Ian Paice suffered mini-stroke in Stockholm

The cancellation of the Deep Purple shows in Sweden earlier this week happened because drummer Ian Paice suffered a mini-stroke in Stockholm. He woke up at the hotel on June 14 with his right side feeling numb and with no control over his right hand and fingers. At the hospital, doctors concluded that Ian had suffered a mini-stroke. There should not be any permanent damage but some time is needed for Ian to recuperate. Messages from fans are flooding in since the news broke today via the official Deep Purple site and the fan based The Highway Star page, and hits on this blog is higher than usual as well, probably from Purple fans visiting. I wish Ian a speedy recovery and a return to form.

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House hunting on historic grounds

Checked out some property near Lake Storsjön (The Great Lake) today, took this shot closeby down by the lake. Really nice, quiet place, which is what I want. One of the old buildings on the property housed soldiers on the famous death march of 1718, when the Swedish army retreated in mid-winter from a disastrous campaign in Norway, in which the Swedish King was shot dead. So, historic grounds, I like that.

The bidding was already on as I arrived home.

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Great Lake Monster documentary

Back in October 2013, a Canadian television crew visited these parts (Jämtland County, Sweden) and shot a documentary about Storsjöodjuret (The Great Lake Monster, also known as Storsie). It was aired in June 2014 in Canada as Boogeymen, “Storsie” episode. I managed to see it on YouTube the other day just before it was removed. I was interviewed and they used quite a lot of stuff from my 2012 publication “Storsjöodjuret”.

It is what it is.

(Cover images by me)

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Someday I will have my own newsstand

I love newsstands. We call them kiosks here in Sweden. As a publisher of over 100 magazines you may guess that this whole thing about magazines is a passion. I guess this blog says it all. When I took a few snapshots of a classic newsstand at the Jamtli museum grounds yesterday – see the Sweden rocks (2) post – a nice little idea popped up in my head. Why not build one of these things and put it out in the yard, just for the hell of it? Yeah, why the hell not?

I will buy my own property some day, so I will have the space to do it. These things are pretty small so it wouldn´t be all that expensive to build one, so I think it may be a fun thing to do. I could certainly model it on a classic newsstand, like the one you see here. There used to be thousands of them, now you hardly ever see them.

I would have an absolute ball with a project like this. And I would fill it up with my own publications and try to get stuff that makes it look authentic. Like old signs etc.

Yep, I will add this to the runestone project. Got to have some fun you know.

(My images)

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Liv Kristine out of Leaves´Eyes

This is a surprise. Leaves´Eyes announced a few weeks ago that they have split with charismatic singer Liv Kristine. The band claims that the decision was made in January and when the news broke in mid-April they revealed not only the split but also the name of the singer that has now replaced Liv. She is Finnish singer Elina Siirala.

This is kind of sad, I rated this band very high and they certainly had a good career. Six studio albums and a live DVD since 2004 is not bad. The albums include “Lovelorn” (2004), “Vinland Saga” (2005), “Njord” (2009), “Mereded” (2010), “Symphonies Of The Night” (2013) and “King Of Kings” (2015). There will be a Tour Edition of “King Of Kings” in June, more on this later.

I wish all parties the best of luck.

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Now would be the time for Over The Rainbow reunion

When I was lucky enough to catch Over The Rainbow here in Sweden back in 2010 I walked away from the festival thinking it was the closest to a proper Rainbow reunion that we would ever get. It was a brilliant show by a brilliant band. It featured four ex-members of Rainbow – Joe Lynn Turner (vocals), Greg Smith (bass), Bobby Rondinelli (drums) and Paul Morris (keyboards) – and Ritchie Blackmore´s son Jurgen Blackmore (a fine guitarist in his own right, and he was great in this short lived project).

Enter 2016 and the return of Rainbow, with Ritchie Blackmore being the only member that was in the band prior to now. His new outfit may well be brilliant, the jury is still out on that. But the nostalgia factor was shot to hell when he went with all new faces.

On top of this, Joe Lynn Turner worked his ass off to get a Rainbow reunion going, and this included business contacts that offered a deal that would have put Rainbow back on top for whatever time period that Blackmore would be willing to play rock again. This option would probably have been prefered by many. The Rainbow legions are getting on, nostalgia is the thing most people would like to dwell in for one last time, if at all possible. I may be unfair to the current situation now, but that would still be my guess.

(RF3)

Over The Rainbow probably had some internal problems that ended it, but I can´t help to wonder if now wouldn´t be a pretty good time for these guys to reconsider this and to have another shot at it? It would be too late for the 2016 festivals, but if these guys got a label behind them and recorded an album together, 2017 could look pretty good.

I think it would be kind of exciting, and it would be interesting to see the media interest. It would be a clash of titans.

Over The Rainbow deserves a legacy.

(Top picture was taken at the Rockweekend Festival in 2010, article – or first spread of it – is from RETROFUTURE 3, published that fall)

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