Bernie Tormé is gone

Sad to hear that ex-Gillan guitarist Bernie Tormé has passed away. He died of pneumonia this weekend, sources say. Bernie was a huge part of the success that the band Gillan carved out for themselves (everywhere except for the States) in the early 1980s and he stayed active until quite recently. I have a real soft spot for Gillan and I guess I will revisit the old collection now like many others. Seen here is a German 1981 article from Bravo magazine (not sure about the exact issue but I still have it).

His spirit will never die.

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Family Rocks Hard

Well this is interesting. A young American band that consists of three brothers and two sisters are bringing Classic Rock back into the mainstream as we speak. They released their first six track EP (or mini album, same as Greta Van Fleet did not long ago) Stateside in January and right now they are making waves on the new hit show The World´s Best. The performance there recently with a cover of Dio´s “Rainbow In The Dark” earned them praise and it has to be said that there is a lot of potential in this group, a general vibe and appeal that could well give them a place in the next phase in the history of Classic Rock. Maybe this is an early sign – along with Greta Van Fleet – that things are brewing again and that a new generation is coming up. I think we all know that Classic Rock and Metal will never go away. Never in a million years. Oh, and one more thing. Ronnie James Dio would have loved to have seen this. I wish Liliac all the best – may they live and prosper.

Watch them perform “Rainbow In The Dark” here.

100,000,000 hits and counting

Congratulations to Babymetal for reaching 100,000,000 views of “Gimme Chocolate!!” on YouTube today. The video was uploaded five years ago and when I discovered Babymetal a couple of years ago it was at 68,000,000 plus, so it is still moving along nicely. So is “Karate” that was uploaded roughly three years ago with 48,000,000 hits. I have said this before, “Gimme Chocolate!!” is one of the most effective videos (both visually and musically) that has ever been made. It is very very catchy, and once exposed to Babymetal you might just feel quite at home in the Fox Hole. As for news of the next album etc, it seems likely that we will get that on Fox Day (April 1).

Watch the video here.

(Image is from the video)

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40 years ago

I published DEEP PURPLE MAGAZINE (issue) 4 40 years ago (1979). It was the early days of my fanzine making hobby and I had a lot of fun in reaching out to the Deep Purple community in Sweden. This simple publication did give people a place to rally and I made friends then that I still have to this day. The hobby also quickly catapulted me to being able to write for newspapers and popular magazines. All that started with this innocent, but oh so fanatical fanzine. This particular issue also featured a Deep Purple comic about MK3 by Thomas Eklund. I will showcase more covers on this blog from those days later on.

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Nucleus

Veteran Japanese rockers Anthem will release a new album called “Nucleus” on March 29. It features the best songs from the back catalogue with lyrics in English, all recorded for this release. 13 tracks plus 10 songs recorded in concert will showcase Anthem on the international market for the first time in decades. Graham Bonnet did guest on a previous album and performed shows with the band in 2000, which sparked the return of the group after an eight year absence. They have been busy ever since on the domestic market. Japanese publication Burrn! has Anthem on the cover of the April issue, celebrating the worldwide release of “Nucleus”.

Check out the video for “Black Empire” here.

Purple Power

Never saw this cover of Japanese publication Burrn! (January 2014) before. They obviously rejoiced in the fact that Deep Purple with Steve Morse was performing at the Budokan again. Nice Ian Gillan shot from the “Perfect Strangers” era on the cover.

On a sidenote we now know that Purple is writing for the next album, the 21st no less…

Young Guitar Anniversary

Japanese publication Young Guitar celebrates its 50th Anniversary (first issue came out in 1969 as rock music was on the rise then) with a nice cover that features Yngwie Malmsteen (April 2019). It has primarily been a heavy rock publication and so it is no surprise that Yngwie gets the cover around the time of his new album “Blue Lightning” being released (March 29).

Young Guitar is a very fine publication.