Nick Marks blurs the lines between jazz, hip-hop, and cinematic electronica on champagne flowers, an instrumental that overflows with creativity and effortless sophistication. Tight grooves, vibrant brass and string arrangements, and crisp beat-driven production create a sound that’s both playful and meticulously crafted. The composition constantly evolves, weaving together bebop-inspired flourishes, lush harmonies, and modern rhythmic sensibilities into a seamless listening experience. Rich in texture and infectious in its momentum, champagne flowers feels equally suited for focused listening and late-night cruising. Stylish, inventive, and endlessly engaging, it showcases Marks’ remarkable ability to merge classic musicianship with contemporary production.
Jack White has stepped in after country musician Charley Crockett kicked Satanic doo-wop duo Twin Temple off his current tour due to their occult imagery.
The former Metal Hammer cover stars, featuring husband-and-wife couple Zachary and Alexandra James, were due to support Crocket at shows in Troutdale, Oregon and Paso Robles, California in mid-July
But the Devil-loving duo claim to have been kicked off two shows due to Crockett’s opposition to their image and the content of such songs as Burn Your Bible and Let’s Have a Satanic Orgy.
“Today we were informed that Charley Crockett has decided to remove Twin Temple from his upcoming shows next week due to our Satanic imagery,” they write.
“Unfortunately, that means we will not be able to perform for you next week as planned. We are really disappointed as we were looking forward to getting back out and seeing you, and also what it meant as far as bringing different types of people and music lovers together.
“We are sorry to everyone who was planning to see us. We’re grateful for your support, not only of Twin Temple, but more importantly of artistic freedom.”
While Twin Temple may have offended Crockett, Jack White has no such issues. The former White Stripes frontman took to social media to offer the band the opportunity to open for him at an upcoming LA show.
White wrote: “Twin Temple, would you like to open my show in L.A. on September 29th at the Hollywood Palladium? Let me know. Get in front of me Satan!” he added, a nod to The White Stripes’ 2005 album Get Behind Me Satan.
Twin Temple responded to the offer on White’s Instagram, writing: “Unholy hell…. Sir Jack, you have no idea what this means to us. Lifelong fans- dead leaves on the dirty ground was one of the first songs I (Alex) ever learned on guitar. We were actually planning on coming to this show. It would be a most infernal pleasure to play the devils music with you.”
White also defended his decision to stand up for Twin Temple after one Instagram user questioned how it tallied with the singer’s supposed Catholic faith.
The user, calling himself ‘keeganisthebatman’, wrote: “I”m genuinely curious: as a practicing Catholic, how do you see promiting a band associated with Satanic imagery fitting in with your faith? It seems at odds with the values Catholicism teaches.”
Write clapped back: “I never claimed to be a practicing Catholic or christian, you assumed that. And I’m not scared of Satan or any bullshit imagery man made up to live in fear of.
“Commune with God on your own terms,” he continued, “and communicate with God and find your own path, not some path somebody made up to make you afraid and make money off of you.”
Meanwhile, Crockett has defended his decision to drop the band from his shows.
“I won’t conform and I’m not sorry,” he wrote on social media. “There are many things I’ve done in my life to apologize for but this ain’t one of them. I might wake up at 1pm on the back of that bus and find out that the opener ain’t working for me that night. Tough luck. Life is hard. This ain’t no temp agency.
He continued: “I don’t give a damn whether you think I’m right or wrong. They say love your struggle. I say love the strength the creator gave you to overcome your struggle. Dont believe in any kind of spiritual power? I’m sorry to hear that. God is the fabric that ties all life together.”
Youth Gone Wild may not have been the biggest hit off Skid Row’s self-titled debut album of 1989, but with its grab-you-by-the-throat riff, shouted, gang-style backing vocals and ‘us against them’ lyric the song quickly became, and remains, the band’s defining anthem.
It also holds a special place in the heart of former Skid Row singer Sebastian Bach, as the song was largely responsible for his joining the band. In the mid-80s the singer, then going by his given name of Sebastian Bierk, was a lanky, poofy-haired teenager making a name for himself fronting North American metal bands such as Madam X and VO5.
After one particular show with the latter in 1987, he found himself partying the night away with Mötley Crüe’s Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee, who had happened to be at the gig.
“They loved me,” Bach says of the Crüe pair, “because I was the guy with all the blow.”
And so began a chain of events that would severely impact the singer’s life.
“I gave Nikki a cassette with some of my stuff and a photo, and he passed it on to [Mötley Crüe manager] Doc McGhee,” Bach recalls. “Doc also managed Bon Jovi, and Jon had grown up with Snake [Skid Row guitarist Dave ‘Snake’ Sabo]. Then one day I get this tape in the mail at my place in Toronto, with some songs from a band from New Jersey.”
Coincidentally, it turned out that this wasn’t the first time Bach had come across the band on the tape.
“A few months before, I had gone to the wedding of a photographer friend of mine,” he says. “While I was there I met Jon Bon Jovi’s parents, and they started telling me about this new band from Jersey. When I got the tape in the mail, I realised it was the same guys.”
Skid Row: (from left) Rachel Bolan, Sebastian Bach, Rob Affuso, Scotti Hill, Dave ‘Snake’ Sabo (Image credit: Mick Hutson/Redferns/Getty Images)
Despite the distinguished cast of characters involved in connecting Bach to the still-unnamed New Jersey band, he wasn’t exactly bowled over by what he heard.
“The singer they had on there was a complete Bon Jovi clone,” Bach recalls. “I listened to it once and then forgot about it for a couple of days.”
At the urging of a friend, he revisited the demo, and had a change of heart after playing one song in particular: Youth Gone Wild.
“It was those first two lines,” Bach says: ‘Since I was born they couldn’t hold me down/Another misfit kid another burned out town.’ I felt like it was speaking to my life. I knew I could deliver that song with power and conviction. All I had been looking for was good music that I could sing along to. And this was good music. Youth… was the song that led me to move to New Jersey.”
“I remember drinking a lot of whiskey during the video. We used to drink booze all day.”
Sebastian Bach
Bach was in, and headed to New Jersey to begin rehearsing with Snake and the band: guitarist Scotti Hill, bassist Rachel Bolan and drummer Rob Affuso. One of the first songs they worked on was Youth Gone Wild, which had been written by Sabo and Bolan.
From the outset, Bach made it very clear that, unlike the singer he had heard on the demo version, he was no Bon Jovi clone.
“I remember playing Youth… with the guys, and when we got to the middle part where we do the chorus with just drums and vocals, I sang the entire thing in one breath. And they all went: ‘Holy shit, man!’. They couldn’t believe it.”
With Bach at the helm the band, now named Skid Row, quickly secured a deal with Atlantic Records [though only Bach, Sabo and Bolan were actually signed to the label], and were packed off to Royal Recorders, a studio in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, to record their debut album.
Skid Row onstage in 1990 (Image credit: Mick Hutson/Redferns/Getty Images)
“I think the label sent us out there to keep us out of trouble,” says Bach. “We were all little kids at the time, though I was a littler kid than the others. But we knew we had to make a killer album. I remember one day while we were out there Scotti and I went to some amusement park.
“We were just walking around, and I said to him: ‘Hey, man, do you think we’ll ever go gold? Could you imagine that?’. And he was like: ‘I don’t know, man. That’d be fucking crazy!’.” Bach laughs. “Once the album came out I think that took about two weeks.”
Skid Row took off practically upon its release in January 1989, thanks in no small part to Youth Gone Wild, which was issued as the album’s first single. The song – and the accompanying video – announced the band as rock’s newest bad boys, the seedy underside of the poppy, Winger/Warrant- style hard rock that had started to dominate the music landscape.
“We did that video in some big warehouse in Hollywood,” Bach says. “I remember drinking a lot of whiskey during the shoot. That was back when we used to drink booze all day. That was also one of the first times that I didn’t tease up my hair. I just let it go natural. Which was a big step for me [laughs].”
On the strength of two more singles – 18 And Life and the power-ballad I Remember You – the Skid Row album went on to sell more than five million copies. The band became superstars, and no member more so than the still-under-21 Bach, who, with his pretty-boy good looks, banshee wail of a voice and penchant for wild behaviour, was Youth Gone Wild personified.
During the tour for the album he was arrested after hurling a bottle from the stage and injuring a female member of the audience. A few months earlier he had made the news for wearing a T-shirt bearing the slogan: ‘AIDS Kills Fags Dead’.
In spite of, or perhaps in part due to, Bach’s penchant for controversy, Skid Row’s second album, 1991’s Slave To The Grind, debuted at No.1 on the US chart. It would prove to be the band’s peak, and after one more studio record, 1994’s Subhuman Race, Skid Row parted ways with Bach, before calling it quits.
Though they now lead very separate careers, both Bach and Skid Row continue to perform Youth Gone Wild in concert, and the song remains a showstopper.
“It’s just a true anthem,” Bach says. “It’s the same as when Ozzy sings Paranoid, or David Lee Roth does Runnin’ With the Devil. People love it. It doesn’t matter if it’s a club in New Jersey in 1988 or a stadium in Germany in 2007, when that song comes on, every person in the room becomes the Youth Gone Wild.”
Originally published in Classic Rock issue 124 (October 2008)
Fifteen years ago, Paul Hashemi stepped away from his music career after losing his job and needing to focus on supporting his wife and two young children. For years, music was reduced to strumming at preschool Christmas parties.
Then came the 2020 lockdown. With stability, time, and a makeshift home studio, he began writing and recording again as Faint Halos, shaping an ethereal, synth‑driven pop‑rock sound.
Now, with the upcoming debut album I Can See a Million Lights, Paul shifts toward a more organic, live feel, emotional songs carried by lyrical guitar lines and subtle rhythmic detail. He handled all vocals, instruments, production, and mixing, with one exception close to his heart: his daughter’s airy harmony vocals on select tracks.
He’s currently rehearsing with his band and preparing to bring these songs to the stage, feeling both reflective and driven. “I feel an urgency to share these songs. They carry messages people need to hear, now more than ever,” he says.
“I Don’t Want to Know” is the title of the new single, and I absolutely love the verses; they are vibrant and catchy, complemented by spot-on vocals. The song also features grungy guitars and a solid, dynamic rhythm section. It’s a very cool track! Give it a listen by clicking on the Spotify player below, and be sure to follow the band if you enjoy what you hear.
Raven’s magnificent 1982 album Wiped Out gets a hefty refit with an expanded edition with all sorts of stuff over four CDs and a DVD. After the success of their debut album the previous year as the burgeoning New Wave of British Heavy Metal scene was in the ascendancy, Raven unleashed Wiped Out and also […]
Poker Stars is an energetic rock project led by charismatic frontman Lucky and internationally acclaimed guitarist Frank Pané. The band blends Rock, Hard Rock, and Progressive Rock to deliver powerful songs filled with raw emotion, intensity, and atmosphere. Known for his striking clown makeup and theatrical stage presence, Lucky explores themes of excess, addiction, risk, and vulnerability, revealing the human side behind his persona. Frank Pané’s virtuosic guitar work adds precision, power, and depth to their sound.
Their new single, titled “Dr. Decadence,” centers around the figure of singer Lucky, who is dazzling, contradictory, decadent, and yet broken. It’s a fantastic power ballad with an old-school vibe, performed exceptionally well and featuring top-notch production. It brings to mind the sound of Black Country Communion and the voice of Glenn Hughes. Be sure to check it out by clicking on the Spotify player below.
Mick Jagger, 82, and his bandmates in the Rolling Stones are still making new music, but he was candid about his dislike of getting older on “The Interview.”
