Category: REFLECTIONS
Finally 2014 starts looking good!
When the clock striked midnight on New Year’s Eve and we entered 2014, I was in Nashville with a bad cold… And what’s more, I only had one flight ticket for ONE gig in 2014 (Steel Panther in Manchester in March).
THAT hasn’t happened since… well, 2006 I think. I’ve simply made concert travel my thing. But no interesting tours have been announced until now. But, things are beginning to shake, rattle and roll!
Gus G has just announced that there will be a Greek solo-tour in March with Mats Leven, Jorn Lande and Uli Jon Roth – and suddenly 2014 is looking a whole lot better! Unless, of course, it happens to coincide with the Steel Panther weekend in the UK! :-/
I’m all out of vacation days too until May, so every gig-trip I do the coming few months (February, March and April) has got to be on weekends or during the Easter holidays (any day that I have time off anyway). That is a weird feeling. I’ve gotten so used to being out all year round, going to different places that it’s strange knowing that maybe I won’t be able to until May…!
We’ll see what happens. I just need to have stuff to look forward to or I start getting restless. :P
On a more local level, I’ll be going to the Royal Hunt-gig in Helsingborg next month. The main reason being that these are basically the same guys behind CORNERSTONE (with Doogie White on vocals) which I love. Most of all because of the DRUMS on those albums.
The Cornerstone-albums are so well mixed and mastered, everything is done with absolute perfection – it’s just so elegant and so well made.
And the drummer, Allan Sorensen, is without a doubt one of my favorite drummers. He’s the only drummer that made me listen through four albums focused on the DRUMS as if it was a lead instrument (usually it’s the vocals or guitars).
I just automatically sorted out the drums when I listened to that stuff, because I think that his playing is interesting and colorful – he’s steady as a rock, powerful like the “Thing” and I enjoy all those little details, he just has a cool, playful style. Kind of the same stuff that makes me love Paul Gilbert. Technical skills – but still has the ability to present those skills without putting people to sleep! It’s the subtle touch of fun that does the trick!
So, although I haven’t listened as much to Royal Hunt as I have listened to Cornerstone, I’m looking forward to a pleasant surprise. :)
There’s not much Cornerstone-stuff on Youtube, which is really annoying. Some of what was once up there is gone. But if you like Gotthard and Rainbow (Joe Lynn Turner-era style) then you will most likely like Cornerstone.
DISCOGRAPHY:
Arrival – 2000
Upon Our Yesterdays – 2003
In Concert (2 CD) – 2005 [recommended!]
Human Stain – 2006 [recommended!]
Two Tales of One Tomorrow – 2007
My year in rock – 2013 retrospect
We’re a few days into 2014 already and I never really had time to do the usual look in the rearview mirror to summarize what 2013 was like for me.
Compared to the past 5 years, it was less eventful than usual, and a lot of it has to do with my father’s passing. I cancelled some gigs I had planned to go to and well, just wasn’t in the mood for anything really, but there were still a few highlights in 2013.
January started with Gothenburg Sound Festival where I met up with FIREWIND-drummer JO NUNEZ who was playing with NIGHTRAGE.
Shortly thereafter, I went to the US to see a few FIREWIND-shows and meet up with the new singer KELLY SUNDOWN CARPENTER for an interview at the Gramercy in NYC. Went to Atlanta and the Masquerade as well, pretty cool venue.
Got stuck in a blizzard the day I was supposed to fly home from JFK via Toronto, and made it home in the very last minute. Drama!
Swedish bands CRAZY LIXX & H.E.A.T played at KB, show got interrupted by the fire alarm and the club was evacuated.
Went to beautiful ICELAND with my friend Henny, that was a trip I won’t forget anytime soon – Iceland is a fairy tale country and I hope they never let the ways of the “outside world” change what they’ve accomplished. It’s amazing.
[This isn’t even Photoshopped – it actually looks like that!]
Gigs, there were a few. IRON MAIDEN played at Malmo Stadion, I spent all day in line to get a front row spot. Well worth it!
MEGADETH played at Vega in Copenhagen, they had just released Super Collider and played the title track from that album live for the first time. Dave Mustaine also brought a kid up on stage, not a usual sight at Megadeth shows. :)
STEVE HARRIS and his British Lion played at KB in Malmo, and although the attendance was low, to say the least, it was insanely cool to see a musician of his caliber that up close! I got dust from his sneakers in my face when he stomped on his monitor, he was THAT close. It wasn’t as bad as people say, the band had a good time and that’s what I remember the most.
Another memorable gig was PAUL GILBERT in Gothenburg, at Sticky Fingers. Been a fan since forever, Paul is amazing. There are some fantastic shredders in the world, but Paul is unique. I love his goofy style, his dry sense of humor, his playing, his way of interacting with the crowd… It was a great show.
After Apollo Papathanasio’s departure from Firewind, I decided to keep track of his other projects, so I went to Hamburg, Germany to visit my friend Su and see Apollo with SPIRITUAL BEGGARS. A few months later made a last minute decision to see the band in Thessaloniki, Greece as well.
Apollo also visited me in my home in Malmo for a video interview and a nice lunch. Awesome dude.
Of course, there were a bunch of FIREWIND shows this year as well. Rock in den Ruinen in Germany, SWEDEN ROCK FESTIVAL, and of course, the tour of AUSTRALIA. I opted out of all other shows because I needed the $$ for Australia.
SWEDEN ROCK FESTIVAL was a weird festival this year, it was only days after my father’s passing, but I had to go to fulfill my duties to Sweden Rock Magazine and also to my friend Su who was visiting from Germany, SRF was her bachelorette party.
Memorable interviews: DAVID COVERDALE (WHITESNAKE), love the man, he rocks!
[A short clip from that interview]
And finally meeting LITA FORD for the first time ever. She was great, I’m glad she didn’t turn out to be a bitch.
Also saw her shows in Gothenburg ad Sticky Fingers and Malmo, KB.
Went to the UK twice in May to see WHITESNAKE, Thunder and Journey. I could see Whitesnake a million times and it still never gets old. :)
GUS G came to Malmo for the SWEDISH METAL CONVENTION, had a great time with him and Andy R, thanks to Pontus for bringing him to the convention. Also met Tallee Savage and her sister Amanda, Jorn, Anders Johansson (YNGWIE, HAMMERFALL) and a bunch of other people.
(Anders Johansson (Hammerfall, Yngwie), Pekka and Gus in the VIP-room)
Gus G and Paul DiAnno:
Straight after that…business class with Emirates to Sydney via Dubai, went on a safari, met koalas, saw the first Firewind show of the Australian tour, continued to Brisbane, met up with Clint, flew to Adelaide and then finally Melbourne. Stayed there for a week after the band had left. Met a few more koalas and then some really nice people at his BBQ party.
The free BAR in business class at my Emirates-flight to Sydney. :) It didn’t suck. ;)
Came home, got another tattoo and saw BLACK SABBATH in Copenhagen.
An old friend, singer of the Swedish sleaze-band NASTY IDOLS, Andy Pierce, passed away at the age of 45, something that I still can’t quite grasp…
Finished my year in the US visiting friends and checking out two gigs that I wrote about in my previous blog, both Savatage-related.
That was it – in a nutshell. Less travel than usual 2013 but I’m already looking forward to the Steel Panther European tour in the spring and Gus G’s solo-debut! Welcome 2014!
REST IN PEACE ANDY PIERCE….
One of my best friends sent me a short message on Facebook that just stated: “Andy Pierce is dead!”
I just looked at it, wondering what she meant, was that some sort of joke or a new album or what?! It simply didn’t occur to me that he could actually be gone. But two seconds later, another friend of mine sent me the exact same message. “Did you hear the news about Andy?”
The Andy they were talking about was Andy Pierce, lead singer of the Swedish sleaze-band Nasty Idols. A guy I’ve known since 1987 when they played their very first gig. I actually didn’t know it was their first gig until 20 years later when he told me that it was. Their performance there was so professional that I thought they were big stars already. What did I know, I was 18 and they blew me away.
[From that very first Nasty Idols gig in 1987, bassplayer Dick Qwarfort]
That was where it all started. The story is too long – I’ve been friends with these guys ever since. For 26 years we’ve somehow “followed” eachother – they started out at the same time as me. I got my first job as a rock reporter in 1988, they released their first album around that time as well. I’ve written countless Nasty Idols-articles and reviews, seen numerous Nasty-shows…
And I was really glad that they agreed to perform on my private birthday party a few years ago, when they really weren’t playing anywhere else at the time. A promoter tried to book them after that gig and they turned down the offer. When asked howcome they played at MY event, Andy answered: “Because it’s HER!”.
That says it all I guess. It counts for something to have known someone for that long.
I’ve got so many memories flashing through my head right now. I could go on forever about Nasty Idols, but for now I’m really just remembering Andy as a person.
When someone passes, everybody paints up this picture of a perfect, angel-like person. Andy wasn’t perfect. Far from it. He had his issues, spent time in jail, lived the life of a rock star with the drugs and booze and that whole deal.
But that was not his only identity, and that’s definitely not the guy I remember. I remember him as a guy who played two roles – one of those being the rock star everybody expected him to be. There was a line in one of the lyrics (48 Hours) on the album “Boys town” – “I’m standing in the bar, playing the role of a rock’n’roll star”…
He would surround himself with “sleaze chicks” but the minute they turned their back he would shake his head and go: “They look trashy, what’s with those fishnets with big holes everywhere?” He definitely was 2 people in one body.
He was crazy funny too – a wonderful sense of humor. Anyone who ever met him could tell you that.
At a Christmas party at my place, he made my guests laugh so hard that they totally lost their breath. One of the guests had cancer at the time and he told her that she was strong and beautiful – just exactly when she needed to hear that. And she was so grateful that he got her to forget about her disease all evening, the laughs were the best medicine she could get.
In essence, he was a traditional guy, who was scared to die. He drove like an old lady and talked about living in the country with a garden and all, but he couldn’t really set himself free from the image of himself that he had created. And he never would even if he could. That image and the admiration that he got from people, was like a drug. It was his identity, or the one he wanted the general public to see.
I sometimes thought that he had created a monster – the monster that was Andy Pierce and everything that went with it. Then again, he loved music and art and had an unmistakable talent and taste for good melodies, cool artwork and anything visual. It was all an important part of the package that he and bassplayer Dick Qwarfort, who worked in advertising, created under the name Nasty Idols.
When Andy went solo in the 90s, he tried to do the pop/rock-thing for a short while, and I asked him to reunite Nasty Idols for my club at the time – Hard Break. They played at the premiere and it was a success. It made them realize how much they missed playing together and next thing you know, they were back on track.
They helped me get people to the club on the premiere, I helped them with a comeback when nobody was interested in booking “that kind” of band. And that’s how it was.
This is from that Hard Break premiere – Nasty Idols clips from that night in the beginning and towards the end of the video.
He would get thrown out of the house by his girlfriend sometimes and end up throwing pebbles at my balcony window at 4 am, asking if he could crash on my couch cause he had nowhere else to go.
He stopped doing that after an evening out with a few friends when he and a few people came over here in the middle of the night, being drunk and annoying and I literally threw him out. He thought I was kidding, I remember he was still standing on the other side of the door in the stairwell thinking that I would open it and let him back in. When I didn’t he left and we didn’t talk for a while.
I wasn’t drinking at the time and he was out of control, I didn’t hate him or anything, it was just better to be friends in public spaces where my stuff wouldn’t get trashed. :) He calmed down considerably a few years later.
His problem with alcohol was no secret to anyone. When I did an interview for Sweden Rock when “Boys town” was about to be released, he got so nervous that he got himself piss drunk and had to be escorted home by Dick who was used to handing the situation… Luckily he lived just across the street.
Regardless all this – most of us loved Andy. He was funny, an incredibly charismatic and cool guy, a lot more intelligent than people gave him credit for – because he liked playing the role of the stupid sleaze-star…
As much as we would laugh at his antics, I admired him for what he had accomplished and for his talent as the perfect frontman. And he was a good friend, when he wasn’t being taken over by Demon Alcohol or whatever other shit he would end up taking – I don’t even know why he insisted on doing that, but my guess is that he was way to insecure to do without it.
I am really really sad today. He was a good friend and I will miss him a lot. He left way too early, but in true rock’n’roll spirit, he will always be remembered as the young and wild rocker – just the way he would have wanted it.
Say hi to the Band In The Sky from us Andy – and enjoy the jam…
The hierarchy of rock
I just found this little “pyramid of rock’n’roll” in one of my older blogs. We all know that there IS a hierarchy in rock just as much as there is in a royal dynasty. And this is pretty much what it
looks like! :-)
ON THE THRONE – COOLEST OF THEM ALL – GODS, HEROES, ROCK’N’ROLL ROYALTY….
The BAND / artist
VERY important:
The MANAGER of the band. The tour manager (those are not necessarily the same person). People from the label. Other people from the management.
CREW-MEMBERS, people are jealous of them cause they’ve got a AAA-crew passes and travel with cool bands! :)
Roadies, stage manager, guitar-, bass-, drum techs, light techs, sound guys etc…
Other VIP-people, in pretty much that order:
A. Friends of the band (normally other musicians), girlfriends, wives or groupies who are allowed to stand on the stage behind the stacks and shit, and watch the show.
B. Journalists and/or chosen webmasters of the band.
C. Photographers
D. Security people
…and then on the absolute bottom of the Rock’n’roll-importance hierarchy, at least at shows and festivals –THE FANS. In other words, the people who are actually paying for everything: They are buying the records, the merch and concert tickets, which in turn pays everybody else’s paychecks. :)
Without the fans, the bands wouldn’t be selling any albums or get people to their shows – which in turn means that the managers wouldn’t make any money, and there would be no need for a crew. No groupies would bother hanging around a band that’s not successful and no journalists or photographers would waste their time writing about or taking pics of a band that has no fans.
Pretty funny if you ask me. But – that’s rock’n’roll hierarchy for you right there! :)
Opinions are like a-holes….
Opinions are like certain holes – everybody’s got one. Especially on the internet. Every time you say something online, you know that there will always be someone who will disagree. Some spend their entire lives disagreeing, just for the sake of it (i.e Blabbermouth-trolls who seem to have crawled back to their caves since the commenting-system changed a few months ago…).
I pissed off a few people lately – but… they got a few things wrong in the first place. So I thought I should clear up a few details. :)
When it comes to music journalism, here’s a short Cheat Sheet:
REVIEW
Pretty much another word for OPINION. Period. That’s all it is. It’s NOT supposed to be objective – quite the opposite. A review can never be anything but subjective because it’s simply a description of something based on somebody’s personal taste. It’s not a scientific dissertation which many seem to think. :)
BLOG
The definition of a blog: “a Web site containing the writer’s or group of writers’ own experiences, observations, opinions, etc., and often having images and links to other Web sites.”
Before the term even existed, I used to write what I called a “diary” online, in the mid- and late 90’s. So, it’s basically a public type of diary. NOT to be confused with an ARTICLE.
ARTICLE
Definition: “a piece of writing included with others in a newspaper, magazine, or other publication”.
That also includes publication online, of course. It’s not written in diary form (it can be, but normally isn’t), and is what I would call the more “serious” type of text where you, as a reader, should expect the information to be correct and objective.
STORY
A more in-depth article, usually longer than a regular article on a specific topic. The writer has spent a lot of time digging up information, checking and double-checking facts, interviewing people and everything else that comes with the territory. Rolling Stone is well known for their stories.
FACEBOOK UPDATES
The least important of them all. It’s just a no rules-apply type of text, long or short, about absolutely anything and everything based on “whatever comes to mind“. We all know it – we all write those every day. Sometimes they engage others, sometimes they’re just annoying. We’re all guilty as charged. :)
So, what am I getting at with this? Well, a few weeks ago a lady posted on my Facebook-page, very upset about what she felt was an incorrect description of her husband. She felt that as a journalist, I should get my “story” straight and get “both sides” before voicing my opinion.
I never wrote a STORY about her husband. I don’t know who the guy is, I don’t know his background. That wasn’t the point. I simply had an opinion about ONE thing this man had done, which I mentioned in a Facebook status update, basically to start a discussion and hear other people’s thoughts on the matter.
He was so provoked by this that he started looking for someone to take his side, and managed to get some online-publication to write what he wanted them to write.
That’s cool – once again – there are many opinions out there and we’re all entitled to have them, but the funny part was that his wife proceeded to explain to me what real journalism was (yeah, I totally missed all that in the 25 years that I’ve been doing this, thanks for the crash-course… ;P ).
It was important to hear both sides of a story first. And THEN she posts a link to an article that only had THEIR side of the story, nobody else’s.
If those two had presented an article written by someone who had actually taken time to speak to all THREE parties involved in the issue, I would have been all ears, and if I was wrong, I’d suck it up and admit I was wrong. Instead, they sent me that bullshit article. Oh, please. NEXT……!
The blog I wrote for Metalpaths last week, about the Firewind-trip to Australia, also managed to piss off a few people in Brisbane. As it turned out, they were either in – or friends of – one of the opening acts that I had decided not to see (I could hear them out on the street). I avoided it, because it was a type of music I dislike. It wouldn’t just start sounding like angel-choirs because I heard it from up close.
I was informed by an annoyed guy that I wasn’t being “open-minded“. Since when is that synonymous with torturing yourself through something you already know that you don’t appreciate?
It’s like the first time I tried broccoli. I had to be open-minded and at least try it once. Well, my mother probably made me eat the freakin’ broccoli by the way…
Then AFTER I had tried it the first time, and maybe a few times after that, I concluded that I just didn’t like broccoli. So – I don’t eat broccoli just to “support” the broccoli-industry. Okay?
Apparently I was narrow-minded cause I wasn’t “supporting the local scene” and blah blah…. Well, I wasn’t there to support “the local scene”. I was there because I like Firewind. Plain and simple. I did check out the OTHER non-growling bands, some of them I appreciated for their skills, but I simply didn’t think they were as good as the main act.
I went to my very first concert back in 1982. Since then, I’ve seen so many concerts, that I lost count a LONG time ago.
I’ve been blessed and lucky enough to live in a part of the world where I can go to gigs as often as I like. From what I understand, it’s not as easy in Australia, for obvious reasons. But here, it was nuts for a while. Especially back in the 80’s and 90’s – there were arena bands, local bands, mid-sized bands playing all the time everywhere, all the time.
And I went to most of those shows. When the bands I wanted to see didn’t come to Sweden, I started travelling abroad to see them. Then I realized that I loved the travelling so much that I chose to travel to see bands regardless…
I’ve seen and heard “growl bands” at festivals, at local gigs, at band-talent shows where I was in the jury and so on… Believe me – I’ve seen and heard enough – and guess what – I SIMPLY DON’T LIKE IT. :) Period.
I can tell after less than 30 seconds, if I’m going to like a band or not. It’s something that comes with experience. Kind of like I don’t dig broccoli. I simply don’t, not even if you try to shove it down my throat. :)
That’s why music magazines and most magazines/newspapers have different people writing about different styles. The dude who’s reviewing 70’s retro-bands is not going to write about Slayer. And the guy who’s into Slayer will not be assigned to write about Poison or some other glam band.
Just explaining how shit works, might be easier if people understand why things are the way they are.
I’m guessing that a lot of anger and frustration out there is simply based on misconceptions. Hopefully this clears up some of those questionmarks. Knowledge is power! :)
IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR 