Notes From The Other Side

As if Glenn Harveston couldn’t do any more to make ProgPowerUSA VII the coolest metal fest in the world, he went ahead and announced this surprise (taken from the press release posted on the ProgPowerUSA web site):

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 19, 2006

ALL-STAR PERFORMANCE ANNOUNCED FOR PROGPOWER USA VII

ATLANTA - ProgPower USA promoter Glenn Harveston has confirmed that there will be a very special “all-star” performance led by vocalist Jorn Lande during his headline set at ProgPower USA this year.

Confirmed thus far to join Lande on stage are Zak Stevens (Circle II Circle, ex-Savatage), Lance King (Pyramaze), Michele Luppi (Vision Divine), Pasi Rantanen (Thunderstone), Mikkel Sandager (Mercenary), Michael Eriksen (Circus Maximus), and Mattias “IA” Eklundh (Freak Kitchen). Other participants will be announced at a later time.

Along with Lande, Swedish progressive/power metal band Evergrey will headline the two-day festival, performing a worldwide exclusive set featuring the Evergrey choir and the Poulenc String Quartet from Atlanta.

Lande and Evergrey will be joined by German power metal band Savage Circus, Dutch symphonic metal band Epica, Pyramaze, Wastefall, Sweden’s Freak Kitchen, Finland’s Thunderstone, Italy’s Vision Divine, and Denmark’s Mercenary, who is returning to ProgPower due to overwhelming popularity at ProgPower IV.

ProgPower USA VII will take place on Friday and Saturday, September 15 and 16 at Earthlink Live in Atlanta. A very limited number of tickets are available via www.progpowerusa.com.

ProgPower USA VII is sponsored by Pacific Drums, Sabian Cymbals, Shure Microphones, Evans Drumheads, D’Addario Strings, and Planet Wave Cables. Interested sponsors may contact ProgPower USA via www.progpowerusa.com.

Information is available on the website for parties interested in participating in the CD Showcase sampler or advertising in the official program.

www.progpowerusa.com

# # #

If you don’t yet have your tickets, I suggest you waste no time getting to Ticketmaster. They’re almost sold out!

The question was recently posed to me, “When will the [fill in the blank] interview be posted?”

The answer is, “When they’re posted.”

For those of you who haven’t ever transcribed an interview, I’ll let you in on the little known secret (call it the dark side of interviewing): A one hour interview can take 10-12 hours to transcribe. So, for example, if I was able to spend two hours per night transcribing, it would take 5-6 days to complete the interview. And that’s if each word and name can be understood without having to back up repeatedly to listen in context. Then, once the interview is transcribed, it requires another 2-3 hours to edit (about another day’s work) to take out all the incomplete thoughts or “Uh” and “Um” utterances.

And that’s per interview. And that doesn’t count the day of preparation beforehand, doing research, formulating questions, reading other interviews to make sure the overlap is minimal, etc. Or unforseen illnesses, as I experienced with another kidney stone occurence which set me back at least a week.

Bottom line: Each interview takes a week to 10 days, give or take, from start to finish before it sees the light of day.

Multiply that by a dozen (or more!) interviews and what you’re looking at is an entire summer spent in front of a computer, formulating, transcribing, and posting.

Of course, the above doesn’t take into account one’s day job, which — in my case — is the most busy in the summer. What do I do for a day job? Write radio spots, TV spots, brochures, direct mail letters, e-mails, web sites, print ads, postcards, and even — you guessed it — podcasts that require interviewing, transcribing, and planning. Often, the last thing I want to do when I get home from a 10 hour day is park my butt in front of my computer to do more work. Plus, I sometimes have to work week nights and weekends for my job. And that doesn’t even count the nights I just don’t feel like doing a thing, preferring instead to vegging out watching 24 or Lost or Amerian Idol just because I haven’t the creative energy to string together a single sentence.

Add to the above the fact that I didn’t intend to conduct and then post every interview immediately, even if it were possible. If I did that, I’d have everything posted by June and then nothing for the months leading up to ProgPowerUSA VII this September. I intend to space out the interviews over time.

So my plan for Notes From the Other Side is to slowly reveal interviews throughout the summer, leading up to ProgPowerUSA VII — and then do more interviewing, picture-taking, and posting as the weekend of the metal fest unfolds.

I promise to make my interviews as in-depth and worthwhile as possible (and my pictures as exceptional as I can possibly make them) so that the wait for you is worth it.

Bill

I just received an e-mail from Mattias IA Eklundh, guitarist extraordinaire for Freak Kitchen. My interview with IA will be conducted the first week of June. More details to come.

Thanks to the kind folks at InsideOut, I was able to secure a photo pass to last Saturday night’s In Flames/ Throwdown/Nevermore/Evergrey concert in Grand Rapids. I got fantastic photos of Evergrey! Check them out on the Photos page.

Even though Vision Divine’s ablum The Perfect Machine is less than a year old, guitarist Olaf Thorsen is already at work on their next release, which, according to Olaf, will also be produced by Stratovarius guitarist Timo Tolkki.

My conversation with Olaf lasted about 45 minutes and covered some interesting territory, including why Italy seems to produce some of the world’s best power metal bands (Rhapsody, Thy Majesty, Vision Divine, and Labyrinth come to mind immediately).

Watch for my interview with Olaf…coming soon!

I just got off the phone with Mikkel Sandager, vocalist and songwriter for Mercenary.

What a cool guy. Great sense of humor. Eloquent. He said Mercenary is wrapping up work on their new album due out in August — and album on which Mikkel sang all the vocal parts and for which he wrote all the lyrics.

Watch for my interview with Mikkel to post soon!

May is going to be a busy month! Here’s my interview schedule:

1. Mikkel Sandager (Mercenary), May 13th at 9 a.m. my time. DONE!
2. Olaf Thorsen (Vision Divine), May 13th at 11 a.m. my time. DONE!
3. Tom S. Englund (Evergrey), May 13th at the In Flames/Throwdown/Nevermore/Evergrey gig in Grand Rapids. (Photos only — see Photos page. Interview to come after tour winds down.)

4. Jorn, Postponed until our mutual schedules can coincide.

5. Titus (Thunderstone), May 21 at 1 p.m. my time. DONE!
6. Thomen (Savage Circus), May 20 at 12 noon my time. DONE!
7. Matt Smith (Theocracy) May 29 at 3 p.m. my time.
8. Michael Eriksen (Circus Maximus), May 28 at 1 p.m. my time.

I’m working on scheduling interviews with Epica, Circle II Circle, Leatherwolf, Freak Kitchen, and Wastefall. As of this writing (May 23rd) it appears my interview with IA of Freak Kitchen will occur the first week of June.

These are all great bands and I’m having a blast talking to members from each one! NOTE: The interviews will begin to post in June and July and will likely continue throughout the summer leading up to PPUSA VII.
Bill

In addition to being one of metal’s best vocalists, Lance King is also one heck of a great guy.

Lance has a great sense of humor, laughing often during our interview. Also, he was surprisingly gracious with his time. We spoke for about 90 minutes over two separate occasions. I asked him about Nightmare Records (his own label), Pyramaze, Avian, Shining Star, the road to ProgPower USA VII, the music industry in general, and which band he’s most looking forward to seeing at ProgPower this fall. (Oh, I also chatted with him about coaching his son’s chess tournament.)

Watch for my interview with Lance King to post later this month.

By all accounts, Shane Dubose is a busy guy.

He’s in at least two bands at any given moment. Plus, he’s the man who worked tirelessly to assemble what very well could be the best Pre-Show Party this year that ProgPower USA has ever seen.

I’m surprised he found time to do an interview with me.

But he did.

And it’ll be posted later this month.

So where did the title of this web site come from?

Two places: (1) One of my favorite Blind Guardian albums, Imaginations From the Other Side. I love that phrase and initially thought of calling my site Imaginations From the Other Side. But although it makes a mighty fine title for an album, it makes an unwieldy URL for a web site. So I scrapped it; (2) I wanted to keep the “other side” concept because that’s what this web site represents — the “other side” of the stage. Behind the scenes. Besides, I think something coming from the “other side” is inherently intriguing.

So what to call the site? I eventually put the idea of writing (”notes”) together with “other side” and — voila! — Notes From the Other Side was born. It was only after I put the two concepts together did I realize that it also had a third meaning: musical notes.

Oh, by the way, if your fingers get tired of walking the keyboard to type NotesFromTheOtherSide.com, you can access the site simply by typing NFTOS.com. (Hey, can’t say I didn’t think of my readers when I birthed this site.)

What will you find in NFTOS?

Exclusive interviews with bands appearing at ProgPowerUSA VII, with those who produce America’s Premiere Metal Fest, a few fans here and there along the way, photos from PPUSA VII, and my own thoughts on the genre of music I fell in love with so many years ago. My interviews are recorded and transcribed as close to verbatim as possible. And the questions I ask are designed to allow readers to get to know the person behind the music as much as possible within an hour’s time.

End result? Hopefully something you’ll find interesting to read. Granted, there’s not much here now. But I have interviews with Shane Dubose and Lance King in the can, awaiting transcription. They’ll be posted soon. I also have interviews lined up with Jorn, Evergrey, Circus Maximus, Theocracy, Vision Divine and more. So I estimate it’ll be an interesting summer.

Have fun browsing Notes From the Other Side.

Tell your friends to check it out.

And feel free to comment or contact me with ideas for more content. What would you like to ask these musicians? what would you like to know about the inner-workings of PPUSA VII? You can reach me via the Contact page on this site, or by sending an e-mail to bill(at)notesfromtheotherside.com.

See you at the show!

Bill