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Rock stars’ and critics’ one liners, quips, insults and wisecracks

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There was a piece in the Telegraph the other day about rock star insults, though only a few were real gems worth remembering.

Such as when Peter Grant turned up at a Dylan gig and introduced himself: “Hi Bob, I’m Peter Grant, I manage Led Zeppelin”. To which His Bobness replied drily: “I don’t come to you with my problems, do I?”.

The other good one in the Telegraph was from Slash about his nemesis: “I once asked Axl why he had left off the “e” in his name and he started crying because he thought he’d spelt it right”.

Lester Bangs wrote clever insults, such as his description of Barry White “nineteen hundred pounds of pure lumbering animal, makes Leslie West look like Steven Tyler”.

Any others spring to mind?

Train and railroad songs

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Inspired by the other marvellous thread about Road songs, and since I’ve recently started working in the UK rail industry, let’s here your train and railroad songs.

I’ll start the ball rolling with The Stones in all their glory belting out All Down the Line on the 1972 Exile tour. And feel free to load up plenty of Johnny Cash if you wish.

Shovel the coal, let’s rattle and roll!

Linkin Park v Limp Bizkit

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Oh come on, early noughties nu-metal really wasn’t that bad. Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit were multi million selling bands who made energetic music blending pop sensibilities with rap beats and fuzzy metal guitars.

Comparing the two bands, both of whom I’ve seen live back in the day, I give it to Linkin Park by a nose. Indeed, since the sad death of Chester Bennington a few days ago, I’ve been playing their acclaimed debut album “Hybrid Theory” for the first time in years and rather enjoyed it.

Love or hate nu metal? State your case.

Green Day

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Venue:

Hyde Park, London

Date: 01/07/2017

Last night Green Day delivered two hours of upbeat commercial punky rock’n’roll that set the standard for summer park festivals.

As someone who’s watched bands in halls, tents, parks, stadiums and arenas for 30 years it’s always a pleasure to watch musicians who, even after two decades on the road, still project the kind of boyish enthusiasm you’d find in a bunch of teenagers bashing out Ramones numbers in a suburban garage.

Green Day have an impressive back catalogue of catchy three minute post punk singalongs on a dozen albums going back to the early nineties. Last night’s show revolved around their latest release, Revolution Radio, and their massive sellers American Idiot (title track, Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Letterbomb, Holiday, St Jimmy and Jesus of Suburbia) and Dookie (Basket Case, Longview, She, When I Come Around and Welcome to Paradise), as well as a few songs from the early 90s albums and later releases Warning (Minority) and 21st Century Breakdown (Know Your Enemy). I had hoped to hear a handful of my favourite tracks from the band’s enjoyable album trilogy Uno Dos & Tre but this didn’t spoil an otherwise well-paced and » Continue Reading.

Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow

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Venue:

O2 Arena, London

Date: 17/06/2017

In the two decades since Ritchie Blackmore’s very final departure from Deep Purple in 1993 the classic rock press have expressed exasperation, puzzlement and, at times, guarded admiration for the old contrarian’s pointy hatted medieval minstrel meanderings. Column inches have opined on the prospect of Purple reunions and whether he would stop diddling about with lutes and flutes and, for God’s sake, just play what he was put on God’s earth to play: meat and potatoes classic English hard rock. Some even speculated about a Rainbow comeback – maybe with Ronnie Dio, before he sadly passed away, or Joe Lyn Turner – with Ritchie reportedly claiming that he would never play hard rock again.

On Saturday night at the O2 Arena, the Man in Black (yes, he still dresses exactly as he did in 1977) led a 21st century ensemble called Rainbow in order to relive his past stargazing glories with the earlier Dio, Graham Bonnet and Turner line-ups. Basically, the maestro gave us a wonderfully fluid and melodic master-class on a Fender Stratocaster which was a delight to savour.

Fronted by a denim waist-coated Chilean Dio sound-alike, Ronnie Romero, the band » Continue Reading.

Politicians as Prog albums (or songs)

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Earlier this evening BBC Newsnight introduced an item about Jeremy Corbyn by comparing him to a comeback prog rock star and referred to him as the (soon to be crowned) “Crimson King”. Which got me thinking. How about a thread devoted to politicians as prog albums and songs? I’ll start the bidding.

Note: there may be subliminal political messages behind my choices which only reflect widely reported perceptions about the relevant individuals, and do not necessarily reflect my own political views.

David Miliband – Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd) Nigel Farage – Living in the Past (J. Tull) Ed Balls – Selling England by the Pound (Genesis) Eric Pickles – The Wall (P Floyd) Eric Joyce – The Demented Man (Hawkwind) Michael Gove – Subterranean Homesick Alien (Radiohead) Andy Burnham – The Way the Wind Blows (Rush) George Osborne – The Invisible Touch (Genesis)

AC/DC (Rock or Bust Tour)

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Venue:

Wembley Stadium

Date: 04/07/2015

I joined the AC/DC faithful at Wembley last night for a healthy dose of genuine heavy rock’n ‘roll and pyrotechnics, the likes of which is as rare as rocking horse sh**t these days. This band do not waste time flaunting their egos or advocating half baked views about our civilisation’s tribulations in order to sound relevant. No sir, Angus and the boys just get on with giving their paying customers a product that’s now a byword for predictability and consistency in an uncertain world. Opening with new anthem “Rock or Bust”, they screeched, riffed and thumped their way through the best tracks from “Back in Black” (“Hells Bells”, “Shoot to Thrill”, “Have a Drink on Me”), classic Bon Scott anthems (“High Voltage”, “Whole Lotta Rosie”, “Sin City” and “Highway to Hell”) and the odd favourite from less acclaimed albums, notably perennial crowd pleaser “Thunderstruck”. Brian Johnson always sounds better live than on record, though probably because when that blackboard chalk voice is pumped through AC/DC’s ear splitting PA system it doesn’t much matter whether he’s in B Flat or C sharp, tenor or mezzo soprano. Unsurprisingly, Angus Young and the band didn’t put a » Continue Reading.

Ritchie Blackmore 70 yrs old today: a celebration

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The Man in Black, Ritchie Blackmore, has turned 70 years old today, which I suppose puts him firmly in the grand-daddies of British classic rock fraternity along with the likes of The Stones, Clapton and The Who.

When I got into Deep Purple and Rainbow at the cusp of the 70s/80s, Ritchie was my top guitar hero, especially on Purple’s “In Rock” and “Machine Head” albums and the classic Rainbow albums “Rising” and “Long Live Rock’n’Roll”.

You rarely heard or saw Ritchie in the media and he always had a sense of mystique about him, with regular rock press reportage about pranks, band sackings, mood swings and feuds with Gillan and Coverdale. That said, I recall one fascinating interview on Radio One (either with Tommy Vance or Alexis Korner, not quite sure) where he praised Ian Anderson and Jethro Tull’s folk rock style and talked about why he originally chose a Fender Stratocaster over a Gibson (cos’ it was difficult to play at first).

I saw Ritchie live with Deep Purple on the MK II reunion tour in 1985. It was a packed Birmingham NEC and Ritchie pulled out all the stops that night, playing like a » Continue Reading.

Live at the Brixton Academy

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Author:Simon Parkes (with JS Rafaeli)

I received this book as a Xmas gift and read it in two sittings last weekend. It is a thoroughly enjoyable gallop through the history of the iconic (and my favourite) London venue.

Simon Parkes, a Gordonstoun-educated son of a Northern fishing magnate, fell in love with the venue’s “dilapidated elegance of that art deco”. He tells how he bought the old “Brixton Astoria’s” lease from a top brewer company for merely a quid (in return for a deal on Watneys beer concessions) and hired a bunch of South London roughnecks to clean up the place and provide the necessary “security”. The book is a trove of lively stories about how he then built up the “Academy” brand, first through Jamaican reggae gigs and post punk New Wave and, later on, rap, dance/rave and Britpop. Throughout the 80s he contended with drug pushers, Brixton gangsters, Jamaican “Yardies”, and the cut-throat world of live music promotion in London.

There is some interesting history about the old theatre at the start of the book and, of course, Parkes’ friendships with legends across the whole spectrum of pop, rock and dance music propel the narrative and » Continue Reading.

Stairway to Quadrophenia

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The Yes v Pink Floyd thread started by my good friend Baskerville has prompted me to start the versus debate that ends all versus debates. The Who v Led Zeppelin.

Now, the natural reaction of most classic rock fans would be “Oh come on, its Zeppelin, for goodness sake, what are you on?”. The sheer power of that band and its constituent elements, the riffs, the anthems, their legend and mysticism, Page’s masterly arrangements, Plant’s blues howl, the front man template that launched a thousand imitators. JP Jones, the musician’s musician. Bonham, nuff said!.

I’m not so sure. I set out my case for The Who.

Pete Townshend was, and remains, much more of a visionary than Page. Right from The Who’s early days he steered the band from mod popsters, through the rock opera masterpiece that was Tommy, via the peerless Who’s Next (which was must surely be the only No 1 album that emerged out of a failed rock opera concept – Lifehouse), and onto Quadrophenia which is far ahead of anything Page and Plant could have dreamed up in front of a roaring fire in Bron y Aur.

As a live act The Who in their prime » Continue Reading.

Anyone for some AC/DC?

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It’s my privilege to christen this spanking new website with its first AC/DC thread. I think you’ll all agree that since the last site went down, the boys have enjoyed the international spotlight for rather mixed reasons. Phil’s Rudd arrest for nefarious activities and all sorts of revelations about Malcolm’s illness with dementia have kept them in the headlines.

Angus and Brian have fronted a quite extraordinary public relations and media campaign to keep the AC/DC juggernaut on the road with the release of a new record and generate publicity for a forthcoming tour.

I’ve got my ticket for the pitch at Wembley in July to see the boys and I do hope you some of the rockers amongst you will be there too. Here they are with one of their cracking new tunes. Turn it right up!