Tagged: thunder
Buckle up, the ride continues!
Christmas is almost over and before you know it, we’ve rocketed ourselves into a brand new year, 2013. For many people it’s an absolute anti-climax to hit January. All the pre-Christmas activities and festivities, the decorations and the anticipation (or even just the stress) keeps people busy. Then in January – there’s not much to look forward to for many people, Everything kind of dies out for a few months.
I for one can’t wait for 2013 though, because there are already gigs planned, concert tickets bought, hotels booked, trips being planned…! And new tours being announced.
Yesterday Love/Hate announced a UK-tour in March/April. I certainly know what I’ll be doing in March/April then. It won’t be the same as in the 90’s, but the music is still great. I remember the first time I heard of Love/Hate, they were opening for Skid Row.
I liked their music, but honestly thought they were just another poser-band. There were tons of them back in those days. Nice to look at, sometimes they even had a decent song or two, but most of them were better at looking good than sounding good.
Then I did an interview with singer Jizzy Pearl in Copenhagen, and he totally blew me away. He was anything but some stupid rocker-idiot. His answers were well thought through, he was a very intelligent guy in many ways. I wish I knew where I had that interview, would have loved to listen to it again now.
That’s a whole other story, every interview I’ve ever done the past 20-something years, is on some old cassette here somewhere… But after I had used them for either an article or the radio, I just put them in a box somewhere, without as much as labelling the tape. Never thought I would need it again. You live and you learn. ;)
Then in May there’s the Whitesnake/Journey/Thunder tour that I’ll be attending (of COURSE!) and let’s not forget the summer festivals. Sweden Rock Festival – this year being visited by one of my absolute favorite live-acts Firewind among others. Or Graspop in Belgium, which unfortunately is a bit TOO good this year, as Iron Maiden and King Diamond will be playing right after eachother, on two different stages, so you have to choose which show you want to hang in the front row for… But then again, I’ll get to enjoy Iron Maiden – one of the best live bands in the world for sure – at the stadium in my home town Malmo.
And inbetween all those BIG BANDS, there will be all the smaller bands that I still love to see, that I admire for their passion. You really need to be passionate about what you’re doing when you’re in the music business nowadays, cause as we all know, people don’t get rich playing music anymore. Those who do, who sacrifice so much to play their music, definitely have that fire in them and I can relate to it as much as I respect and admire it.
The concert year of 2013 begins with a festival, mostly because a friend is part of the package and it’s nice to meet up with people you know. Might also go check out one of the dates of Visions of Atlantis in the spring. Their singer Maxi Nil guested Firewind at their anniversary shows in Greece recently, and she was also a cool chick to talk to, so I’m curious to hear more of their stuff.
Basically, I’m excited to meet the new year. There’s already so much to look forward to and that’s the most important thing. So many people get depressed in Sweden in January and February because of the gloomy weather, the dark, and summer being so far away. But I think it’s all about a change of attitude. Why wait until summer to do something?! Start off your year right away – then keep the ball rolling!
Christmases past :-))
Christmas is just around the corner….
Christmases may not be what they used to be when I was little – but I have great memories from many Christmas Eve’s (which is when we celebrate here in Sweden).
I was maybe 4 years old when I got my first plastic Strat-toy guitar. It was back when toy guitars still had steel strings. Of course, you didn’t get a pick to go with the guitar, so I played that thing until my fingers bled – literally. I forgot about the other presents.
Then, Christmas 1978 – I was a big fan of the movie GREASE and the only thing I wanted for Christmas was the Grease-soundtrack. When I saw that rectangular, flat package under the tree, I just KNEW what it was! I couldn’t WAIT for that stupid dinner to be over with so that I could just rip the paper off my present! ‘
And sure enough – it WAS the Grease double-LP with pics and all, oh my GOD I was the happiest, happiest kid on the planet!! John Travolta must have been my first crush, before I even knew what the hell a crush WAS, lol! :)
[This is what it looked like when you opened that double-LP]
I was dancing around on the chairs and the table in the kitchen when my parents were at work, doing my own dance-version of “Greased lightnin‘”!
Christmas eve 1980…. I remember that very clearly as well. Back then, I only had my mother’s portable record player from the sixties in my room, and some mono-radio/tape-player that my parents didn’t use anymore, so instead of throwing it out, I got it.
But it was a piece of crap, if you tried to record something on that thing, it would do two things:
1. The volume went crazy loud if you tried to record something from the radio, and you couldn’t adjust it (earplugs please!)
2. It recorded in the wrong speed, so it would either record too slow or too fast… Worthless!
So, I wanted something to record on or listen to music on. I got my very own mono cassette-player. Geez, when I say it now I realize I’m like a hundred years old..! When I remember all those things that are just SO “out” today that kids nowadays probably don’t even know that the heck a cassette is or was. :)
Something like this… Only the buttons of the player that I got were rounded:
And best of all, I got a handful of cassettes with it too – John Lennon‘s “Double Fantasy”, ABBA‘s “Super Trouper” and Olivia Newton-John‘s “Totally Hot”.
That’s all I needed to forget about the rest of the world!
THIS song from Olivia Newton-John‘s album was my favorite – funny enough many years later I heard a version of it by british band THUNDER that was even better. Good songs are timeless! This was the only video-version I could find that had fairly OK video- and audio quality. :)
Ah, what the hell – here’s the Thunder version as well – ten years later (1990):
/Seems that they removed the only video-version there was on YouTube, now all there is is live-versions or this crappy thing… but better than nothing I guess: :)/
Every Christmas has given memories like that. It’s not about getting “stuff“… it’s really about memories, things that matter to you. Doesn’t have to be expensive, but when it’s got a thought behind it, it’s not just another thing that’s going to collect dust somewhere, it will stay in somebody’s memory forever.
1992 Donington Monsters of Rock and Skid Row press conference
Found an old press conference with SKID ROW from when they played the Donington Monsters of Rock-festival back in 1992.
It’s probably been on my show at Radio MCB since there’s music in there too (don’t remember anymore, feels ages ago).
A very short clip from this press conference is in the “Roadkill“-video, for you old Skids-fans and collectors. :-)) The reporter who sat right next to me was from Spain or something and had a funny accent, so when she asked Sebastian “Have you calmed down?” she said it in such a strange way that he thought she said “Have you got a condom?”. Not that I’m surprised he interpreted it his own Baz-way! :-)
This was such a crazy day. The bands were staying all over the place and there were press conferences here and there around the Donington Park area – not to mention individual interviews, so it was hell getting from one place to another.
I was scheduled to do an interview with Blackie Lawless in… I don’t remember exactly, might have been Milton Keynes. Skid Row were about to kick off this press conference at the same time – in Nottingham. At the time – I was more interested in hanging with the skids than with Blackie, so I rushed off to Nottingham and asked my friend Ozzie to do the interview with Blackie for me. It was damn brave of her to do that, she had never done that before, and on top of all, she was a big W.A.S.P-fan and was dead nervous. Her interview turned out great. :-)
In the meantime, I was in Nottingham, attending this circus. Cause it was usually a circus when Skid Row were involved. :-)
However….it got late, people didn’t want to go even long after the press conference had finished.
It was just like that with Skid Row – there was always something happening, always some kind of party going on. And if there wasn’t, they could turn any boring joint into a Party-Central.
My hotel was in London and well…. I didn’t know back then that trains don’t run late in the evenings in England, so I was stuck. I ended up paying a CAB to take me from Nottingham to London – and then when I got back to Sweden just slid the bill to my editor…. He never said anything, just paid it, no questions asked. Pure luck!
Donington rocked, great memories from there, I remember how everybody was there in the backstage area. K K Downing (Judas Priest) was walking around, the Magnum-guys, the dudes from Venom, the bands, other familiar faces… If I only knew where I have those backstage-photos right now. I’ll post them as soon as I rememember where they are. :-)
But for now – enjoy the press conference from August 1992. Here is what the press/backstage/artist itinerary looked like…..Funny with the actual names of the artists in there, to clarify things for the backstage crew.
IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR 