Monthly newsletter 2024
#3

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INTRODUCTION
Welcome to The Story of Rock and Roll 2024. This newsletter covers episodes S7E5 to S7E9. S7 means season seven i.e. 2024 and E5 means the fifth episode of this season. These shows are available on podcasts from this website and all major podcast sites. Quick links to all things TSORR are at the end of the newsletter. Please do share the newsletter with anyone who may be interested.
HIGHLIGHTS
The Season 7 use of black and white portrait pictures of rock stars on the weekly social media adverts is proving to be very popular. Can you name all 9 of the rock stars used so far? Answers at the end of the Newsletter in the ‘Cheers @#$%’s section.

It was a pretty crap month for new releases but we did get another track off the forthcoming Judas Priest album Invincible Shield. The official version of the first single released last year is also now out.
THE DIABOLICAL CHALLENGE
The Diabolical Challenge covers the bands filed under E, F, G, H, & I. The way to imagine this is that you are in a record store, a good old-fashioned bricks and mortar store like Hillbrow Records or Tower Records. You only have enough cash for one album, and you are going through the alphabetical bins. This month we looked in bins E to I:
S7E5 = E – The Eagles, Exodus, Extreme, & Elton John.
S7E6 = F – Foo Fighters, Five Finger Death Punch, Free, & Fokofpolisiekar.
S7E7 = G – Guns ‘n’ Roses, Grand Funk Railroad, Golden Earring, & Great White.
S7E8 = H – Halestorm, Hell Yeah, Hinder, & Hanoi Rocks.
S7E9 = I – Ian Hunter, Iggy & The Stooges, Iron Maiden, & In Flames
E

The tracks played were:
‘Bonded by Blood’ (Exodus), ‘Victim of Love’ (The Eagles), ‘Levon’ (Elton John), and ‘Suzi (Wants Her All Day What?)’ (Extreme). I have to admit this one was a shocker. I did not expect Madman Across the Water to be the album that most people would choose but it was easily the most popular choice. It just goes to show that talent is obvious, and timeless.
F

The tracks played were:
‘Under It & over It’ (Five Finger Death Punch), ‘Walk’ (Foo Fighters), ‘All Right Now’ (Free), and ‘Tevrede?’ (Fokofpolisiekar). This one was fun, I included Fokofpolisiekar because if you’ve read my book The Story of Rock and Roll you will know just how important FPK were, not only to me, but to a wide circle of people who were in my life at the time. It was a landmark album in SA music, the 21st century had arrived and FPK changed a lot. From being scruffy obnoxious little metal punks to being one of the most successful, most imitated, and most respected acts in the country over the course of about 21 years. If ever there was a band that mainstream media would have been called ‘least likely to succeed’ it would have been Fokofpolisiekar. This gutsy five-piece out of Bellville in the Western Cape proved the haters wrong and all power to them. Why am I telling you this? Mainly because you may well have never listened to them, and it is worth your while checking out the track. It is one of the greatest and most original videos ever shot imho. If you ever played high school rugby then you will relate. If you dig it check out the album.
G

The tracks played were:
‘We’re An American Band’ (Grand Funk Railroad), ‘Congo Square’ (Great White), ‘Radar Love’ (Golden Earring), and ‘You Could Be Mine’ (Guns ‘n’ Roses). The Facebook vote was mostly for Great White. It was an interesting challenge because Alan Niven was the manager of both G ‘N’ R and Great White. He was fired by Guns at Axl’s behest. Not all band members were in favour but Axl apparently refused to complete the Use Your Illusion Albums unless Alan Niven was fired. Niven also produced the Great White Hooked album with Great White keyboard player Michael Lardie. Hooked was widely and rightfully considered one of the best Rock / Metal albums at the time and it was the popular choice in this week’s Diabolical Challenge. Personally Use Your Illusion II has deep meaning and significance for me, tracks like ‘Estranged’, ‘Civil War’, and ‘You Could Be Mine’ ensured it was my choice. I must have listened to it 100 times in 1991.
H

The tracks played were:
‘Underwater World’ (Hanoi Rocks), ‘You Wouldn’t Know’ (Hell Yeah), ‘Homecoming Queen’ (Hinder), and ‘American Boys’ (Halestorm). This was fun because the Hinder and Halestorm tracks lyrically track a well-known rock ‘n’ roll formula but from the male and female singer’s perspective. Halestorm got the most votes but those voting for Hell Yeah were the most passionate.
H

The tracks played were:
‘Cleveland Rocks’ (Ian Hunter), ‘Raw Power’ (Iggy & The Stooges), ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’ (Iron Maiden), and ‘Satellites & Astronauts’ (In Flames). This was one of the more diverse challenges we have had. Ian Hunters You’re Never Alone With a Schizophrenic is without doubt a classic album. It features among others Max Weinberg, Garry Tallent, and Roy Bittan (the E-Street Band) as well as Mick Ronson, John Cale (Velvet Underground), and Eric Bloom (Blue Öyster Cult). It has long been one of my favourite albums, but it didn’t get much love here. Iggy was a mess, to my ears Raw Power in 2024 just sounds like a big noise. I think Iggy’s early work had to be seen live to be enjoyed. The challenge ended up being between Maiden and In Flames. By putting Somewhere in Time in the challenge rather than Powerslave, Piece of Mind, or Number of The Beast we gave In Flames a chance. They rose to the occasion and were the most popular choice on the night. Clayman is indeed a stunning album. It is a band at the peak of their power rather than in the midst of it as Maiden were.
THE IMMORTALS
The Immortals, tracks over 7 min long, that demonstrate what a band is capable of when not worrying about airplay on daytime radio continues to be very well supported on the show. First up a track off W.A.S.P’s First Blood, Last Cuts, and originally off The Crimson Idol. This one caught me out. On the iTunes digital version of the album, it is called ‘The Tool’, I wasn’t concentrating when I did the show and referred to it as ‘The Tool’ but immediately after reading it thought it strange knowing it as ‘The Idol’. Later I wondered if I was going nuts, I couldn’t find any reference to The Tool on any W.A.S.P. album on Wikipedia. I checked the CD to make sure I wasn’t going crazy and it’s the font that causes the problem. Somebody in the copywriting department read ‘Idol’ as ‘Tool’ as you can see on track 12. Now you know. The Idol is an Immortal track.

In S7E6 We had ‘Shooting Shark’ from Blue Öyster Cult. This is such a catchy piece of music off The Revolution by Night.
I loved this comment from JD Gothard attached to the video.

In S7E7 I was in Clarens on a Dan Patlansky Guitar Clinic. Dan is about to release his brand-new album Movin’ On, so it was fitting to take one of his older seven minute tracks called ‘Bad Weather Blues’ as the Immortals track off his 2006 album Real. If you are a guitarist I cannot recommend the Dan Patlansky Guitar Clinics highly enough. For more info on that check out Dan’s Facebook
One of the most popular Immortals tracks ever, as judged by feedback on TSORR Central was S7E8’s original version of ‘Am I Evil’ by Diamond Head. If you ever need a good example of a win-win situation for a case study, presentation, thesis, or some such look no further than this story. Diamond Head released the track in 1980. The band were a part of the NWOBHM that gave us Iron Maiden, Saxon, and Def Leppard. A good number of bands such as Demon, Savage, Angel Witch, Raven, Satan, Dark Star, Diamond Head and others fell by the wayside or continued but never made it to the heights of the aforementioned three. One person who was fully all in with all the NWOBHM bands was a young Lars Ulrich. Diamond Head was one of his favourite bands and he knew how great ‘Am I Evil’ was. Once he met James Hetfield and they formed Metallica it was one of the tracks they thought was way ahead of its time. Metallica covered the track as the ‘B’ side to ‘Creeping Death’ released off Ride the Lightening in 1984. The original was on Diamond Heads’ 1980 release Lightening to The Nations. Lars says their cover of the track helped them get signed and Diamond Heads Brian Tatler says without their cover he would have had to find another career long ago
NEW RELEASES & NEW DISCOVERIES & SAD LOSSES
It wasn’t a great month for new releases. We got a new track off the upcoming Judas Priest album as mentioned in the intro. They released another single in time for S7E9. The album is out in March, and I have no doubt it will be TSORR album of the year.
Other than that, I discovered a band called Suicide Bombers that I didn’t know, and they are seriously good fun. The vocalist dresses a bit like Judas Priests Rob Halford used to in their ‘80s heyday. The new album All for the Candy is pretty good. We took a listen to a track on episode 8 and it is gratifying to hear youngsters bring back the spirit of ‘80s hair metal.
Suicide Bombers are getting some really good press, the YouTube comments give a good indication of just how happy people are to have a band doing this style of music again and doing it so well. I highly recommend the album if you are a bit stuck in the ‘80s as some of us are.

Sons of Liberty out of Bristol released a new one called The Detail is in the Devil. Sons of Liberty are billed as “The world’s most popular British Southern Rock Band”. I think they are probably right. Formed in 2014 this is their 3rd album, and it may well be their best yet
One of the greatest things about growing up in the ‘70s and ‘80s was having the lyric sheets printed out on the album’s inner sleeve. That’s why we know all the words kids! These were a couple of lyrics that were mentioned during shows.
SOUTH AFRICAN SCENE
We didn’t get much in terms of new releases this month, we had a new track from Cindy Louise called ‘What You Made Me’, check out the short video of the making of the track
Dan Patlansky’s new album Movin’ On has now been released and it will be discussed in detail in the next newsletter.
We still had plenty of legacy SA stuff to keep us entertained. Bands we featured this month included, Jack Hammer, Kenny Hughes, Cadillac Sun, Black Bone Nation, and Sugardrive.
CHEERS @#$%’s
Answers to the nine-portrait puzzle:
Left to right: Charlie Watts, Roger Taylor, Till Lindemann, Slash, Lemmy, Mick Jagger, Brody Dalle, Michael Monroe, David Bowie
The shows discussed in this month’s newsletter can be heard as podcasts S7E5 – S7E9. Feel free to drop me a message on The Story of Rock and Roll Facebook page or via email at thestoryofrockandroll1@gmail.com. If you want to be added to TSORR Central WhatsApp Group, send me your number on this email address and I will send you an invite link.
For those of you who are new to TSORR here are the quick references to find The Story of Rock and Roll Radio Show:
THURSDAY’s Live on Rebel Rock Radio from 19h00 – 22h00 South African time. www.rrr.cat
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Take care and keep rocking.
James