This week we've been eating a lot of cake and donuts in the Classic Rock office. We've eaten so much pudding we can sense our arteries tightening and the fat begin to congeal around our blackened hearts. So we've also been exercising, running up and down in-between the desks, listening to our Tracks of the Week playlist. Here it is.
**Bernie Marsden feat. David Coverdale - **Trouble Bernie’s back, and he’s brought the Saltburn-by-the-Sea soul man with him. Yes, it’s Marsden and Coverdale, living together in perfect harmony, side by side on my piano keyboard, Oh Lord why don’t we? And they’re doing a version of the old Whitesnake classic Trouble. Smart.
**Saint Agnes - **Where the Lightning Strikes Fact: Saint Agnes — often known as Agnes of Rome — is the patron saint of chastity, gardeners, girls, engaged couples, rape victims, and virgins. Which is some job, when you think about it. Saint Agnes (the band) live in London, and make a glorious, sleazy racket which starts out like the theme from the Old Grey Whistle Test and ends up altogether more stompy.
Demob Happy - Succubus We’ve not got much info on this lot but if we can make the words ‘stoner’, ‘fuzzbox’, ‘hirsute’ and ‘Brighton-based’ excite you, and throw in an obligatory ‘Queens Of The Stone Age’ reference, then you know what to do…
Giant Squid - Mycenaeans A bit conceptual this one, but there’s nothing fishy about these San Fran prog-doomers as they celebrate the majesty and mystique of the ancient Greeks with a stately tromp through a bouzouki’n’cello-stoked saga. Game Of Thrones fans line up here.
**The Budos Band - **The Sticks The Budos Band are part of the very complicated Venn diagram of musicians who make up the Dapkings and Charles Bradley’s band and Antibalas about 15 other amazing funky outfits. Here, they’re also channelling Iron Butterfly and Uriah Heap. And Pentagram, probably.
**The Parrots - **I Am A Man The Parrots are a garage-surf trio from Madrid, a city with no beach. Which probably explains a) how angry they sound, and b) how excited they are in the video when they actually get to the seaside.
**One Mile To Nowhere – Devil’s Cry ** This video features the Grim Reaper riding a lawnmower, which would be enough to make the list most weeks. This is from the hard rockin’ outfit’s album The Way to Perdition. And which way is that? You’ll have to ask them, but perhaps it’s near Altheim, Austria, which is where the band are from.
**Smashing Pumpkins **- Being Beige We once saw The Smashing Pumpkins play in a zoo in Stockholm. It was so cold that Billy Corgan played guitar with gloves on. Anyhow, Being Beige is the type of plaintive ballad of the type that Billy specialises in when he’s not playing in zoos.
