Merry Christmas

I just realised that so far I didn't upload any pics of my latest guitar, the red Les Paul Classic that I mentioned some weeks ago, so finally here is one, again taken by Nina Voronova. Besides this I got two new endorsement deals, with Mesa Boogie and D'Addario strings. I have been using Boogies and D'Addario strings since ages, so it is great to finally get those deals. And finally, let me wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year, see you somewhere on tour in 2009.

Having some fun with Slash

In the moment I am having some fun with the new Slash signature Gold Top Les Paul from Gibson. I got this one and the Epiphone version to test them for German Metal Hammer magazine and I have to say both are really cool guitars. I have never been the biggest fan of Slash or Guns'n'Roses, but we share the same taste in guitars and this model really rocks, if you are looking for a great rock guitar be sure to check it out.

HipHop goes metal

It seems the HipHop / Rap scene is discovering metal... after Bushido sampling Dimmu Borgir it seems to be our turn now... Check out this link

Time to say good bye...

... to some pieces of my equipment. There are two items that I am not really using anymore, so I decided to put them on eBay, it just doesn't make sense to keep them under my bed just for the sake of keeping them. One is my Mesa Boogie Rectifier Recording Preamp, which I used as a backup amp for the "A Twist in the Myth" tour. Since my main Rectifier is a very reliable amp it was hardly ever used and now I took it out of my live rack. If you are interested, here is the link.
The second item is my last ESP guitar, the blue Eclipse custom. It was my main guitar for many years, but since I switched completely and exclusively to Gibson I also thought it makes more sense to sell it, the guitar is way too good to just rot under my bed, here is the link. If you want to get an impression about the looks and the sound of this guitar, you can check it out on the "Imaginations through the Looking Glass" DVD.

Back from Spain

We just came back from Spain where we played two shows last weekend. Both gigs were a lot of fun, even though the temperature during the first show, an open air, took us a bit by surprise... I think this was the very first time in the history of Blind Guardian that saw me freezing during a whole show, not even the lights were able to fight back the cold coming from the wind. But at least I learned my lesson, next time I will be prepared and have a warm sweatshirt with me ;-)

Messing around with the layout a bit...

If you visited my blog before you might realize some changes in the layout. The simple reason for this is that I got a bit bored with the original design, so I decided to pimp it a bit. Since I am still not really familiar with html codes and all this stuff it might take a while until I reach the result that I have in my mind, but well, we will see, at least I can already do some easy things that make this blog look better. Stay tuned for more layout updates...

Time travelling

I just realised that I didn't post anything here for a while so I guess it is time for an update :-)
In the moment I am having a lot of fun with a bit of time travelling. I started to digitalize my old vcr-tapes, I still have a big collection with BG stuff, lots of old shows, and it is great to watch those concerts again, they bring up a lot of memories. I just finished burning a show from 89 on DVD, thank god the quality of the tape was still ok, not DVD quality of course, but definitely good enough, I just hope all the other tapes will still be as good. Aside from this I am starting to prepare myself for the upcoming shows in Spain, going through some songs again, and I play around with a new guitar that I got shortly ago. It is a very nice Gibson Les Paul Classic Custom, it looks awesome and sounds great, and it has a very nice modification that none of my other guitars has. It is equiped with a Fishman Powerbridge, a Piezo pickup that allows me to get very good acoustic sounds out of this guitar, I can't wait to try this on stage :-)

The auction is online

Ok, I just fought my way through eBay (this used to be much easier in the past) and now my skateboard is online and for sale, whoever is interested, the ebay article number is 290232964338
or just use this direct link:
http://cgi.ebay.de/Blind-Guardian-Skateboard-of-Doom_W0QQitemZ290232964338QQihZ019QQcategoryZ21756QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Good luck and have fun with that damned board ;-)

The board of doom

Look what I found while cleaning out the basement a bit... my board of doom, the cursed skateboard that helped me to break my leg back in 2004. Back then I swore a holy oath to never ever use a skateboard again, and guess what, I kept my promise :-) So, since I don't have any use for this board anymore ( I kinda accepted the fact that there is no promising carreer as a professional skateboarder ahead of me) I decided to put it on ebay, so if anybody is interested in breaking his leg too, this board might be a great help ;-) As soon as I put it on ebay I will post the link here.

Are you commercial?

The other day I saw a funny little discussion somewhere on the internet. Some people got into a serious fight about bands being commercial or not, and of course they were not really arguing, but only bashing each other. Now I wonder is there something as a non-commercial band at all? Lets take 2 bands as an example... Jon Bovi on the one hand and Dummi Burger on the other (lol, yes, I know, those names sound kinda familiar, I don't mean to talk about those bands themselves, I just take them as examples for very different genres). While Jon Bovi plays melodic (Hard) Rock, Dummi Burger plays Black Metal, so is Jon Bovi more commercial? Or are both bands commercial, after all both signed a record deal... isn't this "being commercial" by definition? If you sign a deal with a record company it means you want to sell albums, that's pretty commercial, isn't it? And is Jon Bovi more commercial, because he uses make up and hairspray? Or is corpse paint and fake blood the same, just a tool to attract a certain group of people? While Jon Bovi is aiming at 14 year old girls, that are supposed to find him "sooo sweet", is Dummi Burger aiming at the 14 year old boys that are supposed to find them "sooo cool"? Does all this matter at all? Isn't it better to just focus on the songs and forget about image and all that stuff? I don't really care if a band is commercial or not, or what it looks like, I want to listen to a good song, that's all that matters to me. And just to make this clear, yes, I think both bands, Dummi Burger and Jon Bovi, have good songs ;-)

New challenges

The evening at Giga TV was a lot of fun (thanks to everybody involved) but now the next couple of challenges are already waiting for us. Next on the list is a motion capturing session for our appearance in Sacred II, something that is completely new for us and that I am really looking forward to, should be very interesting. Something else that I am looking forward to a lot is the festival that we will play with Kiss. It will be on June 21 in Bilbao, Spain, and for an old Kiss fan like me it will be a hell of a trip I guess :-)

Giga TV

Now that I am almost done with moving, the next adventure is almost there. On Friday we will be on Giga TV, talking about my fave hobby... World of Warcraft :-) I am not really sure if this is gonna be recorded or broadcasted live (I think it is live), but if you want to check this out just tune in this Friday night.

Moving sucks

Is anyone of you moving in the moment? I am... and I hate it! Moving just sucks, I hate painting walls, I hate drilling holes, I hate messing around with everything that comes along... but I know I will love our new place as soon as we are done so there is a light at the end of the tunnel ;-)

First lesson

I just uploaded my first lesson on GMC, it should be online and active by tomorrow, so feel free to check it out, more will follow :-)

Online guitar lessons

Some weeks ago I discovered the site of Guitarmasterclass , an awesome webpage with tons of great lessons for guitarists. The lessons come in form of videos, with tabs and whatever else you might need to follow them and the variety is endless, from very simple things for beginners up to stuff that most likely I will only be able to play after 15 years of daily practice (and with some of the lessons I am not sure if those 15 years would be enough for me ;-) ) I immediately loved the idea, putting lessons from all kinds of teachers online in one webpage is just great and I thought it would be a great chance for me to also restart giving guitar lessons, and guess what, today I was accepted as a new teacher for GMC :-) So whoever is interested in learning new things, check out this page, there are awesome lessons online already and soon there will also be my first lessons.

Blind Guardian on German TV

Good news for all Germans that could not make it to Wacken last year, on April the 19th WDR Rockpalast will show our headlining gig from last years Wacken Open Air, the show is supposed to start at midnight.

American Idol vs. DSDS

As you can see in my iPod list I really like the band Daughtry in the moment. I heard one of their songs on the radio and my first thought was something like "Oh cool, Nickelback released a new album", but well, obviously it was not Nickelback. Only later I found out that this band was formed by (or around) a guy that took part in American Idol, and I have to say that, comparing this album to ANY album that came from one of the guys that took part in DSDS, the German version of American Idol, I am impressed about the quality of the songs. Ok, they are not the most original songs (as I said, I thought it would be Nickelback), and by now I also know that guys from Nickelback, 3 Doors Down or Matchbox 20 were hired as songwriters, but I don't really care, a good song is a good song and I would love to hear more stuff like that, no matter if the bands come from casting shows or not.

Happy New Year

Happy new year to all of you