ACCEPT
B.B. King Blues Club & Grill
New York, NY
9/27/2010

By Pat Prince

So many modern metal bands have been influenced by the speed and ferocity of the German power metal band, Accept. And as critical as their studio work may be, Accept has forever excelled as a live band, with a full sound and powerful presence.

Classic Accept staples like “Restless and Wild,” “Fast as a Shark” and Flash Rockin’ Man” are always enjoyable to hear live. My personal highlight was the performance of “Breaker” and “Son of a Bitch.” And as much as I would prefer to hear former vocal grunter Udo Dirkschneider sing SOB, the new frontman Mark Tornillo embraced the signature Udo song and made it his own.

The band could not have found a better replacement.

However, the new songs off of Accept’s newly released “Blood of the Nations” sounded the best, especially “Teutonic Terror” and the anti-Wall Street tale “No Shelter.” Perhaps, the band finds more comfort in playing its fresher songwriting.

I could have done without songs like “Midnight Mover” and “Metal Heart” but these songs — from Accept’s more commercial period — now seem to have a heavier sound with the addition of Tornillo.

Some from Camp Udo have made claims that lead guitarist Wolf Hoffmann was always the commercial side of Accept. I don’t believe a f**king word of that. All you have to do is listen to Hoffmann’s guitar sound at any Accept show. Where a thrash metal guitarist might bludgeon with brute force, Hoffmann’s guitar sound is overpoweringly sharp instead. The harmonies and riffing often slash and crunch through the crowd like the jaws of a T Rex.

In the end, the crowd wanted fan favorites “Princess of the Dawn and “Balls to the Wall” and they got them. back-to-back, for the encore; chanting and singing all the way through.

If you only have one chance to see a metal show this Fall, forget the Ozzy blockbuster. Experience a truer, richer representation of heavy metal with Accept at half the price.

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By Pat Prince

If you love progressive rock, chances are you’re familiar with The Tangent, a project based in the north of England. Even if you’re not a prog-rock fan, the group’s album titles and accompanying lush, fantasy-laced art would tip you off to their musical bent.

Since the band’s formation in 2003 (the year it released “The Music That Died Alone”), the band has boasted a fluid lineup. Tangent’s keyboardist and vocalist, Andy Tillison, shared his views on the new album, the evolution of prog rock, the joys of 20-minute songs, and why it’s such a big deal that the band finally has an all-British lineup.

Has the latest album, “Down and Out in Paris and London,” been received up to your expectations?
AT: I am always surprised with the positive reactions to the band’s work… every time we release, I naturally assume that this is the one everyone is going to hate for some reason. That doesn’t mean that I think they should, or that I think this album is our weakest (because I don’t) — it’s just that in this industry, it’s very easy to have people turn against something they have previously liked, particularly when the band has been around for a while and when it’s been successful in the way that Tangent has.

I think that we took some big risks with this album, (lineup, the whole nighttime feel of the music and the artwork, etc.), and I’m really pleased with the way people have been so open-minded about what we’ve done. Of course there are dissenters, people who really don’t like it, but I listen to their views and try to learn and better myself from what they’ve said. We’ve had well over a hundred very positive reviews, a handful of not so positive and a couple of stinkers. I have to be happy, and I have to be pleasantly surprised!

“Paroxetine 20mg” is such an intense song, with a fantastic opening guitar riff. Instantly grabs the listener. I’m curious, why didn’t that open the album? Was it considered?
AT: Yes, it was considered. But this only goes to show difference of opinion. Most reviews for this album that have expressed a preference for one song versus another have said that this is the least favorite track on the album… So there you have it! One review described it as being “too shrill and jarring on the ear” — but you call it “intense.” Obviously I prefer your description, but we try to take all possible views into consideration when we are deciding on track order. In the end, for most of us involved, “Where Are They Now” was the opener. That’s because an album is written as an album…. It’s like Chapter 1 has to come first in a book.

Do you think a 19-plus minute song like “Where Are They Now” will be overlooked or underappreciated by the average rock fan?
AT: Well, here is a very core question about the aims of progressive rock music. For fans of progressive rock music, a 20-minute song is perfectly normal, understandable, and providing it’s a good one, desirable. The whole of our movement exists as a rock format that has more time to develop and progress, that can be more cinematic and romantic (in the true sense of the word). I have stories to tell, and not all stories are two-and-a-half minutes long. Yes, average rock fans will miss out on it perhaps, not because they don’t want to hear it, but because a big commercial radio station would not play such a song, because the DJs like the sound of their own voices too much! Therefore, many people never get to hear the enormous possibilities of a long format rock song. It’s a shame. I’ve loved these pieces ever since I heard “Close To The Edge” when I was 12 years old.

A song like that is obviously a work of art. But the music industry has been notorious about favoring shorter songs or packaged singles (from the push of 45s to the advent of iTunes). It often becomes art vs. commerce. Do you ever wrestle with this philosophically?
AT: I stopped wrestling with this a long time ago. The Tangent does not seek fame, fortune or success. It is a purely musical venture that is not tied into fashion, money, advertising or any other commercial sphere. We exist to make this music and to be judged entirely on our music and lyrics, not on our looks or our saleability. I am a 50-year-old man whose rock-and-roll-star dreams ended 25 years ago, just someone who has to write music and share it with as many people as possible.

Historically, how have all the lineup changes affected the band, both good and bad?
AT: Well, I have always dreamed that we could have a stable Tangent lineup. Up ’til now, it simply hasn’t been possible, and who knows if it ever will be? A band that stays together forever has a huge appeal to me and to fans alike. My admiration for Rush is huge, that stability and dependability, that image of friendship and common purpose is fantastic to behold, but not everyone can have that. Someone like myself has a whole different set of problems to Rush. The Tangent’s first album was just a project thing, made by me and some guys from The Flower Kings. None of them wanted to disband their wonderful band to come with me, so why should I stop? I had to continue as I probably always will, and I have to find different people in order to simply carry on making the music. That’s simply the way it has to be.

It has been emphasized that the band is finally all-British. It may be an interesting side note for the press, but does it really have any significance?
AT: It does have significance… it means we can actually work together now, without huge transport bills. We can get to know each other, and we can even play a small gig here and there just for fun. I think that is beginning to make for the foundations of a more stable unit, one which I hope will develop into something really good

Do you think prog rock has been categorized too often as a ’70s genre?
AT: Well, it’s natural that it should be, in this world where we so happily allocate times and dates to things. Those dates will blur in the future as people forget the decades that things came from and become more concerned in the content of the music than its era. Of course, there’s no denying that much of what this music stands for developed for the first time in the late ’60s and early ’70s. It was only journalists and media spokespeople who really relegated it to a certain era of the ’70s, but the music can have relevance now or at any time in the future. Prog rock doesn’t have to sound ’70s at all; take Porcupine Tree or even my other band, Po90, for example — neither sound ’70s, ’80s at all!

What do you think of prog rock as a contemporary movement?
AT: At the moment, it’s very difficult to figure out. There’s been a huge, huge influx of new bands, statistically far too many bands for far too few listeners. There are literally thousands of prog bands out there now, jumping the bandwagon that was set in motion by the re-arrival of prog some 16 to 17 years ago now. It’s almost impossible to get a gig these days because the new bands are very aggressively working the festivals and the social networking sites. As a result, there’s huge amounts of new releases vying for attention in a very small area of the market. I have trouble keeping up with it all, and that’s me, very interested in prog and a very keen listener. Even I simply don’t have time to listen to them all. Each year now there are more prog-rock records released than were ever released in the original period between 1968 and 1977.

Do you like how prog rock has evolved into the areas of black/death metal or instrumental hard rock?
AT: Yeah, I do, but it’s just as much the other way around. Those metal guys have come in toward us as much as we have reached out toward them. Metal has probably evolved more than any other musical form over the past 25 years. Porcy Tree have been leaders here, although I should once again point out that Po90 beat them to this back in the ’90s!

What are your influences outside of rock, both musically and culturally?
AT: I still listen to lots of good jazz stuff, people like Bill Evans, Jimmy Smith, Oscar Peterson and Jaques Loussier, always find time for good disco/funk like Earth, Wind and Fire, and I adore Stravinsky, Beethoven and Debussy as much as I always did. I enjoy reading philosophy whether I agree or disagree with it and still have a penchant for stupid action movies, which I could watch until the cows come home. The countryside remains my greatest love and inspiration.

A television journalist gives up a career in broadcasting to open a record store that thrives on its diversity

ALL THAT MUSIC is located in El Paso, Texas. Photos courtesy of All That Music

What do you specialize in?

George Reynoso: In general, we stock all the recognized chart artists from the last 60 years, that is: classic rock, country, vocalists, jazz, world, hip-hop, DJ, dance and electronica, indie-modern, hard rock and metal. Our particular strength is in oldies and oldie compilations on CD from the 1940s through the present. Because of our geographic location on the border, we also stock the region’s best Spanish-language music department. That area is categorized by rock-en-español, baladas, nostalgia, tejano, norteño, banda, tropical, and ranchera.

What was your first job?

GR: I was the neighborhood lawn boy from [age] 10 to 14. When I was 15, I got a job sanding and prepping cabinets for painting at a local kitchen-cabinet shop. Those two jobs, combined with the discipline and values given to me by my parents, instilled in me the work ethic that’s allowed me to succeed in almost every entrepreneurial project I’ve undertaken.

What was the first record you ever bought?

GR: I don’t remember exactly, but it must have been one of these three 45 RPM records from 1964-1965: Ronny & The Daytonas’ “Little GTO,” Petula Clark’s “Downtown” or Del Shannon’s “Keep Searchin’.”

When did the idea of owning your own record store first occur to you?

GR: I was a successful radio DJ and television reporter by the time I was 21. Somehow, I was always able to talk management into allowing me to produce stories on pop culture or host oldies shows on Sunday nights, so in the ’70s I became known as the local music guy. By the time I was 26, I became disillusioned with the prospects for a future in the broadcast business, so owning a music store seemed logical. People were always coming up to me and asking me, “Where can I get that song?”

Has the neighborhood where your store is located changed?

GR: I started the store as Nostalgia Records with 700 square feet in a small strip center in 1980. By 1987, I increased our square footage to 3,000 square feet on the city’s east side. In 1994, I changed our name to All That Music to counter the perception that we were the store with all the old stuff. In 1998, we moved to a new 5,700-square-foot location up the street, and in 2007, I adapted our name to All That Music & Video. It’s 2010 now, so I’m considering a restructuring and relocation that reflects the changes in our industry. Stay tuned! We’re excited about our new reincarnation.

How has the music retail market changed over the years?

GR: In 1980, I stocked primarily LPs. By 1983, it was LPs and cassettes. We were stocking LPs, cassettes and CDs in 1990. As LPs and cassettes disappeared in the ’90s, new and used CDs and DVDs became our primary inventory. The future music store will be all about service and collectibles for serious music enthusiasts. The impulse or casual-buyer market has slowly eroded in the last 10 years and will continue to do so. Local operators like ourselves know the nuances of the market and survive by knowing and stocking the regional and local favorites.

Have you noticed resurgence in vinyl record sales?

GR: Absolutely! In 1999, I remember we did a “Goodbye to LPs” promotion. Basically, we cleared out all LPs for cheap. Fast forward 10 years and LPs are now a growing part of our business model. However, we never quit buying and selling LPs. Over the years, we removed LPs from the sales floor but built a hefty collection of nearly 10,000 quality collectible LPs that were sold mainly on the Internet. We’re now reconfiguring the store to accommodate our deep catalog of LPs on the sales floor.

What was the biggest day the store ever had?

GR: Our biggest day was probably in 1995 with the posthumous release of Selena’s Dreaming of You CD. I did a press release for a midnight on-sale. We had all three major TV affiliates broadcast their 10 p.m. newscasts from our parking lot, which was attended by an estimated 5,000 people. We sold nearly 3,000 units of the CD that night.

Ever had anybody famous come in and shop at your store?

GR: Sherman Hemsley, a.k.a. George Jefferson from the “The Jeffersons” ’70s and ’80s sitcom, is a regular customer. We have handled many of his special orders and media transfers. By the way, this is another growing revenue stream for us. We transfer LPs, cassettes and VHS to CD-R and DVD-R at an affordable price. We aren’t presently advertising the service, but not one day passes that another media-transfer project lands on our lap.

What’s the rarest record you’ve ever had in your store?

GR: In 30 years, I’ve had the pleasure of discovering three variations of the famous Beatles “Butcher Cover” LP. I presently have one on display in our collectors’ showcase.

Do you collect anything else besides records?

GR: I collect old gadgets, memorabilia, paper, and especially old radios, clocks, postcards, posters, photos and documents. I’m fascinated and intrigued by the process and evolution of mankind, technology and pop culture in general. To acquire a well-preserved object from the past is to own a part of history and the evolutionary process.

By  Peter Lindblad

Forged of molten British metal in Judas Priest’s fiery smithy, “Hell Bent For Leather” is a kind of declaration of independence for bikers everywhere.

Rob Halford’s dad drove a motorcycle before the family even had a car, so the “metal god” with the gutteral growls and operatic falsetto took an instant liking to the machines. And over time, he grew to appreciate more and more what they represent, especially with regard to heavy metal.

“You’ve got this big, hulking monster of metal, and it’s loud, and it smells, and it pisses people off and creates a reaction,” laughs Halford.
“People either love motorcycles or hate them, but if you like motorcycles, you realize why you like the experience or symbol of that.

It’s got a great rock ’n’ roll element. It represents freedom.”
With a bit of disappointment in his voice, Halford says his dad wasn’t into the song “Hell Bent For Leather,” a song “ … that was written about a bike.” Undeterred, Halford has made the Harley a staple of the Judas Priest live show.

“It became kind of a prominent thing for Priest, and now it’s part of the show,” continues Halford, now back with Priest after a long absense. “When the Harley roars out onstage, it’s just a wonderful, crowning moment.”

Halford and company will trot out the chopper again this summer as Priest blazes a trail across Europe and then blitzes the U.S. in August in a metal tour package for the ages, with Priest going out with Heaven And Hell (the Dio-fronted Black Sabbath reincarnation), Motorhead and Testament.

“We’re trying to put together the Priest set list together right now, and there’s e-mails flying all over the place and phone calls, and it’s always difficult, because you’re looking at double digits in terms of full releases Priest has made,” says Halford. “You know, I’ll send one off to [guitarist] Glenn [Tipton], and he’ll send one back to me, and I’ll send one off to [guitarist] K.K. [Downing], and he’ll send one to [bassist] Ian [Hill]. I don’t know how we’re going to get this one together, but it’s a joy. There’s always a handful of songs that we’ll play for fans, but I think on this tour we’re going to try and look for material we may not have played before or songs that haven’t been in the show for some time.”

Around the time Priest hits the road, the band hopes to unchain the beast known as Nostradamus. It’s scheduled to be released in Europe June 13. Halford calls it a “massive endeavor.”

“We’re still battling away, doing the final mixes,” says Halford. “It’s taken the time it needs to take. As any musician will tell you, you don’t rush to the end just to accommodate a release date, or a day on the calendar. When you’re making music this complete, you hope that it’ll last forever.”

Taking great pains to ensure sonic quality has always been Halford’s MO in Priest and other ventures, such as Fight, the industrial-metal project 2wo (inspired by Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor) and the Halford band.

2007 saw the release of Metal God Essentials Vol. 1, a collection of works Halford released with Fight and the Halford band.

Remarkable for the sonic fury and intensity of songs like “Resurrection” and “Golgatha,” these works are tornadic, devastating forays into the thrash-metal territory Judas Priest explored on 1990’s Painkiller.

As an outlet for Halford’s more aggressive inclinations, Fight and the Halford band gave the iconic singer a chance to broaden his sonic horizons, while still creating something enduring.

“Metal is unique in that it doesn’t have to battle with things that are under the spotlight in today’s contemporary culture,” says Halford. “Metal music has a different type of situation going forward in terms of the listener and how much a song can be enjoyed and cherished over the years.”

Playing with young guns like Scott Travis, the drummer for Priest on Painkiller who defected to Fight with Halford, was invigorating. Halford rounded up guitarists Brian Tilse and Russ Parrish and bassist Jay Jay for Fight, which delivered two albums of what was termed “street metal,” 1994’s War of Words and 1995’s Small Deadly Space, plus the Mutations EP. Then, they called it a day.

“It kind of fell into my lap with the Fight band,” recalls Halford, talking about how Fight was formed, “because firstly, at the top, you’ve got Travis … he was cool enough to come work with me on the first two Fight releases. Our bassist Jay Jay was my tattoo guy. I didn’t know he played bass or anything. He was working on me one day, and I found out that he and his best buddy, Brian Tilse … were in a band, and I went to see them, and they just blew me away.”

Halford liked working with them because, “ … they were young metalheads that were just full of passion, and they cared about what they had a gift to do… and they had great stage presence,” Halford remembers.

A flood of Fight material, packaged in custom-designed digipaks, is due out in 2008, including Into The Pit, a four-disc box set of Fight material re-engineered for sonic enhancement. That comes out May 26. “Live in Phoenix,” a DVD of rare and unreleased Fight footage, is also on the docket.

In the smoldering aftermath of Fight, the Halford band emerged in the early part of the new millennium, after Halford’s 2wo project, which put out the sexually charged, hammering industrial vision of Voyeurs.
Perhaps a bit ahead of its time, it didn’t generate many sales.

“The thing with Trent is, he’s always way ahead of of things,” says Halford. “He’s always thinking of things in a fresh, new way, and that makes him appealing, and I admire the way he does that type of work.”

To this day, though, Halford swears he is often asked if he’ll do more with 2wo in the future. He still appreciates the off-the-cuff experimentation that went into it.

“2wo came out of the blue when I met Trent at Mardi Gras,” says Halford. “I didn’t know he was such a fan of Priest, but he was and still is. But, it’s great how things happen that are unexpected, and you run with the opportunity that’s presented there. If you think things through too much, you kind of kill the spirit of it, and that’s important in the creative process.”

Not everyone agreed. Many longed for Halford to return to his roots, and in 2000, he did so in a big way with the torrential riff bombardment of Resurrection.

Not dated by any means, Resurrection sounds as fresh and violent as it did eight years ago.

“Many things inspire me, but I don’t go chasing after things other people have done,” says Halford, explaining why Resurrection has retained its ability to shock and awe. “I think if you chase after things other people have done, you end up sounding like them, or emulating what’s come before.”

Likewise, Judas Priest set trends. Halford joined in 1973 under fortuitous circumstances. At the time, Halford’s sister was dating Hill, and one day, the rest of the band heard Halford singing to the radio.
Once he was in, Halford and company plotted world domination, and they succeeded.

“It’s the same as with any new band,” says Halford. “You believe in yourself. You have something of a plan. You have the makeup and the characters of the musicians that are putting together songs in a way nobody else is doing. I was a different world back then, a whole different world than it is now.”

Allowed the freedom to grow creatively, Judas Priest, through a series of monolithic displays of power that would provide the blueprint for the rise of thrash metal, gradually conquered huge swaths of metal territory.

With the focus of lasers, Priest rolled out Rocka Rolla (1974), Sad Wings of Destiny (1976), Sin After Sin (1977) and Stained Class (1978).

“With Priest, we always strived, and I think that’s gone into my solo work, is to pull something that has its own legs, and that’s why, from Sad Wings of Destiny — or even Rocka Rolla — right up to Nostradamus, you’ll hear something different on every release,” says Halford, “and that’s just to maintain your own interest and sense of adventure.”

Had Priest stopped at Stained Class, its legacy as one of the greats of British heavy metal would have been secure. But, the band had bigger aspirations. Streamlining its attack, Priest broke into the mainstream with British Steel (1980), Point of Entry (1981) and Screaming for Vengeance (1982) — all gold and platinum sellers.
“You’ve Got Another Thing Coming,” off Screaming for Vengeance, would be Priest’s biggest hit.

“That just hits a mark, hits a nerve, doesn’t it?” says Halford of the song. “I love that record. It’s produced by Tom Allen, and it’s almost got a conceptual feel in the vibes of it.”

Initially, the members of Priest didn’t think much of the track.
“We had no idea when the label — I think it was Columbia at the time — said, ‘We want this to go as the radio track,’ [that it would be a smash]. We said, ‘Oh, we doen’t particularly think that’s the one,’ but they said, ‘We think it’s going to do the business,’ and it’s a great track to play live.”

Defenders of the Faith, in 1984, would also scale dizzying sales heights, but subsequent efforts — 1986’s Turbo, 1997’s Priest Live and 1988’s Ram It Down — paled by comparison and indicated the band’s creativity was drying up. Then came Painkiller, an sonic meltdown of thermonuclear proportions.

Two years later, however, Halford left. In the years that followed, before the release of 2wo’s Voyeurs, Halford would reveal to the world at large his homosexuality. It was no secret to the rest of Priest, and even in many quarters of the metal community, it came as no surprise.
Still, there were reasons why Halford kept silent. “

“As far as the journey I took, firstly, it was, this is my life, and it’s my choice of whether to let it out and come into the open,” he says. “And then, there’s the protective element that I didn’t want that type of situation to … well, damage isn’t the right word, but something that wouldn’t be useful as things were going with Priest, especially through the ’80s. but there came a time when I felt it was important to step forward and say what I said.”

Not everything with Halford’s career took such a serious turn. Famously, Halford once had an accident on stage with his Harley.

“Yeah, they took my keys away,” says Halford with a laugh.

Then, there was the time, during a video shoot for “Hot Rocking” that his motorcycle boots caught on fire.

“It looks great on the video,” says Halford, “but at the time, I was wearing these steel-capped motorcycle boots, and, as you know, steel is a very good conductor of heat (laughs).”

Tipton frantically tried to help Halford get his boots off. “We suddenly realized my feet were getting like third-degree, second-degree burns or whatever, and we had to douse them with water.”

What could be more metal than that?