IF I COULD TURN BACK TIME

By johanne James

MARTYR TOUR REPORT

The Dutch Metal Legends heading back to the Far East

A little more than one year ago Dutch Metal Legends MARTYR embarked on a plane to Japan for the first time in their career to play a handful of shows in Tokyo and Sapporo. A dream came true, as gigging in the Far East has always been one of the primary objectives to start the band back in 1982 as MARTYR is strongly influenced by 80’s Japanese metal.During that first Japan tour Rick Bouwman (guitars) visited his old time Facebook friend and owner of “Rock Stakk Records”, Mikitoshi (Miki) Matsuo in Osaka. Miki also happens to be the main guy behind the prestigious international True Thrash Fest, which is held every year (this year with bands from The Netherlands, Germany, China, Australia, Japan, India). Due to mutual respect, which is a very important matter in Japanese culture, MARTYR was invited to perform on day 1 of the festival on February 8th and the Cross Breed Device Heat vol. 24 festivals on February 10th 2019. Japanese thrashers RIVERGE organized the last festival.

THUNDER

Music And Trivia With Luke And Harry

Not so long ago English rockers Thunder released their new album called ‘Please Remain Seated’. It is an almost unplugged album featuring 12 “familiar” Thunder songs, but re-recorded. Before the recent show in Weert (NL) I had the chance to talk to guitarist Luke Morley and drummer Gary ‘Harry’ James about that new album and other music trivia….