The 30th (!) Tommy Bolin Festival takes place in Sioux City (Iowa) at the Marquee on August 3. Billed as the “Last Ride” it features many prominent guests, not least singer Jim Dandy from Black Oak Arkansas. I think it is rather wonderful that they celebrate Tommy Bolin like this.
RISKY MELODY
Japanese rockers Risky Melody has played a lot of concerts in Japan this year in order to commemorate their 10th Anniversary. The tour will end at the Zepp Shinjuko venue in Tokyo (a 1,500 capacity hall) on January 17 2025. I hope that we get a live DVD out of this tour. I feel that they are gaining some traction.
Today I am very honored to be able to present pictures from the current Tommy Bolin Exhibit at the Sioux City Public Museum taken by my friend Trace Keane. Enjoy, and always remember Tommy.
Back in 2008, I published a 24 page global edition of my then ongoing publication SLICE (this was post Deep Purple Forever! and pre Retrofuture). If you enjoy this blog you will probably enjoy this fanzine. I will trade a copy of this for international magazines that features Deep Purple, some Black Sabbath, Babymetal, Japanese female fronted rock etc. Let me know what you have and we may have a deal.
This magazine includes Deep Purple (big interview with me – how about that? – plus the classic 1992 interview about the Joe Lynn Turner split with the man himself), Carina Lirola, Elizabeth Hurley (rant about our freedoms), Blackhawks (the comic), book reviews, big humorous feature on Sweden, UFO (the band), Nightmare In The Sky (WWII comic, you can check it out on this blog, just find the tag!), Commando interview with then Editor In Chief Calum Laird, Lucy Lawless (singing career!) and Martina Edoff (Swedish singer posing with Xena chakram, we did a lot of that back in the day!). There is more fun stuff, but this is the gist of it.
(My shot of said publication – cover shot of Ritchie Blackmore by Michael Johansson)
Busy updating this blog with more tags and 2020-2024 is done (which means 2012-2019 is still work in process). New tags are “220 Volt”, “Black Sabbath”, “DVDs & Blu-rays”, “J-Pop”, “Japanese rock & metal”, “Tarja & Nightwish”, “Vikings”, “Tommy Bolin” and “Xena Warrior Princess”. A tag basically means that you have blogs within the blog. Way easier to find stuff. To follow special interests only, if that suits you. It will probably take a week or two before it is all done.
My love affair for Japan started in the early 1970s when Deep Purple released the classic “Made In Japan” album (1972). That album was a game changer. After that, everybody wanted to record live albums in Japan. Later, in 1975, when Deep Purple visited Japan for the final time before they broke up in the 1970s, the band was at its most flamboyant. Tommy Bolin on guitar (the guy looked like Elvis with long hair), David Coverdale on vocals (long before his Whitesnake band took off for the stars), Glenn Hughes on bass and vocals, Jon Lord on keyboards (the Gandalf of hard rock) and Ian Paice on drums. I was 15 when the pop magazines of the day printed articles and posters about this visit to Japan and I was totally taken in to how incredibly cool it all was. Later, we found out about the troubles they had gone through at that time, but to me the era – and especially the way they looked in Japan – always remained magical. And as the years passed, the live albums from Japan by countless bands kept on coming. The first actual band from Japan that I ever heard was Murasaki. So glad to know George Murasaki these days, and I will present a new interview with him on this blog before they visit Sweden in July. Culturally, I always loved Japanese movies. Godzilla, all the Akira Kurosawa movies (Toshiro Mifune was the John Wayne of Japan) etc etc. Over the years I heard some Japanese bands, Bow Wow, Loudness, but not too many. I loved the Japanese rock publications though. When I visited photographer Michael Johansson, whom often had pictures in them, I was delighted to check them out. I have collected many of them over the years and this has accelerated aggressively in later years. Enter 2017. I discover Babymetal. A bonafide bag of joy. In a world that was fairly boring and set, it was a great revelation. I know now that I share this opinion with a lot of old school rock fans. Just read the comments to their videos. Babymetal rekindled the spirit of rock and they also opened the gates to Japanese music for many people. I am sure they have had a massive impact. Books will be written about all this. But for me the music scene in Japan is just so brilliant and fresh. So much talent. Japan now has some of the best rock and metal acts in the world. Lovebites, Nemophila, Band-Maid, Bridear (so glad to have presented an interview with them on this blog), Fate Gear (keep your eyes open!), Roselia (pretty deep into the rabbit hole here!), Muses (Toto territory, but utterly brilliant), Hagane, Lonesome Blue, East Of Eden, Coven Japan, Unlucky Morpheus and many many others. The 2020s will in the long run be increasingly dominated by Japan. I am sure about that. The festivals and the rock publications that are not onboard the Japanese train will lose credibility fast. Their loss. Wow, this turned into a bit of a rant. And I was just going to thank the Tommy Bolin community for their support for the blog this morning! Funny how one thought can sometimes morph into something a little larger. Anyway, my love for Japan felt like a good subject matter. Had some fun writing this which is the main thing. Peace & love.
(Picture shows records and magazines with pictures of the Deep Purple tour of Japan in 1975, my publications)
The legend of Tommy Bolin lives on, and he is never going to be forgotten. His 1975 solo album “Teaser”, released pretty much at the same time as his only studio effort with Deep Purple (“Come Taste The Band”), has just been re-released on CD and LP (gatefold sleeve!). And on June 14 we have two more releases coming up, “Patch Of Blue – Birth Of A Legend” (see cover top left) and “Live At Ebbets Field 5-13-76”. A Tommy Bolin Exhibit at the Sioux City Public Museum will also open to the public on May 31 (and run through June-August). I have had the honor to have had some of my publications on display in earlier Exhibitions. Some nice pictures from 2012 in the Purple Edition of Retrofuture 6 (2013), in which I published an interview with Johnnie Bolin. This can also be found on this blog in the archives (Classic Rock Interviews tag). Patch Of Blue was a band that Tommy was part of in his high school years. This new release features songs recorded live in 1967 (according to Amazon).
(My shot of Retrofuture 6 pages, Patch Of Blue cover inserted)
David Coverdale visited Scandinavia and other countries in March 1977 in order to support his first solo album “White Snake”. Fresh out of Deep Purple (well, it had been a year since he left, but “Made In Europe” was still a new release at this point), journalists loved to meet the guy to get his take on what had happened. Swedish journalist Mats Olsson, whom had supported Purple during the “Burn” era, but was very negative about Rainbow for years (he was basically a punk rocker at heart, or so it would seem), met with David and this resulted in his best coverage in Sweden in years since this appeared in major newspaper Expressen. I remember seeing this back in the day and it really was a big deal. Finally some publicity with an ex-member of Deep Purple. And he looked great. He had a few things to communicate and he was pretty honest about things. Mats Olsson did a good job here and I doubt that he would mind me sharing some of the golden bits here. This is a few of the answers that he got from his meeting with Coverdale, based on particular topics.
DEEP PURPLE – “I was 20 when I got the job. I was working in a boutique and I had never been singing professionally. I can not believe that I dared to replace Ian Gillan. I was very insecure. I was hiding before the first gig in Copenhagen, but Christ that audience boosted my self confidence enormously”.
RITCHIE BLACKMORE & BAND MECHANICS – “Ritchie Blackmore and myself wrote most of the music. “Mistreated” was my song. I was very happy for a while, both musically and socially. Then it went south socially. Musically, I liked blues, Ritchie hard rock, Glenn Hughes soul, Ian Paice jazz and Jon Lord classical. What kept it together was our love for rock´n´roll”.
THE LIFESTYLE – “We behaved intolerable, complained about everything. But it was the pressure that did that, it had to come out in some way”.
TOMMY BOLIN – “We thought we had more to give. We tried to find a guitarist that we could work with. Everybody had Jeff Beck on top of their lists. Tommy Bolin was number two on mine. Then everything went to hell. In Liverpool, in March last year, I walked. I could not take it anymore”.
AFTER PURPLE – “Jon and Ian came to me in Munich and wanted me to sing in their new band, but, nah, we were still friends but there was something missing. Ritchie has been in touch. As I understand it, he wants to do a record with me”.
Some interesting bits here. The fact that Jon Lord and Ian Paice still fancied working with him in their new band (what eventually became Paice Ashton Lord). The fact that Blackmore had signalled interest (maybe not in person but through management). We know that Blackmore also showed interest in Ian Gillan again around this time (clearly, his interest in working for much longer with Ronnie James Dio had waned). All in all, a very interesting period. Considering that Tommy Bolin had died just a few months prior to this interview, it seems that he was holding back on that subject. Or maybe Mats Olsson did not ask? In any case, a very cool interview from the wilderness years.
(My shot of said article, picture of David was taken by Olle Wester – credit goes to Mats Olsson)
Now that I have reached 100+ binders for the old Deep Purple Family collection, I have turned my attention to two 1970s binders of cuttings in order to save that stuff as well, and to put it in there wherever it may fit. The old tape is just falling off, so now I use glue (which is far superior for this sort of thing). Looks pretty good on coloured paper as well. Tedious work, but the end result is pretty cool.
Not sure if a lot of people are aware of this, but after the Deep Purple Forever! fanzine ended in 2003 I continued to support the Deep Purple Family right through the remaining fanzine years (right up to 2015). In fact, since the fanzines evolved a great deal, I would say that the best looking stuff really came out post-Deep Purple Forever! I also invited guest writers. It was all an amazing journey.
I discovered this morning that this blog has had over 500,000 hits, so that is a pretty good fact to mention here today. It will hit 1,000,000 way faster than what it took to reach this place, so that is something to look forward to. Many thanks for visiting Trinkelbonker.
(My shot of Babymetal, left shot of me plus Ronnie James Dio – note my Lucy In The Sky fanzine on the table in front of him – by Michael Johansson, Glenn Hughes by Christer Bolin, part of old fanzine note by Jörgen Holmstedt in the upper right corner – the inserted flag is the flag that represents Jämtland County here in Sweden, so I am being patriotic here!)
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