#Montreux Hotels

[debrink]

Hôtel Terminus

Montreux • Suisse

[thatsgonnaleaveamark]

whyy are concerts so expensive and not close to me ಠ╭╮ಠ

[riaaanna]

Montreux Part 1: First Impressions - 31 Aug and 1 Sept 2023

Welcome to the first in a series of posts that I will publish about my trip to Montreux last year! This had been my dream for years and needless to say I'm eternally grateful to have had this opportunity.

This trip took place around the celebration week of Freddie's birthday. There are two events every year. Firstly is the Freddie Celebration Days organized by Montreux Celebration which takes place at the Market Square area near the statue so it's open for public and free of charge. This took place on 31 Aug - 3 Sept. Secondly is The Official Freddie Mercury Birthday Party organized by Mercury Phoenix Trust which takes place at the Montreux Casino (requires tickets for the party, but there are afternoon activities at the Queen Studio Experience too which are for free). It was a one-day event which was on 2 Sept.

When I decided to go, the tickets had been sold out for a while but I was so lucky to have met a reseller. Also at this period it was kind of insane for me because my dissertation deadline was on 4 Sept. Did I finish my dissertation before going? No... did I bring my laptop and work during every possible break through all this and still get an amazing grade? Hell yeah 😎

So I flew from Manchester firstly to Belgium because that's where I got my visa from. I spent less than 24 hours there but managed to meet my friend and take a tour of the Hergé Museum (Tintin is my childhood hero!). From there I flew to Geneva, which from there is still another hour of train ride to Montreux.

I arrived at my hotel in the evening, which means I missed out most of the first day. Some highlights of the day was Mike Moran (with Phoebe and Jim Jenkins) and the inauguration of David Richards' bust. There's a highlight video of the entire event below:

During the inauguration of David Richard's bust there were video messages from artists he had worked with, including Brian and Roger. I missed seeing those live but here are recordings of them:

So basically on 31 Aug I only had time to check-in to my room and crash. The next day on 1 Sept I finally got out to see the whole place under the sun and my GOD it was a gorgeous, beautiful place. The weather was PERFECT it was warm and breeezy and it was so serene and wow.

When I finally got time a little into the afternoon I went to the statue area which was much more bustling with crowd. Here's my video of arriving to THE statue and some pictures. Beautiful under the sun.

Near the statue there was a replica of the Duck House which was only put there during the celebration.

And here's a picture of the Market Square behind the statue, where most of the events during the celebration are held!

At this point I only had time to take very quick pictures before I headed back to the hotel (about 5-10 mins walk - Montreux is very walkable and lovely!) to work on my dissertation 😭 I was determined to get as much done as possible that day because the next day on 2 Sept is where the bulk of my agenda was going to be, all centered around the Queen Studio Experience and the Party.

But of course, when it was near sunset time, I ran back out there because the weather was so clear and the sight was superb... I was so blessed to experience the view of Freddie's statue in Montreux by the sunset. I took literally hundreds of photos and videos just around that hour alone. My best one is at the top of this post, which truly made me feel like I was in the cover of Made in Heaven! More photos below:

And that's all for my first impression of Montreux! I will have about six or seven more posts in this series (I'm so sorry it was a once in a lifetime opportunity and I really truly MAXIMIZED lmao) so if you're following big thank you and stay tuned for more content upcoming!

[bijouxcarys]

Queen's Hot Space Era: A Deep Dive

Masterlist

I’ve been thinking over this album and era more than usual lately, and decided that I’d write this up. Perhaps as a way to extricate all the Queen knowledge from my head, and the era in question takes up quite a lot of RAM.

The Hot Space album, and era, is very controversial and to this day garners a polarising set of opinions amongst fans and critics alike. So I just thought what the hell, let’s let everyone know what the hell was going on with Queen in the early 80s.

The Hot Space album was the 10th studio album by Queen and was released on the 21st May 1982. It had elements of disco, funk, R&B, dance, and pop, which was very different to what Queen had been doing throughout previous albums. The dance elements of this album was supposedly inspired by the success of Another One Bites The Dust, released in 1980.

Another One Bites The Dust was extremely successful in the US and the UK, the two largest marketing countries in the Western world, at least at the time—and Queen aimed to prolong that success.

The band started recording for Hot Space in June of 1981, and spent a gruelling 10 months on the project before wrapping up the production element in March of 1982. Upon its release, fans and critics found it disappointing. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic said “the band that once proudly proclaimed not to use synthesisers on their albums now dramatically reversed course, dedicating the entire first side of the album to robotic, new wave dance pop, all driven by drum machines and coloured by keyboards with Brian May’s guitar coming in as flavour only on occasion.”

The fourth track on Hot Space, Body Language, has been dubbed the worst song in Queen’s discography by fans, and the whole album received no more than a 3-star rating overall.

Rolling Stone gave them a 3-star, whilst the Encyclopedia of Popular Music gave a 1-star… Yikes.

Hot Space is one of the more obscure Queen albums to those who are not currently, or have ever been, active within the fandom. So we’re going to break it down a little bit, and let’s just talk about the background and context of what the hell was going on with them.

So in 1981, Queen recorded Under Pressure with David Bowie, and it’s still considered one of Queen’s staple and most popular songs. It was recorded in Montreux, and was a completely separate project to Hot Space. The band had met up with Bowie and jammed together for a while, just to see if they could come up with something to lay down and master. Of course, as most people know, bassist John Deacon came up with the iconic Under Pressure bass riff, just before they all went out to get some pizza. And by the time they’d returned to the studio, he’d forgotten it! But luckily drummer Roger Taylor remembered it.

Now, this was the first time Queen weren’t working alone; they were used to working only with their producers, never having had anyone else’s input. The two artists merged as one for the song and it pointed in the direction of a potential new road for Queen—it was looking like an exciting one.

But what went wrong during the recording of Hot Space?

Brian May recalls that there was a total change of life for all of them. They travelled to Munich and according to Brian, that’s when things started to go downhill.

Let’s talk a little bit about the studio in which they recorded the album in Munich. It was situated in the basement of a hotel, and it was called Musicland Studios. It closed in the 90s due to some road issues, so it’s no longer open. But Brian remembers this place being grim and depressing.

The band’s mental health started to deteriorate after learning some unsettling details about the place. In Brian’s words:

“A lot of people used to jump off the top of the building and kill themselves off that particular building. We didn’t know that until we got there.”

The urge to finish recording grew, and they spent months at the hotel.

The aim was to create an album that focused more on the dance elements of music due to the success of Another One Bites The Dust, as I mentioned before. They seemed to be in luck, as Freddie Mercury’s entourage at the time was concentrated with dance influences in the form of Paul Prenter.

Now, who was Paul Prenter, you ask? If you’ve seen the film, you’ll kind of already know, but here’s a bit more of an in-depth look at him.

Paul Prenter was Freddie Mercury’s personal manager from 1977 to 1986. Despite their professional relationship, the two also engaged in intimate relations, and Prenter had a huge influence over Freddie’s life during the time he worked for him. He held partial responsibility for Freddie’s excessive involvement in drugs, alcohol, and his growing promiscuity. 

Freddie was known to have fired Prenter in 1986, and shortly after it was plastered all over the news. It turns out Paul Prenter had sold personal stories to the press about Freddie… What a dick.

After receiving money from multiple press outlets, he moved back to his hometown of Belfast and spent it all—smart. He then asked Freddie for more money! After all that, he went back and asked him for money! But it’s okay, he did succumb to complications from AIDS a few months before Freddie. So… Freddie got the last laugh, it seemed.

You’re probably wondering what Paul Prenter had to do with Hot Space. After all, he wasn’t part of the band, right?

Well, Freddie’s life was ruled by the New York-inspired gay lifestyle of the 80s, particularly engaging in extreme partying and extreme promiscuity. And at the time, Freddie had suggested to the band that the music on their new album should sound like that of which they’d play in a gay bar, but those words had initially come from Paul Prenter.

It’s said that Prenter despised guitars and relentlessly referred to Brian May as old-fashioned. Roger Taylor recalled that Prenter was a “very bad influence” on the band:

“He was a very, very bad influence upon Freddie, and hence on the band. He very much wanted our music to sound like you just walked in a gay club, and I didn’t.”

The strain and tension became inevitable with the four personalities—and we all know that John, Freddie, Brian, and Roger have massive personalities. Whilst they had always experienced bickering, as most bands do, they now with the added tension, the production of the album isn’t going to go as smoothly.

“Arguments would start off as creative, but slowly became personal.”

Brian recalls that less and less time was spent in the studio and more time was spent arguing.

To put it into perspective about what life was like for the 10 months they spent recording Hot Space in Munich…A regular day recording this album went a little bit like the following:

The entourage recall waking up at 3am, working for hours, having dinner, and then roadies would mix up cocktails and other things would pursue. The band got mixed up in cocaine and various other drugs. Random women, and relentless drinking, and as any sane person will tell you, that is not a good thing.

Roger described it as an exhausting cycle day after day. Imagine doing that for 9 whole months.

Brian remembers them getting into “deep trouble emotionally” in Munich, which possibly explains why their mental states deteriorated.

Now, the Hot Space era didn’t just end when the album came out. Obviously, when an album comes out, you have to do interviews to promote your album and after months and months of bad influences and arguments, the band’s relationship had kind of broken down. Things continued in quite a tense fashion. 

In fact, Freddie was left very unhappy and depressed after Hot Space wrapped up—it lasted a while, and he was completely immersed in places and habits that remained detrimental to his fate. Freddie became passive during interviews and defensive on certain questions concerning anything but current projects.

His attitude during the 1982 press conference in Europe was already standoffish and it was extremely obvious that he didn’t want to be there. The body language of the others, especially Brian, speaks volumes. The mood is low and they all seem exhausted.

Another nationwide interview the band gave in promotion for the album presented the group separated; Freddie was notably disinterested as the others spoke. There was even a moment where Freddie responds to the interviewer’s question with “let’s break up tomorrow” as a joke. But, watching it, you can’t help but feel there’s some truth to his words. Nobody laughed, even Roger looked uncomfortable by it!

One of the more well-known interviews from this era was with Brian and Roger, which displayed multiple moments of awkwardness with them both trying to make jokes and seem like they’re happy with what they’d produced, making up amateur excuses as to why they created something with a different sound. In my opinion, they just didn’t seem very happy. Do we even need to mention the “shut up” from Roger, and then the succeeding comment from Brian about Mack having the best drum sound?

Then, we have the iconic 1984 Freddie interview, where he left viewers stunned with his answers:

“I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you,” “I’m not an artist, I’m just a musical prostitute, my dear.”

The long-term effects of what happened behind the scenes of Hot Space were everlasting and turned the group into four completely different people than they were prior to 1982. 

As I’ve already mentioned, Hot Space wasn’t received well upon its release, and there are still very strong opinions about it today. Brian stated in 2014 that it isn’t the band’s worst album, but the timing of its release was just wrong. As time goes on, more people begin to accept the Hot Space album as just another reason why Queen is one of the most versatile groups of all time, with them branching out into very different styles to what they’d done earlier in their career, like Sheer Heart Attack, News Of The World, etc…

80s culture looked down upon disco and funk, so reception for Hot Space was bound to be less than amazing. However, today, all styles of music are simultaneously celebrated, and people enjoy the album more now than they did 40 years ago.

So in conclusion, recording Hot Space was a difficult period for Queen. It’s horrible to think about your idols going through the kind of thing they did in the early-mid 80s, influenced by not very nice people. But focusing on the album itself, it’s truly not a bad album at all. Granted, the timing of the release wasn’t the best for Queen, but it holds up as a fan favourite today.

If you haven’t heard any of the songs from Hot Space, besides Under Pressure, I highly recommend you check it out. It’s very different to what Queen usually did and I think it’s worth a listen.

Anyway, I’ll leave it at that. Let me know if you liked this little… post, whatever the hell it is, and if I should do more posts like this. I enjoy throwing all my useless knowledge onto a page lol.

[rockandrollpicsandthings]

Deep Purple, The Rolling Stones Mobile Studio is parked in front of the Grand Hôtel (Hotel des Alpes) in Territet (Montreux). The place where the band recorded Machine Head in 1971.

Jon Lord, Ritchie Blackmore, Roger Glover, Ian Gillan and Ian Paice

[freddiemercurylegendabovelegends]

“People talk about Freddie and his ego, but his ego was not as big as people think. It was all a persona. He could make fun of himself, whereas some of the other guys in the band couldn’t do it in the same way. You could have a laugh with Freddie, but you knew were the line was. He wasn’t necessarily the prima donna that everybody thought he was”

- Peter Hince

👉 Peter "Ratty" Hince met Queen in 1973 when they were opening for Mott the Hoople, began working for the band full time during their 1975 'A Night At The Opera' album, and stayed on as the head of their road crew until their final concert in 1986, 'Magic Tour'

👉 Peter is currently a professional photographer -

- Curiosity

Interviewer: How did you become know as "Ratty"?

Peter Hince: When I started in the music business and being the youngest, I had to do the ‘dirty’ work, which included crawling on top of the dirty, dusty equipment to put small items in the tight spaces under the roof of the truck. I was very skinny and had long greasy hair and was nick named ‘The Rat’ by the truck driver on a Mott The Hoople tour. When I first started working for Queen full time, Brian May changed it to ‘Ratty’.

Maybe he thought it was nicer - and possibly after the character in the classic Wind in The Willows book ?

- Peter Hince, interview 2006

Pic: August 1978, Montreux, Switzerland - Freddie Mercury (with Mary Austin) in the gardens of Eden au Lac hotel

📸 Photographer © Peter Hince

👉 July/October 1978 - Queen Story!

"Jazz"

Queen's seventh studio album was the first to be recorded outside of the UK. Sessions for Jazz began at Mountain Studios in Switzerland, in July 1978, and later moved to Super Bear studios in Nice, France, concluding in October

[antimonyandthyme]

I give your cringe tp era my full support, I’m so here for this 👏🏻👏🏻

okk remember how i said i'd put toto & christian in a road trip scenario remember that?

uh oh uh oh uh oh!

After Toto catches him sleepwalking through the tour of Chillon Castle, he pronounces they need activities better suited to Christian’s ineptness. Souvenir shops specifically, until Christian decides to stop being an old person and get over his jet lag.

Christian bristles, and flaps his mouth open to argue. Toto allows it while googling for the most touristy streets in Montreux. It takes five minutes of hearing himself talk before Christian realizes that might have been Toto’s way of being considerate.

By insulting him. As per usual.

They end up in the stupidest shops, the ones selling gag gifts you’d buy and never touch ever again in your life. Pocket watches with the clock tower carved on them. Metal key chains that will scratch your phone beyond recognition. Mugs. So many mugs.

Christian’s grinning as he snaps a photo of a mug with the kangaroos from Basel Zoo printed on them, pictured in a particularly suggestive position. Toto’s leaning over his shoulder as he types out a message.

“You have a very unprofessional relationship with your drivers.”

“You once proposed marriage with Lewis,” Christian says, not looking up from his phone. “You don’t get to talk.”

caught you doing the deed in switzerland, he sends to Daniel, followed up with the photo. The iMessage for the photo lags for a minute.

Daniel responds with, IT ISN’T WHAT YOU THINK

Then after the photo finally sends, oh hahaha, i get it now christian, ignore everything, as you were boss man

Toto, still reading over his shoulder, laughs so hard the storekeeper brisk walks them out the door.

“Your mental faculties aren’t even fit for a souvenir store,” Toto says. He’s still giggling to himself. Christian wants to smack him about the head. He also wants to do several other things, but refuses to acknowledge the depravity of those other things.

“I recall you getting us kicked out,” Christian says. He can’t find it in himself to be mad. Toto’s laugh lines are very visible in the dying light of the sunset.  

“I’ll make it up with dinner, how about that?” Toto says, and he’s hailing them a cab. Ordering off the menu for the both of them like it’s a date, scallops and steak and wine that’s worth a week’s pay cheque.

Christian gulps it down like water, ignoring the sommelier’s increasingly obvious disapproving eyes which have grown as large as coins. If he’s being made to tolerate Toto’s presence in some vague PR stunt he’ll be damned if he doesn’t enjoy himself. Toto doesn’t blink. Just orders another bottle.

He expects they’ll make out and have some devastating version of sex the moment they get back to the hotel. He doesn’t expect for Toto to take his shoes off and nudge him under the covers.

“You’ll have to do all the work,” Christian mumbles, already halfway to dreamland. He tries to kiss Toto and misses Toto’s mouth by a mile.

"Don't I know it," he thinks he hears Toto say, dry and matter-of-fact. Distinctly amused. Someone's tucking him in like a fucking child, stroking the hair off his forehead. It takes two minutes, then he's out like a light.

[justforbooks]

Over the course of a long career, the American singer Marlena Shaw moved from jazz to soul and back again, searching for settings that would best enhance her fine voice. In later decades she commanded the allegiance of the British fans of the rare-groove movement, who rediscovered and particularly cherished her version, released in 1969, of a much recorded song called California Soul.

Shaw, who has died aged 81, made her first stage appearance at the Apollo theatre in Harlem, New York, when she was 10 years old. Billie Holiday was still alive and Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Dinah Washington were other inescapable influences on a jazz-inclined teenage singer seemingly destined to work with big bands in dancehalls and smaller groups in nightclubs. In her later years she became familiar with the sound of hip-hop artists basing their hits on samples from her singles and album tracks.

Shaw’s recording of California Soul, a song written by Valerie Simpson and Nickolas Ashford, popped up in Gang Starr’s Check the Technique and Stereo MCs’ Sofisticated. It was also used in American TV commercials for Dockers shoes, KFC fast food and Dodge trucks, and in 2022 it was awarded an official gold record by the British Phonographic Industry.

Born Marlina Burgess in New Rochelle, New York, she showed musical talent from an early age and was given her first opportunity to take the stage in 1952 by her uncle, Jimmy Burgess, a trumpeter and bandleader who was performing at the Apollo. It was through his tuition that she acquired her understanding of jazz phrasing, while her mother encouraged her to study music at New York State Teachers’ College in Potsdam, a small town close to the Canadian border.

But she failed to complete the course, marrying young and bringing up five children before picking up the threads of a performing career that had barely begun. There were more false starts. In 1963 she missed an appearance at the Newport jazz festival with the trumpeter Howard McGhee after an argument with the musicians, and an attack of nerves ruined an audition with the great talent scout John Hammond, who had signed Holiday and Bob Dylan, among many others.

But in 1966, while singing at the Playboy Club in Chicago, she was signed up by the locally based Chess label, the home of many popular soul and R&B performers. Her first single was a vocal version of Joe Zawinul’s gospel-style tune Mercy Mercy Mercy, which had been an instrumental hit for Cannonball Adderley.

In 1968 Shaw toured Europe with Count Basie’s orchestra, involving the bandleader in an amusing routine as she improvised new words to Won’t You Come Home, Bill Bailey? It was while appearing with Basie at the Sands hotel in Las Vegas that she decided to make the gambling capital her home, moving there in 1970.

A contract with the Blue Note label led to a series of albums in a smooth soul-jazz style, including one recorded live at the Montreux jazz festival. The title and content of another album, Who Is This Bitch, Anyway?, indicated a desire to challenge the then-current popularity of the sexually explicit singer Millie Jackson.

A move to the Columbia label in 1977 saw her transforming Carole King and Gerry Goffin’s Go Away Little Girl, originally recorded by Bobby Vee, from a lovelorn ballad into a statement of female independence introduced by a lengthy rap directed at a feckless, workshy lover: “I figure if I’ve got to get up and go to work every day, then every able-bodied in the household is supposed to get up and go … If for some reason you feel that you can no longer be the man you were at the beginning of our relationship, then I’ve got this one thing to lay on you, my sweet. Go away, little boy …” But eventually the attitude softens, and after a seduction scene the song fades out on a note of surrender: “You think you can get a job by Thursday? You promise? Then you might as well stay … Don’t go away … ”

It became one of her most popular songs in live performance, the prefatory rap acquiring extra twists, turns, and layers of sardonic saltiness. At the New Morning club in Paris in 2010, the man in the song had become someone who had picked her up at an airport giftshop, its final scene acted out with elaborately dramatised hand gestures, smiles, laughter and a winning command of her audience.

An elegant presence on the concert stage, she sang with a symphony orchestra in New Zealand and toured for four years with Sammy Davis Jr. There were further recordings for the Verve, Concord and South Bay labels, and in 1989 a duet with Joe Williams, another former Basie singer, on an update of the old Louis Jordan song Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t My Baby earned her a Grammy nomination.

Shaw ceased all professional activity in 2016, retiring to her home in Las Vegas. Her survivors include her daughters April and Marla, a son, Robert, and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

🔔 Marlena Shaw (Marlina Burgess), singer, born 22 September 1942; died 19 January 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[tonreihe]

“By April 1976, at the Montreux Palace Hotel, Véra and Vladimir merrily toasted to VN’s seventy-seventh birthday, and Nabokov scribbled as many as five or six index cards every afternoon. From then on, however, he would tackle countless setbacks. Later that year, he fell on his head and walked with visible strain thereafter, suffering horrific backaches and occasional temperatures. A mysterious infection seemed to plague him and repeatedly sent him to various Swiss clinics and hospitals. There, to while away time, he read much of the day: a new guide titled Butterflies of North America, and a remarkably literal translation of Dante’s Inferno. But mostly, in high VN fashion, he read to himself the novel that was lucid as colored glass in his mind—the yet unfinished Original of Laura. Nearly every morning, in a state of quasi-trance, he read and perfected Laura. Just as all his other novels before they were actually written, he pictured this last one in his mind like a film reel about to be developed on his immaculate index cards. Alone in his hospital room, he even recited it, as later recorded, to ‘a small dream audience in a walled garden. My audience consisted of peacocks, pigeons, my long-dead parents, two cypresses, several young nurses crouching around, and a family doctor so old as to be almost invisible’.”

—Lila Azam Zanganeh, The Enchanter: Nabokov and Happiness

[how-many-purples]

How many Purple in Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple

We all came out to Montreux On the Lake Geneva shoreline To make records with a mobile, yeah We didn't have much time now

Frank Zappa and the Mothers Were at the best place around But some stupid with a flare gun Burned the place to the ground

Smoke on the water, a fire in the sky (Smoke) on the water, you guys are great

They burned down the gambling house It died with an awful sound Funky Claude was running in and out He was pulling kids out the ground now

When it all was over Find another place Swiss time was running out It seemed that we would lose the race

Smoke on the water, a fire in the sky Smoke on the water

Burn it down

We ended up at the Grand Hotel It was empty, cold and bare The Rolling truck Stones thing just outside Huh, making our music there now

With a few red lights and a few old beds We made a place to sweat No matter what we get out of this I know, I know we'll never forget

Smoke on the water, a fire in the sky Smoke on the water (I can't hear anything)

one more time (Smoke on the water) hey!

purple purple purple - 3 PURPLES

[debdarkpetal]

The band photographed in Switzerland at the Montreux Palace Hotel for the Golden Rose Rock Festival in May 1986.

[niemernuet]

I am a one-trick-pony (my one trick being a shameless sucker for Ginodi) (it's not a good trick)

Before Date Night

"I feel gloomy just looking at it."

Loïc shrugged. "Eh, it's actually still rather bright outside. Also, the snow is just perfect, so that is worth everything. But you haven't answered my question: Why are you calling me on Zoom?"

Marco frowned out of the screen of Loïc's laptop. "You're not answering your phone so I thought you're probably busy clicking through five hundred pictures of Finnish nights."

Loïc blushed, and with a sheepish grin dug through the unmade blanket spread around him. "Sorry…," he said as he looked at the dozens of notifications. "What is it?"

Marco took a deep breath. "I'm not asking you because I have to, technically…" He broke off with a new scowl when he saw Loïc's grin grow wider and wider.

"Okay, that was a mistake," he muttered. "Sorry for interrupting."

"No no no!" Loïc yelled, though he could not contain his smirk. "Don't hang up! I promise I won't laugh! So, you need my fashion advice."

"I don't need anything at all from you!" Marco snapped, though the fact that he did not end the call spoke for itself.

Loïc kept grinning at him until Marco turned away from the screen with a groan, and returned a few moments later with two coats.

"Black or camel hair?"

Loïc cocked his head, and chewed on his lower lip. "That depends…"

"Great answer," Marco griped, "thanks a bunch!"

"You can't just jump that question on me like that!" Loïc exclaimed. "There's so many variables you need to consider. What's the occasion? Who's coming with you? What are you wearing underneath?"

Marco sighed, and rolled his eyes. "Dinner with Gino in Locarno to mark the real beginning of the season. His parents recommended the place, apparently they know the owner, and I don't want leave a bad impression."

"Half a dozen crystal globes make up many fashion mistakes," Loïc said. "You could rock up in Crocs and nobody would care."

Marco glared at Loïc while he giggled at his own joke. When he realised that Marco would not join him, he got serious again.

"What kind of place is it? Pizzeria? Trattoria? Grotto?"

Marco shrugged. "Does it matter?"

"Of course it does! I need to know the setting!" He paused when a thought occurred to him. "Don't tell me you're going to that hack Ivo Adam!"

With another sigh, Marco put one of the coats down, and scrolled through his phone. "Osteria," he read from the screen. "Not by Ivo Adam. Also, could you come to a decision? I have to leave in ten minutes."

"With that hair?"

"Coats!" Marco snarled, and waved the garments in front of the screen again.

Loïc sighed, and thought about his next words. "Do you still have that black and grey shirt with the flowers that you wore when we met in Montreux last summer?"

Marco nodded.

"That shirt, jeans, black sneakers, and the camel hair coat," Loïc said, and leant back in his pillow.

Marco pondered his words for a moment. "Really?"

"Well, brown leather shoes would fit better but I suppose you still haven't bought a pair, have you?"

Marco shrugged, and grumbled something inaudible.

Loïc's grin came back with a vengeance. "Thought so."

Marco put the coats down, and leant over to reach the laptop. "No need to be so smug."

"You're welcome."

"Yeah, yeah, thank you. Just…don't tell Gino I asked you."

Loïc hissed. "I'm not sure I can do that."

Marco groaned. "But at least wait until I've had a chance to talk to him."

"Of course, no problem," Loïc said with a smile.

-----

A stiff, not too cold wind was blowing over the piazza and taking all the dry leaves with it. Gino was waiting behind a pillar of the arcades going around the entire square when Marco stepped out of the hotel. The clock change had shifted nightfall a few days ago, and there was still a bit of grey light outside the reach of the golden street lights.

"I was about to come back up," Gino smiled, and pulled Marco into a lingering kiss.

"You can't rush perfection," Marco muttered, his forehead pressed against Gino's.

"You're right," Gino said, and tenderly pushed a lapel of Marco's jacket aside. "My compliments to your fashion consultant."

Marco's shoulders slumped. "That rat!" he grumbled.

With a laugh, Gino took him by the hand, and pulled him along.

[riaaanna]

Montreux Part 8: Suisse Bazaar and Departure - 3 Sept 2023

I'm really just making an excuse to squeeze in one last post for this incredible trip. The next morning after a full day of events at QSE and party night at the Casino, I checked out from my hotel late morning and took one last view at the lake and the statue.

Before going home I very quickly visited Bazar Suisse Montreux, which is a neat souvenir shop across the street behind the market square for all things Montreux/Switzerland and Queen. They also have a website so if you see anything you like you can probably find them here and buy them online.

It's a small but heavenly place - they have a ton of shirts with much better designs than whatever is on Queenonline right now and I think they're officially licensed too. There are CDs and vinyls, books, magazines, toys, keychains, fridge magnets, postcards, all kinds of merchandises you name them. I got myself the Montreux Celebration Days shirt and keychain (my only keepsake from that event because I almost entirely missed it for QSE) and some touristy Switzerland merch. I looked out for books that I haven't had yet but I have most of the important ones hmu if you want files.

As a bonus tho I did come here a second time a few weeks later (one post on that later!) to take a look at some interviews in magazines which, upon a super quick late-for-my-train search, I haven't found transcripts of online. These are all Brian's and I already posted them previously but I'll link them here:

And finally it was time time to actually go home. I took a short walk to the Montreux train station and headed to Geneva airport. The view from the train was sooo beautiful and as someone who has never been to Europe before this was so special to me. At the airport I waited and worked on my dissertation in the Montreux Jazz Cafe which was really cute. Not a few hours later I was back in rainy, gloomy London and took the train back to Manchester (and finished my dissertation on time!)

End of my Montreux series. As I mentioned before I went again after a few weeks, very much on a whim, and I might make a few posts on that we'll see. I was there mainly to enjoy the stuff that weren't available on the party day, which was joining the Freddie Tours (Extended Version) and getting my hands on some clean multitracks of Made In Heaven in QSE which weren't available then. So maybe look out for those! Thank you all for reading!

[cleoselene]

I have officially run out of afforable Tori vinyl to buy :( everything else is either something that's never been pressed (Scarlet's Walk, To Venus & Back, The Beekeeper) or something that's out of print and heinously expensive on the resale market (From the Choirgirl Hotel, American Doll Posse, Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Night of Hunters, Midwinter Graces, Unrepentant Geraldines).

I also don't have Y Kan't Tori Read and that's partially because I doubt I'd listen to it, it'd be a novelty acquisition and I don't want to just collect vinyl for the sake of collecting: I won't buy vinyl I don't envision myself regularly listening to and YKTR is too kitschy for me to put in my regular rotation. Now, if she would only press some of the live bootlegs where she does the chilling, stunning, solo organ version of Cool On Your Island? YES PLZ. She seriously needs to press not only all of her unpressed records, but some more live shit. Montreux is great, it's amazing, but it's from before she even released a single album and thus the whole catalog is not covered there.

I also, as you can see, bought the black vinyl of Ocean to Ocean instead of the ocean blue, because while I'm a whore for colored vinyl, the price difference here was not at all justifiable: 67 bucks for the ocean blue, 18 bucks for the 180g black vinyl. No contest, since it's not an album where I feel I NEED the most collectible version. I just wanted to have it on vinyl.

Of the OG three album pressings these are: 2022 Remaster Little Earthquakes in Coke Bottle Clear, 2021 Remaster Under the Pink in hot pink, and the 1996 First Press of Boys For Pele in Coke Bottle Clear. I actually designed it this way; i prefer the original master of Pele, the remasters just lose some of the spookiness, but Earthquakes and UTP are not the sort of spooky album Pele is, and so the cleaning up of the masters sounded lovely. Pele sounds like.. too pretty in the remaster? And I don't intend to buy any vinyl album twice (to the point where I sold my folklore copy once I got the LPSS -- I knew from my streaming experience that LPSS would get the spins every time I wanted to listen to folklore), and so far have kept to it.

in order, the Tori albums I want in vinyl the most:

1.Scarlet's Walk 2. Night of Hunters 3. From the Choirgirl Hotel 4. American Doll Posse

SW is my favorite Tori album, period. NoH being classical I think will knock me flat on my ass on vinyl. Choirgirl is trip-hop, which is an excellent genre for vinyl. And ADP is her hardest rock effort, and the instrumentation would shine well on vinyl.

[coochiequeens]

“Because the world’s wealthy don’t have time to create families, as they’re busy creating wealth” Meaning why go through the changes and risks of pregnancy and childbirth when that can be outsourced to an economically vulnerable woman?

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., March 26, 2023 (Newswire.com) -While completing her Executive Master's degree, at the Glion Institute of Higher Education Montreux Switzerland, IMA ART Fertility CEO Michelle Tang discovered similarities between the school's course work and the pathway to parenthood curated by the company. Michelle Tang's objective in attending Glion's Executive Master in Luxury Management and Guest Experiencewas to equip IMA ART Fertility with "best-in-class" tools to serve discerning clientele. The CEO's action plan includes further refinements of its immersive client experience and profound transformation to parenthood, based in part, on the lectures at Glion.

Mariana Palmeiro, of Glion explained how the latest market dynamics, economic growth, technological developments and globalization led to a surge of the transformation economy. The prestigious school identified that future trends in the luxury industry will focus on the Experience Economy, e.g. a luxurious yacht trip and the Transformative Economy - an experience which changed a client's life and fulfilled their aspirations.

This provided Ms. Tang further assurance that IMA ART's management direction, product offerings and personalized guest experiences were correct. IMA ART, which focuses on luxury fertility and surrogacy solutions for private high-net-worth individuals, offers the quintessential transformative experience that creates heirs and fulfills dreams of parenthood. For many around the world, who face medical challenges conceiving or legal restrictions, there is no greater aspiration than creating a family.

IMA ART client transformations begin long before departure to California. This includes an intensive battery of medical tests and screening, to prepare for fertility treatments. IMA ART Co-Founders personally pick up arriving clients at LAX and escort them to their hotel in Beverly Hills. Co-Founders accompany clients in-person to their medical appointments and arrange a host of luxury excursions in Beverly Hills, Malibu and Hollywood. IMA ART Fertility business hours follow client hours, providing individualized support, empathy and care.

IMA ART will continue redefining the journey to parenthood, through its first of its kind luxury fertility & surrogacy concierge. Whether this be in the digital space through continued updates to the company's proprietary app or through personalized guest experiences and through becoming an alumni of the prestigious school and networking with some of the greatest forward thinking minds in the luxury and hospitality space.  About the Company: IMA ART is a high-value, bespoke professional advisory service providing luxury fertility & surrogacy concierge and solutions in Beverly Hills. The company offers an exclusive suite of discreet fertility options to high-net-worth individuals.

IMA ART is a high-value bespoke professional advisory service providing luxury fertility & surrogacy concierge and solutions in Beverly Hills. The company offers an exclusive suite of discreet fertility options to high net worth individuals.

What happens if the luxury fertility business results in a baby with disabilities? If they are admitting their clients are too busy to have a baby are they admitting that the raising of the baby will be handed off to nanny’s?

[ultra-francesca-mercury]

December 4, 1971

During a Frank Zappa concert, the Montreux Casino in Switzerland catches fire when someone fires a flare gun, inspiring Deep Purple's "Smoke On The Water." Deep Purple are there to record their album Machine Head the following day, but end up using the Grand Hotel and including the song as a last-minute addition.