ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT, SEPT. 2, 1983 By Steve Newton If you liked the scorching guitar, howling vocals, and sturdy bass and drums projected on the Headpin’s debut album last year, their new one, Line of Fire, should also be enjoyed. But if you were hoping this popular local band might develop a … Continue reading Album review: Headpins, Line of Fire (1983)
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON DEC. 27, 1985 By Steve Newton Hendrix. Page. Beck. Clapton. Blackmore. Van Halen. Rhoads. Malmsteen. Malmsteen? That’s right, Malmsteen. The name might not be as familiar, but rest assured that in years to come it will gain a place beside those of rock’s biggest guitar heroes. At only 22 years of age, … Continue reading Yngwie Malmsteen takes the guitar world by storm at age 22
By Steve Newton Before GM Place became the home of the Vancouver Canucks in 1995–then changed its name to Rogers Arena in 2010–the Pacific Coliseum was the place to see arena-rock shows in Vancouver. As a music-obsessed teenager in the ’70s I made the 80-minute drive from Chilliwack to see my first big shows at … Continue reading The 10 best rock concerts I ever saw at Vancouver’s Pacific Coliseum in the ’80s
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT, APRIL 10, 1987 By Steve Newton The most highly anticipated album ever by a Vancouver artist, Bryan Adams’ Into the Fire comes 2-1/2 years after the release of his seven million-selling Reckless LP. Recorded in the living room of the 27-year-old’s North Van home, Into the Fire contains 10 … Continue reading Album review: Bryan Adams, Into the Fire (1987)
By Steve Newton Way back in July of 1988 I made the trek from Vancouver to see the Monsters of Rock Festival at the Seattle Kingdome. The lineup featured Van Halen, Scorpions, Metallica, Dokken, and Kingdom Come, and at the time–since David Lee Roth was no longer in VH–I was particularly psyched to see the … Continue reading That time I asked Klaus Meine if the Scorpions were blowing Van Halen off the stage on the Monsters of Rock Tour
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON SEPT. 8, 2021 By Steve Newton There’s a whole lot of guitar heroes in the world. Beck, Page, Van Halen, Vaughan, Hendrix, Slash, Clapton—the list goes on and on. What about violin heroes, though? They’re a lot harder to come by, but Otto Tausk has one. And as he explains on a call from … Continue reading Vancouver Symphony music director Otto Tausk says he’s more Beatles than Stones
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON JUNE 30, 1989 By Steve Newton Diehard Led Zeppelin fans were either impressed or outraged when Kingdom Come’s debut album came out two years ago. The LP–made here in Vancouver at Little Mountain Sound and produced by Bob Rock–sounded an awful lot like a tribute to (or cloning of) Messrs. Page and … Continue reading Kingdom Come hopes to avoid Zeppelin comparisons with new In Your Face LP
By Steve Newton I’m a little show on the uptake sometimes. For example, just yesterday I was typing up my old interview from 1987 with Rick Richards of the Georgia Satellites, giving the article new life on the internet after being trapped on yellowing newspaper and stashed in a banker’s box for decades. In the … Continue reading 36 years later I finally got turned on to the rockin’ glory of Warren Zevon’s “Even a Dog Can Shake Hands”
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON DEC. 16, 1983 By Steve Newton About this same time last year, creeping up a heat duct from the basement suite below me, would come a tune so queer and bouncy–and sung with such downright foolishness–that I started to wonder if some madman hadn’t holed himself up down there and decided to … Continue reading Trio’s Stephan Remmler on Trio and Error and the creation of the weird worldwide hit “Da Da Da”
By Steve Newton I did my first interview with Steve Vai in May of 1990, when he was just 29. He had just released his solo album Passion and Warfare, and was touring with Whitesnake, which was then basking in the glory of its multiplatinum Slip of the Tongue album. Before Whitesnake Vai had played … Continue reading That time I asked Steve Vai if he was daunted by stepping into Eddie Van Halen’s shoes with David Lee Roth
christopher edmonstone photo ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON JAN. 16, 2021 By Steve Newton Over the last few months I’ve been checking in with Vancouver’s top guitar players to find out how, as professional musicians, they’ve been coping with the COVID-19 pandemic. Back in October Scott Smith of Terminal Station explained how he was recording artists at … Continue reading Shaun Verreault deploys three slides at once to explore new ways of playing guitar
By Steve Newton Back in 1991 I interviewed famed Vancouver producer Bob Rock, who at the time was flying high, coming off the production work on Metallica‘s multiplatinum Black Album. At one point in the conversation I mentioned Blue Murder, whose self-titled debut album Rock had produced two years earlier, but which was not a … Continue reading That time Bob Rock told me that “the dreaded David Foster album” was the nail in the coffin for the Payola$
By Steve Newton I interviewed Devin Townsend for the second time in September of 1993, shortly after he’d hooked up with Steve Vai and they’d recorded Vai’s Sex & Religion album. He was 21 at the time, and has since gone on to become one of the most acclaimed and prolific metal musicians in the … Continue reading 10 minutes on the phone with 21-year-old Devin Townsend in 1993
