#jerry stickells

[debdarkpetal]

[one-year-of-love-deacon-mercury]

Gerry Stickells fue un mecánico inglés que transportó bandas de rock locales a sus conciertos en su camioneta cuando el gerente de Jimi Hendrix le dijo en 1966 que si podía conseguir el equipo de Hendrix a través de aduanas en el aeropuerto de Heathrow, él podría unirse a la gira en Europa. Misión cumplida, así se convirtió en parte de la historia de la música rock primero como un roadie y luego como un tour manager para Hendrix.

Mayormente conocido por su colaboración con Queen, también trabajó con Elton John, Abba, y otros famosos cantantes.

Murió el 6 de marzo de 2019 en su casa de Los Ángeles a la edad de 76 años.

Stickells no tenía conocimiento musical pero era capaz de manejar cualquier situación.

A través del mánager de Elton John Reid, Stickells y Lamb conocieron a Queen en los años 70 y ayudaron a la banda a cumplir su ambición en

Crea los espectáculos brillantes por los que se hicieron famosos.

"Lo más difícil es tratar con las personalidades involucradas, pero una vez que te acostumbras a los estados de ánimo de los artistas, generalmente puedes seguir un paso adelante," dijo Stickells.

Roger Taylor lo llamó "figura paterna, un gran amigo y maestro, y una isla de calma en medio del caos".

Peter Hince, que trabajó como un roadie con Queen de 1975 a 1986, dijo que Stickells tenía una colaboración fructífera con Freddie,"... probablemente era la única persona que podía cambiar la mente de Freddie especialmente cuando se estaba haciendo pasar por ser Una diva," escribió. Peter Hince en este sentido.

Stickells se le atribuye a ayudar a abrir el mercado de conciertos de rock en América del Sur a principios de los 1980; Queen lo demostró con sus éxitos en Argentina y Brasil en 1981.

Sus habilidades como organizador y diplomático fueron particularmente útiles con los regímenes militares. En 1985, él y Lamb construyeron la infraestructura para el primer Festival de Rock in Rio en Río de Janeiro, donde Queen actuó.

Ya enfermo, vio la película "Bohemian Rhapsody" y la parte que más llamó su atención fue la reconstrucción de Live Aid.

Reconoció al gran líder y de repente sonrió dijo: "Es Fred".

📷 Munich 13 de Agosto de 1984 ~ Freddie con Jerry Stickells.

[gefuhl-des-zweifels]

Brian May: Enlightened Monarch

Author: Sacha Reins (Best, №118, May 1978)

It's no secret I'm a Queen fan. So I volunteered for an interview. Now, after a few weeks, when the interview took place, I admit the obvious: these young people have their own cockroaches.

[Sacha Reins, 70s]

It was a series of last-minute and appointed interviews that were cancelled under strange pretexts.

The sirs took a star. On the Sunday before the concert in Paris, their press agent told me to stay at home on the phone, and as soon as one of these gentlemen is ready for an interview, I will call, and I will immediately have to come. What was I supposed to do, send them away?

Then there's this ridiculous party. On the night of the second concert in the hall of a chic restaurant in their honor was a party where they were handed gold discs.

The group arrived ... and locked in a private office, so they wouldn't be disturbed.

Queen is constantly surrounded by a team of security guards-bodyguards-managers who systematically block the group.

As soon as you manage to overcome this dam, you come across charming guys who pretend to be surprised to see you furious at being treated like pigs. They know nothing! I don't believe that.

Queen, in fact, suffer from a complex of Rolling Stones. Like the Stones, they want to be chased by hordes of crazy fans. Alas, this is not so, they are part of a well-known group, but individually do not cause delight in the crowd. And so to create an illusion ... they surround themselves with a whole retinue and security service, as useless as grotesque.

An interview with Brian May took place one day in Zurich. In the evening I had to attend their concert and then have dinner with them. The interview ended, I took my things, called a taxi and went to the airport to go home. I'm tired of their antics. Brian May was very courteous, but his entourage certainly sucks.

Monarchy

– Are you satisfied with your Paris concerts?

Yes, very. For us, these shows were held in a very special way. We were beginning to think we were banned from France. None of our recordings were sold here until We Are The Champions. And as soon as this single was a success, we said, well, it's time to go. The first night we were very nervous. We have been told so many times that the Paris audience is one of the most difficult in the world! We were very careful the first night, almost closed, and I think the audience felt it. The second night was completely different: contact had already been established.

– I attended this concert, and several times you made me think of Led Zeppelin because of the music and the peculiar interaction between you and Mercury.

– This is not the first time when we are compared with LZ in one or another plane. In fact, I think there was a lot more common ground between Queen and LZ a few years ago when we started. But now we have moved away from this form of hard rock, we have developed our own harmonies, a style that belongs only to us. However, LZ and we follow similar routes because, forming as musicians, we were influenced by the same people.

– Is there any stage rivalry between you and Mercury?

– No, we are too close, we know each other too well, we had too many common problems. Freddie is the natural point of attraction of the group, and it's good that he realizes his charisma in this way.

The first person the viewer watches will always be the lead singer and then the guitarist. Therefore, it would be foolish to try to fight with Freddie for power on stage. Especially since he's a fantastic showman.

– No leader in the group?

– No. Whenever we make a decision, whether it's our business or music, we meet all four of us together, have a long conversation, and then decide what we're going to do.

We complement each other. Specifically, John Deacon deals with money. Roger Taylor is responsible for our communications with the outside world, I mean the outside world in relation to Queen.

– In this sense, I found that your behavior in Paris was a little strange. All of these appointed and revoked by the miserable occasions interview. This ultra-twitch security that has built a wall around you. This ridiculous party, when you took a private office with a thug at the door, which blocked access to other guests. As if journalists or promoters were going to attack you! It was all very strange.

– For our image well, that we look as excessively guarded and hard-to-reach group. So even more people will be interested in us. As for the party, I don't remember it very well.

Equipment

– Keep going. Who gave you the idea of this light installation?

– Nobody, we developed it a year ago with the help of our engineer Jerry Stickels.

– So she came before «Close encounters of the third degree»?

– Long time. So this similarity between the spaceship from the movie and our glowing crown is very strange. Americans were struck by this similarity. We receive many letters on this subject.

– You have a lot of stage equipment. This is a device that endlessly reproduces the sound of the guitar, have you been using it for a long time?

– Since 1972. It was necessary for us from the very beginning, but we had no money, we were able to buy it only in 72-m. This is a rather complex device. It took me a long time to learn how to handle it properly, and I also changed it so that it could play two different sounds indefinitely. Now I know it perfectly and can use it to play harmonies, counterpoints, chords.

[Vintage 1970's Maestro Echoplex EP-4 Solid State Tape Delay]

The trickiest thing is to perfectly tune the scene so I can hear exactly how the sound goes and comes back. If for some reason it is hard to hear what is happening, it is a disaster because I do not know how often to put a refund. But this has not happened for a long time, because now we have everything we need on stage.

We are sometimes criticized for the fortune we have invested in our equipment. This kind of criticism is quite inappropriate, because if we spend so much money on equipment, it's all for the audience to be satisfied, both visually and musically.

You see, we're interested in being able to play back what we're doing on the record. Complex harmonies and all that. But there are only four of us. We need the help of electronics, so Freddie and I are using these devices with endless echoes. We don't want to play pre-recorded tracks like some bands do. We don't think it's fair.

– But you use the entry in Bohemian Rhapsody…

– Yeah, but that's different. The BR passage you are referring to is a complete reproduction of a studio recording. We recorded this song as an Opera. Each of us sang about twenty different parts to reproduce exactly one big classical choir. It is absolutely impossible to perform on stage. We tried it a few times, but it sounded really bad compared to the album version, so we decided to play a pre-recorded Opera passage. But to avoid any doubts or misunderstandings, we give these recordings in complete darkness and do not appear until the hard rock part, which we play live. It's more honest.

– Where do you get all these classical and Baroque allusions that your music is filled with?

– I don't know, because none of us have any real classical foundations. I think that all this comes from the depths of our childhood memories, when our parents listened to waltzes on the radio, brass bands in parks on dundays. It must have come from there.

– Your latest album, News Of The World, doesn't have enough references to Baroque.

– Yeah. We went back to pure hard rock. Without excesses. We've come a long way in the Baroque style, a cross between Opera and rock, and I don't think we could have been more successful than with A Night At The Opera. That's why we came back to more unpretentious music.

– A Night At The Opera sold best, so don't you think you've disappointed a large audience who liked these musical tricks?

– We always disappoint someone, no matter what we do. When we started working with the Baroque style, we disappointed our first fans who loved us for our pure hard rock.

– They say you don't take vacations.…

– Yes, we work hard. Every year we lock ourselves in the studio for two or three months, then we go on a two-month American tour, then we spend two months in Europe, two months in Japan and Australia, and when it's over, it's time to go back to the studio for the next album. We have been living in this rhythm for five years.

– Bands like Queen and all the major British bands we've seen in recent years have been getting more and more stage equipment. Now everyone has lasers, bizarre scenes, smoke generators, etc. When will this arms race end?

– Never. Show business will always follow with interest the development of technology in all that relates to audiovisual information, and use it to create even more pompous, beautiful and impressive shows. However, there is a very clear reaction from part of the public (I'm talking about the rock audience), especially in the UK, where most young people want the bands to return to the adequate stage art as it was ten years ago.

I don't mind, but here we are faced with a mathematical impossibility. To play without assistive devices, you will have to work in small halls, even in clubs where your creative energy is in direct contact with your audience. There really is no need for a rotating stage and smoke, everyone is in direct contact with the music. But the famous band will no longer be able to play in small halls.

[News Of The World Tour]

Look at Paris, in two days we performed in front of 18,000 people. In a hall with two thousand seats we would have to play for everyone nine days in a row and eighteen days – in the club. At this rate, it will take us ten years to travel around the world, it is unthinkable. That is the only way to have time everywhere – to play in the huge halls (and believe me, Pavillon de Paris – not the biggest).

[Pavillon de Paris (aka Les Abattoirs de la Villette – "Slaughterhouse in La Villette"); as a concert hall for about 10,000 spectators, the building was used from 1975 to 1980.]

Now, about the question you asked me. I don't know how or when it will end, but I know what the next step is: holography. A hologram is a three - dimensional photo projection in space. It will be possible to create incredible scenery, in a second to project the Grand Canyon of Colorado or skyscrapers of New York in 3D, creating the illusion of full presence. The basic principles are developed, but everything else is still in the process of testing for wide application.

Fantasia

– What about Sex Pistols?

– It's a band that we really like ("we" means Queen) and I'm really sorry that they broke up. But it was almost inevitable.

– Why?

– They were under too much pressure. The British music press (the worst in the world) has made the lives of these guys unbearable, making them both heroes and scapegoats. The British press, to keep circulation, so needs in stars, that fabricates new names for couple of months. And an ordinary boy is not easy to survive the rapid transformation from a young nerd to a star. Most young talents don't know how to handle it. If by a Fluke they stay on the horse and become really popular stars, then the same press that inflated the whole story, smears them on the wall, because it feels that they are out of control and will be able to do without her support.

The British press is destructive, and Sex Pistols is not the first victim. We had a chance to succeed without the press. When we started, we were not written about, and when it did happen, the whole thing was limited to three contemptuous lines. As a result, we were able to gradually and without their help to gain the trust of the public.

– How long will you stay together?

– Hard to say. At the moment, everything is fine, we get along well, we are famous all over the world. Why run away?

– Do you see yourself on the rock scene in forty years?

– Perhaps by that time our music will develop in another direction. Maybe we'll have other ambitions. Personally, I am always guided by some achievable goal, to conquer France, for example. Or something like that. Make a full house in Madison Square Garden or Earl's Court.

If one day we reach the point where all desires are fulfilled, because we have already achieved everything, it will become a serious problem. That's what happens to Elton John.

Everything he could wish for, he had already received. He was not destined to become more famous or rich. He can only go down, because already at the top. He is unhappy because life cannot give him anything new. I don't want to be in this position.

– You wanted to conquer the French public, and you did it. Got a new target?

To lose the French public, so that there is a goal to return it. No, I'm kidding, to compose music so beautiful that animators could create on its basis at least the same beautiful cartoon as Fantasia. And finally take a vacation. Long vacation.

Source: http://queenfrance.online.fr/htm/presse/article3.htm

Translated from French: @gefuhl-des-zweifels

[moustacheimpossible-blog]

The Hunter

CHAPTER 6 - POLICY OF TRUTH

He entered his place, beaming with joy, content to see that his lower back was less painful than last week. He headed for the kitchen and poured himself a glass of orange juice before getting upstairs to check on Frankie.

"You won't believe it, Frankie, it was better today! No pain at all.." He exclaimed, pushing Frankie's bedroom door.

"Frankie?" She was obviously not hiding under the covers. Luther returned to the hall and checked in the bathroom. He could tell she had taken her shower though, the bathroom was still having this humid air trapped in there.

"Frankie? Where are you?" She couldn't be far, thought Luther. She was sick and he really doubted she would have gotten outside.

He sighed, not pleased with what was happening.

"I swear Frankie, you better have a good reason!" Luther returned downstairs to the living room, but Frankie wasn't there, and the TV was still on. Almost on his way outside, Luther stopped by the basement staircase and spotted the basement door that had been broken down in pieces.

"Frankie????" He rushed himself downstairs, but to no avail, Frankie wasn't in there... But he observed that the basement window had been opened. He tried to reconstruct the scenario in his mind. Frankie had probably tried to lock herself in the basement and escape by the window since there was the plastic box on the ground, just underneath the window.

He just couldn't call the cops, and explain to them that Frankie had probably been kidnapped. He didn't really feel like calling Ethan either and explaining to him that his niece had been kidnapped.

"Fuck!! I shouldn't have left her alone!!" He felt guilty and really believed that nothing would've happened if he had stayed with Frankie. He had no choice, he had to call Ethan and reveal him what had happened.

Using the smartphone Ethan had given him, Luther dialed the number and waited for Ethan to take the call.

"Yes, Luther?"

The black man sighed loudly, exasperated by the whole thing.

"Ethan, you won't be happy. Frankie disappeared! I came back home and she wasn't in her bed anymore..."

He shut his brown eyes, wondering how Ethan would react. No, he knew how Ethan would react and that's why he wasn't too keen on calling him at first.

"What do you mean in bed, it's like dinner time for you??"

"Ethan, she's sick since two days. She went to bed in the afternoon and I decided to go out for a walk tonight. When I came back, she wasn't there anymore. I did check my house, and she's nowhere to find. What I do now?"

"Ok Luther, listen to me, there's nothing you can do right now. I'll find her, I'm going to contact Hunley right away, and he'll release some of his agents to search for Frankie. Stay home and wait, Luther, I'll keep you updated. It's not your fault, ok?"

Even though Ethan reassured him, Luther could feel the stress building up in Ethan's voice. He felt guilty and knew it wouldn't have happened if he had stayed with her... Ethan ended the conversation with Luther, and the big man almost fell down on his soft couch, worried for the young woman...

It didn't take long for Hunley to knock at Luther's door. He invited the secretary of the IMF inside his cozy house, not really knowing where to start. He hated Hunley, even though he had joined the IMF, he just couldn't stand this man, still wondering why he had given up a big career at the CIA for the IMF.

"Hi, Mr. Stickell. I've chosen the best agents out there to find Ethan's daughter!" Luther cocked his head to the side when Hunley referred to Frankie as Ethan's daughter.

"Did you inform of your agents that she was Ethan's daughter?" Demanded Luther while narrowing his dark eyes at Hunley.

"Of course I did, we're looking for someone in here. An important person as far as I'm concerned!"

Luther snorted at Hunley, knowing well he was a real cretin.

"You don't get it, don't you? Frankie isn't aware that Ethan is her father, he's never told her about it because he wants to protect her. Now that you told your agents about it, the information could end up in bad hands! It wouldn't be a great idea either for Frankie to learn this from someone else than Ethan, don't you think?"

Hunley didn't seem preoccupied with the fact that Frankie was oblivious to the fact that Ethan was her father and not her uncle.

"Luther? Do I look like Jerry Springer in here? I don't have time for details of this sort. We want to find Frankie Hunt and as fast as we can. Now, you're sure that she's been kidnapped? Ethan informed me that she had in mind to go back to Las Vegas, perhaps she decided she's had enough of her life in here..."

Luther shook his head, exasperated by Hunley.

"She's sick since two days, I really doubt she packed her bag for Las Vegas."

Luther stroke his bald head as Hunley pulled out a notepad from his jacket.

"Alright, what was she wearing before you left her?"

Luther placed his hands on his large hips, wondering if that was a joke. He looked down at Hunley as if he was an ignorant bastard.

"What was she wearing? She was sleeping, she was probably wearing a pajama,  I think it was blue... Look, I don't know how you'll find her, but I know one thing. There's a man with a black Range Rover that was parked across the street two days ago. He did seem suspicious when I approached his car one night, he left in a hurry... Perhaps this detail is more important than asking me what was she wearing!"

Luther sighed again, louder this time, hoping Hunley had caught it. He was annoyed by this man, and he couldn't do anything about it.

"Luther? It could be Lane again..."

He stared at Hunley, fearing the worse for Frankie. He then remembered that the Range Rover parked nearby his house belonged to Ethan Hunt from what his police friend had suggested him after running the license plate number.

"OMG! That's not Ethan!!!" His eyes widened in shock, realizing that the man he had been speaking too over the phone for the last few weeks wasn't Ethan. He had received the smartphone 3 weeks ago exactly, which meant that it probably wasn't even Ethan who had sent this device, but someone else, simply to check on Luther's and Frankie's whereabouts.

"What do you mean it wasn't Ethan?" Hunley expressed a confused gaze as Luther exclaimed out that it wasn't Ethan.

"Alan? Ethan does have a black Range Rover, but the man I saw inside the Range Rover this week, it wasn't Ethan. I do think Ethan is in danger. He was after Lane in Europe, right?"

Hunley pushed his tongue against the inside of his cheek before speaking up.

"He was... You think Lane got him?"

Luther nodded his head, headed to the kitchen to sit down a bit before he'd collapse down. Hunley followed him a few seconds after.

"It's all clear now... The man I was speaking with, wasn't Ethan... It was Lane! Jesus fuck! I've failed hard, Ethan will never forgive me!"

Hunley stood there, not even moving at all. His blue eyes frozen on the basket of fruits on the table.

"We have a serious problem in here... If Ethan and Frankie have been captured by Lane, I will have to set up a team of agents and start a new mission. We can't afford to lose Ethan!"

Luther narrowed his eyes at Hunley when he mentioned he couldn't afford to lose Ethan.

"What about Frankie?"

Hunley cleared his throat before speaking.

"Now, our main concern is Agent Hunt, once we find him, we'll focus on Frankie!"

Luther clenched his teeth, wondering if he really had heard Hunley saying these words. Unfortunately, he had! His right fist clenched rapidly and he punched Hunley straight on his face, breaking his nose at the same time.

"You're a fucking asshole Hunley! If you don't get a team up for Frankie as well, I'm going to do it myself and look for this child until I die!!"

Hunley had fallen down on the kitchen floor, moaning in pain as he tried to cover his nose with his hands to avoid staining his suit since the blood was gushing out of his nose...

Luther was seen leaving his house while Hunley was trying to recover from the hit he had received from Luther.