Patterson Hood: A guitar and a pen

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Patterson Hood enjoys telling stories. He does in his songs. He sings about that “big fat man on a mechanical bull in slow motion” and about Mary Alice who got cancer but could not afford insurance and get chemo. Writing those stories and songs is what Patterson Hood has done since he was a kid. “What else could I do?” he admits. Now, in his mid-forties, Hood looks a bit worn out from constant touring, but enjoying the good moment that his band, Drive By-Truckers, is going through after a few rough times that almost broke up the band.

In the summer of 2006, Drive-By Truckers went on tour with The Black Crowes and Robert Randolph and the Family Band. What a great bill many might think, but truth is that things did not go that well. Financially, that tour saved Drive-By Truckers, but it exhausted the band. A few months later, guitarist and vocalist Jason Isbell left and Drive-By Truckers were back to square one. “The Black Crowes tour was rough”, admits Hood. “It was a hard time for us. We were going through a hard time ourselves and we were playing very short sets. It was very boring a lot of the time. We got to play for 40 minutes a day and the rest of the time we were just at the backstage. It was pretty much like hanging around the parking lot for the summer. It wasn’t a good time. The Black Crowes were great. Good band, good guys, but we were the first in the bill to play, so we play really early to almost nobody, to a big empty space. After that we would go back to the parking lot and drink. We were having some problems in the band anyway, so it wasn’t a very good time.

Patterson Hood remembers such a bittersweet time in a small backstage room at the Nolan club in Stockholm. Today, the band is playing one of the first dates of a short summer European tour. These are the band’s first dates across the pond in several months. Hood looks a little bit exhausted. The night before, they played a festival in Sweden. Immediately after that they packed and travelled by train to Stockholm. “I’ve hardly seen the city. We did not have any time on this trip”, he says. “But it has been a good one. We are playing a bit bigger rooms since the last time we were here in Europe”.

When he enters the room, he carries Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road and his BlackBerry phone. His first replies are short. It is obvious he does not like interviews. But he enjoys a good chat and he soon engages in the conversation, especially when talking about the band’s new album and the stories behind some of the album’s songs.

What is the story behind "The Opening Act"?

Peaking at almost 7-minutes, it is the longest song in the album? Most of the times when I write a song, I do it in one sitting, in 30 minutes or whatever it takes. Or it can happen that I might think about an idea for some time, but when I actually write the song, it happens pretty quickly. However, I wrote the first half of "The Opening Act" several years before the last half of it. When I originally wrote it, it had a different ending and I didn’t like it. But I liked things about it too much to just let it go, so I kept the song in case I revisited later. I wrote the first half of it exactly as the song describes. I was sitting at this bar, there was a mechanical bull, an ambulance came… It felt surreal. It was pretty redneck bar. I was the opening act. I played solo. Nobody was really there to see me and this surreal scene happened. Then I wrote the rest of the song a bit before going to the studio last spring. Then everything came together. It all came right. I had real fun with this song. I really like it. I am very happy how it turned out and how the recording turned out.

Another long song is "The Man I Shot".

That one has an interesting story. On The Black Crowes tour one night someone sent a message backstage that there were three guys that wanted to meet us. These three guys had just come back from Iraq and Afghanistan. They came home for a while and one of the three guys decided that he wanted to go back to Iraq. The other two guys weren’t very happy about the idea. They didn’t think it was the healthy thing for him to do. But he had come back home and gotten a divorce. He had some problems so he decided that he wanted to go to Iraq again. His friends took him to the show like a going away present. They thought it would be cool if they could come backstage and meet us. We hooked up and invited them to the backstage and we ended up hanging out for about two hours backstage while The Black Crowes were playing. We drank a bottle of whiskey. They told us stories and as we got drunker, the discussion got heater. It was a weird night. We had some pretty different political views, but at the same time there was some common ground. After the night was over, we all in the band kept thinking about this meeting a lot. And I wrote the song about that.

Do you try to find special moments to write?

I love writing at any chance I get. But it’s more a matter of getting enough time alone to actually do it. It is hard to do it when everybody is around and Cooley is farting. Whatever else is going on, it’s distracting. After touring I get home and I have a 3 year old kid that hasn’t seen daddy enough. It is a constant battle to get the time to write, but it’s something I must do because this is what I do. It is the first step in the chain so I have to make it happen. But it’s difficult sometimes.

Have you written many times about your own experiences?

Sure, all the time. A lot is about my experiences or the experiences of people I have met. Sometimes it is something I have read about. I don’t have to agree with the point of view of the person the song is about. But I have been to able to relate with it enough to at least be sympathetic with it whether I agree or not. For example, in "The Man I Shot" I didn’t want to put a lot of my political beliefs in that song because the character in that song doesn’t necessarily agree with them.

Do you get inspiration from other songwriter’s characters?

Any songwriter has been an inspiration, all kind of styles… Tom Waits… Bruce Springsteen… it is a big list.

Would you like to write something else other than a song?

I have two screenplays I have been working on, but I don’t like them enough to show them and finish them. I might write a book some day, if I have the time. I would love to. Even if it is just a book about our experiences on the road. That could be a pretty fun book. But I am amazed of the people that can write a book, though. I can’t image how difficult it can get. The book I’m reading right now [Corman McCarthy’s The Road]. I can’t imagine sitting down and writing that. I can’t imagine being in the frame of mind for long enough to write something like that.

After the departure of guitarist and songwriter Jason Isbell, who went to pursue a solo career, Drive-By Truckers needed to reinvent themselves. They put an acoustic tour together and called it The Dirt Underneath. Legendary session man Spooner Oldham (Neil Young, Bob Dylan) joined the tour and John Neff was chosen to replace Isbell.

This was pretty cool tour”, Hood says. “It was a really good time. We were reinventing ourselves and looking at what we were going to do next. It was exciting. We fixed the stuff in the band. The spirits were high. Spooner Oldham spent the whole summer with us. It was a lot of fun.

Are you planning to release a live album from The Dirt Underneath tour?

I don’t know. I would love to. I want to do a live record, but I just don’t know. Recently we changed record companies and there are some legal problems, so I don’t know if we are going to get the chance to do a live record. I’d love to do something with The Dirt Underneath tour because it was such a unique thing, kind of different. We recorded a couple of really good shows that we would be very happy to release but we are not allow too. I don’t know what will happen.

Meanwhile we can listen to the audience recordings of the shows.

They are floating around out there. There are some really good audience tapes. Either of the shows we did in New York, the show in Manhattan or the show in Brooklyn. Those are very good.

Do you listen to those recordings?

Not too much. I listen to our tapes. Those were the two best shows of the tour. Maybe someday they will get to surface somehow.

Even though, DBT have already earned a loyal fanbase, the road to success has not been easy for Patterson Hood. There have been many failed bands and many nights on friends’ couches. But writing songs and playing rock and roll was the only way of living. With your first band, Adam’s House Cat you met failure, but with DBT you toured the world. How do you deal with failure and success?

We spent six years working on our first band and it was six years failing at it. In some ways, I felt like it was a good band but it just didn’t happen. Maybe it was the wrong time, the wrong place. I still don’t understand what it makes the difference. All of the sudden, with DBT, even in the early days, everything worked out. The band was always liked by whoever saw it. It was different from day 1 than the old band. On our show there might have been only a small audience but they really liked it and came back to the second show and brought friends. It has grown that way over the last 12 years. Still we have to keep on working a lot, but it is a whole better than playing for six years and not being able to grow at all.

Did you feel like giving up?

I might have felt that way, but what else I was going to do. I was already working on shitty jobs. I couldn’t think that was all there was. I have been writing since I was eight and this is what I do. So it is just going back on and try again. When this one is over, I will probably try again and again.

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Drive-by Truckers performing Let There Be Rock in Stockholm

Southern Rock Opera was a tremendously ambitious album. But it changed your life.

We talked about for years. We worked on it for six years. We spent two years of early touring in vans talking and writing about it. It was what we were doing for entertain ourselves. We brainstormed about SRO. This other beast was building. When we slept on people’s floors touring those days, we often would talk about it in people’s houses and we would get this funny look, you are doing what? Yeah, it’s going to be mind blowing and we started describing and it was “WTF? You are going to write a record about what?” But it turned out to be the record that it changed our lives. Sometimes are the craziest ideas the ones that click.

In spite of how bold this move could have been, telling the legend about Southern Rock might have been the most reasonable thing to do for Patterson Hood. Not only he is from Alabama, but his father David Hood is a bass player and one of the founders of the famous Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, home of recordings by Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, The Rolling Stones, Boz Scaggs, Willie Nelson and many, many others.

How is growing up with a father that is a professional musician?

I didn’t get to be very near the recordings. I wanted to, but they kept me away. No kids here. I met a few like Mavis Staples, Bob Seger and a handful of others. But most of the time I was kept away. I understand now, although I didn’t understand back then. When I was a kid I was pissed off about it. I thought, I’m not going to hurt things. But I understand now. It is not a place for kids.

Did your father teach you or support you in your career?

He pretty much discouraged me until Southern Rock Opera at least. Until then he probably thought I should try something else. The punk rock thing was always a generation gap between us. I grew up really loving that. And of course, he really hated it. He was saying you are never on tune and you are too loud and you can’t sing. What the hell are you doing? But at the time we did SRO and even a bit before he came out, he finally understood what we were trying to do on that. Before it came out, most people thought it was a bad idea and tried to talk us out of it. But even then, my father got it.

The interview looked at the past quiet a bit, but Patterson Hood is already looking. He is already thing about start working on the new Drive-By Truckers album early next year. “I am writing some songs and hopefully Cooley is doing some writing too. I want the next album to be a loud, abrasive, in-your-face record. That is what I’d like. Really ass kicking”, he admits punching his hand.

The conversation continues for a while before Patterson joins the rest of the band while waiting for the gig to start. He likes talking about music, he praises Wilco and My Morning Jacket and he could continue talking about music for hours. One gets the feeling that he could continue talking about music for hours. But he has a show to do.

And that show in Stockholm was a success. The venue was packed and the audience was really passionate. Even a few Finns travelled to see the show. As usual the band shared a bottle of whiskey on stage and at one side of the stage, even the road ended singing the songs.

Funeral for a friend – Memory and Humanity

{mosimage}The fourth and new album by the Welsh rockers is out in the streets. 

Released by their own label, Join Us Records, here comes the new work of Funeral for a friend, just when few days ago their bassist player Gareth Davies decided to leave the band. With a very polished artwork and a nicely design cover, the album is in a way a look back at the roots of the band, with more powerful guitar riffs and a direct harder sound, like in the raw Constant Illuminations with an explosive battering drum work pushing the lyrics, although my favorite track is the second one To Die Like Mouchette. 

FFAF shows that not only Manic Street Preachers deserve a place of honor in the actual Welsh music scene. What they bring here is a squared good rock album, and surely old fans will be delighted with the progression made. 

Rating 4/5

P.O.D. – When angels & serpents dance

{mosimage}The Nu-Metal pioneers from San Diego are featuring their seventh studio album. 

One of the highlights of this album is the presence back in the band of Marcos Curiel. The album seems to be working pretty well in the charts, and it is nice to see how P.O.D. continues in good shape through the years. 

Although with some songs retaining the same old rap-metal style, like End of the World, the point is that this is album has a much softer vibe than previous ones. Many ballads and mid-tempo tracks like It can’t rain any day or I’ll be ready. Not necessarily a bad feature, since the songs sound great and with cohesion, but just do not expect so much of the old rage in this new album.  This new album is certainly a good effort for the veteran Christian rock band, very listenable. 

Rating 4/5  

Dear Superstar – Heartless

{mosimage}Another young hard rock band coming from the United Kingdom is knocking at your door! 

When you take a look at the cover of this debut album by the English guys, 2 ideas come immediately to your mind: this is a rock band with a female singer, or this is a rock band with dirty sounds in the best Motley Crue ´s tradition. The second affirmation is totally true when talking about Dear Superstar. What they offer here is a good collection of songs with a sound “made in Hollywood” that could have been perfectly signed by the cousins of Motley Crue. If you like this “dirty” rock from the 80s, with topics about alcohol, retaliation, rock and of course sex (one track is just titled Hollywood Whore), this is for you.  

The guitar riffs are actually pretty sharp and compose some of the best moments in the album. So basically this Heartless counts with the best and the worst of the American hard rock tradition (although the band is English); if you like the style, you will be glad to discover this, but if you prefer other newer experienced or just remain with the classics of the genre, this will add basically nothing much to your CD collection. Up to you if you want to give them a try! 

Rating 3/5. 

Rocking for the children of tomorrow

{mosimage}The Germans Scorpions were visiting Tallinn, the Estonian capital, last week end during their Humanity Tour. After having missed them last summer in Tampere, I was not going to let this opportunity pass. So there I headed, being present not only in the show but also at the press conference 1 day before to bring you the last information from these veteran but spiritually youthful rockers! 

 

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he appointment for the press conference is at the sixth floor o Swissotel, a luxurious new resort  in the centre of Tallinn. The room is, as I expected, not much crowded, and after half an hour of delay the German band finally appears, wearing sunglasses and responding to the cold attitude of the shy Estonian journalists with good doses of humor. Vocalist Klaus Maine pinpoints how surprise they are about how fast Tallinn is changing, full of new modern buildings, while guitarist Rudolf Schenker makes clear that with their last album the band tries to come back to their roots and essence. These both are undoubtedly the ones leading the show, while the other members of the band keep silence most of the time, with just some opinions of Matthias Jabs sporadically. When an Estonian journalist makes the mistake to ask them which is the most stupid question they have ever been asked, the band answers immediately “This one!!!”.

 

{mosimage}Of course, being Scorpions a band that has written basically the unofficial anthem for the end of cold war: Wind of Change, it is normal that the Estonians ask them about their opinions of political happenings nowadays, and if they are thinking to write a “second” Wind of Change. As Klaus explains “we just reflect the world around us. We played in South America, in Tonga, in Siberia… and then we put all the impressions into songs”.

 

 

They also seem to be pleased to recall a visit to a small village in the middle of Amazonia, 2 hours from the city of Manaos in Brasil “There were like 35 people there, and they played their tribal music for us. Of course they had no idea who we were. Then they asked us to play something for us and we played Wind of Change for them. It was very emotive” said Schenker and Meine.

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Breaking the routine was also a repeated topic during the conference. No wonder then that this tour will have a bit of everything, with concerts played with an orchestra like in Riga and Vilnius, or an acoustic show in Estoril (Portugal) “It is fantastic to play with an orchestra. Also very demanding due to the planning, having two different conductors in those two concerts. It was 1 year ago the last time we played with an orchestra, and we wanted to do it again, but of course we cannot do it very often” answered Klaus. Rudolf Schenker also explained that in Estoril they are expecting some musicians from Brazil to join them and play together, including Sepultura´s  musician Andreas Kisser, who already joined them during some gigs in his native country.

The band also remembered some good moments in the past like their shows decades in Russia at The Peace Festival in Moscow and the re-encounter in Tampere last summer after so many years with Sebastian Bach, who was also one of the stars of that festival in Russia with his band Skid Row. There was no more time for questions, and it seems that they were in a hurry to leave the conference room, so unfortunately no much time for pictures or chatting more with them. It was time to wait for the next day to see their live show, but before leaving Klaus promised that they were ready to rock the foundations of the Estonian capital.

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The concert took place at Saku Arena. A venue almost fully packed, with those people, the “children of tomorrow” turned into the adults of today who were anxious to see the Germans in action. Scorpions are not only much beloved in Russia, but also in the Baltic countries. When they jumped on stage, it was amazing to see their vitality, especially Rudolf Schenker jumping and running from one side to the other (I had him basically 10 centimeters away from me during the first songs, because I was placed in the photographs VIP area, the closest to the stage, and he almost stepped on my fingers…).  The band mixed wisely some of the classics like Bad boys Running Wild, Blackout, Send me an Angel or Holiday with the newest ones, which sometimes received a colder response from the audience, although personally I liked Humanity, a song that sounds very “Scorpions” and fits very well in the setlist. Obviously the most emotive moment of the night was when Schenker started to scratch gently the acoustic guitar for extracting the first riffs of Wind of Change, massively sang by the Estonian audience. Klaus showed that he is still in excellent shape as lead vocalist, and the band put the cherry on top of the cake in the encore with some more classics like Still Loving you or the final explosion of Rock You like a Hurricane.

As Klaus Meine announced in the press conference: “in the end it is about music, to play old and new material to entertain people”. And certainly Scorpions accomplished the mission, stating why they are one of the biggest rock bands in the world.

Photos by Antonio Díaz and Merle Ruubel.

Glenn Hughes rocks the house!

I spent a nice week end of rock in Tallinn, the Estonian capital, and there on Saturday I had the chance to assist for first time to a Glenn Hughes concert minutes after being in Scorpions’ press conference at a luxurious hotel.

The German guys were friendly and funny, although they arrived half an hour late and they seemed to be in a hurry to leave the room, basically not much time to take pictures or chat a bit with them. I got also a bit pissed off because they had some nice posters on the table, and at the end of the press conference a guy from the organization took them away and we could not even enjoy a small souvenir from the band.Unfortunately I did not have time enough to arrive on time to the sound check to make a personal interview with Glenn Hughes. Glenn is a rock living legend who had played with bands such as Deep Purple or Black Sabbath, apart from having had many other interesting projects alone. He appeared on stage looking good and sharp. The venue was at Rock Café, in Zelluloosi Keskus; a place near Tallinn’s bus station quite nice for rock concerts, and old paper factory reconverted into a rock club. The atmosphere reminded me a bit of Nosturi in Helsinki, and here you do not even have to pay for the wardrobe!

Glenn Hughes

Hughes must have suffered some kind of lifting in the skin of his face, because the man really looks younger than his age. I had read opinions in some forums of people who did not want to go to the concert because considered him a kind of “old fart”, but the image he displayed on stage was totally the opposite. With a funky sound and moving all around, he played his bass player (and also the electric guitar in some songs) with a lot of vitality, but without forgetting to wink to his old fans with some classics like Stormbringer. Although the venue was not totally fully packed, and the beginning of the concert was a bit cold, Glenn managed to warm the atmosphere and make people dance with a great show. You could notice how the band was enjoying the concert more and more after some time passed by, with more smiles painted in their faces, and put a great cherry on top of the cake, being this their last European concert before coming back to USA.

So for the moment you cannot enjoy new gigs of Hughes in Europe, at least for some time, but if you have the chance to visit Rock Café if you are in the Estonian capital, I am sure that automatically will become one of the favorite places for rock lovers. Although beer is not as cheap as you could expect, 45 Estonian crowns-3 euro…

Seattle, Washington USA … an insider’s guide.

Text by Eric Remec

Seattle. The name conjures up some very specific images: Starbucks. Rain. Grunge. All these clichés certainly ring true but I want to try something a bit different and delve a little deeper into what makes Seattle such a cool city to visit. I find the best way to get a feel for a place is through its food. Whenever I’m traveling I steer clear of any tourist type places and try, as much as possible, to become a local.

In Rome, that means a breakfast of an espresso and pastry (while standing) in an Italian bar. In Spain, it’s ir de tapas (a form of bar-hopping) at night, sampling tapas and wine; In Kansas, USA, barbeque ribs in the town of Melvern (population 429). In this increasingly homogenized world, I think it is essential to celebrate what makes a place unique. A good rule to follow (in non-English speaking locales) is to listen to the languages being spoken by the patrons and avoid any place where the main language you hear is English. Well this rule obviously doesn’t work in Seattle so let me offer you, dear reader, an extremely biased list of some of my favorite places in the city.

Seattle

In a city that has on average only 71 truly sunny days a year, it’s no surprise that coffee is such a big deal here. Well forget Starbucks. Go to Le Panier. Whenever I’m in Seattle, this is the place where I like to start my day. A French style café and bakery located in the heart of Pike Place Market, Le Panier has the feel of a Parisian bakery. Grab a newspaper, a cup of café maison, and a chocolate croissant and ease into your day. Spend an hour or so in a seat by the window and watch the world go by outside. Speaking of which, a great place to start and get a feel for the city is Pike Place Market, Seattle’s famous outdoor market. Reminiscent of Helsinki’s Kauppatori with its stalls of vendors, Pike Place Market is located on Seattle’s waterfront in Puget Sound. You can find everything from farm fresh produce, to seafood, to local crafts from the Pacific Northwest. As you can probably guess, seafood is big here: salmon (smoked and fresh), Dungeness crab, clams, and mussels. You can actually buy the seafood to take home and the merchants will pack your purchase in special ice packs which will keep it fresh for 24 to 48 hours.

Almost next door to the bakery Le Panier is Piroshky Piroshky, a Russian bakery specializing in (you guessed it) piroshki. Somewhat similar to the Finnish karjalanpiirakat, these handheld pies are stuffed with a variety of different fillings.You can find almost 30 different varieties in all at Piroshky Piroshky, including beefand onion, Bavarian sausage, and sweet dessert rolls. Be sure to visit Beecher’s Handmade Cheese shop, Seattle’s Artisan Cheesemaker also located in Pike Place Market. They actually make their own cheese on the premises and the large viewing window inside the shop offers a glimpse into the cheese making process. Grab a cup of their “World’s Best Mac and Cheese” made from penne pasta and their Flagship cheese for a soul warming lunch on a damp and cold Seattle day. If you find yourself with limited funds (and in this current economic climate, who doesn’t?), I suggest you take full advantage of the concept of Happy Hour in Seattle. Typically between the hours of 16:00 – 19:00, many bars and restaurants offer half-price specials on drinks and food. It offers an excellent chance to sample some of the fine things that Seattle has to offer on a limited budget. The Belltown section of the city has a host of bars and restaurants which offer Happy Hour Specials and is a good place to start the evening.

Bar Txori Pintxo

Spanish-style tapas bars are becoming fairly common in large cities across the U.S. but for a real authentic experience later in the evening, head over to Txori.  OK, technically this a pintxos bar modeled on the pintxos bars of San Sebastian in the Basque region of Spain, but it’s the real deal. Chorizo sausage with shaved chocolate, anchovies with olives and Spanish peppers, jamón serrano on top of toasted bread with fresh tomato and garlic, … each of these bite sized appetizers (which average $3.00 to $4.00 a piece) will have you dreaming of summer nights on the Spanish coast. Along with pintxos, Txori also offers some excellent Basque-inspired cocktails. Try the azafrán; a blend of citron vodka, freshly squeezed orange juice, and a touch of saffron. Outstanding.

For a complete change of pace, check out the The Whisky Bar. Now, I do love a good dive bar and The Whisky Bar is a great dive bar. Located directly across the street from the historic Moore Theatre, The Whisky Bar has all the essential requisites of a good dive bar: cheap drinks, loud music, intimidating looking bartenders and an eccentric clientele. The noir-inspired paintings featuring scantily clad women with guns only add to the charm of the place. Where else can you sing along to Slayer, Elvis, Iron Maiden, and Johnny Cash blaring at top volume on the jukebox while slamming back $2.00 cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon? Jacket and tie definitely not required and leave your credit card at home. Happy Hour runs from 12:00 (!!!) to 21:00 daily.

The Whisky Bar

Seattle is a city that tends to close up a bit early so if it’s late and you’re hungry you can always stop by the The Palace Kitchen which serves its full menu until 1:00 (am). One of  Seattle restaurateur Tom Douglas’ many establishments, The Palace Kitchen is as much a bar as a restaurant and offers excellent food along with some interesting brews and cider on tap. For a late night bite, the Palace Burger Royale and the Dahlia Triple Coconut Cream Pie for dessert are a good bet.  Bars close at 2:00 here but if there is time, you might want to head back to the Belltown section of Seattle for a last bit of bar-hopping before calling it quits for the night and staggering back to your hotel room.

As we come to the end of this article, a special note to any Seattle residents and tourists that might have some issues with my imperfect listing of the “best” places in Seattle. I agree with you. It’s certainly not the last word on Seattle and in fact, it’s only a start. So to all the many deserving places I didn’t mention and to all the places I didn’t get a chance to visit: Salumi Artisan Cured Meats run by Armandino Batali (Italian American chef Mario Batali’s father), the Experience Music Project Museum, the entire Capitol Hill and Pioneer Square areas of Seattle, … my apologies.

They’re just more reasons to go back.

The sound Ex – Palomino

{mosimage}The Sound Ex is a new and very interesting band hailing from Newcastle in U.K. 

If you like classic rock in the best English tradition, you are probably going to love The sound Ex. Good hard rock and excellent work with the instruments for a band that can remind you at some point Thin Lizzy or even Manic Street Preachers, powerful but measured. 

Breathtaking intros like in the third track Loss or in the introductory Enchantment, and great vocal skills make this album a pretty nice surprise. Palomino is an accessible album that can be certainly well received by a wider audience, but at the same time it shows rock with guts and attitude. All in all, a nice exciting work to follow closely the next steps by the English guys. 

Rating 4/5  

Underground Attack – Sleazy Dreams

{mosimage}This young Finnish band formed during this year release their first album trying to find their way into the populated Finnish rock scene. 

Underground Attack is an indie rock band from the capital area of Finland that loves good classic guitar riffs in the best American sleazy tradition. Juhis, Piiska, Sasu and Arska are not afraid of crossing the Finnish boundaries, having gained experience playing in countries like Germany or Russia. What you have here is 12 tracks that compose their first album, and the result is… maybe too amateurish. 

The quality of the sound in the CD could be better, and the artwork of the CD exhales the flavor of an amateur work too (although I must confess I have nothing against the pretty lady naked in the back cover). There are some hints of good quality like in the 5th track Broken Dreams and the guitars sound solid all over the album, but the vocal skills are not the best ones you can listen to lately, and some lyrics could be improved, like for example in the boring and predictable Alienation. 

We are always glad to see new young bands trying to progress in the difficult rock business, but although Underground Attacks shows good manners, they still have a long way to improve in the future. 

Rating 2/5.

Daikini – Salaisuus.

{mosimage}Daikini, aka Lauri Kemppainen and his band offers an original mix of rap and metal in this album. 

I am not specially very fond of rap-metal albums, and before listening to this Salaisuus, I must admit I did not have much expectations. But certainly Daikini has achieved quite a fresh and original sound in a style not so much exploded in Finland. The instruments sound clear and powerful and Lauri´s voice is direct like a good punch to the liver, but not without some charm (it helps if you can understand Finnish language). The combination works pretty well and the 10 tracks turn to be pretty listenable, with some very good tracks like Salaisuus, Tyttö Sinä Tapat Minun Luovuuden or Kaupallinen Itsemurha. 

If you are an old-school metal fan, probably you do even want to take the effort to listen to this one, but if you are the open-minded kind of person who is always hungry to discover new musical experiences, plus you enjoy listening to acid lyrics in Finnish, this album could gladly surprise you. Not a bad effort. 

Rating 3/5

Anssi 8000 & Maria Stereo – Duel

{mosimage}This duel turns into a duet with the collaboration of these 2 musicians in this new extravaganza for your ears. 

The notes of an organ that resembles those old Casio ones we used when were children fluidly fly away from the CD reproducer, introducing the new album of Anssi 8000 in collaboration with Maria Stereo. The guy native from a small village in Finland called Sahalahti can be catalogued of anything but mainstream. He takes care of vocals, guitar, bass and drums while Maria complements with backing vocals organ or playing cymbals.

Duel is a collection of 12 tracks with good doses of humor and irony in the lyrics, but certainly not aimed at all the publics. If you like experimental pop sounds with a twist, you will love this one, but if you are used to some more kind of mainstream pop-rock, this album will certainly sound weird. A record to be tasted slowly and carefully; probably you will need to listen to it several times to appreciate the good details here and there, but certainly after a while the sound becomes catchy.

Not an album to play at a party with friends, but a good one when you need some introspective moments alone in your room enjoying of tracks like I Feel like Surfing, Bad Moon Set or Sleeves of Jesus. 

Rating 3/5.

Electro-pop from the Swedish countryside

{mosimage}Just a few hours before the gig, Johan T. Karlsson chats with journalists and fanswhile having a coffee in Klubi in Tampere. Within a few months, his project Familjen has taken his electronic music from his bedroom to live performances on stages around the world from Iceland to Australia. He still seems truly surprised of his success, even a bit shy about it in a very Scandinavian manner, acting like the kid from the little town going to the big city. And of course, he will not say no to a shot of vodka. "I like Finlandia vodka", Johan says. "That’s what Kent used to drink, so when we toured with them there was always a bottle of Finlandia vodka around". 

 

How do you prepare yourself for the show?

We don’t do anything special, really. What bands use to do, I supposed. We arehaving a party. The main thing is to get in the right mood, just listening to music, drinking and hanging around.

What do you listen to before the show?

Nowadays we are listening to quite a lot of early nineties acid house music.

How do you feel about touring and travelling to different parts of the world?

I am really excited about going to those places. When I was young, my parents did not have much money and we could not afford travelling abroad. Now I finally get to see the world. I don’t really like travelling much, though. You get tired all the time and there is a lot waiting. On the other hand, those are luxury problems. Being in Australia… Iceland… wow, it’s cool!

A fan comes to our table and greets Johan. They have a short conversation in Swedish. “I think the Finnish accent sounds lovely”, he tells me after the fan is gone. 

We were talking about touring, what are your favourite places?

We went to Italy. That was nice. We did some shows in Rome, Bologne, Milano…Beautiful cities, but we didn’t have the time to see much. One and a half hours to see Venice… that’s not much. We jumped into a bus and went around. Soon after that, back to the venue. It is weird. We go all the way, but we don’t have time to see much.

When did you start making music?

I got interested in music thinking about how sounds are created. When I was a kid, I did lots of different kinds of music. I played with samples, drum machines, I helped friends… Later someone would invited me to a project or a band and I would join. Since then I played in different bands and tried different sounds, pop rock, scratch-djing… many different things. But with Familjen Ithink I have found the right form and way to communicate my music. The Familjen project is me. With other bands, you have to struggle and fight for your ideas. No, no… you end up being mad. In Familjen I am the king, I get to decide.

How was the release of the album?

It was a bit unexpected. I had all the songs and a friend of mine that runs a record label in Sweden told me: “I really like the songs. Can I publish them on my label?” I agreed, so we first released an EP and then a full-length album. It went that well. I had no plans at all. People usually come to me and ask me to play. That is really cool, I don’t have to struggle and sell my ideas.

Did you have all the songs of the album ready at that time?

Not all of them. I was writing some of them when the record company decided to release a full length album. They told me: “Ok, we are doing it and we need more songs!” By that time I had done some live gigs, so I had started to understand what works well on the live set. Before that I had just played in my bedroom so most of the songs were instrumental songs and down-tempo. Playing live I realized that I needed some up-tempo songs that had an impact. A good beat, a good bass line. If you get that right, you get a good song.

Did you feel pressure when they ask you for songs?

It was a bit of pressure, but I think I made it. I had some time pressure. I finished the last song the night before we were supposed to master the recording and send it. Probably I need deadlines to make things happen.

Something slightly different about your music is that you sing in your own Swedish dialect

I thought about singing in English, but I chose Swedish in my own accent. I liked the challenge of making it sound good in my own accent. When I moved to Stockholm, sometimes when I was a bar, people would answer me in English. They didn’t understand me. My accent sounds a lot like Danish. I will continue in Swedish. Familjen will always be in Swedish.

The video of Det snurrar is min skalle got very popular and won an award in Sweden. How did it happen?

That’s funny. A guy I did not know at all did the video. He sent me a link to a video for the song. He said he had done this video just because he loved the song. Use it if you like it, he said. I saw it and it was awesome. It was mad. I loved it. That was the day before we were supposed to shoot the actual video for the song. Inmediately I rang the record label and everyone involved and I said we were not shooting the video. We already had it. I think the guy got around 2000 SEK as a reward. People love the video because it is so weird.

Do you have plans for a new album already?

I am working on it. We have been playing a lot in the last eight months and it is hard to get in the mood for writing when you are tired and don’t have much time. But now touring is starting to calm down, so I am getting excited to work on the new album. Hopefully, we will release it in spring. I need new songs because we have played the old songs so many times.

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