Well...  Let me fill you in on what's been happening...

Our dear friend and Bass player, Lee Dorman, passed away December 21, 2012 from natural causes.  He'd been struggling with a bad heart for years and it amazed all of us that he hung on so long and was so strong during the whole process.  Not a complaint was ever heard from him about it and he just kept chugging along as if nothing was wrong.  He was an amazingly strong individual and one hell of a person.

I count him as one of my closest friends, he and Ron Bushy, and that's why I've been here doing this for all of these years.  Running the Merchandise site, when they were on tour doing the Roadie gig, always fixing somebody's gear, always running to the local music shop where ever we were to get a set of strings or a new such-and-such for somebody.  It has always been a pleasure to not only work with these guys, who are absolutely amazing musicians and people on top of it, but to be around for all these different tours, different tour dates is other countries, rehearsing, recording, etc., etc.  It's been more than an honor to have these great guys let me into their homes and hearts and call me family.  They are the only family I have.  God love them all, I sure do!

Our buddy Ron Bushy has been ill also, for quite some time, but he's been getting better everyday and he seems to be over the hump.  Getting back to normal after quite an ordeal.  I won't go into what exactly happened but it involved multiple surgeries, a lot of therapy and lot's or worrying.  But he seems to be SO much better now, getting more energy, moving around a lot more, signing CD's and he's even quit smoking. (that should give you a clue).  But now that Ron is back on his feet a little bit we are getting some CD's signed and onto the website for sale again.

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida Deluxe has been discontinued by the record company WEA. Only the Deluxe version, the regular version is still available.  That's a surprise to me being it's one hell of a seller, always has been.  We'll see if the decision sticks, they've changed their minds before. Speaking of which, they have decided to release "The Best of Iron Butterfly, Evolution" on CD!  This has never before been released on CD that we are aware of (we are always the last to know) so we are getting as many as we can before they change their mind again :)

Evolution was one of my first albums ever!  I was eight years old and my Mom bought me a little record player and 2 albums, War, The World is a Ghetto, and Evolution.  I had gotten hooked on her copy of "Heavy", used to stare at that cover for hours, so she picked up a copy of the album for me.  I've been a die hard fan ever since!

We were able to get more of the 1968 Live recordings from the Fillmore East again, the Two CD set. What a classic these are but what bear to get.  They are limited to 2 online retailers only.  If you see them elsewhere, they've been bought and are being re-sold.  Could be used.  But we had to push pretty hard to be able to get these being we aren't one of the 'authorized' retailers.  We made the point that the band, at the very least, should have access to it's own recordings right?  They finally agreed and we can get a few copies from time to time.  They printed a limited number of these and say when they sell out, that's it for new copies.  Get yours while you can!  Heck, the first thing both Ron and I did was grab copies for ourselves :)

The really interesting thing about these recordings is they were on tapes along with Led Zeppelin shows.  You know Zeppelin opened for Iron Butterfly right?  In 1968 also, we think maybe even these shows that are on the CD's.  Zeppelin only opened for one band then they took off, and that one band was Iron Butterfly.  A little trivia for ya there.  But Zeppelin was also on these tapes so the record company took extreme care when restoring these tapes to be re-recorded.  It's quite a process, the tapes have to be baked in an oven to recover their original shape and a lot of the time are destroyed when they are played for the recording.  I understand that's what happened with these tapes, they destroyed themselves as they were being recorded.  That old magnetic media only held out for so long.  But I know the attorneys for Zep were a little concerned with what was going to be done with these tapes.  I got a call from one of them warning me not to try to bootleg them.  I chuckled and responded, "Well... I'm a HUGE Zeppelin fan so I would never do anything like that to them, and I know you guys have the money to sue me into orbit so it's the last thing I would try!"  hahahaha  Being "inside" the music industry for so long with Butterfly and other bands, I know how hard it can be and how many times bands get ripped off, so the last thing I would do would be rip off one of my favorite bands.  Behind Butterfly of course :)

Well I'll leave it off at that and as I have some time work on getting this blog set up nicer, get some categories set up, and I hope that you all chime in at least to say hello and as time passes we can all tell some old Butterfly stories.  

God bless you all, and remember Lee and Ron in your prayers :)