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New York, New Yooooork, here I come! :-))
All done. My weekend-trip to NYC to see Steve Stevens with Sebastian Bach is now booked. And I’m really looking forward to it!
Steve is a true showman and so is Sebastian – watching those two guys in a jazz-club on Broadway is the coolest thing and another early Christmas-present to myself.
I’m leaving from Copenhagen on the 27th of January, coming back on Monday (with the time-difference, I’ll be leaving New York on Sunday, and be back in Denmark early Monday morning) – and then straight to work. Another zombie-week, but at least it’s all done in my own spare time. :-))
I can’t believe how lucky I was with the flight. Been checking regularly and it was a little bit too expensive AND the itinerary sucked. Too many changes and long waits at airports.
Then from out of nowhere THIS option appears, says that there are very few seats left. Non-stop flight to New York and I get to work Monday morning, no problem. Best of all – the cheapest flight up until now has been 3600 SEK for weeks. Today it was 2900 SEK (=about $400) roundtrip!
Then again, that’s why I’m always booking Tuesday-Thursday. That’s when you get the best deals.
Not only that… It was my lucky day. Hotel right on Times Square, AC, Wi-Fi… the whole deal, 2 nights, really nice room, less than 200 bucks! For a hotel in New York City with that location, that’s a bargain!
I’m so excited that I’ll get to see this unique show with the most unbacked combo I never thought I’d see on a stage together. :-)
Hopefully I’ll get hold of Baz again for a short interview, but time is very limited so… that’ll have to be improvised.
But first Athens, January 14.
My Sebastian-interview from earlier this summer:
and the crazy Q & A session he did the next day:
My Iron Maiden X-mas present to myself!
Ordered my Iron Maiden-wine from the UK – and it came today! :-) Am I going to drink it? NO! But the metal-wine collection is getting biggerrrr. Some w(h)ine about wine not being “metal” but screw that, it’s cool as hell – period!
Tomorrow I’m picking up my KISS-beer! Merry Christmas to me! :-))
Aerosmith’s Joe Perry talks about the monkey on his back…
As mentioned in last night’s blog, I was digging through a whole bag full of old cassettes – recordings from interviews that go all the way back to 1988.
THIS particular interview from 1989 was one of the more….unusual ones. Aerosmith had just released their album Pump, and I got an interview with guitarist Joe Perry (who has been my “drool object” for years, by the way!).
The thing was, that I had a dayjob at the time, at a bindery and the interview could only take place at some point during the day. I had no idea how to solve that – but I accepted the interview-time that the record company gave me, and figured that I would have to find a solution when the time came.
I was not allowed to leave my “work station” just as I pleased – we had our specific breaks at specific times. If you had to do something outside of those times…you simply didn’t.
So…In the middle of work, I told my colleagues that I had to go to the bathroom and left. When I knew that nobody could see me, I sneaked quickly around the corner to a payphone that was sort of hidden. I attached my recorder to the phone and quickly called the record company that was supposed to put me through to Joe.
The whole time I was scared to death that one of the bosses would walk by and find me there. Would have been pretty hard to explain why I was talking to Aerosmith’s guitarist during working hours…
In parts of the interview you can even hear the machines in the background, but not in this particular segment. :-)
The audio quality sucks, but so did the circumstances. :-) Yet, it was an interview to remember!
Here’s Joe first talking a little bit about “the new album” Pump – and then explaining why it’s so easy to get addicted to drugs and alcohol when you’re in the music business.
Enjoy.
Found press conference with Whitesnake from 1994 :-)
Went through a PILE of old cassettes this evening. You know, one of those things you tell yourself you’re gonna do “someday“. But there is no such day as “someday”. There is Mon-day, Tues-day, Wednes-day, Thurs-day, Fri-day, Satur-day and Sun-day. But no “Some-day”. In other words, if you won’t do stuff right away, it’ll never be done. And this is one of those things.
Every interview and press conference I’ve ever been to, I’ve recorded. So you can imagine the ridiculous amount of material that I’ve got laying around here.
I was searching for the interview I did with Dimebag as it was a tribute show for him a few days ago (Dimebash) and I figured it would be good timing to find it. Nobody’s ever heard it. It would be the premiere – 20 years overdue… I did the interview back in 1991 when they were touring with Judas Priest on the Painkiller tour. And I have no idea where it is. Still haven’t found it.
Anyway, as I was looking for THAT, I found something ELSE. The WHITESNAKE press conference from Midtfyn Festival in Denmark 1994.
I went there with a photographer, also a Whitesnake-fan. The press conference was to be held in a tent, as usual at these festivals, and the place was PACKED.
I had been one of the first people to get there so I had the front row seat. It filled up and you couldn’t fit in one more person by the time the band arrived. This was the great comeback of Whitesnake, as David had just been involved in the Coverdale Page project. Until then, nobody even knew if Whitesnake was dead and buried forever. And with the “Greatest Hits” coming out, the interest for the band was huge.
Before the band arrived, there was a lot of noise in the tent, people talking, laughing…
When David walked in, it was as if someone just pushed a button and for a few seconds, the place turned completely silent. I’ve never experienced anything like that before. When he passed me, I could even smell his cologne. It smelled good – definitely something that stuck in my mind.
My photographer was so nervous that the first photos she took turned out totally blurry. And me… I dropped my jaw and forgot to turn on the tape recorder. Jesus, and we were supposed to be professionals. Yeah, right. Luckily I remembered to turn it on in the last minute, just as the conference began. :-)
It’s not a “real” video – back in 1994 there wasn’t even internet as we know it. Very few people had a PC with a modem at home and it wasn’t a normal part of life for most people. There were no digital cameras either. So, I just put a few photos from the conference with the actual cassette-audio file together in this very humble video.
I hope you like it. :)
Rock’n’roll Travels 2012
2011 is coming to an end, and I’m already planning my rock’n’roll travels for 2012.
The biggest challenge right now is the preparations for my trip to Russia. Or maybe I should say my “possible” trip to Russia, cause I had no idea it would be so complicated to go to a country that’s not that far away and only for a short visit.
I’ve found myself in a paper-mess with visa-applications and special insurance instructions and what have you. To top it all off, they aren’t exactly helpful at the Russian Embassy, so if I can’t figure things out on my own, I’ll have to skip the trip.
But I would love to go for at least two reasons: Because I’ve never travelled in that direction before, I’ve always gone to the west, never to the east (if you don’t count Eastern Europe such as the Czech republic). So, Russia feels a bit exotic. :-)
Second reason being visiting my friend Vera, who I met at Sweden Rock Festival that she’s been visiting a few years because she’s been covering the festival for the Russian edition of Classic Rock Magazine.
It would be very great to visit her and go see a cool show. The band playing (I rarely go anywhere unless there’s a show, as I’m sure you know by now :-)) is Judas Priest.
I saw them in Tallinn, Estonia back in 2006, it was a pretty weird concert. The security guards looked like an army, very intimidating. The opening act was some embarrassing, goddamn awful local band… Just one of those places you never forget.
And now – maybe, St. Petersburg, Russia, if I get my papers in order!
But before that – Athens, Greece in a few weeks. Firewind playing. Check out my Firewind-tour diary from this summer here.
After the past summer, it has become my “house band”, and seeing them from now on is like coming home. I liked the gigs with Mats Levén singing and I liked the US-shows as well with Apollo back as the frontman.
Firewind may not be a Motley Crue-sort of entertaining band, but for a music-nerd like me, they give me kicks just by being amazing at what they do – each musician in his own right.
I love the new drummer Jo, he kicks major ass, unbelievably talented. Nobody cares much for bassplayers unless it’s Billy Sheehan, but only watching Petros‘ fast fingers gets you dizzy, fucking hell that guy can play...! Don’t even get me started on the Virtuoso-Duo Bob Katsionis and Gus G (keyboards, guitar)…!
[Instrumental “SKG” – amazing if you’re into virtuosity…!]
The reason why I even started going to all those shows was Gus G. He is unreal. He’s not just another guitar geek, he’s a true old-school ROCK STAR on stage as well, I could watch him do his thing every week.
Somebody said that “there’s a lot of Gus in your videos” after watching my uploads on Youtube from this summer. Of course there is. There is no reason why there shouldn’t be. The guy rules.
But I’m slightly nervous going to Athens. When I went to Thessaloniki back in July, I got lost after the show at the stadium – and took for granted that there would be buses back to the city after such a big event. Never been anywhere where there haven’t been buses after a sports- or music event at a large stadium.
Well, apparently, it wasn’t self-explanatory in Greece so I ended up wandering the streets in the middle of the night looking for the ONE bus stop where the LAST night bus was supposed to leave. Cause THAT particular day, taxi’s were on strike…..
[Link to the Thessaloniki-adventures…]
It didn’t make things any easier that the signs were all written with Greek letters that I couldn’t understand, so I couldn’t get help from a Greek friend who tried to guide me over the phone. I got back to the hotel eventually, but it has taught me to be WELL prepared when going to Greece next time.
I got a tip from my friends in the JOP-camp, to contact a guy from Athens that they know from the last Oliva-tour. I’m lucky to know people in road crews, as they know the world very well – especially gig-related stuff. MY kind of “stuff”. :-) Let’s see how it goes.
And another thing that keeps me occupied right now is finding a fairly cheap flight to NYC at the end of January, because the coolest “poser-guitarist” ever, STEVE STEVENS is playing – with special guest SEBASTIAN BACH. Two guys I adore seeing live, sharing the stage?! Damn, I don’t want to miss THAT!
I’m out of vacation days until May, so I would have to go just over the weekend, see the show and then head straight back to work. Looks like the tickets aren’t even on sale yet. Guess I could ask Sebastian’s management, but when I’m traveling far, I still feel a lot better having a ticket in my hand, than the stress that always happens when you get to the box office and they go: “Hmmm I can’t see your name here…. what did you say your name was?” The classic. Happens even with bands I know very well, I guess I can always call someone, but sometimes there’s no time for that. So – old-fashioned tickets works fine for me.
Guess I’ll wait for the tickets to go on sale first – and THEN I can start looking for flights.
Started updating my tour-schedule for 2012, check it out, maybe I’ll see you there somewhere out in the world next year! :-)
My tour schedule for 2012….so far.
IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR 