Lydia Criss shares more of her KISStory

Wife of former KISS drummer releases 2nd printing of "Sealed with a KISS", featuring additional photos and stories.

By Peter Lindblad

Lydia and Peter Criss -The 70s

Their splashy divorce made headlines in New York City and across the world. In 1978, Lydia Criss and KISS drummer Peter Criss split up for good. There were irreconcilable differences. His alleged infidelity, drug and alcohol abuse and violent temper – all of it detailed in Lydia’s recently revised and expanded biography “Sealed with a Kiss,” the first edition of which was published in 2006 – drove a permanent wedge between the couple, who first met in 1966.

In her book, "Sealed with a KISS", Lydia relates how she stood by Peter and provided financial support as he attempted to jump start his music career with long-forgotten bands such as Nautilus, the Sounds of Soul, Lips, The Barracudas, and Chelsea. Then, along came Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, members of Wicked Lester when their paths crossed with Peter’s. It was Simmons who answered Peter’s ad looking for musicians playing original music who needed an experienced drummer. Soon after, KISS was born.

 "Sealed with a Kiss"
by Lydia Criss

KISS grew to become one of the biggest rock ‘n’ roll bands the world has ever seen, and Lydia – who became a respected rock ‘n’ roll photographer – did more than go along for the ride, often supplying some of their clothes in the early days with the help of her mother, the seamstress. She was there when KISS played The Coventry and the 54 Bleeker Street loft that was home to The Brats. She was there when they brought their theatrical rock circus to Madison Square Garden for the first time and toured Japan. And she accepted a 1977 People’s Choice Award on their behalf for the song “Beth,” which she inspired.  Telling the story of KISS’s rise to fame from the perspective of a rock ‘n’ roll wife, Lydia’s book is packed with photos of KISS in concert and at play, behind the scenes. It is loaded with KISS memorabilia, including the newspaper and magazine clippings she meticulously collected, KISS clothing, concert tickets, etc. And it should be required reading for KISS fans. 

This is Part 1 of our interview with Lydia Criss.

Looking at the photos from the early years, you and Peter were a stylish couple back then.

Lydia Criss: Oh, we were the two that were more stylish than the rest. We were the two dressers. You know what it is? My mother was a seamstress. So, she made him a lot of his jackets. She made me most of
my clothes. I did buy a lot, but she did make a lot, too. So my mother was a big help for me because my mother would get mad at me if I’d spend $50 on a blouse. [I’d say,] “Okay then, I’ll find a pattern and material for us and you’ll make it for us.” And she’d make it … for $10 (laughs) or maybe $5 even. That’s why she made my wedding gown. She made all the bridesmaids’ [gowns]. She was amazing.

But you made stuff, too, right? I think there was a KISS jacket [in the book] with what looked like rhinestones on the back …

LC: I made that. That’s a regular denim jacket that I bought in the store. And I did everything on that. I’m actually selling that in the auction, which I said, “Why am I doing this?” But people said to me it’s because you’re never going to wear it and if you really, really, really … first of all, it looks like it’s made for a child. I was so small then. And I just said, “You know what? If you ever want something like that again, you can just make another one.” And I did, because I have all the stuff. It just takes time. It is rhinestones, and I have the rhinestones,

  

I have the studs … I have all that stuff. And I used to like say if I was sitting at home doing nothing one night, I would do like the left side of the jacket, and then I would make sure the right side [was done] so I could wear the jacket. And then, I was bad, because I would keep adding but I would always add balance. You know, I would always make the right and the left … you know, I wouldn’t work on it if I could only make half a side, where I’d do just one side and not the other side. The jacket was always wearable, but it just kept getting more and more glitter – more bling to it (laughs).

So much of KISS’s clothing and stage show early on was put together in do-it-yourself fashion, with everybody pulling together. It must have been thrilling to be a part of it. Talk about how their look evolved.

LC: Yeah, in the beginning, my mother actually made some of his stuff, some of his jackets, like there’s a picture of him in the loft – it’s one my lithographs, I’m not sure if you’re familiar with that. It’s a picture of all four of them back in the loft, and it’s not even their loft. It’s the Bleeker Street loft, which was The Brats’ [loft]. You know, The Brats, which was a band from New York. It was their loft. And it was way before [famed KISS manager Bill] Aucoin, and they were all dressed in different things. Ace’s mother made him a shirt, and Peter’s mother made him a shirt. I made him his hot pants and my mother made him the jacket. My mother made a lot of his stuff in the early days, too, but not once it came to Aucoin. When Aucoin stepped in, [everything] was done by a professional – a real professional.

KISS - Backstage at the Bleeker Street Loft - June 1, 1973
Lydia Criss 

I know you made that KISS shirt that’s in the book, too. Is that your favorite piece?

LC: Yeah, believe it or not, I sold that in the previous auction. Oh, the KISS shirt. I made one for Peter. I made one for Gene. I used to make them for his family. You know what it is? I had a stencil that was used for the bass drum. And I used it on the shirt. And I just used glue and glitter. It was so easy to make.

Oh, yeah.

LC: Yeah, I mean it was just put the stencil on, put the glue on and then put on the glitter and it was done. And it went through the wash. That’s why it looks like it does. It looks like that stuff is coming off.

It gave it kind of a cool distressed look.

LC: Yeah.

What was the hardest thing about doing this book?

LC: The memories, the memories. You know, I’m an organization freak. I’m a Scorpio, so you know, we’re like really organized. I had to have everything right. I had to have it in order. In the book, there are three sections: there’s before KISS, KISS, and then after KISS. But the hardest part was having to deal with some of the things that were painful at the time, and they became painful again. There were times where I would sit and read. I did my manuscript many, many years before I decided to [publish it]. I mean, I decided to do the book, but my publisher went bankrupt. He was a small-time guy, and he went bankrupt, and I got all my stuff back. That was basically in the ‘90s. I had started that at the end of the ‘90s … like ’99 I think I had given my manuscript over to him. And then he didn’t do anything, so in 2004, I got everything back, and that’s when I became serious, when Jacques van Gool of Backstage Auctions did the auction. And I just said, “Well, what do I need all this stuff for? It’s going to be in my book. I can always look at it in my book. I can’t hold it physically, but it’s in my book.” So, basically, I sold everything and I wanted to do the book, but the thing that really, really hurt was when I’d sit home at night – because I didn’t have editors at the time; I’d have editors later on, but at the beginning I just had a manuscript and then the editors kind of went through the manuscript, and they would correct things. Not much though. Believe it or not, they were surprised that I wrote my book. They just corrected like punctuation and grammar and stuff like that, and maybe a little bit of the things we fought about, like say they’d say something happened this way, I would say it happened that way. But they weren’t there. I was there. But they’re talking to other people and other people are telling them, “Well, you know, no it was Sean Delaney.” And I’d say, “No it wasn’t. It was Neil Bogart.” Or, they’re saying it’s Neil Bogart, and I’m saying, “No, it was Sean Delaney.” That was one thing we disagreed with, but the thing is, we decided to word it where it says we disagree: “Well, I feel it happened this way. Other people feel it happened this way.” But anyway, the hard parts … you know, getting divorced, finding letters where Peter is cheating on me, having to have an abortion … those are the things. I would sit at night, and you know, after I’d be on the computer all day, working on the book, I’d sit at night, on my couch, with a little light on, and I’d read all their corrections, and I’m telling you, sometimes I’d be hysterical, crying, and then a paragraph later, I’d be hysterical, laughing.

The Big Day

What was it do you think that originally attracted you to Peter?

LC: His character, his personality. Anyone that knows Peter from those days will tell you Peter was a great guy – especially when he wanted to be a great guy. Like, he’s a schizophrenic or he’s got split personalities, but Peter had something magical about him. It was definitely not his looks that attracted me. I wasn’t attracted to that, and he surely didn’t have money. So, it was definitely his personality.

What were your dates like? He seems like he’d be a fun date.

LC: We really wouldn’t do much. We would go to friends’ houses, we would go to the Village, we would go to Central Park … maybe we’d go to the movies. We didn’t really have like [dates]. I mean, he didn’t take me out to dinner much. Like I said, he didn’t have money. I was still living at home. I couldn’t cook, so I wasn’t cooking him dinners. He had a friend who lived in my neighborhood, Jerry Nolan, his best friend, who was the drummer for the New York Dolls. Coincidentally, he lived in my neighborhood, and Peter would sleep over and stay over there, or we’d go over and hang out at Jerry’s. Or, most of the time, we’d go to see Peter play.

At first, you didn’t think much about dating a musician. Everybody always says how tough it is. Was it difficult for the two of you early on?

LC: I really wasn’t even aware what went on dating a musician or what went into that. I dated a sailor before him, but before that … I only had two boyfriends before him, and before that there was a guy, but we were only 16, so we didn’t work – we were like still going to school. And so, I didn’t know what it was like to date a musician. I mean, I thought it was okay at the time. Then, when I read some of his book, I was definitely … the wool was being pulled over my eyes. And that’s another thing that hurt, reading his book. I’m sure him reading my book hurt also. And I think that’s his way of getting back or getting even with me, ‘cause that’s how Peter is. Peter can be a real sweetheart in front of you, but he can stab you in the back when you’re not looking.

You write about some of the financial issues you had while Peter tried to get his music career going.

LC: I mean I worked; he didn’t work. You know what he paid for? He paid for his drugs, and he paid for some of the clothes he might have bought and maybe the gifts for his family. But I paid all the household bills – you know, for all the furniture. I paid for the vacations. I paid for our honeymoon. I paid for our wedding. Even though the wedding – you get gifts and it pays for itself – but I initially paid for the wedding. But I paid for the honeymoon … you know what he used to do, which I found out later also? And I’m talking about maybe two years ago, I might have found out. He was making $50 a night and he’d tell me he’d only be making $35 or he’d only be making $25. The guy that worked with him, the guitar player, he says, “We never made less than $50 a night.” I’ve got records. I’ve got records that I kept, and it’s in a composition notebook – the picture of the book. But I kept records of all the jobs he worked and what salary he came home with. And either he was spending it on girlfriends or he was spending it on drugs. So that’s another thing that I found out way later, way after I was divorced – like 25 years after I was divorced.

Was there a low point early on with Peter where you asked yourself, is this ever going to get any better or perhaps Peter isn’t going to make it?

LC: Not really, because we were only married two years when he met KISS, when he met Gene and Paul. He met them in ’72. So that was only two years. Two years is nothing. There was a point where we had just moved to our second apartment, I was kept busy with moving, working every day; then, I’d sell Avon during the day at my job, and then I’d also make macramé – different things, chokers, belts, bracelets, and I would sell them, you know, to supplement the income. So, there was none from him, or very little.

Pre-Kiss, did you think any of the bands he was in up to that point was going to be big?

LC: Chelsea. Chelsea was the only one, because they had a record deal. Everybody else did cover songs, so they weren’t looking for a deal. There was a time when Peter did do something. He was in a contest at the Brooklyn Academy of Music that they won. And they got a record deal, but it didn’t do anything – like one single I think they did. It really went nowhere. But Chelsea … at least Chelsea had an album. They worked with some pretty important people at the time, like the producers and the engineers and stuff like that. I had no idea who these people were, and eventually, years later, you realize they were somebody. Even Eddie Kramer was somewhere involved in there. I’m not sure how, and there was different people. And I thought that might have made it, even though that wasn’t my type of music, but at least when he joined KISS, at one point it got to the point where he would just … working with Stan Penridge and they were just doing drugs, it was back to the old days where they were just doing cover songs and some original stuff back in the same old clubs. He was playing, you know, the King’s Lounge, like when he was with some other bands earlier than when he was with Stan, it was called Lips. And he had played the King’s Lounge with Joey Lucenti. He was in a band with him when KISS came to audition Peter … not audition, because Peter would audition at the loft, but they wanted to see him play with the band, so they came to see him at the King’s Lounge. He played with a few bands in that one club, not too far from where I used to live in Brooklyn.  

Meeting the men from Wicked Lester, you talked about how shabbily they dressed, but they had big plans. Did you sense right away that this was going to be something different for Peter?

LC: Well, when I saw their attitude and their professionalism … I mean, they were unprofessional in certain ways and were professional in other ways – you know, trying to bust Peter’s balls in flirting with me. But I saw right through that. But I just said, I like the songs; I loved “She” and “Deuce” and there were just songs where I just said, “Wow! This is more my style than Chelsea.”

Even at that time it seemed like they had grand designs on putting together a big stage show, huh?

LC: Um, I’m not sure if they had that in mind. I think Sean Delaney was that … that was all Sean Delaney’s ideas, from what I can remember. You know, I’m sure once they realized there’s money … [that] you could do something with a lot of money then you’re not limited. Then your mind expands and you can see things you never thought you’d be able to do. I don’t think they saw that in the early days. They just wanted to be big, like … yeah, The Beatles were big, but they didn’t have the stage that KISS had. They were basically all Beatles fans, so that’s what they were looking at. Ace was a Jimi Hendrix fan, so, you know, Jimi Hendrix didn’t have anything elaborate. In those days, it was basically [David] Bowie, Alice Cooper and the New York Dolls that they took everything from. And Sean Delaney incorporated it and went even further.   

The Coventry was where the band got its start. It wasn’t an auspicious beginning for them. What do you remember about the place and those first shows?

KISS - Coventry Show Flier

LC: The Coventry was very small. It was a neighborhood club, but it was the club to play. It was right over the bridge from Manhattan in Queens, and that’s where the Dolls played, that’s where there were bands like Luger and Street Punk … with Street Punk and Luger, [they] eventually played with them at the Diplomat. I think the Brats played at the Coventry. That was the place to play. And Gene and Paul went and talked to the owner and got a gig. I think it was Paul. I’m not even sure it was Gene, but I think Paul.

I thought it was interesting where one of the pictures of KISS playing at 54 Bleeker Street with the Brats showed them behind what looked like a rope that was separating the band from the crowd.

LC: I know (laughs). I know. We thought it was hard to believe then (laughs).

It was interesting that the Brats were holding their own shows there.

LC: You know, I’m still friends with Dominique, the lead singer; he calls himself Keith West. We always knew him as Dom from The Brats. I’m still friends with him. He still lives on the same block as my boyfriend [Richie Fontana, who used to play in Piper with Billy Squier].

Oh, is that right?

LC: Yeah. We live in the same housing … it’s really nice like Tudor-type houses out in Queens, and they have the same management company that manages the houses. It’s not low housing. It’s expensive. But they live about three doors down from each other.

Is that place still around, that 54 Bleeker Street loft?

LC: It’s still there. I don’t know what’s being held there, but I actually … somebody asked me about that like, “What’s the number? I [went] on Bleeker Street and I can’t find anything.” I’m going, “You’re not going to find anything. It looks like a doorway.” So, I gave her the number, 54.

I wanted to ask you about some of the big events in your life and that of KISS, starting with the Casablanca launch party. That looks like it a great time.

LC: Oh, it really was. I flew out with Gene’s girlfriend, Jan. I think we were staying at the Chateau Marmont at the time. And we shared a room with Gene. And my mother made me that outfit [shown in the book]. Like I said, she was a seamstress. She made the black velvet jacket. I made the hot pants. She would make the tops and I would make the bottoms. They’re easy to make – for girls they’re easy, not for guys. But I used to make the same pants for Peter, just bigger. I mean, it wasn’t done professionally, but it looked good. Anyway, I would make the bottoms, and she made the tops, and she made me a vest, a silver lame like vest and a bow tie, and it looked like a tuxedo. And I rented a top hat, and I remember meeting David Janssen [who starred in the television series “The Fugitive”] and Alice Cooper. I met Alice Cooper that night. That was amazing. Oh, and the other thing about that night was that I was drinking Black Russians, and that’s not the thing to drink on an empty stomach, ‘cause I don’t remember food being there. I was drinking Black Russians and all I remember is the limo driver carrying me out over his shoulder, both of us hysterically laughing. I wound up staying in the limo while everyone went out to have something to eat … and well, see there wasn’t any food. Everybody went into restaurant, and I stayed in the limo ‘cause I was too bombed. And the next day, I stayed in my room until about 6 o’clock at night. I could not get out of bed. I should have eaten before. I finally ended up having some soup at around 8 o’clock at night.

They really did it up that night.

LC: It was great. I have some pictures. I did take pictures. They didn’t come out that great, because I had a little tiny Insta-Matic camera. It wasn’t anything professional. And I’m just glad I got something, but it wasn’t what I would have liked.

Yeah, because they really did it up. They had a guy dressed like Humphrey Bogart …

LC: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I have pictures of him. I think I put that in the book … they had a fake camel, and there were all these gambling tables, like a casino, but it was old-fashioned looking, like from “Casablanca.” It was amazing. Neil Bogart even dressed as Humphrey Bogart, and he was wearing Humphrey Bogart’s real jacket [from the movie]. So it was amazing. And then the offices of Casablanca … there were palm trees and camels and arched doorways … they made it all look like the Middle East (laughs).

What do you remember about some of the shows KISS would play in Detroit? That was the town that was really into KISS.

LC: Above all, they loved the band. They just loved them. I don’t know why, but maybe because of “Detroit Rock City,” or maybe they did “Detroit Rock City” because they’d loved them there. I don’t know which came first, the chicken or the egg. But for some reason … the promoter really liked them. I think it was Steve Glantz, who was the promoter. Him and Bill Aucoin got along great, and they booked them there a lot. And that’s kind of where they really made their mark. You know, they played the Michigan Palace first, and I think they even played with Aerosmith at one point. They played with Mott the Hoople at one point. It was interesting. It was really interesting how they climbed the ladder. And then they’re playing Cobo Hall, and then they decided to do a live album, with the remote trucks outside to capture it, to tape it. And it was a great place to do that, because it was a place where they were really loved.

Did it seem like it was … I don’t want to say an overnight success, but that it was moving quickly for KISS at that point?

LC: Well, let’s see, I supported Peter for six years, and then three years before we got married, so nine years. It wasn’t an overnight success (laughs). Let’s see … we met in ’66, and then Alive! went gold in ’75, so that’s nine years. So, it was about time. At that time when it happened, it was a great point. Things were starting to happen. Peter would come home and say kids are like jumping on the limos … and the other thing is, they had limos (laughs)! In the early days, KISS would be pulling up [to venues] in a station wagon (laughs). I don’t remember really them being in tour buses in those days. They would fly everywhere. They would fly and that was one of the other amazing things, that we would just ask for a plane ticket and we’d get it, you know. It was like, whoa. Call the travel agent (laughs).

 What do you remember from that first show at Madison Square Garden?

LC: Madison Square Garden, of course, touched my heart in a way no other venue could, because I grew up there. I saw the [Concert for] Bangladesh there, you know, George Harrison. I saw some of the biggest acts I will ever see at Madison Square Garden. And just to be able to see … I mean, the Rolling Stones were at the Garden.

You saw everyone.

LC: I saw Bianca Jagger. There was Bianca Jagger, and I was sitting in the same seats where she was sitting when the Rolling Stones played. And everybody asks me, “What was the best thing in your KISS life?” There’s not one; there are three. Madison Square Garden is one of them, the People’s Choice Awards was the other, and going to Japan was the other. At Madison Square Garden, I stood on the stage and there were people that knew my name and were calling me. I would go on the stage before the band, and I actually looked out into the crowd and saw a banner – actually, Jacques sold it in the last auction. And it said, “We love Lydia,” and I’m going, “Oh my God.” And then there was a little banner back by itself, hanging from the rafters in the back of the Garden, and all I did was cry. I could not stop. The tears were just pouring down my face. When they played, the ovation that the audience gave them, the claps for encores and everything … it was just amazing. I mean, my family was there, my friends, my relatives … it was just an amazing … I mean, Bill Aucoin was right near me, and I was crying on his shoulder (laughs).

After all you’d been through those nine years, hearing “Beth” for the first time must have brought out a flood of emotions.

LC: Well, that was more like 11 years by that time (laughs). It was more like ’76, I guess. They played the Garden in ’76 or ’77 … no, ’77. So maybe it was about 10 years. It was just unbelievable. Him singing “Beth,” every time he’d come out, he’d bow to me (laughs). He’d actually stop at the sound board, because I’d be standing at the sound board, and he would bow to me and then go. But he would never throw a rose to me. He would always want to give them to the fans. And he would never let me stand in the pit. That was another thing. I could have had a lot more photos if he would have let me be in the pit. The pit is right below the stage where all the photographers stayed. He would not let me go because it was too dangerous.

He did have a paranoid side to him, didn’t he?

LC: Very paranoid, yes.

I wanted to ask you about going overseas. What was your favorite memory of going to Japan?

LC: Just being in Japan. I’ve been to Japan twice – once in ’77 and once in ’78. But just being in Japan was

amazing because I never in my life ever thought … I never dreamed of being married to a rock star. I just dreamed of being a little Italian housewife that raised four kids and grew up and all I did was cook all day. I never dreamed of going to Japan. That wasn’t one of my dreams. I never dreamed of being an author. I never dreamed of publishing my own book – never dreamt that, but I did it, and I believe if I put my mind to anything, I can do it. Going to Japan was one of my favorite, favorite things because you just see how the other side of the world lives. And you think it’s so much different than the way you do, and sometimes it really isn’t. It’s like they still have the same … you think they’re so far behind the times, and really, they’re more ahead of the times than we are. I mean, just the fact that I could buy cameras so much cheaper than you can buy them here … you know, I bought my Nikon and that was my first camera that was a professional camera. I bought that there. Peter told me to go out and buy a $2,000 fur coat, so instead I went out and bought a $500 Nikon.

It paid off for you.

LC: I know it did, because eventually, I wind up working in a photo agency. She was also my agent. I was her friend. We used to travel together, the boss that owned the photo agency. And I was also her bookkeeper.

Oh, is that right?

LC: And now, I’m [rock photographer] Bob Gruen’s bookkeeper. You know, Bob Gruen? The John Lennon New York City t-shirt?

Sure, sure.

LC: You know, he did Dressed to Kill.

That’s right.

LC: I’m his bookkeeper. Well, actually, right now I’m panicking, because it is tax time and I have to get back to bookkeeping.

I have to ask you about the People’s Choice Awards. That must have been a nerve-wracking experience.

LC: That was such a nerve-wracking experience, you have no idea. Okay, they knew they were getting the People’s Choice Award. That’s one award that you’re told beforehand. That’s why everybody who gets it usually shows up. For some reason, KISS only found out 10 days before, so they couldn’t show up. They were already booked in Fargo, North Dakota. They said, what are we going to do, sit in the audience with makeup on? We’re going to feel ridiculous and blah, blah, blah … so I’m sitting at a table backstage in Detroit with Gene, Peter and Bill Aucoin, and I just said, “Well, I’ll accept the award,” just joking. And Gene turned out and said, “Okay.” And once I knew he said, “Okay,” I said, “Oh my God.” I lost 10 pounds in 10 days. I was a nervous wreck. I had to get a dress, I had to get hair, I had to figure out what to do with my hair, I had to get nails … I didn’t even have long nails. I had to get them, fake nails. I had to do the whole thing, and I was a nervous wreck. I had to give a speech. Not only that, but they stuck me in the audience and they never told me when to walk up. They never told us. There was nothing. They never told

"Beth" - Peter Criss

me anything. And Bill Aucoin was sitting next to me and he just pushes me out. I was sitting on the aisle. He just pushes me out, and he goes, “Good luck.” And I’m going, “Bill, I’m going to kill you (laughs).”

Were you able to do the entire speech as written?

LC: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I’ve done this speech so much, I know it by heart: “Honestly, ‘Beth’ is my favorite song, not only because it’s how Peter feels about me, but it’s how everyone feels when he’s away from the woman he loves. KISS is performing tonight and they just want me to thank you for this great honor, and I want to thank KISS.” And then I blew a little kiss.

That was a nice touch.

LC: Yeah, I think Carl Glickman or Howard Marks wrote it for me. He wrote that for me. And I practiced. I said it over and over again on the plane. The week before, I used to carry it around with me, practicing it for 10 days. All I ate for 10 days was an egg a day.

Is that right?

LC: I was nauseous. I couldn’t eat anything, and I was stuck … I would try to eat something, so I would have a hard-boiled egg, and I was like full just from eating that. And I was a nervous wreck. And I think I went down to 103 pounds the day of the People’s Choice Awards. 

What was the most frustrating thing for Peter about being in KISS?

LC: Well, he was frustrated because he couldn’t get enough songs on the albums, but the thing was, Peter’s songs are not as good as Gene’s and Paul’s. That’s the problem Peter doesn’t realize. He thinks his songs are great and they’re not. I mean, I’m sorry to say it, but I mean, “Beth” is good and some of the songs were good, but he also wrote them with Stan Penridge. And Penridge was really the writer. You know, for some reason I think you have to know music … not really, no – because Richie [Fontana, formerly of Piper] doesn’t. You don’t have to read music, but you know … playing guitar might help. I don’t know, but my boyfriend, Richie, he’s an amazing writer. Peter wasn’t – sorry, sorry.

How would you characterize your marriage to Peter? It seemed like you had to play psychologist quite a bit.

LC: Well, to be honest with you, I thought we had a good marriage. We did fight, but I thought everybody fought. And you know what it is? I realize now everybody doesn’t fight, because I think you fight when you’re younger because you’re just too immature. Richie and I, we’ve been together 11 years, and we’ve had two fights. That’s it. Two fights in 11 years. And they weren’t major … well, one was major, and one, neither one of us know what the fight was about (laughs). “Why did we have that fight?” We don’t even remember. Anyway, one was a major fight, but the thing is when you’re young, you fight a lot more. You’re jealous. You’re immature. Richie’s been through … do you know who Richie is?

Richie Fontana?

LC: Yes. He’s been on the road with a major band, Piper. He was with the Skatt Bros., which was Sean

Richie Fontana - Piper

Delaney. He’s had a great career. He was on Paul Stanley’s album, the solo album. And he was a drummer, but he also plays every other instrument. He’s like a McCartney, like a McCartney of the Aucoin people. You know, we don’t fight. We’ve both been through it all, we both know … hey, we’re mature. I know he’s gone out with girls. He knows I’ve gone out with guys. What are you going to do, fight about the past? But that’s the thing: Peter was always jealous, and he says I was jealous, but of course, I was jealous because he admits he was cheating on me. Why shouldn’t I be jealous?

Was it the drugs that changed Peter? Or was it the success? Or was it all of it?

LC: No, that’s what broke up our marriage. You know what I used to say to Peter? I’ll be honest with you. I used to say to Peter, “Look, I know you’re a rock star now. And I know you’ve got lots of girls all over, hanging all over you. And I’m sure you sleep with some of them. Just don’t take them to breakfast.” In other words, “Don’t flaunt them in front of your band members. Do your thing and get rid of them.” Debbie, obviously, he didn’t get rid of. And he wound up marrying her. I believe that it was all … at that point, drugs were a major part of our life, and that’s what really broke us up. I really believe that. It wasn’t the girls, because I knew he was with girls. It was the drugs.

It seems like him and Ace … I don’t know if they kind of ran together, but they seemed to be interested in the same things.

LC: The thing is … it’s not that they ran together, because they kind of didn’t. Yeah, Peter hung out with Paul a lot. We went on vacation together, twice. Once we went to Rockport, Mass., which is kind of like Martha’s Vineyard in a way. It’s near there. And then we also met in Hawaii together – me, Paul and Peter and whatever girl he was with at the time. I never actually went on vacation with Ace. So, it wasn’t like … I was closer to Jeanette [Trerotola, Ace Frehley’s former wife] than … well, actually, Paul had a girlfriend I was close to as well. But I’m not sure. I know we used to go out to clubs with Paul, because Paul lived in the city, but we were actually closer to Paul at one point. But I think that people think that Ace and Peter were close, but just because they both drank but it wasn’t necessarily that way.

Peter did have his wild friends like John Belushi.

LC: Yeah, we had John, but so did Ace. Ace knew John, but the thing is we were introduced by another friend of mine that used to do videos for KISS. We were introduced to John, and also, Sean Delaney worked with John Belushi. Yeah, Sean did work on “Saturday Night Live.”

What was the scariest moment for you with Peter?

LC: Um, when he would get violent. There were a few times. There was a time where I got hit by him. Three o’clock in the morning, we’re living in Brooklyn, KISS is doing their first album. Richie Wise and Kenny Kerner [the producers on KISS’s debut album] were joking with him, and they said, “Oh, Lydia’s flirting with Paul,” just because I was taking pictures and because they wanted to bust his balls. But he came home drunk and he wanted to beat me up, so he did. He punched me in the lip, and I had to go to work the next day and make an excuse for that one. That was scary. The other scary one was in my apartment in Manhattan, when we moved to the east side of Manhattan. I don’t know, we were having some sort of fight, and I wound up leaving and I checked into a hotel. And the other time was … there was another time he was hitting me, but basically … oh, we were on the road and I actually left the room and knocked on Bill Aucoin’s door and said, “Can I sleep in here,” and I did. At that point, Peter was wrecking the room, and I have photos of it.

In the end, you didn’t end up divorcing just Peter. You divorced KISS pretty much and your previous life.

LC: That’s the hardest part of getting divorced. You don’t leave a person. You leave their family, you end up losing their friends, and their business associates. Fortunately, I kept in touch with Ace. I’m not in touch with Gene or Paul. I see them occasionally, maybe once every 20 years … I don’t know (laughs). But I do talk to his family. I’m close to his family, his brother. I’m closer to his brother now than he is. He hasn’t talked to his brother in about 15 years. He only talks to one of his sisters, and the last time I saw Peter, which was at Bill Aucoin’s memorial, I had to tell him it was his sister’s … the one sister that he does keep in touch with I had to tell him it was her birthday.

Oh, is that right?

LC: I said, “You should call your sister.” The family is always complaining, “We don’t hear from him. We don’t hear from him.” So I tell him, and I have seen him in 16 years and I’m reprimanding him (laughs).

Learning how to be a photographer, did you ever think that would help you stand on your own two feet?

LC: Well, absolutely. I always loved being a photographer. My mother took pictures and my uncle was a professional photographer. My uncle actually built his own camera and he was in a photography magazine. He always had a Leica, which I wound up getting when he passed away. But my mother always used to go, “Oh no. Here comes aunt Mary with the camera.” And that was my mother. So I always had a camera, and when I finally was getting divorced, I’m going to go for lessons, because we had finally gotten professional cameras. And you know, you can learn a little bit through … you know, once we were in Japan they were telling me what to do with this camera and I’m going,”Ugh. I’m like lost.” But I went to school. I went to school, to the New School in New York City, and I took a couple of classes. Jeanette was supposed to go with me, but she bailed out. And so I took a couple of classes, and I learned how to use the camera. And I just said to myself … I just remember walking in my home in Greenwich, and I thought, “You know what? Your life is not over. You can do whatever you want to do, and you’re going to do it.” I just said, “I want to be a photographer.” And that’s what I became.

Who was your favorite band to photograph?

LC: Ah, Queen. Queen. Well, KISS would have been if they’d allowed me to be in the pit, but I wasn’t allowed because of Peter. It wasn’t KISS; it was Peter who didn’t want me there. But Queen has the best lighting. I loved their lighting. I mean, I’m not sure, but I’m sure KISS had great lighting also. I mean, I love to photograph KISS. They’re so visual. But other than KISS, it would be Queen.

Was there a photo that you’ve taken over the years, maybe of Freddie [Mercury] or somebody, that’s your favorite?

LC: Oh yeah. I got a picture of Freddie where he’s standing with his fist out and he’s standing sideways and the lights from something on the stage just keep going. It’s an amazing photo and the weirdest thing about it is [famed rock photographer] Barry Levine asked me for a copy of that photo.

Oh, is that right?

LC: So, you know who Barry is, right?

He taught you a few tricks, right?

LC: Barry is my inspiration, and so is Bob Gruen. They both inspired me. Barry inspired me with his professionalism and his creativity. Bob Gruen inspired me with respect to you can do anything and they’ll love it (laughs). I said to Bob Gruen, “I have a photo in my book … some of them are dark, some of them are out of focus.” He goes, “It doesn’t matter. They’ll love them anyway.” I didn’t want them in my book, but my editors said, “Put them in the book. They’re history. They’re part of history (laughs).”

Do you have a favorite Ace story you could tell? It seems like there is a lot of them.

LC: Well, you know the one of him with the girl on the balcony.

Right.

LC: Jesus, I don’t know. I think Ace is a story in himself. He’s a character. Oh, all right. I’ve got a story about Ace. I probably don’t have it in the book. Okay … well, maybe I do. I’m not sure. Anyway, Ace is here one day. He’s at my apartment, and he’s going over to see this girl Linda, who lives on 72^nd. I’m like a couple of blocks away from there. A few blocks from the Dakota. So he’s going over to see Linda, and he goes, “Lydia, could you lend me $20?” I said, “$20? What the hell are you going to do with $20?” And he says, “Oh, you know, just in case I need $20.” I said, “Ace, I’ll give you $50.” So I went over the safe and got $50 out of the safe and I gave him $50, and he goes, “Hey, you got a lot of money?” And I said, “No, but I’ve got money.” And he goes, “Will you marry me?”

And he likes to gamble.

LC: Needless to say, I never got the $50 back (laughs). He loves to gamble. I was at his apartment once. It was me and Jeanette. We were at the apartment, and he took a Lear jet to Atlantic City, and he called up Jeanette. And he says, “Jeanette, I’m not coming home tonight.” She goes, “What do you mean?” We were in his Manhattan apartment. He had a house at that point I think up it was up in Irvington, New York. It was just a rental. Or maybe he owned it. I’m not sure. He might have owned it. I’m not sure, but it wasn’t the big house that he bought in Wilson, New York. He goes, “I’m not coming home.” And she goes, “Why not?” And he says, “Because I’m winning $40,000. I’m up $40,000. And I’m not coming home. We’re rained in.” And she goes, “Okay, fine.” He winds up … the next day he takes the plane out and comes home with $25,000. She goes, “What happened to the other $15,000?” And he goes, “Well, I lost it. And I also bought you a mink coat (laughs).” He’s hysterical.

He hasn’t changed much, except for the sobriety I suppose.

LC: Yeah.

###

Look for more of our interview with Lydia Criss in the coming days. In the meantime, visit http://www.lydiacriss.com/ for more information on Lydia and the revised and expanded edition of her book, “Sealed with a KISS.”

Doro meets Lemmy, disaster ensues

Singer describes first encounter with the Motorhead main man, offers update

By Peter Lindblad

Anyone who dares to have a drink with Motorhead’s sage rock ‘n’ roll outlaw Lemmy Kilmister does so at

DORO - Raise Your Fist 2012

his or her own peril. Doro Pesch found that out the hard way.

“When you drink whiskey cola with Lemmy, you know, it is 90 percent whiskey and 10 percent Coca Cola,” cautions Pesch, fresh off a North American tour in support of her newest Nuclear Blast release, Raise Your Fist.

Such a ratio would normally kill a lesser man or woman, if consumed in ridiculous amounts. Doro survived her first encounter with Lemmy … but just barely. And she almost did irreparable harm to her burgeoning music career in the process. “I don’t think Lemmy remembers it, but I remember it,” says Doro.

It was the early ‘80s, as Pesch recalls. Warlock, the traditional German power-metal band she formed in 1982 with Rudy Graf, Thomas Studier, Michael Eurich and Peter Szigeti, was still in its infancy and looking for their big break.

“The first time I got invited to go to London, to England, by a magazine … that was very important,” explains Doro. “It was Kerrang magazine, and it was before I had even gotten an American release. And back in the day, it was like you had to do really good in England to get a chance to go to America.”

At the behest of Kerrang, Doro was invited to a party and asked to play a couple of songs. The significance of the occasion was not lost on Doro. There was a lot on the line for her and Warlock. Fully aware that she needed be on the top of her game, she agreed, even though her band was back in Germany.

“I said, ‘Okay,’ but the record company [Warlock was first on Mausoleum Records] said just one person goes over from Warlock, and I said, ‘Well, okay,’” recalls Pesch. “So, I went over and they put together a band for me, like a couple of other musicians, and we were doing sound check and it was maybe ’82 or ’83. And yeah, we were rehearsing, it sounded really good. I covered a couple of Free songs and they sounded good, but the pressure was on. I was so stressed out. I thought, ‘Oh God, I’ve got to represent well for the record company, for the magazine people,’ and there were tons of press there.”

After sound check, Doro had some time to kill. So, she went around the corner and walked into a pub to get something to eat or drink. And who should be there but Lemmy, one of Doro’s metal idols.

“I saw somebody who was standing there, and I thought, ‘Is that Lemmy? And then I walked up to him and said, ‘Are you Lemmy?’ And he said, ‘Yes. Are you Doro?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ And I thought, ‘Oh, that’s great,’ but I couldn’t speak English at all. I had no idea what he was saying, and I said, ‘Do you wanna have a drink – whiskey cola?’ And I thought, ‘Oh yes, yes,’” says Doro.

Lemmy, of course, does not drink like normal people. As Doro says, a whiskey Coke for him is a whole lot of whiskey and just enough soda to add a hint of sweetness. Young and naïve, she had no idea what she was getting herself into.

“And we smoked some cigarettes, and it was one whiskey cola after another,” remembers Doro. “So, I had a couple of drinks, and I didn’t want to say, ‘No,’ because I didn’t want to chicken out. So I had a couple more, and I thought, ‘Oh my God.’ And he said, ‘Dora, don’t you have to do a gig?’ I said, ‘Oh, yeah.’ And then I walked out of the pub. I couldn’t even … I think I was probably shaking. I didn’t even know where I was going.”

Amazingly, Doro found the club where the party was in full swing. “And then people were saying, ‘Doro, you have to jump onstage. Your show …’ And I went onstage and I couldn’t remember the lyrics anymore,” says Doro. “I couldn’t stand up, and then I was sitting on the drum riser, and then I waited until the band was finished. And then I walked off. And the record company and everybody were in shock.”

In her inebriated state, Doro had some explaining to do.

“They said, ‘What happened to you? What happened?’ And I said, ‘I met Lemmy,’” says Doro. “And then everybody started laughing. They said, ‘Okay, little girl. Now that’s a good excuse.’ And that’s how we got our record deal in America. So that was my first time meeting Lemmy, and we’ve become real good friends.”

So good in fact that two years ago, DORO, the band, toured with Motorhead. And Lemmy sings a duet with Pesch on the pained ballad “It Still Hurts” off Raise Your Fist. She feels that fans were quite receptive to the new material on the month-long North American tour she just wrapped up at the end of February, a jaunt that was somewhat hazardous due to inclement weather.

“It was a wonderful tour. It was awesome,” says Pesch. “There was lots of snow, though, and lots of snowstorms, and oh man, in some cities, there was so much snow and ice, we were afraid that nobody would show up. But, it was always packed, even though it was cold out.”

Now that it’s over, Doro and company aren’t ready to take a break just yet.

“Next week, we go to Russia,” says Pesch, who lives now in both New York City and her native Germany. “The Full Metal Cruise, that’s another cruise liner metal thing going in Europe. And then we want to do all the summer festivals and do some more gigs in the States. And keep touring for the rest of the year, and then I celebrate my 30^th anniversary in music. And I want to do it a couple of times. I want to do it the first time at Wacken, at the Open Air festival in Germany in August. And then I want to do it once in New York and in Paris, and then probably do a great DVD out of it, because, of course, I want to do it great, with great guests and spectacular shows and the best pyrotechnics and whatever … it’s great, great, great. And then I just did the second part of [the film] “Anuk – The Way of the Warrior.” [In the first movie, released in 2006 with Krokus’s Marc Storache also acting in the film, she played the warrior Meha] We did the first part and now we’re doing the second part. I’m writing some more songs for the soundtrack, and I hope it will come out in 2013 or 2014. It always takes a little longer to break into cinema, so probably the beginning of 2014 – and then more touring and hopefully, another long American tour.”

More of our interview with Doro Pesch will soon be available. In the meantime, visit www.doromusic.de to find out what DORO are up to. 

Public Enemy ready to bum rush the show

Hip-hop legends about to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

By Peter Lindblad

Chuck D. and Public Enemy were itching to unleash Yo! Bum Rush the Show on a world that wasn’t at all

Public Enemy - It Takes a Nation of
Millions to Hold us Back

prepared for its incendiary political and social commentary or its revolutionary sound collages. In 1986, however, their record company had different priorities.

While working at the radio station WBAU, the emcee with the powerful, hard-hitting delivery and a keen intellect had already rapped on the Public Enemy #1 tape put together by PE’s sonic mastermind Hank Shocklee.  

As Chuck D. recalls, “It actually was a demo for radio promo in 1984 that created a lot of havoc,” and it was passed around from “Yo! MTV Raps” host Doctor Dre and then “… to [Run DMC’s] Jam Master Jay and then [Def Jam Recordings founder/record producer] Rick Rubin and the Beastie Boys as well. It was my first record, and it was actually supposed to come out in ‘86, but because it was in the CBS system … [Bruce] Springsteen pushed back the Beastie Boys and pushed back us, so we got caught up into releasing our first record in ’87 instead of ’86. By that time, a lot of the terrain of hip-hop and rap music had changed, and [Public Enemy #1] would have been groundbreaking if it had come out in ’86, but it’s interesting at least.” 

Coming off the massive success of Born in the U.S.A., Springsteen was about to unveil the five-CD box set Live/1975-85, and the music industry was abuzz with anticipation. Hip-hop wasn’t the proven cash cow it would become, and Public Enemy was put on the back burner.

However, their time would come, and when Public Enemy arrived, emcee Chuck D., hype man Flava Flav, the Bomb Squad production team, DJ Terminator X and the Professor Grif-led, fake Uzi-toting Security of the First World dance team turned hip-pop – and popular music, as well – on its collective ear. Touted as the “Black CNN,” Public Enemy addressed subjects important to African-Americans that white America was too scared, too apathetic or too bigoted to confront.

Against a backdrop of sirens, a crazy mix of samples, hard funk rhythms and minimalist beats, Chuck D. voiced his truth with all the subtlety of a howitzer, while Flava Flav – sporting his trademark big clocks – played the court jester. What they had to say was vitally important, as was how the 2013 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees said it.

Born Carlton Ridenhour, Chuck D. attended Adelphi University on Long Island in the early ‘80s. While studying graphic design, Chuck D. worked as a DJ at the school’s radio station, WBAU, where he met Shocklee and Bill Stephney. Sharing an interest in politics and hip-hop, the three bonded, and Ridenhour began appearing on Stephney’s radio show as Chuck D.

As for Flav, he grew up as a self-trained musical prodigy in Roosevelt, N.Y., playing multiple instruments. His teenage years were troubled ones, however, as he found himself in hot water with the law on numerous occasions and eventually dropped out of high school. Around that time, Flav and Chuck D. began hosting their own college radio show, while also working for Chuck D.’s father’s delivery service.

Soon, the various components that made up Public Enemy coalesced, with Chuck D. and Flava Flav out in front. Featuring Hank and Keith Shocklee, Eric “Vietnam” Sadler, Gary G-Wiz and Kerwin Young, the Bomb Squad was assembled, stacking a wide-ranging variety of samples on top of one another in a single track with an innovative cut-and-paste approach and avant-garde sensibilities. Whipping up a frenzied racket, with the noisy scratchings of Terminator X adding to the sonic mix, Public Enemy drew the attention of Rubin, who wanted them for his Def Jam label.

Though known for his production work with the likes of thrash-metal titans Slayer, Rubin took a hands-off approach with Public Enemy.

“Truthfully speaking, we never really worked hand-in-hand with Rick,” says Chuck D. “It was probably the first time he let something be autonomous, and we wanted to be autonomous. But at the same time, we welcomed Rick to add in whatever he wanted to add in. And I think he’s proud of that fact.”

Still, with Rubin around, the Run DMC-influenced Public Enemy assimilated elements of heavy rock, pushing guitars to the fore on their raw debut Yo! Bum Rush the Show in startlingly original fashion. Further on down the road, they would take it to another level. “I should say the first time we went into a rock-rap was Vernon Reid [Living Color guitarist] playing on ‘Sophisticated Bitch’ on Yo, Bum Rush the Show, and then on the second album, we had that Slayer sample [‘Angel of Death’] on ‘She Watches Channel Zero,’” recalls Chuck D., who says that Rubin did the mix for “She Watches Channel Zero” and loved the results.

While Yo! Bum Rush the Show finds Public Enemy in its developmental phase, 1988’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back was a fully realized vision of radical sociopolitical diatribes set to the Bomb Squad’s game-changing, wildly original aural murals of stomping funk, free-jazz insanity and slamming hard rock. Doors didn’t just open for them. They kicked them down and rushed in, demanding everyone’s attention with irrepressible singles “Don’t Believe the Hype” and “Bring the Noise.”

Anthrax was among those who were already listening. Drummer Charlie Benante and guitarist Scott Ian were Public Enemy’s biggest ambassadors among the thrash-metal community, and in 1991, they asked Chuck D. about doing a thrash-metal remake “Bring the Noise,” who wasn’t interested initially.

“Scottie Ian was a fan from the jump, man,” says Chuck D. “Charlie and him thought it was cool to wear our t-shirts in front of a hundred thousand people at the Monsters of Rock gig. People were asking, ‘Ooooh, who’s Public Enemy?’ So, he was our first guy, man (laughs).”

With Ian in their corner, Public Enemy suddenly had crossover potential, and to show how much he thought of Anthrax, Chuck D. invoked the name of New York City’s most aggressive thrash-metal street gang in the fiery original version of “Bring the Noise.”

“That was what made me name check them in the song, ‘Bring the Noise,’” says Chuck D. “I was telling ‘em that music is all the same – ‘Wax is for Anthrax.’ And so I’m name checking everybody from Eric B. to Sonny Bono and Yoko Ono and Anthrax – imagine (laughs)? So Charlie and Scott came back and said, ‘Look, we want to do a thrash version, Chuck. Let’s get on it.’ And I was like, at that time, ‘Well, I mean, I already did the song. You guys cover it.’ They said, ‘But we want you on it.’ And they just went ahead and did it, and I got on and we did the video, and we did the tour and Charlie and Scott made history.”

So did Public Enemy, releasing a series of powerful and oftentimes controversial records like 1990’s Fear

Public Enemy - Fear of a Black Planet

of a Black Planet – their most successful album, with singles such as “911 is a Joke” and the blazing anthem “Fight the Power,” a track which figured prominently in the Spike Lee film “Do the Right Thing” – and Apocalypse ’91 … The Enemy Strikes Black. Even as they endured Flav’s drug problems and a media firestorm over Grif’s alleged anti-Semitic remarks in the press, with each LP, Public Enemy pushed the envelope.

“The whole key was to make them totally different,” explains Chuck D. “The whole thing about rock is to never repeat yourself … over the course of a catalog, you should be able to say, ‘Okay, wow! Now there’s something different,’ but you’re not going to not sound like yourself. But you can actually say that we went over here, and we knew that people wanted this particular sound, and we went the opposite way.”

Eventually, Public Enemy, hugely influential in bringing about a golden age of rap during the 1980s and 1990s, left Def Jam to go independent. In the years since, Public Enemy has resurfaced numerous times to challenge the status quo, experiencing a surprise revival in England with the hit “Harder Than You Think” off 2007’s 20^th anniversary LP How Do You Sell Soul to a Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul? It was their highest-charting single ever in the country. They even returned to tour in 2012 and 2013 on the strength of two 2012 albums – Most of My Heroes Don’t Appear on No Stamp and Evil Empire of Everything, made with full instrumental bands and Terminator X’s late ‘90s replacement, DJ Lord. Tech savvy, Chuck D. was all in early on in embracing the possibilities of digitization and the Internet, and he’s been instrumental in establishing the first-ever HipHopGods.com Classic Tourfest Revue, featuring Public Enemy and a revolving lineup of rap artists from the golden age of hip-hop.

“I was really impressed with what they did, over the years, with classic rock, how they separated classic rock from the mainstream – I guess [I wanted to do the same for] the pioneering, golden era and spirit of rap and what was happening in the mainstream, contemporary, major record industry. We need to take care of it,” says Chuck D.

Swag Auction Puts Vintage Concert T-Shirts, Jackets and Backstage Passes In The Spotlight

By Susan Sliwicki
Goldmine Magazine

These days, it's almost unthinkable to go see your favorite band in concert or hang out at a music festival without taking at least a little bit of the show home with you, be it a T-shirt or a baseball cap. But the items we see today in artists' online shops and at their merch tables weren't always so readily available.

That's part of the reason why Backstage Auctions chose to put the spotlight on concert-related collectibles at its Vintage Concert Swag Auction, which is slated run from April 6 thru April 14. The event will offer over 300 lots, which are dominated by concert and promotional T-shirts but also include jackets, programs, backstage passes and tickets for various artists mostly from the 1970s-1980s. A special auction preview will go live on Backstage Auctions' website beginning March 28th.

"People buy these shirts for two reasons. You've got one big group that buys them purely as a collectible, and as soon as they get the shirt, they neatly fold it and put it in a plastic bag and preserve it together with the other T-shirts they have. And, you have people that buy them to wear them as a simple fashion statement," says Jacques van Gool, owner of Backstage Auctions.

van Gool falls in the second camp, with baseball-style jerseys being a personal favorite. Concert tees often serve as a conversation starter, he said.

"I love them for their design," he said. "I think concert shirts are great, and they're meant to be worn." 

Of course, if you want to wear your band loyalty on your sleeve, so to speak, it can be a little tougher to do with vintage garments, which often tend to surface in smaller sizes.

"On the crew, you're hardly ever gonna find somebody in a size small. For the most part, these were manual laborers who were big, beefy, burly guys, who at minimum needed a large or an extra large," he said. And all the shirts from the 1970s and '80s, they are by definition smaller than today's shirts, because people were smaller 20, 30, 40 years ago. A shirt that is labeled large in the 1970s is comparable to a small today."

Although there's no official scale when it comes to grading concert and promo T-shirts, the concept is much the same as it is with vinyl records - right down to the idea it's highly unlikely you'll ever see a T-shirt in Mint condition.

"If you've got a shirt that is spotless, stainless, no damage of any kind, then that usually is or should be graded Excellent. Most shirts are probably graded anywhere between Good and Very Good. When you've got a shirt that's 30 to 40 years old, there's gonna be a flaw," he said. "When a shirt comes off the press, it doesn't get sealed or anything, so there's a lot of human hands touching it, and it's always going to be exposed to some degree of the elements."

It's very common to find tiny holes; small food, beverage or even pit stains; or some other degree of wear on these garments.

"But when you're talking about shirts that are severely stained, or have the arms cut off and the neck cut out - something that was popular in the '80s - anything along those lines should be graded fair or poor," he said.

Unless, of course, the shirt was worn by an artist, such as the David Lee Roth-worn T-shirt Backstage offered in a recent auction.

"We had photos of him wearing the shirt, and he was known for cutting not only the sleeves off, but cutting a sizable portion of the flank off the shirt, and cut the neck out. Essentially, it was a rag, just hanging off his neck," van Gool said. "If you or I would've done it, the value would've dropped to 25 cents. Since he did it, it ended up selling for $600 or $700."

Just because a shirt may be in well-loved, fragile condition, doesn't mean it lacks value.

"There are shirts, especially from the late '60s and all the way into the '70s, that are so exceptionally rare that you want to have that shirt regardless of condition," he said.

While condition is a factor in value, rarity plays into the mix, too. And determining rarity comes down to where, when and how the shirts were offered. At the bottom of the value pyramid are the mass-produced, official merchandise shirts offered for sale at concerts, and, in the case of today's acts, online. But if an artist prints up a shirt exclusive to one particular venue and offers that shirt only at the event, its rarity increases.

"In the '70s, people didn't necessarily buy merchandise at a concert. It may have been there, but it was an exception rather than the norm to buy a shirt," van Gool said. "As a result, concert shirts from the '70s obviously should be a lot more valuable than shirts from the '80s, which are in turn more valuable than those from the '90s and so on."

Next up in value: promotional shirts that were distributed by record companies from the 1970s into the 1990s.

"Record companies spent a lot of money on promotional shirts, and they were made in varying quantities, but some shirts were made a lot more than others," he said.

For instance, a variety of promo shirts were made for Bruce Springsteen's "Born In the U.S.A." album, and as a result, those shirts are more commonly available than others. But they still are rarer than a concert T-shirt from that same album and era, he said.

At the top of the rarity heap are promoter shirts and jackets, which were around mostly in the 1970s and 1980s and typically handed out to people working for the promotional company, at the venue, or, on occasion, to the band. A combination of factors make promo T-shirts incredibly desirable among collectors, he said.

"They were never made for commercial purposes, so they only made 50 or 100 of those shirts," van Gool said. "And second, they're great because the design is unique to the promoter, and the promoter more or less had free rein to decide how fancy (or not fancy) to make their shirts. Third, they're unique, because typically on the back of the shirts, it would print a couple of dates from that tour."

More than 100 such rare shirts from Bill Graham Presents events in the 1970s will be featured in the Vintage Concert Swag Auction. "There are some home-run shirts in there, like there's a Led Zeppelin jacket from 1977, and a couple of Pink Floyd shirts from 1977, and there are various Rolling Stones shirts from concerts and events, all from the 1970s," he said.

van Gool expects shirts from the Graham collection will be among the auction's top attractions, and he anticipates that some of the Stones and Grateful Dead T-shirts will break the three-digit barrier for bids.

If your budget isn't big enough to afford a major rarity, never fear.




There are plenty of lots with an opening bid of $25 or less, including unused silk (aka stick-on) and laminated backstage passes in phenomenal condition. Featured artists include Metallica, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Stevie Ray Vaughan, KISS, Queen and Red Hot Chili Peppers, and some passes are autographed, van Gool said.

The phrase "backstage pass" today tends to bring to mind an image of a laminated pass on a lanyard, a format that is both durable and prestigious, because it typically identifies the wearer as someone with access to the artist. Stick-on passes have their own appeal, because they were used for a specific date or venue, which can put them in demand if they were from an artist's final performance, or if something historic happened during that event.

Silk and laminated passes aren't the only ways that artists, managers and crew members kept track of who belonged where.
"In the '70s, they all looked so different, and it could be that you had almost looked like a business card with something written on it," van Gool said. "In some cases, they even used buttons as backstage passes."

The Vintage Concert Swag Auction will preview the entire catalog online beginning on March 28, 2013 then the bidding will go live on April 6th and run for one week.

For additional information and to register for the auction click here: Vintage Concert Swag Auction

CD Review: Saxon – Sacrifice

CD Review: Saxon  – Sacrifice

UDR/EMI

All Access Review: A-

Saxon - Sacrifice 2013

James Cameron’s “Titantic” had star power, amazing special effects and a budget that rivaled the gross national product of some small countries. “Made in Belfast,” Saxon’s blue-collar tribute to those who put their blood, sweat and tears into building the doomed luxury liner, was recorded for their rampaging new album Sacrifice with considerably less money and a leading man in Biff Byford who looks more like a motorcycle club president than Leonardo DiCaprio. And yet, it’s “Made in Belfast” that’s more deserving of an Oscar.

In comparison, Cameron’s interminably long film has nothing on the widescreen epic that serves as the awe-inspiring centerpiece of Sacrifice, Saxon’s third killer album in a row out now on the UDR label. As good a place to start with Sacrifice as any, “Made in Belfast” is an interesting anomaly for Saxon. Dramatic and devastatingly heavy at times, with a crushing, knee-buckling chorus as damaging as the iceberg that tore a gigantic hole into Titanic’s supposedly indestructible hull, “Made in Belfast” also sweeps across the Irish countryside on wheeling Celtic mandolin courtesy of Paul Quinn. And the aural landscape Saxon paints is breathtaking.

An experiment that works astonishingly well, against all odds, the contrast of punishing heavy-metal riffs, soaring twin-guitar helixes, and lovely folk accents is a refreshing change for Saxon, but don’t expect them to make a habit of it. Fascinated by history, just as Saxon was when they penned their own examination of the Kennedy assassination in “Dallas 1 p.m.” some thirty years ago, the New Wave of British Heavy Metal vanguards go old school and burn up the asphalt on “Warriors of the Road,” a fireball of delirious metal energy that’s a throwback to Saxon’s early ‘80s work. The bruising, hard-nosed contemplation of modern-day frustration that is “Standing in a Queue” is just as nostalgic, although it seems to pine just as much for the simple, but brutally effective, hooks of Bon Scott-era AC/DC as it does for their NWOBHM heyday.

Still hungry for new adventures, however, Saxon displays how enamored they are with the explosive, riotous sound of thrash on Sacrifice by raining down torrents of serrated guitar noise – designed by Quinn and his partner in crime Doug Scarratt – in the violent, feverish mosh pit of a title track. And they seethe with rage on the menacing “Wheels of Terror,” but Saxon hasn’t given up on melody, a crucial element of the classic Saxon sound found on “Guardians of the Tomb,” the bruising workingman anthem “Walk the Steel” and “Stand Up and Fight,” all of which feed on the raw fury and searing speed of Exodus or Testament.

The limited deluxe edition of Sacrifice is paired with a bonus disc of extras that find Saxon re-imagining a handful of their most revered classic songs – among them, a majestically orchestrated version of “Crusader,” lush acoustic takes on “Requiem” and “Frozen Rainbow,” and a frenzied “Forever Free.” Still, it’s the hot, molten core of Sacrifice and its brazen “go for the throat” attitude that ought to send old fans and new converts alike into paroxysms of rock ‘n’ roll ecstasy. Saxon's not dead yet. In fact, they seem to found metal’s fountain of youth, as Sacrifice burns with a relentless intensity – no ballads were allowed here – that belies their age.
–    Peter Lindblad 

CD Review: Clutch – Earth Rocker

CD Review: Clutch – Earth Rocker

Weathermaker Music

All Access Review: A

Clutch - Earth Rocker 2013

Having a fast machine is more important to Neil Fallon than just about anything. Well-meaning people keep telling the Clutch front man he has to change his evil ways on the track “Crucial Velocity” from the groove-metal champions’ newest flaming chunk of blistering, no bullshit rock ‘n’ roll Earth Rocker, that deceit leads to jail time and cheating everyone is going to get him into hot water one day.

Fallon isn’t worried about it. He can always jump into his “Rocket 88, the fastest in the land” and drive away. They’ll never catch him, not with the slightly fuzzed-out, turbo-charged “Crucial Velocity” on the radio, at least. One of the best driving songs since Fu Manchu’s “Mongoose,” it practically demands that you step on the gas, even if your radar detector advises you shouldn’t. So does “Unto the Breach,” another satisfying, hell-on-wheels riff fest that turns on the afterburners and squeals its smoking tires before racing down the straightaway at unsafe speeds.

And that’s the direction on Clutch’s GPS for Earth Rocker, out on the Weathermaker Music label. It is always pointed straight ahead, and there are very few detours, aside from the cosmically soulful “Gone Cold” Clutch roasts slowly on a spit over some cowboy’s campfire on a cold desert night. Trimming the blues fat from their most recent releases, Clutch adopts a leaner, more aggressive stance on Earth Rocker, even if the Texas two-stepping boogie and outlaw attitude of the revenge fantasy “Book, Saddle & Go” rolls up a fatty of Tres Hombres-era ZZ Top and inhales deeply.

Tempos vary on Earth Rocker, as the stoner-metal heaviness, funk grooves and wah-wah radiance of “The Face” and “Mr. Freedom” – gurgling like a bong – chug along with brutal, calculating precision, organically growing ever more powerful and seductive, while “Cyborg Bette” sounds like Canned Heat on amphetamines and the full-throated roar of the title track takes full advantage of Clutch’s limitless horsepower. Primal and loud, these witches’ brews of chemically-induced mayhem mix screamingly efficient guitar solos from Tim Sult, forceful vocals, hammering riffs and diverse rhythms to make potent magic.

Lyrically vicious, defiant and unapologetic about anything, Earth Rocker is the voice of a modern-day warrior battling the forces of conformity and complacency and doing so while firing up a musical vehicle that is built not only for speed, but also for effortless and subtle shifts in dynamics. Get in and go for a ride. There is plenty of room in this Rocket 88. (http://weathermakermusic.com/)

– Peter Lindblad

CD Review: David Bowie – The Next Day

CD Review: David Bowie – The Next Day

Columbia 

All Access Review: B+

David Bowie - The Next Day 2013

Nobody knows what The Next Day will bring, especially for the unpredictable David Bowie. His future uncertain, having turned 65 in January, Bowie has been adamant that his days of touring are behind him. And having reached retirement age, it begs the question: Is this Bowie’s last hurrah? From the title of his latest LP, it appears even Bowie has no idea. There is, after all, an incredible amount of ambiguity in those three little words.

Does it mean he plans on doing more recording and that he’s going back to work … well, The Next Day? Or, does it mean he’s moving on to another chapter in his life, one that doesn’t involve music at all? It could be he’s confronting his own mortality and wondering just how many “next days” he has left. Then again, maybe it’s simply a more artful and humanistic expression of that old Yiddish proverb that, when translated, says, “Man plans and God laughs.”

As far as the planning for The Next Day goes, Bowie and his co-conspirators had to chuckle at how successful they were in keeping word of this new record under wraps. The Conclave of Cardinals was conducted with less secrecy. When news arrived that a fresh Bowie record was imminent, it was met with expressions of shock and surprise. That it could possibly contain his most inspired work in ages was even more stunning, considering the parade of lackluster and unnecessarily difficult albums he’d released since Let’s Dance or Scary Monsters, the LP that seems to have provided the template of experimental accessibility for The Next Day.

Coming 10 years after 2003’s Reality – the successor to 2002’s Heathen – The Next Day finds Bowie as open and revealing about himself as he’s ever been, and that, in and of itself, is noteworthy for a man whose multiple personalities and masquerades – from that of the Thin White Duke to Ziggy Stardust – have played out on very public stages over the years. It should come as no surprise then that, amid the treatises on loneliness, regret and wrenching heartache, questions of identity should arise in the alien soundscape “Heat,” with its quiet, martial drums, mournful strings and melancholic acoustic guitar strum marching gently under wraiths of lightly corrosive feedback. Here, Bowie’s weary, confessional expression of confusion and despair mesmerizes, just as it does in the elegant, smoky torch song “Where Are We Now?” Gorgeously rendered with dark, lush piano and watery pools of electric guitar, it’s a number that’s wide awake at 3 a.m. contemplating the erosion of time and life’s little mysteries. Sleep is overrated anyway.

Darker and even more stylish, with seductive, irresistibly melodic contours and a streaming pace pushed along by smooth, taut bass, “The Stars (Are out Tonight)” shimmers like a glassy city harbor in the clear moonlight. And Bowie’s increasingly urgent vocals and voyeuristic, unsettling poetry heighten the drama and paranoia of an absolutely intoxicating song that could rank among his best, even if it does bear an uncanny resemblance to “China Girl.” Even Iggy Pop, however, would forgive the likeness. Like Scary Monsters, though, the classy, well-manicured The Next Day spikes its arty pop-rock punch bowl with the slightest traces of intriguing discord, the off-kilter vocalizing in “How Does the Grass Grow?” being one example and the slashing guitar playing off the melodic buoyancy of the title track being another. In “If You Can See Me” the track’s compelling stop-start funk movements and dizzying array of beats – straight out of Radiohead’s playbook – dive right into a rushing sonic flood, as Bowie’s delivery shifts from robotic malfunction and threatening aspect to an all-too-human pleading for salvation and recognition.

Rather clunky and clumsily executed, “Dirty Boys” and the dull, thudding “Love is Lost” are minor missteps, as is “Boss of Me,” with its sleazy saxophones and alarmingly low energy levels. The interminable sameness of “Dancing Out in Space” is hard to get though, as well. Nevertheless, even these flawed pieces have qualities that make them compelling. Essentially, The Next Day is a tour of some of the most interesting and exquisitely detailed aural architecture Bowie has designed in recent years, and when the serrated edge, swirling beauty and propulsive drive of “(You Will) Set the World on Fire” breaks through the door Bowie is redeemed. Bowie is fighting against the dying of the light, and he’s winning, despite any doubts he may have.

–  Peter Lindblad

Saxon’s wheels of steel keep turning

NWOBHM legends return with a new LP 'Sacrifice'

By Peter Lindblad

Saxon's current lineup includes Nibbs Carter, Nigel Glockler,
Biff Byford, Doug Scarratt and Paul Quinn (Photo by Kai Swillus)

Dodging flying beer bottles and sidestepping brawling hooligans isn’t everybody’s idea of fun.

Biff Byford and the boys of Son of a Bitch, precursors to the New Wave of British Heavy Metal legends Saxon, always found trouble in one particular live venue in the northeast of England – in the industrial town of Burnley – called the Bank Hall Miners Club, but that didn’t stop them from playing there as often as they could in the early days.

As the lanky Saxon front man recalls, “The money was good.” And it had to be, because there was a real possibility that one or all of them could wind up in the hospital after the gig.

“It was a club for miners, as the miners had their own club,” says Byford. “That was pretty hard actually. That was a pretty hard place. There used to be fights there every time we played – not because of the band, but because there were two gangs that used to stand across each side of the room looking at each other, and then at some point, they’d all charge at each other and that would be the end of the concert. So yeah, it was a bit rough. It was like ‘The Blues Brothers,’ where they’re throwing pots and bits of beer at the band and things.”

Even for young men craving rock ‘n’ roll excitement and even danger, the violence of the Bank Hall Miners Club in the late 1970s was a bit much for Byford and Son of a Bitch. They had to make a buck, though. And, regardless of the trials and tribulations of barnstorming England in a cramped van and performing at clubs and bars where many of the patrons might want to take a swing at them, it beat the hell out of working in the mines.

“When I was 17 or 18, I was working in the coal mines,” says Byford. “It was difficult. It was really hard work. When you’re that young, you’ve got mates in there, and I wasn’t in there for very long. It was a dangerous place. But, yeah, I know what it’s like to work hard for everything.”

Perhaps that’s why Son of a Bitch, and later Saxon, originally had such a large following in working-class communities in the north of England and in South Wales, landscapes once dominated by factories and “cut off from the south,” the more pastoral area of Britain, as Byford says.

“I suppose people just wanted to go out on a Friday or Saturday night and have a great time and just watch a great band,” says Byford. “All these little villages or towns had clubs or bars, and we used to play them. You could play one every night for a month. And that’s what we did.”

The song “Stand Up and Fight,” off Saxon’s newest LP Sacrifice (a video of the making of the album is shown above), out on the UDR label, speaks to the struggles they encountered before the tsunami known as NWOBHM swept through the U.K. If the raging thrash and thundering traditional metal of Sacrifice – as well as other recent efforts like 2011’s Call to Arms, 2009’s Into the Labyrinth and 2007’s Inner Sanctum – is any indication, the indestructible Saxon has rediscovered the passionate intensity and raw energy that made their early ‘80s albums such classics.

Making a ‘Sacrifice’

Saxon - Sacrifice 2013

Sacrifice is Saxon’s 20^th album, and for the occasion, Byford decided to take the con. Or, in other words, he assumed the role of producer, and he wasn’t shy about giving out orders.

“I just really wanted to make an album that I liked and not be beholden to the people who are not doing it,” says Byford. “The fans are quite happy with that, so that was good … there are no ballads, just good rock music, just good metal music. That’s what I wanted to do.”

The plan was to revisit Saxon’s most revered albums – the early ‘80s holy trinity of Wheels of Steel, Strong Arm of the Law and Denim and Leather – for inspiration, while incorporating the balls-out, crash-and-burn mayhem of the thrash-metal titans of today who were weaned on the NWOBHM sound Saxon helped establish.

“I mean, we went back to the ‘80s a little bit for two or three of the songs, just to figure out what made us great,” explains Byford. “I think ‘Warriors of the Road’ and ‘Stand Up and Fight’ are sort of thrash-metal-y like the ‘80s were, and yeah, I just wanted to play with Marshalls and Gibsons really, and just play and not rely too much on too many digital tricks and just play like it is really. Some of the stuff is quite modern, like ‘Made in Belfast’ is a really heavy song, with the Celtic sort of style. We were experimenting as well, but yeah, I wanted the songs to have that kind of push like it was just recorded yesterday, but still have that one foot in the past.”

Infused with Irish folk accents, “Made in Belfast” certainly has historical significance.

“It was originally just a heavy riff and a melodic turn,” says Byford, referring to how the song was constructed. “I wanted it to have a Celtic feel to it, so we went and Paul Quinn wrote the more Celtic part of the beginning and we put it in the song. We liked it that much and it’s in all the bridges of the song. And in Belfast, not the song but the city, I went to see the museum, the Titanic museum. And I just thought it would be nice to write a song for the people that worked on the ships really, rather than those who were [passengers] on the Titanic.”

“Walking the Steel” also expresses empathy for the plight of the working man, although this time it’s the construction being done on One World Trade Center – one of the new towers being built on the old site of the former World Trade Center, which was destroyed by the 9/11 terrorists – that stirred Byford’s imagination.

“I went to Ground Zero in 2011, and we saw the progress being made on the towers, and we were talking to a couple of guys there,” says Byford. “And they called it ‘walking the steel,’ when they worked up there in the clouds.”

Available as a standard jewel case CD, a limited-edition deluxe digibook, a vinyl picture disc, a digital download that comes with a bonus song or in a direct-to-consumer fan package, Sacrifice was mastered by in-demand producer Andy Sneap, who has worked on a number of recent high-profile metal releases.

“We’ve known him for quite some time, and we wanted to work together a little bit last year, or the year before, but couldn’t get to it. He had a little bit of time free ‘cause the Killswitch [Engage] album was delayed a few weeks. So, I asked him if he wanted to mix the album, and he said he’d love to mix the album. So, that’s how it happened really, just over e-mail. He came down to the studio to talk a couple of times, while I was recording the band, and we came up with a plan.”

Giving Sacrifice that contemporary feel was important for Byford, as songs like the title track have the heaviness and raw power he imagined it would, while retaining that classic Saxon sound.

“I’m a bit mixed really. I love the melodic stuff, but I also love the heavy stuff as well,” admits Byford. “I guess I’m a bit of a hybrid really. I love the melodic stuff – ‘747’ from the early albums – but I also like ‘Motorcycle Man’ and ‘Princess of the Night,’ so I’m a bit of a sucker for it all really.”

And he’s in absolute awe of the guitar work of Quinn and Doug Scarratt on the latest record, as well as the performances of the band as a whole.

“The musicianship of this band is great,” says Byford. “So it’s a lot easier to go to different places with this band than it was with any other band. So, yeah, it’s great this time. It’s really inspirational.”

Road tested

Back in the 1970s, Byford only had to witness the tough lives of his fellow miners to give himself the push he needed to make it as a musician.

In 1976, Byford, guitarists Quinn and Graham Oliver, bassist Steve “Dobby” Dawson and drummer David Ward – who would soon be replaced by Pete Gill – formed what would become Saxon in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, only they started out as Son of a Bitch. They toured England relentlessly, as is recounted in the 2012 Saxon documentary film “Heavy Metal Thunder.” The venues weren’t exactly posh settings.

“We played a lot of clubs and bars,” says Byford. “Yeah, we thought it was great fun, although they were very rough. There were a lot of fights and things.”

Part of the excitement involved having copious amounts of sex with groupies in the band’s van – which also housed their gear – after a gig. Their one-night stands occasionally got them into hot water.

“You had to have a good pair of running shoes to get out of the way,” jokes Byford. “There was always somebody’s girlfriend that liked one of the band members, and you had to get out pretty quickly.”

While the U.K. club circuit provided Saxon, who ditched the name Son of a Bitch fairly early on, all the thrills and excitement they could stand, they had bigger dreams. And they had no intention of being just a covers band, which only served to rile audiences.

“In the early days, we used to do like three sets,” recalls Byford. “We used to stop and have a break and then start again. And usually by the end of the set, all of them were pretty rough actually. And we really didn’t do cover songs back then. So a lot of people used to ask for ‘Smoke on the Water’ and all (laughs). And we said, ‘We don’t play that.’ And then they’d usually riot, you know what I mean? After a while, people would come to see us because we were a good band then, so we actually got on a little bit easier as time went on.”

Securing support spots on tours with bigger bands, including Motorhead, gained them much-needed exposure and expanded their fan base.

“It was our first tour,” says Byford, referring to Saxon’s opening gigs with Motorhead. “I mean, they were pretty big then in the U.K. at the time. So, yeah, we jumped on their tour. It was great actually. They helped us out a lot – telling fans to buy our records and things. They were really cool about it. They were great.”

Gaining momentum, Saxon got signed to the French record label Carrere, which put out their self-titled debut in 1979. Carrere, however, would experience financial difficulties, and when the label went under, Saxon was homeless. It wouldn’t take them long to find another label, and in 1980, they released Wheels of Steel, which yielded the singles “747,” the title track and “Suzie Hold On.”

So began a period of intense creativity and ceaseless touring, with Saxon appearing at the very first Monsters of Rock concert on Aug. 16, 1980.

Saxon - Wheels of Steel 1980

“We’d just gotten Wheels of Steel in the charts,” says Byford. “I think it had just gone gold in the U.K. So we went onstage … and it just was crazy, with 80,000 people going nuts, singing all the songs. Yeah, it was great. It was quite emotional for us. It was the first time we played to more than 2,000 people.”

On the road, Saxon encountered larger audiences and they were frothing at the mouth for something different. Much to their surprise, Saxon found itself at the vanguard of a burgeoning movement. NWOBHM was happening, and Saxon was taking notice “straight away really,” says Byford.

“It’s not like the U.S. It’s not like a massive country,” he adds. “In the U.K., it happened pretty quickly for us – two or three big magazines got a hold of it and gave us some fantastic reviews. You know, we played quite a few shows in the early days of Maiden, like at Manchester University and places like that. And yeah, it was a bit of a melting pot of bands really. I remember we played with a band called Samson back then. Bruce Dickinson was their singer, so I got to meet Bruce fairly early on as well.”

This conflagration of heavy metal and punk rock, combining speed and all-out aggression, was sweeping across England, as Saxon’s compatriots like Diamond Head, Budgie, Angel Witch, Girlschool, Motorhead, Tygers of Pan Tang and, of course, Iron Maiden blew the doors off the entire country.

“There was definitely a massive change in the size of audiences that had interest in the band,” says Byford. “I really think the magazines were a bit fed up with this punk thing. I just think they wanted something new to write about. And we were in the right place at the right time with some great songs.”

Humility aside, Saxon posted four albums in the U.K. Top 10 in the 1980s and had numerous Top 20 singles there and in Japan, at least in part, because of their insane work ethic. Striking while the iron was as hot as it could ever be, Saxon took whatever studio time they could get when they weren’t on the road. While Wheels of Steel was still going strong, Saxon released perhaps its finest recording, Strong Arm of the Law, which featured the title track and “Dallas 1 p.m.,” a song about John F. Kennedy.

“We were just very, very sort of inspired really,” says Byford. “We were just writing the first things that came into our heads. You know, they were great really. We had to work on the songs and get them sounding great – you know, with the arrangements. But generally, we’d have an idea and carry on with it and it worked out to be a fantastic idea – like ‘Dallas 1 p.m.,’ you know, I just sat down and wrote it. I said to the guys, ‘I’ve got this idea about writing a song about the Kennedy assassination and about when he was younger.’ And they were like, ‘Yeah.’ And we had this riff flying around, and we put the two together and it worked fantastically. So, I think that song probably took about two hours, from the original idea to the finished song.”

Not every song came together as fast as that one for Saxon, but with their touring schedule having expanded worldwide, having a hit in Japan with “Motorcycle Man,” there was less and less time for recording. Saxon didn’t mind the work.

“We’d actually not been out of the country before 1980, and most of us had never been on a plane,” says Byford.

Though they were spending more time on the road and in the air, Saxon didn’t do much songwriting away from the studio.

“Not many. Not many. I think we probably wrote ‘Princess of the Night’ on the road,” says Byford. “I can’t really remember many that we wrote. I got a lot of ideas for lyrics on the road, but I can’t remember writing one song on the road really. The guitarist might try something at sound check, and it would come out way too long, but generally, we just went into the room on Day 1 and started writing the album.”

Saxon - Denim and Leather 2013

With an ever-shrinking window to record, Saxon banged out another seminal record in 1981 with the fan favorite Denim and Leather, the title track of which has been a rallying cry for many metal fans ever since then. “Princess of the Night” was on Denim and Leather, and it was one of the band’s most successful singles, but in the aftermath, Saxon’s united front started to crack, as Gill departed and was replaced by Nigel Glockler for an upcoming tour.

Still formidable, Saxon kept their foot on the gas, releasing one of metal’s greatest live albums in The Eagle Has Landed. They were headlining tours of their own and supporting superstars like Ozzy Osbourne. And they brought down the house at 1982’s Monsters of Rock Festival. The tide, however, was turning ever so slowly against Saxon, as the glam-metal outbreak spread and NWOBHM started to fade.

Despite it all, Saxon released Power & the Glory in 1983, and it surpassed their previous best in sales. What nobody knew then was that Saxon was about to undergo earthshaking changes.

‘Crusader’ for truth

1984 saw Saxon sign with EMI Records, and they kicked off their relationship with a new album in Crusader, a record that critics found a bit commercial but Byford never saw it that way. And the title track is still beloved by fans.

“It was a song [written] from the point of view of a young lad watching the soldiers go off to war,” says Byford. “And yeah, it’s just a historic song, and other people have all sorts of different interpretations, but it’s just a history song, like ‘Dallas 1 p.m.’ or ‘Made in Belfast.’”

There would be other new releases in the ‘80s, including 1985’s Innocence is No Excuse and 1986’s Rock the Nations, although they lost Dawson in the process. Paul Johnson was hired as Dawson’s replacement, but Saxon was growing weary of touring. In 1988, they released the commercial disappointment Destiny, and EMI dropped the band.

Not willing to give up the ghost, Saxon continued on into the ‘90s, signing with Virgin Records. But after recording Dogs of War in 1994, Oliver was dismissed for trying to sell recording of Saxon’s 1980 Donnington performance without the permission of the rest of the band. To this day, Oliver and Dawson haven’t been welcomed back to Saxon, although Byford has left the door open for reconciliation.

“I mean, never say never – we’ll see how it goes really,” says Byford.

These days, Saxon’s lineup includes Byford, Quinn, Glockler, Scarratt and Nibbs Carter, who replaced Johnson way back in 1988. And this version of the band has been on an incredible roll, with each succeeding album since The Inner Sanctum receiving ever-increasing critical acclaim. Sacrifice might be the best of the lot, and it’s going to give the Saxon fans in Metallica and Megadeth reason to up their game.

“I think those guys were really into the old attitude and concept of our albums then,” says Byford. “They were very sort of … no particular style, just great songs played full bore – you know, no holding back. So I think that’s what those bands from the U.S. sort of liked about us, that metal/punk sort of stuff. So, yeah, definitely – and I’m sure a lot of them will like two or three songs of this album.”

Odds are, they will.

CD Review: Orange Goblin – A Eulogy for the Fans – Orange Goblin Live 2012

CD Review: Orange Goblin – A Eulogy for the Fans – Orange Goblin Live 2012

Candlelight Records

All Access Review: A

Orange Goblin - A Eulogy for
the Fans - Orange Goblin Live 2012

If the Hell’s Angels ever need a house band, they could do worse than Orange Goblin. These beer drinkers and hell raisers from Britain emit a gnarly heavy-metal roar as loud and smoky as the dirty exhaust pipes of an old chopper. And in all probability, like their brothers in denim and leather, they haven’t showered in months.

Or at least they probably hadn’t by the time they played Bloodstock and Hellfest in 2012, while out on the road supporting their late 2011 album, A Eulogy for the Damned. Welcomed with open arms by the great unwashed, the record knifed its way into the U.K. Top 200 upon its release and motored all the way up to No. 38 on the Billboard Heat Seeker’s chart. Taking no prisoners, A Eulogy for the Damned also conquered CMJ’s Loud Rock album listings by eventually grabbing the top spot. Still, as devastating and sonically brutal as A Eulogy for the Damned was, Orange Goblin’s studio LPs have never quite replicated the manly musk and hairy, brawling energy of the Orange Goblin live experience.

New from Candlelight Records, A Eulogy for the Fans – Orange Goblin Live 2012, comprised of thrilling performance recordings from both of those festivals of mayhem with videos and documentaries packed into a lively DVD, fills that void and then some. From the first squeal of feedback, Orange Goblin and their grizzly bear of a lead vocalist in Ben Ward set out to pillage and plunder, with churning, furious riffage born of ‘70s proto-metal and a healthy respect for doom rock, thrash and heavy, psychedelic blues that comes alive in the raging maelstroms of “Red Tide Rising,” “Quincy the Pigboy” and “Scorpionica.”

Relentless and punishing, Orange Goblin – established in 1995 – skillfully and dementedly handle twisting, crushing shifts in binge-and-purge dynamics with teeth-gnashing glee, sending the recent single “The Filthy & the Few” speeding into oblivion, bulldozing their way through “Acid Trial,” and then mauling “The Ballad of Solomon Eagle” and “Some You Win, Some You Lose” in beastly fashion. Whether he’s beating a meaty, menacing riff to death or flying straight into the sun on unpredictably wild solos, guitarist Joe Hoare maneuvers his way through the carnage like some crazed motocross rider. Hoare tears the guts out of the zombie-movie tribute “They Come Back” and the sprawling, Black Sabbath-like horror of “The Fog,” as Ward, Orange Goblin’s Rasputin of a singer, treats chilling lyrics in a gruff and malevolent manner that puts the fear of God into anybody who hears it. And that rhythm section, heaving to and fro while seeming so certain of its direction and drive, doesn’t shy away from a good bashing either.

There’s a little bit of cowboy in Orange Goblin, as the psychotic, mesmerizing grind of the irrepressible “Round up the Horses” so aptly illustrates, and this live effort comes off like a never-ending bull ride that tosses its audience around like rag dolls. Summoning the ugly power and raw, massive muscle of originators like Blue Cheer, Mountain and Vanilla Fudge, Orange Goblin claws through the tattered Southern rock glory of “Time Travelling Blues” and the rest of this set list violently, sending the frenzied crowd into paroxysms of metal madness. Those who were there are probably still talking about as one of the best nights of their lives.

-         –   Peter Lindblad