The Broken String, fortunately or not, begins with its best track, "The Monitor," which begins as a slow-moving acoustic ballad.  The song quickly increases its tempo as percussive instrumentation emerges, at which the piano's keys are stricken, the xylophones resonate their melody, and the vocals are emphatically sung, creating a playfully twisted sing-along melody from macabre imagery, "They're moving their mouths / But the blood in their ears / Is running down / Is running down."  "The Monitor" is both dark and catchy, letting the band stretch its creative wings both lyrically and instrumentally-creating the album's best track, and, perhaps more dauntingly, leaving tremendous expectations for the succeeding songs.

"Rain," "Click, Click, Click, Click," and "The Chinatown Bus" continue Bishop Allen's narratives, taking us with their travels through stormy weather (playing with the metaphor that things can only improve once something goes wrong), a wedding full of strangers, and Chinatown after New Years.  Bishop Allen fail to falter lyrically; they prove impressively telling of their surroundings while also successfully broadening their lyrics with metaphor.  However, the handful of songs following "The Monitor" lack the effervescent pop glow their opener held, never quite finding the hook that keeps you coming back for more.

It is not until "Flight 180" that Bishop Allen changes the pace and direction of The Broken String, and with it they let out a hauntingly gorgeous piano and string-filled lament-a much needed break from the hackneyed poppy pattern.  Bishop Allen leave an indelible message with "Flight 180:" they no longer plan to stand musically still-not a surprising move from a band that has released a dozen EPs.  This becomes evident from the Spanish-twanged "Like Castanets," two-step experimentation on "Corazon," and female vocal performance, reminiscent of Maria Taylor, on "Butterfly Nets."

The last song on Broken String sounds as if anyone who played an instrument on the album came in to sing, as a chorale sings another catchy ditty of morbidity, where the foot-stomping melody masques the song's dreary undertone, "Who do you need? Nobody. / You're lucky nobody's around / I can pour my own drinks."  It's an interesting finale, but it works; it is as fun and catchy as all many of the songs on Broken String aspired to be, and will be as hit-or-miss to fans as this album will be to casual listeners.  After hearing the spurts of brilliance from this band, though, I'm going to say I'm a fan, and will stick around to see where they take me.

What you mostly hear from the band is a heavy dose of In Flames, mostly because of Niclas' former participation and somewhat because their vocalist, Anders Friden, recorded and mixed the album, giving it a certain modern metal flair. The riffs are the focal point of almost every song, extremely varied playing that isn't always technically mind-blowing but is always tight and fitting for the moment. As to the In Flames model of song, all of these feature heavier verse sections before giving way into a bombastic chorus. They take the model and fly with it, injecting their own creative spurts at effective moments. They hit all the right notes on tracks like "Next Closed Door", "Propaganda", "Scyth" and my personal favorite, the COB-ish "Calling Out". 

Stronger debuts are rarely found, and the experience of the band as a whole has plenty to do with this quick start for Engel. I'm more interested in how they follow this up; changing too much would be a mistake, but it's clear to me that the band is still digging in and finding it's own sound. Their next release will be more telling, but for opening curtains, the solid Absolute Design is worthy of much praise. Here's hoping for bigger and better things in the future; they've certainly got all the potential. 

The first show will be at Berlin’s O2 World on the 12th September and the other will be at London’s O2 Arena on September 15th.

Tickets for the shows will be charged at 10 euros each for the Germany show and £5.00 each for the UK gig. All proceeds will be given to local charities.

Tickets will be available to fans registered at MissionMetallica.com and MetClub.com and will be restricted to two per person.

Meanwhile Metallica will headline at this weekends Reading/Leeds festival, August22nd to 24th.

Jerry Douglas

“I met Alison when she was 14, right after Ken Irwin from Rounder Records had signed her to the record label. He came down to Nashville with her and her parents, Fred and Louise, and was looking for somebody to produce the first record. He brought her over to Bela Fleck’s house over in Sylvan Park (a Nashville neighborhood). I was just moving into Sylvan Park that day so I stopped by between loads and met Alison, and she sang for me and Bela and Sam Bush.

“I ended up not producing the first record, but playing on it, and being kind of the floor director in the band, trying to direct, produce, whatever it was. I just loved her voice and saw that she was so effervescent. It wasn’t a feeling like, ‘Oh, I want to be a star.’ She was just so starry-eyed about being with cool musicians and learning. She was a sponge and she had this huge talent that we all saw, and just thought, ‘We need to help her.’

“Then I produced a couple of records for her, and she learned so fast, so much, and refined her art of what she thought her voice could do, how she should treat her voice and the material she should sing. There was one song on the first record that we always gave her the business about — something about whiskey on ice. We’re like, ‘You’re 15 years old. You don’t know what you’re talking about.’ I think that got her thinking like, ‘Yeah I shouldn’t sing songs like that, I really don’t know what I’m talking about.’ So anything she sings, she can relate to.”

Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain: 25 years apart and from the same part of the world. Different deaths, but related nonetheless. There must be something about the North East of the USA, but at least it gave us two brilliant performers, although there is no doubt in most people's mind who was the true genius of the two.

However, this is about the greater of the two, and Cobain's name was mentioned only to express wonder about how this part of the USA should produce two great personalities that died before their time, and perhaps while their horizons were, in their own eyes only, on the wane.

Johnny Allen Hendrix, was born in Seattle on 27th November, 1942, and had his name changed by his father on returning from the war to James Marshall Hendrix after James's uncle Leon Marshall Hendrix. His childhood was an unstable and deprived one, and he both suffered neglect and lived in welfare care for a while. Jimi practiced guitar on an unstringed broomstick and a one stringed ukulele, and although he paid $5 for his first acoustic guitar his first real guitar was a white Supro Ozark that his father bought him when he realized his son was serious about learning guitar.

He had no amp, but that did not deter him. He learned by watching others and listening to records, and was initially influenced by his father's Muddy Waters and BB King records so unsurprisingly stared his guitar playing life with the blues. He was a totally extrovert player, and his showing off with electrifying guitar playing actually upset a lot of people, and got him fired from his first band.

From there on he went from band to band, and after serving as a paratrooper in the army, he worked as a session guitarist backing such rock legends as Little Richard, the Isley Brothers and Sam Cooke. It was after he allowed Chas Chandler, formerly of the Animals, to be his manager that his career kicked off big style. Keith Richards (Rolling Stones) girl friend, Linda Keith, had told Chas about Jimi's electrifying playing, and he was persuaded to go to London UK. That was when Chas Chandler changed s name to Jimi, and formed the band the Jimi Hendrix Experience with Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding.

London was the ideal place at time for an up and coming pop star of Jimi's type, and the band blasted the charts with its first single 'Hey Joe'. After following The Who at that fabulous pop festival at Monterey (were you there?) in 1967 and sent the crowd wild by trashing his guitar with fire on stage the band released their first album "Are You Experienced" and Jimi was a star.

The Experience's most successful album. 'Electric Ladyland' was released in 1968 after Chas Chandler left as manager, and his leaving was the beginning of the end. Drugs and hangers-on crowding the studios led eventually to the end of the band and Jimi formed another band he Gypsies, Sun and Rainbows for a short time: their only gig was Woodstock, 1969, where his version of 'The Star Spangled Banner' was electrifying, but also his last great public performance.

Drugs were catching up, and his last album was "Cry of Love" also featured Billy Cox of gypsies, and Mitch Mitchell who had been with Jimi since the Experience days. On 17th September 1970, he took some sleeping pills belonging to his girlfriend, Monica Denneman. He had an apparent allergic reaction to them, and threw up sometime during the night and drowned on his vomit. He was taken to hospital but was pronounced dead. An inauspicious end to a great musician at the age of 27.

Jimi Hendrix was known for his electrifying solos work, and his use of his teeth and playing behind his back. These have been described as gimmicks, and perhaps they were, but they were gimmicks that nobody else had thought of using live and on TV. He has yet to be emulated and everybody knows of Jimi Hendrix.

His use of designed feedback was pioneering and his branded trademark. Nobody sounded like him, and nobody has done since. You know it's Jimi playing from the that first unique note.

Those of us fortunate enough to see him play live will never forget his dynamic personality and superb guitar skills, and his name and work will live forever. On that day in September 1970 a true genius was lost and the music world was the worse for it.

Jimi Hendrix may not have been the best pure guitarist, even in his own time, but no one has yet approached him in his personality, dynamism and on-stage presence and it is doubtful now if anybody ever will.

If reading his story has inspired you to learn to play the guitar, I highly recommend you try http://www.jamplaynow.com, their online video lessons are excellent.

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The story of Keith Moon is one of the more tragic and cautionary tales of the classic rock era. Moon was an extremely influential and talented drummer who hailed from the northern part of London. From an early age he displayed the wild streak that would dominate his entire life.

Bounced out of school, he was far more interested in two of his life's greatest loves: partying and playing the drums. He found early musical release playing in London cover bands, but the encounter that would ultimately change the course of rock and roll history and sadly seal his fate came in 1964, when at the tender age of 17 Moon joined The Who. After convincing them after a show that he would be a far better drummer than their current one, they gave him an audition in which he beat the drums so hard they were easily persuaded that he was the perfect backbone for their raucous sound.

Moon was an innovative drummer who was never afraid to try new things behind the kit. Early on in The Who he began assembling a drum kit that would better compliment his habit of using the kick drum to pace his rhythms, and he eventually ended up combining several different kits in order to give him the breadth of sound he needed. He played with abandon, but also great skill, a very difficult trick for a professional musician to pull off. Every performance was barn burner, and Moon left it all on the stage at the end of each show. His influence on the drummers who came after him has been profound, and he is often cited with John Bonham as being one of the key originators in rock and roll.

Keith Moon was a prankster who loved to punctuate his performances by blowing up his equipment or ransacking the stage. He also carried this behavior over into post-concert shenanigans, destroying hotel rooms and causing chaos whenever possible. Sadly, this excess also applied to his alcohol consumption, and he became notorious in the music scene for his prodigious appetites.

Being a member of The Who since the age of 17 meant that Keith Moon had always been exposed to life at 100 miles per hour, 24 hours a day. He was unable to develop any mechanism that would let him downshift to a pace that was survivable, and he died of an overdose of a treatment that had been designed to help him deal with his alcoholism. His death shattered The Who and shocked the rock world at the end of the 70's, forcing many to reflect on their role in this young man's out of control spin.

Classic-Rock-Music.com is the mystical rehearsal studio for rockers DEMON TWEAK. Listen as they prepare for battle with the evil trickster Loki by playing home brewed classic rock direct from Ragnarok. Also read articles on your favorite classic rock band written by resident historian VIRGIL THE STORYTELLER

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