Author: Antonio Díaz
The Wildhearts are usual visitors in Finland. The band from Newcastle has gone through good and tough times during their career, but after two decades, they are still on the road, more alive than ever. They recently visited Estonia for first time to play at Rabarock, the biggest summer festival of the Baltic state, and we had a long and very interesting talk with Ginger, their leader and founder, after they performed an amazing gig. Without doubt, this must be one of the most interesting interviews ever published at FREE! Magazine, so do not miss it!
The Estonian audience was not very big during the concert, but The Wildhearts did not seem to mind. You could notice how they were having fun on stage and feeling at ease (maybe helped by the view of some Estonian beauties around). But honestly, I did not know what to expect when accessing the backstage of the festival to meet Ginger. Organization’s rules were so strict that my photographer could not even step with me inside. But same than Ginger defined during the interview Lemmy from Motörhead as a real gentleman, I could say the same about him. He was funny, friendly, polite and intelligent in his comments; A man who has seen the dark side of rock & roll, and was able to go through it and be reborn stronger than ever. I think this must be one of the best interviews I have ever had so far while doing FREE! Magazine. It was easy and natural to talk to Ginger while smoking cigarettes and having a beer, sitting at the sofa of the backstage, and if it would have not been for the hurry of the organizers, we could have continued talking long after the recorder was turned off. Apart from a great interview, I came back home with a set list signed by the entire band, a guitar pick, and a great hug goodbye from Ginger. You cannot ask for more from one guy who is a true legend of the dirtiest and more mischievous side of hard rock!
Thanks a lot for attending us Ginger! What do you think of Rabarock festival, here in Estonia, after your performance?
This festival? I loved it! It is so cool; there are so many pretty girls! My mind is blowing! They are so beautiful. For me, and for the rest of the band, coming from England, it is a bit of a shock!
When did you arrive?
Just last night
Is your first time in Estonia?
Yes. And I want to come back! I liked the atmosphere; they know how to have a good time. So I am very happy with the experience.
You are also usual visitors in Finland. How the atmosphere is when you play there, compared to Estonia?
Kind of the same, it is very open. A lot of countries are very dedicated to what they listen to, and some other countries are very open. If it sounds good, it is good. And I like that about Finland, I like that about Estonia. Some countries you go to, and it is hard to get through them.
Some other foreign bands I have interviewed said that audience can be a bit cold in these countries, but they know how to appreciate the music. Do you have that same feeling?
Yes, as long as the music provokes something in the people, then there is a relationship. The music is not just what is going onstage and selling something. It has never been like that. We go onstage and people want to have some fun and you know, as many other bands, we have had hard times, we have had drug problems, we have had things going really wrong, but the heart of the band is still to have fun; to enjoy life, to be positive.
How do you feel about those tough and hard times, if you look back into the past now? Do you see life with a different perspective?
Well, I think that when you get older, your perspective improves. And you always have hard times; everyone has hard times, now there is a recession going on around the whole world, so your perspective changes and you find also some good and positive sides in everything. Back in the days, back in the 90s, we didn´t find anything positive, we would always have a very negative vibe.
Why?
Because we were all… drug addicts… hehehe So everything was bad, and then you got the drugs and everything was good, and then everything went bad again.
Actually I just read the book by Nikki Sixxx
Ah the Heroin Diaries!
Yeah, it was amazing how he describes so well that you could have everything, fame, money, women, but still feeling so bad and empty.
That is why I tried to remember all the time, just because you have no money, just because you have problems in your relationships, etc do not feel that you are alone, because that is happening all over, you know, you can have good times and bad times, but it is all about how you make it. There is a great Chinese proverb that says that it is not about how a man falls, it is about how a man gets over it, and I always believe that. Things can go wrong, but it is about how you find something positive in that. That is what my attitude is all about these days.
Yeah, people from outside can think “oh people in rock bands have everything we dream of”! But in the end everybody has the same kind of problems, isn’t it?
Look, relationships problems are always the same, either if you are broke or if you have money. Problems with your confidence… etc. It is all about finding something good, remembering something that you love, little tricks like that. This morning I woke up and I was in a terrible mood, and my girlfriend told me “remember the things that you love”. Tell somebody that you love them!, and that will make you feel better.
So do you believe in karma?
Well, I understand karma as meaning “action”. Karma is not something that comes back to you; karma is about something that you do. And that why people get it wrong, so I think that karma is how you behave. If you are being negative, and things keep going wrong, it is awful, but when you are positive, things start to improve, it really is the truth.
I am going to make a long jump in time to the 80s, when The Quireboys, your former band, got started. You were sacked from the band. What do you remember of it?
Well, I was a fucking crazy bastard! I was drinking, I was taking so many drugs, I mean, I would have sacked myself from the band!
Were you pissed off with the decision at that time?
Ohh, yeah, I was pissed off at that time, but because I thought the entire whole world was against me. Then I just realized that I was being unprofessional while they were trying to go to the next level. And they did go to the next level! The band became very successful; it could have not made that step with me at that time. And The Wildhearts screwed it so bad many times because of me in the past.
Ginger: I would have sacked myself from The Quireboys!
Have you been in the situation of taking the phone and telling the guys “sorry guys, I was behaving like an asshole”?
Oh yeah, I have seen the guys of The Quireboys since, I have seen Spike and he understands that we were too young and crazy. Let’s face it, if in your life you are going to have a period acting crazy, you better do it when you are young! Because then you can possibly get over it. I had all my crazy acts at the time when I should have been crazy. In my 20s and my early 30s. Now I am in my 40s and I cannot be crazy no more. I have got babies, I have go responsibilities! But you know, I have no regrets, I have had a fantastic time and one day I will write a book and the “crazy times” will be the “good chapters” in the book, where people go like “oh my god, oh my god”!
Now you have a new album, Chutzpah! What can we expect form it?
Oh, it sounds so great! We worked with a producer called Jacob Hansen, who has produced Volbeat, and we are all very big fans of Volbeat, and he is just an incredible producer, so talented! It sounds like a very expensive record.
You recorded 19 songs for it, didn’t you?
Yes, we recorded 19 songs but the album has just 10 songs. But what we are going to do is, and we talked about this just yesterday, is that we hope that we are going to have a limited edition where everyone in the band makes their own cover and everyone in the band has their personal bonus track. So for the first thousand copies of the album we would have that bonus track and a band cover.
Years ago, when I was basically a child, albums used to have 15-16 songs. Now all the new albums have 10-11. Is that trend ok for u or would you like the albums released to be longer?
Well, like I said, I like to keep up with the times. And now there is so much music out there that people do not have time to pay attention. Doing a longer album now is expecting too much. You have to make them short but make the people really listen to the band. Then maybe they will listen to the whole album. I still love albums, I still buy albums. I do not download songs. I still need real albums. But I also understand that people do not need albums anymore. They need a kind of “soundtrack to their busy lives”. But they still need the live experience, they still need to go to the concerts; they still need to meet people, they still need to meet partners. And the music and the concerts make possible more people meet and have sex and socialize. That is actually the main thing! It always was and it always will be, and not marketing things or selling albums or whatever.
I know that you are a very active blogger in the official site of The Wildhearts. How do you see the impact of the new technologies and the possibilities of keeping closer contact with the fans?
Oh yeah! I use Twitter all the time as well, keeping it as part of the fun. I think now it is the most important time in music ever because I came into this as a punk, and punk was all about sharing, talking to the people and then the 80s turned out and it was all about glam rock and not talking to the people, it was about being mysterious. I am not very good at being mysterious, I like talking to the people. I love to talk and find that we are all the same, that we all love music, that we have the same spirit.
You shared tour with The Darkness and you have always spoken very well of them. They were advertised as “the next big band”, but then we all know the problems they had gone through. Why is so difficult for new bands to break through, is it really so difficult to be original nowadays?
Well, to go from being a small band to headlining in festivals should take around 10 years. There is a theory about 10000 hours so well, you go to work 10000 hours to be good, to consider yourself good at what you do. Some people can get confident and success really quickly, but it is not natural. With The Darkness, it just happened too quickly. If the people just allow them to be a small band, or at least a big band playing small venues, but when we toured with them in America, the first half was in small venues and they were sold out completely. They got to play for a complete week at a venue and it was always sold out. So the second half of the tour were big venues and was not sold out. That hit the band’s confidence. The band was not the same band after that. And that is what I meant, people pushed them too quick. People do not remember that Led Zeppelin or The Beatles or The Rolling Stones, they did not make it in a year or in two years. 10 years is a nice period to make it.
Ginger: I am not very good at being mysterious. I like talking to the people
It just seems that people are a bit too desperate to find the “next big thing”. Since Guns & Roses, people do not see big new hard rock bands.
Well, everyone gets a change now. It is all about how good you are. It is not about how good your record company is, or how good your marketing team is or your management. It is about how good you are on stage in front of people. I am talking about something that has been since music first began. It is about communication. When a band understands communication, which is where the bands are making the money now. Bands just go onstage and it is like watching a movie, people do not feel anything for that. And people do not have so much money now, so they are going to be selective about what they spend money on. When recession is over, people will be confident again to spend money, but when that takes place, you better know how to speak to the audience instead of trying to sell something. A good show is not selling anything apart from a good time.
Well, it is interesting now that you talk about the audience that you released not so long time ago the DVD Live in the Studio, where The Wildhearts are just there playing alone with no audience. Where the ideas come from? Was just a kind of “fuck you and we do what we want” to everybody?
Well, that was actually from our good friend Tim Smith, he directed that, and he wanted to have a very close and personal DVD, about us playing in the studio, just showing the band being able to play. And I must admit that I did not like the idea at first. But I think it has a charm, it has a beauty in it. It is a bit strange, and I like things that are strange, because they make you think. Any art should make people think. Maybe people in 100 or 200 years will look back at it and will say “That was such a crazy and brave thing to do!”
And the sense of humor around the DVD was great, with a lot of edgy comments
Yeah, it was strange but I liked it. The same, we had an album called Endless Nameless, which is my favorite Wildhearts’ album, and it is such a strange one, because it is so noisy, but I love it! The fans hate it! But I think it still works well as an artistic statement. It makes people think.
You will play in Finland, England… what is next for 2009?
Japan. Then I have a solo album to record on Christmas and a solo tour. I am very busy and I am happy that I am busy.
Q&A with Ginger
Favorite drink?
Favorite city in the world?Irish Whisky. Jameson or Black Bush or Bushmills. Anything from that family.
New York.
Craziest thing that has happened on or offstage through the years?
The last time we played at Bulldog Bash I was attacked by one of the Hells Angels, who was doing security, because he misheard something I said. He put his hand on my neck and that was pretty crazy, I thought I was going to die! Luckily the rest of the Hells Angels came and were like “hey, he did not say that!”
Is it true that you saw ghosts at Tutbury Castle during your stay there?
We saw some strange things. We were filming in the room one day and we saw little white lights glowing around. It was really strange. But I must say it was not so paranormal. I have had a lot of paranormal experiences, me and Scott were in a ranch in Malibu in 2005 and that was very paranormal! There was a lot of weird shit going on! A lot of crazy noises coming from anywhere. There are things we don´t know, and it is nothing sinister, it is just… something.
You said about the song “Yoni” and you have had a very promiscuous life. You have traveled and being around, so where do you think that are the hottest girls in the world?
Well, I must say that some of the girls here in Estonia are fucking hot, but I must say that the hottest girls in the world are in New York City, because they are from all over the world
Do you remember the last album you bought?
Yes, the last CD I bought was… And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Death by the homonymous band. Wonderful, wonderful album!
Best band to tour with?
AC/DC and Motörhead, especially with Lemmy. He represents all the good sides of a rock musician: he is intelligent, funny and a gentleman.
Photos of Rabarock gig by Tarvet Kullman
Related articles:
The Wildhearts – 3 gigs in Finland
The Wildhearts – Live in the Studio
Categories
Interview with Vanilla Ninja
Having access to the backstage of a festival has its good and bad sides. The bad ones is that you pay for a coffee or a beer more than outside, the good one is that you never know whom you can find sitting close to you. During last Rabarock festival in Estonia, I unexpectedly crossed my way with Lenna and Piret of Vanilla Ninja, one of the most international Estonian bands and did not waste the chance to shoot a few questions at them!
It is not common to catalogue girls who hardly reach 25 years of age as “veteran musicians”, but the young and beautiful girls of Vanilla Ninja can certainly say that they have been around, starting their career at a very tender age. Now, with more clear ideas about the business, but still having fun, they seem to be sure about what they want for their present and their future. I met them just minutes before they went onstage to participate in the project B.D.Ö., the biggest metal band in the world, that condensed many famous Estonian singers gathered together. Full of sympathy and energy, they were eager to answer a few questions about their band and their views on Estonian music scene.
I suppose the weather is not the best one to play today. Have you played before at Rabarock?
Piret and Lenna: No, actually I think that it is a good experience because the rock fans get a bit scared if they invite us, so now we got invited.
Do you still go by the name Vanilla Ninja?
Piret: We had some legal issues with the name.
Lenna: we were 1 year in court but now everything is back to normal.
You are one of the few Estonian bands that broke through internationally. Why does not happen more often?
Both: I don´t know, there is no answer.
Piret: You need to have good connections and we were very very lucky as we had one guy who was working with one Estonian band and we started talking and then we had the chance to go to Germany, but it does not happen really often, like never…
Lenna: I think it happens everywhere, like for example in Germany also, you have many good bands but they are on their own, so the question mark “why” not to go to other country and take competition from there, there is a tough competition.
Piret: Now there are a few bands that have played abroad like Bedwetters, they made an album in Sweden, and Kerli. She has bigger plans.
But at the beginning she was much criticized for going to USA, people telling that she would never achieve anything important…
Both: Well, it is always like this. At the beginning everybody is like “ohh buhh”, and then after when they get a number 1 the same people are like “oh my god, you were so big in the beginning”
I know you do other projects apart from your musical careers, for example Piret was working for MTV…
Piret: Yes, I was working with them. Yeah, we are doing other projects, we have been doing Vanilla Ninja for 7 years, when we started we were very young, and now we all have the feeling that we would like to have a little rest from music and try different things and then come back to it after a few years or something.
How old were you when you started?
Piret: I was 17.
Lenna: Yeah I was 16
“We want to take a little break from the band to keep it fresh”
How was when you were teenagers and people recognized you in the streets?
Piret: It was crazy of course!
Lenna: But it was also fun!
Piret: It was fun most of the time, but the longer we do the more we see how hard it is.
Lenna: But actually that is also one reason why we are so grateful because we were so young that we were willing to take all the risks and then when somebody offers to do those things, we say “no way”. At the beginning we were “yeah yeah, let´s do it!”
Piret: I think it was good that we started so young and so naïve.
Now you are young but with a lot of experience!
Both: Yeah, for sure!
What Estonian bands that you would recommend to foreign listeners?
Piret: I really like Kosmikud.
Lenna: I am fond of PopIdiot and Stella.
Piret: Popidiot is really good and I really liked their last album.
What are the future projects for you?
Lenna: As Piret said, we want to take a little break. We do not want to break up with the band, we are making concerts but we are not making any new album at the moment, we are not planning it. We are gonna take it easy and have some fun and try new projects.
Piret: Just to keep ourselves fresh and experience different stuff. For the last seven years we have done the same kind of music and we cannot change it in Vanilla Ninja, the style has to stay the same, because the fans expect that and otherwise do not like it.
But it is always the change, isn´t it? If you change, people criticize and if you keep the same they also criticize.
Piret: But you know, for ourselves we decided that we do not want to do the same thing right now. We need some change, but I think that after 3 or 5 years or so it would be nice to come back to the roots of the band.
Photo 3: Tarvet Kullman
http://www.myspace.com/vanillaninjaofficial
After the success of Sin City and 300, Frank Miller goes behind the camera to act as director in this new adaptation of one of his most famous comic books.
Visually, The Spirit is wonderfully produced. The comic atmosphere is once again perfectly transported into the big screen. But a movie needs some more “salt” than just a wonderful photography. Gabriel Macht is credible in his role of cheeky superhero, but many of the big names that go with him in the cast are really dreadful: Samuel L. Jackson as Octopus is on the edge of being ridiculous, not mentioning the poor additions of the two female roles incarnated by Eva Mendes and Scarlet Johansson; surely they will shine in the cover of any fashion magazine, but they still need to learn a couple of things about comic adaptations. The dialogues have some funny moments, mixed up with some silly parts, and the action scenes are really nothing special.
Resuming, the movie does not really add anything to the overcrowded genre of comic adaptations, and although is still watchable, does not fulfill the minimum requirements to pass the exam of the viewers. A weak one, could have been much better polishing the plot and the characters!
Rating 2/5
The best: Eva Mendes making a photocopy of her ass.
The worst: Scarlett Johansson. Her role is totally to be forgotten.
The detail: Frank Miller is supposedly to produce Sin City 3 in 2012.
The Spirit Trailer
Stereochemistry is a young new band from Tartu that has just released their debut studio album Märka! after having played together for about 4 years.
Following their musical dream and taking advantage of having reached the finals of Eesti Laul 2009, the Estonian foursome formed by Holger and Siim on the vocals/guitar, Indrek on the bass and Keio on the drums deliver 11 shots of good rock in a notable first effort to break through the Estonian music scene.
The first couple of tracks, Ainult armastus on ju päriselt meie and Öösiti kõndides, give a good sample of what you are going to find in the rest of the CD: smart lyrics, edgy riffs and pop-rock rhythms easy to follow and dance to. Holger vocal skills suit perfectly on the songs, although maybe it would be nice to notice a bit more of experimentation on his notes, because most of the songs are sung at the same vocal levels, not putting his throat at risk. The orchestration sounds fluent and compact, highlighting the excellent skills of Keio, the drummer, who really pushes the songs higher and higher with his effort, something you can really notice when the band plays on live. I had the chance to see them during the presentation of their album at PlinkPlonk Club in Tartu, where you could really notice that the tracks work perfectly well on stage, with the audience having a good time and getting warmer and warmer song after song. The fourth track Märka!, homonymous of the album title, marks a perfect inflection in the album, sounding slower and a bit sadder at the beginning to explode later in a hooky chorus, being impossible not to feel moved by it.
On the other hand, the most melancholic moment of the album comes maybe by Eile, although the band never let themselves fall into the dark and more twisted side of pop, and add in every song a colorful note of hope and fun. Different to the style of many similar styled Finnish pop-rock bands that choose a darker and more melancholic style, Stereochemistry bets for the lighter side of rock, songs to enjoy at a gig or a party with good friends and a beer in a hand, while moving your feet.
If I have to put a “but” to the album, I would say that the artwork of the CD and booklet feel a little bit too amateurish, but being this the debut work, is a detail totally forgivable. The question to decide is if the band will be able to break through from playing in small venues and pubs to bigger audiences. Their style, a bit similar to other Estonian bands that were able to become mainstream like The Smilers, is perfect to catch the attention of the masses wherever they play, and luckily there are venues enough in Estonia to welcome them on stage around the country, but if they just do not want to be labeled as just one more Estonian pop-rock band, maybe they would need to go a bit more experimental and risky in follow-up works. For the moment, Märka! represents a very good promising debut for the young guys!
Rating 4/5
After their debut album in 2007 and a few changes, AK is back with a follow up album that seems to kick ass!
The Turku based trio is back after a couple of years, with a new drummer from Florida, Jake McMullen; the new addition of the band maybe has a lot to do with the American essence that this Head + Heart exhales. Far from typical Finnish rock or metal albums with always the same riffs and the same melancholic lyrics, Agent Kooper does really sound fresh and full of experimentation, it can sound like a military whining march like in Let It Slide or it can sound closer to bands like Kings of Lion in the track Alive & New.
Dirty guitars, good background vocals and a mischievous attitude that can put them close to some dessert rock bands like their beloved Queens of the Stone Age. The album is a little jewel that you need to listen to for several times to fully appreciate all its layers. Good one!
Rating 4/5
Recorded in November 2008 during Pictures World Tour, here you can find a good collection of the best Melua´s tracks since she released her first work in 2003.
19 songs composed this live album that gives a good sample of what you can expect in a Katie Melua´s performance. The quality of her voice and the sound in general is excellent, starting with the moving Piece by Piece and flourishing it with the cover of Janis Joplin’s Kosmic Blues. An outstanding female voice, as she shows singing alone in tracks like Lilac Wine or I Cried For You.
If you want an album to enjoy some intimate moments surrounded by the fading light of some candles, this album is for you; Sweet and touching.
Rating 4/5
A TV reporter and her cameraman are going to live a very disturbing night when they find themselves locked in a building full of dangers.
Many people considered this movie the best horror movie ever (being by the way the remake of the Spanish film (REC)) I honestly do not understand what is going on in the brains of the audience lately, because I considered this one just a very poor average horror one. The beginning is promising, and the acting is plausible, but in the end it just turns predictable, falling into the category of “run away from the zombies… or infected”, whatever you want to call them.
It would have been nice to dig deeper in the relations of the reporter, Jessica Carpenter, with her cameraman and the firemen that go with her (obviously was openly flirting during the beginning when they are at the fire station), but the director prefers to throw to the spectator good doses of adrenaline every 30 seconds. Well, in some ways the movie is plausible enough to follow it until the end, but on the other hand, there was no big surprise here, even the not so sweet ending could be foreseen miles away.
From my humble point of view, another American remake that does not catch up with the original. It can entertain, but do not expect any masterpiece.
Rating 2/5
The best: The oppressive atmosphere inside the building.
The worst: The plot is not much original after invasion after invasion of zombies and infected beings we suffer every year.
The detail: The incredible Doug Jones, famous for his incarnations of monsters in Guillermo Del Toro´s movies, plays the role of the Thin Infected Man in the end of the movie.
Quarantine Trailer
Categories
Interview with Hendrik of Popidiot
Popidiot is a Estonian-Finnish band that maybe turned to be the biggest surprise in Estonian music scene in the last months. Using a light electro-pop with catchy lyrics, the band has gained the heart of thousands of fans in Estonia and is receiving excellent critics from Finland. We had a nice talk with Hendrik Luuk, one of the core members of the band, sitting in a bar terrace in Tartu, city where he lives and works, and trying not to be devoured by the hordes of mosquitoes around us!
Hello Hendrik and thanks for meeting us! How did you start with the band?
I think we started 6 or 7 years ago. I am doing the band with a Finnish guy. We met at the medical building where Matti (Juhani Peura) was studying medicine, and I was doing my Master´s Degree. I met him there and I found out that he is fond of doing electro music and then I told him that let´s try to do something together and that is where it started.
Is he still studying medicine?
He finished, he is not working in Finland for 2 years.
So how do you manage to work on the band at distance?
Well, we write the songs and then we send demos to each other, so one write and the other make music or the opposite way and then for live performances we have a few rehearsals before the concerts, and then we also have for live performances a guitar player who is now also a member of the band.
Is Rein Fucks, the guitar player, living also in Tartu?
The guitar player is in Tallinn, Matti is in Helsinki and I am here in Tartu. So we all 3 are in separated cities!
Who came up with the name of the band?
Matti came up with this, and it was that we were trying to think what kind of music we should make and then the idea was that it should be like pop music but with some kind of an edge, so to stand out from the “boring” pop, so there came “PopIdiot”.
So you and Matti are writing the lyrics and making the music and then you joined forces with Rein Fucks that has Sekssound records.
Yes, he is actually the songwriter for Villafrogs that it is the band he started, and then when we released our first albums, Rein took care of distribution.
For you, being quite a young band, how do you see the general scene in Estonia. Is it difficult for new bands to play?
It is actually very easy for new bands to play, at least for finding gigs. We are not competing with those very big top bands which play the summer tours, but yeah, it is very easy, there are not many people, there are not many bands and the kind of music we make, you could say that there is no other band like this in Estonia.
So apart from playing you have other side jobs.
Well, I am mostly working in the lab at Univesity, doing Biology research, and then I work sometimes in the studio and now my friend Mart and other people have started Pling Plonk Club.
Our second album is more mature- Hendrik of Popidiot –
What other bands in Tartu or in Estonia would you recommend to the foreign listener?
Junging and the Stratforw Faggots, Micromac.. and Tartu Poppia Institute and some others in Tallinn.
Your debut album was 111 and now you have recently released your follow-up album, Antenna of Love. How would you define them, are both albums similar or different?
I think the second album is more mature, the first was more about exploring different sounds, different styles, and the second one is more “one piece”.
It was released the Independence Day 24th. Did that have any special meaning?
Well, it was planned to be released, because in Estonia is a big day, and we thought “why not”, because of course the release of our second album was a big thing for us too.
You played some months ago in Tallinn Music Festival and I read good reviews from Finnish journalists. Have you had in mind to go there to play more often, in Finland?
We are trying to get some contacts, but at the moment we do not have any specific deal, hopefully something in the autumn, because this company, Stupido Records, released our album there, and something could come with them.
Do you think that in the future you could live on only with your music?
I think it would be very tough, at least at the moment, our band is not at the level to enable us to live from it. And we have invested a lot of time and effort in our other careers, Matti is a doctor and I am a scientist, so I think it would be better if we could keep these both things growing.
Do you see any differences between the music business in Finland and here?
I guess there is more competition in Finland. The bands are better produced there, the songwriting is also better but in Estonia the whole thing is pop music, it started in the 90s with the new generation, in the Soviet times there was not much going on.
You compose in English and 1 song in Estonian. Have you though to compose in Finnish?
English is the easiest language, we both managed for singing and writing, Matti does not feel very comfortable in Estonian although he can speak it very well, so English and Estonian is our common ground. We made this Estonian song to make collaboration for Eurovision Song Contest and it turned out that singing in Estonian works pretty well, people like it and connects more directly.
For more information visit:
http://www.myspace.com/popidiot
The veteran Finnish rockers are back on the road with a superb new album!
It seems that there is something that boost up the quality of Finnish bands when they take Spanish names. We saw it with the amazing Los Bastardos Finlandeses, and here once more with Gringos Locos. These crazy Finnish are veteran musicians who have been around for more than 2 decades, also in bands like the legendary Leningrad Cowboys. After a period of separation, they gathered again in 2007, and what you have here is the result of their new incoming: a collection of superb rock songs with attitude! Titles like I ´m a mover, the slow Plane to Eden and Dreamer or Don´t Cry For me give a good sample of what you will find here: rock of many good degrees, but also great mid-tempo ballads.
Finnish music scene must be glad to see Gringos back again. The long awaiting was worthy if they continue releasing albums of such a great quality like this one! Long life to Gringos!
Rating 4/5
Finding the perfect partner is never easy, if not, ask to this group of friends and their adventures to find the couple of their dreams.
I just read some reviews online before writing this, to be sure I was not the only one who was feeling the way I was feeling, but no, luckily they all agree with me: this must be one of the worst movies of the year. The three female friends and main characters of the movie are just pathetic, basically they are an alcoholic, a nymphomaniac and a kind of retarded girl trying to find great men, but obviously failing, because they should start by trying to improve themselves. The fourth member of the group of friends is a wise male friend, but in real life, there is no way that a man with a minimum sense of dignity would stick with the other 3.
I was thinking that maybe it was my perception for being a man and not being able to catch the subtle humor of the movie, that maybe could be more aimed at a female audience, but my girlfriend felt as bored as me watching it together. Really, do not waste your time with this one!
Rating 1/5
The best: Not much.
The worst: the main characters (meaning 90% of the movie).
The detail: I think the DVD cover is the best thing that the movie has.
Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman give us as a present an unforgettable duel of great acting skills!
Same than the title, the plot and the final of the film is really ambiguous. Doubt plays with doubts, and the spectator, after collecting the subtle hints all over the movie, can have his final interpretation of what could have happened during the action. As the strongest point, obviously the great cast led by Symour Hoffman and Streep, two of the greatest actors in Hollywood nowadays. Added to them, the innocence and sweet figure of Amy Adams as Sister James is perfect to catalyze the story, although her character fades away in the last part of the movie, shadowed by Streep and Hoffman´s duel.
Doubt is an intelligent and enjoyable movie, and although maybe the plot could have turned to be more exciting and the script more mischievous, it represents a smart effort for the spectator, far from the usual numbness of most Hollywood productions. Worthy to watch!
Rating 3/5
The best: Streep and Hoffman having dialectical battles.
The worst: That pedophiles continue wandering around the Catholic church without the punishment they deserve.
The detail: Based on the play by John Patrick Shanley that won the Pulitzer in 2005.
Doubt Trailer
The king of comedy, Jim Carrey, is back in a role of a man who is going to turn his life 180 degrees.
That Jim Carrey is a great actor, not only in comedies but also in dramas, is something he has been able to show during his career. But here he comes back with what he knows how to do at his best: the role of a poor loser with charm and will to turn his life upside down. The movie seems like if it would have been written for Carrey to fit as a glove, although actually it is the adaption of a book by English writer Danny Wallace. Together with him, Zooey Deschanel is just adorable and infectious, and it is impossible not to feel a bit jealous of Carrey for having the luck of sharing screen with her!
Added to this, the movie has some funny moments like the meetings with the “yes guru”, a nice way to parody the motivational speaker’s world. Not the most original comedy and the end is pretty predictable, but it will make you laugh, it is well structured, and the couple Deschanel-Carrey have good chemistry on screen. More than enough to give it a try!
Rating 3/5
The best: The first assistance of Carrey to the gathering with the “yes guru”.
The worst: Structure is quite similar to many others Carrey´s movies.
The detail: Based on the real experience of Danny Wallace, the author of the book, who spent a year answering “yes” to every kind of proposals.
Yes Man Trailer
American fiction writer George R.R. Martin (Bayonne, 1948) can be considered a contemporary classic of the literature in science fiction and fantasy genres. Awarded with high distinctions like Nebula or Hugo awards, and consolidated as a bestseller’s author due to the widespread fame of his saga “The Song of Ice & Fire”, Martin also provokes high doses of anxiety and gossiping in fantasy literature communities and forums around the world due to the expectation for the last 3 books not published yet that will complete the total of 7; the fifth one “A Dance with Dragons” will probably hit the bookshops before the end of the year.
In an overcrowded room of a famous bookshop in Tallinn, filled with hundreds of fans, a talkative and friendly George R.R. Martin, accompanied by his wife Parris, answers all kind of questions that the Estonian readers shoot at him, from the sex scenes in his books and the morality of the American readers to his taste in literature. After more than 1 hour signing books to his loyal fans, we finally have the chance to talk about his visit to Finland and Estonia, his past as scriptwriter in Hollywood and of course about The Song of Ice & Fire!
Thank you for your time George. You were in Helsinki last week end and actually I know that when you were younger you wrote some stories about Suomenlinna…
Yeah, I wrote two stories about it, the fortress was called Sveaborg in past times and I wrote about the surrender to the Russians which was kind of a historical mystery, so I wrote a story in college, actually I was taking a course on Scandinavian history and I convinced the professor that I could write a piece of historical fiction.
And if I am not mistaken, you explain in your book Dreamsongs that actually the American-Scandinavian journal was the first one to reject you with those stories.
Yeah, but well, they rejected me “nicely”, so it was very encouraging, and I went on and 20 years later I dig it out and rewrote it and made it a science fiction story.
So why were you so interested about Scandinavian culture? What attracted you?
Well, it is not that I was particularly attracted. I was in college and taking history as a minor, and I took all about Western civilization and English history and American history, so I thought that I could take some history course I did not know anything from inside, and the whole thing was that Sveaborg caught my imagination, you know “the great fortress, support of the north… mysteriously surrenders to inferior forces…” Why? That caught my attention.
So you visited it?
Yes, we took a boat and spent a day there.
So it was like the idea you had in mind?
Actually, it was not like in my imagination. It was very pleasant; there was a park, trees and children playing, while in my stories all is very grim and military. In the story is middle winter and the bay is completely frozen, so it was very different from the story, but still, nice.
And here in Estonia, is this your first time?
First time in Estonia, yeah.
Did you plan to come here beforehand, or just took advantage of the visit to Finland?
The Finns approached me 3 years ago. I schedule my calendar 3 years in advance and the Finns asked if I would be their guest at Finncon, so I agreed and put it at my website and a few months ago my Estonian publishers noticed that and asked if I could come to Estonia and do some signing. I must say I have had a great time here; I have got to meet all my Estonian readers, so that was a thrill!
During last year you were presenting the book “Songs of the Dying Earth”, an anthology tribute to Jack Vance, a book you have edited together with Gardner Dozois. What can you tell us about it?
Yeah, actually it is coming out right now, I have not seen a copy yet myself, but just before I left the publisher wrote me that he was picking copies from the printer and he would mail them to me, so they would be hitting the bookstores right now.
Your fans seem to be very focused on your advances with the Saga The Song of Ice & Fire. Do you receive many emails when you do this other projects about why you do not focus on the saga?
Yes, we do unfortunately. There are fans who are just interested in The Song of Ice & Fire and they do not want me doing anything else, but they are the small minority. The majority of my fans are very supportive, they write me wonderful letters so well, I like doing different things, you know, I love Ice & Fire and I am working on it and that is great, but you cannot do just one thing 24 hours a day, and I have a lot of interests: I like editing books, I like reading books, I like working with Gardner and of course I like Jack Vance and that book honors his magnificent career.
There has been confirmation that The Song of Ice & Fire will be turned into a TV series by HBO. Is true that you keep the right to write the script for one chapter a year?
Yes, it is true; I will write one script per year for the TV series.
You worked previously in Hollywood writing scripts for series. Are you excited having the chance to write scripts again?
No… I mean, I am looking forward to it, but I am not “that” excited about it… It will be more exciting when it gets produced. That will be fun!
I read that you were actually not that satisfied with your experience working in Hollywood. What didn’t you like there?
I was there for 10 years. The first 5 years I was in two shows, The Twilight Zone and Beauty and the Beast, and you know, I had my frustrations on those shows, but mostly it was quite satisfying, we did some good work, it was film, it was produced, it was broadcasted, people saw it… that was all good. But the second 5 years I reached a stage where I was doing “development”. I was developing ideas for shows on my own, and also doing featured films, doing movies, writing scripts and in that case, these things… you get paid a lot of money, more than working on a show, but they do not necessarily make anything. You write a movie, you re-write a movie, you spend 1 or 2 years working on it, and then they decide that they are not going to make the movie. Then you develop a pilot again, you spend 1 year on it, they film a pilot, they drop it, that happened to me once… maybe they do not make the pilot and read the script and say “well, this is good but we have this other show that we like better”. So after these years I had much more money, but emotionally it was very unfulfilling, it was very frustrating. I do not want to write a script, develop characters for 1 year and then nobody see them except a few executives in a room. So I wanted to be back to books where I know I had a real audience.
Is not weird that they will start the filming of the TV series, but still nobody knows the final for the Song of Ice & Fire (apart from you)? When they start to shoot the beginning, they do not even know how it ends…
Yeah, sure they don’t. I am going to be wasting them! Well, they are going to do 7 seasons and I am doing 7 books. They are going to do a season a year, but it is taking me 2-3 years or sometimes more to wreck these books, so I don’t know, hopefully I can finish the 7 books before they get to the seventh season! Hehehe…
HBO did also the series “Rome“, that you mentioned earlier that you love it.
Yes, Rome was wonderful!
There is a lot of political intrigue there, the same that in your saga of The Song of Ice & Fire. Do you feel especially interested by power games?
Yeah, I find that entertaining and kind of stuff I love to write about and love to watch on TV. Rome was a wonderful series at every level. It was gorgeous to look at, the acting was superb, and the writing was superb, so hopefully Ice & Fire can be as good.
When you read The Song of Ice & Fire and you read The Lord of The Rings, I find some similarities in the way they display worlds in decay: the last dragons, the elves leaving Middle Earth, the magic getting lost… the reminiscences of a more splendid past. Are more intriguing these periods when things are getting lost to write about?
I have a certain attraction towards twilights. You can see that in my work, if you read my first novel “Dying of the Light“. There is something about it that it is very evocative to me, the twilight world, and the world between the edges. Maybe there is something about me psychologically, I don&’t know! Hehehe…
It was recently published in your website that there will be soon a videogame about the Ice & Fire saga.
Yes, a French company called Cyanide got the rights to make 2 videogames, a real time strategy videogame and a role videogame, so I am going to be meeting with them in Montreal in a couple of weeks, the project is still at very early stages.
Do you play videogames?
I play occasionally, I would not say I am a big videogamer by any means, but I play some, especially real time strategy games, I like strategy games.
The one dollar million question that most of the fans are wondering around the world: How is Dance of Dragons going (the awaited fifth book of The Song of Ice & Fire saga)?
It is going pretty well actually, I am hoping to finish it by September or October that is my goal.
You started writing the first book of the Saga, A Game of Thrones
Hum, I may have structured it so that the kids could grow up a little more, so that months pass between the chapters instead of only days between the chapters, but you know, if I would have done that it would be a much more different book than what I have, so I don’t know if I would really have done that, but looking back at it, if I would have done that it would have solved now problems that I am encountering. On the other hand if I would have done that I could have created other problems, so you know, what I have here is working pretty well, but that is the only thing sometimes I wonder about.
For me, and I suppose that for most of the readers, it was really shocking when Eddard Stark got killed in the first book of the Ice & Fire saga. For example nobody would ever expect Frodo getting killed at the beginning of Lord of the Rings. Did you want to break concepts and mark a new line with that conception, did you know from the beginning that it would happen?
Oh yeah. Well, you kill an important character right on and you kind of establish that you are not playing for kids, you know, that it is not going to be that kind of fantasy where the hero goes through all kind of dangers and never gets scratches.
From the characters of The Song of Ice & Fire, is there any that you would feel especially identified with?
Tyrion Lannister. He has always been one of my favorite characters. They all have parts of me but Tyrion has changed together with me more than any other of the characters.