... c'est le blog des chroniques rock impressionnistes hebdomadaires, ouvertes à tous les commentaires, ajouts et désaccords... Du factuel et du subjectif pour les novices ou les connaisseurs, par l'équipe de Crosstown Traffic et un seul objectif : prêcher une espèce d'Evangile rock n' rollesque sans verser dans les querelles de chapelles...

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"I've always liked to produce records that have a great number of moods and the musical palette is very wide. I was saying the same sorts of things when Real Life came out. To me it was a very panoramic album. Some bands seem to like to produce albums where instrumentation is very similar and the pacing can be very similar -- Oasis, the Strokes. I've never wanted to do that..." (Howard Devoto)

"Originally it started out as family. We were so poor. Like Bill Cosby said, we weren't just poor, we were broke. (laughs) My influence came from by Uncles, brother, my mom. All that bunch, all the different parts of the family. And when we started listening to radio it was country mostly, there wasn't no rock and roll. I liked the singers. I always liked Hank Williams. I listened to some old Jimmy Rodgers, which leans more toward the blues side. Then I found a bunch of black stations and started listening to people on up the line like T-Bone Walker and Jimmy Reed. I liked a lot of church music, and I loved organs. That's why I ended up with the sound I got..." (Lonnie Mack)

"When Uli was in the band, we had two different styles, the Uli/Jimi Hendrix direction and the Klaus/Rudolph direction... Ulrich was more of a solo artist and after he left the band it was up to me to compose all the songs, so everything became the same style... Matthias entered the band as a team player and formed his playing as the songs and direction dictated [...] We have always tried to include some of Ulrich’s songs in the live set-list but seem to come back to the newer stuff, but maybe in the future..." (Rudolf Schenker)

"We do a very special thing, it's like we do something different. We're not death metal or commercial metal -- we're something in between -- so it's hard for us to be commercially accepted right away. [And] it's so great being a trio that I don't see any reason to expand. It's hard enough for the three of us to agree on our music, I can't imagine there being another person we'd have to keep happy. There are thousands of bands with two guitarists and a singer and whatever, and this makes us a bit special and unique, so it's cool..." (Marky Marquis)

"Pete Townshend really identified with what we were doing. Pete's a very melodic player and so am I. He told me that he appreciated my playing. I was flattered beyond belief because I didn't think I was that good. Pete and I really hit it off. We had the same frustrations about working with a three-piece group. The next thing I knew, he was saying in interviews that he had heard 'this great guitar player from the James Gang' and that he was America's answer to al the English flash guitarists. Then, right on the heels of all this, we put out our best album, Rides Again. The word got out and we started to get gigs from everywhere. That was the high point of my stay with the James Gang. [But] the songs I was writing needed more texture than a trio could offer. I was writing with harmony and nobody could sing them; I was writing for piano and we couldn't play one onstage. I was frustrated. I had just written and recorded "The Bomber" and "Tend My Garden" and couldn't really re-create them onstage. Townshend had finished Tommy and was going through the same changes. We got along so well that I gave him the fat orange Gretsch guitar that he used on Who's Next and Clapton's Rainbow Concert..." (Joe Walsh)

"Stormcock was born in 1969 as I began to stretch my wings. I'd been there a few times before, but this time I gave myself the space to go deep... and stay there. [...] Pete Jenner and I turned out a great record. Seems like a thousand years ago now. Though I very rarely listen to my own records I would definitely say that my personal highlight on the record is Jimmy Page's guitar solo on 'The Same Old Rock.' My opinion has not changed since the day he put it on there. Absolutely brilliant..." (Roy Harper)