Best trip ever?

At least this was last Saturday´s mantra when Marika, Riku, Susu and yours truly jumped on the ferry to Tallinn. The weather forecast hadn´t been very promising, so we´d made a pact that no cloud, neither literal nor figurative, shall overshadow our little getaway.
This was going to be the best trip ever, period.

In good spirits on the ferry. Best trip ever!

The Estonian capitol on the other side of the pond is a popular destination among the Finns. With only about two and a half hours by boat it´s pretty close and the language is as close to Finnish as it can possibly get. Although most of Tallinn still looks like Sovjet Russia in the 80ties, the city can boast about a beautiful historic downtown that makes you forget its dismal surroundings instantly.

Another thing makes a trip to Tallinn so attractive: compared to Finland the prices over there are ridiculously low, especially for food and drinks. Naturally the "alcohol tourism" is at an all-time high, whole vans that accommodated maybe a pair of knickers and a toothbrush when crossing over to Estonia return brimful with beer & booze, frame sparking on the floor. That wasn´t our agenda, we set out to have a fun weekend, go shopping, eat well and have maybe a beer or two...maybe three.

Best view ever.

When we set foot on Estonian ground it was raining and to spill the beans, it should not stop raining until we where on the ferry back to Helsinki the next day. So what...best trip ever!
Due to the constant drizzle I didn´t take as many pictures as I had planned but here´s a nice view over parts of the old town. On the left you see St. Olaf´s Church, in the distance on the right is the harbor with the big ferries connecting Tallinn with Mariehamn, Stockholm, Rostock, St. Petersburg and of course Helsinki.

All of us had been to Tallinn before so sightseeing didn´t have top priority anyway. While the ladies went on a little shopping spree, Riku and me tried to find a record store called World Clinic. It had popped up on the net a couple of days earlier when I´d been searching for good places to score some vinyl in Tallinn. The shop´s blog looked interesting so I was keen to comb through its shelves. On our arrival at the World Clinic we were somehow reminded how small this world actually can be, and if you, dear reader, recall what the initials "WC" usually stand for, you will also get a good idea of the store size. So what...best trip ever. The shop guy was friendly and apparently active in Tallinn´s underground scene and I think that should always be supported. Riku stepped into the breach and bought a CD. Well done!

On our way to meet the girls we saw the most bizarre vehicle, a weird hybrid between tram and bus that announced itself with rattling chains on the asphalt:

Environment friendly and brings you to wherever is a contact wire. Best bus ever.

The light sign in the window reads "1" but this Trans-Siberian transformer looks rather like a number two. Check out the roof thingies connecting it to the electronic grid. Obviously the chains we heard were grounding this beauty!

Two beds, one tv. Best hotel room ever.

Re-united with the female part of our crew we first quenched our thirst with a couple of brews in a bar before going back to our hotel. We were checked into City Hotel Portas, located directly at the harbor. It´s cheap but clean and peaceful, and that´s all I ask for when staying just for one night (basically a couple of hours). On arrival we had stored our small luggage in the lobby, now it was time to bring our belongings (old and new) to our rooms and take a refreshing shower. Everyone was pretty hungry when we left again for the old town. The plan was to eat out opulently but we had not yet decided where to do so. After scanning the streets for a while we made our choice and it was a good one:
The restaurant Elevant. If you´re ever in Tallinn, go there! Placed nicely on the second floor of an historic house and decorated tastefully, a friendly staff serves you marvellous indian food in a chilled-out atmosphere. So chilled-out in fact, that we were the last customers to leave. Best trip ever, or what?

Hot indian food makes you thirsty, so we tried to find a couple of bars we had heard about. This endeavor proved to be a bit difficult even with that microscopic map of ours. Try to orientate yourself in dark narrow streets and pouring rain. Not an easy task but thus we managed to put more bars to the list than we already had.

Best...oh well.

We had a lot of fun until we called it a very long day around 3am (or 4am? Clock changed to summertime that night). Next morning started with a humble breakfast, then we had to already get packed and check out. On the ferry we all agreed that we had had a splendid time, despite the constant rain, which stopped exactly now to give way to beautiful sunlight. One of our crew members could even update the status of a missing mobile phone from lost to found. Best trip ever indeed!

Make sure to check out:

World Clinic (in Estonian)

Elevant (in English)
City Hotel Portus (in English)
Hell Hunt (in English)
Drink Bar & Grill (in English, stupid name, great bar)
Must Puudel (in Estonian)

Tom Sawyer Guantanamera

Bela & Boris have nothing to do with Tom, but you gotta have a backround, right?

I´m long out of language courses now and for quite some time knee-deep in working life. That means speaking Finnish everyday without the grammatic safety belt, helmet or parachute only a teacher can provide. This beautiful language is like an electric eel, once you think you can grasp it, you´ll be left behind in shock.

Of course I can make myself understood most of the time and I also took a leap foreward concerning my puhekieli. I have noticed though that many grammatical forms have slipped my mind, I even start to forget how things are written correctly.

How do you conjugate verbityyppi 4 in past tense?
How many ä´s has this or that word?
And what is it´s monikon partitiivi?
K-p-t vaihtelu...aaaargh!

High time to do something about it!
Since I didn´t get around yet to check on upcoming courses suitable for my level this has to do the trick for the moment: Tom Sawyer´s adventures in basic Finnish!
Didn´t start reading yet but the blurb was surprisingly easy for my to understand. With this book I hope to combine entertainment with a learning effect. Infotainment, so to speak. Let´s see if my plan pans out.

SONG FOR TODAY:

Die Toten Hosen - Cunt in a Mirror

Chapeau!

I don´t care much for brands and labels, but this, ladies and gentlemen, is a real Stetson! The mad hatter across the street is having sales right now and the headgear is going for incredibly small money.

Had been wanting to check out the tiny shop anyway for a long time. Some days ago I finally did and after a little pirouette I decided on this cool flat cap. When being asked about the price the mad hatter hammered a few digits into her calculator.

"Well, it´s 70% off, that would be 14€ then."

Ha!
14€ for a Stetson, that´s almost for free!
Hats off to the mad hatter, long may she live.

Uudet verhot, uudet valot

Obviously I put some new curtains on the blog, some neon light, too. Time had come for a new look and I think it works pretty well. What do you think?

SONGS FOR TODAY:

Jerry´s Kids - Raise the Curtain


Accept - Neon Nights

D.I.Y. or die - Osuuskunta 82

Osuuskunta 82 is something I most definitely support! And if you live in the area (or the country, what does it matter) and want an independent venue that is unique, far away from corporate bullshit and in it for the cause, then you should, too. At the moment the cooperative is organizing gigs in Helsinki to raise money for a nice place to go insane. I caught a great punk extravaganza almost three weeks ago.

Fuck man, the leap year bestowed an extra day upon us and still I wasn´t able to eke out a review of that show. It took place in Merihaka, easily one of the ugliest parts of town and only a ten minute walk for me away. Go figure, haha! I was badly prepared that night, had left my camera at home and relied on the crappy substitute in my cellphone - big mistake.

Click to enlarge 

That´s not only a bummer because the "venue" Sir Oliver was quite a sight (a shabby corner bar amongst the concrete jungle) filled with punks and crusties, it of course also means no pictures from the bands playing that night.
Won´t happen again, that´s a promise!

Due to a growing Korsakoff´s syndrome it´s a bit too late for a proper review anyway, so I only give you this:

Check out Baltimor if you dig Iron Maiden on speed with growling punk vocals (my fave that night!), give Perikato a try if you are into speedcore à la Siege and D.R.I. (a-ma-zing drummer!), feast on Särkyneet if female-fronted power pop in Finnish is to your taste (very tight combo!) and absolutely lose it with Ydinperhe if you crave old school hardcore as much as I do (Finnish lyrics, 2 gals + 2 guys and did I already mention OLD SCHOOL?!).

Well, you´ll find all links below as usual but let´s go back to the main topic:
Osuuskunta 82. I guess I´ll put them on a pedestal now and instead of paraphrasing their pamphlet, I´ll give you the original flyer which was given to me at the show:

Make sure to check out:

Osuuskunta 82 (in Finnish)
Baltimor
Perikato (their complete tape on YouTube)
Särkyneet
Ydinperhe

Unruhige Zeiten

Patrik Viitala (bass/vox), Jan Ferres (git/lead vox) and Kristian Ketola (drums)

For a long time I´ve made noises and insinuations here but now it´s high time to let the cat out of the bag: di unru is ready to strike!

The odd band name derives from the phonetics for the ambivalent German word Die Unruh. It means that little balance wheel in clocks and watches which makes them tick, as well as unrest, riot or turmoil. Yeah! We chose the moniker because it represents the lyrical content of the songs very well. Cynicism for the dark age.

Our style is maybe best described as a (post)punk/metal cocktail laced with new wave elements. Or something.
Too many genres, too many tags. You decide.

Always hard to describe your own music anyway, so we better let the music speak for itself, shall we?

Here´s our little stomper "Soapbox Dictator" for you that we recorded live on our first appereance ever, a private show on February 11th, 2012: 

As you might have noticed I deliberately sang slightly off-key and fucked up a few licks just to prove that we´re no robots. Our usual razor sharp precision would have only stirred up rumors we´d lip-sync to a playback track...yeah right.

Anyway, so far we got about 40mins + worth of own material and we´re goddamn hungry to play live as much as possible. So if you wanna book us or team up for a show together,
don´t waste any time and hit us up. Send your mail to pviitala@pp.nic.fi or contact us via that devil´s invention called Facebook. You can also "like" us there or send us naughty pictures, that´s up to you. But really, all serious gig offers are immensely appreciated!

Make sure to check out:

di unru on Fuck Facebook
di unru TV on YouTube

Make sure to book us and/or give us a million $ record deal here:

di.unru@hotmail.com (no link, you gotta copy/paste) or in the comment section of this blog.