cause for gratitude

For ten years now we have organized a Fork family picnic in June. The idea is to get everyone together who has worked with us during the past years or who just happens to be close to us in one way or another. It´s kind of a picnic were we say thank you and I am sorry... This year the feeling of gratitude was big, not only because we have been stretching our family members patience with lots of time away and late nights by the computer answering work emails, and they still came to the picnic. But also because our Gregory was in a car accident the day before the picnic. The car looks like a raisin but the man is fine. Of course bruised and shaken but nothing broken and very much alive. According to his wife his biggest concern was will he be able to do our concert the day after...

And yes, Gregory was mixing our concert at the Popkalaset, he wasn´t allowed to carry anything which he thoroughly enjoyed the whole day while Jonte and Kasper were doing the roading. But he once again did a fantastic job with making the Fork sound and we are so happy for that.
And about Popkalaset, what a great happening! The sun was shining, the crowd was big and happy and I could see in the eyes of my colleagues, behind the microphones, that now this is how we like it!

Have a great Juhannus - Midsommar everyone!!

Plan B

Yesterday we had a technical run-through and final rehearsal for Edinburgh with our light guy Tobias and our video guy Henrik. And of course Greg on the sound. Tobias and Jonte, who were in Edinburgh a week ago to check out our performing space at the George Square Theatre, have been doing some excellent work on planning how we are going to do the show there. Still there are many things that are impossible to decide before we are on location. This is quite nerve-wrecking... We have now made plan A, plan B and plan C. Just in case. And I am sure we will be using plan D in the end. There are always things you cannot predict. But this is kind of the thrill of it and will give us all some long wonderful sleepless nights...

Today we are doing the set list for Saturdays gig at Popkalaset in Ekenäs. It´s going to be a great way to end this season and start a few weeks of vacation! I just checked the weather forecast for the weekend and let´s just hope they are a bit wrong in their prediction. We want sunshine!

                                          Tobias, Henrik and Jonte. Planning.

The Truth!

This morning I was confronted with Brutal Facts. As I had my morning coffee I listened through the material for our upcoming Pink Noise Live album. 13 tracks of live singing. 13 tracks of us going oioio, uhuh, nanan, chukachuka, dingding and where our wonderful sound wizard Greg does magic with his fingers twisting my oioiois into something nice and cool.
And then there were my solos. And I am thinking No, that´s not me. I don´t sound like that. Do I sound like that? Why haven´t anyone told me I sound like that??!! This is the brutal facts-moment. You see, in my head I sound different, even if I have heard myself hundreds of times recorded I never get used to it. I am not saying it sounds better or worse but sometimes unawareness just makes you a happier person.

When I listened through the material for the third and fourth time I was able to focus on the whole. Many things sound so different from what I hear in my ear monitors on stage. We all have our own personal ear monitor mixes where you only hear what you want to hear and I usually have my colleagues sweet clean voices in mine, it helps me to stay in tune. So now, being able to listen to the whole of the song is great! And I must say that the record is not bad. Not bad at all.

               Leftovers from our press conference. Anna, me and the watermelons.

2 minutes 12 seconds

Strange but true. Summer is here! We still have three more weeks of intense work and tons of things to do before some kind of vacation.
A couple of blogs ago I wrote about our changing clothes - problem in the Edinburgh version of Pink Noise. Last week we then finally gave it a try. Picture this:
Thursday at 1 p.m. Forks rehearsal room, four singers all dressed in the white Pink Noise clothes. The singers imagine they are on the stage in Edinburgh, finishing a song and waiting for the applause. There comes the applause, then a bow and then black. 12 seconds of black. The singers storm out from the stage and rips off pieces of clothes. After 12 seconds they are again standing in front of the audience, behind a see-through curtain, in silhouette, wearing only underwear, singing. At this point they really hope they can trust the light guy... Then, after 15 seconds, the silhouettes disappears and the singers once again storm out. During the next two minutes, while the singers keep on singing the song, magic happens. And if everything goes as planned (there really are no options) out comes four singers dressed in... well, let that be a secret.
This is what we did last week at work. Smart? No. Fun? Yes.
I don´t have any pictures from this session since I was quite busy slipping out of one dress into another.
I give you this picture instead. Lahnajärvi, Finland. Summer at its best.

Humour

Humour is universal. This I came to think of last week when we did lots of different corporate gigs. The audiences varied from young to not so young, from Finns, Swedes, Canadians, Turks to Germans and Brazilians, from leaders in high positions to people in not such high position, from big international companies to small Finnish companies, from big parties with 500 people to small ones with 40 people, from cocktail parties to a five-course dinner party.
The client is often concerned about that the audience wont understand our humour. Because they are from abroad. Or because they are not that international. Or because they are older. Or because they are rich or poor or whatever reason you can think of.

What we need to know before we make our list of song is - how long is the set? how big is the party? is the audience sitting or standing? how long has the party been going on before we perform?  The rest doesn´t matter. We don´t sing differently because the people in front of the stage are Italians. We have never experienced that our humour in the speaks between the songs would have to be different because of any of the reasons above.
We all basically laugh at the same things. Humour is universal.
But the sense of humour can vary quite a bit...

No humour in this picture. Only some serious rock-n-roll business going on.

The Crazy Brazilian

Back in Helsinki. Today we have the morning off and that means that Kasper is probably wall climbing, Anna is doing some dubbing for an animation, Jonte is working on some of the material from our upcoming new album, Greg is mixing that same material, Linda is writing one million e-mails and I am washing my clothes. And then later on today we will meet for sound check, make-up and gig. All fresh and new.

Today I want to introduce you to the Crazy Brazilian. The thing is that there are times when we are put in front of a camera, for a newspaper or just someone who wants our picture. And it´s not always the easiest thing to look natural and cool in a picture, especially backstage when you are kind of out of character. Sometimes the smiling just doesn´t come natural and we only look stiff and uncomfortable.

A friend of mine heard me complain about this and he introduced me to the Crazy Brazilian:
When you are in front of the camera, smile as much as you can, really feel the madness in the smile, it should even hurt a bit in your face if you are doing the smiling right. Feel like a crazy Brazilian. And in the picture it will look really natural and good. It is magic. Check out the pictures below: the first is just us trying to look nice, the second is the Crazy Brazilian.

                                                                 Normal.

                                                                 Crazy.

On the Road

This week we are doing five gigs in four different cities. So we are on the road. Monday started off with the great feeling of success - Finland did win the World Championship in Ice hockey! But after standing  in front of a microphone for four hours trying to record some intro music for the Edinburgh version of Pink Noise the feeling of success was long gone. Sometimes the most simple things can be so hard... In the picture you can see that I am really trying to get it right this time.

On Tuesday and Wednesday we had concerts in Pargas, Finland. It´s the second time we visit this place and we love it. The audience was once again so friendly and warm, the stage is nice and the backstage is, well, small. Today we are moving on to Tampere, then Turku and on Saturday we are performing on the Olympic Stadium in Helsinki in front of 20 000 teenagers! I am very much looking forward to that even if someone (I will mention no names but he is French) decided that our sound check is at 7 a.m... It will be exciting!

                                              Greetings from Pargas backstage!