Witch Cross at CHAOS DESCENDS!

A lot of travelling, and a nightmare to get to my hotel in Berlin after flying in from Madrid on the Friday evening…but hooked up with guitarist Mike Koch the next morning, and we drove down to meet up with the rest of the band in Crispendorf, in the heart of the Thuringen countryside. The setting for the inaugural CHAOS DESCENDS festival was an old East German holiday camp, weird, spooky, and complete with a miniature train, it was absolutely perfect!

Well attended and with an eclectic line-up that ranged from doom, death and black metal through Sabbath/Prog inspired U.S. metallers Danava, and the innovative and hypnotic Swans, there was even room for good old-fashioned early 80’s Danish Metal!

The crowd were amazing to us, singing along to the songs from ‘Fit for Fight’, and we are starting to notice that they are becoming familiar with the newer stuff from ‘Axe to Grind’ too, which is particularly satisfying.

I’ll be doing a follow-up piece on the festival with more pics soon.

Our next shows see us in Denmark and Sweden in September, and we now start to coalesce ideas for the third album.

Kev Moore

WITCH CROSS

Witch Cross return to rock Germany!

Totally stoked about our upcoming appearance at the CHAOS DESCENDS Festival, which takes place at Ferienland CRISPENDORF between 16-18 July.

We’ll be hitting the stage at 19.50 on Saturday 18th, just before SWANS, who I’m looking forward to checking out.

WITCH CROSS will be making a few more live appearances this year, so keep an eye out on these pages for more news!

Kev Moore

WITCH CROSS

CD round-up: Music I grabbed at Leyendas del Rock this summer!

I’ve been meaning to do a short piece about this for ages, but time seemed to slip away, and the Leyendas festival is all but a distant memory. However, the three albums I bought while wandering the stalls on the perimeter are still all getting plenty of play here at Moore Music towers. I wanted to share them with you. Firstly, we have a lovingly packaged Sentenced album, in a nicely illustrated cardboard slipcase, containing not one but two of their albums on one CD. Hailing from Finland, theirs is a tale that ultimately ended in a tragedy. They began as a melodic death metal outfit, morphing more into heavy metal later on.  The band hold some interest for me for many reasons, one of which is the fact that I spent a month in their hometown of Oulu many years ago, while touring with a band up around the Arctic circle. The main album on here, ‘Amok’, recorded in ’95, is widely considered to be their breakthrough album, and it is paired here with ‘Love & Death’, which features songs recorded around the same time as Amok, and a curious cover of Billy Idol’s ‘White Wedding’. Probably because the songs were all recorded around the same time, the two albums go well together here, and the band’s musicality is well to the fore – it’s a great listen.

The band finally split in 2005 and a mere four years later, Guitarist and founding member Miika Tenkula died, on February 19, 2009. He apparently had succumbed to a genetic heart condition. As a footnote, some months after Miika’s death, Sentenced released a box set of 16 CDs and 2 DVDs chronicling their entire career in a coffin-shaped box. The box-set also included rare and previously unreleased tracks.

Next on the list was Savage Souls from German band Mystic Prophecy. This version came as a ‘book’ CD – the album being in the front, and a bonus DVD in the back, featuring a live appearance at The Matrix in Bochum. The DVD’s a nice bonus, but it’s the studio album that really shines. formed in Bad Gronenbach in 2000, this release dates from 2006. they seem to have a lot of personnel changes, but the vocals and guitar work on this album are great. They’re like a cross between U.S. and European power metal. A nice surprise, this.

Finally, I had to invest in Accept’s latest release ‘Stalingrad’ after they delivered a blistering set at Leyendas. I really like Marc Tornillo’s vocals , shades of Brian Johnson- and a great fit for the band. Produced by Andy Sneap, Stalingrad is an album that shows a band still at the top of their game. There’s so many standout tracks on here. Not only that, i picked up the special edition, which includes a live DVD featuring performances from Bang your Head and Monsters of rock festivals in 2011 and 2010 respectively , and the music videos for ‘Teutonic Terror’ (one of my favourite Accept tracks) and the (dare I say, infectious?) ‘Pandemic’.

So, three beauties, and a great festival to boot!

Kev Moore

Triple Whammy – On the road with B.C.Sweet, Witch Cross & Christie

It’s that time of year…and I’m about to embark on a whirlwind of gigs for three of the bands I play with, all in the space of a few weeks!  Firstly, I’ll be driving along the southern coast of Spain next Thursday to Torremolinos to perform with B.C. Sweet as part of a 70’s week there.

Witch Cross @Heavy Metal Maniacs, Holland

Then, some days later, via the UK, it’s the turn of Witch Cross, as Mike and I fly to Copenhagen for rehearsals and a show in the band’s spiritual home of Hillerød to launch the new album Axe to Grind. The day after, we perform in Sweden. I fly home for a few days, then its back to the UK to appear with Christie at the JFest in Leeds on June 6th!

Christie in Germany

Never let it be said that the life of a musician is dull!  See you all out there on the road somewhere!

Kev Moore

Aghast in Wolgast! – Travels in Eastern Germany

“I get around” , sang some Beach Boy or other back in the day, and that’s something I can relate too. This weekend was…..interesting.  One of my bands, Bootleg Counterfeit Sweet (formerly BC Sweet) was back in Germany for the first time in a long while, and me and the guys were looking forward to it.
Our first clue that things might not run smoothly reared its head some weeks back, when we discovered the show was being advertised under our old name of BC Sweet, a moniker which, due to our refusal to line the pockets of any more lawyers is now put to bed. The new name reflects, if nothing else, some heavy irony….but that’s a whole other lawsuit….er, story.

Anyway, we got in touch with them expressing our dismay, and implied that we would pull the show if we weren’t advertised correctly. We specifically make clear in all contracts how we should be billed. There’s simply nothing more you can do in these situations.  Well, everything seemed to calm down, so come Friday, I dutifully arose at the crack of dawn, dawn in this particular instance going by the name of 7.30 am, and made the two and a half hour drive to Alicante to get my flight to Berlin.  I arrived in good time, strolling into the Airport at 11.30, my flight due to leave at 1pm.  I scanned the departure screens….to no avail. No flight was advertised for Berlin anywhere near the appointed time.  As luck would have it, the AirBerlin information desk was situated adjacent to this, your humble and now visibly palpitating writer. The lady manning the desk braced herself to receive the full force of “Kev in Panic Mode”, as I stammered something to the effect of “w-w-w-wwhere’s my flight? – it’s disappeared!”

Motioning for me to produce my booking reference, her fingers danced across the computer keyboard while mine drummed out paradiddles of pensiveness in concert with her on the counter. With a flourish, our performance drew to a close, she fixed me with a gaze of undeniable finality and delivered three announcements that might as well have been bullets:

“The Berlin flight was changed. You should have been informed. It left at 11 o’clock. “

I had barely time to ingest and process this triad of bombshells before she surged on, relentless:

“And not only that. Your return flight on Sunday has changed also.”

It transpired that I would land in Alicante a full three and a quarter hours earlier on the Sunday than I first thought, being routed via Palma instead of Dusseldorf. “Oh well, every cloud” I thought, temporarily oblivious to the fact that I had yet to find a way to leave Spain, never mind return.

My AirBerlin saviour’s fingers were already dancing again, however, and her face was a picture as it ran the gamut of expressions, through hope, expectancy, frustration, despair, and so on ad infinitum. She helpfully provided a running commentary to accompany her admittedly riveting gurning.

“Ah, so…ve can take you via Palma….ach nein! es ist voll….there is even no Air Berlin personnel we can remove for you…”

It suddenly dawned on me as she meandered through cyberspace looking for empty seats, that they didn’t actually have to do a damned thing. It was pretty clear that air berlin had almost certainly sent an email to the promoter informing him of the flight changes. They had clearly assumed it was just a confirmation of what they already knew. Except it wasn’t. Thirty odd years of international travel in bands has taught me that, if there is a possibility for something to cock up, then cock up it most assuredly will. And here was Miss Air Berlin, quite prepared to give her fellow workers the heave-ho off a flight in order to get me to me destination. “As long as it’s not the pilot, I suddenly thought, worriedly….”

Finally, and almost apologetically, she announced:

“Well, I can put you on a flight to Munich that leaves at 2.30 pm, but your connection to Berlin means you won’t arrive at your destination until 8pm.”

My original, and now patently useless itinerary had me setting foot on Berlin soil around 4pm, but fortuitously, I assured her, my colleagues in the band were arriving from England around 8pm also, and so that would be just dandy, vielen danke!   Well, her little face lit up and she went on to tell me that she had also arranged for my passage home via Palma on the Sunday.  So, Palma Sunday coming a little later than Easter for me this year. Not only that, I had the VIP lane option upon arriving in Munich, to smooth things along, so to speak.  Just for the record: Air Berlin rocks!

Now, prior to boarding anything, I made several calls. One to the carpark, so they knew to get me at 4 on Sunday and not 7, and one to Marc, our bandleader, to inform him of my rescheduling. He gave me my driver’s number, and I texted him to tell him of my new arrival time. So I landed in Berlin fully confident our problems were behind us……

‘My’ driver, Karsten, turned out to be ‘Our’ driver, as I quickly discovered,  following collecting me in what looked suspiciously like a builder’s van, as we made our way across Berlin from Tegel (my airport) to Schoenefeld (their airport).  Karsten informed me that we had ‘about 300 kilometers to drive to Wolgast.”  This of course set me thinking. What if I’d arrived at 4pm? It occurred to me that I would have been kicking my heels for 4 hours waiting for the others to arrive anyway.

Anyway, the lads were patiently waiting in the cafe, and we all piled back in the builder’s van and hit the Autobahn, driving into what used to be East Germany. By that I mean, it’s no longer East Germany, the country, but it exhibits many of its communist traits, such as no amenities. Some time into the journey, we asked Karsten if we might stop at a motorway services to grab a snack and a coffee.

“Why yes!” he said jovially, “In fact it is the ONLY service station between here and Wolgast, we are in the East now!”

Well, we all had a jolly good laugh about that, as I availed myself of a curiously Franco-Prussian snack that appeared to be a perfectly serviceable croissant that had been raped by a bratwurst.

It can only have been another 20 kilometers or so down the road when Teutonic mutterings started emanating from Karsten’s mouth, accompanied by the occasional worried glance at the fuel gauge.  After several unsuccessful attempts to engage him in conversation, and a further 20 or 30 kilometers, he finally volunteered some rather startling information. We were running out of fuel.

General weariness and a desire to get to bed prompted me to announce: “If we run out of fuel, you will be getting us a hotel or a taxi, whichever comes first. I’m not up for freezing our nuts off in subzero temperatures for the night waiting for some bloody farmer to turn up in the morning.” We exited the dark and empty motorway at the next available opportunity, which delivered us into some dark and empty farmland.  The one town we did find was pretty much empty. Karsten ventured that this was probably due to the gang fight there the previous evening which had resulted in multiple arrests. Evidently they must have arrested the proprietor of the local petrol station, because it was closed.

However, there was a group of  rather lost looking individuals gathered around under the ailing neon lights on the forecourt. God knows why. If this is what passes for a party around here, then they need to legalize drugs. Somehow Karsten managed to convince one of them to get into his car, and we followed him into the night, across some disused railway tracks, down a potholed lane into the middle of nowhere….and there, in exactly the middle of nowhere, was a single, solitary petrol pump with an automat.  Never let it be said that the Germans have no sense of humour.

Is it a Hotel? No, it’s Wolgast’s premier Rock venue!

When we finally reached Wolgast (it was now the following day) the need to tarmac the roads seemed to desert them, and our last 500 yards were so rough it would have been ruled out as a suitable site for a moon landing. Nevertheless, we had arrived at our hotel, and, apparently, our gig. For there in the compact and bijou bar area was a small stage with a backline that made a Sony walkman look impressive.  We were given schnitzels, lots of them, as the reality of the situation began to sink in..it wasn’t long before I decided I was better off in bed.

The next morning, I headed downstairs to check it wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t. There were the tiny amps, staring at me balefully, as if daring me to defile them with a power chord.  I defiled the cornflakes instead, along with a few other comestibles as we had the slightly surreal experience of eating our breakfast in front of the stage we were to be performing on later that evening. I thought it wise to eat all the bread rolls, in case anyone wanted to start throwing them later.

Looking around the vestibule, I noticed a small poster advertising the show which looked familiar to me, but for a strange reason. It featured a piece of artwork by my partner Miki, of our band. (See top of article) Now, we don’t use this piece of art in our publicity, and it’s not supposed to be reproduced by anyone without permission, (she wasn’t even credited on the poster!) but that didn’t seem to bother our mate the promoter, who’d also used the old BC Sweet logo against our express wishes. (I’ve changed it on here) To compound matters, I saw at least one more poster about the size of a small bus on the outskirts of town too. So, clearly some fell on stoney ground then….

That afternoon, Mike, Marc, Pete and myself convened in the gig/breakfast room to run through a couple of songs and see if we could get some kind of sound out of the equipment. After an hour or so we had a passable sound, given the limitations, and we declared ourselves able to gig.

“Compact and bijou….”

Cut to 8pm, and a room full of eager German punters, as the strains of John Carpenter’s “Halloween” theme fade and Pete counts us into ‘Action’. The mics aren’t working. At all.  The first verse grinds to a halt and instead of greeting the audience, at only a minute into the show, I’m apologizing to them.  Marc disappears offstage to consult with whoever is looking at the mixer like it’s an alien, and Mike, Pete and myself entertain the crowd with an impromptu 3 piece blues jam that lasts 5 minutes but feels like a lifetime.

We start again. And an entertaining game of ‘musical mics’ begins as, during a second attempt at ‘Action’, Marc, Mike and I juggle the mics around between us to see if any actually work. They don’t, and a smell of burning wiring signals the end of this particular attempt to entertain the Germans. The mixer has exploded. Detleff, the guy who brought us over in the first place, is looking seriously harried, as well he might.  Trying to get away with using ‘My mum’s PA system’ for a grown-up rock band is always going to leave you in a heap of scheisse.

Nevertheless, against all the odds, he disappeared into the night and returned with a replacement. I have no idea where he got it, or how. There’s probably a dead sound engineer lying in a ditch somewhere near the Polish border. Take three, and off we go! It’s still bloody awful, but the crowd, sensing we’re really up against it, seem to take to these four idiotic blokes who don’t know when they’re beaten. At one point, I moved away from the mic, and screamed the vocal at the audience, complete with expletives, just to get it out of my system. They loved it. They like a good shout, the Germans. Against all the odds, the evening was success. The meal we were expecting following the gig, less so.  It took us half an hour to locate it. Apparently it had been waiting on a kitchen table in a hidden room somewhere and consisted on schnitzel, in a bun.  It seems that, around these parts, the answer is schnitzel, regardless of the question.

The town of Wolgast. Huge Concert P.A. system not shown…..

Now, I was the only one who could remotely string a German sentence together, so I was charged with the task of making sure the promoter knew that I had to be on the road at 7am in the morning, other wise I would miss my rescheduled flight.  This proved confusing, when another guy called George, who I’d never seen before, and who was pissed, insisted he was driving me to Berlin in the morning. Thankfully, before I retired to my room for a bit of kip, it was established that, for reasons best known to himself, this was a lie.

“…You didn’t let the dog in free, did ya?”

The next morning, as the clock struck 7 am exactly, Detleff and I were sat in the drive thru lane at the local McDonalds waiting for the shutters to open. He treated me to an Egg McMuffin, and we hit the road. how the other half live, eh?

Kev Moore

It’s not often I get to Offenbach, but…..

(pic:courtesy OP-online.de)

…this weekend saw CHRISTIE re-convene alongside The Manfreds and The Searchers at The Beat Beat Beat Festival in Offenbach, near Frankfurt.

My own journey began in Turre, Southern Spain, and involved negotiating an Autovia that had collapsed in two places due to the catastrophic floods of the previous week in order to get to Alicante airport, where I took a flight first to Palma, Majorca, and kicked my heels for a couple of hours before I was Frankfurt bound.

Upon arrival, I received a message from Jeff. “There’s a bad road accident that’s prevented your driver from picking you up – get a taxi!”  almost without breaking stride, I swiped my bag from the carousel. slung my bass over my shoulder and walked outside to hail one.

I was soon heading out of Frankfurt towards Offenbach and the driver, with instructions to take me to the Stadthalle, turned and asked me what street it was on….I mean, it’s the Stadthalle!  It’s big, there are signs! How hard could it be? Thankfully when we arrived in the town, he decided to ask a taxi-driver (go figure) and we arrived safely.

I’d already missed the sound check, Jeff, Fos and Simon having arrived from the UK on an earlier flight, and Jeff was already back at the hotel. But the fun didn’t stop there….Rolf, the promoter came rushing in to say that the opening act, Racey, apparently had ‘the wrong sort of keyboard’, and a search was underway to find one. Meanwhile, could Christie open the show, around an hour and twenty minutes ahead of schedule?

“Oooh…” I said, “You’ll have to ask Jeff about that. ” I dialled him up and handed my phone to Rolf. With masterful Germanic efficiency and directness he said “Hi Jeff, it’s Rolf, you have to go on now”

Photo © hr1/Norbert Klöppel

Cue action stations, and as Jeff was whisked back to the gig in short order, we got ready, the ink barely dry on my boarding card, and hit the stage. The crowd were superb, behind us from the first number, and we locked into a groove we’ve been honing together for nigh-on 25 years.

After the show, we were hustled out into the meet n greet where we were signing everything under the sun, Jeff’s new album ‘No Turn Unstoned’ and my solo CD, Blue Odyssey, and amazing books published by Christie fans, with fantastic articles, photos, and scans of record labels of the entire discography in them, true labours of love.

© hr1/Norbert Klöppel

A nice dinner courtesy of backstage catering followed, where I was introduced to the delights of the ‘mini-cheeseburger’.  Not sure what the idea behind that is, except perhaps that you can get a few in your mouth in one go. Then it was time to catch some of the Manfreds show from the side of the stage.  What an amazing catalogue of hits they have to draw upon, and with not one but TWO original vocalists upfront, in the shape of Mike D’Abo and Paul Jones, the audience were treated to those classic songs as they were meant to sound. A word about Tom McGuiness, who should have been there but was injured in a fall the day before and couldn’t make it. Get well soon, Tom!  If you also factor in Mike Hugg, and legendary Family drummer Rob Townsend, ably aided and abetted by Marcus Cliffe and Simon Currie, you have some talent up there on that stage. Rob in particular, has played on three of my favourite songs of all time:
“In my own Time”, “Burlesque”, and “My friend the Sun”.  Days like this, you gotta love going to work!

We had a great time back at the hotel bar following the show, reminiscent of the multiple-bill shows we did back in the 90’s in Germany, and met up with some of our loyal fan base again as has become the custom on our German trips.

© hr1/Norbert Klöppel

A leisurely Sunday breakfast followed, where Mike D’Abo shared his secret of black coffee with honey, though the search for the latter proved fruitless… I said my goodbyes to Jeff, Simon and Fos and headed home to Spain. That’s another one under the belt!

Kev Moore

Bootleg Counterfeit Sweet in Gummersbach, Germany

This weekend saw us take the newly-re-christened Bootleg Counterfeit Sweet (a.k.a BC Sweet) out to Germany for the first time since our ‘re-birth’.

We played the Sparkassen sponsored open air event in the Lindenplatz, Gummersbach, a lovely town about 100k out of Dusseldorf. Don’t ask me which direction – I was asleep in the limo!  Our hosts were superb, looking after us exceptionally well, and it was nice to work with Ian McReadie’s Middle of the Road for the first time.  the crowd, as usual in Germany were fantastic, and we had a ball. Unfortunately, I was taken in the following morning, so lucky that I had a 3.30pm check out of the hotel!

A big thanks to Wulf and Michow concerts and the stage techs for making everything run very smoothly indeed.Here’s a few shots from the show, courtesy of Oberberg Aktuell

Kev Moore

More from Keep it True – On the Road with Witch Cross!

Here’s our little promo from the Keep it True Festival – if it looks like we were having a good time, it’s highly likely that we were!

For more Witch Cross, go HERE

Kev Moore

Witch Cross – STILL Fit for Fighting!

Witch Cross 2012 pose in Copenhagen with original singer Alex Nyborg Madsen:

L-R: AC, Kev, Mike, Alex, Poul, Jan

Well, I’m back home under the Spanish sun after an epic journey home, via van, train, bus, plane and car, absolutely shattered but overjoyed at the success of the Witch Cross gig at KEEP IT TRUE in Lauda Konigshofen, Southern Germany. Following a days rehearsal in Copenhagen , we hit the road and drove for what must have been about fourteen hours down to the hotel, just some minutes from the festival site. After rehearsals with the band, Anders the drummer very kindly put me up for the night in his lovely home, and breakfast time saw me rocking with his young son, Christian!

The rehearsals went very smoothly, and it was fantastic to hook up finally with Jan, Anders and Poul, and a delight to meet the original singer Alex, who was very gracious and is very supportive of what we’re doing, not to mention being a great photographer – he captured us in full flow as we ran the Witch cross songs for the first time in many, many years:

All rehearsal photos by Alex Nyborg Madsen

It was truly a pleasure working with these great guys and I can’t wait for the next one, which is  the METAL MAGIC festival in Copenhagen which runs over 4 days in July 11-12-13-14. I think we’re on July 13th – more info as I get it.

The long journey through Germany was relieved by several breaks, including the all-important Schnitzel stop!

Another bonus was meeting Lips and Robb from Anvil – sat in the German sunshine listening to Rob’s recollections of life before and after THAT movie was an education, and great fun!

Much, much more to come from the land of Witch Cross – watch this space!!!

Kev Moore

Witch Cross – A new beginning

In 1984 , Danish metal band released their one and only album: ‘Fit for Fight’.  – A Raucous clarion call of Scandinavian rock, laden with sorcery, sci-fi and scintillating guitars in equal measure, the songs all delivered with the heavy metal roar of vocalist Alex Savage.

Fast forward a mind-numbing 28 years later , and that album has become a cult metal classic.  Alex has become a Danish TV presenter and original guitarist Mike ‘Vlad’ Koch is working with yours truly, Kev Moore.

Following American record company Hell’s Headbangers decision to remix, re-release and repackage the entire Witch Cross catalogue, including the original album, first single, demos and unreleased works in a beautifully rendered  4 LP multicoloured vinyl box set, Mike decided to resurrect the band, including two original members, Anders ‘AC’ Hjort on Drums, and Jan ‘Little John’ Fields on bass. Also drafted in on axe duties is Torben Aalykke, a reknowned Danish guitarist who has been working for many years with the original singer, and finally myself on lead vocals.

L-R: Anders, Torben, Mike, Jan, Kev

On April 27th, at the Keep it True festival in Germany, Witch Cross will take to the stage again, and far from trading on past glories, myself and Mike have begun work on new Witch Cross material, one of which will serve as a taster of things to come in the live set.

The new Witchcross website is now up and running. Expect additions and expansions on it in the coming months.

I’m really pumped about this project and can’t wait to crank it up!

Kev Moore