Some Prospects for 2016!

Happy New Year to All!

Something a little different for the first post of 2016! We reached out to various bands over the last week or two and asked them: What they are looking forward to in in 2016?

This is what we got back:

Black Satellite shared that they are currently working on their our second EP, "Infinite Illusion". They plan on releasing it late in February or early March. "We can't wait for everyone to hear it." Stay tuned for their EP and our review!

Black Satellite

Jane Lee Hooker -  The big news with them is of course that they have signed with Ruf Records, which will entail a new record this year. Also tied to that I imagine are the recent gigs they added to their schedule. They got two shows at BB Kings in the coming weeks, and then another handful in upstate NY, PA and one over in Delaware! Then, I see they are hit Las Vegas in September for the Big Blues Bender! Last year JLH were busy. It appears they will more than continue that on into 2016!

Jane Lee Hooker

Mother got back to me with the announcement that they are currently heavily focused on writing some new tunes at the moment, but will be back to playing NYC in the spring. So I am looking forward to that. For those who in meantime want to check out some of their current stuff there is a sampling on Facebook. and no doubt we need to finally get them onto WildWestRadio. . . And it appears they too are also heading out to Pennsylvania in February hitting some venues around Harrisburg.

Mother

Ten Ton Mojo is right out of the gate, heading down to the Stone Pony in Asbury Park NJ for the Light of Day Winterfest Festival on January 15th, and then on January they are with Killcode and others at the Shop in Brooklyn. And that I am sure  is only the beginning. . .stay tuned for more.

Ten Ton Mojo

Which brings us to KILLCODE. So you already know they are heading to Brooklyn on January 30th for a gig at the Shop. On top of that they have recently released a new tune, the Answer, and that is what you should be checking out. More to follow no doubt.


Queen V. . . I have been a fan of hers since late 2003, when I got that Radical Records collection of NYC Bands. I remember plugging that into my CD player on my way up to the Chance in Poughkeepsie to see Bent Brother (aka Twisted Sister). It was one of their holiday shows they do now and again. Who was warming up. . . Queen V, who had just wrapped up a tour with Billy Idol. Good Girl Gone Bad still rocks. Her new EP Bridges will be coming out on February 12th! To follow that up she will be at the Rockwood Music Hall on Thursday, February 18th and promises more shows to come!

Queen V

Now we arrive at Maniac Rise. They quickly got back to me with this: "Maniac Rise will conquer the world!!" I am looking forward to it!

Maniac Rise

The next two entail a jump across the pond over to the UK. One a fairly recent entry into the scene, and the other a bit longer. . .

The Gang, which have been at it I guess since 2013, and just announced a January 2016 Tour, of course of the UK. Regardless, anyone who is in the area, I do encourage them to check them out! If you aren't in the UK, they still got a recent collection of tunes up at

Lastly, there is Mr. Bernie Torme, who with two recent CD releases, two successful Pledge Music campaigns, and numerous gigs throughout the UK happening, I ask What's Next?

Again a Happy New Year to all! The above just scratches the surface of what is coming. As DLR said so long ago. . .:"Don't be staring at your stereo, fool. . ."

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A Gillan Show - Recollections and a Reposting of the Western Front

We continue celebrating ten year of the Wild West and the Western Front. What follows was originally published back on December 12th, 2005 and focuses on some recollections of the a Gillan show from a long time ago that largely started all of this. 

Again, enjoy. . .

Gillan - featuring from left to right - Bernie Torme,
John McCoy, Ian Gillan, Colin Towns, and Mick Underwood

A continuation of the post from December 11th, exploring three shows, two from December of 1980 and the other happening on December 14 (2005) at Don Hills in New York.

This post looks at the show that took place on December 12th 1980. A show that took place at Emerald City in Cherry Hill NJ, right across from Philadelphia. The band was Gillan.

And if you don't have the patience to read all of this, just go to the music. . .Click here to check out a sample of the actual December 12th 1980 Gillan Show! (Sorry no longer available.)

Nothing like the crowd that Thin Lizzy brought in. A week ago we were part of crowd of 500. There was no room to move and we felt the surge of the crowd when Lizzy took the stage. The 12th was a cold and icy night, with maybe 100 people there, maybe. In place of the punk band we had a reggae band warming up. No hint from anywhere of what we were going to see, just a few more Michelobs as we waited.

We knew little of the material. There was no Gillan being played on the radio, and this was before MTV, much less the Headbangers Ball or anything else. A few songs were recognized during the set - Smoke on the Water, Lucille, and maybe Trouble. The rest were new to the small crowd.

Gillan was front and center, wild long hair, which he loved to whip around in between verses, but always a gentleman in between songs complete with a bit of English wit. And then you had the band-not your typical band. You had Colin Towns on keyboard. He seemed to be the musical leader, the conductor of the night’s festivities. Mick Underwood on the drums, a solid drummer.

The other two, however, were the more interesting, maybe a dash of menace, . First off, there was John McCoy, the bass player. He was and is a big man, with a shaved smooth head and a beard. Remember it was 1980 and aside from the drummer in Spirit, I can’t name many performers sporting that look back then. Maybe he had some shades on too.

Lastly, there was Bernie Torme, the guitar player in this long gray suit jacket. At least I think he was in that outfit. Many of the photos of him from that vintage have him in such a jacket and I think I recall it on him. Bernie himself has referenced it as something out of Dickens. He did definitely did have your shoulder length peroxide blond hair and his Stratocaster guitar. Keep in mind that everyone who came was thinking Deep Purple and all knew that Ritchie Blackmore was a player of such guitars. So the Strat was required, but by the end of the night I had forgotten such requirements.

The music was heavier than Deep Purple but with these melodic preludes. You had Towns’ keyboards, primarily piano and synthesizer, that would often start out the tunes, providing these musical interludes, and then the band would tear into high gear with these pounding rhythms provided by McCoy and Underwood. So you had the tension of those two extremes, and then Bernie with his Strat, which would compete with Town’s keyboards for the solos. But the thing that intrigued me was how he made up for the shared solo time with these amazing whammy bar fills all over the place. I have yet to see anyone abuse a Strat and its whammy bar like him, nor get the sounds out of it that he did. And on top of all this chaos you had Gillan with his amazing vibrato, He is one of the few singers in rock to use vibrato. And to turn to another show for a second, you will never hear Ozzy use vibrato in those opening verses of War Pigs! So Gillan could go from this flowery vibrato in his voice at times to his infamous screams. Gillan the singer and Gillan the band were all over the place!

Now you take this music and this band and you have them performing it on one stage - it was an amazing scene. You had Gillan front and center who would go from a little quiet conversation with the audience in between songs to screaming and truly just headbanging up there, to John McCoy who was working his bass and just had a certain sinister look, and Bernie, who was just wild with the peroxide blonde hair, the jacket, and the constant abuse of his Strat.

So that is what I recall. You have to figure, I have been hyping Mr. Torme for the past three years so who knows what is actually real. I am pretty sure that the above is accurate but it has been 25 years. Luckily, I was given awhile back a recording of this Gillan show at Emerald City, so no need to rely upon my fading memory. Check out the MP3 of Smoke on the Water complete with Bernie doing a lovely little intro right here - Click here to check it out! (Again not working. . .). Regarding the recording, it turns out that one of the folks next to me had smuggled a cassette recorder in and and recorded the show. Enjoy and we still have one more show to cover-that is happening on Wednesday, December 14 2005.

A little about how this came about. . . I was at dinner talking about how I came to this obsession with all of this, so I figured, let me put it down on paper. Also it is offered as I do wish that Bernie Torme was included on Ian Gillan's New CD set celebrating his solo work, which Mr. Torme did not contribute to.

Next-the third of the three shows. . .To be continued. . .

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Ten Wishes for my Birthday. . . lol

A birthday recently passed and did the usual things - a dinner or two. Checked out two shows featuring some of my favorite acts. In short an enjoyable week.

As is often the case with a birthday, I have found myself pondering those things I would love to get but just will not happen.

If nothing else, I can list them here. All relate to in some fashion to music and rock & roll. . .

1. The need for more green. . olive green rock tee-shirts. Brown and red tee-shirts are good too. I am tired of black rock tee-shirts. Honestly, it is rare i find a shirt I really like.

2. The recent recordings/ album of the now defunct Glorious Revolution.

3. In that same vein I imagine a joint effort featuring Karen Curious on vocals and Bernie Torme doing the guitar on Karen's tune, Rising Sun.

4. A venue up in White Plains, the size of the Vintage, perhaps not as nicely furnished but with a nice big bar, a good kitchen and a solid stage, and sound and light system.

5. An investment fund that would allow for such a place and the money to properly advertise and promote the shows in it. It simply takes money to make money.

6. Ideally a group of investors who could stand behind such a venue, and the artists and musicians performing there.

7. A road trip down to Florida to catch up with a buddy and check out LA Guns, who are playing down there soon enough.

8. Another trip over to the UK to check out a 2nd Bernie Torme show. Especially considering that he will be out on tour this fall supporting his new CD, Flowers and Dirt.

9. An iPhone that can load all my music. Got another year on my contract. . .

10. Dinner with my wife Joanna and son Philip, who also has a birthday happening soon enough. Oh wait, this one is no longer a wish. . . dined with them tonight at the Lucky Buddha.

The list could go on but some of these truly are doable. They may not be given to me on a silver platter, but that makes them more desirable.  Time will tell. In some respects they are pretty boring. . . but I figured I would not get into Dana Danger and the like, etc. . .

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Five Years and a Look Back at How It Started!

It has been five years of the Wild West and more recently the Feast Of Noise. In those five years we have put together a range of shows in Westchester, developed a presence on the web and simply seen and heard some pretty cool rock and roll music and bands. It all started, however, with the intention of making one particular show or set of shows happen. The Wild West started with the idea of bringing from England one amazing guitarist that I had seen play 22 years before. The guitarist was Bernie Torme.

I had seen Bernie play with Ian Gillan of Deep Purple fame back in December of 1980. In February of 2003 I had found Bernie’s CD, White Trash Guitar over at Vintage Vinyl. I had not thought much about the man and his music in some time, but it was very cool to find a recent CD. and it was not long before I was checking the web to see if he was online. And he was!

Anyway, I found a very cool site, www.bernietorme.com , which he developed and still maintains. (He is redoing it right now but it is still there!) It is a site that is rich in stories, recollections, opinions, pictures and music. Not only had I found that he is still alive and well but that he had in the last twenty years a pretty amazing and productive career.

Now the CD I had found had a little postcard, which was mainly to join a mailing list. Somehow, in my mind, I had twisted it to the idea that I could offer my services to bring the man over to the US for a tour, which had never happened. Bernie had toured with Gillan, had become Ozzy’s guitarist on the Diary of a Madman Tour after Randy’s tragic accident, and worked with Dee Snider in Long Island for a year or so on what was to have been Desperado but he never did a proper solo tour of the US despite his two solo bands; the Electric Gypsies and Torme.

So long and short, with finding him online and having this silly idea in my head that I could help him do a tour that he should have done back in 1986; I wrote him an email. I figured, what the hell, I will send it and see what happens. Probably nothing, but one never knows.

Two or three days later, he wrote me back!. The man wrote me back! Wow! How cool is that! The wife says I was already star struck. If I was not before the note, I probably was after it. I now had an a very nice note from him. It touched on some of the history and in the end saying he would, if I was serious, take me up on my offer of putting a tour together. Well, for the next four years, up until early 2007 I did try to bring him over to the US. It never happened.

Today Bernie Torme has an amazing new band, GMT, which has a bit of success in the UK and is now signed with Coallier Entertainment, located in NY. So I hope that if anybody can bring him over here, it would be Danny Stanton and his mates. Meanwhile, I will continue to tinker with a show here and there in the wilds of Westchester.

Five years later and as you can see I still think that correspondence between myself and Bernie Torme is or was amazing, And the years and experiences that followed it have been some of the best! Looking back at what transpired I only hope to continue what we are doing! Perhaps no US Torme tour but along the way we have and will continue to explore a bunch of other stuff!

Regarding this note today; this note on how and where the Wild West and the Feast of Noise began; we end this note with Bernie Torme’s email response to me, and finally my original note to him. We end it, where it all began.


**************************************************

From: Retrowrek/ Bernie Torme
Subject: Re: Hello. . .
Date: March 24, 2003 6:56:16 AM EST
To: Bob Schaffer

Hi Bob,

man if you saw the Gillan US tour, you really are one of the few!

Post Ozzy i never made over to play in the US, though I lived on and off in Long Island and Woodstock for over a year when I was working with Dee, he just would not gig. No unannouced things or try outs or anything, other than one club in Birmingham in england, which was really good. Real shame. So when the record company hung us out to dry we had nothing at all to fall back on other than reputation, which does not really carry you too far..

The long and short of it is that i tried to sort out some gigs around New York two or three years ago, but it was just too logistically difficult from here: and frankly what i do was not too fashionable at that point. i do not at this stage have any connections worth anything on a practical gigging level, everyone I know is doing rarified stuff at quite a high up level or has left the business entirely.

I'd love to get to do some gigs over your way, i get a lot of requests from punter/people in the US, i suppose the only problem is some of them are in NY some in LA, some around Chicago, Ohio, Texas, you name it, thinly spread! So each gig might have about 5-10 very keen fans and bugger all else!

So i am quite open to your idea, but it might be very difficult to pull off realistically. But if you are up for having a go, please let me know if i can assist in any way at all. I'd love to do it.

bernie
--
http://www.retrowrek.com
http://www.barnroom.co.uk
http://www.vtshopping.co.uk
http://www.bernietorme.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bernie-torme

***************************************************

From: xxxxxxx@xxxx.com
Subject: Hello. . .
Date: March 22, 2003 3:42:27 AM EST
To: xxxxx@xxxxx.xxx

Bernie,

I remember you from a concert outside of Philadelphia way back in December of 1980. Was a cold and icy night. You were playing with Gillan back then. I was a youngster, and snuck in the club which I have to sadly say was pretty dead. No one really knew what Gillan was about. But I remember you, your Strat, and your tremolo noises and effects!, Also recall McCoy, and Colin Towns (?) I think - on the keyboard and of course Gillan singing. . .Anyway, now history.

When Randy tragically died on that plane, I knew you would be Ozzy's man. I was bummed when you left the tour. My buddy saw you, and i was pissed! I had tickets for a show the week after you left. All I remember is wondering who the fuck was Brad Gillis. .

Then I found Torme and the Electric Gypsies. . .at least the vinyl. But you never, as far as I know, ever made it over here for a tour - not even New York. I did not know that you were in Desperado. . . shame on me! Anyway, it is a new century, and now that I know you are still making music, any chance you will come over to New York?

What would it take? why not make a leisurely trip to the states? Be a nice trip down memory lane for me and just freshen things up around here period! I will even go so far as to make you an offer. . .I have no idea whether you have any connections here, I am sure you do. . . but if you want a fool to give a crack at finding a few venues for you. . .doing the legwork for a small tour. . . call it what you will - let me know.

Who am I? Today I am a middle class working stiff living outside New York city. Little working cash, but intrigued with the idea of putting together such an event. I was way back in the mid eighties doing lame covers of Thin Lizzy and UFO, I was the singer and manager. .did a few shows. . kind of.

Anyway, if you are curious, write me back. If nothing else, please put me on your mailing list and give me a reason to find my way back to L'Amours over in Brooklyn. Hope all is well!

Bob Schaffer
xxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxx.com
914-xxx-xxxx

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