RUSHONROCK.COM

Brit metal heroes Sacred Mother Tongue fly the flag for the new breed of UK noise merchants next month after bagging their biggest gig to date.

The band support the Michael Schenker Group on June 2 at a star-studded show celebrating 30 years of axe-slinging goodness.

Schenker will be appearing at Shperherd’s Bush Empire with an all-star line up including members of Whitesnake, Rainbow and The Scorpions. Read the rest of this entry »

Hard Rock Hell IV might be a mammoth nine months away but we’re already salivating at a line-up which just keeps getting better.

Not content with boasting an appearance by the mighty Michael Schenker, his old band UFO have just been added to the two-day rock fest in Prestatyn.

And they are joined by fellow old stagers Uriah Heep for what promises to be another rifftastic trip down memory lane. Read the rest of this entry »

They’re one of our favourite new bands and they’re keeping trad metal alive – Manchester’s Fury UK are fast becoming the band to watch in 2010!

After wrapping up their latest high profile run of dates, as support to MSG, the band are already confirmed for 2010′s Hammerfest and have grand plans for the next 12 months.

We caught up for a brief chat with frontman Chris Appleton before the boys take a well-earned festive break. Read the rest of this entry »

Another week and another chance to rock as we bring you another action-packed mix of exclusive interviews, reviews, views and news – all building up to the finale of the Quireboys‘ A Bit Of What You Fancy 20th anniversary tour.

We chat t0 David Rosen, guitarist with The Parlor Mob, at the end of a breakthrough year for one of rushonrock‘s favourite emerging bands.

And we feature Fury UK‘s Chris Appleton on the rushonrock Rider as the band finish their own landmark year in support of guitar god Michael Schenker.

And of course we reveal who tops our list of fave seven inch classics as The Vinyl Countdown hits number one! But there’s more… Read the rest of this entry »

Between now and Christmas we’ll be finding out what the rock stars in our lives really want to cap off a fantastic festive period and today Fury UK’s Chris Appleton reveals all. Catch the band on tour with Michael Schenker this month!

“What I really want for Christmas is a rest. We’ve been working so hard throughout 2009 and the gigs keep coming thick and fast. But I’m not complaining. And if I’m not going to get any time off then what I love at Christmas is lots of lovely food. Christmas is all about giving – giving me plenty of food.”

This summer sees UFO back in business in a big way with a brand new studio album, The Visitor, and a UK headline tour spanning the nation.

As a consequence resident rushonrock columnist Self Made Man decided it was time he swung into action and caught up with legendary stixman Andy Parker. Those of you who enjoyed part one of another exclusive chat will love part two as the drummer talks Way, Mogg and all things UFO. Enjoy. Read the rest of this entry »

McAuley Schenker Group – Love Is Not A Game (Newton/McAuley/Nelson) b/w Get Out (Schenker/McAuley) 1987

In 1987 it was just about allowed to look like you’d stepped out of the court of Charles I and Robin McAuley surely wouldn’t have got away with one of the worst barnets in rock history at any other time.

If his surname hadn’t so handily started with an M then he might never have got away with a stint in MSG but the famous logo remained intact even if there was a name change in the mid 80s. And this cracking little single is just one of the many reasons why his collaboration with former Scorpion Schenker seemed to work so well. Read the rest of this entry »

@ Newcastle Carling Academy, October 12 2008
 
HAD the music critics from NME or The Guardian turned up, they’d have hated it.
 
That’s how bloody magnificent The Scorpions were last night.
 
Sometimes a gig’s so good, you want to tell the whole crazy world about it.
 
The trouble is that the world’s not listening and those that are, pour scorn on bands like The Scorpions.
 
The German rock legends have never been hip, trendy or politically correct.
 
But try telling the sell-out crowd at the Academy that they didn’t witness one of the best gigs of 2008 and they’ll launch a rousing defence of a band who sound as good today as they did in their 1980s heyday when they regularly filled arenas across the planet.
 
Michael Schenker had warmed up the audience with an acoustic set which demonstrated that for him at least, virtuosity and sobriety are indelibly linked.
 
Sadly, vocalist Gary Barden has seen better days. Never the best singer in the world, his voice lacks power and range and like David Coverdale during Whitesnake’s recent tour, he often struggles to hit the high notes.
 
No such worries for Klaus Meine who was in imperious form.
 
The pint-sized frontman has always been one of rock’s more polished singers but today, possibly only Paul Rodgers, can reproduce the crystal clear tones of yesteryear so faithfully.
 
The Scorpions’ official website offers fans the chance to vote for which songs they want to hear so this was always going to be a retrospective set.
 
Nevertheless, they kicked off with the stirring Hour One from their most recent album Humanity Hour 1 and played a further two tracks from it over the course of the night.
 
Most of their material, however, came from 1978′s Lovedrive with Michael Schenker joining brother Rudolf on stage for the four songs he co-wrote.
 
And Love At First Sting, the album which broke the band in the US six years later, was heavily featured with a quite breathtaking Still Loving You a personal highlight.
 
Fans of the Scorps tend to have mixed views of Wind of Change, their  best known song but there was loud cheering and collective whistling when it was played during the encores _ one of only two tracks from their entire 90s output.
 
For a band accustomed to much bigger venues, the cramped stage clearly restricted the energetic Rudolf Schenker in particular.
 
But the Carling Academy has its advantages, notably in its intimacy and acoustics and with the mix crisp and razor sharp from first to 110th minute, the sort of complaints which tend to accompany concerts at the nearby Arena, were notable for their absence.
 
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the whole night was just how much the band enjoyed themselves.
 
Matthias Jabs, who looks almost 20 years younger than his 52, smiled his way through the set list while drummer James Kottack gave a passable imitation of Keith Moon with his antics.
 
Unlike so many of their peers, The Scorpions don’t go in for self-indulgence. Jabs and Schenker demonstrated their fretwork prowess within the framework of songs without resorting to solos. It allowed them to feature 19 songs in a set lasting 110 minutes with Meine hardly pausing for breath in between.
 
And for those who decided to take a toilet break during the drum solo, they missed something a little bit different with all five band members demonstrating their percussion skills.
 
Uli Jon Roth, who left the band in 1978, will guest for the Scorpions for the rest of the UK tour along with Michael Schenker.
 
His unavailability at Newcastle meant there was no We’ll Burn The Sky or In Trance from the pre-Harvest days.
 
And while it was no surprise, there were no songs from the underwhelming Pure Instinct and Eye To Eye, perhaps they could have included a track from the back-to-form Unbreakable.
 
But these are minor quibbles from a gig which will live long in the memory.
 
OK, so the Scorps might not be cool. But they are hot, red hot.

Ian Murtagh