Categories
Books Features Interviews

Interview with Amanda Hocking

American writer Amanda Hocking could resume very well the Cinderella dream of thousands of writers that try to publish their work around the world in this new era of digital technologies. After getting rejected repeatedly by publishing houses, she decided to start self publishing her books in Internet in 2010. The result: an unexpected success translated in millions of copies sold and a few more zeros in her bank account. Lullaby, the second book of her Watersong series, will be out in the shops soon on November 27, and meanwhile Hollywood is already finishing a cinema adaptation of the first book of the series Wake.

Amanda kindly answered the questions that FREE! Magazine sent to her with the attitude of somebody who has accomplished a childhood dream, but still keeps her feet firmly on the earth knowing what is the value of a success achieved by endless hours of hard work and a rocking attitude of never giving up against adversities.

Lullaby

Hello Amanda and thanks a lot for your time! Lullaby, the second book of the Watersong saga, will be out pretty soon on November 27. Do you feel excited to check the public response?

I’m very excited! I know a lot of people enjoyed Wake, so that made me happy….I was kind of nervous with this being my first new book with a Publisher, but the response was great. I feel that each book in this series gets more exciting as they go on, so hopefully people will enjoy it at least as much as Wake.

For a person who would not have yet read any of your books, how would you define your style and the themes that you feel passionated to write about?

I think the best way to describe my books is “fun.” When I’m writing a book, my goal is obviously to be entertaining, but for the book to also be an escape. I like to include romance and action in my books, but also I try to throw in some humor…that doesn’t always work, because a lot of things that I find funny aren’t that funny, but I try, and that’s what counts.

Jumping back to your beginnings as author, you started to write books when you when very young, right? Did you always feel that writing stories was an important part in your life?

I guess I never really thought about why I was doing it… It was just something that I was always doing. I grew up in the country, so there weren’t that many kids nearby for me to play with or anything, so I spent a lot of time in my room writing stories, or else making my parents sit down and listen to me tell them some story I just came up with. I even wrote a lot in high school, too…I actually had friends then, and there were a lot of times I was busy working on a new book, and wouldn’t do anything but go to school and write for weeks, just because I wanted to.

“I think the best way to describe my books is “fun”

Is it true that you started to publish your books online in 2010 for trying to gather some cash to assist to an event with Jim Henson because you are a Muppets fan?

That’s true. I heard there was a Jim Henson exhibit coming to Chicago, which is about a 6 hour drive…and I didn’t have any extra money that I could spend on something like that, so I thought I would try putting some of the books I had written online, to see if I could earn a few dollars to help with that.

When did you realize that your books online were starting to become really popular and global? Did it shock you? Were there only good sides to it, or also some harder parts when you see that people start to pay lots of attention to what you do?

At first I was shocked… but then I started to think that everyone who puts books online must get these results, then I found out that they weren’t, and I was even more confused. I think the part that shocked me the most was when I got an e-mail from Terri Tatchell, who was interested in writing a screenplay for the Trylle Series.

Do you have any special person who checks first when you have finished writing a book to give a first opinion?

When I finish a book I have my assistant print off a copy for himself, read it, and mark anything he finds that he thinks I should change. I don’t necessarily listen to him, but I like getting the feedback.

You were a very consistent writer, having written dozens of stories and getting also quite a few rejections from publishing houses. Do you think you would have continued with the same passion for writing even if your books would have not turned out into the bestselling phenomena that are now?

I think so. I really started writing a lot more, and doing a lot more research a few years ago, because I told myself that if I wasn’t published by the time I was 26 I would stop trying, but I don’t think that was actually true…I may have stopped for a while, but I always get new ideas for stories, and have to do something with them, so I’m sure I would have kept on going whether or not anyone was reading what I wrote.

What would be your advice for those young writers out there who want to publish their stories?

I think the best thing anyone can do is to write a lot, read a lot, and do research. There’s a lot of different ways to go about doing things now, and you should know as much as you can so you can figure out what the best options are for you.

Amanda Hocking

How does it feel now that you have signed with big publishing companies?

I’m really enjoying working with my publisher. Doing everything on my own got to be very draining, so having a team of people working with me is a big relief, and it’s a lot more fun to have a bunch of people working on things with me than just going at it by myself.

Also, they are preparing the adaptation of the first movie of the saga into cinema. Do you follow closely the project? How is the feeling for a writer to see the characters in “real” flesh in the big screen?

The last I’ve heard about the film is that they are working on the final draft of the screenplay. I don’t check in that often on the progress, because I don’t want to annoy anyone, but if the film is made I will be super excited.

Does it suppose an extra pressure for a writer when the work of a saga that is not yet fully published start to be in the big screen? (I am thinking for example about George R.R. Martin and Game of Thrones, with the TV series ongoing while the last 2 books are not yet published)

I’m sure that would be difficult. It would be hard not to pay attention to the direction they take it, especially if you had something else in mind.

You recognize yourself as a big fan of Batman. So do you prefer The Dark Knight over Tim Burton’s Batman? What is your opinion about the last movie of the saga?

I think the Christopher Nolan Batman films are amazing. My favorite is The Dark Knight, but I also really enjoyed The Dark Knight Rises. I also love Tim Burton’s Batman movies, but they’re very different .

You seem to keep in close contact with your readers over Internet, even in your home site there is an email contact address. Do you find the time and energy to answer personally to all your fans?

I try to… I think I do the best job of replying to people on twitter…it’s a lot easier than going back and commenting on different things on a blog or Facebook… I think twitter is a great way to connect with people, for me at least.

What do you like doing when you are not writing?

When I’m not writing I like to catch up on TV and movies, spend time with my friends, and we are working on turning a spare bedroom into a craft room at the moment, so I’ll probably start making more collages and scrapbooking.

I think you also have the third book of the saga ready. Are you currently working on writing, or are there other professional things (not ideas) that keep you busy?

Right now I’m about half way finished with the last book in the Watersong series…I’m also working on the graphic novel adaptation of the Hollows books. After that’s finished, I have quite a few new ideas I’d love to start working on, so we’ll see what’s next.

Anything you want to add for our readers?

Thank you very much!!

Read Amanda´s blog at http://amandahocking.blogspot.fi/

Categories
Cover story Misc

The New Chapel of Silence in Helsinki

Text and photos by Eva Blanco

Everybody would agree that if there are issues to complain about in Helsinki, noise would certainly not come at the top of the list. The Finnish Capital is inhabited by over six hundred thousand people – much larger than any other city in the country…but they like to play it quiet. No shouting on the streets unless you are actively taking part in the Saturday night fever. No hell melodies performed by friendly drivers who love honking their horns. And, in case you didn´t realize, stress is nowhere to be seen. So why? Why the need for building a space to honour silence and inner peace right in the heart of the town when such a calm atmosphere is already available? Maybe just because quietness is as addictive as chocolate, you could always do with a little bit more.

Chapel of Silence

Located in a corner of the Narinkkatori square, where, thanks to the persistent direct marketing campaigns, you can usually get a snack for free, with its wooden surface mysteriously gleaming even on rainy days, the Chapel of Silence (also known as Kamppi Chapel) is intended to be both a place for personal reflection and a platform of social commitment. A dual personality easily recognizable starting with the architectonic design – before getting to enter into the chapel you have to cross a small foyer where round tables have been set up for small-scale gatherings and one to one conversations in which God doesn´t need to show up unless he is specifically required to. Forgetting about all kind of ornamentation, this solid oval-shaped structure is raised up from the ground as an interpretation of a modern wooden church which has deep roots in tradition.

It was the former Helsinki’s Deputy Mayor Pekka Korpinen who, after travelling around Italy and witnessing its variety of sacral spaces for momentary withdrawal, came up with the idea of transferring the concept to the Baltic city. That is how the initiative started to take off in 2008 when the architects from K2S studio, Kimmo Lintula, Niko Sirola and Mikko Summanen, were chosen to design the Chapel, but it wasn´t until May of this year when it was finally opened to the public as part of the World Design Capital program. Counting on extensive background from the construction of public buildings, such as a hospital in the city of Espoo or an IT-college in the town of Sipoo, Summanen (head designer) still thinks that this project holds incomparable value: “Kamppi Chapel is an island of peace and spirit within the commercial flux. It is an architectonic interpretation of gentler human values deliberately contrasting with it’s surroundings. The possibility to build this unique piece in the centre of Helsinki was naturally a once in a lifetime experience“.

Chapel of Silence

Then, when asked about the most meaningful stages of the process, the architect explains: “It was very important for us to discuss the spirit of the place. The feeling of the material and form as well as the changing natural light are the essential components that define the atmosphere of the chapel space itself. Our aim was to create “human scale monumetalism” in the interior – where although the dimensions are small there is still a verticality that elevates the space“. Precisely this condition of verticality, that Mikko tries to empathize, is one of the main factors that contributes to overwhelm the almost two million visitors who have stepped into the Chapel so far. Coming from Finland and smiling openly to everybody as if that was the most natural thing to do in this country, Mary, a slim middle-aged woman, forgets about technical terms and puts it in her own words…”It feels like an illusion“.

The power structures within the Chapel are also a defining element. The building is operated, on a partnership basis, between the Helsinki parish union and the Social Services Department of the city. A total of twelve employees (six related to each institution) were hired to work together looking after the place and making themselves available for personal discussions. “Cities and churches have worked side by side all around Finland, but not this way. Not so close, in the same room. Not with a shared goal and organization”, says Tarja Jalli, manager of the Chapel, and then he goes further analysing this collaborative initiative: “We have found a nice synergy together. Our palette of services is now twice as big as it used to be, which means that people can get much more help at the same time“.

Workers of the Chapel of Silence

This opinion is also shared by Pekka Uula, one of the employees who shows the genuine appearance of a rock band guitarist and talks with enthusiasm about the project. “So far it´s working great!”, he claims, and later on he summarizes the whole philosophy of this original association: “There are people that may not feel comfortable talking to a priest. That is why we also need to offer a non-confessional option…I would say that even if it is a Lutheran chapel, it is not religious in a way“. Reaching out to everybody is a key issue to complete successful work. In the end, if you suffer from loneliness, illness or because you are going through a tough family situation- the three main reasons that make people search for comfort in this place- the last thing you should care about is if you have enough faith to be welcomed to talk about it. That is where the peculiarity of the Chapel lies. Well, and maybe also to a certain extent on its active social network profile. So far it has accumulated more than one hundred tweets – basically memorable quotes- and over nine hundred “likes” in Facebook.

On the other hand, arranging a personal communion at the Chapel is possible if you ask the priest beforehand. The priest, being a blond haired, blue eyed, kind woman named Nanna Helaakosici. She explains that church services such as baptism or wedding ceremonies, with the exception of the one that will be celebrated the twelfth of December (12/12/12), are not held in here. Nanna remarks that the building is not supposed to be reserved for private use. However, included on the weekly schedule we can find regular moments of prayer that may be accompanied by background music.

The rest of the time this place belongs to you. To all of us. And here lies the problem. At the “Chapel of Silence” silence itself is still an intermittent guest. It can honour the visitors with its presence for a maximum of five minutes, but then suddenly just when you are starting to feel adapted to the peaceful environment that keeps you safe from the hustle and bustle of the city, the door is opened again and a group of tourists are marched in!.

Pekka Uula

In a few seconds whispers spread all around the wooden structure, in fact, there are cases of people that forget to switch off their mobile phone and then quickly try to do so when their partners are ringing just to check if they have bought some coffee. How to keep silence for a longer time is still an issue that needs to be figured out. Although we will just probably have to wait until the excitement about the building is over before we see that happening. Despite that, the Chapel is destined to become one of the most iconic places in Helsinki. An inspiring shelter where life stops for a little while so that you can sort out your thoughts and regain your strength – with or without God.

Categories
Cinema DVD

Movie review: Jeff, who Lives at Home

I had no previous reference about this movie when I received the DVD. I had not seen the tráiler, and I prejudge after the first minutes that it would be just another shallow comedy about a 30 years old guy smoking pot all day while living at her mother`s place.

I have had already several dissappointments recently in the comedy genre, like for example with TED (I still do not understand why people find it so funny), so it was refreshing to get surprised by the subtle great sense of humor that Jeff and his adventures while doing errands around the city together with his brother display.

The Guard

The chemistry between both main actors, Jason Segel and Ed Helms (you will recognize him from The Hangover movies) is outstanding, and there is also added to that a nice subplot with the always delightful Susan Sarandon at her best.

The dialogues are witty and the movie is entertaining without being too pretentious. Do not try to find philosophical answers and instead just enjoy Jeff´s relaxed attitude towards life.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Jeff, who Lives at Home – Trailer

Categories
Books Features Interviews

Interview with Welsh Bestselling Author Ken Follett

When I was a kid, I was a very good disciplined student. After school I used to go to a private academy to take English and typewriting lessons. There were not many things that would make me skip those lessons, but I perfectly remember one week where I hardly assisted; the reason? I preferred to stay at home totally hooked on reading Pillars of the Earth.

Years later, I have had the pleasure to chat on the phone with my childhood hero writer: Welsh author Ken Follett. If his name does not ring a bell to you, probably you are the kind of person who never steps inside a bookshop. Having reached 4 times in his career the top 1 in the New York Times best selling time, Follett is back in the spotlight with the recent release of his second book (Winter of the World) of his probably most ambitious work so far: The Century Trilogy, that spins around the history of the 20th century mixing generations of fictional and real historical characters. A work that can turn into the cherry on top of the peak to a career full of epic stories.

FREE! Magazine brings you an exclusive interview with… Mr. Ken Follett!!!

Ken Follett

Thank you for your time and for kindly attending us Mr. Follett. For a writer who has sold more than 120 million copies of his books, who even has his own statue in Vitoria… what keeps you motivated to wake up every day and write?

Well, I do not find it difficult at all to wake up in the morning and work. In fact, when I wake up the first thing I am thinking about is the story I am writing. So I do not really need anything to keep me going. This is what all my life is about.

 

In one past interview I heard you said that you need to read a lot to become a good writer. Do you still have free time to read and learn new things meanwhile working in such a vast work as The Century Trilogy is?

Yes indeed. I read all the time. During all my life, reading has been one of my greatest pleasures, so I would say that the main reason why I read is because I enjoy it, but also by reading I like to see what other writers are doing, writers that maybe do things in a different way than I do things. I find all that very interesting.

 

I know you use Tweeter often and you keep close contact with your readers. Do you write for pleasing the masses of readers or for pleasing yourself?

I have always thought first about what the audience likes, not what I like. I ask myself questions all the time. Would they like to read this, would they love this character, would they hate this character…? I do not really think about what I like, because what excites me is to commit the readers to the story. Of course I write also about things that fascinate me too so I enjoy them, but my first question is always about the reader, not about myself.

“I have always thought first about what the audience likes, not what I like”

 

For many other writers, they could have thought that with the great success you already gathered with previous books that they had nothing to prove, and be comfortable working in a smaller project. But with your new The Century Trilogy, is this your most ambitious project so far? Did you have the feeling you still have something to show to the world, a bigger “magna opus” than Pillars of the Earth?

Yes, after writing World Without End, I was very pleased with the way readers responded, it was a huge success all over the world and I wanted to do that all over again. But you are quite right to say that The Trilogy is more ambitious than anything I have done previously, and when I thought about it, I thought it was quite a torturing project… and I thought “Am I good enough? Am I capable of doing this?”  But then I thought “You have to try it”.

 

Here like in some other of your books, there are love stories that spin through years or decades of separation, overcoming all difficulties until reuniting, etc. Do you believe in love forever, now that we seem to live in the western love in an era when everybody wants fast relations, fast money, fast cars…?

Well, I do not think there is ever one answer to the question about love, if that is what you are talking about. The truth is that sometimes fades away and sometimes lasts for a long time. And both of those things happen in my stories.

 

Ken Follett

Family is also important in the trilogy, with the new generation of characters from Fall of Giants continuing the story in Winter of the World. Do you think the readers get more bonded to an epic story when following generation after generation?

Yes, I think it does, that is right, because most of my readers have children, and when people have children they tend to think about how they will be like when they will be adults. That is something that intrigues all of us “Will our children and grandchildren be good people? Will they be happy?” and we fear if things could go wrong for them, so when we read stories about families, it is easy for us to share the hopes and fears of the parents for their children and grandchildren.

 

“I would have chosen San Francisco in 1968 as favorite time/place of the 20th century”

In Fall of Giants one of the families is Welsh as you, portraying the life in the mines and featuring a strict father as head of that family. It is known you had also a strict childhood. Did you pour a lot of autobiographical content when creating the Welsh family Williams?

Yes, one of the attractions of writing The Century Trilogy for me was the opportunity to write some of it from my own experiences, to write from where I come in south Wales, the religion that they follow in south Wales with which I grew up with… I grew very attracted to the story because allowed me to write about it and I feel very familiar with that part, even though I also had had some problems with it, like with religion itself to the point that I reveled against it. But in general I found it very pleasurable to write about it.

 

If you could travel in time to a place and time in the history of 20th century, which one could you choose as the most appealing?

Well now… that is an interesting question… (Follett needs a few seconds to think about it). …I guess I would have chosen San Francisco in 1968, hehehe.

 

Ken Follett

With the real characters, you try to use their own words and speeches etc from real life. How much research is needed before writing every book?

Yes, there is a lot to read, there is a great deal to do, details to research… that is how it works. But I am not complaining, I enjoy it and it fulfills me. I would say I spend around six months in the year planning and researching the book

Once you finish the first draft, who is the first person to read it, is it your wife (Barbara Follett)?

The first person to read it is my all time agent Al Zuckerman, he has been for 30 years now the most important person of all the people who advise me on my books. He is very precise and he is very critical, he is much more critical than my wife; my wife is not so cruel enough, hehehe. My agent does not need to sleep with me so he can be cruel, hehehe.

At the same time that you are promoting the second book, are you already working on the third one of The Century trilogy?

Yes, I am working on the third book and I am on the planning and researching stage. In the last days I have been reading about people who escaped from West Berlin through the wall, I have studied how they escaped, the obstacles they faced, the dangers if they would be shot by the guards and all the different methods and ways they used: there were tunnels… people went over the wall, people used force… many different ways…

You play the bass guitar at the band Damn Right I got the Blues. Would you like in the future to write a book combining your passions for literature and for music?

No, I do not think so. Music gives me great pleasure but I am not good enough to make a living out of it, it is a thing I do for fun but not professionally. And it is quite difficult to write about music, you know, there are not so many good books about music, because the reader cannot hear the music. I think that causes a problem for a book about music.

 

If somebody would contact you with an interesting story like Ross Perot with On Wings of Eagles, would you accept still to write a book under petition, or now you only write the stories that come from your own mind?

I probably would not accept to write a book under petition now, I have too many exciting projects of my own to think about, so I probably would not do another like that, a non fiction story, now.

-Anything you want to add for the readers?

I have nothing to add, I think we covered many topics. I enjoyed talking to you and thank you!

Categories
1 At the cinema Cinema Features

Helsinki Film Festival – A festival for all tastes.

If you have seen endless queues of people waiting patiently outside Lasipalatsi in the centre of Helsinki, do not be surprised. The annual Helsinki Film Festival (Rakkautta & Anarkiaa) is here one more year, and although there are not huge big international stars visiting this remote part of the globe (Richard Gere, George Clooney and alike people seem to prefer these days to visit San Sebastian´s festival in the north of Spain), the inhabitants of Helsinki love their festival.

Rakkautta ja Anarkiaa

An opportunity to enjoy good cinema for 10 days, with an eclectic selection that varies from mainstream Hollywood movies, winks to neighboring countries like Estonia, a focus on some of the best features coming from southern European countries like Spain or France, the passion for Asia and anime or the rescue of previous classics features in other editions of the festival to be re-visited at Orion theatre.

As stated before, this is not a mega glamorous festival, but maybe that is its biggest charm. Even for being held in the capital of Finland, it still has a sense of family. The staff that organize the festival are very friendly and eager to help you, the cinema theatres are pretty geographically close ones from the others around the city centre, so it is very easy to move around, the prices are affordable and they even give away free condoms in the information point located in Lasipalatsi (after all the name of the festival is Love & Anarchy…), so what else can you ask?

Well, added to all that, the list of guests is pretty interesting with some highlights like Icelandic director Hafsteinn Gunnar Siguroson, the Serbian actor Goran Jevtic or the French director Jacques Audiard.

FREE Magazine´s 5 tips to enjoy during the festival:

Killer Joe

Killer Joe (Director William Friedkin)

Many critics can say that Juno Temple is the shining star of this movie, but I disagree, could not fall less than captivated by the strong performance given by Matthew McConaughey in what is undoubtedly one of the best roles of his career. As the professional killer Joe, Matthew transforms into that kind of likeable villain that you are not sure if you should hate or imitate. His character exudes charm and confidence, the same qualities that the family living in a caravan in Texas with whom he interacts lacks of. A great movie with amazing dialogues and a couple of great twists.

http://hiff.fi/en/elokuvat/killer-joe/

Unit 7

Unit 7 (Director Alberto Rodriguez)

If Alberto Rodriguez already gladly surprised me some years ago with his previous movie 7 Virgins, here he does no less than reaffirming that he is one of the best Spanish directors nowadays. He totally masters in recreating the atmosphere of the poor neighborhoods of Sevilla at the beginning of the 90s. A story based on true fact by policemen that are not a perfect example of morals and villains who are sucked into the spiral of drugs. An exercise that proves once more than the border that separates the good and the bad people is thin. Very solid performances by main characters Antonio de la Torre and Mario Casas (who shows that apart from being a target for teenage Spanish girls who fall in love with his looks, he is also a good actor).

In my opinion, one of the strongest Spanish movies not just of the year, but probably of the last decade, able to mix drama with the unavoidable sarcastic sense of humor that runs all over the cities of Andalucía.

http://hiff.fi/en/elokuvat/unit-7-en/

Good Vibrations

Good Vibrations (Directors Lisa Barros D`Sa, Glenn Leyburn).

Belfast in the 1970s was not exactly the place where hippies and happy love would flourish under every corner, but Terri Hooley was able to open a record store in the heart of the most dangerous area in the whole Ireland and give a push to the native punk scene in an allegation of love for music and peace. Good Vibrations is a simple but wonderful movie that shows how determination can overcome problems, although there is always a personal price to pay when you put all your efforts in what you love the most. Richard Dormer gives a great performance as Hooley himself while the movie counts with great secondary actors like my all time favorite Dylan Moran (many will recognize him from the series Black Books) or Liam Cunningham (Davos in Game of Thrones).

http://hiff.fi/en/elokuvat/good-vibrations-en/

Whore´s Glory

Whore ‘s Glory (Director Michael Glawogger)

For nearly 2 hours, director Glawogger transports us all over prostitution scene in three locations around the world, in Bangkok, Thailand, Faridpur, Bangladesh and Reynosa, Mexico.

Prostitutes, clients and pimps talk honestly in front of the camera about the business of prostitution. Without wanting to position himself, Glawogger lets the camera do the talk and leaves the spectator extracting their own conclusions, but here and there, there are a lot of brushes of sad stories, with prostitutes that seem defeated by the weight of life and clients that regard them as a piece of meat to bring happiness for a couple of hours to their monotonous existences and marriages.

I personally found heartbreaking when very young prostitutes, clearly underage, are able to give powerful monologues of how life is hard and full of pain but they try to light their worries with a bit of laughter here and there. Touching movie, where clients and sex professionals seem to be linked by a chain of deep sadness that even an orgasm achieved after some money changing hands cannot make disappear.

http://hiff.fi/en/elokuvat/whores-glory-en/

Rust and Bone

Rust and Bone (Director Jacques Audiard)

French director Jacques Audiard, who will be also present in Helsinki as special guest, features a strong and emotive story of love between an orca trainer by always delightful actress Marion Cotillard and a lowlife boxer, Mathias Schoenaerts, which takes the pulse of current French cinema in a product with a lot of resemblances with the typical Hollywood story of characters haunted by bad luck trying to find a glimpse of hope through love. The movie will be the closing one for the current Helsinki Festival, putting the cherry on top of the cake to 10 days of great emotions in the big screen. A must see!

http://hiff.fi/en/elokuvat/rust-and-bone/

Categories
Books Features Interviews

Interview with Swedish writer Håkan Nesser

Håkan Nesser is a capital name in contemporary Swedish literature. Having won three times the Swedish Award for best Crime Novel, he is one of the Nordic writers better known around the world with his books having been translated to many different other languages. FREE! Magazine could not let escape the opportunity to get to know better the man behind those fictional crime scenes.

He turns out to be a very friendly person on our conversation on the phone while he spends his holidays in his native country, Sweden, away from London, the city where he resides for the last 4 years.
A man who feels relaxed and contempt about what he does but has not lost curiosity about the world around him, we spent quite a lot of time chatting on the phone with him about life in Finland, the autumn he spent in Spain around Torremolinos area in the late 90s, soccer… and of course about literature and his books. The Swedish author was in fact enjoying his summer holidays back in Sweden, spending some time in his native country before going back to London.

“Yes, I have been living in United Kingdom for around 4 years, so I spend the summer in Sweden and go back to Sweden around October-November. But I will move back to Sweden in January. Before we lived in New York for 3 years and we wanted to stay in the United States. My wife is a doctor but she could not find a job there, it is complicated for a doctor to find a job there, so we decided to move to London. So we have been abroad for 6 years and we thought that it was about time to get back home.” Nesser tells us.

Hakan Nesser

I recently read your latest book translated into English, “Hour of the Wolf”, but in fact it originally was written by you in Swedish 13 years ago. Does it annoy you to have to answer to questions about books that you wrote more than a decade ago?

Well, that is the way it works. The problem is that sometimes when they ask me things like “why this character did this in chapter 26” I do not remember anymore, I had a reason when I wrote it but I do not remember the reason years later. I read the book in English when it was out so I can remember the main things, but well, I have written 15 books after that.

In this book the character Van Veeteren is retired and steps a bit outside the investigation. For readers like me who have not had the chance to read the next ones in English because they have not been published the translations yet, in what direction will the character develop?

There are 10 books about Van Veeteren. This is number 7. The idea was to write 10 books, so he starts out as police officer in the first 5 books and then he changes and he buys this antiquaries shop, so in the last 5 books he is working as an antiquarian. In this case he gets much involved in the book because his son was killed, but well, the idea was to give more room to the other police officers in the team.

So you did not want to focus on the main character like many other sagas do, so this would be more of a collective focus on the other characters?

The focus was not meant to be on the police officers but on the story, on the plot. The story is always more important than the police officers. That is where the focus should be.

“I think I still have 2 or 3 books in me to publish, and then I am done as a writer”

A feature I noticed in general in other books that I read written by you is that there is not this hard line separating the good and the bad guys. The criminals are treated in quite a condescending way. Do you think that depending on the circumstances in life, every person could be a potential criminal?

Given the right circumstances, almost everybody could become a murderer. We need to realize that we have the same psychology as the murderer, we are all human beings. We might be lacking the circumstance that you need to make a choice, but it could happen that life could put you in a circumstance where you would need to kill somebody. I want for the reader as for myself to have an understanding of the criminal, the same you can mirror with the psychology of a police officer, you can mirror with the psychology of a murderer. It gives a humanistic touch to it.

Before becoming a full time writer you worked as a teacher, right? When and why did you decide to quit that career to dedicate your efforts just fully to your books?

Well, it took a lot of time. I started with the books quite late actually, I was 40 when my first book came out and then they started selling and they were translated into other languages, which meant that I had to travel abroad, meet other writers, etc. It took quite a long time for the writing. For a number of years in the 90s I did both activities, I worked half time as a teacher, but then I realized that it was time to get out of school. But I enjoyed being a teacher. But I think unfortunately you are a better teacher when you are younger, because you have more energy. If you teach for 40 years, probably you are better in the first 20 years. At least you have to change techniques to teach. I was a teacher until I was 48 and enjoyed it, but if you have a chance in your life to do different things, you should take them, no need to do the same for all your life.

And since you mentioned about your books when started to be popular and appeared in different countries around the globe, do you think you would have had the motivation to keep on writing if success would not have knocked at your door?

I am not sure, I was quite old when my books became popular. It could be complicated if you are young and then you had immediate success, but I realized that this is very random, I was lucky to be on the right spot and then people seem to like my books. Shit happens… and goo shit happens too! I was lucky but you have to realize that I am just a writer, there are better writers and definitely also worse writers. I am used to it and it is not really so big thing for me to realize that my books are sold everywhere.

Hakan Nesser

If I am not mistaken, actually crime novels were not the kind of genre you wanted to focus on when you started right? So how did this happen?

To me it is not important if it is a crime story or another kind of story… what it is important is that it is a good story, a story that I would like to read myself. I must have written around 25 books and maybe 15 of them are crime fiction, the rest are something different, sometimes they even cross genre so they can be crime fiction and general fiction at the same time so as far as you tell a good story, that you call it a crime story is not important for me. But I think this year will be written my last crime story, because I have this other series with Barbarotti so after the last book of this series, I will not write more crime fiction. There are more crime writers in Sweden as you may have noticed…

Yes, people always talk about the “Nordic Crime Writers”, but I think you do not like much this stereotype of putting all of them in the same basket…

Absolutely true. I write my books and I do not care what other people do. In England for example, out of 10 questions, you get 5 questions about Stieg Larsson and then you get 3 questions about Henning Mankell and then you get 2 questions about yourself. So because sometimes I write crime fiction and I am Nordic, they put you into that category as “Nordic Crime Writer”.

But do you think that subconsciously the place where you live can affect the writing style? Like for example here in Finland it seems to affect the music styles with a lot of heavy metal bands popping out of every bush.

Well, I think that is what people outside thing, that we live in gloomy places, in cold climate, etc. When I lived in New York, the only Swedish person they knew there was Ingmar Bergman, the film director. If you see a character from a Berman´s film, where they do not talk much, everybody seems to be suicidal and depressed, etc this is almost the ideal character for a crime story. Somebody does something wrong at you and then you wait for 20 years to take revenge… When people buy the books in different countries, they like the stereotypes, so I mean, when I comes to selling books, it is good, but Scandinavian crime is so different… If you take Leena Lehtolainen in Finland, if you take Stieg Larsson… we are totally different. In Swedish if you take me and for example Henning Mankell the only common thing is that we write in Swedish.

“The character of Van Veeteren is a bit of a mystery to everyone, even to me”

I suppose it is not easy to get rid of the stereotypes…

Well, there is no need to get rid of them but the point is that at least in United Kingdom, journalists try always to find what is the “secret” of Nordic crime novel. I always say there is no secret, there are different good writers but we write differently. Writing is a very complicated process and you have to weight and choose every word, there is not simple solution for writing a novel.

You mentioned before you are not planning on writing more crime novels, so do you have any idea in mind of what would you like to write next?

I am not sure; I think I have 2 or 3 more stories in me. The thing is that you should try to write a book that you feel that it is so good that you wanted to read it yourself, so you do not repeat yourself and every time you need to find a new story, so this becomes more and more complicated, but I know that I have 2 or 3 books more in me, and then I am done!

And then time for holidays and relax in Spain again!

Exactly, maybe time to visit Ronda then!

How would you compare the character of inspector Van Veeteren with Inspector Barbarotti, the two key figures of your two sagas? What differences and similarities do they have?

First of all, Barbarotti has an Italian name but he is Swedish, so he had an Italian father. The action happens in Sweden and he is younger, at least 15-20 years younger than Van Veeteren. He has more of these latino features, if he is angry, he acts different and it is easier for the readers to identify with Barbarotti. Van Veeteren is a bit of a mystery to everyone, even to me. But Barbarotti is more “normal”.

What do you enjoy doing when you are not writing?

I travel a lot; also the books take me everywhere because I am published in 30 countries, so I am always travelling. My kids are grownups so I and my wife travel a lot, but we have dogs and it is complicated to travel with dogs, reading of course, and also I like listening to music and sports. I love soccer. Sadly Finland was not in the European Cup.

And with a little more of great chat off the record about football scene in Spain, Finland, Sweden and England, we said goodbye to Nesser, a truly gentleman and a great down to earth person to talk about literature and many other contemporary topics. Big thanks to him for finding some time during his holidays to attend our questions!

Categories
Concerts Music

Concert review: Reckless Love & Santa Cruz at Nosturi. 08.09.2012

Helsinki suffered a night of good old glam rock with the presence for first time of the band from Kuopio, Reckless Love, at Nosturi, one of the most famous concert venues in the Finnish capital excepting Tavastia club.

Reckless Love

It was the first time for the band from Kuopio to be present at Nosturi and they were nervous about it as they recognized later during the show. But for warming up, nothing better than the local band Santa Cruz, featuring their debut album Anthem for the Young and Restless. With a very direct classic hard rock style and a fun attitude on stage, they left the audience more than pleased during their 45 minutes performance. Maybe they still carry a bit of an “amateurish” attitude on stage, but you cannot deny either that they are still very young and these kind of gigs are a perfect proof for them to gain more experience for future bigger goals.

A few minutes later appeared on stage the main band of the night: Reckless Love. Having harvested very positive answers from critics and the crowd with their latest release “Animal Attraction”, the band led by charismatic singer Olli “Twisted” Herman made the crowd have a very good time. A lot of young sexy rock chicks among the spectators, but also mother with their daughters and even small children, all enjoying the same and raising their arms with hits like “On the Radio”, “Animal attraction”, “Beautiful Bomb” or “Badass”.

Santa Cruz

It is no secret that many of the tunes of the band are aimed with deference to the female audience that see in Reckless Love a sort of replacement for Negative and their another Finnish sex symbol Jonne Aaron; the figure of their lead singer with long blonde hair, a body of a young Apollo and androgynous facial features turns a sector of the crowd crazy wherever he goes. Olli knows perfectly how to take advantage of this, with studied poses or giving the gift of removing his t-shirt until 3 times during the concert, throwing in one of those occasions his t-shirt of MTV to the mass below him.

Even though, the band also showed enough humble attitudes to thank repeatedly their fans for their support, the hours that some of them spent waiting to be in first row and the opportunity to play in one of the most charismatic Finnish venue, a compulsory place that every band that counts in Finnish music scene has to test. Reckless Love passed with a very high mark during their introduction to Nosturi, and maybe this is just a warming up for bigger ventures waiting for them in the next years.

Photos: Antonio Diaz

Santa Cruz
Reckless Love
Reckless Love
Reckless Love
Reckless Love
Reckless Love

Categories
Antonio's blog Blogs

Pedro Delgado – the romantic ideal of the everyday Spanish hero

I am a great fan of cyclist competitions since I was a little child, basically since I have memory I remember following on TV the heroic acts of the Spanish competitors in the hot summer evenings during Tour de France competition.

This evening there was a day in cyclist history to be remembered, a great victory by the Spanish champion Alberto Contador who threw an attack like in the good old times, many kilometers away from the final line, over his also Spanish opponent “Purito” Rodriguez. A very emotional victory for Contador just after his comeback to the big competition (he was involved in a very unclear case of doping too complicated to explain here). And also not forgetting the loser, “Purito” behaving like a gentleman and a true sportsman in a very bitter day.

Pedro Delgado

One of the commentators in the Spanish national TV channel is another great ex-champion, actually the one I grew up following to: Pedro Delgado, nicknamed “Perico” for the whole Spanish nation during the 80s and beginning of the 90s.

Delgado could symbolize very well the Spanish nation. A short average looking guy, friendly always, with great skills to climb but also eager to do crazy amazing unexpected attacks and with a touch of drama and passion revolving around all his actions and circumstances on the road and outside the road, able to lose time in the most stupid way arriving himself late to the beginning of the first stage of Tour de France one year later he would have won, that being among one of his most famous anecdotes.

I had the pleasure to meet and interview “Perico” more than 10 years ago, when I was just a journalist student in Madrid. They proposed us to try to interview to whoever person or idol we would have, and I did not hesitate to contact him. We met and chatted in a restaurant near his home in Segovia, a town not far from Madrid where he is still a legend (actually he remains as one of the most beloved sportsman in Spain).

Not every day one can meet his idol face to face, and I was a bit nervous. But when Delgado appeared on his bike at the door of his restaurant and started to joke about how hard was to climb that mountain, I instantly felt that the image of great guy he exhales on TV was actually how he really is. We talked for almost 2 hours about his career while the owner of the restaurant could not believe that “Perico” was just there, asking us to take some photographs altogether at the end of the interview, and of course inviting us for free to all the drinks and food… interviewing a legend has its little privileges…

George Orwell used to account in his memories of the Spanish Civil War how the Spaniards were horrible about planning war, being on time, taking discipline… but how they were so good about making a visitor feel welcome and sharing everything they had and enjoying the little things of life to the fullest.

Now it seems that internationally there is talk about Spain only in a negative side due to the economical crisis (and yeah, our Mediterranean temper seems to affect us negatively in trying always to cheat the system and break the rules), but I would also like to pinpoint that, similar to these amazing cyclists, the Spanish every day men and women, those anonymous heroes that try to make the ends reach with microscopic salaries and huge loans, are also full of joy, a romantic touch of craziness and stubbornness in lost causes and a philosophy of not taking life too seriously and sometimes making fun of everything themselves. As another great writer, William Shakespeare, said “All the world is a stage, and all the men and women merely players”.

Pedro Delgado. Tour de France 1988

Categories
Features Music

Flow Festival 2012

Flow Festival is certainly a different festival from most of the other important ones held in Finland during summer season. While most of the others are focused on rock and heavy metal (Finnish and international), Flow festival bets for a more eclectic bandlist, where you can find a bit of everything, pop, indie, reggae, blues…

Besides that, its great location near the heart of Helsinki, in Suvilahti, makes it perfect for the masses of hipsters from Kallio an other areas of the capital storming into this former power plant complex. Assisting to the festival has become a kind of a tradition for the youth Finnish people of the capital, topping the assistance during this year 2012 in a total of 63.000 visitors during 4 days. Not bad eh?

Bjork

As any other festival, Flow has its good and bad sides. The array of activities displayed is truly great: apart from music you can just chill out in some terrace drinking champagne, play ping pong, check art exhibitions and movies, eat exotic food or have a good coffee with delicious cake, listen to some of the most famous DJs in Finland… At some point, I would say that half of the visitors do not really care much about listening to the bands performing there, but they just go for the good atmosphere, and why not to say, because it is full of good looking young people eager to party, to look and be looked at, and because more than one single guy or girl will get lucky at the end of the night after the alcohol beverages have made some effect on the blood pressure.

On the other hand, the festival is pretty expensive, 160 euro ticket for the whole 4 days and 110 euro if you just wanted to assist 2 days. Just buying a bottle of pepsi costs 4 euro plus 1 euro that will be paid back to you if you remember to return the empty plastic bottle. Food is not much cheap either, so it means that if you go for the 4 days of festival and drink and eat there, it will cost you probably the same than spending 1 week of fully paid holidays in some nice resort in Turkey or Greece. But no pain, no gain right? Of course people try to cheat the system trying to smuggle drinks inside, although security at the gates and inside the festival area is tight, sometimes actually can be even too annoying. But remember, this is Finland and rules prevail over the fun.

Rules make also the different areas and stages to be sorrounded by fences, like the typical areas where you can drink and where not, where you can smoke and where not… etc. So sometimes an easy task of moving from one stage to another ends up being quite a quest trying to find the path where you just find your way blocked by fences all the time.

The Black Keys

And what about the music? Well, honestly, also this year, the musical offer from my point of view was weak. Even if the festival has the tag of being “alternative”, if you are paying that amount of money mentioned before, you expect a few big international names thrown there. Some artists really made up with the expectations such as Black Keys, Feist or Lykke Li (who had cancelled her appearance at Flow the previous year) or Saint Etienne. But for example the main headliner Björk left most of the audience quite cold with her new live concept “Biophilia”.

So resuming, if you like a nice youthful trendy party atmosphere and you have the money to pay for it, Flow is for you. I personally would prefer that the organizers could throw some bigger names in next editions of the festival like Sigur Ros, Radiohead, Placebo… Because for what is offered musically compared to the prices, I consider it a bit overrated. All in all, the event is still a milestone for most of the young Helsinki people to put the cherry on top of the cake of the fun before winter arrives, so if you like the bands performing, great, and if not, just relax and go with the flow!

Categories
Blogs FREE! Blog

Tie Pohjoiseen – The new movie by Finnish film director Mika Kaurismäki

The most internationally recognized Finnish director Mika Kaurismäki will have a new movie in the cinema theatres with premiere on the 24th of August, featuring Vesa-Matti Loiri and Samuli Edelmann. Here you can have a bit of a taste with the trailer.

Categories
Albums Music

Album Review – Jetbone

From Punksvall, Sweden, come these 6 guys who have played together apart from being close friends since 2008. And being honest, they have turned to be one of the few new bands I have heard lately that made me play their homonymous CD , Jetbone, more than once.

I receive copies often from bands, and I usually lack the time to review or listen to them several times, but with Jetbone it was love at first sight. I like the simple but stylish desigh of the CD, and of course I also love the music inside.

Jetbone

The point is that actually Jetbone does not sound originally at all, just classic rock with blues influence, classic guitar riffs, clasic lyrics… but maybe that is its charm, it feels like if this would be one of your favorite bands even from the first time you listen to them. The album already starts with 2 very catchy tunes, Dancin`On Your Grave and Baby It`s Your Time, and continues with a very high level. Actually some songs like Time by Time reminded me a lot of their Swedish fellows The Hellacopters, while in other compositions like Dead City Fire you can really feel the influence of The Rolling Stones.

I can imagine myself dancing in some small dark concert hall that smells of sweat, cigarettes, beer and in the background the music of Jetbone. If an album can inspire you those feelings, it means this is really rock & roll. And I like it! One of the surprises of 2012!

Rating 5 out of 5

Tracklist

1 Dancin’ On Your Grave
2 Baby It’s Your Time
3 Time By Time
4 Dead City Fire
5 I Don’t Know (Which Way To Go)
6 Ride The Riot
7 Take Me Down
8 Tonight
9 Perfect Mess
10 Runnin’ Around

Jetbone – Baby It´s Your Time

Categories
Articles Misc Outside Finland Travel

Kuressaare, An Island Full of Miracles

Written by Elena Paraschiv

Estonia is the country that lies on the eastern shores of Baltic Sea. So over the years, the Estonian culture was influenced by the adjacent areas, such as Finnic, Baltic, Slavic, Germanic peoples, but also from Sweden and Russia who have brought major contributions to cultural development of Estonia. Looking through the geographical location, and the influences received for decades, many Estonians consider themselves a Nordic people rather than Baltic, and they also have arguments to support that choice, such as Estonian language is similar to Finnish language and the Estonians as a ethnic group are a Finnic one. Even Swedish Ambassador Mr. Dag Hartelius who gave a speech on Estonian Independence day, on February 24, 2009 considered Estonia “A Nordic Country”. In terms of music, Saxo Grammaticus, the famous Danish historian,(the author of first full history of Denmark, known also as Saxo cognomine Longus), talks in his book “Gesta Danorum”, about the Estonian warriors who were spending the nights singing while they were waiting for the battle. Same warriors who were also known under the name of Eastern Vikings (Estonian pirates).

Kuressaare

Saaremaa, the largest island of Estonia, it was the home of notorious Estonian pirates. “The Livonian Chronicle of Henry”(a document describing historic events in Livonia, today`s inland Estonia, north of Latvia and surrounding areas from 1180 to 1227) talks about a fleet of 16 ships and 500 Osilians ravaging the area that now is southern Sweden, then belonging to Denmark. The island name`s means “isle`s land”. In old Scandinavian sagas, Saaremaa is called “Eysysla” and in Icelandic sagas “Eysýsla”. Saaremaa forms the main barrier between the Gulf of Riga and the Baltic Sea. To the south of it is the main passage out of the gulf, the Irbe Strait, next to Sõrve Peninsula, the southernmost portion of the island. In Medieval times islanders were crossing the strait to form fishing villages on Livonian coast, in particular Pitrags village. The capital of Saaremaa is Kuressaare.

Kuressaare is situated on the coast of of Gulf of Riga and its first name was Arensburg. The names was changed in 1918(after Estonia has declared its independence from Bolshevist Russia) in Kuressaare. It first appeared on maps around 1154. The town breathes history in every way possible. In Kuressaare was born the famous romantic painter Eugen Dücker (1841–1916) who was the teacher of a great Norwegian landscape painter Adelsteen Normann, (who studied with Dücker from 1869 to 1872). In Saaremma, the visitors can also find Kaali, a small group of meteorite craters, from which they started many legends, all collected by Lennart Meri in his book “Hõbevalge”. The largest of the craters measures 110 metres in diameter and contains a small lake known as “Kaali järv” (Lake Kaali). Kuressaare is also the host of Saaremaa Opera Days, that takes place in the medieval Episcopal Castle of Kuressaare, this year during 16th and 22nd of July. The first documentation about the castle has been found in Latin texts written in 1381 and 1422. Today, the castle houses the Saaremaa Regional Museum, besides the festival. Some sources say that the castle was built in wood between 1338 and 1380, although others claim a fortress was built in Kuressaare in early 1260.

Saaremaa Opera Festival is the first opera festival in Estonia and it was held for the first time in 1999. During the years, the festival became one of the major opera festivals from Europe, having more than 1,000 people coming from near and far to enjoy the extraordinary music. Festival owes its existence to Ludmilla Toon, a music teacher and choir conductor. This year`s edition will be a true spectacle of beautiful voices and world-class singers. The schedule includes Monica Groop (a Finnish operatic mezzo-soprano who made her operatic debut in 1987 at the Finnish National Opera; she has sung leading roles as a guest artist with important theatres such as: the Los Angeles Opera, the Palais Garnier, the Royal Opera London and many others), Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky’s “Borris Godunov” performed by one of the most famous and interesting theatres in the world, Moscow Helikon-Opera (the artistic diresctor and founder of the theatre Dimitri Bertman has already staged more than 90 performances in Russia, and abroad, including Spain, Austria, Estonia, France, Germany, Ireland, New Zeeland and Denamark), Koit Soasepp (Estonia/Finland), “The Barber of Seville” and “Rasputin”(Moscow Helikon-Opera), Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti’s “Maria Sturda” performes by Vanemuine Theatre and many other surprises.

Kuressaare

During the festival, Kuressaare is no longer a simple town, it becomes a dream.This is exactly is the feeling you will experience. Each spectacle is unique in style, performance, emotion and energy, and everything takes place in a wonderful setting that we find it only in fairy tales. In a corner of paradise left in a world that has forgotten to dream. During the festival the world stops, the nature takes a break from development, all the windmills on the island are participating in the festival and capturing people’s emotions and feelings, all under a divine sign, turn the island into a fairy festival. While listening to the music, you can see the leaves crying beauty and the sun going dawn kissing the sea spreading an explosion of orange light that make you feel like the sky is burning.

There is something even more beautiful on this island if God: the old and unwavering lighthouse. The majestic lighthouse that guards the island and that`s waiting for you at the end of a sandy path that separates the sea in two. While you`re heading to the lighthouse you`ll hear the waves breaking at your feet slightly shy. The small beach and the sea breeze fill the landscape with the bluest sky you`ve ever saw. And when you finally get there, you`ll see it. The eternal unlit candle designed to ensure the island forever.

You will be surprised by the emotion and the beautiful peace caused by the inside and the outside together. Everything is a dream waiting for a miracle.

Categories
Albums Music

Album Review: “Lizard Dusk” – Tracedawn

Written by Elena Paraschiv

Tracedawn is a Finnish melodic death-metal band formed by Tuomas Yli-Jaskari in 2005. Initially the project was called “Moravia”, but eventually it was changed in “Tracedawn”. So far, the band has released three studio albums: “Tracedawn”(2008); “Ego Anthem”(2009) and “Lizard Dusk”(2012). The band will also release an Unplugged EP for “Lizard Dusk” songs, including an acoustic video for the song “Arabian Nights”.

Lizard Dusk” was released on February 15, 2012, via Redhouse. The album was produced and co-recorded by Tuomas Yli-Jaskari, Perttu Kurttila and Vili Itäpelto at Seawolf and Redhouse Studios, mixed by Henrik Udd (Dimmu Borgir, Dark Tranquility, Arch Enemy etc.) at Studio Fredman in Sweden, and mastered by Mika Jussila at Finnvox. Tracedawn has released so far two music videos, one for the song “Breed Insane” (on December 30, 2011) and another for “Machine” ( on February 10, 2012, via Radio Rock).

This third album marks the band`s first material without singer Antti Lppalainen and also, the first with Niko Kalliojärvi ( Lithuria, ex-Amoral), who`s now sharing the role of lead-singer with guitarist Tuomas Yli-Jaskari. The current Tracedawn`s line-up is: Perttu Kurtilla (Lithuria)-drums; Pekko Heikkilä (Attempted Life)-bass; Vili Itäpelto (Seraphiel, Friends with Enemies)-keyboard; Roni Seppänen-guitar; Tuomas Yli-Jaskari (Lithuria)-guitar/clean vocals and Niko Kalliojärvi (Lithuria, ex-Amoral)- growls.

Lizard Dusk” kicks into gear with the first track of the album “Arabian Nights”, a song where the Tracedawn`s mark can be sensed, a high-energy one. After listening to the album multiple times and after digesting all the songs, this one is the perfect opener for the album, mixing the guitars and keyboards in some ways a little different from what I heard before on the other Tracedawn`s albums. The guitar solo doubled by drums it`s really, really good. This one is definitely an enjoyable listen.

Lizard Dusk

Arabian Nights” it`s followed by “Breed Insane”, reminiscent of the old days but with a sound that brings contribution to Modernism Era in melodic death-metal. While listening to the song you can hear and feel the subtile electronic vibe throught the song that surrounds perfectly the drums mixed with strong bass. The guitar solo feels very inspired, exactly like the clean and delicate keyboards that can be noticed at the end of the song. Niko is doing his job growling like he used to back in the days, valorizing those super-catchy lyrics. This song is also one of the highlights of the album and it`s already part of the band`s live set.

The next three songs “Sick Fire”, “The Crawl” and “You`re fired!” do their job successfully and do not decrease the intensity or the energy of the album in any way. Actually, “You`re fired!” is one of the best songs of this material. A black metal influence is given by the film music present on the background of the song. After minute 2, it`s starting a soft guitar solo (which reminds me of Amoral`s “Warp”) followed by a sudden shift to growls and heavy drumming.

Machine” is the sixth song of the album. This one provides listeners mind-blowing guitars, pretty solid groove based-riffing, beautiful songwriting with catch lyrics, all this making “Machine” a real technical death-metal song with some pop-metal influences here and there. The final cut of the song where the keyboards are doubled by drums is simply beautiful.

Nothing and Nowhere”- the best song of the album. Why? Because the beginning is smooth, fine, in a jazzy style, pleasant and delicate (almost making you lay down and relax with a glass of red wine) and then, they really slip into their comfort zone. Clean and simple vocals entwined with Niko`s growls, beautiful keyboard and guitar solo make this song a masterpiece. Even though it starts sweet and calm, the song is a delight of drumming and it`s not void of any real growls either.

Thanks for asking, I`m just obsessed” and “Taught my eyes to lie” are the last two songs of the album, reminding the listeners a little bit of the old days. The first one, ”Thanks for asking, I`m just obsessed” doesn`t need any description. When you read the title you know exactly what to expect. Electrifying guitars, heavy drumming, groovy riffs, perfect growls, all mixed with fine American sound, good songwriting, pretty powerful bass that makes your heart vibrate, make this song HEAVY AS HELL.
“Taught my eyes to lie” is a simple, pure and real melodic death-metal song. I would say that this is the best ballad-type song of the band so far, with its beautiful chorus brought to life by guitar riffs. The end of the song comes again to show that Tracedawn know what they are doing and where they are heading to, definitely this song was the best way to end a very good album.

No doubt “Lizard Dusk” is the best output material of the band so far. It`s an album that`s challenging the musical intuition of every listener, an album that has unforgettable tracks, an album that during the tracks hasn`t the energy putter down. While listening the whole album you can notice a change in style and sound. Well, this time is a good change. It seems to me that Tracedawn found their perfect formula, making an epic, superior material that merge elements from many musical styles(the pure jazzy, cosy style which is in perfect antithesis with the genre they`re approaching it`s amazing). And Niko coming and taking the role of lead-singer is a big plus for the band, because first, he is like the Master Of Growls and he is not shy in showing it everytime he can, and second because it`s well-known the fact that he is still loved by the old fans of his previous band, fact that brought Tracedawn more fans.

All in all, “Lizard Dusk” is a complete album that`s definitely worth buying, of a band who stays somewhere at the boarder between underground and commercial.

Rating 4.8/5

Track List

01 Arabian Nights
02 Breed Insane 03 Sick Fire
04 The crawl
05 You`re Fired!
06 Machine
07 Nothing and Nowhere
08 Thanks for asking, I`m just obsessed
09 Taught my eyes to lie

Tracedawn – Breed Insane

Categories
Concerts Features Music

Roskilde: Scandinavian Festival in Hot Summer

Written by Elena Paraschiv

Summer is already here and festivals of every kind are rising like mushrooms after the rain. Once the first ray of the summer sun hits the ground, everyone taste the flavor of…holiday. And how to get the maximum in the best way possible for your holiday? Visiting as many festivals as you can, having tons of fun and enjoy your favourite bands performing live. And if you choose to go to a festival that takes place in Scandinavia or in one of the Baltic countries is even better, because there you can find one of the largest annual festivals in Europe.

Roskilde Festival is a festival that takes place soyh of Roskilde in Denmark. Created in 1971 by two high-school students, Morgens Sandfær and Jesper Switzer Møller and promoter Carl Fischer, represents Denmark`s first real music-oriented festival. It was originally for hippies, but nowadays this festival covers the Scandinavian youth and not only.

Is a festival that brings together people of different ages, different cultures o see playing live on stage the best musicians of the world. Until the mid `90s, Roskilde used to attract mostly Scandinavians, but in recent years this festival witnessed an increasing number of large Germans, Australians and British ready for fun.

Roskilde

During the years, at the festival bands and artists like The Kinks, Jeff Beck, Dr.Hook, U2, Robert Palmer, Metallica, Neil Young, Guns N` Roses, Nirvana, Radiohead, Black Sabbath, RHCP, David Bowie, Slayer and many, many other great musicians wrote the history of Roskilde Festival, performing in front of thousands of people. The festival covers a wide range of musical styles, from electronic to Norwegian black metal, so that everyone can have the chance to see their favourite artists performing live.

Roskilde Festival, 2011 edition, took place between June 30 and July 3, with warm-up and camping from June 26, presenting 180 acts from all over the world, including headliners such as Arctic Monkeys, Iron Maiden, Mastodon, Kings of Leon, The Strokes and PJ Harvey. It was a 4 days celebration of youth, colorful, with many good artists, all sprinkled with plenty of alcohol.

This year’s edition of the festival is no exception to the rule. Roskilde Festival 2012, will present 200 acts performing on 8 stages ( Apollo, Pavilion, Pavilion Junior, Cosmopol, Odeon, Orange, Gloria and Arena) during 4 days of continous party. Headliners like “The Boss” Bruce Springsteen, The Cure, Bon Iver, The Roots, Jack White, Mew and Björk will heat the atmosphere , transforming the festival in an enormous party. The warm-up opens on June 30, and the day before the festival itself begin, a treasure hunt will be organized. It will test competitors creativity, dexterity and why not their dorkyness.

Roskilde Festival has many attractions besides good music and camping life. For the development and support of culture, the organizers have arranged different types of areas such as orange zone, urban zone, graffiti zone (where some of the world`s greatest graffiti artists will spread their paint in an artistic manner on the walls in the area), and may others. If you love to play games, at the festival you will have the opportunity to play Volley, Beachminton, PingPong, Boardgames, social gaming, Street Sports and others. The highlights of this year are Green Foosball (will take place in the Odeon Area), a 3 days football tournament only for girls ( men are allowed to cheer and to hydrate the girls after every football match), Crossbox, Bingo(old-school style in Game City) and the craziest game ever called The Big Game, where competitors can win tickets for next year’s festival. And because people have to eat too, they will have a wide range of delicious foods, snacks and drinks that will delight their taste buds : from Denmark to India and from Italy to China.

So, if you want an unforgettable experience that you will remember with pleasure throughout your life, take the train, plane, car or ferry and go to Roskilde! The party is going to start this Saturday!

Roskilde 2012

Categories
Concerts Music

Concert review: Motley Crüe at Kaisaniemi (Helsinki). 07/06/2012

Legendary American rock band Motley Crüe visited Helsinki and FREE! Magazine had to be there to let you know how it went! Personally, I had a special motivation to see them, because they are basically one of the few big bands I still had not had the chance to review live. They were scheduled to play two years ago at Sonicsphere in Pori, but a huge storm made them cancel the show (a polemic decision, becasue others such as Alice Cooper or Iron Maiden stayed and played, but well, let´s not enter into that).

Motley Crüe

So there I was, two years later, ready to enjoy their show without cancellations in a week where Helsinki had seen 3 days ago another huge event with the Sonicpshere concert happening on Monday, and then this Rockin Helsinki festival organized on thursday. Although being organized on a working day, assistance was pretty good, although not a totally sold out. Also weather turned to be sunny and nice (during the morning it seemed that it would be cloudy and rainy), which helped to keep the spirits up.

Before Motley, a couple of bands to warm up and please the crowd. Honestly I arrived a bit late and paid more atenttion to getting beers in the drinking area than listening to Crashdiet, but during their 40 minutes of show they seemed to entertain the audience and displayed good high energy. They already seem to have a good fanbase in Finland, so all good for the young Swedish band.

After a pause, another Swedish band hit the stage, the quite well known in Finland Hardcore Superstar. I had had the chance to interview them and see their gig in Tampere a few years ago, and once again they did not dissappoint. They seemed pretty comfortable with the audience and enjoying playing in Finland, and although they did not have much time to play, they gave a solid show where of course they could not miss in their setlist classics like Dreaming in a Casket or the ending Don´t Celebrate Sundays.

About the organization of the festival, I had to say that had pros and against. The place is certainly great to organize concerts at Kaisaniemen Puisto, just a few metres away from the main railway station of Helsinki. Super easy to reach by transportation. But although held in a park, basically there was no chance to sit on benches or on the grass, and the queues to order drinks were long beyond exhasperation. Besides, organizing big shows in the centre has another downside: you cannot make any noise after 22:00. If the concert is starting as scheduled, that should not be a problem, but the point is that Motley Crüe entered the stage almost half an hour later than scheduled, at around 20:30. So that means they only played for one hour and a half.

Press pass

And how was the show? Well, I have mixed feelings about it. The beginning was promising, starting with one of my all time favorites Wild Side, with 2 sensual girls on both sides of Vince Neil. But once the show was advancing, I kind of had some moments a feeling that I would not have expected, and it is feeling a little bit bored in some parts of the concert. The setlist was good, and I really felt goosebumps with some classic songs like Dr. Feelgood or Girls, girls, Girls, but I still could not get rid of the feeling that the band was not connecting with the audience and was just there to complete their short setlist and leave. Audience was actually behaving quite cold, maybe cause the sun had set, or maybe cause there was not much of special effects, no fireworks, etc to warm the show. The biggest feature on that side is the classic 360 degree drum set of Tommy Lee turning around during his solo, and the invitation to join to a young female Finnish fan to sit there with him for a few seconds.

I don´t know, maybe I would have enjoyed the show more at an indoors arena with more pyrotechnical effects, or maybe Motley is (expectingly) not as wild as some years ago, with no more Jack Daniels bottles appearing and being drunk magically on stage… It was nice to see them once in a life, but for an audience that pays more than 60 euro for a ticket, enjoying such a short show of 1:30 hours with no encore after they had cancelled their previous visit to Finland felt like too little. I honestly almost enjoyed more watching Hardcore Superstar than the main headliners…

Motley Crüe. Setlist at Kaisaniemen Puisto 2012

Wild Side
Live Wire
Too Fast for Love
Saints of Los Angeles
Shout at the Devil
Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away)
Same Ol’ Situation (S.O.S.)
Looks That Kill
Piece of Your Action
Primal Scream
Smokin’ in the Boys’ Room
Drum Solo
Dr. Feelgood
Girls, Girls, Girls
Home Sweet Home
Kickstart My Heart