Saturday, May 31, 2008

Europe Ventures - Part 4 - Radio

Just after the show in Duisburg and a late night venture in the nice peoples garden, we head off for Amsterdam to play some songs in Amsterdam FM radio.

It was a fun experience, a bit hectic, but we got to play two songs in a minimalistic setup with acoustic guitar, piano and only one drum.

We played the two songs
- After
- Love/Respect Call

Both songs were recorded intermistic with a camera and put online by the staff from Amsterdam FM

So here you can watch it



and




You can also go to the amsterdam fm site and listen to the show : Amsterdam FM

Europe Ventures - Part 3 - Pictures

Just posting a link to some pictures this far from the tour at flickr

Pictures at flickr

Europe Ventures - Part 2

As the days go we have a good time doing the tour rituals, which is pretty much.

1. Wake Up
2. Panic for Coffee
3. Freshen up and get the gear together
4. Drive for quite some while in an extremely hot tourbus
5. Make soundcheck
6. Play show
7. Get late to bed

It's pretty much that mantra we live by these days. It's a bit hard, but for every day that goes everything just goes more and more smooth towards excellence and we play better and better shows, changing the setlist everyday to make some difference.

Thursday - 29.05.2008

This night was at the venue called Steinbruch in Duisburg in northern germany, close to the netherland border. Probably the best venue this far in the tour, with very kind people, a perfect stage and really good sound.

Steinbruch is situated just on the outer rim of Duisburg and is a pretty popular place for both music and food. Which is no wonder since its a cozy place, where you can sit outside in the great weather and have your food and then go into the dark club to get some earache.

It was one of the best shows on the tour this far in terms of sound, but it wasnt exactly overvisited :-) bit of a shame, for this venue.

Still. We had a great time and ended up in one of the locals houses (arranged by the place) to sleep, but didnt really go to sleep, just had a good time in the garden. Just below is a mood picture of this. Sitting in the garden listening to "People Press Play" and "Faithless" was very nice.

I have put up the song Carousel recorded at that show for anyone interested to enjoy, I personally think it has pretty good sound.

Setlist of the night :
- Silent Carriers
- Carousel
- Skylights
- Trapped In Glass
- Ready For The Knife
- Sidekick Trip To Mars
- Acorns Fall
- Love/Respect Call

Tourbus playlist :
Metal again... seems like Cult Of Luna has hit the playlist for good :-) .. some more Sepultura a bit of Seigmen and then some

Late Night Venture - Carousel ( Live From Steinbruch in Duisburg )


Late Night Venture - Carousel .. Live from Steinbruch in Duisburg











-- Very soon i will post a whole lot of pictures here but just need to get a bit better net connection for that.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Europe Ventures part 1

Monday - 26.05.2008

After a well relaxed weekend together with Utopium, having some good food and in general getting ready for the tour, for example by panicking over a lost Fender Amp, that we forgot after the gig at Studenterhuset last friday, we took off in good shape monday morning towards Witten.

Previous plans about bringing a PA system acoustic guitars, extra amps and other nice additional gear was pretty fast neglected due to a not so big bus for the tour. Since we are 7 touring (5 Late nighters, a sound engineer and a healthcare manager) all carrying luggage as well.

We arrived fine at Witten pretty much on time, discovering that the place was huge, but the actual room and stage of the place we were going to play was not the biggest, but very sufficient.

It was a bit slow night, not so many audience but nonetheles we still managed to sell a good stack of CD's.

Setlist of the night:
- Silent Carriers
- Sidekick Trip To Mars
- Skylights
- Acorns Fall
- Carousel
- Love/Respect Call
- Ready For The Knife

Tourbus playlist:
- Lali Puna, Notwist, People Press Play, Faithless, Björk, Flaming Lips, Snowden, The Postal Service, Manual, dEUS, Duran Duran, DJ Shadow, Mice Parade ...


Tuesday - 27.05.2008

Next day, I woke up early as I usually do and had the pleasure of one cold shower at the nice peoples apartment that we lend after the Witten show.

I just went for a stroll in the city of Dortmund while waiting for the other guys to wake up. Later it turned out I just had been unlucky with the icy temperature in the bath, since this didnt seem to be an issue for the rest of the guys. Well it woke me up pretty good.

Dortmund -> Leipzig is quite a trip so we head off pretty early with me behind the wheels since I was pretty well rested and the closer we got to Leipzig the more the celsius arised outside, making it pretty obvious why its a good idea to have aircondition in your bus. Something that we hadn't thought about, so we went for the more old-school airconidition called windows which noised things up a lot and had the small side effect of the drivers feeling like driving in a tumbledryer.

Nonetheless the spirits were high, Leipzig is a beautiful city and has a good cultural scene and generally a lot of charm and last time we played in Leipzig at "Noch Besser Leben" it was extremely nice, so expcetations we're high.

This time it was at Cafe Mule. A very cool place with a small stage and room, but with loads and loads of atmosphere, placed in an old cotton factory. So definately a backing gear job with not that much to o for our sound engineer. The hospitality of Mule was excellent, an extremely good Chili, free bar, nice accomodation for almost all of us and a niceb breakfast the day after. Something I personally didnt need :-) .

The show was as those kind of shows often are: intimate and for us very very good. It seems like these kind of gigs always turns out great, and this night were in every way excellent. Just below here you can listen to one of the songs from the show, a new piece called Silent Carriers.

Setlist of the night:
- Lazy Star
- Silent Carriers
- Skylights
- Acorns Fall
- Carousel
- Sidekick Trip To Mars
- Love/Respect Cal
- Ready For The Knife

Tourbus playlist:
A whole lot of metal & post hardcore. Cult Of Luna, Sepultura, Tool, Raconteurs, Neurosis, Isis, This Will Destroy You, Cypress Hill.

Late Night Venture - Silent Carriers ( Live From Cafe Mule Leipzig )


Late Night Venture - Silent Carriers .. Live from Leipzig










Wednesday - 28.05.2008

Tuesday was one long day and everyone of us was pretty worn out and tired, so a small drive to Berlin was very welcome. The target of this night : Monkey Club is a small Berlin venue in a cellar and since we were in so good time on the day, we had time to spend in Berlin. It's not exactly the first time in Berlin for us, but the first time in this venue. The venue is one of those places where there is a volume restriction, saying you can not play over 95db.

It might be another discussion, but I personally don't understand why clubs that has such restrictions book rock bands. I mean the drums alone can easily go beyond 95DB.

It doesn't matter that much, but it does mean that we play some other songs than when in places with no restrictions like that. The setlist belows shows the more mellow and spacious set.

Setlist of the night:
- Lazy Star
- Carousel
- Skylights
- After
- Trapped In Glass
- Sidekick Trip To Mars
- Ready For The Knife
- Love/Respect Call

Tourbus playlist:
Very quiet, none music what so ever :-) .. tired from Leipzig..

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Europe tour

So this is it. We're now officially kicking off the Europa tour together with the french band Utopium.

I'm pretty sure it is going to be a nice and adventurous journey the next 14 days, bringing us through Germany, Netherlands, Luxembourg and France, starting off with the first show tomorrow in Witten and ending up in Paris. After that a very short intermezzo to recover before hitting the Czech republic.

I will post tales and media from the tour, whenever I get near a WIFI hotspot.

Below here you can see the tourplan

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

A Quick Recommendation from abroad

I've just had the pleasure to go to San Francisco and I'm currently recovering from the jet-lag, trying to convert to the copenhagen timezone.

I like San Francisco a lot and been there a couple of times, it's a city with lots of diversity and a very good cultural aspect spiced up with so different areas of residence blended with differences.

It's also a sad sign to see how society really is divided in the rich and the poor and the amount of homeless people is pretty scary and in my opinion shows a selfish and superficial policy.

One good thing about SF is the Haight District. The district that evolved as a hippie society in the late 60's early 70's. The district still have that "feel" to it, and this is the place to go if you wanna grab that rare 12" you've been looking for. So, as the music addict I am I went there again to visit the Amoeba Records store. This is a quite big store that really has everything in new and used records. So this is a recommendation if you ever get around San Francisco, you should go visit the Haight District and definately take some hours off in the Amoeba store.

I went out of the store with loads of nice records I've had a hard time finding, including some Album Leaf, Yo La Tengo, Múm, God is an Astronaut, Manual, Jason Collett and loads of others.

Amoeba records is not only CD's, you can also catch the indie bands live on stage from time to time.

But Haight is more than just records, its also the place for independent book stores, vintage clothing, psychedelic curiosity stores and cool cafe's.

Here is a map showing you directions :

Amoeba Music: Vintage New Concert Posters-Buy & Sell
1855 Haight St, San Francisco, CA
(415) 831-1200
Link: Amoeba Records