Infinite Firepower

Word just came in that Deep Purple and Judas Priest are to co-headline a North American Tour that kicks off in Ohio on August 21 and ends in California on September 30, 25 dates all in all. So what you get is the most classic of the remaining behemots of the old days sharing the same bill. This is going to go down well. Also, these bands have one thing in common, they are currently touring on the backs of great albums.

Hell, the t-shirt alone (if it looks anything like what you see here) would be worth the journey.

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Astrodoomeda

Discovered Norwegian Sci-Fi rockers Kal-El yesterday. Their latest album “Astrodoomeda” is released on blue Vinyl on April 26. Just pretend that it is 1973 and that you discovered this lot back then. You would have loved it. Traces of early Sabbath. The bass is way up in the mix though. Good to nap to as well (I know how that sounds, but that point is so underrated!). Great cover as well.

Watch the video for the song “Spacecraft” here.

Organizing the Babymetal collection

Well look at this. The first Babymetal (ring) binder is almost full (80+ pages out of 110 or so), but I run out of the material needed to proceed any further today. I have enough stuff to fill two of these up at the moment, even if I save some of the key magazines as they are. Here is a few pictures for inspiration…

On the last shot you can see that the right page is not quite full yet, but it will be. You just need the right cuttings from the right period and then you are ready to go. As I said in an earlier post today, I have been collecting stuff like this in this fashion since the early 1970s. It is very very effective, it is like a never ending book that ends only when you let it.

Good fun.

Budokan CD and HMV booklet

Just bought this on eBay from Japan, a copy of the Babymetal “Live At Budokan – Red Night” CD along with a HMV store booklet that was on display for fans to grab back in the day. I am a collector and this sort of thing is just beautiful (got to love that shot). I guess it will pop up here in about 10 days.

Yesterday I sat down and started to organize the Babymetal collection. I will keep some magazines intact, others will be victims of scissors, glue and cuttings will end up in the first Babymetal (ring) binder. I think it has been 15 years since I attacked my magazine collection for this purpose, it all goes back to the early 1970s for me (I have plenty of binders full of Deep Purple, Rainbow, Whitesnake, Black Sabbath etc – thousands and thousands of pages). It is pretty time consuming but you will get easy access to all that great stuff. Yesterday, the smell of glue took over my apartment for a few hours, as pages was drying all over the place – ah, I had forgotten about that…

I will blog about the first Babymetal binder tonight.

Legend S Limited Edition cover and trailer unveiled

Babymetal has just unveiled the details about the upcoming “Legend S – Baptism XX – The One Limited Edition (Live At Hiroshima Green Arena)” release. Available to members of The One (Fan Club) only, it sports a Blu-ray, Two CDs and (perhaps best of all) a 56 page “Apocalypse” book with exclusive contents. Orders can be made by members of The One between April 23 and May 23. This is not the first time that Babymetal has released exclusive editions like this, the price for this on eBay will be very high (and copies very rare). A 41 second trailer has also been added to the Official Babymetal YouTube page, the second teaser in three weeks to appear. I do like the cover, they have a smart thing going here. I have to say that a Limited Edition CD/DVD for the rest of us would have been nice, like the “Live At Budokan – Red Night” release in 2015. Maybe a “Black Night” edition? Still, we could not even get “Live At Tokyo Dome” outside of the home market. This is all a bit weird at this point.

Watch the official trailer here.

Diamond Baby

Canadian singer Lee Aaron has a new album out on April 27 called “Diamond Baby Blues”. The Deep Purple legions out there should support this since she is covering the MK3 classic “Mistreated” on this release. First video from this one is “Diamond Baby” and I really like this song.

Check it out here.

Joe Lynn Turner hospitalized in Minsk

Sad to hear that Joe Lynn Turner suffered a heart attack in Belarus last weekend (he has been undergoing treatment at a hospital in Minsk). A European tour that was supposed to start in Sweden on April 25 has been cancelled as Joe needs some time to recover.

Get well soon my friend.

(Seen here is DEEP PURPLE FOREVER # 24, published in January 2000. Cover shot by Michael Johansson)