FAREWELL TO THE KINGS: Bernie Torme 18/3/1952 - 17/3/2019 [*]

I'm beyond gutted and distracted to learn of Bernie Torme's passing, almost weeping... I never met him or had seen him live but I always loved playing and his attitude of this punky "being-myself-whatever-the-fokk-I-choose". He never got the credit he deserved for his talent; Gillan stint was his highest shoot to the stardom and to this day it's one of my favourite areas of the Purple Tree. Still, it's not that Gillan was a smart-arse who reinvented himself to join his own raised kids in NWOBHM wave. It was Bernie, John Mc Coy and Colin Towns that got him there. And they really did some epic stuff together. "Mr Universe" alone, phew, most of it was composed before Bernie joined, but what a record it is. The tracks which he co-wrote - the title one (that became his tour de force live) and "Roller" are kick-in-the-balls high octane reapers. And the albums that followed ("Glory Road" and "Future Shock") are so much more diverse in musical taste ("On The Rocks" will remain my Top 5 favourite track of life until I myself call it a day, and "If You Believe Me" - now talk about Irish punk playing some gutsy blues in your face, come on!). Stint with Ozzy - insane. Decades in which not much big happened later on - sad. Still, he stuck o his guns and played what he wanted.

Hell, I feel lost. There was no good news from his camp for weeks so it seems it's been looming... still, what a bummer. I will cherish that one e-mail I got from him when he appeared to put his legacy in digital on Bandcamp, saving his fans from paying copious amounts of money for his long deleted solo alums never released on CD. I said to him that one of my favourite things he did was a record put out in 2000 - Gary Barden had then a project called Silver. Album was "Dream Machines" and featured (along Gary and Bernie) Don Airey on keys and Marco Minneman on drums (Doro Pesch had her hand in backing vocals too). Amazing rock album, where Bernie's full tilt mode shines... He was happy to learn my attitude and said that he wouldn't mind colaborating with Colin Towns again... He was real, he noticed those who liked his work.

I will miss these yelling notes that were his trademark sign built into his phrasing. His tone was one of a kind and instantly recognizable, though in a wider picture he'll remain one of the greatest guitar heroes completely unsung to the world.

Salute, Bernie; I miss you like hell already.

Gillan, Mr Universe - live Oxford Polytechnic, 18th Feb 1981
https://youtu.be/jI-po_zD1gs
Gillan, No Easy Way (starts at 0:57) - live Oxford Polytechnic, 18th Feb 1981. Mesmerising duel between Torme and Towns in the end. This was a hell of a live band, I always loved them.
https://youtu.be/sHgUsMXOHH4
Gillan - The BBC Tapes Vol 2 : Unchain Your Brain(1980)
https://youtu.be/7PSuZPQFo5Y
The best existing live release of Gillan with Bernie on guitar, full stop.
And "On The Rocks" - forever and ever the beast... The NWOBHM that went genius straight into progressive rock.
https://youtu.be/BvttENLjb28

Two days before Randy's anniversary... So sad. Sty safe, Bernard!

LIVE REVIEW: Don Airey, Kuźnia Club, Bydgoszcz, 10th March 2019

LIVE REVIEW: Michael Schenker Fest, Wytwornia, Lodz, Nov 13th, 2018

Time and again it's been a while... out (again). Won't dwell into it - I just want to share my excitement with you guys 'n galz... I had this ultimate privillege to stand in the front row at the feet of the Almighty Michael Schenker on Tuesday night. What a blessed 2,5 hours it was!

The band itself could be a subject of a bit of debate to me. Chris Glen and Ted McKenna - the classic rhythym section of the "Assault Attack" - what can I say - immensely kicking guys - both of them. I quite do not know how they pull off these shows so well at their age and with those signs of obesity they have (quite huge in case of Glen). Still, if Chris was the fattest guy on stage - still hats off to him, he was prancing and doing crazy antics to the band fellows and audience all along. Ted - the Powerhouse - so huge since the Rory Gallagher days - still sounds amazing too, no power loss at all.

And the fragile part: The Primadonnas. Four of them, witches, actually. Quite often in fact all singing at the same time in the "one lead plus three backing ones" set-up. Well, bad news, Gary Barden is a sad and very filthy joke now, he should be dumped immediately for the good of the show. Don't get me wrong - I love his singing from the 80-ties. Even on Silver project albums he sounded great. But live... It's bits, pieces and shambles. Gary, I'm sorry... You're a legend, still - get a cure or let go.

With all his incapabilities - Graham Bonnet was - in comparison to Gary John - fresh as a daisy, with only the middle range out, occasional squeaks and creeks and losing breath closer to the end of each tune. Still, animated like a Muppet on steroids, he moves around the stage with his usual antics and energy of a freak. I'm so happy I finally saw him live - and it still was a joy even with the reservation on his sound. And, of course, double Rainbow vocalists combo as a huge bonus - Dougie White is in the bag too. He did really well, nothing too splendid, but enjoyable, good voice and very solid. The real star of the divas sector was Robin McAuley. I don't know why the guy gets so much flak from everybody. Looks great (bar the shitload of tatoos) and still sings like a ringing bell - and that's really needed for Michael's music which - in the end - is damn melodic, FFS!

And the King, The Almighty, The Ruler of the Axe. I'm still in awe, gobsmacked, smashed and slashed. I know what I witnessed and I don't think I can still fully understand it. He looks like his own young him again. Really, you will not give him 63 he has and after all the roliing and tumbling he's put himself through. There is this eerie halo of the slowed-down moves denouncing the age, but his mind and his fingers haven't lost anything. A miracle of some sort, truly. He was playing his ass off, interacting with audience - and it was clear - HE IS HAVING A BLAST doing this. And his craft is totally on, dead in spot. You all know why we revere the guy so much. He's no bullshit, no fireworks. Simple setup, V-axes, a bit of Wah, echo, his mind and his fingers. And he was mindblowing, all the way through. It was such a bliss to see it from the distance of one to five meters at max. Like a dream. It was like he played almost just for me. No video could get me something as up and close and personal as this. Moments of loss in bliss were aplenty - "Attack Of The Mad Axemen", "Coast To Coast"... "Desert Song" sounded flooring and absolutely massive - it's so epic to wittness. My beloved "Only You Can Rock Me" - I almost lost it there - THIS FREAKING SOLO THAT I LOVE SO MUCH - just played right in front of my eyes... Paradise! Wish it had never ended.

The part of the show closer to the end was packed up with UFO classics, so the hall has gone just freakin' wild. It was sooo great. And the German Axeman bombed Poland to bits and pieces for the very end.

"Rock Bottom".

Lasting twenty freaking minutes total, with all the middle improv full blown on and the closing section going on for ages (complete with Ted Mc Kenna's drum work out at the very end).

Forgive me the swearing but... It was un-fucking-belieavable. I hid my phone and just watched, flown away for ten minutes - just looking at these fingers doing all this crazy stuff in the middle... And Mickey did kind of flow away... A life threatening experience. I saw Vinne Moore UFO doing it twice and loved it but... All the world can go to hell and cry it's eyes into the endless fire. It's Michael's child, he ultimately nails it, and posesses it - top to bottom, tip to toe, start to finish. Must be one of the best things guitar-wise I have ever seen in my life and I've seen plenty so far. Yes, smack me, I haven't seen Schenky live before... so it was kind a bit of like the firtst time - but just the way it should always be, for anyone. The realms of pleasure and amazement were amazing. The way he plays it... it's just him bar NO ONE. Sorry, chaps. No one. And I kind of think that is why we look up to him so much, he really is an inspiration - this sound and this phrasing is simply irreplaceble, truly one of a kind.

And I am so happy to confirm it as an eye wittness: Michael does seem reborn. Full flight, great form, finally enjoying his craft and playing for his freak-fans. There could have not been a better scenario and I am so glad for him. And happy about this close-up experience. It's almost frightening to think that I was on the brink of almost no-go due to crazy logistics... but! Veni, vidi, vici. On the day of my Mum's 70th birthday I saw one of the best guitar gigs I've ever been to. 'Appy days as Mick Box says.

If you yet haven't seen Schenker yet... go if you only have your chance, as long as he's back. There's never gonna be another one like him.

PS. Photos are all mine, done with mobile, so they are by no means state of art, but will give you a glimpse of what my eyes saw.

[Remember The Day] 25 years ago - Deep Purple's Last Gig In Germany with Ritchie Blackmore on board

On October 16th,  1993 The Schleyerhalle in Stuttgart was the venue for the last ever German gig of Deep Purple featuring Ritchie Blackmore. I'm not aware of very many British rock 'n' rollers who are as "pro-German" as Ritchie is ("I guess it's because I like to take side of the nation who looses" - he's reported to have said once), so counting on the fact that that it was to be his last ever gig with DP in his beloved country - he fell in the mood bright enough to close this chapter of his touring career with a truly resonating blast.

Prior to coming down to Stuttgart, Purple were pretty well oiled by the previous 12 German gigs. Their musicianship was widely "ranging from rock to roll", with couple of dready affairs but also some highlights (especially the show in Grugahalle Essen, where for the first time in their career the band hit the mark of one show longer than 130 minutes on stage), displaying an immense amount of "perfect balance between the discipline and improvisation" as Jon Lord would later on describe it to the press.

Personal aspect of the band inner condition was, however, a totally different affair. The RCA company bribed the band members of Lord, Paice and Glover to take opposite corner to Blackmore in regard of who should sing on their 25th anniversary album and tour. Reportedly a stated threat not to release what became the album "The Battle Rages On" if it's not one certain vocalist is being employed again, thwarted the opposition even in the Man In Black. The proceedings resulted in third engaging of Ian Gillan to the band and launching the band on a ride of yet another trainwrecking clash of personalities - evergoing between Gillan and Blackmore. Despite the fact of the album being received with mixed reviews from both press and fans alike, the new generation of rock fans was excited with prospect of the treat to see the legendary Mk II live on tour again. The US leg of the tour flopped and never came to fruition, but with the September on the cards the band hit the road in Europe - reaching Germany just two weeks after the tour start.

With over fifteen shows under their belt before mid-October, the pressure of the "empty hearts and icy stares" on the Blackmore - Gillan line was palpable. It's been wittnessed before however that nothing does the Purple musical camarderie as much good as the personal tension edging physical fight. The tendency to be trying to blow the enemy off the stage with unrivalled performance, combined with enthusiastic and sometimes extatic reaction of the audience - brought the bar of the top notch quality performances for Blackmore and Gillan alike, with ever reliable Lord, Glover and Paice following the vicious two seamlessly. They scored their absolute peak of their mighty abilities right there in Stuttgart, rightly 20 years ago.

The concert, that now can be wittnessed in it's entirety on official releases - finds the band in a way above and beyond anything that they had experienced prior or after to that night. The balance ofd the ripping power, energy and dexterity of playing meshed up with knobbing the intensity of the voulme, sound contrasts and space for improvisation, mood changes and simply having fun and enjoying rock 'n' roll in truly glorius proportions, is  just mesmerising.

The highlights during the set are more than aplenty. The audience mood and ability to participate in the flow of excitement is nicely tested in "Black Night" singalong right after opening the show with roaring take of "Highway Star". Prior to the audience passing it's exam in flying colours - Blackmore delivers first of the few once-in-a-lifetime solos of his for that night. Beginning with a nasty tremolo sustained phrase, he throbbles the fretboard up with fingers scratching up the strings and proceeds on to couple of bars where the sky-high melodic finds the strings almost being ripped out the neck. Before the audience takes over with singing the riff, he plays couple of ultra beatiful semi-accoustic licks sounding almost like unused riffs. This is orgasmic.

Before the Bethoveen's Ninth excercise Ritchie takes the band to the two-and-a-half minute jam combining "The Mule" riff with the BBC outtake "Grabsplatter" tempo. Both of these hasn't been played by the band since seventies. The flow of this version prompts Lord to come with a truly majestic solo spot after which "Knocking At Your Backdoor" follows, unleashing (yet and again) another tidal wave of Ritchie's genius.

After the call-response with Lord in the standard middle solo for the track - he stops the band down for an improvisation beginning with flowingly beatiful semi-accoustic solo played in electric mode. Then again he carries out again a dialogue of guitar and organ with Jon and concludes the suprise spot off with a concrete ripping closure of amazingly aggressive electric lead solo. This idea pennes the ultimate live arrangement of this song that no other set of musicians ever could replicate effectively with such an mesmerising effect.

"Child In Time" (welcomed by audience with a tidal wave of cheer) finds Blackmore introducing the solo spot with nicking the bars from Lord and having them played in beatiful mode with slide. The improvisation finds Ritchie and Jon chasing off each other for couple of minutes. Each one gets bits of a sensational show-off, they talk phrases between and over each other - ending playing improvised scapes in perfect unison together. Hard to hang on to one's head on hearing this, and there's no better example than this thing to play if you need to justify someone why the combination of Blackmore's Fender and Lord's Hammond organ is unrivalled anywhere in rock 'n' roll world.

To save Gillan's voice after the stretch of "Child In Time" the track is thought to conclude with a keyboard-guitar bridge leading in the band to tour-de-force culled of from the new album. "Anya", the last rocker of this kind of might ever penned by Purple - with it's genuine riff - here rises to monumental status. Ticking at over 12 minutes - it finds Blackmore in yet another blessing of being touched by the uncomparable heights of inspiration. The Man In Black drives the song like a director conducting the orchestra: testing the skills of guitar harmonizer at first, then bringing the band down to own the stage for another breathy semi-accoustic showcase on his very own. After tunning the notes down to the silence of pin drop tink being audible - he picks up the driving pace back to lead the Purple steamroller to the frenzy finale, after which no corpse is capable to hold it's head on. They just rip it up - in and out.

Being faithful to the Hitchcock's rule of "first let the house of block go down to rumble and then the tension should rise" - the reminder of the show is killingly electifying. "Lazy" simply dazzles with guitar bursting out and shredding to pieces anything on the way of Ritchie's fingers. Prior to the "Space Truckin' Medley" the whole band segues into a couple of minutes of node-to-Grieg cover of "The Hall Of The Mountain King". And it's not just Blackmore doodling one of his favourite tunes between his nose and the amp's surface. It's a fully throttled, uprising instrumental played by entire band, with Blackers kicking the volume and intensity up and up. Stunning.

It must have been hard for the audience to let them leave the stage. It must have been hard to imagine that the encores might bring in anything that will blow off the gig up-to-then skyscraper quality. But hey, this is Blackmore and Deep Purple clearly willing to laugh you off at your doubts.

The re-endition of "Speed King" that they deliver is simply of one-time-in-the-history-of-the-universe. Starts off with the German anthem introduction, verses go down like couple of TNT bars lit up and blasted. After that both Ritchie and Jon share another round of trading licks like two hungry werewolves on the-die-is-cast tour. When enough is enough, Blackmore tones the band down and drags Lord to follow him to another suprise improvised semi-accoustic section where they battle and share the melodic lines at the same time, fooling around the "Teddy Bear's Picnic" motive... Got a smoked-up mind already? So how about throwing in a "Burn" riff for a good measure to smash you up a bit more? Seven-half minute of a Purple wet-dream, too good to disbelieve that they did it that well.

Blackmore's idea to fool around with light and shade was already then known as a trademark of his. During this tour he developed a habit of playing astonishingly beatiful, melodic semi-accoustic guitar introduction to "Smoke On The Water"completely wrapping up audience's concentration for two-three minutes. The trick of abrupting it to open the stove to 10 and blast up the "Smoke..." riff right after this received the power of life threatenning effect, addidtionally sending the spectators to the sky high frenzy within seconds. And so they all blast the hall up here, delivering another breathaking performance - the very last of this magical night.

This show also remains iconic for being outstanding in terms of Deep Purple high standards of delivering a masterclass live on stage (one of the best in their entire career). It is also a testimony to the fact that after that tour things were never to be as magical ever again.

Not many other live shows I know of, that I love so much to listen, tell of, cheerish so heartfeltly and recommend to any happy rocker.

DEEP PURPLE [BLACKMORE-GILLAN-GLOVER-LORD-PAICE]
Live at Hans Martin Scheyer Halle, Stuttgart
16 October 1993
THE BATTLE RAGES ON - 25TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR.

B' Day Today! Rory Gallagher (70) [*]

Gdyby nie choroba i nieudana operacja - Rory Gallagher być może do dziś czarowałby swoim unikalnym darem wymiatania na starym, odrapanym Fenderze Stratocasterze. Zawieszony gdzieś między rockiem, bluesem i folkiem - miał w sobie jedyny w swoim rodzaju rodzaj _ognia_ i feelingu w grze, który stawiał go w rzędzie największych i najlepszych. "Moonchild", w legendarnym składzie power trio z Gerry'm Mc Avoy'em i Ted'em Mc Kenną, doskonale pokazuje jego firepower.

 

A do tego jeszcze był szanowany przez inne legendy epoki - o jego talencie z uchyleniem czoła wypowiadali się i Jimi Hendrix, i Brian May. A Jack Bruce po prostu wyciągnął go na scenę i zmusił do wejścia w buty Erica Claptona! Co Rory na to? Z wyczuwalnym wstydem, ale grał swoje, z tym jedynym w swoim rodzaju "czujem". Może i nie znał na pamięć klasyki Cream, ale podszedł do tematu z biegu i przekuł ryzyko porażki w sukces. Legenda. Mistrz. Happy B, Rory!!!

Over The Rainbow. DOLORES O'RIORDAN

I've never been a huge fan of The Cranberries, although I very much liked a handful of their tunes. "Promises" is standing out as my personal favorite of theirs - thanks to a great melody, gritty lyrics and scorching leading guitar riff. Still, I am deeply saddened by the late received news of Dolores' O' Riordan's passing. I liked some of the music she did and surely The Lady had a unique and very distinctive voice and loads of talent that moved her listeners.

Sad to note down also that with probability it was depression that stood behind her unfortunately early end of life. With Keith Emerson, Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington being gone just last year and succumbing to the same area of mental trouble - this is just saddening that despite the ongoing progress in medicine - the people of art can't get enough support to save their lives and deliver more fine art of theirs to the world. We're left alone to praise and miss them.

Rest in peace, Dolores, hope you're safe in the calmer dimension of the universe.

Over The Rainbow. DAVID BOWIE.

To był dziwny koniec roku. Po klipie "Blackstar" ukazał się "Lazarus", literalnie i bezpośrednio mówiący o odchodzeniu, w warstwie wizualnej wręcz wyglądajacy jak randka DB ze śmiercią... a mimo to nikt nie myślał o tym, że to zapowiedź realnych wydarzeń... Faza na Bowiego trzymała... w Sylwestra obejrzeliśmy bite 4 godziny wszystkich Jego klipów: od "Queen Bitch" do "Thursday's Child". To była jazda. Zaczął się nowy rok 2016, ukazał się nowy album 8 stycznia...

I nagle wszystko pieprznęło. Poniedziałek, 11 stycznia 2016 rano, do pracy przed piątą, jak codzień. I sms: "David Bowie nie żyje". A crack in the sky... And the hand reaching out for me...

Nie ma na to słów. I ciężko o tym zapomnieć.

Ale też nie ma co drapać ran... Każdego dnia chce się go pamiętać, ŻYWYM, witalnym i energicznym - i ten wideoklip jest do tego IDEALNY. Przykład jak po 16 latach wziąć coś własnego, co już na wejściu było genialne i zagrać to jeszcze lepiej.

I na to też nie ma słów. David Bowie. Po prostu. On jest. I tyle.