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Anxiety at the highest level!

Twisted

By Andrew E. Kaufman

I’m just going to put this out there right now. I don’t write about puppies and rainbows. Far from it. My novels tend to lean toward the gritty, if not peculiar side of life (read, twisted). But here’s the thing: Just because I write it, doesn’t mean I live it—I don’t. After all, it is fiction, and therein lies a common misperception, that authors who write twisted stories are themselves twisted.

Case in point: at least once a week—maybe more—I’ll get an email from a reader that goes something like this: “You look like such a nice guy…but then I read your book.” Or this: “I’d hate to see what’s buried in your backyard.” But, what usually follows directly after that is something like this “So when’s your next one coming out?”

Hmm.

You see, comments like that always make me wonder why readers think suspense and horror authors actually live out that which they write. Are all romance writers great lovers? Do all historical writers live in the 1800s? Of course not. So why would folks question our sanity just because we write about those who don’t seem to have any?

I recently spoke with bestselling author Tess Gerritsen about this. The murders in her novels can be particularly dicey. She said, “Drew, well, I think I’m perfectly sane. As a group, horror and thriller writers strike me as a mild-mannered bunch, not at all prone to violence, and less combative than other genre writers. Perhaps it’s because we get out all our aggressions on the page!”

She makes a good point. While I hurt people on paper, I’d never harm anyone in real life. I’m a vegetarian, for heaven’s sake. And I don’t think I’ve ever met a knife-wielding, body-collecting horror or suspense author before. For the most part, they do tend to appear quite sane—except when they’re trying to finish a novel, that is. Another story, completely.

Robert W. Walker’s novels are about as twisted as they come. On whether his readers think he’s warped, he says, “I get it a lot, like at signings, people saying, ‘I thought you’d have horns.’ I continually ask readers ‘why do you pose the author with the villain when in fact most of us share much more with the hero or heroine?’”

He adds that, as writers, we’re similar to actors because, “You have to become the point of view character, so if you write scenes from the POV of the killer, then you have to play the part just as an actor, like John Malcovich, has to pretend twisted, pretend evil.”

I’d have to agree with him there. Good or bad, I need to get inside my characters’ heads in order to give them dimension, make them seem real, otherwise, they come across as forced, something the reader will pick up instantly. Not always easy for me to do, however, because it can take its toll on an emotional level. But it has to be done, and truth be known, I do tend to identify with my heroes more than my villains.

Bestselling author, Lisa Gardner, takes a more comical approach, as only she can do. She says, “I suspect I was dropped on my head a lot as a child. I’m honestly not sure where the ideas come from. They simply come to me, particularly creepy, scary ones. I guess it’s a good thing I can turn ideas into novels, because being an ax murderer doesn’t pay nearly as well.”

Andrew E. Kaufman is an award-winning journalist turned author. His novels, While the Savage Sleeps, a forensic paranormal thriller, and The Lion, the Lamb, the Hunted, a psychological thriller, are both number one bestsellers. He’s currently busy at work causing more mayhem and murder—on paper that is—with his third novel, a psychological thriller. For more info about Andrew and his work, please visit his website at: http://www.andrewekaufman.com

I’m very pleased to have guest blogger Jodie Renner be a contributor on the Suspense Magazine blog site.  I’m sure you will all find her blog very interesting and entertaining.  Enjoy!!!

Essential Elements of a Bestselling Thriller

by Jodie Renner

If you want your thriller or other crime fiction to be a compelling page-turner, make sure you’ve included most or all of these elements:

1. A protagonist who’s both ordinary and heroic. Rather than having a “Superman” invincible-type hero, it’s more satisfying to the readers if you use a regular person who’s thrown into stressful, then increasingly harrowing situations, and must summon all of his courage, strength and inner resources to overcome the odds, save himself and other innocent people, and defeat evil.

2. A likeable, sympathetic protagonist. The readers need to be able to warm up to your main character quickly, to start identifying with her; otherwise they won’t really care what happens to her. So no cold, selfish, arrogant characters for heroes or heroines!

3. A worthy adversary for the protagonist. Your antagonist needs to be as clever, strong, resourceful and determined as your protagonist, but also truly nasty, immoral and frightening.

4. An interesting setting. Readers like to find out about places they haven’t been, whether it’s the seedy side of Chicago, glitzy Hollywood, rural Kentucky, the mountains of Colorado, or the bayous of Louisiana — or more distant, exotic locations. And milk your setting for all it’s worth.

5. A story that fits the protagonist and vice-versa. If it doesn’t, change your protagonist — or your story line. You can always use your present one in another novel.

6. An inciting incident. What happens to the main character to set the story events in action? Make it tense and compelling.

7. A great plot, with ongoing conflict and tension. You need a big story question and plenty of intrigue. And every scene should contain tension and conflict of some kind. If it doesn’t, delete it.

8. Lots of suspense. Keep the readers on the edge of their seats, turning the pages to find out what’s going to happen next. See my blog post at http://crimefictioncollective.blogspot.com.

9. Multiple viewpoints. Narrating the story from various points of view, including that of the villain, will add interest, complexity and suspense to your novel. But don’t head-hop within a scene! Wait for a new scene or chapter to change viewpoints.

10. A tight, generally fast-paced writing style. Streamline your writing to improve flow and pacing. Go through and take out all unnecessary words, sentences, and paragraphs, and any repetitive phrases, events or ideas. Thrillers are not the genre to wax eloquent.

11. Increasing danger. Keep raising the stakes and putting your hero in deeper and deeper trouble, to stretch his courage, determination, physical abilities and inner resources to the maximum — and increase the reader’s admiration and emotional investment in him!

12. Troubles that hit home. Endanger the protagonist or someone close to her, to add a personal dimension and more stress to the threats and conflicts.

13. Internal struggling of the protagonist — Give her a moral dilemma; show his inner conflict. Make them complex and fascinating; never perfect, complacent, or overly confident.

14. Lots of emotions. Bring your characters to life by showing their fear, trepidation, panic, pain, worry, determination, courage, satisfaction, relief, joy, excitement, elation and other emotions.

15. Vivid sensory descriptions. Put the reader right there in the scene by using all five senses wherever possible, plus emotion. Show what the character is hearing, smelling, feeling, touching and tasting, not only what they’re seeing.

16. Critical turning points. Present your hero with life-or-death decisions and show his anxiety, tension, and indecision.

17. Obstacles in the way. Your heroine runs out of gas on a lonely road; your hero’s weapon falls into the river far below; he is wounded and can’t run; her cell phone battery is dead; whatever can go wrong does, and more.

18. Enough clues. Be fair. Use foreshadowing and layer in clues and info as you go along, to slowly reveal the plot points and character backstory and motivation to the reader.

19. Twists and surprises. Write in a few unexpected plot twists, but make sure that, in retrospect, they make sense to the readers.

20. A compelling climax. Put the protagonist at a disadvantage in the final conflict with the antagonist, to heighten the stakes. Pile on the adversity the hero has to overcome at the end.

21. A satisfying ending. Leave the unhappy or unresolved endings for literary fiction. Let the good guy overcome the bad guy — by a hair.

22. Psychological growth and change in the hero/heroine. Adversity has made him or her stronger, braver, wiser — a better person.

Do you have any other essential elements to add, that would enhance a thriller or other suspense fiction?

Copyright © Jodie Renner, September 2011

Jodie Renner is a freelance manuscript editor, specializing in thrillers, romantic suspense, mysteries, and other crime fiction, as well as YA. Check out Jodie’s website at www.JodieRennerEditing.com .

A series character vs. A stand alone

I’ve discussed this many times on our radio show, Suspense Radio.  I’ve always been one that loves a series character, BUT as long as the series doesn’t get stale.  In seeing more and more authors and publishers going the series route, I caution both of them to tread carefully.  Now I could name many authors that have written a series character that has gone its course.  Many times authors let the series go probably 4 or 5 books too long, losing fans and the ability to be creative and an author.  I’ve fallen on the side of a stand alone, for the simple reason that the author needs to be creative in every book.  Let’s look at it this way.  When you write a series, it is very important to progress the main character’s lives just as it is important to keep the plots and story lines fresh all the time.  Many times there are books in the series that fall flat, for a couple of reasons.  One reason would be because the author has to spoon feed the direction or expansions of the character, falling short on the plot of having them do the same thing over and over.  I read on the back of the book “This is the most ruthless killer, xxxxx, has ever faced, will they make it out alive?”  Now you can only write that so many times before it gets very old.  If you look at a TV show that had this problem, 24, they did it a different way.  You knew that with 24 all characters except Jack Bauer was safe within the series, but at the finale anything goes.  You never knew if Jack would actually survive.  When you write a stand alone novel, each time you have to bring in a full main character and sub characters, along with weaving a plot inside the story.  Now you have to create something new every time.  When you write a series, you already have the basis of the back story and character creation, that you simply must progress the character and try and put them in a new situation.  Two authors, off the top of my head, did something great with a series character; they had an end in sight, which builds the suspense of the final book wondering if anybody will be safe.  JK Rowling and Steven James are the two authors.  Now JK Rowling just came out and said her plan was to kill Ron Weasley, but if you remember the build up to the final book, nobody knew if Harry would survive.  That was the hook to get millions of people picking up the book.  What JK and Steven have in common is that you know where the ending of the series is.  With Steven he will end his Patrick Bowers series with “Checkmate” and I’ve had some conversations with Steven about the end, and he still hasn’t decided on which way to go.  Does he kill Patrick or keep him alive?  This is what natural suspense is all about, the build up that leaves you on the edge of your seat wondering, not only the story, but with the main character and their future.  You know when you see another series book without a hard ending; you are probably going to get the same thing that happened in the last ten books.

The main question is which is more satisfying for a reader.  For me I’m leaning towards books or series where I know they have a hard end.   I love the suspense build up and look forward to the next book in the series, especially when I know the end is coming near.  It is very difficult for an author that has spent so much time on a character to simply kill them off and start over, which I completely understand.  We have had many conversations on this and I will say that not everyone agrees with me.  Another argument is will the author hurt themselves with fans if they kill off the main character?  I feel that if you write that way and stop becoming an author and write just to please the fans, you fall stale.  Fans might be pissed at an author for a while, but when they bring out a new brilliant book that is brand new, they will come back and possibly respect you more for taking the huge risk and it is a huge risk, which is probably why none of the big authors have taken that plunge.  I would love to hear your thoughts on the subject, just simply leave your comments or email me at editor@suspensemagazine.com

Review of a couple new TV shows, are you a Person of Interest?

It has been a couple of weeks now and this is a good time to talk about some of the latest shows on TV.  I will admit that I’m not a big TV watcher of shows; I’m very picky with shows that I stick to.  I don’t watch “CSI” or “NCIS”, because I think those shows are so over the top, they are funny.  However “Persons of Interest” and “The Walking Dead” are two shows that I’m into right now.  I say right now, because TV shows have a habit of changing after a couple of weeks and sometimes not on the good side.  Let’s start with Persons of Interest.  This show stars two underrated actors, Michael Emerson and Jim Caviezel.  These are names that don’t jump off the page when you see them, because you probably don’t even remember what they have been in.  Michael Emerson starred in “Lost” and “The Practice” in great roles.  Jim Caviezel is probably best known for his role as Ashley Judd’s husband in the movie “High Crimes” that also starred Morgan Freeman.  Both actors are perfect in their roles in “Persons of Interest”.  I think the dynamic between on screen is very intriguing, because of the mysterious past that surrounds them both.  The premise of the show is that Michael Emerson developed a computer system that scans NYC for potential victims or criminals before the actual crime takes place.  Michael needed a partner and hired the services of Jim Caviezel, an ex Special Forces military solider.  Jim is a mystery man that was a homeless person when Michael found him.  However, the NYPD detective Taraji Henson views him as a threat, since Jim’s fingerprints and DNA has showed up at numerous crime scenes.  This is the side story, where she is after Jim, as he is out in the field trying to figure out if the Person of Interest is the victim or the criminal.  Each episode also has an underlying moral aspect, speaking of the last show where the person chosen, Linda Cardellini a doctor, was out for revenge against the man that raped her sister, which made her commit suicide years later because of the trauma.  Jim was able to talk down Linda after she kidnapped her man and locked him into a van.  It is the secondary parts of a TV show that I like, because it shows the writers are willing to expand beyond the main idea and give the viewers and overall great experience.  We are only four episodes in, but I can see this show having some staying power and would recommend you all to check it out.

The Walking Dead is another story.  The first season was very short, only six episodes, so it is easy to catch up since the season premiere just came out on Sunday, October 16^th.  I know that many people don’t like to watch zombie shows, because of the horror aspect, but this is more about the survivors than about the zombies’ just killing people.  Why I have reservations about TV shows like this, look at Lost, is that what happens to the show once the cast reaches their goal of finding a safe zone?  In Lost, it was all about getting off the island and when they did, the show took a serious downhill turn.  The reason is because what do they do now?  How can the writers continue a show once the endgame is met?  It seems that they don’t think about this, unless they come out saying, this show will only be 30 episodes and that’s it.  But no TV show will do that, because if it is very popular, TV executives and advertisers seem to keep the show going, even though it is not very good.  While the show is entertaining right now, and according to IMDB, they have a total of 13 episodes in the second season, I feel that the moment where the show loses its way is right around the corner.  In watching the premier, I feel the writers are already at the moment where they are struggling to find that shocking moment, to keep viewers coming back.  I won’t spoil anything here, but let me know what you think after you watch it.

A quick note, two shows that I’m very interested in is “Grimm” and “Once upon a Time”.  I wonder which show will survive, if either will, since I think this premise has been far overlooked and just seems very fun.  I love the idea of mixing fantasy with reality.  I’ve always wondered why some authors never thought of taking their character into the real world, chasing a real world killer.  How great would it be to see Jack Reacher or Alex Cross chasing after Ted Bundy or John Wayne Gacy.  So, we will have to wait and see and I’ll put something out after they both premiere and see if the mirror on the wall sees a future for either show.

You can send in your comments to editor@suspensemagazine.com

The Beginning or The End?

As you know I have many questions that swirl around in my head and today is no different.  I’ve wanted to write this blog for some time, but really had to think about this topic, before I put my thoughts down.  We review hundreds of books each year, along with short stories.  That is a lot of reading.  Now I don’t read that many books, for one simple reason, I get bored very quickly.  We are Suspense Magazine, not Oprah, so therefore I want to read suspense / thriller / mystery / horror stories that catch my attention.  If you write one of those genre fiction stories, maybe not so much with mystery as those stories have to build to a climax with the murder and then build back up to solve the mystery, you better bring it in the first chapter.  So the question I pose is The Beginning or The End, which is more important?  Many of you will say, they are both equally important, but I disagree.  I feel that with some stories where the ending IS the story, in thriller / suspense, the ending should be the icing on the cake not the entire story.  The beginning of the story should set everything up and put the reader front and center and on a collision course into the unknown.  How many times do you read and put the book down, because it didn’t grab your attention?  You could have the greatest ending ever in a book, but I will never know because you bored the hell out of me to get there.  Finally when I get there, I’m like oh good you wrote a good ending, so why didn’t you put that much thought into the beginning of the story.  A book is not like a record album, where you can skip over the songs you don’t like and put on your IPod the songs you do like.  You have to sit through the entire book to get the whole story.  I think that too many authors say, “I have the best story and the ending will surprise you.”  That’s good, but instead why not think of how to get the readers excited to read your book, that you grab them by the throat and won’t let them go.  That is how you will get readers to stay with you, because you started the book out with a bang and were able to continue this throughout.  I know that it is very popular to write a book backwards, by knowing the ending because that is arguably the most exciting part of the book that authors forget they need to readers along to get there.  The beginning of the book is also probably the hardest part to write, and takes the most thought, which is why it is the most important.  Can’t wait to hear what you think about this, so send me your thoughts either here or email me at editor@suspensemagazine.com

Does it make a difference to you where you get your books?

I’ve talked before about the closing of book stores and predicting that Barnes and Noble in the next year will be just a shell of what it is now.  As I’ve said before, I think that BN will be more of an online store, challenging Amazon, than brick and mortar.  Borders couldn’t handle the publishing chain and you can say all you want about mismanaging the company, but if you peel back the layers, you will see that EBooks and Amazon are the real reason for the Borders collapse.  However I ask myself the question, does it really matter to me if these stores collapse?  Let’s put some perspective in the situation.  As a reader and fan as long as I have the ability to get the latest releases, why should I care who takes my money.  The downfall from losing brick bookstores is that people will lose jobs.  While that is devastating, I can’t worry about big business.  Business changes every day, just look at the stock market.  If Amazon and BN continue to expand their online store, that is what I care about.  I know that I have to wait a couple of days to get what I ordered, but that is a small bump.  The other argument I hear is that you lose that ability to walk into the store and talk to the workers.  It seems that just because someone works at a bookstore, people think that they are experts in books.  While that might be true of the independent bookstores, it is not of the big chains.  Those workers are there for a job.  The one thing that I got over was my local record store closing.  I used to visit it at least once a week, and the owner was in the business.  He always helped me out knowing what I like to listen to, and recommend new music, music that I would probably have never heard of.  However I got over that.  So when I hear that argument, I feel it holds no water.  Everything changes and you can either embrace it or challenge it, but most of the time you are just putting yourself further and further behind the times by challenging it.  Business does not care about the emotion of the consumer; they only care about the profits.  EBooks right now are generating tons of profits, because of the low overhead to produce it.  The bottom line is that I don’t think readers or fans should really care about what is happening in the publishing world all that much. Print books are never going away. Where you purchase them might, but like a gas station, you fill up at the cheapest place, so now you will just have to do the same with your books.

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We are moments away from Troy Davis, convicted of killing an off duty police officer in Georgia, from being put to death by lethal injection.  Hundreds of supporters have camped out outside the jail to protest the execution.  Davis has already been denied appeal and a new trial, and now the board of pardons has said no.  This case has interested me after reading the aftermath of the original trial.  In reading what happened after his conviction, it seems that there are some stones that should be overturned and re-examined.  Many of the eye witnesses, which are not reliable, to begin with, have recanted their statements after their testimony.  The supporters of Davis have claimed that this is racially motivated, since the victim was a 27 year old white man and Davis is black.  Davis has claimed innocence this entire time.  While that does not sway my mind, it does seem that the Justice System should really look into the evidence and make sure everything is correct before they put a man to death.  Now I must confess that I was not at the trial, and didn’t hear all the evidence, but you should be 100% certain that this is your man, before you act out the final sentence.  In fact in every case you should be 100% certain, before you take years from a man’s life.  According to the AFP, Davis’s case has drawn support from high profile people like US President Jimmy Carter and Pope Benedict XVI.  French foreign ministry said Georgia “would be committing an irreparable error” if it executes Davis, in light of “serious doubts” over his guilt.  A German rights minister and the Council of Europe issued similar statements.

I’ve been on a jury where the defendant was accused of murder and attempted murder.  It was an experience I will never forget.  This case was also a death penalty case.  The pressure that we were under was excruciating.  With the amount of doubt that seems to be present, there is no reason to continue this execution.  Davis is already in prison and isn’t going anywhere, so why not make sure everything is in place before they carry out this sentence.

Anyway, reasonable doubt is something that needs to be explored fully.  They always say where there is smoke there is fire, and there seems to be a bonfire going on right now.  I guess we will see how this ends.

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Every day I scan Amazon and Barnes & Noble .com to search for the latest book releases, well the ones that we didn’t get in the mail.  But what I’m really looking at is the price.  I can’t figure it out and maybe you can help me with this.  I know that on a hardcover book, the prices have been going up and up every year.  There is a new book out that has a retail price of 36.00.  Really??  Now the EBook price is still 16.99, but the list price on that is 35.00.  Now we understand that printing costs have been rising and that is the need for the higher book costs, but where will it all end?  You can tell which authors, and some of them very big names like Barry Eisler, are publishing their book on their own, because the price point is 5.99 for his latest book “The Detachment” in EBook form.  But when the price is over 12.99 for an EBook, does that out price many readers?  I know that if a book is 5.99 and under I’m more incline to take a chance on it, and then put down 13.00 or more on a book.  What about you?  What is your limit on pricing?  For example, if you have never read Lee Child but heard great things about his writing, will you take a chance on him for 14.99 if you are an EBook fan, or move to something else?  Is the EBook market more author driven or publisher driven?  The only thing that publishers have over those that self publish is the legitimacy of their work.   Readers are more incline to read an author published by Penguin, Random House, etc than one that is self published, unless that author has made a name for themselves.  The person that couldn’t get their book into a publishing house has options now, but struggling to find readers.  What do they do?  Well they do all the same marketing as other authors, and they price their book in the 2.99 range or under to get an audience.  John Locke is one of those authors.  However don’t be fooled that you will be the next John Locke.  Amazon has over 950,000 books available for the kindle.   You are talking over 250,000 authors that make up that library.  This raises the biggest questions in the publishing field right now, how do we find readers and set yourself apart from the masses?  I wish I had an easy answer for you, but I’m with you on this one.

Email editor@suspensemagazine.com with your answers and post your comments here.  Anyone that emails me will have a chance to win free books from this post.  Maybe free books are the way to go!  Looking forward to hear from you.

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Explore your dark side or are you too afraid?

I don’t write disclaimers before my blogs, but this one has one.  I’m going to tell you right now that this blog will be dark and maybe frightening.  However I feel that I need to get this out there, because I really want authors to explore themselves and put more emotion in their writing.  Every day we read story after story and book after book.  I will say that many of them, while written well, lack the emotion that I feel should be in a good thriller / suspense story.  I read these types of stories because I want to be scared and suspended in a state of disbelief that puts my soul in an uncomfortable position.  What the hell do I mean by that?  Well I’m glad you asked, and if you didn’t you should have so go back and read that statement and ask the question.  Anyway here is the answer.  Fear is a very interesting word and has many different meanings.  When you ask people what are you afraid of what do they tell you?  Snakes, spiders, tall buildings, drowning and so on are the most common answers.  I always wondered why people are afraid of these things.  For people afraid of snakes, how many times have you been bitten by a snake or do you know someone that died from a snake bite?  Probably not, however they still scare you because of the known danger that some snakes have a reputation of.  When I think of fear or being afraid, I don’t think of things that I should be “Cautious” about, but more things that I would have to have a serious recovery time getting over, if ever.  Losing my family to a tragedy would be at the top of my list.  This is the dark side of my fear that If I were to write a book, I would explore.  Now I could only speculate what my emotions would be, since I’ve not been put in this situation, but that is what exploring is all about.  Sitting down and having to think about something that would put your “soul in an uncomfortable” situation is a hard thing to accomplish.  However, if you were to be able to use that knowledge, you would find yourself giving the reader the raw emotion that you feel.  Your writing would be more than just words on a page, but a part of yourself.  I wrote a little about this in a previous blog posting, if you didn’t read it shame on you.  This is the main difference I feel between being scared and actual fear.  We feel what we don’t know, or never experienced and probably don’t want to.  But to really be able to express your feelings about your fears is a bigger challenges then writing a book about a serial killer taking victims or some other suspenseful theme.  I’ve expressed many times that the hero in the book, is simply there to be the good part of the story, but the villain is the person that MAKES the story.  Think about this scenario for a second.  You wake up to a knock on the door saying that someone in your family was killed in a tragic way.  Your body turns numb, not being able to comprehend the news.  You’re frozen in a sea of emotions, until your body gives way and you break down.  How long would it take you to be able to think straight?  What if that tragedy was something that you feel guilty for?  Can you imagine the feelings that you would feel?  It would be at this moment that you have the raw emotion of a person’s soul.  This is what you need to put in your story.  Put the reader in the same state of mind you are in, so they can ride that same wave of emotions.  Any writing class can teach you how to put the words out with grammar, expression and so on, but no one can teach you emotion.  I like to use sports analogies and will here also.  You can teach a kid to throw, catch and hit a ball, but you can’t teach them heart.  How does someone respond when they face adversity?  That is the big question and one you need to ask yourself.  I don’t give out homework, but I strongly encourage you that want to write or have written, to search the inner depths of your emotional well being and show us what you have inside yourself.  Make us laugh, cry, be scared, etc just like you did.  If you write a cozy mystery about a loveable cat or dog that help you solve a crime, this does not apply to you.  We love cozies and love to read them, but they are not meant to extract an emotional reaction.  Suspense / Thriller writing is much more in depth than having that conflict unfold in your book.  So you want to write a book?  Have fun!

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Most of our blogs stay with the publishing and book industry, but when a story like this hits the scene, sometimes you have to step out of the box.  Ozzy Osbourne just announced that the original lineup of Black Sabbath is getting back together.  They will have a new album and tour to showcase this monumental event.  Music is one of my first loves, first listening to Kiss back in 1977 and then seeing them in concert two years later when I was nine years old.  From that point I’ve been a music fan, especially hard rock / heavy metal.  However I love all music, except country, hip-hop top 40 and rap.  A lot of the bands that I loved back in the 80’s are back and sounding just as great as ever.  It always makes me think what concert never happened that I think would be great to see.  I thought that I would spend any amount of money if Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd did a concert together.  I would also have loved to see Iron Maiden and Metallica share the stage, even though I’ve seen both of them separately many times.  I was too young to see Zeppelin, and now that John Bonham is dead, that will never happen.  However the one band that I didn’t see and would love to catch is AC/DC.  For some reason I’ve not been able to work that one out. I’ve seen over 250 concerts in my time and seen so many great bands, but I would have to say that when I shared a special moment with my wife Shannon in Las Vegas to see the G3 tour (Joe Satriani, Steve Vai and Yngwie Malmsteen) was the highlight of my concert life.  I still love catching the old acts and live in Southern California where a lot of those bands still come.  I took my 12 year old to see her first Kiss concert two years ago before Thanksgiving and she fell in love with them and that music.  My wife and I felt it was important to take our kids to concerts and let them experience the joy of live music.  Some of the bands we went to as a family are: Boston, Queensryche, Dream Theater, Fates Warning, Great White, Maroon 5, Train, Kiss, John Mayer and others.  We are planning to see Cinderella in September.  I think that all families should include their children to some of the concerts that come around, so they can explore the music we grew up with.  The crap that is hitting the airwaves now is all they have to listen to.

What concert experiences do you have?   What band or bands would you like to see that you haven’t?   Looking forward in hearing your responses!  All forms of music are welcome!

John Raab

CEO / Publisher

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