Preview: White Lightning

WHITE LIGHTNING are a quartet from Staines. They have re-released an album (...As Midnight Approaches) first out in 1988, on Workshop Records.

The line-up consists of Simon Pengilly (lead guitar), Jeff Ward (drums/ keyboards), Noel Jones (vocals), and Richard Max Goddard (bass). The record was well received by the likes of Kerrang, Metal Forces, and Sounds... not to mention a certain Thomas-a-Vance.

The band's music displays various influences but evokes late 70s Brit Heavy Rock and Canadian trio RUSH. If your tastes veer towards the heavy end of the rock metal spectrum, then it's worth checking out "Losing Streak" and "Right Between the Eyes." I personally preferred the less dense "Danger Man" with its U2-ish intro and the majestic rock of "London Nightlife." The overall musicianship is impressive and the quality of production surprisingly good for a bunch of skint musicians.

A couple of reservations, though: Jonesy's vocals are too heavy metallish, i.e. high pitched but a little ragged and strained. Also, the band needs to develop a stronger image and a more focused direction.

For more information contact George, Workshop Records, research house, Fraser Road, Greenford, Middlesex UB6 7AQ

Mark Liddell

Riff Raff

July 1990

Revenge...?

Riff Raff was a legendary rock magazine based in London in the late 1980s and 1990s. Edited by the ultimate music biz insider, Mark Crampton, and employing such talents as Mark Blake, Jerry Ewing, Mike Harris, Paul Smith, Chris Collingwood, Alan McCrorie, Simon Robinson, Lyn Guy, Anna Marx, Nick Douglas, Marion Garden, Peter "Grunty" Grant, Joe "The Crow" Mackett, Billy "The Kluck" Kulke, and, lastest and mostest, the incredible Liddell Brothers, Mark (a.k.a. "El Perro") and Colin (a.k.a. "Der Fly"). Unfortunately, Riff Raff was just too R n' R for its own good. A genuine working class rock mag, written, edited, and translated into 16 European languages in a drug-N-Jack-D-fuelled haze, often on the back of motorbikes, with spell checking by our staff of attentive rock bimbos (chosen purely for their blondeness and big knockers), it soon fell behind more trainspotterly, nerdish, and politically correct publications like Q, Kerrang, Mojo, Metal Hammer, and Horse & Hound. This website is an archive and kind of shrine dedicated to the writing of its greatest writers, some of whom, luckily for the Rock Kosmos, still continue to write about music. This is the REVENGE of Riff Raff...Rock on!