MY FAVOURITE THINGS FROM THE 90s

By Johanne James

MONSTERS OF ROCK

The Official Illustrated History 1980-1996

Subtitled “The full illustrated history of the world’s greatest rock festival”, Rufus Publications in cooperation with LiveNation recently released a monster of a book telling us the story about the infamous festival. Right on the verge of hard rock and heavy metal becoming subgenres ruling the airwaves and being wider appreciated, Donington became host to a new festival breaking all existing boundaries and become one of the biggest and most heralded festivals ever.

VAN DE FORST

Hello Nashville

Yes, this is an E-zine that has its main focus on the hard rock, heavy metal genre and its lifestyle, but sometimes an opportunity comes along. An invitation to take a closer look over the fence to see what’s going on on the other side. In this case German rocker Michael Voss, who claimed fame as frontman of Mad Max and extended his career as a successful producer and songwriter [Michael Schenker, a.o.], let us know he had produced an album with a young German singer named Van De Forst. This badass looking “fraulein” happens to sing laid-back pop music with a strong country appeal and surprisingly she also already worked with various “hotshots” in the business. Van’s new, second album `Unconditional’ contains accessible songs, in which she presents herself as a confident singer with a very pleasant vocal sound and timbre. Like in rock music also the guitar has a prominent role in her songs and the variation goes from steel guitar, acoustic guitar till the roaring electric six string and it seems we can hear Michael Voss’s rockin’ roots come to the surface once in a while. I can’t say that I am a pop country expert, but to me it is obvious that this album is made with passion and dedication, just like our own rock and metal gods do for decades. Just out of curiosity I decided to ask Van De Forst a few questions about the connection with Michael Voss and to see if things are really that different on the other side of the heavy metal fence.