ORIGINALLY POSTED ON STRAIGHT.COM, MAY 1, 2013 By Steve Newton Remember how ZZ Top’s Tejas album sounded back in ’76 when you tossed it on your Yamaha turntable, cranked up the Kenwood amp, and blasted it through those Pioneer speakers? Well, I sure do. It sounded wicked! Especially when it got to “Pam Am Highway Blues”. Fellow … Continue reading ZZ Top box set will include original mixes of three early albums
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT, MARCH 3, 2003 By Steve Newton On the cover of his debut solo CD, Giddy Up, former Odds member Craig Northey is pictured on-stage in front of a huge outdoor crowd, playing guitar while kicking his left leg up to a painful-looking height. It’s the kind of acrobatic stunt … Continue reading Craig Northey sung, plunked, plinked, and originally thinked Giddy Up
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON JUNE 14, 1990 By Steve Newton As far as musical integrity and depth go, Mötley Crüe is not in the same hard-rock league as bands like Aerosmith, Van Halen, or Scorpions. But when it comes to putting on a rowdy, consistently exciting show, these four L.A. dudes do have what it takes. … Continue reading Mötley Crüe spring up like leather-clad trap-door spiders to wow Vancouver on the Dr. Feelgood tour
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT, OCT. 18, 2001 By Steve Newton For last year’s debut CD, Shake Hands With Shorty, the North Mississippi Allstars thoroughly plumbed the catalogues of Mississippi hill-country blues icons Fred McDowell, R.L. Burnside, and Jr. Kimbrough. On their new disc, 51 Phantom, the band took a different tack, including only … Continue reading North Mississippi Allstars ramp up the rock on 51 Phantom
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT, MAY 7, 2015 By Steve Newton For his latest album, American guitar hero Joe Bonamassa came up with one helluva great idea. Or at least his producer, Kevin Shirley, did. The plan was to record a one-off concert dedicated to the music of blues legends Muddy Waters and Howlin’ … Continue reading Joe Bonamassa says “I’m not a full-time rock ‘n’ roll guy. I like blues.”
photo by Kevin Statham ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT, JAN. 26, 1990 By Steve Newton Why, on why, did the B-52’s have to get booked into the Orpheum? As one of the prime providers of bouncy, shake-your-booty pop-rock, the band would have been so much better in a place where it’s okay to move … Continue reading The B-52’s make a triumphant return to Vancouver in the wake of Cosmic Thing
@shotbykevin ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT, JAN. 26, 1990 By Steve Newton If Alice Cooper‘s concert at the Coliseum last Thursday (January 18) were a horror movie–and in a way it nearly was–it might have been called The Return of Alice, Part 10: The New Blood. On his latest tour, the king of nasty … Continue reading Alice Cooper’s youthful band breathes fire into the shock-rock king’s classics in Vancouver
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON JUNE 7, 1985 By Steve Newton Last year’s Vancouver appearance by Quebec jazz/fusion quartet UZEB was one of my picks for the Top Ten concerts of 1984–right up there with Scorpions and R.E.M. Now the group is returning to the Commodore Ballroom for two nights, next Friday and Saturday (June 14 and … Continue reading UZEB may be “the Van Halen of jazz”, but they sure don’t get paid the same
ZZ Top is the only major rock band from the ’70s that still exists in the exact same form as on its first album, and for that you’ve got to give the bearded wonders credit. Rush would be up for similar acclaim were it not for John Rutsey playing on their debut album before Neil … Continue reading ZZ Top’s been rockin’ with the same dudes for nigh on 45 years
By Steve Newton As you’ve most likely heard by now, B.B. King, the beloved “King of the Blues”, passed away last night at the age of 89. He was receiving hospice care at his home in Las Vegas, where the longtime diabetic was recovering from dehydration. You can read all about the great man’s numerous … Continue reading R.I.P. B.B. King: the nicest bluesman I ever met
I’ve done hundreds of interviews with famous rockers since I started writing for the Georgia Straight back in 1982, most of them over the phone–in advance of a Vancouver tour date–some of them in person. It’s always been the policy at the Straight to turn down offers of e-mail interviews–where you send in questions and … Continue reading My first ever e-mail interview, because it’s Billy freakin’ Gibbons, that’s why!
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT, OCT. 12, 2000 You’d think a band from Washington state that’s been around as long as Too Slim and the Taildraggers would have made at least a couple of runs across the border to play for blues-hungry Canucks. But as guitarist-vocalist Tim “Too Slim” Langford explains from his Spokane … Continue reading Too Slim and the Taildraggers sample Lightnin’ Hopkins on King Size Troublemakers
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT, OCT. 31, 2002 By Steve Newton For more than 10 years I rented a dumpy old house near 58th and Main that was known as the Rock Palace because of the all-night rock-’n’-roll parties held there. The best thing about those cop-attended bashes was when these pot-lovin’, hard-rock musicians … Continue reading Reviewing Nickelback in honour of pot-lovin’, hard-rock musicians from Alberta
