Granbretan Invasion!

Graham Oliver and Me playing some Saxon classics

Not long ago, Witch Cross were approached by our Metal buddy Bart Gabriel over at Skol records to see if we’d be interested in contributing a song to a new tribute album to the glories of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Needless to say the answer was a resounding “Hell yeah!”

The choice of song was a no-brainer for us. In our live show, one of our encores is the SAXON classic “Strong Arm of the Law”. Luckily I was over from Spain at the right time and we got the track recorded, but there was no way I was going to miss the opportunity to have my long time friend Graham Oliver, Saxon axe-wielder extraordinaire on the track!

I drove up to Graham’s place in Yorkshire while I was in the UK and we headed up to Beat Street Studios in Leeds to record his parts. He’s the genuine article, the real deal, and his playing brought the song alive.

Graham working his Metal Magic

We’re really proud of our contribution to this fantastic project and can’t wait to hear what the other bands have done. Besides Witch Cross featuring Graham Oliver, it contains NWOBHM covers from Cauldron, Crystal Viper, Enforcer, Gatekeeper, Helvetets Port, Hitten, Ironflame, Martyr, Savage Master, Substratum, Twisted Tower and Dire. The album will be out later this year – stay tuned! Big thanks to my mate Jase Brooks at Beat Street for fitting in with our tight recording deadline!

L-R Kev Moore, Graham Oliver, Jase Brooks, Oliver Sekunda

Kev Moore

The Vikings are coming!

Check out the new album teaser trailer for our forthcoming album ‘AXE TO GRIND’.

WITCH CROSS are back !

Kev Moore

www.witchcross.dk

Alone, yet together….Sippin’ Wine

Phil Hendricks

Kev Moore

Throughout my career, I have collaborated on various projects with different artists over the years, and before the internet age, it usually involved me being in the same room with them.  However the session I’m going to highlight today differs from that.  It is a blues duet (for want of a better term) between me and Phil Hendricks,  Singer and guitarist with UK punk band The Stiffs, who my old mate and Gonads cohort Garry Bushell referred to (in his capacity as a Sounds journalist) as: ” pile driving pop-punk of the first order…a band to be reckoned with I’d wager..”

The project that involved us both was “End of an Era” -the solo album from Saxon’s Graham Oliver, his first release following the acrimonious split of the NWOBHM legends into two camps.  The song that we worked on has a fascinating history. When Graham was touring the States with Saxon, he went to Seattle to visit Jimi Hendrix’s grave, and met Jimi’s father. He gave him an old notebook of Jimi’s containing half-scribbled song ideas and lyrics. One of these was “Sippin’ Wine”. A track Graham fashioned in the way he thought Jimi would have finished it, and some extra lyrics from me.

Phil and I had never met, and put our vocal parts down at different times, and were not sure if we’d contributed to the finished product or not, and then, suddenly it was released, and we could both hear the finished version for the first time.

Over the ensuing years, I found the album in record racks in stores the world over, from Boston to Barcelona.  Then I noticed that later pressings of the disc omitted the track. Apparently, people acting for the Hendrix estate (not Jimi’s Dad) had asked for the track to be removed from the original running order.  The result is that the track is now a bona fide rarity, only to be found on a couple of thousand of the original pressings of the disc.

You can listen to it at the bottom of this entry.

Fast-forward to 2009, and a show I did recently in Germany with BC Sweet.  We were performing at a 70’s festival with The Rubettes and Eric Faulkner’s Bay City Rollers. During the soundcheck, the guitarist came up and introduced himself. It was Phil, and the circle, begun eight years previously, was complete.

LISTEN TO SIPPIN’ WINE:

Germany Double

Jeff and Kev

A quick weekend away with CHRISTIE allowed me to hang out with a lot of old friends, who also happen to be part of Pop history.  We did 2 shows, in Eberswalde and Landsberg, and had a great time with T. Rex, Sailor, Middle of the Road, and Dozy, Beaky Mick & Tich. handling guitar duties for T.Rex was my great friend Graham Oliver of Saxon, and on the kit was the last drummer of the Bolan era, Paul Fenton, who also just so happened to be the Christie drummer from 1972-75!  Jeff and I were well pleased to see our old mates, and we got Paul up on stage at the first show to play “Yellow River” with us, the first time he’d done so for around 35 years!

It was also great to see Sailor stalwarts Phil, Henry and Grant, who has just returned to gigging after a nasty hand injury. These trips can be endurance tests, particularly with the flights and road trips, but the shows and the chance to spend time with friends more than makes up for that.

My next sojourn away will be in around 10 days, when BC Sweet descend on an unsuspecting Gronau, in Germany.

Kev Moore

Christie Renaissance

In 2008, almost imperceptibly, a groundswell of interest and activity in all things Christie has begun to gather momentum. Jeff himself has appeared on, or filmed for future broadcast, several TV shows in Europe. The artist-friendly record label AngelAir (who also released the Graham Oliver solo album I guested on) has released A double CD retrospective featuring tracks from Jeff’s first band, The Outer Limits on CD for the first time, plus his unreleased solo album from 1979. The project is entitled “Outer Limits & Floored Masters – Past Imperfect“. SEE REVIEWS

As we approach the 40th. anniversary of Christie’s multi-million selling hit “Yellow River” in 2010, it looks like we’ll be heading back out on the road for a series of dates across Europe next year. We’ve had the same line-up with Jeff for 20 years, and it’s the same line-up that will be out there in 2009.

I’m looking forward to it immensely, and, as and when dates get confirmed, you’ll hear it here. But for now, take a look at Me, Jeff, Fos and Simon when we appeared back in 1990 at the Golden Years Concert in the Sportstadion, Antwerp. Good times!

Kev Moore