Last Friday I drove to Ottersum, in the south of the country, to see Mary Gauthier. A great singer and songwriter, whose career started when she was way in her 30s. She just released a very impressive new album called “The Foundling”, a concept album about her own life, being a foundling and adoptee.
The gig took place in the wonderful Roepaen in Ottersum. What a great environment.
It turned out to be one of the most intriguing concerts I have ever visited.
After the concert I took the opportunity to have a short chat with Mary. During the show she’d said: This is my story, but everybody has his own story. We talked about The Foundling and B.Loose, how we both had our own autobiographical stories recorded. We exchanged our CDs and she even signed my CD.
Thanks Mary! It was a memorable night. A night to remember.
And yes indeed, we both had our pink glasses.
And thanks to Kazzette Titia and Theo for having me as your guest!

Tonight the news reached me of the death of one of my favorite rock singers ever, Ronnie James Dio. Once the singer with Rainbow, later with Black Sabbath and own band Dio, then with a revamped Black Sabbath, which they had to call Heaven & Hell.
Ronnie was a great singer. He wrote great melody lines, which often were not easy to sing. Surely not a shouter or screamer. This guy really could sing.
I met him on a couple of occasions during the Rainbow days. He was such a nice person.
There are many songs related to Ronnie. The stand out classic for me is Rainbow’s Catch The Rainbow, but he delivered also unforgettable tunes like Man On The Silver Mountain, Stargazer, Gates Of Babylon (all with Rainbow), Heaven and Hell (with Black Sabbath) and ofcourse the great Holy Diver album with his own band).
I remember seeing him at a Rockpalast broadcast with Heaven And Hell last year, thinking: what a way to rock at this age.
Sadly a stomach cancer came up, a hard thing to deal with.
I remember Ronnie. Hope you catch the almighty Rainbow.

Hi all you fellow music lovers,

This is goin’ to be my private corner on this space of the web. As it is private, you are invited to respond. Maybe we can create a sort of interaction or whatever. Feel free to react.
Ofcourse, this will be mainly about music.
I am a music freak, that’s set. Since I was about 8 or 9 music has been a driven force in my life. And more important: since I wrote my first song rule number one was: just do what I want to do, no compromises.
Well, up until now I can say that’s what I’ve done. BUT IT AIN’T EASY! And it didn’t make me a millionaire!
Having such a wide musical taste as I have, doesn’t make it easy. For some 14 years I’ve been singing in bands which would now been categorized as classic rock bands. Bands, influenced by the likes of Deep Purple, Rainbow, Iron Maiden and so on. Great years, and I loved every minute of it.
But in private life I also loved music by great songwriters like Van Morrison, John Hiatt or Peter Hammill, to name just a few. Every time when I went to one of their concerts, I had thoughts like: wouldn’t it be great to do something in that direction.
Well, playing in such a classic rock band generally means you can’t change too much.
Just because the audience might find it too hard to identify themselves.
Just this happened in the final year of the best band I’ve ever played with, Eternal Flame.
We’d been playing our basic hard rock music for about five years, faced a change in the line up with a new bassplayer. And there we went. Writing a lot of new songs, trying out a lot of different things (there even was a song where I had to RAP). Initially it felt good to do something different, on the other hand one might say: the band lost sense of direction.
And just that, loosing sense of direction, kills a band.
Which was pretty sad.
The band split up, while still being good friends.

I hear you say: what are you trying to say?
Well just this. You can define your direction and narrow it and go ahead. But there will come a day where you will meet your limits.
And just that is why B.Loose was such a great album to make. Blues was the starting point but there were no boundaries, everything could happen as it happened. Just like I use to say: It’s not just a blues album – it’s much more than that.

With love from me to you
Kazz

This is going to be a space where I will talk about things that are related to all kinds of stuff, probably mostly related to music but not necessarily.

Would be nice to have some kind of interaction with you, so you are invited to write your comments (English please!).