Swedish publication POSTER, 2 1976. Classic Agnetha Fältskog cover by Editor In Chief Hans Hatwig. This photoshoot of Agnetha is one of the best out there, maybe the very best. Hatwig actually sent me an unpublished shot from this session about eight years ago and I lost it in a computer crash… I did interview him for my last ever publication (Retrofuture 8, published in 2015). You can find it on this blog as well (and he even talks about this very session in it). Auction sites sell back issues of POSTER for hundreds of dollars/pounds these days. I absolutely loved this publication. Still do (awesome nostalgia).
It has been 50 years since Kiss released their first (self titled) album. The logo is there. The facepaint is on. The dreams are of success and excess. It would all come true. 20 studio albums in 50 years is not that bad. Worth a mention here on Trinkelbonker I think. Also seen here is the first spread of the huge Kiss article that I published i Retrofuture 8 back in 2015, written by Micke Mojo, Björn Höglund and Chris Laney (all top notch musicians). It was published back to back with an interview with Swedish magazine publisher Hans Hatwig (Tiffany, POSTER, OKEJ), the man that practically built the success of Kiss to great heights through his magazines in this country. Kiss would still have made it, but not on this level.
(My shot of Retrofuture 8 spread, Kiss album inserted)
Trace Keane shared this memory on facebook from June 14 2015, on the day that I had the Tommy Bolin piece on the blog a few days ago. He took the shot of Johnnie Bolin (the late Tommy Bolin´s brother) posing with the final issue of Retrofuture back in the day. Good times.
I interviewed legendary (German born) Swedish magazine publisher Hans Hatwig in 2015 for the final issue of Retrofuture (issue 8, March 2015). The magazine was launched at the Jane Doe Bar in Östersund on March 4 and we had Thomas Drevin (220 Volt) and Björn Höglund (Hoven Droven) as DJs playing Kiss and Deep Purple tunes all night long. This is Part 2 of the interview – Part 1 was posted on this blog on November 22 2021 – and it is a translation into English for obvious reasons. Copies of Retrofuture is available (see the Fanzine Newsdesk tag).
Old issues of POSTER has sold for very high prices on second hand outlets for a long time. This has to be the ultimate proof that people really loved what you did with that magazine.
– ”Yes, the kids in Sweden loved POSTER and the high value that is put to it now is proof that the old readers still appreciate it.”.
I understand that it was not easy for you to launch OKEJ. How long did it take and what happened there?
– ”When POSTER had reached the end of the line the publishers was not that keen on me having a go at another publication. I had to nag them about it for a year and they eventually gave me the chance to test the waters with three issues in pocket format. When these were published and sold really well, I was given the opportunity to make OKEJ into what I really wanted it to be, which was a weekly type of publication.
Once you had the chance, what exactly were you aiming for?
– ”I was hoping that it would become a weekly publication but I never got beyond the bi-weekly (every two weeks) format. The success was huge, we sold 156,000 copies every other week, which meant that for some time it really was the biggest pop magazine in the world, bigger than Bravo in Germany”.
How quick was the success, when did the publishing house realize that it was another winner?
– ”It happened pretty much right away”.
Except for a brief period, in which you were busy with a movie project, you successfully published OKEJ right through the 1980s until 1989. During this time, pretty much everybody was reading OKEJ. When did it peak?
– ”The mid 1980s, we reached an entire generation at that point, 500,000 youth read every issue”.
What made you decide to quit the job in the end?
– ”I was disapppointed in the owners in that they would not let me start up new publications. I felt betrayed so I left the company at that point”.
You created EN DING, DING, VÄRLD that was published in Scandinavia. How did you get the idea and where did you get the material? This was something completely new.
– ”I already had the idea for EN DING, DING, VÄRLD in my head when I still worked with OKEJ so it was a logical move to make once I had the chance to try. Several publishing houses turned me down before I could do it. The initial idea came from all my visits to the photo agencies, looking at pictures. I saw a lot of stuff that nobody was interested in and I just had this idea that it would be fun to get the craziest/funniest pictures and to create a magazine with them. I never had to regret the idea, it was an immediate success”.
How big was the circulation?
– ”The very first issue sold 54,000 copies and made a profit. It is very unusual for a publication to reach success that fast, it usually takes years. My publication became the exception to the rule”.
In 1998-1999 you created MÅNADENS DATE and GIRLPOWER. I have not seen these, can you describe them?
– ”MÅNADENS DATE was a small (103mm x 150mm) publication with two big foldouts. It was a calendar/diary kind of a publication that was published for about a year. It sold 24,000 copies every month but I had to end it since so many copies were stolen because of the size. GIRLPOWER was a hybrid publication in comic book format, with a long novel about the adventures of two teenage girls plus a section with the latest pop stars”.
Then you published SÅPA, which I though was better than OKEJ at the time. What was the idea behind that title?
– ”I did the SÅPA magazine for Jonas Bonnier at Bonnier Tidskrifter even though I was not really a believer. SÅPA failed, my first failiure”.
Then you went with VECKANS NU!, that kept you busy for eight years. You mention in your books that you had to fight to get that title published but that you were vindicated in the end. It is obvious to me that once you have an idea that you believe in you fight like crazy to make it happen.
– ”Well I offered the idea to both Allers Förlag and Bonnier but when these big publishers turned it down I went to Ove Jerselius at Frida Förlag whom was more than happy to publish the modern celebrity kind of publication that I had in mind. VECKANS NU! Became a huge success, over 100,000 copies sold twice a month. If I believe in an idea, I am willing to fight hard for it”.
You have also been involved in titles like SUDOKO, ROYAL and VÄRLDEN I BLICK. I mean, you have been busy since the early 1970s and been very successful for most of that time. Big books have been published about POSTER and OKEJ and a TV documentary has been made about the latter. Can you feel that you have reached the credit that you so clearly deserve?
– ”I never got much credit for what I did from my colleagues at the big publishing houses. However, there is a lot of love from old readers and that is good enough for me”.
The comic book industry is in trouble. How long do you think that titles like Agent X9, Fantomen etc will survive?
– ”I think the comics will come back, but maybe in a new, more modern, format. But that will only happen if the publishers catch on”.
How do you feel about people that read most of their stuff on computer screens now, rather than buying physical copies? Is that not the worst nightmare for a magazine publisher?
– ”It is better that people read them online than them not reading at all. I still believe in the physical magazines, but they have to move with the times, both content wise and technically”.
When you arrived in Sweden in the 1960s, the sexual revolution was in full swing and there was a decade when our freedoms were tested and when it was OK to push boundaries. I could sense a clear decline of this spirit in the 1980s that publications like OKEJ got to experience. Lately, this decline has catched on again but now it seems that even freedom of speech is in danger. How do you look at this?
– ”Yes, freedom of speech is in danger as far as magazine publishing is concerned in this country. New talents are not allowed to test the waters because of Tidsam (distributor), they want 500,000 kr (about 50,000£) for you to even publish your first issue. Then you can just forget about it. This alone would have stopped me back in the day had it existed then. It is sad. When freedom is curtailed the liberal ideas are always attacked. It has happened before and it will happen again”.
What can we learn from the 1960s and 1970s today? Have we lost something that we took for granted?
– ”What we can learn from those days are less anxiety, in everything. People dared to do things back then. You need more courage in Sweden. Not least in my business, publishing magazines. Without this spirit the printing machines will soon be silent. And this time, forever”.
Was there ever an idea that you never got to do?
– ”Yes, there was an idea that I never got around to do at Frida Förlag, since they were bought by Allers Förlag”.
Are you still checking out what is out there? I love keeping up with what is going on out there in the magazine world, I will buy copies just to see what they are up to.
– ”Yes, I still keep track on what is going on, but I can see the decline in the kiosks and the super markets. I do buy magazines every now and then to check them out and to see who had the balls to do it”.
Are you still in touch with any of the artists from the golden years or does one leave it behind and move on?
– ”No, I no longer have any contact with artists from the golden years, which would be 1974-1986”.
I noticed that you visited a KISS ARMY meeting recently, how often are you invited to things like this?
– ”Not very often, but I will be there if some organizer that is enthusiastic gets in touch”.
What do you think of the Swerdish magazine scene today?
– ”I can feel a certain admiration for the people that are trying to realize their goals in the media climate that exists today. I can not say that I envy them”.
One often hears that circulations is plummeting and that times are hard. Where is this going?
– ”I still believe in physical magazines, but the future will come from new places, not from the old dinosaurs, Allers, Bonniers. They are going nowhere”.
I saw an ad not long ago that said that 20% of the youth (up to 15) in Sweden could not read or understand comic books. What can we do to turn this around?
– ”First of all, the schools must ensure that the kids can read and write properly. If they can, things will look brighter for the magazine business. No illiterates will buy their product, physical or online. I myself came here and had to learn the language and I did it by reading magazines and books etc. Now I have written books about my journey. Is this not the best proof of all that we need more physical product, not less? The big companies are cancelling titles”.
(End of interview)
By Mike Eriksson (if quoted let me know about it) – Retrofuture 8 (2015) / Trinkelbonker (2021)
(My shots of Retrofuture spreads and Hatwig books)
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CLASSIC ROCK INTERVIEWS ON TRINKELBONKER: MURASAKI 2021 (December 3 2021), PUBLISHER HANS HATWIG 2015 (Part 1, November 22 2021), CARINA LIROLA 2008 (November 9 2021), TOTO 1987 (September 17 2021), HEAVEN & EARTH 2001 (July 25 2021), STUART SMITH 1998 (July 4 2021), RAINBOW 1997 (June 28 2021), MARINA AMMOURI 2021 (February 12 2021), VISIONS OF ATLANTIS 2007 (November 10 2020), RITCHIE BLACKMORE & CANDICE NIGHT 2001 (October 27 2020), JOHN NORUM 1988 (October 18 2020), ACCEPT 1986 (July 17 2020), DEEP PURPLE 1996 (June 27 2020), EUROPE 1986 (June 16 2020), DEEP PURPLE PODCAST 2020 (April 6 2020), KIMBERLY GOSS/SINERGY 2002 (March 31 2020), RAINBOW 1997 (March 9 2020), RAINBOW 1996 (March 6 2020), MICHAEL BRADFORD 2003/MAKING OF DEEP PURPLE´S “BANANAS” (March 2 2020), URIAH HEEP 1988 (February 18 2020), ANNE-LIE RYDÉ 1984 (January 21 2020), CRYSTAL VIPER 2020 (January 16 2020), JOHN NORUM 1988 (January 12 2020), ARTOMUS FRIENDSHIP 2019 (November 10 2019), NAZARETH 1989 (August 26 2019), VELVET INSANE 2018 (September 11 2018), JON LORD 1981 (December 15 2015), DAVID COVERDALE 1981 (November 13 2015), GLENN HUGHES 1996 (May 12 2015), TOTO 1988 (March 31 2015), YNGWIE MALMSTEEN 1990 (March 1 2015), MARTINA EDOFF 2009 (December 4 2014), MICHAEL MOJO NILSSON 2014 (January 21 2014), THE HUGHES TURNER PROJECT 2001 (December 29 2013), JOE LYNN TURNER 1996-1998 (October 9 2013), GLENN HUGHES & JOHN NORUM 1988 (September 21 2013), JOE LYNN TURNER 1994-1995 (September 9 2013), JOE LYNN TURNER 1993 (September 7 2013), STEVE LUKATHER 1989 (September 4 2013), BLACK SABBATH 1983 (August 22 2013), RAINBOW 1995 (July 19 2013), MICK UNDERWOOD/GILLAN 1982 (June 11 2013), DEEP PURPLE 2002 (May 2 2013), DEEP PURPLE 1998 ( February 25 2013), BLACK SABBATH 1986 (February 12 2013), BLACK SABBATH 1987-1989 (December 31 2012), JOHNNIE BOLIN 2012 (December 24 2012), MARTIN POPOFF & RICH GALBRAITH 2009 (November 12 2012), DAVID COVERDALE 2000 (October 14 2012), JON LORD 1984 (September 7 2012), JOE LYNN TURNER 1992 (August 31 2012), JUDAS PRIEST 1986 (August 22 2012), RONNIE JAMES DIO 2001 (August 20 2012), NIGHTWISH 2002 (August 14 2012).
And so we have reached the end of the journey, the final months that spawned the last two issues of Retrofuture (7 & 8). I had planned to end it with 10 issues of Retrofuture but when I worked on issue 8 I changed my mind and aborted the project.
Retrofuture 7 was published in May 2014 (1,000 copies). Swedish Blues Maestro Michael Mojo Nilsson on the cover. I was glad to give him this cover and a proper interview in this issue. He is one of the all time greats in these parts (Jämtland County). The Tommy Bolin/Deep Purple parties in Sioux City & Östersund is covered in detail with loads of images from both nights. Also Michael Schenker, Alien, Stawka, The Great Lake Monster, and Montana Blue. I presented the first part of the comic book version of Montana Blue in this issue. In the end I never got it delivered in full and this had me rethink the future as I worked on Retrofuture 8. Kind of sad too, because the first part that saw print here is really good. When yet another project for a future issue collapsed, I decided to pull the plug with Retrofuture 8.
Originally, I had planned a Xena cover for Retrofuture 8, but when I decided to end it all with this issue, I remade it and showed the aborted cover around one of my Montana Blue shots. Retrofuture 8 was published in March 2015 (1,000 copies) and we launched the issue with a Kiss/Deep Purple night at Jane Doe (in Östersund) with friends acting as DJs (see the “Retrofuture 8 – final issue” tag on this blog). Well, at least I ended it with a Bang! Lots of good stuff in this issue. Big interview with legendary Swedish publisher Hans Hatwig, huge story on Lucy Lawless. Interview with Tornado Blaze model Ellinor Nordbakk. Final word (and exclusive reports) on The Great Lake Monster. Some Purple Family stuff of course. Huge article on Prepping (got a lot of feedback for that one too) and some local history that also made waves in these parts. But most important of all, the massacre at Charlie Hebdo had happened and a good chunk of this issue was dedicated to the importance of free speech. My friend Jens Ganman joined in with a piece too. I am glad I did that. It had to be done.
People ask me now if there will ever be another issue of Retrofuture, or any kind of fanzine at all from me. I think the answer is no, but it bugs me that I never got around to cover Babymetal. I guess the old James Bond title “Never Say Never Again” is wise to observe. Time will tell, and if I am still here a couple of years from now (and if this world is still OK, which I kind of doubt), then who knows. For now, this is it.
(My cover shots, except for Xena, which is promo stuff)
I interviewed legendary (German born) Swedish magazine publisher Hans Hatwig in 2015 for the final issue of Retrofuture (issue 8, March 2015). The magazine was launched at the Jane Doe Bar in Östersund on March 4 and we had Thomas Drevin (220 Volt) and Björn Höglund (Hoven Droven) as DJs playing Kiss and Deep Purple tunes all night long. This is a translation into English for obvious reasons and the second part of this interview will be up on this blog on December 24 (2021). This first part takes us through his early life and into the successful years of Hatwig publishing Tiffany and POSTER in Sweden. The magazine also sports a full page about his two books but this is not featured here. Enjoy.
We have decided that this interview will deal with your career publishing magazines, so I would like to start this interview with you describing what you could read as a youth in West Germany. Did BRAVO exist back then?
– ”Yes, BRAVO did exist when I was a teenager, but I never read it. As a kid I read comic books like Sigurd, Akim, Tarzan and Donald Duck. There were also some German ones, Fix & Foxi, Lupo and Pit & Alf. The latter was my favourite as it had a young boy and a shepherd dog solving mysteries. As I had very little money I never bought these comics, I got them second hand or by trade”.
Could you get magazines on import back then?
– ”No, I do not think that that was going on in any real sense back then”.
Reading your books, one can understand that sexual content in magazines was still outlawed in West Germany when you arrived here in the mid-1960s. Are we talking about publications like PLAYBOY as well then?
– ”There was striptease and nudist publications, and we did have PLAYBOY with its long interviews (with famous people like Roman Polanski), that I loved as a teenager. The pictures of nude ladies were nice to see but what I really enjoyed the most in PLAYBOY was the interviews”.
What is your opinion on Hugh Hefner, the man that created PLAYBOY.
– ”I admired Hugh Hefner and thought that he was a pioneer of his trade and I thought he was cool, with the mansion and all that. He had this big bed and you saw him smoking a pipe in his pyjamas creating the magazines, drinking Pepsi Cola. It was a very exclusive magazine, thick with fantastic illustrations, knife sharp colour images, big foldouts and loooong interviews. This all made me want to be a publisher some day”.
What was your take on the Swedish magazine scene when you arrived in Sweden?
– ”In the early days I was not really aware of what was going on in Sweden. That came when I started to work for HSON. I was really not that interested in the Swedish weeklies, except for SE. I did like Berth Milton Seniors pornographic magazine PRIVATE though, that was sold in bags that you had to cut up back then. The print and the content was outstanding for the day”.
You had not been here long before you got to work for HSON, that published erotic titles. Were the models Swedish or did you buy the pictures from abroad?
– ”When I did the layout for HSONs RAFF and PAFF most of the pictures came from France. Later, when I did layout for PARLEK and PRINCE in the early 1970s, the models were Swedish”.
Tell me about the formats that these publications had and what was positive or negative about it.
– ”The erotic publications RAFF and PAFF was made in pocket format, while MODELL NATURELL and PARLEK came out in the same format as comic books. But with thicker and better paper. It was all good, I never had a problem working with these formats”.
You also produced a publication for the German market called GEIL that you had to smuggle into the country. How many issues came out and how many did you print?
– ”The made for Germany publication was pocket sized and I did eight issues. I sold 4,000-8,000 copies of each issue, it used to differ. It was so small you could put it into a small envelope. But each issue still had two foldouts”.
What is the second hand value these days on auction sites?
– ”I have no idea, I have never checked it out. My old pop magazines are very expensive to collect these days though”.
After HSON you met your soon to be wife Marie-Louise in Umeå and after a while the two of you moved to Stockholm as the publishing business was what you wanted to be involved in. You worked for Prince Press and Träffen and then you was offered a job att Svenska serier that had the pop magazine TIFFANY going. Was it good to leave the sex field behind you for something new?
– ”Yes, that was a relief but I had only landed there by chance initially anyway. Most of all I wanted to create weekly publications but it took me years to reach that goal. That did not happen until I sold POSTER to Saxon & Lindströms. When I joined TIFFANY they would sell about 12,000 copies per issue on a monthly basis. When I remade it into a pop magazine sales increased to 98,000”.
You worked on TIFFANY for a few years and at that time you also launched POSTER. How did you get the idea for POSTER and was it easy to sell the idea to your publishing company?
– ”I got the idea for the POSTER magazine from the West German youth publication BRAVO-POSTER. I never went to a publishing company, I went to a printer – Universaltryck – that helped me publish it”.
POSTER was outstanding at the time, the quality of the paper and the print was superb. Did you have to fight for it?
– ”Not really, the printing company was in full agreement that a poster magazine had to have a very high quality”.
You worked with some of the best known photograpers of the day, which made POSTER even better. Back in those days pictures could not be mailed from a photographer in seconds. How was it done, was it sent by special delivery somehow?
– ”Sometimes we got pictures by mail but the photographers also used to drop by the office and showcase what they had”.
I have to assume that POSTER was a wonderful publication to create for somebody that loves layout and great pictures. I am looking at the book about POSTER now (”POSTER – Nordens största poptidning 1974-1980”, Premium Publishing 2008), and they showcase all the covers. To start with, I have to say that the logotype for POSTER was very successful. Do you recall coming up with that?
– ”I do not recall how that came about, other than creating it in my kitchen in Handen where I lived. It looked Rainbow like with the colours and I liked the stars”.
Most of the covers had famous people on the covers. Who was the semi-nude young girl at the third issue, 1 1975?
– ”I have no idea who the girl was, only that she was really pretty. I bought the image from one of these photo agencies, I do not recall which one”.
In the beginning you went with stars like Jane Seymour (3 1975), Brigitte Bardot (5 1975) and Raquel Welch (6 1975) on the covers, before switching to pop and rock stars.
– ”I was very influenced by BRAVO in the beginning, and since they had that sort of thing going I just followed them. But after a while I thought that BRAVO-POSTER had too many landscapes and not enough pop artists so I went my own way. At that point I think I created a better magazine than they did”.
Deep Purple were often part of POSTER, even after Ritchie Blackmore had left them and Tommy Bolin had joined. What did you think of them?
– ”I never had a lot of opinions about Deep Purple since I did not know a lot about that group. But they were hugely popular among the readers and so I made sure that they were part of the magazine. I do feel that Ritchie Blackmore was more interesting than Tommy Bolin though”.
KISS popped up in issue 3 1975 and then became part of basically every single issue. How did you discover them and how long did it take you to establish a working relationship with them?
– ”The American photographer Barry Levine showed me pictures of KISS on a rooftop in Los Angeles when he visited the office in Stockholm and I was immediately fascinated by their image and ordered more photo sessions from Barry. Later I would also ask Fin Costello and Andrej Csillag and others to take pictures and they all sent them to me. No other publication cared about KISS in Sweden at the time, it was just me and POSTER. KISS themselves thought it was cool that a Swedish publication showed such an interest in the group. The rest is history”.
For fans of KISS, POSTER was a huge source of joy and it has to be said that you made their success over here, at least it happened way faster than it would had you not done what you did. In the fall of 1977 you printed the first KISS Special and that must have been a bit of a risk since it was now down to only one band to sell the magazines. How did KISS react to the news?
– ”The KISS Special was made because the public demand was huge. The band loved it.”.
In 1978 you repeated the idea with an ABBA Special. According to your book, they had some ideas about that. So what happened?
– ”They had a bit of an issue with me using pictures from Barry Levine before they had had a chance to see them. Their manager Stikkan Andersson threatened to sue me but decided not to since POSTER was such a big publication. We became friends again and I did get to visit him in his home for an exclusive story”.
The cover with Agnetha Fältskog, on which she is licking a lollipop (2 1976) is awesome. How did you get her to do that? These images are very saucy. In my opinion, these images are among the best that has ever been taken.
– ”It was not a problem to ask Agnetha to do that, she was a true professional. She respected me as a photographer and a magazine publisher”.
You also gave The Runaways a lot of space. The first cover was for issue 3 1977. What was it like working with them?
– ”The manager Kim Fowley used to call me up in the middle of the night and play new songs from different artists that he wanted to hear my opinion on. I decided to publish The Runaways in POSTER after such a call”.
You also gave Phil Lynott (Thin Lizzy) and Angus Young (AC/DC) covers (10 & 11 1977) at a time when hard rock was hated by Swedish media. You really were the one guy in this country then that defended our music.
– ”Yes, I was the first guy to support hard rock in Sweden. I was simply ahead of my time”.
Mats Olsson and other music journalists at the time had no problem hating both the artists and their audience in print. POSTER had a more positive attitude. It was quite a contrast.
– ”Mats Olsson discarded the hard rock bands until POSTER helped make them popular in Sweden. Then he changed his mind and pretended that he had always liked them”.
PLAYBOY model Barbi Benton had a huge hit in Sweden in 1977 after having been seen singing in the tv-show McCloud, and you gave her two covers (6 & 10 1977). Did you meet her?
– ”Yes, it was me that took those shots, both for the covers and the posters inside. I took them at Hotel Sheraton in Stockholm”.
You also published SUPER-POSTER in West Germany. Tell us a bit about that.
– ”I set up a deal with a magazine distributor in Hamburg and sent over 125,000 copies per month of SUPER-POSTER to my old country. It was the biggest export out of Sweden ever”.
The stars in the logo disappeared after issue 6 1979, was it at that point that the problems started?
– ”As soon as Saxon & Lindströms had bought the rights for POSTER from me it started to drop in circulation. The owners, Mats and Bosse Lindström just wanted to make money. At that point the fun went out of it. Also, I wanted to create a new magazine at the time, OKEJ.
To be continued…
By Mike Eriksson (if quoted let me know about it) – Retrofuture 8 (2015) / Trinkelbonker (2021)
(My shots of the POSTER book, Retrofuture 8 and bar flyer etc)
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CLASSIC ROCK INTERVIEWS ON TRINKELBONKER: CARINA LIROLA 2008 (November 9 2021), TOTO 1987 (September 17 2021), HEAVEN & EARTH 2001 (July 25 2021), STUART SMITH 1998 (July 4 2021), RAINBOW 1997 (June 28 2021), MARINA AMMOURI 2021 (February 12 2021), VISIONS OF ATLANTIS 2007 (November 10 2020), RITCHIE BLACKMORE & CANDICE NIGHT 2001 (October 27 2020), JOHN NORUM 1988 (October 18 2020), ACCEPT 1986 (July 17 2020), DEEP PURPLE 1996 (June 27 2020), EUROPE 1986 (June 16 2020), DEEP PURPLE PODCAST 2020 (April 6 2020), KIMBERLY GOSS/SINERGY 2002 (March 31 2020), RAINBOW 1997 (March 9 2020), RAINBOW 1996 (March 6 2020), MICHAEL BRADFORD 2003/MAKING OF DEEP PURPLE´S “BANANAS” (March 2 2020), URIAH HEEP 1988 (February 18 2020), ANNE-LIE RYDÉ 1984 (January 21 2020), CRYSTAL VIPER 2020 (January 16 2020), JOHN NORUM 1988 (January 12 2020), ARTOMUS FRIENDSHIP 2019 (November 10 2019), NAZARETH 1989 (August 26 2019), VELVET INSANE 2018 (September 11 2018), JON LORD 1981 (December 15 2015), DAVID COVERDALE 1981 (November 13 2015), GLENN HUGHES 1996 (May 12 2015), TOTO 1988 (March 31 2015), YNGWIE MALMSTEEN 1990 (March 1 2015), MARTINA EDOFF 2009 (December 4 2014), MICHAEL MOJO NILSSON 2014 (January 21 2014), THE HUGHES TURNER PROJECT 2001 (December 29 2013), JOE LYNN TURNER 1996-1998 (October 9 2013), GLENN HUGHES & JOHN NORUM 1988 (September 21 2013), JOE LYNN TURNER 1994-1995 (September 9 2013), JOE LYNN TURNER 1993 (September 7 2013), STEVE LUKATHER 1989 (September 4 2013), BLACK SABBATH 1983 (August 22 2013), RAINBOW 1995 (July 19 2013), MICK UNDERWOOD/GILLAN 1982 (June 11 2013), DEEP PURPLE 2002 (May 2 2013), DEEP PURPLE 1998 ( February 25 2013), BLACK SABBATH 1986 (February 12 2013), BLACK SABBATH 1987-1989 (December 31 2012), JOHNNIE BOLIN 2012 (December 24 2012), MARTIN POPOFF & RICH GALBRAITH 2009 (November 12 2012), DAVID COVERDALE 2000 (October 14 2012), JON LORD 1984 (September 7 2012), JOE LYNN TURNER 1992 (August 31 2012), JUDAS PRIEST 1986 (August 22 2012), RONNIE JAMES DIO 2001 (August 20 2012), NIGHTWISH 2002 (August 14 2012).
At 60 I have seen freedom of speech and our general freedoms under attack from many sources, but never before like today. As a writer, going back four decades, I used to come back to the subject in many newspaper articles. In 2015, I dedicated a good chunk of my final publication (Retrofuture 8) to the subject. Six years down the road, all bets are off. The censorship is through the roof. The assault on our freedoms is quite astonishing. The good thing is that although we are under attack (and this is not a left/right issue, it is top/down), the guilty are putting themselves out there. They are in the spotlight now. The overreach is there for all to see. We all live in a horror movie at the moment and I am glad to be in Sweden as things stand. All eyes should be on Australia right now though, as the worst case scenario is playing out right before our eyes over there. I would include BitChute and the Christian news outlet TruNews among the platforms that are freedom friendly right now. It would be nice if mainstream media could be as honest but it is what it is. Never lose hope though. Most people that I know, and that includes people of all walks of life (including journalists), are wide awake. The rest is about personal courage and integrity. We certainly live in interesting times.
And so we have reached the 2009-2015 period of my magazine publishing (final bunch and Nightwish and Tarja did pop up in some of them). I will not showcase absolutely everything (I have already skipped some stuff), but you will get a general idea. In this part we will cover the last of the one-off titles (TOP SECRET 2009) and some of the RETROFUTURE magazines that I made. So here we go…
This was one of two Tarja related features in TOP SECRET 2009 (April 2009), a story on the first concert in Stockholm (Tyrol) on June 1 2008 and a general summation on Tarja and her importance in rock as a vocalist.
Jump to RETROFUTURE 3 (November 2010) and you have a 4 page article on the Rockweekend Festival (July 8-10 2010) in Sweden, in which Tarja and her band took part alongside Deep Purple, Over The Rainbow, Twister Sister and others. Seen here is the second spread of said article. It was a good performance.
In RETROFUTURE 4 (September 2011) we have another shot (this one by my friend Seth Nilsson) alongside some Tarja news. The “What Lies Beneath” CD is out.
RETROFUTURE 6 was a 104 page double issue (as in two magazines, Western & Deep Purple covers) that celebrated 100 published fanzines (they came out in 2013, big party at the rock club Jane Doe in Östersund on November 23 that year). One of the classic Michael Johansson shots of Tarja holding SLICE 2006 goes with this article in the Western edition.
The first spread in the Deep Purple edition looked like this. I presented a very detailed section about the journey in this issue, covering all fanzines in pictures and words. Still use this guide as a reference myself these days, I am really glad that I did it. Again, one of the classic Tarja shots of her holding the SLICE 2006 issue.
And so we have arrived at the very last magazine, which was RETROFUTURE 8 (March 2015). I used this page to say thank you for all the wonderful support through the years. The image is a shot of the Nightwish spread in SLICE 2005 (see part 3 in this series, exclusive shot by Michael Johansson), signed by all members of Nightwish. You can not see it on this snapshot, but there is a smaller image down to the right of Jon Lord on this page as well sharing a beer with me in 1984 – it all ended here though all these years later, save for this blog. And Nightwish & Tarja had been a part of the journey. Good times.
Previous posts: Part 1 (January 1), Part 2 (January 6), Part 3 (January 10). Part 4 (January 15). Part 5 (January 20). Part 6 (January 24).
(My shots of said magazines, big thank you to everybody involved)
I was met with the terrible news this morning that the much beloved Rock Bar Jane Doe (in Östersund, Sweden) burned to the ground last night. The charming two storey building in the middle of town had served as a rock hangout for years and looking back I have certainly had some memorable and highly enjoyable evenings there myself (Deep Purple party in 2013, RETROFUTURE release party in 2015 etc). When Leslie West passed away about a week ago I said to myself, “Well, that should be it as far as bad news is concerned for 2020”. I was wrong. I wish we could do something about this. For Jane Doe to end like this is just wrong on so many levels. If at all possible, I would like to see Jane Doe rise from the ashes.
(Thank you Kalle for taking the main shot at the site this afternoon)
As I mentioned the Kiss “Destroyer” puzzle a few days ago, I came to think about the cool article I published in the final issue of RETROFUTURE (#8) in March 2015, written by Micke Mojo, Björn Höglund and Chris Laney. It was published alongside a huge interview with the legendary Swedish magazine creator Hans Hatwig (POSTER, OKEJ etc). A man that practically made Kiss in Sweden. I am so glad that I could do things like this in the last few years of this hobby.
I think it will be remembered.
(My shot of first spread of said content in RETROFUTURE #8)
trinkelbonker 