Gästebuch/

Guestbook

Under Construction!

10.06.09

In case that my site is offline during the next days the reason is, that I’m going to change the provider! I hope that it will go ahead smoothly! Hope to see you soon back here!

Cheers

Manni

Wacken Rocks!

12.06.09

The expected worst case luckily did not appear – everything went all right with the provider changeover. It’s still got its snags here and there but I’m working on that. Even though I’d pretty much appreciate your feedback in my guestbook!

I just received confirmation on Grave Digger’s booking for the “Wacken Rocks South” festival! From 27th to 29th August hell will break lose in Rieden/Kreuth. Get more information here!

Now I’m gonna pack my bags and set off to the “Chronical Moshers” festival. In Reichenbach (Vogtland) we’ll be shaking the ground tomorrow!

See you later!

Manni

TV Date!

17.06.09

Hey folks!

Listen up and don’t forget: On Saturday, 20th June at 5.30 pm the piece on “Hören – zwischen Lärm und Stille” (“Listening – Between Loudness and Silence”) will be broadcastet on german tv chanel „3sat“. I already mentioned the TV team who were at our home to interview me and take some video shots. More on the topic HERE!

If you miss the show you can watch the rerun at 6:15am sunday morning on 3sat or watch it on the 3sat website!

Cheers!

Manni  

ICH MUSS GAR NICHTS!

23.06.09

No news for a couple of days, but today it becomes really hot: finally the first Übergas videoclip is online! HERE you can find „Ich Muss Gar Nichts“ on youtube!

That‘s it for today - now go crazy with the video!

Rock‘n‘Roll

Manni

Let‘s go for „Masters Of Rock“!

08.07.09

Some time has passed since the last news. Hope all of you had time to check out the Übergas video clip! Those who want more Übergas can order the album and merchandise right HERE!

On Thursday the big party will be started at the “Masters of Rock” festival in Vizovice / CZ! As you might know RAGE celebrate the 25th year of existence of the band and invited well-known musical guests to many of their shows. By the side of notables like Hansi Kürsch (Blind Guardian), Schmier (Destruction) and Micha Rein / Das letzte Einhorn (In Extremo) I’m going to be on it as the only former band member! Tomorrow

live in Andernach at the „Summer‘s End“ festival

afternoon we’re rehearsing three songs which I’m going to play with the guys and on Thursday morning we finally will travel to Czechia! I’ll be keeping you up to date!

On Saturday the Grave Digger part goes on! The stage will be boarded at early evening in order to rock the “Rock Harz” festival!

See You Soon

Manni

One week has passed since I’ve been on the „Masters of Rock“ stage with RAGE to play three songs (Enough Is Enough, Invisible Horizons and Don’t Fear The Winter). It was great! The whole gig was one big party and the fans were partying with us! Schmier, Jen and I took turns on the stage every whipstitch and rocked along with the guys! It was a great festival which, well-organized and well-frequented. I hope to be there with Grave Digger next year!

Just when I arrived I moved on with Grave Digger to the “Rock Harz” festival. Unfortunately the weather gave us a raw deal this time. Rain and storm changed the area into a mud-pit in no time. But that didn’t keep our fans from head banging! Now more than ever! That’s how it should be!

The next gig is already coming up: On Sunday Grave Digger will be in Kiev for the first time. At the “Pro Rock” festival we do our show along with Stratovarius, Carcass, Doro and some others! Check the Link at the “Dates” section!

Marcel Thenee from the “Guitar” magazine seems to be quite sold on the Übergas album and our video clip. Even though we don’t have a record deal yet he wrote a really heavy review for the new issue. Nice and clear words he put it into!

Ok – I’ll give you a review when I’m back from Kiev! Until then – stay clean and have a good time!

Manni

METAL!

17.07.09

„Heroes Of The Month“

Krispin’s cheeky lyrics are real, G-Man’s (ex-Cro-Mags) und Gudze’s (H-Blockxx) heavy grooves are well-hung and Manni Schmidt’s monster riffs knock you socks off! Crunchy-thundered groove rock of this sort with balls hasn’t been seen in this country since years! Why does this combo not have a deal yet?

Well, unfortunately the first Grave Digger show in Kiev did not happen at all. We got there according to the plan, as well as Doro, Carcass and Stratovarius who we should have played with on Sunday. But as early as we arrived at the airport we were told that the festival’s Sunday had been cancelled due to bad financial conditions and that the stage had already been removed. Incredible! Since we could not rebook our flights we couldn’t do anything but celebrate a wicked party with the bands that were accommodated at the same hotel. It’s really sad for the fans who wanted to see us and it’s also sad for us who we would have loved to perform for you guys. Hopefully it’s gonna work out some day!

The next Grave Digger show on the list will be the biker

Kiev Show Canceled!

24.07.09

party “Bikes & Legends” in Dreisbach (Westerwald) at 1st August. Take a look HERE for more information!

I’ve got a new favourite toy! A few days ago my package from “Vox” including the new “Tonelab ST” arrived at my home! The successor of the LE, which I already have used for many recordings, is held a bit smaller and simpler but scores in terms of sound!

So… I have to play guitar now…

Metal on!

Manni

...with Stefan and Jens at the hotel in Kiev

New Tourdates!

31.07.09

Please check the „Dates“ section for new confirmed dates of Grave Digger! It‘s just a handful of shows, in september we will start songwriting for the next album!

That‘s it for today - I have to get my stuff together for the „Biker Party“ in Dreisbach/Westerwald!

See you soon!

Manni

Next stop: Vigo / Spain

05.08.09

After giving the bikers from Westerwald hell with our Grave Digger sound last Saturday our next stop is going to be Vigo / Spain where we will provide the finale of the AlternaVigo festival.
I'll report for you!

Cheers

Manni

Pic: mfvalhalla.homepage24.com / snake

Back From Spain

13.08.09

For some days I’m back home now from Vigo. What a trip… Since Vigo is a bit off the mark in North-West of Spain the journey was time consuming. Starting at Düsseldorf we first went to Frankfurt at 10.20 in the morning where we had a two-and-half hour stay before continuing to Madrid and later on to Vigo. After our arrival right in time at 7 o’clock, we had some time until 22 o’clock when we made our way to the “Venue”, a rather big concrete hall, where the first bands were already playing. Due to the construction type the acoustics in there was horrible. Grave Digger show time was on the schedule for 1.30 am which isn’t unusual by Spanish standards. Still we were quite surprised on how many fans had made their way towards the front of the stage and celebrated a “Metal Party” with us! That made up for the hard journey in no time! Just before 3 o’clock in the morning the last tune was fading away and we made our way back to the hotel. At 10 in the morning on lobby call we departed off to the airport. Unfortunately we didn’t see anything of Vigo itself. At least could get a nice view from the airplane over the city, landscape and the sea.

The next Grave Digger show will be in two weeks: “Wacken Rocks South” is the headline from 27th to 29th August. You can find the running order right HERE!

See you!

Manni

Pics: Ingo Stolley

Wacken Rocks!

24.08.09

While holiday season is nearing its end the next gig is already just around the corner:
Grave Digger are going to play on Saturday at the "Wacken Rocks South" open air in Rieden-Kreuth. Showtime schedule is from 8.15 pm to 9.15 pm. One hour of finest full service heavy metal! I'm looking forward to it!

See you soon

Manni

Mexico!

10.09.09

Right now I’m packing my stuff – next weekend I’ll be in Mexico with Grave Digger for the first time! Two shows are planned, both of which will be played together with Testament, Sacred Reich, Voivod and others, on Saturday, 12th September in Monterrey and Sunday, 13th September in Mexico City.

I’m really keen to get there.

Übergas will be on tour as well in November, supporting Daniel Wirtz (check tour dates HERE) – unfortunately I quite likely won’t be part of it since Grave Digger has planned a South America tour in that same period. We’re still working on it so you’ll get more information on this topic soon!

The live season for “Ballads Of A Hangman” is now drawing to a close. There are some festivals in the pipeline for next year and of course Grave Digger will have its 30th anniversary as well! There will surely be made something special for our fans! Also we want to record the follow-up of the “Ballads …” some time throughout the year. My “Daily Horror” project is developing, too. I gathered many ideas and during my free time I always find some time to work on it. But I have to step it up a notch, I know…

So, with that in mind – Rock ‘n’ Roll!!!

Manni

It's been a few days since the last news and there is a reason for that: I waved my hat at
Grave Digger in farewell. A statement exists on the GD website which I won't comment on
right now. I wish Grave Digger all the best, maybe that gives the band a new kick.

This does not mean that I chuck my six strings in! No way - it will be going "full speed
ahead", I‘ll continue work on my own projects and I'm absolutely open to band projects or bands!

So, for now - Rock 'n' Roll!
Manni

Digger no more!

08.10.09

Straight forwards!

22.10.09

Dust is settling down after my exit from Grave Digger and things are going back to normal again. The feedback that has been and still is delivered to me by friends, fans, acquaintances and companies is overwhelming and definitely deserves a news post! A big THANK YOU out to all of you who believe in me and support me! That really does me a world of good since this situation is not easy for me either.

Some take my withdrawal without comment and just look forward to what is going to happen now – of course many ask me why it had to end like this. I do not want to air dirty laundry in the public although I had a smile to myself about the official statement. There are requests for interviews and I’m going to get a bit more into the details during those because I do not plan to get pushed out of the picture once more or to bury my head in the sand, meaning that there are simply some issues to be cleared once and for all.

Now, however, I have lots of ideas which I have to arrange properly of course. At the moment I am discovering and considering my options but I can promise you that it’ll be “full speed” soon again! While I’m writing this my soldering bolt is already glowing: a packet from Gewa arrived today, containing some different “Tesla Pickups” for testing purposes and I’m just putting them into some of my guitars to check them out and draw comparisons. Not to easy but quite interesting. I’ll give you more on that in the coming days!

Keep it up – Rock ‘n’ Roooooooooolllll!

Manni

HERE you can find some more pics...

Interview online!

02.11.09

Take a look at the interview I did for  hooked-on-music to read some open words on my retirement from Grave Digger. It‘s in german, but HERE is the translation for you! This is not about slinging mud at anybody and I certainly don’t want to offend Grave Digger fans. But I think you have the right to get my side of the coin as well, although some of you may get startled upon such perspicuous words.

It’s going positively straight forward now. Just stay tuned, I will report!

See you soon!

Manni

New Guestbook Online!

15.11.09

Isn't that an amazing photography of my youth? Even the first photography ever showing me with a guitar, a wunderful "Hagström Viking"! I think it originates from the year 1978. There are some more cool pictures which I'm going to scan bit by bit to show them to you!

Some of you may have been on my homepage earlier today and noticed that I have been experimenting a little. I changed the news back to the former style and unfortunately had to delete two comments - sorry for that! In return I have a new guestbook right HERE. Take a look!

Cheerio - take care!

Manni

I wish everybody a happy, healthy, fantastic, successfull, prosperous, funny and hard rocking

NEW YEAR!

Sorry for that long news-break but soon it will go on here with new power!

SEE YOU SOON!

Rock‘n‘Roll!

Manni

Again it’s been a long while since the last news – sorry for that! I just had to power down a bit and refresh my batteries, clear my head and get ready for new action again! I wrote a bunch of songs, recorded them and experimented a lot. The image of my new course and who will be going along with me is sharpening as well now. I don’t want to tell you any more right now – only that you can be sure a new big METAL MONSTER is growing up right now. If everything goes according to plan there will be ground-shaking news right here soon!

In the mean-time I also played some soli for a few good friends of mine. As for my Slovenian friend Milan and his band Lene Kosti for whom I did some slide guitar and a solo on the song “Russian Girl”. I already played that song live along with the guys when Lene Kosti supported Grave Digger in Ljubljana on the last tour. The album will be coming out this month by the way.

In addition I had a short commitment again on the new Perzonal War album. The guys are mixing right now and I’m quite curious about it.

Since I’m planning to do a bit blues rock with some of my friends I went to the Musicstore to check out the Fame tubular-combo GTA 40 because my Bulldozer’s sound is just to brutal for that kind of music. Unfortunately, the GTA 40s were completely sold out, so I had to resort to the “Tonmeister” prototype. AWESOME! A GTA 40 amplifying unit in an old school case and most finely tuned by an amp guru from Cologne. I hope for those to go into production just like that! The blues rock licks just drip out of that thing. Cheering that little guy up a bit with an overdrive pedal also sounds very nice.

Hoooootttttt! Check out those GTAs! Pure tube sound with no frills!

In my last news I referred to my Tesla-pickup-soldering action. The soldering bolt has cooled down by now and some guitars are rewired now. My Fame Paula is now powered by two Tesla “Nitro” pickups, my absolute favorite right now: fat rock sound and smacking mid-tones. Quite awesome! But my two Dean ML, one equipped with a “Plasma II” set and the other with two Plasma 7, sound awesome as well! Those Plasma II sound fat and rocky while the Plasma 7 are more like letting the chainsaw go loose. Great variations! Also highly recommendable are the VR extreme which I applied to my black KxK Custom. To be described best by pressured and transparent.

It won’t take long for the next news to come – take my word

for it! But now I’ll get my hands back on crafting new songs!

See You Soon - ROCK‘N‘ROLL!

Manni

Hi there!

I‘m just looking straight into the future and need space for new stuff! Tha‘s why I‘m liquidating a part of my T-Shirt and clothing collection of my time in RAGE and GRAVE DIGGER on eBay! You can find really rare stuff and original stage clothing which you can‘t buy anywhere ! So check out the auctions HERE !

More hot news very soon! I‘m busy with my new band and can‘t wait to present my new baby! But - one step after the other...

Cheers!

Manni