Back to the future (Part 1)

To kick things off I gotta take you for a ride down memory lane. 

I paved that lane for three months now so it´s gonna be a short trip, and safe 
- the Finns have serious speed limits, especially when compared to the "too much is not enough" attitude on the German Autobahn.

After leaving my own band behind in Germany (more about that in an upcoming post) I had already something to look forward to: Good old friend Jyri had two gigs coming up with his band Los Dynamos. Drummer Veikko wasn´t able to play these shows so Jyri asked me if I could help out. I gladly took the offer.

The boys in the Dynamos are somewhat older than me and play a good blend of Blues/R´n´R with a little bit of country thrown in. No originals there but do not be fooled: you can´t dismiss those guys as what would be “Feierabend-Rocker” in German. Although they don´t write own songs they love every note they play and their knowledge about music put together would fill libraries! Plus they are able to put the band´s imprint on each tune. First time we met up together was at Jyri´s birthday bash, needless to say a musical happening to a large extend.

At one point I was asked to join them on stage for a few songs. It ended up being what you could call our first rehearsal because we played for two hours, me performing both guitar and drumming duties.

It was a blast for both us and the audience! This experience gave things to come a pretty positive outlook.

Yours truly having a pretty positive outlook and Pasi doing his magic.

Los Dynamos are from Pori, a town approximately 250 kilometers north-east from Helsinki. (Pori will be mentioned on this blog every now and then for several reasons.) Of course I went there a couple of times for “real” rehearsals in their small space. Immediately their professional approach started to show.

And good humor, I might add. I learned the songs as fast as I could. No rocket science when you have a feel for that type of music, which I think I do. They just were quite many because the gig in Tampere had two sets. We put lots of effort into the short time we had and even crammed seeing a football match in the tight schedule.

Me on the far left, next to Jyri giving it up for his team Pori Jazz.

Our first show took place in Pori´s Café Jazz with only a set of 45+ mins. We played with two other bands that night, Blues Bone and Hill Street Blues. Despite their ridiculous band names the guys in both bands were very talented. Blues Bone(r)´s guitarist seems to study his instrument (no pun intended) in Boston, America.

I guess his teachers will have other names than Al Barile, Chris Doherty or Steve Grimes (a little gag for those of you in-the-know), his playing rather went in the Stevie Ray Vaughn-on-acid direction.

We played next, and it went great! Any musician will tell you that when playing with two other bands, the middle spot is the best. Unless you are a big number or something…

During the first band people have the chance to warm up, how is entirely up to them. If the odds are good the audience is in a good spirit and ready to shake it as soon as you enter the stage next. The energy level is just perfect and sometimes (!) the following and last band can only pick up what´s left of that energy. We got lucky and our audience was groovin´ and movin´, rockin´ and rollin´, it was real fun.

Next up was Hill Street Blues. Again much talent on stage but I didn´t buy it. They were an act and came across like some Top 40 band whose biggest concern was to look good on stage. Sorry guys, I like it ugly and real, not pretty and fake.

For the record: That´s only me talking here, the guys in Los Dynamos are no bad mouths with vicious tongues like me.  But we all were a little disappointed that they didn´t play the Hill Street Blues Theme. What can you do…

To end the Café Jazz episode here comes some trivia for you. The owner is the guitar player in Appendix, Pori´s punk rock veterans! To quote John Joseph of Cro-Mags fame: “That ain´t punk!” 

Only pic I have from Café Jazz. Let´s cope with the lo-res.

Tampere was due the next weekend and there´s a little less to tell because we where the only band that night. It was great to drive with the guys from Pori to Tampere (a bit more than 100 kilometers). We went there in singer/guitarist/blues harp player Pasi´s van. Broken windshield, totally packed with gear and musicians, music from the tape player – wonderful! That´s the way it´s supposed to be!

The place was called Pub Vinyyli. You don´t have to be able to speak Finnish to get the meaning. I´m a vinyl junkie, CDs don´t mean anything to me. Nothing. I was happy that the bartender was able to show off with a collection of at least 1.500 records, talking ´bout vinyl! No “retro” disguise here to appear “cool” and then listen to only CDs. I think there is nothing wrong with listening to CDs, I´m just not into this “all style, no substance” – bullshit that´s going on for quite a while now, if you know what I mean…

We had to set up our gear on the terrace which worried us a bit. Although it was a nice summer day the weather forecast had given a thunderstorm warning for the evening, especially the Tampere region and there was no tent, no roof, no nothing.

Luckily both sets went fine in front of a rather small but good audience and we managed to play the last song with the first upcoming drizzle. We had a couple of drinks (well, two of us had and one of them was me.) before hitting the road back to Pori. Somehow we escaped the thunderstorm and nothing happened on our way home. Next day we heard that just shortly after our departure in Tampere all hell had really broken loose.  Us lucky bastards…

Make sure to check out:

www.losdynamos.com