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

Fish is in the air...

The traditional Baltic Herring Fair on Helsingin kauppatori

Fischers Fritz fischt frische Fische, frische Fische fischt Fischers Fritz...
Try to say that three times in a row after some shots of Koskenkorva! Best place to practice tongue twisters and eat delicious fish this week is the annual herring market on kauppatori (=market place). Located beautifully in the harbor area of Helsinki it still continues until the 10th of October. Fishermen from many places gather there every autumn to sell their fresh prey and all kinds of sea food from the baltic sea. If you´re not into fishy transactions you can just grab a coffee and buy some nice and useless things. I myself decided to just stroll over the market and enjoy the commotion for a while. Places like this always remind me of good old Hamburg...I will leave you for today with some impressions of the scenery, gotta recharge my batteries for tonight´s gig at Lepakkomies featuring Lovecoat, Velvert and Bananas. Yeah!

Miika counts his fish while his colleague hides his bottle of Jack Daniel´s.

Sold straight from the boat. Cool.

Standing in that orange light whole day would drive me mad.

INITIUM

Fireworks over Helsinki

Thanks, that wouldn´t have been neccesary. So there we are in the present, im Hier und Jetzt, all dressed up but where to go? Well, I´m going to establish certain categories for some of my posts. A few recurrent general topics that reflect the point of view of a resident alien living in a wonderfully weird country. My posts will be anything but the ultimate truth, just the way I understand and/or experience the Finnish customs and the modus operandi of the people living in this country. My intention is not to insult or offend.

Comments are more than welcome, may they be corrections, contributions, consolation or congratulations. We live and learn.

Other than that I can tell you that the mighty Killing Joke are coming to town. They´re gonna play next week´s Monday at Nosturi and I can´t wait! A fascinating band that manages to reinvent itself with every new album without losing touch with its roots. I hope they bring the vinyl version of their latest album Absolute Dissent to the show. So far I was only able to get the fairly limited In Excelsis 10" EP which they released as a kind of teaser for the upcoming full-length. Anyway, this is gonna be a blast!!!

ON HEAVY ROTATION:

KILLING JOKE - In Excelsis
(2010)

KILLING JOKE - Killing Joke
(2003)

www.killingjoke.com

The Raven has landed (Back to the future, final part)

Raven. Black Raven.
They are actually to blame that I wound up living in Finland. In a way. They are to blame for many additional things. Being their drummer for over four years I learned a lot about the ups and downs of the tour life, about musical work ethics and, maybe most important, I learned a thing or two about myself. I saw a good chunk of the world. We toured almost the whole of Europe and the American west coast. Tokyo and Osaka in Japan were mind-boggling experiences. Playing a lot in Scandinavia brought me to Finland where I met my girl, so Black Raven is guilty of that, too. And I want to thank them.

Black Raven in 2004.

In the course of time I realized that I had just two conflicts stirring up inside me. I liked to play drums but I missed torturing my actual instrument, the guitar. Black Raven was always in full flow, no time for hanky panky. The other thing was the music itself. I have always liked R´n´R / Rockabilly etc. and always will. But my heart beats for punk / hardcore / metal and all what comes with it. I had to follow my heart and left the band in the end of 2007, nothing personal at all. We are still friends to this day. I´m happy that the band was never forced to take a break due to my departure. We found Fritzo, showed him the ropes and when I left he just took over.

Black Raven since 2007: Torsten, Fritzo, Julian. And yes, the tattoos are real.

To end the Back to the Future - trilogy it´s a pleasure to tell you that after my first six weeks over here, Black Raven came to Suomi. A weekender in Valkeakoski was on their tour schedule and of course I was in! Promoter and long term partner-in-crime Eddie had taken good care of me. He had made sure that there´s a spare seat for me in the van transporting the band to Hotelli Waltikka and enabled me to overleap certain obstacles on site. Eddie, if you read this: kiitos paljon vielä kerran! We met at the airport and it was strange to pick the guys up at the arrivals. It was like watching a tour video filmed by a fan but this time I was a spectator and a spectator only. I don´t regret leaving the band but of course there are sometimes situations when it would be cool to still belong to the gang. Every now and then I miss playing a show with them because it was always fun. Well, rest assured: That weekend we should have fun in spades!

I will not give you too many details but it was a great party. What I value most is that us friends had a lot of time to spend together, talking serious stuff and of course tons of bullshit. I also met other old comrades like the boys in the Beetle Crushers, Lou Cifer and the Hellions as well as scensters I hadn´t seen since calling it quits. Black Raven played a good gig as usual, the Beetle Crushers were incredibly tight and hungry after a long hiatus. Plus there were some great bands I hadn´t heard of before. Rockin´ 8-Balls (FI) blew me away (great singer) and the surprise of the weekender, The Town Rebels (GER) played some great tunes by Cliff Richard, The Tornados and other stuff that you hardly ever get to hear at these weekenders ("Oh woo-pee, it´s Cast Iron Arms or Twenty Flight Rock - AGAIN!"). They had good originals for that matter, too. Pretty impressive and memorable were Fritzo´s mostly successful attempts to defy gravity by piling all kinds of glasses, pints and bottles sky-high! Try that when you are sober but he had already problems to walk properly. Respect!
After too few sleep as always on the road we left the hotel Sunday noon. The weirdest feeling was to wave my buddies goodbye at the airport, them leaving for Germany, me staying here in Suomi. I think that in this very moment I finally realized: The raven has landed.

Make sure to check out:
  
www.blackraven.de
www.myspace.com/beetlecrushers
www.myspace.com/rockin8balls
www.myspace.com/thetownrebels

Back to the future (Part 2)

One thing I treasure dearly about living in Finland is the fact that it has so much water. The coastline stretches over thousands of kilometers and there is a reason why it´s called the land of 1000 lakes. 187.888 to be exact as the Finnish Departement of the Environment claims.
Born and raised in Northern Germany I used to live directly at the Baltic Sea. I loved it.

Then I moved to Düsseldorf which had at least the river Rhein to trigger some placebo effects when I wanted to be at the water. Düsseldorf is an important chapter in my life. I made good friends there, played in a few bands and expanded my horizons. But in the long run I started to really miss the sea.
Now I´m living in Helsinki, again at the Baltic Sea. And I love it.

Maybe now you can imagine how thrilled I was when my buddy Riku rang me up and asked me to join him on a boat trip to a very small island. Hell yeah! The plan was to sail there, barbeque, go to the sauna, stay over night and sail back the next day. Sounded like a good plan to me. The whole idea got even more interesting when Riku explained that the island was practically deserted. It belongs to a yacht club and the chance to bump into someone there in the beginning of september (and that was the time) is rather small.

The island in question. Let´s go there...

We agreed to make the trip and took action. Armed with sleeping bags, warm socks, sausages and beer we drove the 150 kilometers to nearby Turku by car. A small harbor maybe 40 kilometers from Turku was our first destination. That is where Riku and his brother have a sailing boat which they share.

Land ahoy!

When we got there we quickly loaded our stuff into the boat and set sail. Soon after we had left the harbor zone behind us we had a marvelous view on nature´s beauty. Tiny islands here and there, the waves, the wind, the sun...the weather was almost too good to be true.
Roundabout one hour later we arrived at the island and made ourselves at home. Nice place, that island!

A few small huts and a clubhouse, a sand beach and the place where we stayed, a cottage with a living room, bunk beds and a sauna. It was a funny feeling to be there somehow because although you could still see the mainland in the far distance we were alone on an island. It was like literally waving goodbye to civilisation. Cool thing!

We fired up the grill at the beach and enjoyed our sausages and beer. Night set in as we went to the sauna and with the usual breaks inbetween we made it to three hours! During one of our breaks we took a look to the sky and what we saw was a-ma-zing! Uncountable stars twinkling over our heads, an amount Riku and me had never seen before. I´m originally from the countryside, so I know the night sky there is always very different to what you would see in the city, but this? Maybe it was the beer...

That was our view from where we had the BBQ

We slept like a log, no miracle after fresh air poisoning, sauna and some brews. Next day we left the island before noon and made it back to Helsinki roundabout four, somehow tired but happy. The trip had been very cool and we knew it. I was grateful for the great experience and I still am. And I would gladly do it again, you hear me, Riku?