Batman

Bar Batman. A piece of art.

Or in Finnish: Lepakkomies. So if you read this, Bruce Wayne, now you know. But the batman over here has nothing to do with a mysterious millionaire chasing villains, although it might be villains you have to encounter there. Just kidding, Lepakkomies is a bar in Helsinki´s infamous destrict Kallio, on Helsinginkatu to be exact and a stone throw away from my flat. It doesn´t only bait you with very acceptable beer prices (the Kallio area is pretty cheap compared to the rest of Helsinki, if not whole Finland) but has also bands play on a regular basis. That´s what brought me there last night, cause as posted before, Lovecoat, Bananas and Velvert were on the bill. I went there almost in a hurry not to miss the first band, only to realize that I (blockhead) had forgotten my camera at home. Translates to: I´m unfortunately not able to present any live pictures, damn it. At Lepakkomies you will find the bands play in the basement, a cosy oblong room with a bar holding what I would estimate up to 100 people. Well, yesterday approximately 10 showed up, maybe 15. I felt sorry for the bands who seemed to lose a potential audience to some other event in Bar Loose which took place simultaneously. These things happen, been there, done that.

Lovecoat didn´t lose their cool either and went on stage first. Stoner Rock was the name of the game and I was glad to notice that the trios´ approach to the genre was not the typical generic formula type of thing but rather of a more unique nature. They were a little sloppy from time to time but I think that some of their songs were real hits. Good riffs and good hooklines, that´s what it takes! My personal favorite of their show was without doubt the tune Radio, you will find it on the fellas myspace page (links below as usual).

Lovecoat in their rehearsal room. Drummer Otto and me just recently had a nice jam session there.

Next up were Bananas, and well, that´s what they were. Nomen est omen and they were anxious to prove it. They were three guys and a girl on "vocals". I was told that one of the male members used to play in Fun, another (still very much active) Finnish band who recorded with Steve Albini. Impressive despite the fact that I think that Steve Albini is...well, not my cup of tea. That seems to be the connection to Bananas because they didn´t hit it off with me. Hysterical screaming followed by incoherent mumbling over songs that sometimes made me miss some kind of structure. Sudden tempo and time changes dominated the music. They had some good ideas, though. Maybe just too many in one song. Or maybe my simple mind starts to show here, I know a few of my friends will be silently nodding their heads to their screens reading this. There definetely are fans of that kind of music so I would have listed Bananas´ URL anyways, but I did not find them on the net. Otto from Lovecoat told me that they like to change their name every now and then, wonder why...

I missed out Velvert because I felt tired and had an early wake up today. Only too bad, looks like they would have been more on the poppy side with some nice songs, a funny contrast to the other two groups. Nice when the bands do not sound exactly the same during one night.

Velvert performing at some place I haven´t seen them either.

My schedule for today included some struggles with the authorities and I had this one tune ringing in my mind all of the time. Some of you will know the feeling. It´s when a song gets stripped entirely off its lyrical context or meaning and becomes a soundtrack for a situation you´re in or a feeling you have.
So here is my

SONG FOR THE DAY:

Bad Brains - Secret 77

and here´s why:

www.nordsoc.org/fi/Suomi/Suomen-sosiaaliturva

Make sure to check out:

www.lepakkomies.fi
www.myspace.com/lovecoat
www.myspace.com/velvert

ADDENDUM October 9, 2010:
I just got word that Bananas do have a myspace page, thanks Rasmus!

www.myspace.com/atktietokone