Jag har ett ex av den sprillans nya boken om Journey, skriven av Neil Daniels, att lotta ut. Svara på en enkel fråga och dra iväg ett mail till metalshrine@hotmail.com! Tävlingen avslutas fredag 3/6.
Vad är titeln på Steve Perrys första soloplatta?
/Niclas
torsdag 26 maj 2011
Henry oh Henry!
Henry funderar kring svårlyssnad musik och minns det där första köpet av Suicide.
Det är lika bra att erkänna direkt. Jag är sjukt avundsjuk på alla de upplevelser och möten Tengner haft med allehanda världsstjärnor. Han var på plats då det verkligen begav sig för alla de band jag själv alltid lyssnat på. Visserligen har jag också intervjuat flera av de band han träffat, men långt efter deras storhetstid, så att säga. Boken är uppdelad i kapitel efter de olika storheterna han mött och blir samtidigt en ganska kronologisk berättelse av hans liv, från The Runaways till Guns N´Roses och allt där emellan. Det är bra skrivet och det bjuds på en hel del kul historier och till skillnad mot nyss recenserade Eddie Trunk, drar sig inte Tengner för att dela ut en känga här och där. Exempelvis har väl Glenn Hughes och Jon Bon Jovi framställts i bättre dager tidigare, än vad de gör här. Jag skulle nog kunna ge min högra hand för att få ha varit på plats så som Anders varit. Jag menar, vem hade inte velat sitta på ett hotellrum med en ung Lita Ford eller spendera flera dagar hemma hos Ian Gillan ute på engelska landsbygden? Få, skulle jag tro. Tengner var helt klart en del av min tonårstid på 80-talet och jag minns Norrsken och Metalljournalen med ett leende på läpparna. Förhoppningsvis blir det en uppföljare då de band som tas upp bara är en bråkdel av alla han träffat. Helst hade jag velat set ett kul kapitel om Autograph, detta bortglömda favoritband från 80-talets Sunset Strip. Intressant i läsningen är också hur pengar spreds omkring av skivbolagen. Lyxxmiddagar, flygbiljetter, tjusiga hotellrum och ett konstant flöde av fri sprit. Utan tvekan en helt annan tid jämfört med dagens musikklimat.
/Niclas
Hail Nigel!
Den stora massan kräver att den 11 november 2011 blir en allmän "Nigel Tufnel day".
"Eddie Trunk´s essential hard rock and heavy metal" 2011
Eddie Trunk kan väl liknas lite vid vår egen Anders Tengner. Han har pysslat med allehanda hårdrock under hela sitt liv, men istället för det skrivna ordet har Trunk mestadels ägnat sig åt radio. Det här är hans första bok och är främst en sammanställning av de "viktigaste" banden inom ämnet hårdrock, samt hans relation till dem. Han har intervjuat alla band värda att nämna och anses av många vara kung av hårdrocksradio och numera även tv, efter en längre karriär hos bl a VH1. Letar man efter häftiga återberättelser kryddade med den vanliga tillhörande dekadensen, får man nog fortsätta leta eller läsa om "the Dirt". Trunk bjuder inte på något saftigt utan berättar mest sin egen historia via alla de intervjuer han gjort och konserter han sett. Personligen kan jag tycka att han spelar hyfsat "safe", vilket gör att boken egentligen inte är särskilt spännande och ej heller bjuder på någon kul story man inte hört tidigare. Det som är mest givande i denna berättelse på 240 sidor är alla bilder tagna av hans vän Ron Akiyama som plåtat i stort sett varenda band han tar upp. Här finns bl a en kul livebild på KISS från 1979 där Ace bär en keps och ser allmänt glad i hatten ut. Nej, jag hade nog hoppats på lite mer av herr Trunk. Lite mer backstagestories, lite mer galenpannor och lite mer humor. Det blir i längden en ganska träig berättelse och det bjuds inte på någon nämnvärd överraskning. Intressant är att inte ett enda grungeband finns med. Säg vad man vill om flanellskjortor och titta ner på fötterna-mentaliteten som rådde, men nog kunde han petat in Alice in Chains eller Soundgarden och istället plockat bort Billy Squier. Faktum är att Tengners bok är betydligt roligare att läsa och det inte bara för att han är svensk, utan för att han bjuder på fler roliga och intressanta minnen från ett liknande liv. Dock har båda lyckats få en storhet att skriva förordet, Trunk har Halford och Tengner har Cooper.
/Niclas
Kommande intervjuer!
Den senaste tiden har det blivit en hel del intervjuer gjorda. Följande kommer att publiceras inom de närmsta veckorna: Cancer Bats - Liam Cormier, Journey - Deen Castronovo, Status Quo - Francis Rossi, Hammerfall - Oscar Dronjak, Stryper - Michael Sweet, Cinderella - Tom Keifer och Sepultura - Derrick Green. Håll utkik!
/Niclas
Och pengarna bara rullar in...
Flera festivaler går bra och hårdrockens mecka Sweden Rock Festival går bäst. Intressant artikel i SvD om Sveriges vinnare och förlorare i festivaldjungeln.
Jag har alltid tycket att Hammerfall legat farligt nära Spinal Tap. Minnet från giget på Sweden Rock för flera år sedan då en jättehammare hängde över scenen, har bitit sig fast. Nu är de svenska hårdrockshjältarna tillbaka med buller och bång och låter faktiskt helt ok på sina ställen. Första gången jag hörde introt "Patient Zero" trodde jag att de fått ihop ett "Operation mindcrime" liknande alster, men så var inte fallet skulle det visa sig. Det inledande riffet påminner i mina öron svagt om Rammstein, men är en habil stänkare som funkar bra. Bäst på plattan är utan tvekan "Bang your head", cans hyllning till hårdrocken som han upptäckte 1981. Enligt mig är detta det bästa de någonsin komponerat ihop och torde bli en given allsångsbrakare live. Riktigt kul! Efter detta rullar det på med ganska traditionsenlig hårdrock för band i hammerfalls liga. Inte dåligt, men ej heller något som jag jublar över. Sjunde spåret "I refuse" är även den en riktigt bra låt och inledande riffet, igen, påminner en aning om gamla Dokken, vilket aldrig kan vara dåligt. Nej, jag får nog erkänna att Hammerfall lyckats ganska bra med "Infected" och har tillsammans med James Michael skapat en schysst ljudbild. En liten kul notis är att Nikki Sixx skulle medverkat som speakerröst på ett spår, men det blev aldrig av.
Betyg 3/5
/Niclas
Skivrecension
Status Quo
"Quid pro quo" 2011
Visst är det så att Status Quo återanvänt samma riff gång på gång, men precis som med AC/DC funkar det allt som ofatst väldigt bra ändå. Jag har aldrig varit ett hängivet fan och i skivsamlingen hemma finns endast några fåtal vinylplattor, men det går sällan att värja sig mot den gungande boogierock bandet harvat med i snart 50 år. Nya "Quid pro quo" är för tillfället något av det roligaste jag hört på länge. Det svänger som tusan på sina ställen och Francis Rossi visar att han minsann fortfarande kan snickra ihop fullt vitala nummer som kan sparka igång vilket lik som helst. Spår tre och fyra, "Dust to gold" och "Let´s rock" är alldeles formidabel rock som får en att tro att gammal verkligen är äldst. Tänk att kunna klämma ur sig låtar av sådan klass när du passerat 60. Det är minsann få förunnat. När året ska summeras kommer just "Dust to gold" ligga högt på min egen lista. Visst skulle bandet ha kunnat sålla lite bland de 14 spåren och plattan hade då blivit än mer solid, men man kan inte få allt här i världen. Just nu i denna stund rockar Status Quo bättre än de flesta andra i samma genre och ålder och en liten nätt sak som "Leava a little light on" får mig att tro på rockens framtid, även om den skrivs av åldermän. Hail Quo!
Betyg 4/5
/Niclas
fredag 20 maj 2011
Jizzy at his finest!
Från Metal Sludge:
THE FUNNIEST 9-11 STORY IN THE WORLD
The year was 2001, I was in RATT and we were on the bus cruising towards Tucson AZ, it was the morning of 9-11…
I was in my bunk sound asleep, it was around 8:30 or so when all of a sudden the curtain on my bunk was rudely ripped open. I opened my eyes, Bobby Blotzer leaned over and said—
“WAKE UP! WAKE UP!”
“What’s wrong?” I said groggily.
“WE’RE UNDER ATTACK!”
We’re under attack? RATT is under attack? From who…Dokken?
/Niclas
Idag för 31 år sedan.
"Unmasked" är faktiskt en platta jag gillar. Ofta buntas den ihop med misslyckade "The Elder" och anses vara ett av bandets sämsta album och Aces "Torpedo girl" brukar klassas som något Nigel Tufnel kunnat krafsa ihop. Minns en lång radiointervju jag gjorde med urtrevlige Amir Chamdin och han berättade då hur briljant han tyckte detta album var och jag kunde ju inte göra annat än att hålla med.
För några veckor sedan ringde jag upp en nyvaken Jon Lawhon. Han befann sig med bandet på turné i den lilla staden Butte i Montana. Staden har enbart 35000 invånare, men är ändå den femte största staden i delstaten. Nåväl, nog med geografi! Jon var oerhört trevlig och berättade bl a om arbetet med kommande plattan "Between the devil and the deep blue sea", Sverige och vikten av amerikansk radio. Det senare ger skenet av ett band som styrs ganska hårt av vad andra vill höra och borde ju hindra dem något i deras kreativitet. Tyvärr följde jag inte riktigt upp den frågan, vilket jag ångar lite.
Jon: Hey brother, how ya doin´?
I´m good! How are you?
Jon: I´m doing very well.
How´s Butte, Montana?
Jon: I haven´t been outside yet, to be honest. (laughs) I just got up about ten minutes ago.
What time is it?
Jon: It´s 12.41 in the afternoon. You know, in the music life it´s morning to us. (laughs)
Yeah, I understand. I guess you´re out on tour now?
Jon: Yeah, finally!
How´s it been going so far?
Jon: Very well! We´re out with Hinder right now, doing a handful of dates. You know, it´s nice just to get back in the saddle after being off for so long, working on the record. It´s nice to get back out again.
Tell me about the new album? Where did you get the title from? Is that something that came right away? Did you have other titles floating around before you settled on “Between the devil and the deep blue sea”?
Jon: The title was hard. It took forever to come up with that. We threw different ideas around for a couple of months and then finally Ben actually, sent everybody a text message “What do you all think of this?” and it all kind of fell into place after that. He was looking online trying to find something, something that had a significant kind of meaning and made sense for us or for the last year of this particular record. When I first opened up my phone and saw the text, I was like “Wow, how well it encompass the last year and a half of struggle trying to get this out together.” and just a way that life has been for us to make this album, because ultimately what that means is like between a rock and a hard place. It´s just like the struggle, the everyday struggle of life, having a go between two different difficulties and try and balance it out and make it work, which is what it was. Trying to balance out our personal lives and balance out the record. The machine and monster that the music industry is.
Was this album more difficult than the others?
Jon: Not so much difficult as it was, like consuming. The way in America, the way radio is, it´s so fickle and you have to have a certain kind of thing for radio, for it to work across the board. It´s mainly in the songwriting, so we just took a lot of time writing and trying to come up with the kind of stuff that´s gonna work in America for radio and still have our European fans digging the album, because there´s a fine line that you have to walk there, because if you go too radio America, the Europeans will go “Seriously, what is this?” and I can completely understand that. We´re kind of on the same page with that anyways, because most of the stuff that is on the radio today isn´t just worth the time. It´s like, we´ve got to balance it out for ourselves too, which I don´t think we´ll ever get to the point where we do something too far that our European fans won´t dig it, because we might as well be European fans, so to say.
Is radio still that important in the US today, considering everything with Facebook, YouTube and MySpace? All these other different ways of getting your music across.
Jon: Yeah honestly, unfortunately it is over here. People are just so programmed and so used to being told what´s cool and hearing what´s cool 17 times a day when you´re driving your car back and forth to work or cooking or whatever it is you´re doing. They´re used to having somebody tell them “Hey, here´s the newest, hottest and coolest thing ever!”. It´s unfortunate, because here we have a couple of competing rock stations per major city sometimes and not only that. There´ll be an active rock station and then a modern rock station as well, so it´s still… I mean, radio stations play the same stuff, just calling themselves an animal to a different code. All in one city, so people have so much option to just go through. The problem is the way radio works, is that they don´t provide the option. They just play the same stuff that everybody else is playing, just at a different time. Let´s say our new single “White trash millionaire” was the biggest single in the world right now, if you´re listening to a radio station in Chicago and you hear “White trash millionaire”, you know you´re not gonna hear that song again for at least an hour or so, so then you change the station over to the next rock station and then within 15 or 20 minutes you´re gonna hear it, because it´s the hottest, biggest, newest thing. That´s just the way it works over here, unfortunately.
It´s kind of the same way here, but I think you´ve got more rock stations and more rock oriented radio than we do. When radio was finally free here and we got commercial radio, I think everybody thought that we´d get a jazz station, a modern rock station and a metal station, but that didn´t happen. All the stations are just playing the same stuff. It´s all the same, over and over again.
Jon: Exactly! Because they know for a fact without a shadow of a doubt that the majority of the people are going to dig that stuff because it´s popular and pop means popular. That´s just the way it is, I guess.
True! But what did Howard Benson bring to the album?
Jon: You know, Howard´s method was so bizarre but we loved it. (laughs) We went in and we were doing pre production and we were expecting a producer guy to come in and say “Ok, this is awful! We´re gonna rewrite this section!” and all that, but he was totally not like that. He came in and was like “Ok, what I want you to do is play your songs, just like you would play them and I might have a suggestion here and there for like a chord change every once in a while, just to make it feel a little different.”. He was like “Just show me what you´ve got!” and we were like “Ok, cool!”. So we stood up there, on this little six inch riser stage that they had made there in the studio in Los Angeles and we started playing our songs and he really did that. He was like “Alright, hold on right here, make that an F in that one section!”. So, we´d make it an F in that one section and then it was “Ok, next song!”.
Cool! How come you ended up with him? Was that a guy you knew of and was it a choice of yours or did the label bring him to you?
Jon: The label wanted us to go meet up with him. We were actually in California writing with Dave Basset one day and then we went and wrote with Bob Marlette and John 5. Bob Marlette being the producer of our last record and a great friend of ours and John 5 the Rob Zombie guitar player. We went over to meet with Howard and he came in and we didn´t really know what to think, to be honest. He was so super intelligent, so he kind of freaked us out. He came in and started talking about “What´s charting today? What´s on Billboard? What style of music?” and then about the rock bands that are there and how they did it and what they´re doing to stay there and all this stuff and we were just like “Well, you´re the freaking scientist at this!”. He really picks the part and thinks about it to figure out a system. It took us a little while to come to the conclusion “Yeah, let´s work with this crazy guy!”. Ultimately, what else are you gonna do? You´re sitting there looking at a guy who´s literally figured out the music industry and he wants to work with you, you´re not gonna tell that guy no! (laughs) I mean, c´mon, you´re not gonna make a guy who knows how to make radio slip out. You can actually make money and do this for the rest of your life and you´re not just gonna be writing on a whim. Go with the option that´s gonna get you paid so you can actually live your dream for the rest of your life! Why not? The good thing for us is, even if America never came to the table, we could always come over and hang out with you guys six months out of the year and we´d be fine. (laughs)
Right! Recording in LA, did that in any way bring any vibes for the songs on the record?
Jon: Absolutely! In my opinion, the songs would not have turned out the way they did, had we been going to a studio covered in snow. LA was like 68 Fahrenheit, just t-shirt and maybe flannel buttoned up with no buttons kind of weather. Just relaxed and it was just great man. We had these apartments and all that and it was just the four of us. We didn´t have any outside influence what so ever. There were no parents or girlfriends or friends or whatever. It was just the four of us, the brotherhood that is our band. We had two apartments, me and Chris had one and John and Ben had another and every night after the studio, John and Ben ended up in our living room watching something random on tv. I´d cook, we´d all eat and watch tv and occasionally Chris would cook, because I guess we´re the only two that really can. (laughs) We just hung out, man. It was like almost going back to high school, to be honest with you. When we first started we were in high school. We´d get out of school at 3 o´clock in the afternoon and we´d be at practice, just the four of us, by no later than 3.10. Then jamming until 10 or 11 o´clock at night, at least. It was just the four of us 24/7 all the time, so it was really like getting back to that, which I think gave this record a whole new vibe, because it kind of brought back those memories of school.
Did you go roaming up and down Sunset Strip?
Jon: (laughs) We were roaming all over Los Angeles. We really didn´t have many days off. Most of the time we were in the studio coming up with cool guitar parts to put on the songs and all that.
Is there a lot of pressure coming up with a new record and working with a new producer? Do you feel a lot of pressure coming up with new stuff or is it just an even flow of stuff all the time?
Jon: You know, you´re supposed to feel a lot of pressure doing that, but it has been so long since we´ve been like touring, so when we went into the studio there was no pressure. We were just gonna do the best job possible and track it and get it all laid down, get all the ideas put together, live it for a while and make sure it´s perfect and put it out. Really, no pressure involved. The pressure really, was in the writing process and it still wasn´t that much pressure. It was just, stay at it until all four of us and everybody at the record label and management company flipped out! When it got to that point, then we were like “Ok, we have the right songs for this project!”. This time we wrote with a few outside people that are good friends of ours, Dave Basset, Bob Marlette, John 5 and we wrote with a couple of guys on songs that didn´t make the record, it´s just a list of people, but it didn´t start until like the middle of the writing process. The first six or seven were just the four of us hanging out and going to the practice house and doing the thing that we do, write songs, goof off and eat barbeque whatever! (laughs) Just spending time with each other and trying to get back down to the basics. It´s just a very different thing, the four of us at home hanging out and going to the practice house every day, it´s incredibly different than the four of us with all of our crew crammed on a 45 foot 2, that we call the tour bus and rolling from town to town every day. It´s a different vibe that goes on there. Honestly, there´s a lot more stress involved in touring.
How long are you gonna be out on the road with Hinder?
Jon: That´s just another seven or eight days with them and then it´s Alter Bridge. We´re doing the Alter Bridge thing up until around the middle part of May and then we´re flying over to England to do some press in London for a few days, trying to get everything set up for the summer tour because we´re coming back over to do summer festivals and all that for the great part of June.
Do you know of any plans for Sweden?
Jon: I have no idea! We would like to play Sweden Rock again. It´s a fantastic festival! There are a couple of venues up there that are great. Sweden is great for a couple of reasons. One, the rock fans do not mess around! They come out and they come out in full force and they´re to rock and roll, which is awesome! Sweden´s actually the first place in Europe we ever played. We flew in to Sweden in Stockholm and we did this radio thing like super super early in the morning. It was like 4.30 something and it was just ridiculous early. We went from there and went to do MTV. We did that and then we had like the rest of the day off, which was a deal in itself. We hung out for interviews, performance and all that and after we did radio we were ready to sleep. (laughs) The rest of the day we travelled around Stockholm and checked everything out and then we played the next night… I can´t remember the name of the venue, it´s a good size venue there. It was us and Hinder actually, because it was the first time we came over there. The first show we ever played in Europe and the fans were so freaking crazy. We were just like “Where are we?” (laughs) Everybody just latched on to us and we´d never had a response like that. There are always diehards in the crowd that go nuts, but we´d never had them all loving it, like in that way. It was amazing, “We need to live here!”. (laughs)
Right, in cold cold Sweden!
Jon: Mmhhhmmm, but the other good point about Sweden is that you have some of the most beautiful women in the world!
Yeah, everybody says that!
Jon: It´s true! Is it something in the water?
Yeah, it´s gotta be.
Jon: It´s definitely cold in Sweden! The first time we were over there, it was March and it was bitter cold. It wasn´t even snowing or crazy winter stuff, it was starting in the spring and it was still freezing cold. We didn´t want to go outside without having four jackets on. (laughs)
Yeah, that´s Sweden for you! Well, it´s been a pleasure talking to you Jon and I hope you get to come here real soon.
Jon: Absolutely and I hope we can get it worked out and get over there as soon as possible.
And I wish you all the best with the forthcoming album and the show tonight!
Jon: Thank you so much brother!
/Niclas
Hype it up!
Senaste nytt från Neil Daniels om hans nya bok. Själv inväntar jag ett recex vilken dag som helst.
DON’T STOP BELIEVIN’ – THE UNTOLD STORY OF JOURNEY BY NEIL DANIELS PUBLISHED IN THE USA & CANADA IN AUGUST! OUT NOW IN THE UK! AVAILABLE AT ALL ONLINE BOOK STORES NOW! PUBLISHED BY OMNIBUS PRESS
The First Ever Complete Biography Of Journey
Journey are one of the most successful American melodic rock bands in history with record sales of over 75 million. The recent phenomenal success of ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’ – the most downloaded song of all time – has given Journey a new lease of life and as such they have undergone a massive rise in popularity. For the first time ever, their entire history is explored in depth in this definitive biography which charts the many highs and many lows of one of America’s most beloved rock bands.
Don’t Stop Believin’
‘Don’t Stop Believin’’ is not only Journey’s signature song but also a motto they have lived by which has taken them through some difficult times. The previously untold story begins in 1973 when the band was hastily assembled in San Francisco, California and takes the reader on a journey through the early jazz fusion years, the dramatic change in sound to AOR/melodic rock, the numerous line-up changes, the hiring and firing of their first frontman Robert Flesichman and of course, the enormous success they would achieve with Steve Perry as well as those years following Perry’s first (and second) departure. The topsy-turvy life of the band thereafter with three more singers is also explored in detail. Journey’s renewed popularity with the Philpino singer Arnel Pineda and the success of the hit TV show Glee has meant that Journey’s music is played in millions of households all around the world.
The Untold Story Of Journey
Journey are now at the top of their game and receiving more acclaim and exposure since their early eighties peak years with the iconic multi-million selling Escape and Frontiers albums. Using original interviews and a wealth of research, The Untold Story Of Journey follows their career as they formed; matured and flourished and succeeded and failed. It is a story filled with heartache, bitterness and behind the scenes squabbles but also creativity, dedication, passion and drive. Journey gave the world songs such popular songs as ‘Wheel In The Sky,’ ‘Ask The Lonely,’ ‘Any Way You Want It’ and of course, ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’ and quite literally invented the term ‘stadium rock.’
Hade aldrig sett den här tidigare. Ska ha sänts år 2000 på Comedy Central.
/Niclas
lördag 14 maj 2011
Bokrecension
Ross Halfin
"Def Leppard - The definitive visual history" 2011
RossHalfin har helt plötsligt börjat spotta ur sig böcker. Först den magnifika boken om Metallica förra året och nu en ny bok i modell större om Sheffield´s finest, Def Leppard. Konceptet är samma som med Metallica, Ross bilder från tidigt i karriären fram till idag och det är en alldeles förträfflig historia som utspelar sig på sida upp och sida ner. Än idag minns jag hur en gammal klasskompis berättade att en annan kompis precis köpt "Pyromania" och pekade på omslaget som fanns att beskåda på baksidan av ett nummer av OKEJ. Dagen efter satt jag hemma hos denne kompis och avnjöt det senaste stjärnorna på hårdrockshimlen 1983. Ross Halfins bok följer bandet från hans första möte med dem i juni 1979 när han och Geoff Barton landar i Sheffield för att få uppleva Def Leppard live. Ett möte som slutar med att Barton hyllar leoparden och Halfin instämmer samtidigt som han urinerar i ett handfat. I boken bjuds det på ett förord av Joe Elliot och även flertalet anekdoter från de andra medlemmarna och många hyllningar av bortgångne Steve Clark. Utan tvekan är bilderna från "Pyromania" och "Hysteria" roligast. Kanske mest för att det var då de var på sin topp och det var under denna tid jag föll för dem pladask. Showen under deras turné för "Hysteria" var otroligt läcker och jag grämer mig fortfarande över att jag aldrig fick uppleva den. Ross Halfin är en utmärkt rockfotograf som alltid lyckas knäppa de där riktigt bra och intensiva bilderna, så även i fallet med Def Leppard. "The definitive visual history" är rena rama porren för alla Def Leppard-fans och ingen lär bli besviken.
/Niclas
fredag 13 maj 2011
Intervju med Jamie St James i Black N´Blue!
Äntligen fick jag då möjlighet att göra den där intervjun jag viljat göra sedan bandets debut kom ut 1984. Jamie St James visade sig vara en hyvens gammal rocker som svarade utförligt på alla frågor. Under det ganska långa samtalet avverkade vi bl a den nya plattan "Hell yeah", fula skivomslag och Gene Simmons ökända polaroidsamling.
Hi, this is Niclas from Stockholm, Sweden!
Jamie: Hi, how are you doing?
I´m good. How are you?
Jamie: I´m doing great! What time is it in Sweden?
It´s exactly 8 pm.
Jamie: Oh, ok. Well, it´s eleven in the morning here so it´s all good.
Cool! I´ve been longing to do this interview since your first album came out in 1984. Been a fan ever since.
Jamie: Thank you sir!
Is it ok if we start with a bit of history of the band and then move on to the new album?
Jamie: Whatever you like!
I was wondering, when you started out in Portland and you decided to move to LA, did you guys just pack up a van and go there win or lose? How much was planned?
Jamie: Yeah, we really did kind of fly by the seat of our pants on that one. We had a truck, since we were playing shows in Portland, Oregon and we played enough club gigs to buy us a 16 foot truck to put all our equipment in and I forced the band into it basically. I was the one who said that we gotta go to LA and that we´re not gonna break out of Portland, it´s not gonna happen! So we literally put all our equipment in that truck and I think I put my bed in there. I was still living at home at the time, with my father, and I took my bed and threw it into the truck and we put all the stuff that we owned in it basically. We were kids, you know! 21 or 22 and we drove to LA and we knew a girl who was staying with another girl that had a house, because her mom owned the Los Angeles Rams at the time. We got lucky, so we all slept on the floor and we started playing shows in Los Angeles and it´s funny, because Robbin Crosby from Ratt was sleeping on the same floor. Don Dokken used to always come over and Juan Croucier from Ratt was always there to borrow our bass gear. It was a kind of strange little house, but we basically kept playing shows and we got a manager and he got us our own place to live. So we definitely took a chance and went for it and that´s what you have to do in life sometimes and it worked out for us.
Do you remember the first show you played in LA?
Jamie: Sure I do. The first show I played in LA was not with Black N´Blue, it was with a band called Hell. We played at a place called The Starwood and that was in 1978, I think. I was a teenager.
Ok. That was around the time Van Halen played The Starwood.
Jamie: Yeah, I know that when I went to The Starwood to see the place before we played there, Quiet Riot was playing there with Randy Rhoads, so it was back in that time. I was a kid, but I started playing drums when I was 13, so I got a bit of a head start. In Hell I was the drummer, I wasn´t the singer. I did sing back behind the drum kit, I sang half the set. I knew from that point that Black N´Blue had to come to LA, since I knew what it was like down here and I knew that was how it was gonna happen.
Back then, was it hard getting shows? Did you play a lot in the beginning?
Jamie: You know, we had a hard time getting shows initially, but we met a few people, one of them being Dee Dee Keel, who ended up marrying Ron Keel. She worked at the Whisky and we brought her this press kit and she said “I´m gonna take a chance on you guys!” and she booked us at The Troubadour and the Whisky and that was our first gigs for Black N´Blue here in Los Angeles and it was really credit to her. She gave us a chance and she thought we were cool and I still love her to this day. So we got in the door and started playing and it took a while but we built up a huge following in LA and suddenly when we would play, the place would be sold out fast.
Cool! Who came up with the idea for the name Black N´Blue?
Jamie: We didn´t know what we were gonna call ourselves and Tommy and I were talking about it. Tommy and I formed Black N´Blue from bands we were in previously and Tommy came in one day, because he´s always organized, he´s that kind of guy, and he had this big list of names and I remember we used to play the song “Action” by The Sweet which was on our first record, and that was one of the names. He had all these different names and he had Black N´Blue written down on there and I remember that we were almost gonna call our band Action. But this Black N´Blue, “That sounds like a metal band! Punch somebody in the face. That sounds cool!” and he wrote it down and why he wrote that down, I don´t know, but it was one of those things he had on his list and we went with it.
When you signed with Geffen, was that like a multi album deal or was it just for the first album?
Jamie: When we signed with Geffen, it was exactly what it ended up being, a four album deal. It was a four album deal and renegotiable after two records, but after two records they said that they still wanted to work with us and “We want to keep on going here!”, so we did four records and that was it. It was a four album deal.
Ok. I read in an interview with you that the first and second album cost somewhere around $300.000 each, which must´ve been a lot of money back then?
Jamie: Well it´s funny, because when I look at it now… yeah, the first record cost a little over $300.000 and the second one I think the same thing, maybe $280.000, but basically it´s kind of weird when I look at it now, man the way technology is today, I could´ve done the record for $30.000. (laughs) But yeah, we spent, on the recording for the four albums with Black N´Blue, easily a million dollars! If you add them all together. Kind of crazy, but back then, that´s what it cost to do a really good record. Part of it is paying for the… I mean, Dieter Dierks cost money and if you want Bruce Fairbairn and Bob Rock, you gotta pay them for it. You gotta pay $40.000 or $50.000 for a guy like that and then the recording was not the same. There was no Pro Tools, it was all big 2 inch tape machines and just a fuller process and I actually kind of miss that, but there´s no reason to spend that kind of money anymore.
Right! But as you mentioned that the four album deal was negotiable, was there ever a thought after the second album, that you would sign with another label?
Jamie: Actually, negotiable meant it was on Geffen´s end, not on ours. It gave them the opportunity to drop us, but they didn´t. They were a good label in a lot of ways. When we said “Hey, we want Dieter Dierks!”, they got him and Dieter said “I wanna work with Geffen!”. We sent him a demo and stuff and he loved it. Geffen was really good at that, getting us who we wanted. At the same time they also were really good at interfering with what we wanted to sound like, in a lot of ways, so you get good and bad.
Yeah. When you worked with Dieter Dierks, was that the first time you guys were abroad?
Jamie: It was the first time I was on an airplane. I´d never been on an airplane in my life. I´m 23 years old and all of a sudden I´m flying to Germany and I was scared to death. (laughs) I´m looking down and saying “Oh my God, that´s Greenland!”. (laughs) “What the hell!”. It was very strange for me. I´d never been off the west coast and all of a sudden I´m on an airplane and flying to Germany and it freaked me out a little bit. Very much a huge thing, because all of a sudden I´m flying for the first time and I´m doing my first record. My dream has come true and I´m doing an album and I´m doing it with Dieter Dirks of Scorpions fame and I´m in Germany. Jesus! That´s a lot to absorb.
I got the album when it came out in 1984 and me and my friends just kept rocking out to it all the time and we loved Black N´Blue! I always wondered why you included the song “Action”? Was that your idea or the labels idea?
Jamie: No, that was our idea. Black N´Blue used to play clubs in Portland where we´re from and we would play original music and we used to play “Hold on to 18” all the time and we would play cover tunes, but most bands would play Top 40 stuff. We wouldn´t! We played cool stuff like “Action” by The Sweet and “Motorcycle man” by Saxon and that´s why we didn´t get a lot of gigs, because we refused to compromise. We wanted to do things our way. “Action” was one of the songs that we always played and we said “Maybe we should see what it sounds like and put it on the record!”, so it was our idea. It was a good idea and it sounds pretty cool. I like Sweet´s version better, but I think ours kicks ass.
Well, you really Black N´Blueinized it or whatever you wanna call it. At that time I probably didn´t really know who The Sweet were and I guess initially we thought it was your song.
Jamie: Yeah! Look, Black N´Blue, when we get together we just sound like Black N´Blue. It´s funny, I was just thinking about that recently and I´ve been playing with Patrick Young way longer than with Black N´Blue. He was in two bands with me before Black N´Blue, so we´re talking about over 30 years of this band being together and it´s weird. Ever since day one when we get together, we have a certain sound and it still holds true today and that´s why this new record sounds like us, because we don´t just change. We sound the same still, after 30 years and that´s amazing.
When the second album came out, and I bought that on holiday in Germany, I´ve always wondered about the cover? What was the deal with that? The title and there´s a letter and blue roses. What was the thought behind that one?
Jamie: Not much thought at all. We had a whole different concept for the artwork. We weren´t even gonna call it “Without love”. We wanted to call the record “Bombastic plastic” from the song I wrote and it was going to be a wooden crate, like you ship something in a wooden crate and there´s be cracks in the wood and a bunch of glowing stuff coming out and a big burnt stamp saying “Bombastic plastic” on it. That´s what we wanted to be the cover and the record company didn´t like it and didn´t want nothing to do with it. We were trying to finish the record and they hired some guy and said “Here´s your cover!” and it was these little weird blue roses and it was called “Without love” and we thought “Well that just sucks!”. Our idea would´ve been way cooler and way more rock and roll and more like an Alice Cooper record with this really cool kind of concept with this wooden crate and shit glowing inside. I was really bummed about the cover and by the way, I think everyone of our covers suck! (laughs) But the new cover for the new “Hell yeah” record is probably the best one we´ve ever had!
Yeah, it´s good!
Jamie: I´m the first one to say that Black N´Blue´s album covers suck!
And the song “Same old song and dance” (Aersomith), I didn´t hear that one until I bought the Japanese cd. Was that song on the vinyl release for Japan as well?
Jamie: It was on the cassette in America. If you bought the album you didn´t get it and the Japanese always get bonus tracks. So if you bought the cassette here in America you got “The same old song and dance”. That was a cool thing, because it wasn´t all the guys in Black N´Blue.
Yeah, I saw that when I read the liner notes. Bob Rock was on guitar.
Jamie: Bob Rock was playing rhythm guitar and me and Tommy were the only ones in Canada at that point, so me and Tommy, Bob Rock on guitar, Matt the drummer from Loverboy playing drums and a guy called Spider on bass, who was killer. It was pretty cool! I like it and I know that John Kalodner played it for Steven Tyler and he got a smile on his face.
Cool! The reason for recording it, was that for the Japanese version and the cassette?
Jamie: Yeah, just to have a bonus track.
I also read that Steve Porcaro is on that album?
Jamie: Yeah, Steve and that other dude, David Paich played on it. They did some pretty cool stuff and also the keyboard player from Loverboy. He did the simple little stuff in “Miss Mystery” and Porcaro did the part in the song “Without love”. There´s a strange sound in it and he did that. So yeah, those guys came in and helped us out.
And talking about album covers, “Nasty nasty” is probably the weirdest one.
Jamie: Yeah, it´s pretty strange! When I showed Don Dokken our new album he looked at it and goes “I don´t understand, why is there a little hand in a shot glass?”. (laughs) I tried to explain it to him because the guy that did that album cover is from Canada and he goes “Well, that´s a symbol for not to put your hand in it because it´s corrosive material. It will burn your flesh off!”. That´s what he thought about it and then he goes “It´s a symbol wide known in Canada!”, but no one knows it in the rest of the world! So hell, it doesn´t make any sense! Don Dokken was right, it´s a little skeleton hand in a shot glass!
Well, I´ve never thought of it like that, but now it makes more sense.
Jamie: And this is the problem with Geffen! They said about “Nasty nasty”, “You can´t have anything to do with women on this! You can´t have a hot chick or any of that stuff on there!” and when we did our first video they said “No fire, no chicks, no nothing!”. We were always getting these horrible rules, so we ended up with a little hand in a shot glass, thank you very much!
Wow! Why these rules? This was the mid 80´s?
Jamie: That´s because they didn´t want us to be like everybody else. They wanted us to be different, but they really tied our hands behind our backs and then they would come up with these guys like this dude from Canada and what´s up with that? We were always busy trying to finish the record and get ready to go out on tour, so they would just show us our cover and say “Here it is!”. I mean, it wasn´t that bad, but it was really kind of like that, you know. We seemed to not have some control over our artistic integrity.
But I gotta say that those three albums of yours made my 80´s! I played the shit out of those albums and played them all the time and I loved them and me and my friends always considered you to be much more fun than a lot of the other LA bands. You became one of my absolute favorite bands from that LA era.
Jamie: Thank you so much!
And I still do! Peter Criss on “Nasty nasty” then? I think I read that it was your idea to bring him in.
Jamie: It was absolutely my idea! I saw him in a club here in LA called The Rainbow and he was with his wife at the time and I said “Hey, we´re doing a record with Gene Simmons and I have this song and we´re trying to have some guest guys sing on it, would you wanna do it?” and he said “Yeah, maybe! But I haven´t seen Gene in years!” and he was really kind of afraid to go into the studio and hang out with Gene, since he hadn´t seen him in so long and maybe there were some weird feelings. His wife took down my phone number and she called me after a couple of days and said “Look, push him to do this! He needs to do this!”. I told Gene about it and he said “I´d love it! Bring him in!”, so he came in and they hadn´t seen each other in years and I got the pleasure of seeing Gene Simmons and Peter Criss sit down and we didn´t record a thing that night. They just sat and talked about old times and I just enjoyed the hell out of it. It was so cool to see them and all of a sudden they were hugging each other and they hadn´t seen each other in so long and they had this weird fall out. Peter Criss on the Black N´Blue record was cool, but seeing Peter Criss back together with Gene Simmons and hugging each other, that was the ultimate thing. It was awesome!
“In heat” then? Your final album before you kind of disappeared, did that one turn out the way you wanted it to?
Jamie: Well, I think there´s some great stuff on it. There´s some great tunes on there and some oddball tunes too, like all our records had, because the record company would fuss with us sometimes. We had finished the record and then we came back with two more songs, “Suspicious” and “Sight for sore eyes”, which were like after thoughts and they sound like it. They don´t really fit on the record. I think they´re good songs, but I don´t think they belong there, but we had to try and find something to please Geffen to get on the radio and that´s what seemed to happen with us. What are you gonna do? Tell the record company to go fuck themselves? You kind of have to play the game a little bit. Look, I think there´s some great songs on that record. “Heat it up, burn it out” is great, “The snake” is great! There´s some great killer songs, but we knew once we did that record… Oh, and “Live it up”! I love “Live it up” and we do that one live all the time. We knew that if something wasn´t gonna pop, that would be it for us with Geffen, so that´s what happened and so it goes.
Right! There was this other band that kind of had the same career as you guys, Autograph with Steve Plunkett, and another favorite band of mine from that era. They released three great albums and never really became one of the big shots but actually sounded way better than a lot of those bands back then. Same thing happened to them and they kind of disappeared. Did you ever cross paths with Autograph?
Jamie: Yeah sure! I was actually hanging out with… me and Steve Plunkett and David Lee Roth at the Forum club backstage one night and he goes “Hey, this is Steve!” and David Lee Roth loved him because he used to be in a band that used to open for Van Halen. I forget what they were called… Wolfgang or something. Anyway, David Lee Roth introduced me and we were hanging out and that´s the only thing I know about those guys. You know, that´s what I love about you guys over there! People in America are so jaded by what happened here with MTV and American radio and you don´t seem to be jaded by that.
Not at all!
Jamie: And I love that! It amazes me that we never got a chance to do a European tour. Maybe it will happen now, but man, it´s so much cooler where you´re at as far as the mindset on metal.
Yeah, hopefully! We´ve got Sweden Rock Festival and a lot of the bands that came out of the LA era have played there numerous times. I mean Y&T have played there like three times or something and that would be the perfect festival for you and I think a lot of people would go bonkers watching you guys live.
Jamie: I´d love to do it and now that we have a European label, it could happen finally. I hope it does. The album comes out on May 13th in Europe, so maybe it will change things for us a little bit. I think the record is brilliant and it´s a great rock record and maybe it will help us get over there.
Definitely! It is and I just listened to it again and there´s some really, really good songs on there. One of my favorites is “Falling down”, which kind of has an old Black N´Blue feeling to it. Did you produce it yourselves?
Jamie: We did it ourselves. We gave Jef “Woop” Warner the producing credit, because he´s the one that oversaw everything, so he produced it. Basically it was Black N´Blue, us four guys with our new guitarist Shawn, just doing it our way. No outside interference and I think we probably should´ve done that a long time ago.
How did you end up with Frontiers? Did they approach you?
Jamie: No, we were on Z Records out of England and we ran out of money. This whole thing started with me getting a solo deal with Z Records and I said “Ok, I can do a solo record for this amount of money!” and then I started thinking about it and it seemed the time was right to maybe try and put Black N´Blue together, so I talked to Jef Warner and Patrick Young and just basically said “I think we should make this a Black N´Blue record, so screw it!”. At a certain point we ran out of money and ended up in a lot of problems and my management basically contacted Frontiers, so it was a strategic move from our part to contact Frontiers. They loved what they heard and they gave us money to buy us off Z Records and additional money to finish the record. Frontiers Records saved our ass and “Hell yeah” might never have seen the light of day if it wasn´t for Frontiers Records! I personally love them!
Writing this record and recording it, 14 songs on there, were there a lot of other songs that didn´t make it or was it just these 14?
Jamie: Some of them stem from… they´re songs that I wrote and Jef “Woop” Warner wrote some songs and then me and Jef got together and wrote stuff. Some of it came together while we were recording it. There´s a song called “Fools bleed” and I was writing that at Jef´s house and I put it together and he helped me with a couple of little things and then he left and 30 minutes later I said “Come down, I´ve got this song!” and I sang it for him and he goes “Oh my God, that´s it!”. So we wrote while we were recording, songs like “So long” and “Hell yeah”, those are the demos that I sent to Z Records to get the deal, but the recordings on “Hell yeah” are brand new, that´s Black N´Blue. The demos was just me with some guys that I knew, putting that together, so everything´s new recordings. I wrote “Falling down” when I was in Warrant and it was like I was trying to tell everybody “Hey, I´ve got this really cool song!” and lyrically I think it´s the best one I´ve ever done. Over those eight years they all came at certain times. We have plenty of time to write and there´s plenty more songs! We´re ready to do another record!
I read in the liner notes for “Nasty nasty” that the song “Promising her the moon” had to be ditched because of the Jonathan Cain song “I´ll be there for you”. A song like that, any chance of it ever appearing on an album or any other old stuff you´ve got laying around?
Jamie: I mean, we´re always gonna sound like Black N´Blue so we can write that stuff all the time. There´s no chance of us sounding like anything else. This is what we are, but “Promising her the moon” was fully recorded and mixed. We did “I´ll be there for you” for a movie and Geffen said “Well, that´s gonna go on the record! That´s the single!” and we were like in chock. I mean, I like the song and Jonathan Cain wrote it. It´s cool, but we wanted that album to be heavy and we wanted it to kick ass. “Promising her the moon” was heavier than “I´ll be there for you”, but still a ballad kind of thing. It was a really cool song! I don´t have a version of it and I don´t even know if it exists anymore, but there is a fully recorded mixed version of it somewhere, but that´s owned by record company people and I don´t know if it´ll ever see the light of day. Gene loved it! We´re not really into rehashing stuff, but for the next Black N´Blue record we may go back to some of it. We have a lot of songs that didn´t make it onto records back in those days, so maybe we´ll rerecord one. We´ll see. But I mean, you can´t recapture that vibe from 1983 or 84, because we are different people now, but we might record one of those on the next record, but let´s get this one out first!
That Jonathan Cain song, was that especially written for you?
Jamie: I don´t know what he wrote it for, but basically it was gonna be in a movie soundtrack and we said “Ok, fine!”, so we went into the studio, recorded it with him and he produced it and he was there and man, he was really tough on me vocally because he was used working with Steve Perry and I was like “I´m not Steve Perry!”, but it was really cool and he was a really nice dude and we did it and then Geffen said “Well, it´s going on the record!”, so it was just like “Ok, thank you!”. It was like this dictatorship telling you what you have to do which is kind of strange sometimes. At the end of the day it´s a good song, but we didn´t write it and it´s not what we would´ve chosen, but I still like it.
I´ve talked to a lot of musicians over the years and I recently talked about this with Carmine Appice, was it more fun back then? Was it easier coming across to people, more fun touring and playing, than it is today considering how the music industry is today?
Jamie: The thing you have to realize about today is that there´s no way we´re gonna get a gold record! So many people download stuff for free and it´s just not gonna happen. As much as I think that we have a great killer record out, it´s not gonna do the numbers that it would´ve back in the day. In a way they´re killing their own selves because they´re killing the future of music. If we don´t sell enough records the record company doesn´t get their money back and there´s no next album. Who´s gonna sign a band and put all this money into them when they know they´re not gonna get their money back? The record company is like a bank. When you get something for free you are killing the future of music whether you like it or not, that´s a fact! It´s kind of sad, but at the same time I´m ok with it and I don´t care. We put out this record because we want people to hear what Black N´Blue sounds like and we wanna give it a shot and I just want people to like it and enjoy it. We´re not gonna get a platinum record because there´s no way it can happen anymore, but hey, we still put one out and we´ll bite the bullet!
Hell yeah! The last song on the album “A tribute to hawking”, where did that come from? Do you read his books or…?
Jamie: No, it was an accident. I´ll explain it to you really quick. We were doing “Hail hail” and I did all the vocals and Patrick Young came in and said “Jamie sounds a little robotic on this. Maybe he should re sing it?”, so as a joke I went in and sang and I wrote those lyrics really fast. I know they´re mean and Stephen Hawking is probably a very sweet person, but I did it as a joke to get Patrick to laugh. I said to Patrick “Hey, check this out, I rerecorded it and see if this is less robotic!” and then of course that thing came on and he just fell out of the chair laughing. It was a joke for us, but those guys decided… I live in LA and they live in Portland and they decided that they wanted to put that on the record and I go “Oh man, are you sure? It´s just a thing we did for ourselves and nobody´s gonna get it and nobody wants to listen to it more than once.”, but they wanted to put it on there so “Alright, whatever!”, so it´s on there and it´s a hidden track, it´s not even listed but it seems to be generating a lot of interest. We have a sense of humor and I laugh at it because I think it´s funny, but we don´t mean to make fun of anybody in a wheel chair.
LA these days, I guess it´s a lot different from the hey days in the 80´s, but is it a different town these days?
Jamie: Yeah, it is different. Look, you´re never gonna see the times that I saw. I went to a Mötley Crüe concert at the Troubadour and it was Tommy Lee´s 17th birthday and David Lee Roth pulls up in a brown Mercedes with skull and crossbows on the hood. Painted. That´s how cool that time period was and there was chicks everywhere with studded bras and giant boobs. I mean, it couldn´t get any better. It was the greatest thing in the world! Right now it´s pretty much dead and LA is riddled with tribute bands and that just sucks to me. It´s a terrible thing and that´s what people go to see, so I think everybody´s lost their minds, but what do I know. I miss those days, but life goes on and I´m just glad that I was there when it was cool.
Everybody´s writing a book these days. Have you ever thought of that? Writing about those days and Black N´Blue and what you´ve been through?
Jamie: You know, if I wrote a book about some of the things I did, I might get arrested. (laughs) Seriously! I´m afraid to do that and I don´t think people care that much. They just want Jamie to sing in Black N´Blue, so that´s what I´m gonna do.
Right. Finally, did you ever get to see gene´s Polaroid collection?
Jamie: Oh yeah! He´s proud of it and I´ve seen it! I was over at his house writing some songs and we had a little break and he goes “Jamie, come over here!” and he had this closet and he pulled out these books and I´m flipping through them and he has a picture of every single girl he´s ever banged and it was funny for me because “Gene, I did that one too!”. (laughs) But yeah, he has it, he really does! It´s not a myth. He has it and I´ve seen it and it´s funny as hell. Yeah, me and Gene have shared a few things. (laughs)
Fascinating! I thank you so much and and all the best with the new record1 It´s really good!
Jamie: Thank you and I´m glad you like it and I´m really proud of it. I think it´s a great Black N´Blue record and it really hits the mark. It´s been a long wait, but it´ll be worth it!
Did you sign on just for this album or more?
Jamie: As far as I can remember, I think just for this, but if it does well I´m sure they´ll want another one, so we´ll see what happens. I hope we do another one and I want to. I really love this label and I like Frontiers better than Geffen. They´re the best label I´ve ever been on and they rock! They really know how to treat a band. They give us freedom but also a little bit of guidance. They didn´t want certain things to happen and they´re really intelligent and I love this label!
Cool! Touring wise? I´ve read that you´ve got this M3 festival going on. Is that the only thin for now or do you have more?
Jamie: We have some other stuff that are pending but we haven´t accepted yet so I can´t say anything. We´re wide open. I think the record´s gonna boost us to the next level here and I think it´s awesome and a lot of people are gonna say “Whoa, these guys still mean business!”.
Hell yeah! Playing a festival like that must be a lot of fun since I gues you´ve played with a lot of them before and it´s gotta be alike a family get together in a way?
Jamie: It´s really cool to do and I´m a fairly friendly guy. I remember opening up for Tesla in warrant and Jeff Keith was on the side of the stage yelling “Go Jamie, you rock!” and rooting me on the whole time and I just go “I love that guy, man!”. And I love the band KIX and has been a fan since day one so it´s really fun for me to say hello and give them a big hug. For me it´s very cool and I´m very fortunate to have been involved with all these people all these years and it´s very cool.
Again, thank you Jamie and I wish you all the best with the album and forthcoming tour and you should aim for Sweden Rock festival next year. It´s usually great weather and Sweden has some good looking girls.
Jamie: I married a Swedish girl and her whole family was from Sweden and I… I can´t speak Swedish, but we would always celebrate Christmas and drink glögg and all that. I love the whole Swedish thing and I need to be there!
Absolutely!
Jamie: Thank you so much for this great interview!
/Niclas
torsdag 12 maj 2011
Veckans Henry!
Den här veckan förtäljer Henry historier om att vara den ständigt sökande outsidern.
Wolfgang´s Vault fortsätter att lägga upp coola klipp. Senast är flera videoklipp i svartvitt med Sammy Hagar från Winterland i San Francisco den 19:e maj 1978. Bl a en 17 min lång "Bad motor scooter".
Då satt man där, på Debaser Medis och deras lilla intima biograf. Inbjuden av eminenta AC/DC Machine slog jag mig ner på första parkett tillsammans med brodern och insöp detta rock and roll spektakel från Sydamerika. I vanliga fall orkar jag sällan ta mig igenom en konsertfilm, utan allt som oftast slutar det med pausknappen eller att jag helt enkelt hoppar fram i låtordningen. Jag skyller på min lätt stressade natur. Däremot blir det något annorlunda när man "tvingas" sitta ner och se hela filmen från början till slut. Mäktigast genom hela filmen är inte de 32 HD-kamerorna utan den fullkomligt apgalna publiken bestående av 60000 fans som hoppar, studsar och moshpitar under hela giget. Att ingen blev ihjältrampad måste vara ett rent under. Vad bjuder då denna dvd på? Tja, det är ganska exakt samma show som jag själv beskådade på Stockholms stadion, nothing more nothing less, men det svänger ju utav helvete, från öppningen av "Rock and roll train" till avslutande "For those about to rock". Brian Johnson sjunger bättre än han gjort på år och dag, vilket givetvis även märktes på albumet "Black ice". Den store lille mannen Angus, är utan tvekan den stående begivenheten under en konsert med bandet och han visar upp en fantatsisk fysik, som så här på stor duk, blir betydligt mer påtaglig. Jag stoppar i mig äckligt mycket popcorn under filmen och fascineras av den energi han besitter, i vad som måste vara en av rock and roll världens minsta kroppar. "The jack" är härligt nedsölad blues och T.N.T." får åtskilliga i biopubliken att skråla med precis som om de var på plats i stadion själva. Egentligen är det bara nya "Warmachine" som fortfarande känns något trist i en annars väldigt välkomponerad kompott. "Live at River Plate" är säkerligen som en våt dröm för varje AC/DC-fan och bör givetvis ses på så stor duk som möjligt och på så hög volym som möjligt. Dock tycker jag ändå att det inte är alltför mycket som särskiljer denna film från någon annan konsertfilm. Jag menar, det finns ju inte så mycket man kan trolla med när det gäller filmningen av en konsert. "Live at River Plate" är ute i handeln imorgon fredag.
/Niclas
tisdag 3 maj 2011
Lefsetz om Bon Jovi!
Bob Lefsetz skriver oftast vädigt bra och right on the money. Nu senast om att Bon Jovi spelar gig utan Richie Sambora som återigen checkat in på rehab. Personligen slutade jag bry mig om bandet efter "New Jersey", men det är ju alltjämt intressant att läsa om alla gamla 80-talsband.
"If Sambora doesn’t matter, why not go out as a solo, as Jon Bon Jovi with unknown players and keep all the money? I know, I know, the show must go on, but really? It’s one thing if someone’s paying $3 a ticket. You’re all in it together. But at these prices, people expect the real thing. This is like buying a Mercedes Benz and finding out it’s a Chevy under the hood. You’re pissed! This is different from Journey going out with a new lead singer. That’s a celebration of the songs, people still believe in Bon Jovi, they want to reconnect with their youth, and without Richie "Wanted Dead Or Alive" is just not the same. Captain Phil died on "The Deadliest Catch", we accept it and the show goes on, but rehab is not like death, it’s actually supposed to prevent death. If one of your kids was in the hospital would you still go on the road Jon? And don’t tell me about all the support people you’d be letting down. Most of them have been sucking at the tit quite profitably for years, and if you’re such a fan of the little guys, do one solo benefit show for them in New Jersey and charge up the yin-yang, your fans will pay for that. I like your pay what you want restaurant, but going on the road without Richie is like Tyler going on the road without Joe Perry, D.O.A. Have you got no sense of history, no sense of loyalty? And I realize they call it "Bon Jovi", and that’s your name, and you’ve got a leg up. But Don Henley can’t sell the tickets the Eagles do and do we really want to see an Eagles show without Frey? Once upon a time bands were beholden to their fans. Now they’re beholden to their bank accounts. Performers are just as greedy and vapid as bankers. That’s why the business is dying, not because of P2P theft and the Internet. I wasn’t planning to go anyway, but I was offended upon reading the news and my inbox is filling up with naysayers. And, I LOVE "Wanted Dead Or Alive". All those TV shows with Richie and you doing the number acoustically? Those are etched in my brain. That’s why I give you a pass, that’s why I still listen. You cannot do it without your family. And you may not pay him what you make, but Richie is a blood brother. Cancel the dates, wait for him."
/Niclas
söndag 1 maj 2011
Bokrecension
Mary Forsberg Weiland med Larkin Warren
"Fall to pieces" 2009
Mary Forsberg Weiland var under flera år en ganska framgångsrik modell som jobbade för många av de stora modetidningarna världen över. Hon kom att möta Scott Weiland (sångare i Stone Temple Pilots och Velvet Revolver) när hon var 16 och han 23 – ett möte som senare utvecklade sig till ett seriöst förhållande och giftermål. Men hennes dystra historia börjar med en väldigt trasslig barndom och föräldrar som skiljer sig och hon flyttar runt lite här och där. Efter mycket trubbel i skolan och senare bråk med en styvpappa, hamnar hon 14 år gammal i ungdomsfängelse, en upplevelse som självfallet sätter sina spår. Dock blir tiden där kortvarig. Räddningen för Mary blir modellyrket och känslan av att vara någon och ta vara på sig själv i den stora vida världen. Då sker nyss nämnda möte med Scott Weiland. Deras tid tillsammans är en enda lång fight med allehanda droger och sprit och mental sjukdom, då båda senare får diagnosen bi-polär. Båda åker ut och in på diverse rehabiliteringshem, men återfaller i missbruket gång på gång. "Fall to pieces" är en ärlig och intressant läsning om ett liv, visserligen från och till i sus och dus, men främst den eviga fighten mot missbruket som så sakteliga förstör dem båda. Scott Weiland har figurerat i åtskilliga spaltmeter i kändispressen under många år, tyvärr mest pga. hans svåra missbruk och inte hans musik. Att läsa hans ex-frus historia ger ännu en dimension till det många gånger hårda rock and roll-livet och man får en inblick i hur det är för en familj – paret har två barn – att slåss mot sina demoner på så många olika nivåer. Som förälder känner man mest att det måste ha varit en fruktansvärd tid för de två små barnen att gång på gång få bevittna den ena galna händelsen efter den andra. Självfallet har boken uppmärksammats mycket pga. Marys förhållande med Scott och säkerligen hade uppmärksamheten blivit mindre om hon inte bar namnet Weiland, men jag tycker ändå att boken är bra. Hon skriver väldigt ärligt, är inte ute efter att smutskasta någon, utan försöker bara förklara och ge sin bild av vad droger i kombination med en mental sjukdom kan ge för ohyggliga konsekvenser. Dessutom menar hon att mycket av det som hände kanske hade kunnat undvikas om hon fått sin diagnos i ett tidigare skede i livet. Mary är numera drogfri och jobbar med att hjälpa andra med drogproblem, men äter mängder av medicin för att hålla sin sjukdom under kontroll. Scott Weiland sparkades från Velvet Revolver, återuppväckte Stone Temple Pilots, har haft fortsatta problem och kommer ut med en egen självbiografi under sommaren. Säkert blir även den läsvärd.
/Niclas
Foo Fighters i garaget!
Foo Fighters åker just nu runt och spelar i folks garage. Här är ett litet klipp från Port Orchard den 27 april samt kort story från samma gig.
Saxat från Seattle Weekly:
"Just as impressive was after the fact when the music was done and the band came out to shake hands, sign autographs, and take pictures. They didn't set up a table and filter people by like it was a lunch line. They didn't put a 15-minute limit on the meet and greet and shove off with a "too bad" to anyone that didn't fight their way to the front for a picture. They literally spent as much time mingling with the crowd afterwards as they did playing their set (over an hour), ensuring that everyone (fans, cops, radio station nerds, blackberry employees) that wanted to say hello and chat could."
Henry försöker bena ut vilka som är de ultimata frontmännen och kommer fram till namn som Jello Biafra, David Bowie, Joey Ramone och Perry Farrell, för att nämna några.
