Since 32 years, I’m a fan of Mr. Bill Levise from Detroit, Michigan, also known by the artist name Mitch Ryder. It’s been since the exact same night, that Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes stepped into my life. It’s been that night on 6./7.October 1979 when this video has been recorded… and… well… most of my readers already know… my life had not been the same after that Rockpalast Show in Essen, Germany.

I’m only posting this historic video again, because there can’t be enough promotion for this great and legendary artist, tales about that legendary night in 1979, and because I just stumbled over an excellent interview with Mitch on a Palm Beach (FL) website, conducted by Lee Zimmerman.

It’s always interesting to read and understand about Mitch’s schizophrenia of having two lifes as an artist – from the perspective of a fan in Germany – one on each side of the Atlantic Ocean. While being widely recognised as an “oldies” act in the U.S. he’s managed to keep himself praised and relevant as a recording artist on the European markets, putting out records (almost) year after year…

Your longtime fans would like to know what you’ve been up to lately. It seems you’ve been pretty busy on the oldie circuit, with those “Woodstock” and “Happy Together” tours.

Well, that’s only the American side of it. I’ve got a whole other career that occurs in the winter months and eats up a lot of my time too. It’s my European career, which I have a huge catalogue over there as opposed to over here. I have 12 or 13 albums that have never been released in America, so I end up doing two-and-a-half hour shows with no intermission because I have all these songs to choose from that the people over there are familiar with. America’s very much a different kind of trick. It’s more of an oldies thing where I have to be kind of inventive until I get to the point where I can get these products to the American audience and to my fans over here. And that’s quite a trick because I’m doing it at a time when the record business over here is in turmoil. So it’s going to be hard to do. I also have an autobiography coming out in December, and I’ll be on TV promoting it, and it’s being cross-promoted with a new album produced by the Grammy Award-winning Don Was. In addition, I’m writing songs for an album I’m going to record prior to my winter tour in Europe, and I’m working on a musical which I expect to be finished by next summer.

Read the full interview…

Although I will probably never convert myself into a musical fan, my baseline is:

I understand it as a privilege, specially to Germany, to be able to host Mr. Ryder year after year after year… and I’m goin to see him… every time!

You are recommended & heartfully invited to join!

Download – MP3 – Mitch Ryder – Ain’t Nobody White

Download MP3 – A-ha – Crying In The Rain (Remastered Album Version)

20 years ago, A-ha played the Nürburgring in Germany. The most successful music export from Norway of all times. Their story started in 1985 and by the end of 2010 A-ha were still the biggest selling artists from Norway in history.

This video goes out to all and everybody who’s hearts were broken last week… in Norway and the world.

I’m still speechless.

Bob Marley was a hero figure, in the classic mythological sense. His departure from this planet came at a point when his vision of One World, One Love — inspired by his belief in Rastafari — was beginning to be heard and felt. The last Bob Marley and the Wailers tour in 1980 attracted the largest audiences at that time for any musical act in Europe.

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Bob’s story is that of an archetype, which is why it continues to have such a powerful and ever-growing resonance: it embodies political repression, metaphysical and artistic insights, gangland warfare and various periods of mystical wilderness. And his audience continues to widen: to westerners Bob’s apocalyptic truths prove inspirational and life-changing; in the Third World his impact goes much further. Not just among Jamaicans, but also the Hopi Indians of New Mexico and the Maoris of New Zealand, in Indonesia and India, and especially in those parts of West Africa from wihch slaves were plucked and taken to the New World, Bob is seen as a redeemer figure returning to lead this.

In the clear Jamaican sunlight you can pick out the component parts of which the myth of Bob Marley is comprised: the sadness, the love, the understanding, the Godgiven talent. Those are facts. And although it is sometimes said that there are no facts in Jamaica, there is one more thing of which we can be certain: Bob Marley never wrote a bad song. He left behind the most remarkable body of recorded work. “The reservoir of music he has left behind is like an encyclopedia,” says Judy Mowatt of the I-Threes. “When you need to refer to a certain situation or crisis, there will always be a Bob Marley song that will relate to it. Bob was a musical prophet.”

(Source: BobMarley.com)

Bob Marley February 6, 1945 – May 11, 1981

From Ghana and Egypt in yesterday’s posts, back to the industrialized North again – quite a journey!

As I had the topics Sweden, independent bands & Rockpalast last week… here’s another follow up – it had to be by The Hives… probably the “biggest” band out of Sweden these days.

Just one advice: Don’t play this in your car! You will either over-speed and/or crash into something solid… probably not even noticing it!

My problem is: I can hear this ONLY in my car… or, at least, in a moving environment. Impossible to sit and just relax to these sounds.

You can get yourself into the move here this summer:

18.06.2011 Hurricane Festival (Scheeßel) DE
19.06.2011 Southside Festival (Neuhausen ob Eck) DE
24.06.2011 Prag City Festival (Prag) CZ

Yesterday I featured the Sibling Rivalry again, two siblings from Asbury Park, New Jersey. Then I realized that I had siblings on the blog already on Monday with The Kinks’ Ray & Dave Davies. Now, today I continue the siblings thread with three ladies from Sweden.

Yeah… Swedish ladies. Oh I have only good experiences with ‘em… only in the most professional way, of course.

Ten years ago, on a Friday morning, I was flying out of my office in Helsingborg into a three nights rush through the clubs at the New Jersey shore and NYC, back to Helsingborg again. So there is another connection here, see! One of the best trips of my life! And don’t ask, if my Swedish boss appreciated the condition under which I appeared back at the office on Tuesday morning. I payed my dues!

Sweden as a country, besides other major contributions to the development of mankind (like being the home of the big blue box furniture giant in your neighborhood), is a musical Superpower. Even without the obvious reference to the likes of ABBA, Europe or Roxette, there have been times when more top-ten hits all over Europe were coming out of Sweden, than from any other European country. But unfortunately, an awful lot has been plastic pop and one-hit-wonders… remember Jan Harpo Torsten Svensson anyone?

Nowadays, beside the industry spotlight, the considerably small country (with a population of only 9.000.000) seems to be a powerhouse amongst Europe’s independent music scenes agian. Mando Diao, The Cardigans, The Hives, Eskobar, The Soundtrack of Our Lives, Dungen, Kent, First Aid Kit, Lykke Li, Shout Out Louds, Fever Ray, Life on Earth… are touring the world and the woods in your neighborhood. (I have to confess that I had to look up some of the band names for this post!)

Let’s kick that topic off as another small series in this little blog…:

Here we have: Greta, Stella und Sunniva Bondesson a.k.a. “Baskery”, taped at a show for WDR Rockpalast at the Harmonie in Bonn (click the link to watch the whole show), Germany. A Rockpalast editor called them “Dixie Chicks on Speed”… and I like that! The three ladies already have a history as the “Slaptones”, a group that included their dad on drums. So we certainly have no one-hit wonder with the Bondessons here!

In 2005 they were invited by Brian Setzer to support him on two major tours, one in Europe during the summer and a Christmas tour in the States. Their two albums “Simplify”, 2003, and “Amplify”, 2004, were released by EMI Sweden and their new album, “New Friends” is due to release later this spring on Blue Rose Records…

For me, Baskery are one-of-the-best-big-things coming out of Sweden. Just because they don’t want it to be just that… BIG. They just do what they love, they know how to do it, and they spread a breath taking energy when they do it. There ain’t no plastic bullshit around here. They’re real!

Bruce Springsteen once pumped up the old folk songs of Pete Seeger with a band the world has not seen before a couple of years ago. Now these ladies take their own material and walk in their own footsteps…

But I’m sure, old Pete would just love what they do!

Make sure, you’ll catch the Baskery playin’ on a summer festival near you!

Visit: Baskery – Official Website

Allright… I feel like having some noise in the house today, so what can be better as a track of the show after which I’ve got my first (official) tinnitus diagnosed. It shouldn’t have been the last… The fabulous Kinks on a bill with Rick James & Van Morrison… a night I will NEVER forget!

This is the first video of a series dedicated to the ROCKPALAST at the Grugahalle in my hometown of Essen, Germany. Without that show, my life would have went different ways.

Now, if that’s good or bad, I don’t know… but I like it!