MORE DETAILS ABOUT JAY's DEPARTURE 

15 October 2012: Yes you guys, Dallas is back on TV and we're not celebrating it! We owe the picture of Larry Hagman in yippee yi yay outfit to Flemish pop magazine Joepie. Joepie had an exclusive interview in 1982 with the newly recruited singer of Bodine, Axel Langemeijer, in the Concrete Grinder section (I know, I know: it’s not a literal translation, but concrete mixer sounds… fluffy!). Joepie and Hitkrant combined a lot of articles in this section, but somehow this one only got published in Belgium, not in the Netherlands. Go figure! Axel candidly speaks about the circumstances in which Bodine decided to part with singer Jay van Feggelen. It was at the gig in Donkey Shot, Heemskerk, when things were coming apart. According to Axel, Jay threw a tantrum on stage and obviously was not behaving like a member when he should have. Fair enough, Axel praises Jay’s talents and attributes the split to the difference of cultures: Jay was from Amsterdam, the rest of the band from The Hague. According to Axel, this was not a perfect match…

Now, you may wonder how Axel knows all this stuff? Well, remember Axel used to work as a stagehand for Podia? Obviously, Axel was in Heemskerk that night to set up the stage. He just happened to be around when the proverbial shit hit the fan… So, we may conclude that the reason for the split wasn’t about Jay being on a tv-show with Robert ten Brink after all… Regular Rocker guessed as much.

Axel further explains why he likes life on the road with a band, he speaks about his role as a performer and his responsibility to be a role model (or not), about escapism and about his early sources of influence. He believes that Bodine should show positive energy and stay away from the negativism of ‘stretched arms and other German medals of honour'. Now isn’t that worth a read? I mean: How much ground can you cover in one and a half pages?

Read the article here in English or in Dutch. Many thanks to Bridge1961 for the translation!