWS ALISON CLARKE All Them Witches London Koko Nashville’s next big thing stretch out. ‘Their lava-lamp jams are simultaneously 1970 and 2017.’ “It’s a long one,” says All Them Witches bassist and vocalist Charles Michael Parks Jr halfway through his band’s set tonight. “So sit back, grab yourself a bag of popcorn.” He’s talking about a blissfully elongated workout that merges two songs, Internet and Blood And Sand, but he might just as well be talking about the whole show. In the case of All Them Witches, a long one is no bad thing. The Nashville four-piece sit outside of time anyway. Their heavy metal lava lamp jams are simultaneously 1970 (the undulating Allman Brothers organ grooves, the Floydian guitar ripples, the snippet of The Doors’ The End amid the…

Heavy Load Funk master Bootsy Collins on playing with James Brown, learning from Hendrix, LSD, supernature and The One. Interview: Ian Fortnam Heavy questions for heavy rockers DAVID CARLO/PRESS “Hendrix was a blueprint, especially for young black musicians coming up.” Having gained an enviable reputation while still a teenager – as the fleet-fingered, funk-defining space bassist with James Brown’s original J.B’s, alongside his guitar-playing elder brother Catfish – William ‘Bootsy’ Collins sealed his legend with Funkadelic, Parliament and Bootsy’s Rubber Band. Inspired by Hendrix, Bootsy formed pioneering funkmetal fusion trio Hardware with Buddy Miles and Stevie Salas, before working extensively with Bill Laswell and Buckethead as Zillatron. Bootsy’s World Wide Funk album is imminent. Do you believe in God? I don’t know what he looks like or where he came…

Priest and Bon Jovi set for Hall Of Fame Priest thrilled, but will Bon Jovi even turn up? JUDAS PRIEST: KEVIN NIXON JUDAS PRIEST AND Bon Jovi are among the nominees for next year’s Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame inductions. It is the first time that Priest have appeared on the ballot, despite being eligible since 1999 (25 years must pass since the release of an artist’s debut album or single) and their singer Rob Halford admits he has his “fingers crossed” over the induction of his band. “[The Hall Of Fame] is our Oscars,” Halford told Billboard. “When the nominations come up, you often wonder what it might feel like to be on stage making an acceptance speech. So yeah, if we do get in it will be…

Mr. Big To Be With You A ballad written by teenager Eric Martin to impress a girl he’d fallen for, years later it gave his band their biggest hit and became their calling-card song. Words: Paul Lester NEIL ZLOZOWER/ATLASICONS.COM M r. Big’s calling card To Be With You was something of an afterthought. It was the second single lifted off their second album, 1991’s Lean Into It, and the lack of success of its first single, Green-Tinted Sixties Mind – which failed to chart anywhere except the UK, where it reached No.72 – hardly augured well for the follow-up. In fact, according to bassist Billy Sheehan, the band’s label, Atlantic, weren’t keen on releasing To Be With You, refusing to believe it would provide the band with their first hit,…

BON SCOTT WHO IS JOE FURY? Joe Fury operated – or at least was known by or has been referred to – under various aliases: Joe King, Joe Silver, Joe Furey and more. In written correspondence with me, Silver Smith frequently referred to him as ‘Jou’ Just like Alistair Kinnear, the reclusive even apocryphal Joe has become a sort of bogeyman in the Bon Scott story. In three years of writing Bon, information about him was very hard to come by. I could only gather that on his return to Australia from living abroad in the early 1980s, Joe played bass in various bands and later gigged regularly with a band in Sydney called Rough Justice. He got married, moved on and fell off the radar. No one I spoke…

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOEY TEMPEST He’s the British-based singer from Sweden who wrote his band Europe’s signature song that topped the chart in 25 countries in the mid-80s. The man born Rolf Larsson gives us his take on life. Interview: Dave Ling Joey Tempest was still in his teens when he came up with the riff that powered the song that a few years later gave his band Europe a massive worldwide hit, and for which they and he will be best remembered. After the band went on hiatus in 1992, he enjoyed a solo career, releasing three albums before Europe reconvened in 2003. During this second spell they have released six studio albums, including the brand new Walk The Earth. “Everything is running smoothly for Europe right now,”…

THE HARD STUFF REISSUES Queen News Of The World: 40th Anniversary Edition UNIVERSAL Extra! Extra! Old news, now with from -the-vaults raw versions and bonus film. The sixth Queen album has the status of an indelible reference point in rock history, thanks largely to its two monstrous, magnificent opening anthems, We Will Rock You and We Are The Champions. Its Frank Kelly Freas artwork has carried a near-classic “terrifying robot” plot line on Family Guy, and its recording sessions are immortalised as the ones where Freddie Mercury replied to Sid Vicious’s in-corridor query as to whether he was still bringing ballet to the masses with: “Oh yes, Mister Ferocious dear, doing our best.” It gave them quadruple-platinum success in the States, and despite moderate British success, it rather pooh-poohed the…

THE HARD STUFF BOOKS & DVD Rolling Stones From The Vault: Sticky Fingers Live At The Fonda Theatre 2015 EAGLE ROCK More sweet than sticky moments as Stones re-enact whole classic album for first time ROLLING STONES: PRESS/ KEVIN MAZUR If the Stones were going to indulge the 21st-century craving of fans to hear classic albums played in their entirety, it had to be 1971’s dark landmark Sticky Fingers. Begun before Altamont kissed off the 60s, it launched Rolling Stones Records with their gloriously diseased declaration of intent for the decade they would dominate as the recently christened Greatest Rock ’N’ Roll Band In The World. Previous tours may have seen the Stones exhume little-performed tracks, but the opening night of 2015’s Zip Code US tour marked their first time…