Spring poses

It´s been a busy week. After a month of laying low we finally had a concert at Sellosali last Thursday. It felt awesome to perform again and a big Thank You goes to the great crowd in Espoo! But before we got this far a couple of things had to be done...

Here is a quick update on what has been going on:

First Jontes wife had to give birth to this wonderful little baby girl. She is already giving Jonte a hard time: "who are you and what am I doing here?".

Then we met at our new rehearsal studio. Yes, now we finally feel like a real rock-n-roll band. It might not be as pretty as our former studio but we really love this space. And Greg says the acoustics is so much better. I wouldn´t know.

Then there was the soundcheck. Someone is trying to lift up the spirit a bit. In the front you can see one of the staff members from Sellosali helping us pull some cables. The staff there is the best!

Then there was the show. Oh, did I mention that we have been practising some Tai-chi. This is Kaspers verison of the Golden cockerel.

Here we have the Grasp the Sparrows tail á la Jonte.

This is Anna doing the Snake creeps Down.

And finally the White Crane spreads it´s Wings by me.

In two days we are going to Asia. Maybe we should practise a bit more on our tai-chi poses before showing them over there. Or?

Edinburgh Fringe - round two!

So it is finally decided. We are doing the Fringe festival this year as well!
We got the perfect slot at 22.25 in the Spiegeltent at the Assembly and it suits our new show ElectroVocal Circus just great! This will be a bit different from last years sophisticated Pink Noise at 18.05...

Now we just need to find a place to stay (since our last years green door apartment isn´t available...) and then book the flights and we are on our way!

When I, in the beginning of August,  slip into this outfit I wont take it off before the month is over. It is just too complicated. And let me introduce to you the blond Björn Borg aka Kasper R... Who said the headband is out of style? And Anna...well she has what we in Finland call tiukka pipo which in English would be something like tight hat. Which basically means she is the boss. 

And Jonte. I wont say anything about him because he should only be focusing on getting that Ramsten child delivered into this world NOW! 

Back with more news later.

Changes

All good things must come to an end.
We have had the pleasure to rehearse in this wonderful studio for many years but last week it was time for us to move out and on. Until the last minute of the last day we used the space as it is supposed to be used, we worked on a new arrangement. A heavy nightclub-medley, of course.

As you can see there is a camera in the background. Yes, there is a  new some kind of a documentary made about us, not quite sure yet what it will be but lets just say we have had some funny moments so far.

But as something old comes to an end something new begins. We have found a new "living room" for us, it is less a cappella and more rock-n-roll but that´s fine with us. And I guess the champagne will taste the same. Gregory is very happy, he thinks the sound is much better and the roading is easier.

The Finnish version of a vacuum cleaner. Anna is a beast when it comes to cleaning. I was trying to stay out of her way not only because I have a nasty cold but also because she is a bit scary when it comes to cleaning...

We are having a break from rehearsing now for some weeks. First there is Easter and all that, chocolate and food and eggs and pasha and baba and so on.
And then we are waiting for a little baby-fork to be born! Any day now Jonte will become a dad and we are all keeping our fingers and toes crossed that everything will go well. Anna and me are both pretty sure it will be a girl.

Some things never change.
Happy Easter!

Stay calm and breathe

This week we finally got to try some of our new arrangements on the audience. On Tuesday we were in Ekenäs and had a great time like we always have when we visit this small but sassy town.
The challenge when performing new stuff is to stay calm enough to be able to breathe. It is scary what nervousness can do to you. If you lose your harmony you can always find it again, if you forget the words, well, we are all pretty good at making up new ones as the song goes on... But if the breathing fails, then you are in trouble. Especially if you are supposed to sing a long sweet ooooo.
It will sound more like o-o--o-o---o-hh-h-o.

Sound check. Baba, our local guy, is giving us some last minute advice on how to take over the Ekenäs crowd.

We had a quick brainstorming about what to do to get this thing going.

Of course the answer to that was coffee, which was brought to us by the wonderful Mr. Pöysti.

Sometimes after a successful gig we look like this:

"Yeeei, Ekenäs, Thank you! We are happy and almost sane!"

or like this:

"Money, wuahhahhaa!"


But sometimes we look like this (in a town far from Ekenäs):

"No, that was not fun."

or:

"I want pizza."

To sum it up, so far the week has been interesting and I think we managed to perform our new stuff with our honour intact.

Multitasking in Frankfurt

Last night we came home from a very short trip to Frankfurt. We flew in on Tuesday, did a gig in the evening and back home on Wednesday. The wonderful thing about this trip was not only the great audience we met but also the feeling of SPRING! Once again I realize that we live very far up north.

Major sun-worshipping.

The bad thing about this trip was that Linda decided we could do this without her. Which meant that suddenly I was in charge of all kinds of practical things.

"Where is the car that should have picked us up? Who should I call? "

"Where is the person we are supposed to meet outside the hotel? What was her name again? Are we at the right hotel?"

"Where are our rooms?" "When is our soundcheck again?" "When do we eat?"

While the rest of the group is taking a power nap I am ordering the food for everyone. "Ok, Jonte will have the ceasar salad, Kapser wants the sushi platter, Anna wants chicken, Greg wants french food..."

"Where is the cold beer? where are our sun hats?"

"How long was the set again?""Which songs are we singing?"

Meditation time. 

The penguin

A lonely penguin in the Finnish winter night.

Last week we had a gig where the events manager not only treated the customer with some Fork but also gave them a spectacular ice sculpture show. It was amazing to see what skilled people can do with a piece of ice. Now, the evening could have turned out to be just one of those gigs where everything goes exactly like planned without any surprises. But this time the ice sculpturing must have been a bit too much for the events manager because when we met him, after the soundcheck when everything was still fine,  he immediately started yelling a bunch of non-understandable things to us about mixing table being in the wrong place and us destroying the whole gig etc. It was quite an experience and we more or less looked like a bunch of question marks and since any attempt to discussion led nowhere we transported ourselves back stage to calm down and figure out what to do next.

Well, what happened next was this:
The events manager came back stage, he apologized for being stressed and behaving like such an you know what,  we said everything was cool, we put on our make up, did a good gig for a great audience and everybody was happy.

Two bottles of sparkling was brought to us with a note saying Sorry for us complaining. :)


We had another gig last week as well where these wonderful ladies took such good care of us.

Now we are back in rehearsals.

Really looks like they know what they are doing.

Winter time

Yesterday there was yet again a new record for this winter, the temperature outside was as low as 40 degrees Celsius. Luckily not in Helsinki, here it was only - 23... For us Finns normal life goes on no matter what the temperature is, we put on one more pair of long johns and an extra sweater and we are off to work. I am not saying I enjoy this coldness but there really isn´t anything I can do about it, except move somewhere else of course.

This is not Siberia, this is Helsinki.

And about moving somewhere else, we just elected a new president for Finland (congratulation Mr. Niinistö, hope to see you in the audience soon again) which always is a bit exciting at least in the beginning. And then of course Helsinki is the World Capital of Design 2012 so no way am I leaving this hip and in city at least not this year.

Today and tomorrow we are doing corporate gigs, we still can´t do our new material for the audience, it  needs more rehearsals. Last Friday at the rehearsal studio we experienced a moment of total emptiness, we sat for six hours and nothing happened, not a single good idea or inspiring thought. Luckily Linda came to see us, all tan and relaxed after two weeks in Mexico, and brought some chocolate and sparkling wine with her!

The boys in a sensitive duet.