Jimi Hendrix in Monterey on his knees in front of his burning guitar, conjuring up the flames; Janis Joplin laughing on a couch, his left arm up his hip, a bottle of Southern Comfort in his right hand; Johnny Cash with his rage-distorted face, his right middle finger drawn like a weapon; Jim Morrison with his bare upper body embodying the voluptuous shepherd god Pan as well as the hedonistic worry breaker Dionysos; David Bowie with his face at the pelvis of Mick Ronson, his guitar simulating fellatio; Sid Vicious with a blood-stained chest carved with the words "Gimme A Fix"; Iggy Pop, walking over the heads of his fans - images that capture unique moments, images that initiate careers and manifest images, images you can't get out of your head anymore. The power of the visual is of enormous importance especially in rock music: Like in no other field we equate the image of the artist with his person.

At the snack bars around the Schlesische Tor in Berlin's Kreuzberg district, people sit in front of flat screens and watch football. Only at Club Bi Nuu is the world championship in Brazil a minor matter. John Garcia's band Unida has gathered there for a soundcheck. Despite the newly awakened interest of the Americans in soccer, which one hears about everywhere, the members of the US band don't feel like kicking. Before the soundcheck can start, the ex-Kyuss singer follows up interview obligations. He uses the last gig before a longer break of his Stoner troupe to talk about his solo debut.

eclipsed: You're releasing your first solo album. Surely some fans expected it earlier..

Amon Düül II had emerged in 1967 from an artist community in Munich's trendy Schwabing district. In times of student unrest, APO and protests against the Vietnam War, music was still an expression of a socio-political attitude. Whether the band still lives this artistic spirit after almost fifty years, we discussed with guitarist John Weinzierl.

eclipsed: Why did you publish "Bee As Such" now as a physical product under the title "Düülirium"?

John Weinzierl: Nowadays you work differently, you put something in the room first, just like we download the music under the working title "Bee As Such". I got a request a few months ago to play on a Billy Cobham record and I came into contact with the people from the Cleopatra label. Then we said let's get them out with the cover and everything. The name was suggested by our old Chris [Düül-Gitarrist/Violinist/Singer Chris Karrer; note], the rest of us just said: "Yeah!". (laughs)

End of April. eclipsed sits together with singer/guitarist Mikael Åkerfeldt and guitarist Fredrik Åkesson on the sunny balcony of a Berlin hotel not far from Alexanderplatz. The new album "Pale Communion" is ready for prelude, but Opeth have to postpone the release until the end of August. Reason: Band boss Åkerfeldt commissioned his house artist Travis Smith to do a three-part cover painting that brings back pleasant memories of Emerson, Lake & Palmer's "Pictures At An Exhibition", but was not finished in time.

eclipsed: Mikael, your last album "Heritage" represented the most radical break in Opeth's history. What has this change achieved?

Curved Air's new studio album "North Star" is based on their powerful-progressive times in the early seventies. And this although of the original line-up only singer Sonja Kristina and drummer Florian Pilkington-Miksa are still present. Wonder violinist Darryl Way, who played a decisive role in shaping the Curved Air sound, has not been in the service of the British group since 2009; Paul Sax, however, is in no way inferior to him in terms of virtuosity. Guitarist Kirby Gregory was already in the seventies for a short time in the game, he is still an expert on his instrument.

His most fervent wishes remained unfulfilled during his lifetime: Johnny Winter waited in vain for a Grammy for his own album as well as for the recording in the Rock'n'Roll Hall Of Fame. On 16 July, the gifted white bluesman was found dead in his hotel room in Zurich; he died during a tour at the age of seventy.

Among the white guitar heroes he was the most passionate and profiled, definitely "no Rock'n'Roller", as he himself said, "but a Bluesman". The boy who grew up in Texas - like his younger brother Edgar Albino and thus "whiter than snow" - was not born with this passion. His father played the saxophone and sang in barbershop formations, his mother played the piano, and her son first tried the clarinet and big band sound.

Rick Wakeman cannot be blamed for a lack of productivity. The blonde keyboarder, who decisively shaped the sound of Yes, has recorded more than a hundred solo albums in the meantime. One of his favourite musical children is still the setting of Jules Verne's novel "Journey to the Centre of the Earth", which is now available in a completely renewed and expanded version. In an interview with eclipsed, Wakeman revealed how this new recording came about.

eclipsed: The current recording of "Journey" is an extended version of the 2012 re-recording, right?

JOE BONAMASSA - Different Shades Of Blue (4:36)
Album: Different Shades Of Blue (2014)
Label/Distribution: Provogue/Mascot/Rough Trade

After a solo break of two years, JOE BONAMASSA once again provides his fan community with a new blues rock treat. On "Differnet Shades Of Blue" again brilliantly produced by Kevin Shirley in Las Vegas, the singer/guitarist conjures up the feeling of his early albums time and time again! (RELEASE 19.9.)