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OCTOBER 2019 |
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**Wed 23 Oct 19** Check out video ad for the new complete edition of "Diableries Stereoscopic Adventues in Hell". After a worldwide quest Brian May, Denis Pellerin & Paula Fleming's Complete Edition of DIABLERIES: Stereoscopic Adventures in Hell is so nearly here ....and just in time for Halloween!
BRIAN MAY "DIABLERIES: Stereoscopic Adventures in Hell" Ext- https://youtu.be/CXrXuc1YC9o PLEASE JOIN US on: | |||||
**Sat 19 Oct 19** On 19 October David J Eicher posted on Twitter:
Summary: Amazing 3-D images take readers inside the birth and death of stars. PLEASE JOIN US on: | |||||
**Fri 18 Oct 19** Watch Carmine Appice's 'Nobody Knew' Video Featuring Brian May: Premiere Guitar Zeus - Nobody Knew (feat. Brian May) - https://youtu.be/0Ke1UciIprs Queen's Brian May was one of the first guitarists to commit to the project, lending his skills to “Nobody Knew,” a song that was first released in 1995.
"Guitar Zeus" album - just reissued...
ULTIMATE CLASSIC ROCK The seeds of Carmine Appice’s Guitar Zeus album date back to the early ‘90s, when the legendary drummer -- known for his work with Vanilla Fudge, Rod Stewart, Jeff Beck and others --was plotting his next move. He saw how easily some of his guitar-player friends were getting solo record deals and mused that perhaps he should have played guitar instead. That triggered the idea that he'd make a guitar-based album and invite his friends to play on it. Guitar Gods was one name he jokingly thought of for the project before he thought maybe he'd call it Guitar Zeus. “I went to bed that night, and when you’re laying in bed, your mind starts churning,” Appice tells UCR. “I started thinking, ‘Man, that’s a really good idea!’ So I said, ‘Okay, I’m going to see if I can facilitate this.’” Queen's Brian May was one of the first guitarists to commit to the project, lending his skills to “Nobody Knew,” a song that was first released in 1995. The track also features Appice and his bandmates, bassist Tony Franklin and singer Kelly Keeling. “Generally, I know if I have a contribution to make at the first listening, either I hear it or I don’t," May recalls. "And I immediately thought, ‘Yeah, I can do this,' and I heard something in my head. The skeleton of the song was there, the rhythm track. I played to it in my studio, while talking on the phone with Carmine.” Fans of May’s distinctive tone will notice a different side of his playing on “Nobody Knew,” which is darker and grittier than usual. “He gave me two solos originally when he did the song," Appice recalls. "One was straight and one was with a wah-wah [pedal]. I said, ‘You know what? I’ve never heard him solo with a wah-wah.’ So I picked that wah-wah solo. I saw him play recently and he played some wah-wah stuff when he did his solo stuff by himself, but in the songs, I’d never heard him play a wah-wah song with Queen. I thought the wah-wah was so unique for him, so I put that version on.” The video for “Nobody Knew” is also distinctive, borrowing inspiration from the cartoon feel of A-ha’s classic “Take on Me” clip and a less-complicated version of the Rotoshop process director Richard Linklatter used in the movie A Scanner Darkly. Appice and his band took a DIY approach, filming their individual performances for the video using iPhones. The drummer worked with video editor Robert Neilson of Wired-Digital, who helped him bring his concepts to life. May also appears in the video for “Nobody Knew." They initially shot the guitar legend playing onstage at a Queen concert, just in case he might not have time to participate in the video. But May surprised Appice by finding time to film his appearance so they'd have a performance that represented the emotion he'd put into his original guitar work. “He sent five takes of himself playing the song," Appice says. "So he’s actually playing on it, he’s playing the rhythm and the chords and the lead. You get to see him playing, and he’s got the emotion in there. I thanked him so much. I said, ‘Dude, you are the best. I owe you so much. Do an album already, so I can play for you!" PLEASE JOIN US on: | |||||
**Fri 18 Oct 19** Calling fans of Brian May's "Diableries" book... Like Halloween? Like carving pumpkins? .... then The London Stereoscopic Company have a GREAT competition for you! See below and enter HERE
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**Mon 14 Oct 19**
EXCERPT from an interview appearing in this week’s Big Issue magazine. Pick up a copy from your local vendor or the Big Issue Shop. --- THE BIG ISSUE In a Letter to My Younger Self, Queen guitar champion Brian May spoke frankly about his experiences of mental illness and draws one conclusion – he didn’t recover with any more answers than he had before. The now-72-year-old suffered from depression in the early Nineties while dealing with Freddie Mercury’s death, the collapse of his first marriage and the death of his father. “When you’ve got through severe depression you feel it should be a real learning curve,” he told The Big Issue. “And you should be able to give good advice to other people. But I haven’t found that to be the case. I think the only thing I could say is, focus on that tiny light at the end of the tunnel. OK, this day is going to be shit, end of story. But there will be another day which will be better. That’s the only advice which is of any use.” Despite his astronomical success with Queen and as an individual, May says he still feels the “same feelings of smallness” as he did when he was 16. He’s not humble, he insists – he’s just shy. “I still catch myself feeling like the shy schoolboy of many years ago,” he explained. “I don’t know how to start a conversation. It’s a complete shock to me when people treat me like someone they look up to or might be excited about meeting. People say oh, you’re very humble, but that’s not it. It’s actually that I haven’t reprogrammed myself from those days.” --- FULL ARTICLE: I think my main concerns when I was 16 were the same as they are now. I was very passionate about making music. I was entranced by the universe and wanted to explore it. And I had a strong feeling about animals. A feeling that things weren’t right in terms of the way we treat the other creatures on this planet. And that was a very strong feeling I had from an early age. Which grew, and eventually, much later in my life, I found a way to do something about it. But it took me a very long time. I would tell my 16-year-old self to be brave. Believe in yourself even when everyone’s telling you that you aren’t capable. A lot of people dent you when you’re growing up and that can take a long time to get over. I was very shy, completely lacking in confidence. I didn’t have a good feeling about the way I looked, very tall and thin and gangly. I felt I stood out so I walked with a stoop. I went to an all-boys’ school, which I think is a terrible idea. To separate boys from girls at that time in their lives – it scars them forever, and leaves them lacking in the skills they need to make contact with the opposite sex. I think one of the reasons I became a rock musician was because of that. I remember going to a dance and a local rock band were playing. Some boys were asking girls to dance but I didn’t know where to start and I was far too shy to consider it. I thought to myself, if I was on stage I wouldn’t have to worry about any of this. I would just be away up there, being fabulous, and maybe girls would come to me. It would be very romantic to say the moment I met Freddie I felt my future begin to map out in front of me, but I think that path was welded into me long before that. It began when I first heard that clang of Buddy Holly’s guitar listening to Radio Luxembourg, when I heard Little Richard screaming. Something happened inside me and I thought, this expresses what’s inside me, who I need to be. Then I met Roger [Taylor] and he was the first person I’d encountered who had the same feelings. Then of course there was Freddie. He was so convinced that he would be successful, he never doubted it. We were all precocious boys but he was another level. But we all shared this passion. And the energy grew and coalesced into something very powerful. The first time I felt we were really on our way was when we played The Rainbow, the old Finsbury Park Astoria [in North London]. It had a legendary status and for us it felt like a real pinnacle and one we might not be able to climb. I remember our promoter telling us, you can do this. It was our first UK tour, and he said, you can cap it all at the end by headlining The Rainbow. And we looked at him with doubt. But we sold it out and it was a triumph. That was a very strong moment in starting to believe that we could really make it. If I wanted to really impress the 16-year-old Brian I’d show him a film of me playing guitar on the top of Buckingham Palace [May performed a guitar solo of God Save the Queen on the roof of the palace as part of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee celebrations in 2002]. Alone and terrified but facing the fear and pulling it off. That was probably the most challenging moment of my musical life. And it was also life-changing. I’d prepared everything I could but a million things could have gone wrong and I’d have looked a fool, standing away up there, getting it wrong. So there was a moment of letting go – I had to abandon the situation to a higher power. I’m not normally a very religious person but that’s what happened. And when it finished, and the last note was drifting over the air, I just put my hand up to the sky and said, thank you God. You had to recognise that there was this element. It was a real voyage of the mind, to go through with that and not run away. It was an extraordinary feeling and I remember afterwards thinking, I will never feel nervous about anything ever again. Though I was wrong about that. When you’ve got through severe depression you feel it should be a real learning curve [May suffered depression in the early Nineties while dealing with Freddie Mercury’s death, the collapse of his first marriage and the death of his father]. And you should be able to give good advice to other people. But I haven’t found that to be the case. I think the only thing I could say is, focus on that tiny light at the end of the tunnel. OK, this day is going to be shit, end of story. But there will be another day which will be better. That’s the only advice which is of any use. If I could have one last conversation with anyone it would be my dad. Because it was unfinished business. I never got the chance to wrap things up. What would I ask him? I can’t tell you. I was very close with him growing up. He encouraged me in many ways, including helping me build my guitar, despite the fact that later on he thought I was throwing my life away by becoming what he regarded as a pop star rather than a scientist. Yeah… I should probably write a whole book about my dad because there’s a lot of stuff there. When I went back to my PhD [May completed his thesis A Survey of Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud in 2007, 37 years after he began] I had this very strong feeling of making my dad proud. We never stop wanting to please our parents. I still catch myself feeling like the shy schoolboy of many years ago. If I go into a room of people I’ve never met before I have exactly the same feelings of smallness as I did when I was 16; nobody knows me, everyone’s going to think I’m a bit strange. I don’t know how to start a conversation. It’s a complete shock to me when people treat me like someone they look up to or might be excited about meeting. People say oh, you’re very humble, but that’s not it. It’s actually that I haven’t reprogrammed myself from those days. If I could go back to any moment in my life it would be waking up on my ninth birthday and finding a guitar at the end of the bed. That was a magical, magical moment. I remember the look of it, the colour of it, the smell of it, the feel of it. I immediately put my fingers around it and started trying to make the extended chords my dad had taught me on the ukulele. It was an acoustic guitar and it was expensive and I knew my mum and dad had stretched to buy it. That guitar stayed with me for a long time. I learned to play on it. And I still have it now. PLEASE JOIN US on: | |||||
**Mon 14 Oct 19** Message and photos from a Red Special Meeting in Italy last weekend. Congratulations on a successful event. Marco writes: On Saturday 12 October we did our RED SPECIAL MEETING in Rome, Italy. It is no longer a Meeting among enthusiasts...it’s a family reunion. I've attached a couple of pics. Hope you can publish it on the site. Thanks. Regards,
Red Special Meeting 2019 (Rome) - https://youtu.be/wImpfSaEw_k PLEASE JOIN US on: | |||||
**Tue 08 Oct 19**
London's first Devilish Diableries exhibit (since 1860) In time for Halloween Monday 28th October 2019 Brian May, Denis Pellerin and Paula Fleming proudly present their Diableries exhibition; a devilment of colourful and infernally detailed three-dimensional images of the underworld, originating from the 19th century. For one day only, Soho’s Century Club will be transformed into a gothic Victorian crypt of temptation and seduction. Whilst surrounded by fantastic imagery depicting demonic scenes with carousing skeletons, devils and satyrs, you will have the opportunity to see the Diableries stories come to life in 3-D using Brian May’s stereoscopic viewer which he designed in the shape of an Owl and named just that. Brian, who holds the world’s largest collection of stereo cards with over 100,000 in his archive, will display a selection of original Diableries cards along with some of his most treasured stereoscopes and 3-D cameras from the Victorian days, providing a fascinating insight into stereoscopy. There will also be a 3-D screening of the spellbinding Diableries film, One Night in Hell, which Esquire proclaims to be “the best film you will see all Halloween”, and features an unforgettable scene with Satan swooping down on a skeleton protagonist playing a skull guitar, accompanied by his peers on trumpet and drums, to a soundtrack of We Will Rock You morphed into Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. The very skull guitar from Queen’s It’s A Hard Life video, that inspired this, will also be on exhibit for the public to see for the first time as part of the stereoscopic adventure in hell. The exhibition celebrates the launch of the trio’s book Signed copies will be available for purchase at the exhibit. Intrigued to find out what it’s actually all about? Instagram @diableriesthebook | www.diableries.co.uk
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**Fri 04 Oct 19** Brian's updated book, "Queen in 3-D" Deluxe "Bohemian Rhapsody" Edition will be available at the Merchandise stand (sorry no bookplate) at the current "We Will Rock You" UK touring show. Right now the production is playing at the Lyceum in Sheffield until Saturday night 5th Oct, then onto Edinburgh Playhouse next week.
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**Tue 01 Oct 19**
DIABLERIES Stereoscopic Adventures in Hell Brian Denis Paula MAY PELLERIN FLEMING THE COMPLETE EDITION OF THE CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED
A GOTHIC VICTORIAN UNDERWORLD OF TEMPTATION, SEDUCTION AND
An Englishman (Brian May), a Frenchman (Denis Pellerin) and an American (Paula Fleming) were united by a rare passion for collecting Victorian cards known as Diableries (translates as “Devilments”) and in their quest to re-solve the many mysteries of the satanic imagery they compiled the first Diableries book, published to critical acclaim in 2013. Between the three of them they had located and reproduced 180 of the known 182 Diableries. Six years later, through sheer persistence and a worldwide search the trio made the thrilling discovery of the two remaining stereo cards and shall un-veil the fantastic imagery and the story behind them for the first time in a lavish new edition of Diableries. WHAT IS A DIABLERIE? Between them Brian, Denis and Paula have now discovered all 182 of the Diableries cards in existence and have brought them to the 21st century to be viewed through a modern day stereoscope, designed by Brian May, that he named an OWL. The three authors present the world with their extraordinary full set of Diablerie stereo cards (originally published from the 1860s to the 1890s) which they have collected and studied over the years. By looking through the stereoscope, supplied with the book, you will be transported to an underworld of devils, satyrs and skeletons, rich in imagery and storytelling. The three authors explore the magic of stereo photography and the story behind the image on each card is interpreted. Never before had these se-crest been revealed – for instance, clues to the conflicts in France in a per i-od of great unrest, suffering, shame and suppression – a period which, even in French schools, is seldom part of the curriculum. The Diableries are impudent, funny, sad, riotously inventive, satirical and dangerously seditious. Their wickedness awaits you in time for Halloween! BRIAN MAY’S OWL: Brian has created the definitive high-quality modern-day stereoscope; reminiscent of an Owl, he named it just that. Every book the LSC publishes comes with an Owl, and the illustrations in the book, produced by the highest resolution printing technology available will, through this device, delight you all just as they did in Victorian times. - To keep up to date on all things devilish in the lead up to Halloween
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