| NOVEMBER
2005 | Photo © Brian May 2005brianmay.com | |
| > CONTACT |
|
| N.B.
Brian's quotes in BOLDFACE are copyright, NOT
BE COPIED OR REPUBLISHED. THANK YOU. |
|
Well, it's a day I don't like remembering here tonight. But ... What a Life ! Hail Freddie ! love Bri |
**Fri
18 Nov 05**
LA PIX AND THANK YOU!
Some nice pics kindly sent by Kimberley Barsana from the gig in the Hollywood Bowl ! Thanks Kim ! I told you this picture business was going to be a bit random !
Also another Tokyo pic ... here's thart beautiful three-tiered pagoda I could see from my Tokyo window ... it was heavenly down in the gardens .... if you can view this in 3-D you will be there too !
love © brianmay.com |
**Fri
18
Nov 05**
"BLACK SABB HISTORY"
UK MUSIC HALL OF FAME SPEECH NOTES
In the form I had them before I went on . . . Bri © brianmay.com |
|
**Fri
17 Nov 05**
BEST OF THE BEST AIR GUITAR ALBUMS
| Well,
spent some time on this new project but it's nice to keep things
secret until the time is right ....
THE TIME IS RIGHT !!! AIR GUITAR is back ! Jen will be letting you know when our new ads are on TV ...... The ads are one of the most fun parts for me ... but soon the 3 Cd set will be around ...decorating the stores for Christmas ! IT makes me smile ! I hope it will get you rockin' ! This is a great Best of the Best collection .... we always have to work within the bounds of what permissions we can get, and they RUN OUT after a year or so.... so AIR GUITAR I, II and III are now collectors items. But the new box will sort you out !! Here is the track listing .... CD1
CD2 CD
THREE and here is the cover !
The Air Guitarist rides again ..... Lotsa
love |
**Tue
15 Nov 05**
HALL OF FAME TOMORROW... AND NEW VIDEOS
|
It looks like I WILL be at the Hall of Fame awards tomorrow ..... I'd better start moving towards Ally Pally right now ! ha ha! Spent today in two different video edit suites .... putting together .. 1) AIR GUITAR ad ! For the ULTIMATE AIR GUITAR COLLECTION on 3 glorious Cd's hitting a store near you before Christmas ! Ha ! You thought we had forgotten ! But NO ! How could it end ? ! We'll post the times you can expect to see the TV ad hopefully so you can enjoy to the max. I'm happy to say that, since this is a Best of Best of .... all our old friends are there ... Quo, Patrick Moore, Nigel Planer, Sharon D. Clarke, Zac, PLUS ... a couple of new special guests ! Hurrah !! More details soon ....... we have been VERY busy ! 2) Video of Bo Rap in our Hyde Park show ... which has become a nice project in itself ... since it now encapsulates in a sense the whole show ... I'm excited about this too ... there has been talk of this appearing hope for Children in Need as a download if it is in time .... or ...well, I'm not sure really ... maybe a project with iTunes ... we leave this stuff to Jim ! but ... it ROCKS !!! Love Bri © brianmay.com |
**Tue 15 Nov 05**
A SECOND IN THE LIFE .... THE PICTURES
OK ! The pictures ! It will be a bit random .... like my memories ... ! But here goes ....
This is the beautiful view I woke up to every day in Tokyo ...we were there for more than a week - so it became like home. Don't you just want to walk down there in the gardens beside the cool spring-fed streams, and trees and mysterious stone Gods, and water wheels and pagodas and .... Well, we did ... in a few precious sunlit moments, me and my daughter ... and I'll show you soon ... Meanwhile ....enjoy looking down on this truly magnificent view ! The Chinzan-so Gardens. An exquisite oasis in a truly vast city. We were very privileged .... the Four Seasons Hotel looked after us in Imperial style. Love © brianmay.com |
**Mon
14 Nov 05**
'TERU
TERU BOUZU' AND 'SAKURA, SAKURA'
|
I still don't understand the special significance TO YOU of Teru Teru Bouzu and the other one - 'Sakura, Sakura'... . Did you already know those tunes? Ed. Well, yes ... I've known these tunes since the first time we ever went to Japan ... Sakura is easy ... it's in almost every musical box you can find in Japan ... the Cherry Blossom song ... it's very old and you can find Shamisen and Koto versions on CD ... cherry blossom time is of course a wonderful and celebrated thing in the Spring in the Shinto shrines and temple gardens ... a glorious sight ! Teru Teru Bouzu was just something that I was lucky enough to be taught in the days when we were young over there ... we used to be able to spend time with some of the fans ... I love it because it has that child-like quality to it, and the small "puppet" goes with it. I owe someone a big thank you for this. So it came into my head this time ... and instinctively it seemed perfect to quietly introduce Last Horizon, also a child-like tune in my perception ... it's only now that I realize the extra nicety of standing against the clouds playing a plea for sunshine ! The real reason I make allusions to these tunes is out of respect ... out of love ... I want people to know that I know where I am, and whom I am with, and that it's important to me. There are many times when I can do this in other places ...sometimes it's probably too subtle to be noticeable !
I can't remember when I played which song ... butI think Sakura was in all the Japan shows.
And about picks? For 39 I use a nylon pick and for "Born to Love You". For Love of my Life only fingers. Love
Learn more HERE Also LINK to the song by "Ripple" (with kind permission) © brianmay.com |
***Thu
10 Nov 05**
MINAKO... AND THOUGHTS ON HUMANITY
Letter to Yuko who kindly translated the news report on death of Minako Honda, which also quoted Brian' condolences - SEE BRIAN NEWS: DEAR YUKO MANY THANKS FOR THE TRANSLATION ... VERY INTERESTING. I'm finding it hard to shake off my sadness about Minako - I have been listening to her music in the car on my travels. At least I heard from Minako's management that she DID see my greeting and was happy to receive it, when she was in bed, in her last days. No, I can't personally regard the Japanese as a cruel people. The whole world seems to be cruel, or at least elements of it. I have never quite got over being served a large fish on a plate in Japan, which had cuts in its side and was writhing in agony on the plate. And being asked to eat a soup which had small live fish swimming in it. But I also deplore the Western way of cooking "Live Lobsters". I refuse to have any part of this. It makes me angry and sad to see them in tanks with their claws bound. I think we are a hideous race on the whole. And we do not deserve to 'inherit the Earth". I feel embarrassment and shame in hearing the name Hiroshima when we are on the Bullet train. Passing through it I feel a massive sorrow. I know the arguments about the Atom Bomb saving the lives of Western soldiers, but to me nothing can justify this most apalling act. TWO bombs dropped on women and children ? With no warning shot fired ? On a civilian population already half wiped out by fire bombing of non-military targets ? I'm sorry, to me this is a stain on Western civilisation which can never be erased.
I am thankful that two Japanese generations have now taken
us to heart so completely. And thankful that we can give so much
pleasure and share so much joy together. Let us rejoice
in the GOOD in our countries, and make music together.
love © brianmay.com |
**Thu
10 Nov 05**
DEALING WITH DEPRESSION
Here is a reply to what has to be the STAR LETTER - about Depresssion, a subject in Brian's experience. (See LETTERS) 7 November 2005: Dear Alexander Yours has to be one of the greatest letters I've ever received. And the fact that you didn't ask for a reply - in fact asked me NOT to - makes it all the more special and answerable !! Yours has to be one of the greatest letters I've ever received. And the fact that you didn't ask for a reply - in fact asked me NOT to - makes it all the more special and answerable !! I feel for you, dealing with depression. It sounds like you have had a lot to put up with both outside and inwardly. As you probably know I am familiar with depression, and have eventually got help and good treatment, and I am good on the whole these days, although the darkness is always there waiting .... I guess this is what we have to deal with ... at least we know we are not alone. I do think that, strangely enough, experiencing depression is allied to seeing deeper into life than many people do.... but it also makes us vulnerable to being over-critical of ourselves. In fact we are all imperfect and strange creatures and probably should forgive ourselves, as we would probably forgive other people much more easily !! Well, enough of this. It makes me very happy that our music has been a positive force in your life. Long may it continue, and thanks for being an ally in the USA. At this moment we are close to committing to a further tour of the USA, in the Spring, so I hope we will see you out there. Yes, ultimately we are all alone in a sense, but on a good day there's a lot of good stuff to experience out there ! Take care and ...thanks ! you have given me a good start to my day. Cheers © brianmay.com |
**Thu
10 Nov 05**
THE PLANETS - EARTH, TIM, WOOLLY HAMMERTON AND 'THE OTHERS'
See late posting Wed 12 Oct 05
**Thu
10 Nov 05**
NEW SOLO ALBUMS? / THE SMALL FACES
See late posting Wed 21 Sep 05
**Wed
09 Nov 05**
A SECOND IN THE LIFE OF A ROCK GUITARIST
|
A
Second in the Life So what is really going through the mind of someone like me, in any given second, out there with a guitar in his hand in front of 23,000 people ? I will try to describe it. But not in any logical order ... that would be impossible. If you can’t stand me rambling on about myself for a few paragraphs please skip to the pictures ! I am thinking .... a) Is the guitar in tune ? If
so, then great; it feels comfortable and warm. If not, which string
is out ? Can I find it, and is there a moment to tweak it while
still performing the song as I would wish? (I fondly remember
Jim Hendrix on the Lulu show, tuning up as he went along, and
laughing at how bad it sounded !) Being out of tune is a nightmare.
It feels bad. The hardest time for me was in the last gig in Fukuoka,
where the sound in the huge arena was so echoey and strange on
stage that, to be honest, even Freddie sounded out of tune ! (this
of course is not possible !) I wrestled with the strings and frequently
changed guitars so Pete and Steve could tweak them ... but it
never felt quite right. Of course tuning is relative - if someone
else in the band is out of tune the effect is very similar (in
this case I think it was not them - it was me ! ). The whole tuning
issue will sometimes just fall into place, and sometimes not.
It can depend heavily on temperature – especially in outside
shows, when one is often playing as the sun sets and the temperature
plunges. In this situation nothing on God's Earth will stop the
guitar drifting way out. Also on humidity - this affects the wood
of the instruments and likewise makes tuning problems. The question
of tuning is something always in the back of a guitarist's mind.
It also depends, in the case of someone who does a lot of bending
of strings, like me, on HOW FAR YOU BEND the string. If you're
not hearing things well, or if the fingers are not responding
quite right, you can bend a string from in-tune to out of tune
in an instant. Breaking a string is also very bad news, especially
if you have a floating tremolo, like me, because with one string
broken, all the other strings change pitch as the rocker assumes
a new equilibrium position. All you can do is hang in and make
noises until there’s a chance to change guitars. On a good
night, the temperature stays constant, the strings don’t
break, the bends work out just right, and all is sweet. On a good night, for me, it's possible to go into everything with an open mind. If the situation seems to demand it, I will play according to a plan, something close to expectations , like the solo in Bo Rhap. Mostly I will play it not too far from the version on the record, and there will always be little variations according to how I feel, but fundamentally this is a set piece. In other moments I will usually be reaching for something I have never played before ... in Hammer to Fall, A Kind of Magic, or in my solo solo piece ... there will be elements of roads I have travelled before, but I am looking for excitement and challenge. I figure the audience deserves to see me take chances, to reach a place which is unique to that night. But of course, it is always possible to slip up. If something distracts me I can find myself, in mid-riff, thinking ...where the Hell is that dot ? Which point on the fretboard is an "A" up at the dusty end on the third string, and bent up a tone ? And if sweat is pouring into my eye, can I see which fret I am on anyway ? Well, no. Or if the lights miss me for a moment, or smack me in the eye. Or if I spot a strange sign in the audience ... or if momentarily find myself in a place on stage where I can’t hear myself ... so there is no audio feedback to my brain ... I can get lost quite easily. On a good night, I can hear, I can see, and I can 'feel' what I want to play, but at any moment the plot can be lost. You’ll notice I said, “Am I going to hit a GOOD note”. Of course Frank Zappa reminded me it’s impossible to hit a WRONG note, because it’s my gig, and my song. But it sure is possible to hit a note which you regret ! c) Am I in time ? This also depends on being able to hear everything else ... most importantly, Roger's snare, which is my absolute yard-stick. Mostly I will be locking in to what he is laying down, but sometimes deliberately laying back behind him to make it sound BIG, and sometimes trying to influence him, edge him up or down in tempo if I feel it needs it. Because we have worked together so closely for so long, he normally knows exactly what is in my mind, and vice versa. But on a difficult night when there is a lot of echoey sound kicking about, we can momentarily lose each other. My hardest moment is in the fast solo of "I Want it All" ... everything gets hectic here, and I can suddenly become deaf to the snare, in which case ... a train wreck is on the cards ! On a good night ... no problem. For a while I used to stay up on the main stage near Roger for this bit, to try to keep in touch with the band's timing, but a few shows ago I made the decision to 'screwit' and go down the ramp, and pray! And Grubby, our excellent on-stage monitor mixer, gives me a special tweak out there to help me lock in to the drums. If we all get to the end of this bit all together there is a genuine feeling of triumph ! There are hundreds of other crucial points in the show where timing is an issue, and when the Gods are in favour, we don’t even think about it ... we just enjoy it happening ... d) Am I in pain and damaging anything ? All would be easy if I was playing this stuff at home or in the studio, but out here I'm dealing with many other factors. In Aruba, the humidity was 100 per cent, and only seconds into the show I was dripping with sweat, the finger ends wet and spongy, and sticking to the fingerboard. This is a hard situation. I can try to stand in front of a fan to cool down, but drying off too fast just makes the fretboard even more sticky. If this had been the 10th show in a row, my fingers would have dealt with it better. But in Aruba, all I felt was pain, as I tried to make the bends in “All Right Now” solo make it sweetly. And all the time wonder how much long-lasting damage to the finger-ends I was doing which would affect the following shows. It was an endurance test, and this situation it’s hard to pay attention to the things you WANT to pay attention to. Like … f) What do I look like ? his might seem a small thing, and in a sense it is. Surely it’s models on the catwalk who need to worry about what they look like? But in our case our images at any second are going to be captured and will appear in newspapers, TV, magazines soon after. If I look like a drowned rat by the time we get to “Crazy Little Thing”, I will feel very crap the next day seeing it in the local paper as we leave town. So all of us Rock Stars might look casual, but I can assure you even Bruce cares what his hair looks like in a show, and whether there are globs of sweat on the end of his nose ! That sweat thing again - – it’s really a hazard in more than one way. If I’m looking for a dot somewhere near the end of “Last Horizon” it’s more than possible I have to guess, because my eyes are not closed in ecstasy, they’re closed because they’re stinging and temporarily immobilised ! Unless I get all Dire Straits and use a headband I’m stuck. Tell you what – wearing shorts would help too … I have, occasionally done that in the past for an encore … it helps to control the heat … but I’m sure I will be accused of trying to ape Angus if I make a habit of it ! g) Am I IN the song? In other words, am I sufficiently locked in to the original song (which may be one of mine, or of Roger or Freddie or John, or of Paul now). In a good moment, it’s a fine balance. You want to relate the original feelings that went with the song … perhaps something quite serious, or sad, or whatever … But also you want to be “in the moment” in the show, relating to how people are reacting to the song at that second. So songs tend to become something a little different every night, depending upon how the audience are taking it … or perhaps depending on how we perceive the audience to be taking it. If I’m playing a rhythm part to a song – say, “Wishing Well”, I want it to have the fire and urgency of the original, but also to be fitting to the way Paul is singing at this moment, perhaps modifying it slightly to be part of the way he is relating to the people out front. I also want it to be ME, in spite of the fact that I’m in this case playing something originated by the wonderful Paul Kossoff. So I’m going to try, amidst the sweat and all the other distractions, to be a worthy interpreter of this fine work. In the case of our own songs, it’s actually quite similar .. I’m interpreting the work of an earlier me … I’m not the same any more, and I’m in a different situation, but I still relate to the original work. Being “in the song” to me is a guarantee that I’m not being false, not acting a part … it guarantees that my passion is real. Because in Rock and Roll, without a great song, and a great singer, all is vanity !! h) Am I confident ? Confidence is an essential ingredient of any moment. And it can come and go in the twinkling of an eye. Without true confidence, we all tend to try too hard. Confidence is born of knowing what you are doing. Part of it comes from practice and planning. But most of it, like driving skills, comes from doing it, time after time, until it’s second nature. When we are driving around town, and someone steps out in front of the car, we don’t think … “Where do I put my foot, and my hands, to make this car alter its speed and direction?” We just trust our instincts, and find we have braked to a halt without really realising what we did. The same must be true of playing a gig. Of course we are never truly geared up to perfection, because everything is changing, partly because we want to experiment, and partly because things happen beyond our control every performance. But the basic skills put us in a good position to deal with most crises. This grows with time. We all, in the Queen/Paul Rodgers outfit realised that we had reached our best mettle (or maybe Metal - ha ha!) exactly when it was time to go home. Isn’t that Ironic? Well, maybe not …just inevitable !! i) Am I keeping up, or just exhausted ? General fitness is essential, and again it is not a predictable quantity. By a combination of biking and stretches and enough sleep I was finally in great shape in Nagoya, the penultimate show. Came off feeling I still had energy to spare. Had a day off – well, actually a long travel day – and went on the next day already feeling tired … it was hard keeping perky … just keeping standing up sometime ... never mind running around like lunatics the way we do ! Maybe I should have joined a sensible band like Cream. Sensible but magnificent of course. ******* As you can see, there’s a lot that fits into this one second in the Queen show in my mind – all of a) to i) in any order. This list isn’t at all complete really, and I haven’t even gone into the other thoughts that drift into the mind while playing … uninvited … thoughts to do with the basic needs of life, hunger, thirst, sex, travel, home, family, life, death … the news … etc. And there’s also, for instance, “Am I enjoying myself ?”, “Are THEY enjoying themselves ?”, and “Even if the next note is a good one, or even next phrase, does it get me into a place I can’t get out of, or one which will confuse my fellow band-members?” And (in L.A.) “What’s that strange animal which just landed beside my feet ?!” *******
But the most basic need of all is perhaps, for me, the finger-ends.
Amongst all the thousands of elements, of light and sound, staging,
etc, everything for me depends on just a few square millimetres
of skin which make contact with the strings on my guitar. I was
just getting the callouses I need to get through a show by the
time I got to Los Angeles. In the morning, cooking breakfast for
me and my daughter, I warmed a plate and then picked it up not
realising I had heated it to scalding. I burned four fingers of
my left hand … the exact ones I need to make contact with
the strings. One had a nice blister, just, luckily (!) just one
millimetre from the main contact point. But much pain. So the
gig that night for me was all about survival. Not much fun, like
it should have been. Every time I reached for a big bend, the
fingers complained and I couldn’t lose myself in it. Look;
no excuses – I know it’s a good show – there
is enough good stuff in there even if everything went wrong one
night. Even just watching Barry’s lights is good value for
money ! And there’s enough honest hard work and inspiration
gone into the production from all of us to ensure a good night
out. But I came away feeling frustrated and a bit sad. Like I
let people down, just a little. Love Ok … pictures next !
What strange animal? Ed A woodlouse or something similar .... but BIG ! © brianmay.com |
**Tue
08 Nov 05**
BONSAI KITTENS
See letter from Kate and Scott McKinzie, who believe the site in question is a fake . . . hopefully: I hate anything which encourages disrespect to animals, joke or not. We are learning to respect other races of humans, and to stop racial slurs ... let's try to be grown-up enough to treat our fellow creatures the same way. We are NOT more more worthy of respect than other Mammals - just because we are 'clever' enogh to build roads and houses. In the grand scheme of things, we are not being so clever. If God is out there, I am very sure he does not share our infatuation with ourselves. I think he's pretty disapointed in the way we turned out ... even the Adam and Eve story seems to be saying this ... whoever wrote those parables, or whatever they are, was no fool. And even Mammals are but a small corner of the fabulous array of creatures we find on the beautiful Earth. There is still beauty, but how close are we to obliterating what is left ?
love © brianmay.com |
**Mon
07 Nov 05**
STOP THE CRUELTY. NOW
In response to letters about a Japanese site which is unspeakably cruel to cats . . . I actually don't think I can bear to visit this site .... If I actually saw someone abusing a cat I think I would kill them. Really. Yes, I know. And I appeal to everyone to fight cruelty to animals in their own country. I know that in the East they cut off shark's fins and leave them to die slowly and painfully, kill the beautiful whales to eat them, lying, pretending they are using them for 'science'. And in the West they nail baby cows' feet to the ground to make Veal, and force feed them and deprive them of light to make Foie Gras. I could NEVER eat sharks fin soup, any more than I could eat veal or foie gras. Or, God forbid, a piece of the body of a Whale, these magnificent gentle sentient beings with whom we share our planet. One has to start somewhere on the road to human decency. These practices disgust me. I am shaking as I write this. I don't think I can sleep. IT HAS TO STOP. The insane people who run this site [you mention] must be stopped. Let us put things to rights. The time has come. We do not have the right to abuse other species on this planet. We think we are the pinnacle of evolution. I do not believe it. The insect kingdom is much more plentiful on the planet right now, and is going to do much better in the face of plague, meteor strike ot supervolcano than we will. It may just be the best thing that ever happned to this fragile planet. STOP the CRUELTY. NOW. Love © brianmay.com |
|
Ok ... the QPR tour. It was weird ..the first part so spaced out, because of the vast and rather impractical distances involved, and the second half, in Japan, highly intensive, with only a few days off. You might think that the first would have been the easiest, but not so. We had worked hard to plan, and rehearse, and get fit for this tour. But there is nothing that compares with DOING it, getting a few shows under the belt, to really get in gear. To my mind we were not able to work up enough momentum to do our best in the USA. I'm happy that folks liked it, but I want to do better. I struggled with physical problems all through this leg, and mentally I was not on top either, especially in LA, strangely, one of my favourite places in the world. I actually didn't want to write about this while still out there ... I thought it would be distracting for those who read it and came to see us. Because all I wanted people to be thinking about was the pure music, and their own reactions to it. But now ... well, it may be interesting to analyse some of this. Certainly by the time we were a gig or two into Japan we had found a real confidence, and a skill which made us able to rise above the purely physical. So I'm proposing to write ... in the next day or so... "A Second in the Life of a Rock Guitarist". Watch this space ... well, if you got stuff to do ... come back soon ...
love ******* © brianmay.com |
**Mon
07 Nov 05**
NOW I'M HOME . . .
OK folks, I was a bit lax on tour as regards putting up pictures and thoughts. Truth is, I had to concentrate every fibre of my being on just giving my best to LIFE as it happened out there, and couldn't chain myself to the Laptop without sacrificing something else. Now I'm home, it all fills my mind and I will try to share some of it. Back on my soapbox ! Starting at the end, it was quite depressing to come back to the UK. Nice to be home, of course, but the first things I saw in the paper were Images of football hooligans, with Tony Blair saying we were 'doing well', and images of yahoos in red jackets smirking as they described how they were flouting the ban on hunting, and managing to continue making money out of torturing wild animals. I despair. When you are out of the UK you get a view back into our country which is very different from being here. We are regarded by most countries as quite uncivilised ... the hooliganism and the barbaric hunting do not give us a good image ... we tend to be quietly laughed at. For me, I think the second group are the worst. I can only despise these so-called "country alliance" agitators. I too live in the country most of the time, and I have a suspicion that the Government loves these selfish throwbacks who insist on making an issue of losing their right to act in a foul fashion towards foxes, and even their own dogs. They provide a smoke-screen which hides the real issue here, which is that the countryside, under this government IS DISAPPEARING. Every time I drive down the road near my house in Surrey there is a new dreaded sign indicating that yet another plot of land has been sold to speculative house builders. This used to be called a GREEN BELT. Now the Government has given permission .... no ...ordered ... that thousands of new houses be built here. There will soon BE no green, no respite from the concrete that is covering our once-green land. The bloody hunters, these selfish boors, who think it is their God-given right to chase about enjoying killing our fellow creatures, are just distracting us from the main problem. I despise them. There is so much to protest about, so much wrong to be put right in the world, and these nasty people choose to spend their energies trying to protect their freedom to inflict pain? It shall all pass. There were similar selfish groups who opposed the abolition of slavery, and the emancipation of women. But I guess there will always be bad people. Let's just make sure we realise who they are. Love © brianmay.com |
**Mon
07 Nov 05**
TRENT REZNOR'S QUEEN REFERENCE IN NIN VIDEO
|
See QUEEN NEWS: Very
nice. And a gesture well appreciated. Trent
is a giant talent and this is very warming.
love © brianmay.com |
In reply to a letter from Linda, in Chicago: Well, yes, it is very sad. But it is not over. The story is really that when the Paris Hotel was bought by a competitor, WWRY did not fit into their plan of how to work the Casino building. We came to a solution amicably, and this certainly provides an honourable closing for our show, which, as you say, has given pleasure to so many. We plan to follow this run in Vegas with a new touring version next year. Hopefully Chicago will be right in there as a destination. We are still learning all the time with WWRY. As new shows take shape in Zurich and Johannesburg, we will be bringing all our experience to bear, to push The Vibe further towards the limit. We send special thanks to our wonderful Vegas team.As the closing date draws nearer they will be climaxing in a flurry of last-minute bookings. Rock ! Catch them while you can ! Love © brianmay.com |
**Mon 07 Nov 05**
BRI AND MINAKO, 1986
|
Brian was asked how his working with Minako came about: I don't remember very well how it began ..... her management came up with the idea of us working together I think. But when we met, I was very inspired, to write the songs, and we had a lovely time. She was very quick and accurate in the studio, especailly for someone so young, (19, I think) and the Japanese versions of the songs were so easy to finish. The hard thing was to do the English versions - her voice just did not easily make the consonant sounds necessary for pronouncing the English words, and we struggled to make it work. She was very hard-working, and I think one day I pushed a ilttle too hard, and she very quietly cried in a corner when she couldn't get it right. I always regretted that. I hadn't realized she felt so under pressure. She was a real perfectionist and would not quit. But in the end it all worked out and we were all smiling. There was much going on at the time for me .. I turned up one day to produce Minako with no voice whatever, having spent an evening with Anita on a freezing Westminster Bridge ... (It's a long story!) I had only recently met Anita and was VERY confused ! I was also involved with producing the fabulous Bad News record in this period ....another project which gave me great joy, and helped to get me through a very uncertain personal period in my life. Of the material we did, my favourite is Golden Days. It fitted her perfectly, her fragility, her joy, and the faint sadness which seemed to lay gently underneath. She moved me to tears even then. I think she was perceived by many as just a pop star in those days, but she was worthy of much better. She revealed her professionalism and depth when she took on roles in Musical Theatre later on. Damn. Love © brianmay.com |
 Minako Honda |
 As Kim in Miss Saigon |
 Click for larger |
 Click for larger |
**Sun 06 Nov 05**
SAD NEWS - MINAKO HONDA
© brianmay.com |
**Thu
03 Nov 05**
TO RUSSIAN FANS
Brian replied to a letter from Servei Serebrov, representing 100 Russian fans, who had a problem with Brian saying: "And so many of you have GIVEN to us .... the rest of the world normally asks for photo's, autographs, and all kinds of other things ... but you, kind people, always GIVE so much to us." in his posting THANK YOU JAPAN, of 28 October 2005: --- Now Look, Sergei ...you must not get all weary neary about this !! I apologise ! I really shouldn't have implied that fans around the world are hungry grabbing monsters, and it certainly wasn't aimed at the Russian fans, who have been VERY courteous to us. There is just a very different ethos in Japan, and very individual, and endearing, I have to say. And there is NO hint of us being upset with Russians .... we would LOVE to come and play there, and I'm pretty sure that in the fullness of time it will happen, if our health and strength permit. It was unfortunate that there was no availablitiy of venues when we were in Europe, and because we are no longer 25-year-olds there is only so much touring we can do. In the immediate future there seems to be a great demand in the heartland of the USA and I think this the next place we will visit, but give us time .... We have the very warmest feelings towards our Russian friends, so please do not fret. I hope we will be able to show it soon. with
love now ...how did you get my private E-mail address? This is NOT very cool !! ©
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