New year, new shenanigans.

Have been cleaning up the orchestrations and preparing the tracks while downing red wine and opening presents. Yes, it's the holidays again. Busy busy busy.

Tomorrow it's new years eve and I'm amazed how this album is STILL in production, and that IT IS in fact still in production. Thinking back on the year it's been really rough and tough ride. The highs barely pushed the lows to an acceptable level.

It's bittersweet fun reading up on old journals and production notes as if there would be no force majeure clause in real life, this album would have been completed already. The original plans stuck only in that way that when we finally got somewhere to record and got there in one piece to record, everything went according to plan. Outside of that, everything was batshit crazy and all you could expect was to expect nothing as next week number was as sure as a throw of a dice times another random integer.

If you've missed it, a week before drum sessions were to begin (February), a 17 year old girl set fire to our practice flat and studio (January). I broke my foot trying to escape the flames as I had to jump from the second floor with a already twisted ankle (fell down a staircase a few days before that). That broken foot later healed poorly, and got twisted into a deformed position and developed osteoporosis. This all plus my brain being marinated in painkillers hindered my work pretty effectively the first quarter of 2010. A week after the fire incident, our bass player quits for personal reasons. So drums were recorded in April, when we should have been finishing up guitar and bass recordings, and bass recordings were pushed as far up so we could find a new bassist and have him rehearse all the albums songs for recording plus the old ones for shows. Also, my acoustic guitar got stolen a week after I've recorded the acoustic tracks. Bittersweet luck in a way, meaning, lucky it didn't get stolen before I recorded the tracks...

As I had to engineer, i.e. jump around wiring cables and placing mics with a crutch, it provided pretty much a nifty challenge as using an unexperienced engineer would be more trouble than good, and hiring an engineer costs money we didn't have. Have to pat my back a bit and say that luckily I made such a comprehensive and well done sound plan so I didn't really have to concentrate on technical stuff, just try to get good performances.


But not to moan and rant about our good friends would-ha, could-ha & should-ha, there were also good distractions. As the opportunity to participate was far to big for us to pass on, the Deathstars and Paul DiAnno tours came up by surprise but screwed up some plans. Copenhagen Live gig screwed up our new plans that we made after the arson.

Now, as everything is recorded and I'll start mixing it next month (next year :P), I'm personally amazed how it's still somehow got recorded. As aside from the things I've already listed, to add to the cake all the personal problems like stress, depression, burn outs, money problems and me divorcing my live in wife and mother of my child and moving to a different town broke off my ass and with a shitty leg and things like that didn't really speed up the process.

But as we're tripping down a staircase on memory lane I might as well point out that wading trough shit like that really fueled the concept and artistic side of the whole project. Give some time and a flower might grow out of a pile of shit. The lyrical side really thrived as I wrote the bulk of the albums lyrics during spring/summer of 2010, just during my personally worst period. Even though I developed the lyrical concept and structure from December (2009) onward, like some sort of twisted fortune telling book of life as it really correlated a lot with everything that happened to me in 2010. But with the concept ready, in writing lyrics I just had to fill in the empty blanks. Knowing what every song was going to be about and the experience to express myself better I was surprised how easy it was in the end.

And looking back, taking a relaxed schedule, especially after the fire and all that, was a great, albeit slightly frustrating, move. If we would have just rushed through and tried to run as fast as we could while we were constantly tripped and pushed in the dirt, we'd just have scraped knees and smeared in shit. Frustrating in that sense that we all (the band) live in this "new" Lunar Path, while all of you have just outdated "Broken World" to go by as reference.

Knock on wood, but hopefully this "Finnish Democrazy" is ready next year. On the bright side, if somebody tries to kill us (again :P) and succeeds this time, at least the album is recorded, so someone else can finish it up.

Until then, happy new year and hopefully next year will be better! :D

/Jonas

"Waiter! There's a soup in my dead fly?"

Well well, we meet again for a quick scoop on the latest Lunar Path poop. Yes.

Now there's pretty much nothing left to record soon. Finished off Tuukkas lead guitars last Monday, recorded some backing vox stuff on Tuesday. I've been dicking around with a lot of samples and cheap drum-machines and generally creating weird soundscapes and stuff like that. Played guitar with a bow yesterday, lots and lots of distortion and delay, sounded really weird. Like a demented cello echoing in an asylum.

Now there's really not much left to record. Like, really really. Weird that I can finally say that, soon I can say that everything's recorded. Weird. It's taken a long time to record, not because it's been difficult, quite the contrary, it's probably been the most easiest record to record. Scheduling it has been a nightmare because of all the uncertainties in all of our lives this year. My divorce and leg injury, the fire fucked up our schedules pretty bad, bassist change, everything...

Now we've just have to record some background vocals with Jesse, wait to get the guest stars tracks... and yeah, that's pretty much it.

Then I'll start to compile this monster into mixable sessions. Now it's approx 100-120 tracks per song. Just the basic elements (drums+keyboard+guitar+bass+vocals) is just +80 tracks. Rest is additional instrumentation, efx and various talking samples.

Have to pre-prepare most tracks, do some sub-mixing. Managing that many tracks with a small 2 year old basic mac mini with Pro Tools LE is nearly impossible. Lucky I got the PT extension for this project so I've got some more tracks to use. Not enough tho, but workable, better than the basic track amount in PT LE. But even though if the machine could handle +120 tracks in the same session, my brain could not.

So for now the time schedule is (about);
December
-Wrap up recordings, prepare the (seemingly endless) tracks for final mixing

January
-Final mixing
-One week mixing 4-8h per day, one week listening in different stereos, thinking about the meaning of life and does this bassdrum sound more like a grape or an apple... Then fix mixing and repeat...

February
-Final mixing / Sending off the tracks to be mastered
-Stressing like a mother on her childs first day of school, "bird is flying from the nest" etc. yaddayadda. Until I finally press "send" and off to mastering it goes. Out of the frying pan and into the fire :P

March
-Getting mastered. Get the final master depending on the mastering houses' time schedule and/or queue... I have a couple places in mind but haven't settled on which yet.

Then it's just to twist arms with who will release this monster. Something we've been working on already and a few prospective choices have been added to the thinking cap. But we're still looking for a label to release this!

After it's mastered and done, it's basically out of our hands, depending on the label/distributors release schedule.

So patience... Yet again.

I'd so like to just leak it "whoops" so people would hear it, but I know some people would hang me from my balls if I did that :D

This is the closest I can get, a crappy bootleg of "Thin White Lines";


That gig was actually that songs debut too, btw.

/Jonas

The subtle difference between a smile and a grin depends on what you are thinking of.

Recorded backing vocals and acoustic guitars last week and finished off some loose ends here and there! Now I'm in the process of recording some additional keyboards, some guitar leads here and there, i.e. wrapping up recordings!

My goal is to finish off the recordings this year, so I can begin mixing in January. A lot has already been pre-mixed in stems and is ready to be glued in with the rest. In general the original, unprocessed sounds are 80% what It'll sound like. So mixing shouldn't take that long when the mixing process consists of mainly balancing the instruments and fine tuning sounds.

Did a promo mix and a demo mix of the whole album a few months back. Have got some great feedback from some friends and industry people already. One, whom opinion I have high regards of because his experience and technical knowledge, was amazed how good it sounds.

And I have to admit, with the risk of smelling my own farts here, it does really sound good. The songs and sounds will blow away anything we've done before, easily.


Recorded lead guitar and "crunch" overdub-guitar with a DIY tube amp kit head, UralTone Jr. Very simple, for dummies-, all tube head, with just preamp, two master and a tone controls. Stick a tube screamer in front and a Les Paul and you'll be sailing and wailing all night long on the high seas of searing lead tone.

With that head I'm using an old English FAL 2x12 cab. Really obscure seventies crap. In crap I really mean crap, but it works!

My fucking MXR Distortion+ broke down in the last minute, damn shame, was going to use it for crunch stuff. But the tube screamer does a VERY good job. Really like that pedal even though I'm just using a cheaper tonelok version, that isn't even mine. Borrowed it from Ari, our ex-bass player. Used my Gibson Les Paul Custom for all lead and crunch stuff as usual, it has some amazing sustain and the vintage pickups are just perfect for a singing and smooth textured tone.


After a few weeks I'm off to England again to relax with my honey bunny gf, so we'll try to wrap up recordings as we speak as I'll be returning in mid December and then after that Christmas fucks up our schedules anyways. But there's not much left anymore. Thank science. Some small stuff here and there, Tuukkas and my lead guitars, some additional backing vocals with the guys.

Hasn't been hard to record, the contrary in fact, but it's been a scheduling nightmare. Because of the amount of stuff to record and interference from our own normal life schedules (as we have to have day jobs etc.) and then throw in all the arson stuff, complications with my leg, Janica gets the flu just before scheduled vocal recordings. Force majure stuff basically.

The goal is to record everything before new years, and after that, 1-2 months of mixing, then off to mastering. After mastering, the final release date depends on who's going to release this and their schedule! :P

I'll also start looking into album cover art...

The album has 15 tracks (one intro and one instrumental) and running time is about 61 minutes. Packed with goodies and suprises! :D

/Jonas

Zombies are great girl/boyfriend material as they don't want you for your body, they only want you for your brain.

The studio mixing room has been moved! Had loads of problems with the old mix studio, lots of bass reflex problems and other annoying noise leakage. But now problems solved!

Mixed a promo version a while ago, and have got lots of feedback from industry people and close friends! Looks good!

Even though I'm smelling my own farts here, I just love the new stuff! Have listened to the album already like 3 times a day and don't get tired of it. Usually you get tired of it when you're working on the same songs for a long time, but I've been working on this one for one and a half year already with sound planning etc. paperwork, and listen to recordings and early mix demos since spring, but still no. I like this record very much, it's also very personally important to me. Working on it worked as a mental crutch for me as this year has been seriously shitty for me (arson, no flat, Ari left the band, divorce, etc etc). Of course there's been good stuff too, like getting Jesse into the band, Copenhagen Live 2010, but nothing has worked as good as a mental crutch than this album. To be able to compress and blend in your own feelings and spew them out like that is unique and effective way of therapy.

The whole album concept worked as a sort of device to turn the page in my own life. Pondering on the concept and writing lyrics forced me to re-evaluate my priorities and values in life. Don't know how well that translates to others, but for me it was definitely a cathartic experience writing and producing this record.



I actually have nothing more new or exciting things to say, just thought I'd update it for the heck of it and something. Well. Poppycock. Going to England again after a month. Coming home a few weeks before Christmas. Yep. That will be fun. That's all. Thank you and good night!

/Jonas

The Subtle Art of Sound Manipulation in Controlled Enviroments According to Philosophies of Chuck Norris

Now all the bass is layed down! Got a pretty solid and nice sound from Jesses rig!

Very nice stuff, there's truly a groove going on! Excellent playing! A+ to Jesse!!

Jesse used his five string Sadowsky bass, fingerpicking -> Aguilar DI -> blend in a Ibanez Phat Head -> Aguilar amp head -> Aguilar cab. Four tracks, clean DI (for lows), dirty direct out from the head, Shure SM57 on the cabs tweeter and a Shure PG52 on the speaker. Pretty simple and straightfoward setup and very What-You-Get-Is-WHat-You-Hear approach as usual, i.e. no amp sims or any trickery.

We also used a fretless bass on two songs. One was completely with a fretless, the other one was a small fretless-bass solo overdub. Otherwise it was all about the Sadowsky. Very good bass, the DI signal is straight out of the box perfect. Can imagine you could easily record with just the bass, no amp and it'd be perfect without any eq or trickery! Awesome preamp in the bass!

Now it's just to record the backing vocals, some additional keyboards & guitars, organize and tidy up the orchestral arrangements and then it's just the mix! Got a little bit started on it when I did a 2 song promo demo off two songs.

The tracklist is also 99% ready as is the album title! Spent some time in York, England, where my gf lives. As I was strolling around town, listening to "Fair To Midland", the title popped up in my head. Voilá! Eureka! Carpe diem! Perkele!

I won't tell you what it is yet! :P

Some song names to chew on (of songs we've played live so far); "Thin White Lines", "The One Behind The Mirror", "Promise Me", "Drag Me Down To Hell", "Walls Are Whispering", "Nothing To Regret", "We'll Be There" and more...

Sorry to tease you guys and girls but more info when it's 100% :P

/Jonas

Lemmy Kilmister is God of Rock N Roll and Whatnot or How To Defy The Laws of Tradition In Conjunction with Gravity's Constant Pulling Teeth Scheme

Thought I'd update the blog a tinsy winsy bit since I've been really really busy lately and haven't had the chance to do so for a while.

The lead vocals are recorded. Great stuff. Was a really really tough month (June/August). Recorded the vocals in Porvoo. My day went something like this;

7:30 am - Wake up, drive my kid to kindergarten
8:20 am - Home again, back to sleep
9:00 am - fall asleep
11:00 am - alarmclock wakes you up, snooze
11:30 am - coffee, breakfast
12:00 am - read email, check facebook etc.
1 to 2 pm - go trough last nights lyrics
3 pm - go pick up Janica
4 pm - in Porvoo, pick up food
5 to 6 pm - start recording
8 to 10 pm - best results, "gold time" as we get into the whole production
11 pm - stop recording
12 pm - home again, eat something
1 to 3 am - write new lyrics for songs that's about to be recorded
4 am - try to sleep
repeat

Pretty much 1,5 month of that, every day. Some day's we didn't get much done, some days we got loads done. At the end I started to see daylight hallucinations because of the insomnia that schedule caused to me, but we got those goddamn vocals done!

That's the way I like to work too, it doesn't matter if some days are bad. Working on your own schedule, we can truly concentrate on getting the right emotion and articulation on tape and not just be a slave to the clock.

The lyrics we're done on such short notice because most of the vocal melodies were still under construction when we originally started the recordings. But let's not go into that finger-pointing game :P. The only reason it was possible for me to write the lyrics like that, was because I've worked on the lyrical concept since December 2009 and knew exactly what every song was going to be about. Some even had real song titles before a line of lyrics were written. Just had to gather the words and put the stories into sentences.

The last weeks my Pro Tools 002 started to brake down, constant power harness failure and overheating issues. Shuts itself down randomly. Then we'd have to wait for 15-30 minutes and try to start it up again. Those problems ate up a lot of our schedule too.

And it was hot like hell. Probably the hottest summer, and no AC (because of the noise), small cottage, closed headphones etc. So it was pretty tough :)

From the vocal side, the only thing missing is the harmonies and background vocals in general.

/Jonas

Can I buy A Vovel?

First weekend of vocal recordings done. Total sum is the lead tracks and some double tracking for three songs (demo names; "saiskoollalisaaperunoita", "delausbiisi", "skitbyxa"). And boy am I tired. Holy shit shittery shit shit shitonastick. Stress, heat, constant work is really eating me and melting my brain.

Otherwise everything has went well. The new vocal mic that I bought for the band, Neumann TLM103 is perfect, just precisely what I wanted. Very detailed but still relatively neutral and natural sounding. Didn't want much coloration or other fancy pantsy crap, just a good relatively high end but affordable working and natural mic.

The only problem we've encountered other than the basic human fatigue is overheating gear. No ac once again, and this time it's so bad that my pro tools 002 overheats. In addition, it's a 2004 model with the infamous power harness issue. So the two last days we've had to pause for a half hour, open the top and let the 002 power unit cool down. :S

Today it's my free day so I've been busy editing and preparing the recorded tracks :)

We'll continue vocal recordings for this monster after tomorrow...

For now I'll pop open Spotify and listen to some classic 70-rock. Foghat, Janis, ZZ-Top, Sweet, Jefferson Airplane etc etc and try to relax a bit.

/J

Recording Geetards

Phfew! What a busy summer this has been. Haven't had time to scribble down some drabble of what we've been up to. Well, now I've got a few minutes to run down the heydown of this monster we're creating.

A week after Copenhagen, we moved our gear to the studio and I started to record basic rythm guitars. The studio is deep in the middle of nowhere, so it's a great place to records. All the tranquility around, 200 year old house, perfect atmosphere. But still, it took nearly two weeks to lay down the rythm tracks because of the heat (no AC). My brain started to melt after a 8h work day, so had to take a couple of days off once in a while and work with a lot of rests in between takes. This time I also quad-tracked the guitars, which always takes time.

First week was all Mesa Boogie Double Rectifier (the rack amp I have) with my BC Rich Mockingbird (same guitar/setup you hear all over "Broken World"). The guitar has Rockfield Mafia pickups that kick ass. They truly Kick, Ass. This guitar in general sounds fucking awesome with basically any amp. Don't know if it's just me, just this guitar or what but it rocks.

On the amp, scooped out all the mids and tracked two guitars with this ultra mega heavy as fuck Thudnt-Thudnt sound. Oh the joy, oh the fun. The guitar is in E, so everything is played "normally" with a slow attack and muscular sound. Think of a bodybuilder, strong but slow moving. My point in this, we'll come to that later.

Second week was all about my 7-stringed Les Paul through my Peavey 5150II. The Les Paul is pretty awesome, as I don't care for the usual 7-stringed floating bridge ibanez type bolt neck superstrat fiddle. I'm smelling my own fart here but having a traditional good ol' heavy Les Paul with 7-strings and tune-o-matic bridge, Seymour Duncan '59 and JB is awesome. It also has a kill-pot to chop your sounds alá Buckethead "Jordan" (you know, from the guitar hero game), but haven't gotten around to using that yet.

Anyhooo, the Peaveys settings were pretty much the opposite of the Mesa, with a focus on the middle. Think of a scary, tall, angly guy with a knife. Tracked two tracks of this (left & right).

The point in this is the guitar arrangement. The E-tuned Mockingbird plays everything as one would play, E being the lowest note, to play D you'd have to go higher etc.

The 7-string can go as low as B, so every chord between B and E can go one octave lower than the Mockingbird.

Then the sounds. Mesa Rectifiers have a pretty slow, meaty, dense tone, the middle scoop being their trademark. The Peavey's on the other hand have a more biting, fast attack, middle focused, tight muscular tone.

As the mockingbird in general plays higher chords, it's ok to have a thicker scooped out tone, as the high notes don't muddle up that easy.

Then the 7-string, with it's low chords, muddys up easy, but playing it trough a middle boosted Peavey makes it clear, defined, but muscular and powerful because of the low chords.

So soundwise, Mesa brings the balls and power while the Peavey brings the clarity and detail. Arrangementwise it's just the opposite. Together they fill out eachother nicely to one big sound. Peavey's sound brings what the Mesa don't, and vice versa. And the low stuff doesn't muddy up while the high stuff doesn't sound weak. Then the bass will build up the foundation underneath, going one octave lower. Wall of sound baby :D. If I succeed, the guitar & bass is like a big fat juicy steak with tight and tasty chipotle sauce on top! Mmmm... :)

All rythm guitars we're recorded trough Mesa Boogie Rectifier 4x12 cabs, with a Shure SM57 + Neumann TLM103. For the peavey I'll probably just use the 57, while the Mesa worked well with both mics + a small blending with the "analog cabinet simulation" from the Recto Recording pre.

No stompboxes or effects other than noise gate on both, and a hint of compression on the Mesa through the TC Electronics G-Major (my basic rythm sound aptly named "Paskahousu"). I don't use that much gain too, maybe 14:00 on the Mesa and a 7 on the Peavey, sounds heavier (than an overcompressed, gain on 10, loudness maximized sound) when you use a 1,5mm picks and just beat the shit out of the guitar ;)

For clean guitars, I've used my Tokai Telecaster (with Seymour Duncans) trough my Mesa Boogie Mark III combo. Same mic setup but no cab, just the combos own speaker.

Also, did some random lead parts with my Gibson Les Paul Custom with the Mark III.

On the Mark III, I used MXR Phase90, Artec Resovibe and Vintage Chorus. The Phase90 kicks ass.

Next post will be about vocal recording, as that is what we're up to at the moment. But now I have to eat and get back to work... My pasta is probably cold by now.


PS. I'm now on a waiting list for an operation to straighten my fucked up leg. Walking with a cane at the moment...

"Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride", or A Week Of Fun And Adventures In Legoland

Now this is the story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down. And I’d like to take a minute just sit right there, I’ll tell you how I became the prince of a town called bel-air. Or was it Copenhagen?

Anyways, the gig was at Copenhagen Live 2010. Other artists performing there was Slash, Skunk Anansie, Rammstein, Bullet for my Valentine etc. Great success!


DAY #1 - SUNDAY (Mäntsälä)
Met up at Pete's place to pack our van and the trailer. Took our own backline with us so there was a lot of real-life tetris going on to make everything fit.



DAY #2 - MONDAY
Drive, drive drive. Helsinki, Turku, Stockholm

Early start. This time it was cheaper to go from Turku to Stockholm and on a day cruise, so we had to get be in Turku at 8 am, which is a 2-3 hour drive from Helsinki. Tuukka spent the night at Pete's place with the van and our jam packed trailer.

Most of us didn't sleep Sunday-Monday, so we could sleep on the ship and be able to drive to Copenhagen during the night between Monday-Tuesday. The cruise was filled with senior citizens so we weren't exactly missing any action. Unless that's your thing. But for us there wasn't anything but sleep going on.

Woke up at approx 6-7 pm in Stockholm and took a small tour round downtown. Jesse and Janica met up some local friends, the rest of us wandered around aimlessly, ate some pizza, then later hung out at the van, looking at DVD;s. At midnight Jesse and Janica returned, had some nice vegetarian snacks and started the journey towards Copenhagen.

Pete drove most of the trip, as he wanted to relieve himself of any driving duties on the drive back home.

The drive was pretty much a living artwork, an installation piece, "fragments of sleeping in awkward positions". The chick from the old danish story "Princess and the Pea" would not have enjoyed this ride. Needless to say, when we finally arrived in Copenhagen, all our necks and backs were pretty much fucked up. Jesses and my ass hurt like hell from just sitting. Sitting I hope that is. Never know what these clowns come up with when you sleep.



DAY #3 - TUESDAY
Copenhagen, hotel

Stopped for breakfast at McDonalds. Yummy. I did not partake as the thought of McDonalds wasn't that appealing. Had about 8h left of free time until we could check into the hotel, so we parked our black asses and wandered about aimlessly. I had KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) for the first time and it was really good.

Found a guitar shop where we spent some hours drooling over some fine guitars. Tuukka shredded on some Ibanez, me and Elmeri (our tech) practically moved in to the Gibson booth while Jesse was in awe over a 8-stringed Ibanez guitar. Then a couple of us went to a shop to buy some food to bring back to the hotel.

When we checked into the hotel, we found out that we were the first guests in the hotel, and today was the grand opening of Copenhagens Omena Hotel! Very nice, how much?

Then just basic hanging out shit. Shower. Going out to eat something. Tuukka and Toni (our manager) went to a strip club down the street. Unfortunately for the guys, a strip joint isn't the place to be if your broke. Entry + one beer was 300 Danish krones per person and all you got was a 3 minute memory of a asian stripper saying "hee seeksy maan" and her leaving after you tell her you've got no more money. Not great success.

Meanwhile at the bat cave, the rest of us were chilling out, drinking some beers, taking it easy so we'd be fresh the next morning. Watched our old cult classic clip called "Toiminnanmiehet", as Jesse hadn't seen it yet and it's an old custom to screen it to "new" friends. "Toiminnanmiehet" ("Action Men") is a notorious DVD we made in 2003, documenting our weekends, drinking and other shenanigans. It's always fun to watch, used to screen it at home parties.

Then Jesse, Elmeri and myself went on a small walk around the block to enjoy the soothing air. Had some light snacks and went to sleep. I slept like a baby even though I had the weirdest dreams in sepia of Pete being a terrier with sellery in his mouth.


DAY #4 - WEDNESDAY
Copenhagen, gig!!

Packed our bags in the van and headed out to the festival. People were already lined up outside the gate. But, we had work to do, pretty basic stuff, load out and soundcheck. We were in a bit of a hurry, but everybody's done it before, had hard working local crew and roadies and we had our own backline so it was pretty straight foward and done in maybe one hour. Great sound, great monitoring, great stage, great everything!

Gig starts, and fuck. There's just a whole shitload of people. Very nice, great success! People in the front row were going crazy, jumping around and banging their heads. During the first few songs the crowd came pouring in to the massive festival area. During our show there was approx 6000 people watching. Very nice, as we're used to play club shows with venues that usually holds max 400-800 people.

The gig went really well, had great energy and a good feeling as the sound, crowd, weather, everything was well. Played mostly new songs, the setlist was;

Intro (#3)
Promise Me
Broken World
Paper Dove
The Walls Are Whispering
We Will Be There
Too Late To Say Goodbye
The One Behind The Mirror

Pretty much brand new stuff although "Promise Me" and "The One Behind The Mirror" was in the Deathstars/Di'Anno setlist. The other new ones premiered a week before this at the Pre-Party for CHL2010 in Dantes Highlight in Helsinki. It feels good to finally get to play some more new stuff, as we're really excited about the new stuff.

Noticed some small stuff to fix in the gig intro. After Pete joined the band, we've been using keyboard tracks and intros in shows. This is intro number three, tailored after the new songs. All intros have always been original compositions by me, the first one was a small string piece tied to the set opener at that time "Calling" in 2008-2009. The second one was a more percussive piece made for into "Broken World", used mostly on the late 2009 early 2010 gigs. The second intro is incorporated into the 2010 edition, jewel case version of the "Broken World" EP's title track.

But back to the gig, I enjoyed playing the show even though my leg is still pretty twisted and fucked up. I have a hard time standing up and walk with a cane normally, so standing, moshing and playing the guitar is hard when it's quite a challenge just to stand up straight.

Played so hard on my Gibson custom that I injured my right hand and bled over the hardware. Fuck, that's life, gotta shed some blood for what you love. Pain brings aggression that's good for the gig. You're not playing a mandolin with potato chips, you're playing loud heavy metal with a 12 pound les paul for fucks sake.




After the gig and the load out we proceeded to marinate our brains with beer and enjoy the other acts in the sunlight. Slash played a nice "Greatest Hits of Slash" set with new songs and some classics from GNR and Velvet Revolver etc. Rammstein played a nice set with new songs and a lot of old songs. Surprised me they still play "Du riechst so gut" from the first album. Very nice. Really awesome to play at the same event as these great artists, whom been an inspiration and idol for me for years. Got hooked on Rammstein from the first album, and Slash is the reason I started playing guitar, and still is the sole guitar idol for me. Verry nnice, how much?


DAY #5 - THURSDAY
Shows over, go home.

When the shows were over at midnight, it was time to drive to Stockholm. Pete was pretty inebriated, wrestling with himself in the mud, acting crazy and generally not making any sense. The 8 hour ride to Stockholm took about 12 hours, with a lot of gas station stops etc. I wanted to sleep but couldn't, got woken up pretty much every 15 minutes. Our stage tech Elmeri was a real trooper and drove over 4-5 hours straight.

Stopped to eat lunch at McDonalds (normal people time; breakfast). We named Elmeri, as a "Man of Extremes". If you do not know the guy, he was our stage tech this time and was our live session bassist for the Deathstars/DiAnno tours. He is quite a hard working chameleon with McGyvers can-do-attitude and Chuck Norris work mentality. He's the guy who needs no sleep, lives pretty much on McDonalds food (but still has the physique of a garden hose), family man, can fix anything with anything, can climb any tree, can do miracles with gaffa, can repair anything with a soldering kit. He is a true McGyver and a Man of Extremes.

When we talked about his endless abilities, and ehm, how he could probably make a helicopter out of himself and fly around the room, Elmeri laughed so hard he got some cheeseburger in his lungs and almost chocked himself. It was pretty scary and morbidly funny as we first didn't know if he's fucking with us. But luckily nothing serious happened! It would have been pretty hardcore face-palm way to go; breakfast at McDonalds, laughing so hard at dick-jokes that you choke yourself on a 1€ cheeseburger. Pretty epic, but not in a good way.

Finally, at the cruise ship, which was a over-night cruise this time, we finally got to rest. Some chocolate, toys for the kids and gifts from the tax free store to bring back home, ate some good food, then sleep. Elmeri slept almost the entire cruise, which was no wonder since he'd been awake for over 30 hours at that point.

Soon enough, Pete passed out on his bed. He got his fun on his one-man inebriated stand up comic party where he was the entertainment and the audience on the drive to Stockholm, so now it was our time so we decided to play a small prank on him.

Took some chocolate, warmed it up so it was all sticky and mushy, smeared it on his palm, scattered some chocolate stained toilet paper around his bed, wrote "WRY ME?" in chocolate fingerpaint on his mirror, unzipped his pants and threw the rest of the almost melted liquid chocolate inside his underwear. When he finally woke up the next day to take a piss, hung over, he of course thought he thought he'd gone diarrhea on himself in his sleep. Luckily he took it as a man when he realized he'd been burned.

This leads us to one of our codes of the road, if you pass out from drinking too much, stuff WILL happen to you.


DAY #6 - FRIDAY
Back home

Arrived in Helsinki at sometime before noon. Drove everybody home, made some arrangements for the backline. Good to be home again.


It's funny how we spend one day packing our stuff and 5 days on the road for 30 minutes. Drive with all our instruments and amps all the way from Helsinki to Copenhagen to play for 30 minutes, then drive back home. No or little sleep. Be away from your family and home. Sit in a car, staring at trees passing by for 8-14 hours. Travelling at night. Changing clothes in a parking lot. All for that 30 minutes. Get paid in beer and applaudes. This music business is pretty fucked up and weird, everything is backwards and un-logical. But I love it. That 30 minutes is what's it's all about, what I was made to do and I love it more and more every year. Love it to death.

I leave you now with some selected quotes from Courage Wolf that could relate to this week;

"BRING A FIST TO A GUN FIGHT. WIN."
"EAT POTATOES. PISS VODKA."
"MAKE MISTAKES. BE PROUD OF THEM."
"HIRE STEVIE WONDER. AS YOUR DRIVER."
"DON'T LOCK YOUR DOORS. ACCEPT ALL CHALLENGERS."
"FIND MC HAMMER. TOUCH THIS."
"PLAY RUSSIAN RULETTE ON EXPERT MODE. USE SIX BULLETS."


Goodnight, kiitos ja anteeksi.

/Jonas

LUNAR PATH TO PERFORM ON COPENHAGEN LIVE 2010

We will return to the land of the true vikings to perform on the Copenhagen Live 2010 festival in Denmark. Other bands include Rammstein, Slash, Skunk Anansie, Volbeat, Bullet for my Valentine and many more.

Our set will be right before Slash's set. More info at http://www.copenhagenlive.dk

When The Going Gets Weird, The Weird Turn Pro or How I Learned To Love Broccholi In Five Simple Ways

Yihaa, finally it's confirmed that we'll go to Denmark once again, to play on the Copenhagen Live 2010 festival!

I'm really, really excited, because we're playing our set before Slash. For those who don't know me, Slash is my first and foremost musical idol. He is the guy responsible for me picking up the guitar, and throughout my playing "career" has been the biggest influence on my playing. Even the Gibson Les Paul fetish has rubbed off to me from him.

I first got turned to Guns N' Roses by my big brother when I was five years old. That was "way back" in 1990. Started to listen to GNR full-time when I started to play guitar, and Slash is still my number one guitar hero. The only guitar hero I've ever had actually. His playing style, solos, sound, look, persona, everything is just so... Cool. He's the ultimate rock guitar player.

All the other post 1980 guitar heroes bore me out with their endless stream of pre-practiced scales, technique focused and boring arpeggios that only beg "please look at me" when the riffs should scream and spit "fuck you, i don't give a shit". Well, that's my 2c about that.

Then Rammstein. Faaaak. Almost same thing as Rammstein has been a favorite since Herzeleid came out. They've also been my sc. "sound idols" as their records, especially "Reise Reise" has been a focal point in my sound planning, as I think it's a very good sounding record. The drums are always amazing sounding in Rammsteins records. 2c.

Yappedy yap yap yap. Yes sir I can boogie.

Oh, come to think of that. Now I don't have a cast anymore. But the leg is far from good. Now it's stuck in a crooked position so I can't walk normally. And now I've got osteoporosis in it, so the bone has almost withered to just a old fragile stick. So now I eat old peoples medicine and try to learn to walk. As the foot is in the shape of a propeller, I can only walk on the side of the foot, so it's really hard and painful.

Don't really know if this leg is ever going to work again. Don't have that really high hopes for it. But let's see.

But according to my scientific calculations, if I have a wide rock pose, then my leg is kinda straight, and I might be able to play the gig standing up! Can't move around much but I'll just have to compensate by putting my head and upper body in such a high velocity centrifugal mosh-sling that nobody will notice or care that I don't move around.

Yeppers. And you can take that to the bank, sir.

The point is, to play with my band before my idol, and in the same event as my "sound idol" in a big festival abroad is a huge dream come true! Really excited about it! It'll probably be a fun trip! Lot's of Spinal Tapping and other shenanigans!!



I leave you now with a select collection of classic quotes from "This Is Spinal Tap", quotes that gets more true as years go by;

"Well, I'm sure I'd feel much worse if I weren't under such heavy sedation."
-David St. Hubbins

"May I start by saying how thrilled we are to have you here. We are such fans of your music and all of your records. I'm not speaking of yours personally, but the whole genre of the rock and roll. "
-Lt. Hookstratten

"It's such a fine line between stupid, and clever."
-David St. Hubbins

"It's like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black."
-Nigel Tufnel

"[reading a review of the album 'Shark Sandwich']
The review for "Shark Sandwich" was merely a two word review which simply read 'Shit Sandwich'."
-Marty DiBergi

"[when asked by Marty if he has a creed he lives by] Have... a good time... all the time."
-Viv Savage


Nigel Tufnel is another hero of mine. Not musically tho. It's funny and scary how most musicians can relate to that movie. It's not even funny for some. Sometimes I'm Nigel and Tuukka is David. It all matches so good sometimes.

And every bass players I've known are just like Derek. And we've have had a problem in the past with drummers leaving suddenly, almost spontaniously combusting themselves from the band. Hehe.

But let's leave that discussion for some other time. I've yapped enough, probably too much already :D

/Jonas

Beat the last beat before you're beat, and a homeless Lunar Path!

Today we layed down the last drumtracks for three songs and now the job is done for Pete! Lucky him! Now there's 14 songs with 16 drumtracks waiting to be sorted out.

Did some more experimenting for a low fi drumpart. This time did a stereo mic ambience recording with two Mesa Boogie 4x12 Rectifier cabs. Then a stereo ambience recording with doubletracking and using a bass + tubescreamer on full as a mic. It sounded really really weird, but just what I was looking for! :D

Now I'm going to start cleaning up the drumtracks, cutting out micbleed, fine tuning any overdubs, prepare a preliminary mix of the drums to record everything else with. Next up is Tuukkas guitar!


This is also the last week in our temporary practice flat, this week forward, Lunar Path is homeless, no place to practice. We've already been looking for a couple of months, but most practice flats for rent are either too fancy and way too expensive, or way too small and way too expensive :(

This sucks as we should start rehearsing the new material with Jesse. So if anybody has any tips or knowledge of some relatively cheap and safe storage, garage, practice flat or anything for rent around helsinki/uusimaa, please please contact us! My email is jonas@lunarpath.com

Almost any reasonably priced shed or hut over 15m2 will do, as long as there's a steady temperature and locks on the door. Best feature is if there's no known pyromaniacs in the area.

Yeppers... see you later, alligator.

"What about this one?"

Layed down two tracks today. The second one was particulary hard, since it was a very complicated song that we haven't ever played together as a band. So it took twice the time it normally would, but it ended up great if I may say so myself!

Did some experimenting also. Connected a Mesa 4x12 rectifier cabs input into a mic preamp and used that as a microphone to record some low fi drums. Also used a piezo, taped to a half-empty Jack Daniels bottle to create this weird resonating microphone. Then connected my Schecter half-acoustic guitar to a Ibanez tubescreamer (knobs on full) -> morley wah and used that as a microphone. It ended up sounding really, really weird, but cool and just what I was looking for!

Then I recorded some percussion stuff on my crutches, the Jack Daniels bottle and the studio sofa.

Now there's only 3 songs left without drums and we're hoping to get them recorded tomorrow!

Can't wait to get this stuff out, It'll be really interesting to se how people will react to some of the new material.

There's a lot of weird time changes in some of these new songs. 5/4, 7/8, 7/4, 6/8, switching between straight and triplets etc. One song got a small polyrythmic sequence. And ofcourse the usual 4/4 but with an exotic rythm and the beat changing directions back and forth. Make me wonder what the hell I've been up to this last year when this kind of stuff emerges from the bottom of my imagination. But still, it's not math-metal or any of that typical technical prog showboating, the "prog" stuff just sounds kind of volatile, unpredictable and at times kind of "note-to-self-your-friends-are-getting-worried-about-you-so-act-normal"-feel.

In all I think it's going to be a very diverse record and hoping that you people will enjoy it. It's got a shitload of new stuff, A LOT of experimenting sound- and music-wise and the song themselves offer a rollercoaster ride of the whole emotional spectrum. The lyrics will also play a more important part in creating a central theme, rather than just slapping together a pretty basket of "oh baby"'s and "oh yeah yeah yeah"'s.

But better put a lid on it for now, so I don't sound like too much of an ass, building up too much expectations in one way or another.

It's going to be fun to release this and to hear what people say, can't wait!! :D

/J

"No-no, play it like; babum bap bodobom swicssh pischh"

Three days behind, drumtracks to nine songs in the "can" so to speak.

The recordings have gone well, no technical problems or such so far. Had some problems with my right ear one day, but luckily the sounds were checked before and it didn't affect tracking. Besides, "Pet Sounds" was tracked and mixed in mono and with only one ear :P

It's been tough tho, really tiring. Long hours, about 8-10h per day of meticulous tracking, bad sleep, eating junk, sometimes forgetting to eat. Me going "Hmm... the fill that's between the second bridge and chorus, that first snare hit sounded a little weak, it wasn't muscular PAM but a piAMh, let's do it again" x 100. But in the end it's worth being a little anal in this stage. Rather that than realizing later you've passed some poor takes though that's going to take three-four hours to fix into a sort-of-ok take, or just redo the take and have it all over in 5 minutes. Or worse, pass a shitty take and in the mixing stage realize it's unfixable. But listening so intense is tough, when the day is done, your brains is just mush and you hardly know your own name.

Some songs have got last minute changes eventhough we've done a very extensive pre-production. But it's just some things that won't even come to mind when the song is fresh and you're working on it intensively. These things suddenly comes to mind when you've let the song grow on it's own for a while. Two tracks got improved so much that all of the drumpatterns got changed, and by that one songs status was improved from "possible bonus" to the same status as all the other songs. No song is ever 100% "done", if someone claims it is, then he/she's lying. But as long as you realize when it's done enough, it's good to let the song live, not to rush to the studio soon after the song is done. Depends on the genre of course.

Did some small experimenting yesterday. In one song, a drumpart is supposed to have a low-fi sound, so I taped a piezo microphone on a juicebox and used it as a mic to get a boxy, weird ambient sound. Then I plugged my half acoustic Schecter guitar into a mic preamp with the gain turned way up, turned the humbuckers and piezo on full on the guitar, and used it as a second mic to the juice box. It sounded really, really interesting. :)

But now there's only five songs left. We'll continue today and probably tomorrow. We're expecting to get all the drumtracks ready by tomorrow, as the pace have been so far about 3 songs per day.

Then I'll start to sort out and prepare the drumtracks. I always gate by hand, so there's a lot of work cleaning up the tracks. I've still got a cast on my foot, I might get rid of it in early May, so I'm trying to leave my own guitars until then. When I record guitars I want the freedom to be able to do it myself, to be able to concentrate and experiment with different amps, settings, effects, feedback stuff etc without someone breathing behind my neck.

When the drums are ready, the next thing would probably be Tuukkas guitar or Jesses bass. The only problem there is to find a place to record, as we can't continue in the same place as where the drums were recorded. I always want to record real amps, it's actually harder for me to find good sounds on POD;s, emulators, whatever etc. So normally, we've recorded guitars and bass on our practice flat, but now we don't have one :S
Three days behind, drumtracks to nine songs in the "can" so to speak.

The recordings have gone well, no technical problems or such so far. Had some problems with my right ear one day, but luckily the sounds were checked before and it didn't affect tracking. Besides, "Pet Sounds" was tracked and mixed in mono and with only one ear :P

It's been tough tho, really tiring. Long hours, about 8-10h per day of meticulous tracking, bad sleep, eating junk, sometimes forgetting to eat. Me going "Hmm... the fill that's between the second bridge and chorus, that first snare hit sounded a little weak, it wasn't muscular PAM but a piAMh, let's do it again" x 100. But in the end it's worth being a little anal in this stage. Rather that than realizing later you've passed some poor takes though that's going to take three-four hours to fix into a sort-of-ok take, or just redo the take and have it all over in 5 minutes. Or worse, pass a shitty take and in the mixing stage realize it's unfixable.

Some songs have got last minute changes eventhough we've done a very extensive pre-production. But it's just some things that won't even come to mind when the song is fresh and you're working on it intensively. These things suddenly comes to mind when you've let the song grow on it's own for a while. Two tracks got improved so much that all of the drumpatterns got changed, and by that one songs status was improved from "possible bonus" to the same status as all the other songs.

No song is ever 100% "done", if someone claims it that, then he/she's lying/in denial. But as long as you realize when it's done enough, it's good to let the song live, not to rush to the studio soon after the song is done. Depends on the genre of course.

Did some small sound experimenting yesterday. In one song, a drumpart is supposed to have a low-fi sound, so I taped a piezo microphone on a juicebox and used it as a mic to get a boxy, weird ambient sound. Then I plugged my half acoustic Schecter guitar into a mic preamp with the gain turned way up, turned the humbuckers and piezo on full on the guitar, and used it as a second mic to the juice box. It sounded really, really interesting. I'll probably do more of this stuff on one song that we'll record today or tomorrow :)

But now there's only five songs left. Decided to take today off, so we'll continue tomorrow. We're expecting to get all the drumtracks ready by tuesday, as the pace so far been around 3 songs per day.

Then I'll start to sort out and prepare the drumtracks. I always gate by hand, so there's a lot of work cleaning up the tracks. I've still got a cast on my foot, I might get rid of it in early May, so I'm trying to leave my own guitars until then. When I record guitars I want the freedom to be able to do it myself, to be able to concentrate and experiment with different amps, settings, effects, feedback stuff etc without someone breathing behind my neck.

When the drums are ready, the next thing would probably be Tuukkas guitar or Jesses bass...

Fräss-tätätätä-fräss-tätätätä-pischhh

DEBUT ALBUM RECORDINGS KICKED OFF TODAY!

We've proud to announce that we have started to record our debut album! As usual, we're beginning with drums. Today was the first day at the studio, setting up Pete's drums, micing and soundchecking them. Tomorrow we'll start to record!

We're all very excited about this new album. It will be more metal, volatile, personal and stronger than anything we've ever done before. There's a whole lot of new stuff that we've been experimenting with, both soundwise and musically. The band has been really exited about the new stuff and can't wait to get it out there to everybody!

We'll record 14 songs of which 12-13 will end up on the album and as usual, Jonas will record and produce. The tracklist consists solely on all new material! More info as the project progresses, so check back! We'll also try to keep a journal in our blog about the recordings!

Finally the Phoenix will rise from the ashes

^ New album in the works!

YIHAA!

Aah, feels good to say that. Yes, we're finally got over the treshold and started to record our first debut album! I actually wrote a silmilar new story four months ago, put it aside and meant to release it during the first week of February. But then somebody tried to kill us and the other neighbour bands that we're practicing in the same building. I wish I could say "well, that sort of things happens", but hmm.. well, actually, it does.

So this project has actually been in the works for a while, as the preproductions were done last fall and the recordings were slated to begin in the first week of February this year. But as you may know, fate intervened a week before the recordings were scheduled to start. In the midst of practicing our new songs, a teenager on a hissy-fit tried to kill everybody in the building where our practice flat was, lit the first floor on fire and we had to save ourselves by jumping out the second floor window of our practice flat. Jonas broke his foot pretty badly because he already had a twisted ankle from before.

This meant we lost our rehersal space, our cheif recording engineer had a busted foot and shortly after the fire incident, our bass player left the group. Needless to say, all the plans for the record went to shits. As there wasn't much time to patch up our combuste plans, we decided to put it on hold and concentrate on the tours.

Now the phoenix has risen from the ashes. New bass player and today was the first day at the studio. A lot of the mics and the gear we record with was held in our old practice flat and were transported to different temporary storages after the fire incident. So we headed out with Pete to Porvoo and Espoo to fetch the stuff that we needed. Then we headed to the studio and started to set up, replace the skins on Petes drums and tune them. Tuned them half step lower than before.

It was kind of creepy as some of the gear reaked of ash and smoke. The smell was aweful and almost traumatic. Luckily the gear worked ok and it was smooth sailing technically. Had done extensive sound planning already last summer/fall, mic up accordingly, connect everything, fine tune the mic placements, sound check, fine tune placements some more until satisfactory. Got everything sounding like it should, very true to it's source, which is nice, I'm not a big fan of sample replacements, amp emulators or any that kind of crap.

The new gear I got for these sessions worked excellent and just like it should. Very happy with them!

Tomorrow we're beginning to record this behemoth. It will be excellent.

Now South Park and some food. Be excellent to each other. Peace.

/Jonas

NEW ADDITION TO THE FAMILY; LUNAR PATH'S NEW BASS-PLAYER; JESSE MÄLÄSKÄ!

Finally get to write some "real" news to this blog and not just mindless bs;


"NEW ADDITION TO THE FAMILY; LUNAR PATH'S NEW BASS-PLAYER; JESSE MÄLÄSKÄ!



We were surprised how many applied when we started the search for a new bass player. Many good players applied, so the choice was hard.

But after after careful consideration, Jesse Mäläskä stood out among all others, fitting our description perfectly! He sealed the deal in yesterdays jam/rehersals, so we're proud to announce Jesse as Lunar Path's new bass player!

Jesse has played bass for almost a decade in various heavy metal bands, for example Fatal Sound Project and is currently studying a degree in bass pedagogue.

He's a very talented and motivated guy, so were all eager to see what change this new sound will bring to our new songs!

More info on Jesse on our Members page

A big thank you to everybody who applied!

And an even bigger thank you to our very good friend Elmeri for filling out the low end rumble on the Deathstars and Paul Di'Anno support tours!"

Destroying Oulu or How To Smash Bananas In The Wall

@ Oulu, Nuclear Nightclub

"It was a dusty old night
and I'm the first to admit it
I am sure i upset someone
But my memory has chosen to omit it"
-"One Way Ticket", The Darkness


Last day on this tour, and last gig for a while for us. The venue was small, but amazing! Like Trollhättans Backstage Rock Bar, this was another small venue, but run by musician and people who really care about live shows and bands. The backstage was ready when we came, was told that if we drink up all the booze, they'll bring more. Excellent! Everything run very smoothly. As a bonus rock n roll street cred +1, our backstage shared the same corridor with a strip bars' backstage, so half naked russian strippers were walking in and out. Free, unlimited amounts of booze, russian/estonian strippers, sauna, what perfect ingredients to make a perfect last gig! End the tour with all guns blazing!

As accustom for last gigs on tours, we had to pull some shenanigans, as they would for sure pull some on us. We brainstormed for quite a while, it was hard! Elmeri, who has a unique taste in pranks, was first in the "let's piss in their drinks!"/"let's piss in the fruit bowl!" department. After we calmed him down and reassured him that we don't want to endanger anyone's health, we settled on more mild, funny stuff.

Di'Annos band pulled a few pranks, shouted "last call to Copenhagen" and a few heavy metal screams on our monitors. Then Johan (the drummer) and Rasmus (the guitarist) came on stage with snacks and drinks and started to feed us. I was playing a guitar soolo, and Johan poured tequila shots down my throat. Then Rasmus fed me some chips, while Johan peeled and fed some clementines to Pete. Johan had stuck a banana in his zipper, resembling a penis, parading around the stage with his fruity phallus. Then Janica bit off the head of the banana, castrating him. It was hilarious!

Right before "Now I Know", the electricity to my pedal board went out, same problem like in Vaasa. Tried to fix it quickly between songs, almost missing the cue for the song!

Then halfway trough the song, I blew a fuse in my Peavey amp and the whole thing went dead. Continued to play the song, although there was no sound coming from my amp. As I'm quite bound to my chair and crutches, I signaled help to Elmeri, who is quite a MacGyver. To fill the gap, I forced Pete to do a drum solo. Elmeri got a new fuse from the backstage and got the 5150 running again. Pete was sweating bullets with his impromptu drum solo, but did well! The show continued...

In the last song, one of the new ones, "The One Behind The Mirror", I broke my low B string on my 7-string les paul. After the technical difficulties, shenanigans etc. I could do nothing but laugh! I ripped the string off the fretboard and transposed on the fly. When the song ended, I have usually played a small part of the "I Am The Black Wizards" riff from Emperor, but now I just ripped off all the strings. Figured, if the low B string brakes, why not brake them all off. Fuck! Venom! Blaurgh!

It was a great gig, had loads of fun, even though the tech side was going ape shit.

Went up on stage with Di'Anno on "Running Free" and they sang it as a duo. Pete was playing "cymbals" for Johan. It was fun. Everybody was running up and down the stage and joining in on the fun. I was watching from the back of the stage, with a 30 something scantily clad russian stripper dry-humping my crutches. Crutches, not crotches! Talk about bat country, man.

Here's a video of the song:


Then they played the last song, a cover of Ramones "Blitzkrieg Bop". I found a mic on stage and did some growling vocals for that song. Too bad I couldn't go onstage with my crutches (so small stage full with people and cables on the floor).

Then the afterparty... Start out with a quote from one of my favorite movie;;
"I was right in the middle of a fucking reptile zoo, and somebody was giving booze to these goddamn things."
-Raoul Duke


Di'Annos tour manager David brought in some fans to meet and greet Paul, the rest of us were partying. Tuukka chased some strippers down the hall. People were throwing clementines and smashing bananas in the wall. One clementine hit Gayvid in the balls, he wasn't too pleased with that. Especially, when everybody had been ripping on him the last week. Everybody calling him Gayvid, even Paul shouting "GAYVIID!!" whenever he needed something. Poor Gayvid.

Scribbled some shit on the backstage wall. Elmeri wrote "Gayvid was here - 20.3.2010". Btw, Gayvid scared off the russian stripper that Tuukka had lured into our liquor marinated reptile zoo.

Proceeded to our hotel, Rasmus and Johan brought some long drinks to our room and continued the party. I must say that I don't remember much of what happened in the hotel room. I'm amazed that I survived and didn't fall once. Or suddenly realize that "hey, my foot doesn't hurt anymore, I can walk ok!" and then be in a world of pain the next day. That happened to me a few years ago when I broke my leg. It's amazing how much bourbons and whiskey can numb any pain!

Woke up today at 10 am, still drunk and no memory. Jeesch. Fun to ride in a car for 8-10 hours drive back to Helsinki from Oulu, hung over.

Had a nice run! My warmest thanks to Elmeri, for standing in as our bass player! And a big thanks to Toni, Susi and most important, Paul Di'Anno and his band of bandits! It was a great tour, had loads of fun! Hopefully we'll see you next time!

I'll post some pictures whenever I get my shit together at home...

Now I will pull the curtains on my world, exit stage left and sleep for a couple of days...

Nuu Ska Vi Skåda På Hårdrokk.

@ Vaasa, Club Garage

The venue was really cool. The hotel, restaurant and the club were all in the same building! Had really nice hotel rooms that our boss-guy Thomas had arranged for us!

Had a warm up act this time. I think they called themselves Metaphor? They seemed a little shy and new to the stage, but nevertheless rocked well. Good luck to them! At least they had good rock n roll spirit, after the gig they all got really, really wasted. The singer pissed on the clubs' wall, got dragged out in a headlock and thrown out by the bouncer.

The gig was pretty standard stuff again, exept for some weird ghosts in the machines. First of all, the fluorescent light caused some serious buzzing to my guitar, so we had to do the check with the stage lights on. Tuukkas wireless unit was colliding with some other wireless unit, so he had to skip it and use a wire instead.

Then during the gig, the power went out randomly on my pedal board, the mic switch on my guitar wasn't functioning very well, Janica almost stepped on my cast while she was running around the stage, Tuukka blew a fuse in his poweramp etc. But the gig went well still, luckily Tuukkas power amp has two channels, so the show continued almost seamlessly. I just had to kick around my pedals and flick the mic switch a bit extra if they started to fuck with me. So no serious problems.

Janica went Spinal Tap on us once again. She welcomed the audience with "Hello Oulu!" and started chanting "Oulu! Oulu! Oulu!", trying to get the crowd in with the chant. The only problem is that we were in Vaasa. This same thing happened in Tampere too, on the Deathstars tour. "Hello Turku!!" and the audience is confused and thinks we're fucking with them. Heheh, funny.

After the show, we took our yesterdays backstage booty to our hotel cabins, drank long drinks and watched Team America. It was a good day in Oulu... ehm... Vaasa.

Fear and Loathing In Porvoo

@ Porvoo Amarillo/BePop

As usual when we play in Porvoo, some things are always pretty "häää". This time there were some weird railings in front of the stage, blocking my view completely (as I have to sit and play). Exchange some token bullshit with the cream of the crop/the mr vip, fake smiles and phony words, blaah, hate that. But also got to talk to some old friends, blaah blaah blaah... where's the beer? Otherwise pretty nice, lots of drinks and good food in the backstage.

The gig went well, basic gig. It was way too loud in the PA tho, many complained that it was so loud that it was a few decibels from ear bleeding sonic massacre. Yeah rock n roll jadda jadda jadda öörgh, blastbeat, venom, /../, but if you can't enjoy what you're listening to, then well it sucks for the crowd and nobody want's to come closer to the stage, as they're already suffering 10m away... But stuff like that happens when there's a different sound guy at every venue. Sometimes it's low like some fröbelin palikat show, sometimes your ears are bleeding. Fuck, we should get our own FOH guy. Like everything, the only thing stopping us is money. Fuck. I hate money, the lack of it ruins a lot of fun. Hmpfh... Buuuuut... whatchagonna doo when they kanttoo youu?

The "afterparty" turned into a miniature Fear and Loathing in Porvoo on my part. The floor was very bouncy and little green men running around biting my ass. I think my blood sugar level was low. Or I had some bad fish. Damn those rotten fishes, always ruining everybodys good time.

It was great fun tho. Don't try that at home, kids.

Rolling On The Rocks

@ On The Rocks, Helsinki

Woke up at home yesterday for a change. Load in at On The Rocks went well, soundcheck went well, gig went well. The sound guy was in a very pissy mood at first at DiAnnos band, but we tried to get everything running smoothly, so he was pretty calm with us. Nice to have Toni with us again, he was with Bibelblack and some other bands while we were in Sweden.

Plää plöö. 

Drove to Porvoo after the gig, Elmeri and I crashed at Tuukkas palce. Other than that I can't actually come up with anything. Total blackout. Writers block. Nothing. Kiitos ja anteeksi.

"Uh."

Elmeri forced me to enter this word, "kuk". He's been repeating that since Sweden. Tuukka started it, and Elmeri carried the torch of "kuk" with Pete trough scandinavia.

Wow. It's amazing what drinking beer for breakfast and calmly watching Saturday Night Fever in your undies at Tuukkas place does to you. The fart polluted air in Tuukkas apartment, the week of waiting and this current city should be enough to numb anyones senses, then add this, and all in all it's like a neutron bomb to your mind. 

Yet again, it makes me wonder, how this is a very peculiar profession one has chosen for oneself. There's only beer to drink at venues, if you want something else you'd probably got to buy it. End result, beer beer beer all the time. But at the same time it's not the "friday night let's get let's get let's get fuuuucked"-drinkin. At the same time this touring it's as real as work as anything, moving the backline, working the tech, performing, sweating like a pig. The only difference to a 9-5 job is the working hours and circumbstances, they're just really fucked up in the music business. But still, it somehow is all worth it, atleast more than a 9-5 job. The 30-45 minutes per night is what we live for.

But in the end, beer and good company makes the endless waiting tolerable. And with a small buzz, makes moving around with crutches a lot easier since it dampens my fear of falling down = I don't fall down so often. Heh. So fuck it, I'll stop this pseudo philosophy crap, it's twelve o' clock somewhere...?

Tonight Porvoo. 

To quote a wise man:
Those of us that had been up all night were in no mood for coffee and donuts, we wanted strong drink. We were, after all, the absolute cream of the national sporting press.
-Raoul Duke

/Jonas Priest

"Eilen Juotiin Hilpeenä Kaljaa, Tänään Istutaan Kalpeena Hiljaa"

@ home, one day off

Arrived to Finland today. Next stop is tomorrow in Helsinki, so we got to go home to rest our bones for this evening... Finally get some internet, weird how wi-fi is very rare in Sweden, apparently = no chance to update this blog in real time. Scribble this drivel offline, and then have to shoot em up online... at some time?!!

Finally get to eat good old home made food. You get really tired of MC Donnellz and other fast food when you eat it every day for a week.

Rundown of the Sweden/Denmark leg of the tour:
-Jonas and Elmeri got tattoos
-Watched "Armageddon", "Borat", "Signs" and "300" on the cars DVD video system
-Signed about 13 autographs and gave a few picks
-Sold so much EP;s that were able to pay the gas to our car with the profit
-One completely sold out show, all in all very good attendance on every gig
-Had a big dog in the audience in Stockholm
-Got some nice gig pictures in Trollhättan by a cool photographer
-Tuukka lost his shoe
-Janica lost her phone (but got it back)
-Maybe 2-3 hours of sleep every night, no sleep at all from Copenhagen to Stockholm
-Broken one bed

I'm pretty tired, but that's all I can remember. All in all good stuff. Will update with more pictures, but forgot my blackberrys usb cable in the van! So check back!

Tomorrow we continue this same chocolate train trough Finland! Next stop @ On The Rocks, Helsinki

"The question is not so much where we are as when we are. "

/Jonas Priest

Sailing On A Breeze Over the Seas of Cheese With Ease

@ Stockholm + boatride to Finland

We drove all night, right after the Copenhagen gig, to Stockholm. Everybody was really tired and hence everything was really funny. Everybody slept maybe an half and hour approx, so needless to say, the jokes weren't that smart, but indeed funny at the time.

I lost count, but we shouted "KUK!" probably a million times during the trip. To easily communicate our apparent road rage to our fellow commuters, we did a small sign that read "KUK!". It came in very handy when we got stuck in Stockholm during rush hour.

When we'd stop to eat at MC Donnellz', Tuukka noticed that he'd apparently lost his other shoe. How does one loose a size 47 (uk/us size 14) big New Rock boot with bright red flame ornaments? Easy, don't sleep for a couple of days and keep your boot leaning towards the door, so if anyone stops for a piss, it'll drop out from the van. We concluded the boot is probably somewhere 400 km away where we stopped for a piss. Shit happens, I lost my winter jacket on the Deathstars tour a month earlier...

Ironically Janica got her phone back (oh yeah, she lost it in Öresund) and then we headed for downtown Stockholm to buy new shoes to Tuukka and to wander around aimlessly. Took us 3 hours to find a parking spot. Went to Södra Malm or something like that, found a nice pizza place there where we stopped to eat. Then Elmeri got some ink done, three doves flying around an old tattoo he had on his arm. Very cool!

After not sleeping for two days, everybody passed out when we got to our cabins at the boat/ferry/whatever. After a few hours of sleep, the "guinea pig sneezed" (marsu aivasti, "tsship! glug glug... aah.") and helped ourselves to some liquids we found at the tax free shop. After a few hours of drunken philosophical debates in our cabin, we went to the boats nightclub. There were mostly old people, and I mean very, very old people, shy businessmen sipping on a drink alone, horny old drunken swedish men and a few drunken and flamboyant hags looking for cock... i mean company. Regular Stockholm-Helsinki ferry stuff actually.

"Chalk up another victory to the human spirit. "

/Jonas

Towards the sunrise!

Fu**ing bed buggs ate on me in Stockholm.

So the gig in Trollhättan was a success! The venue was a small bar with a lot of attitude, a great crowd and an awesome staff. In fact the place was so nice, so Sven (Tuukka) decided to help out with the cleaning afterwards, which lead to a serious ammount of questions about Svens possible insanity. The staff even asked if they needed to pay him for the job done.

The following morning we started our 5h drive from Trollhättan to Copenhagen. The plan was to check in at a hotell in Helsingborg, but when we came there no one was there. We called and they sayd they would come and open, which they eventually did, but by that time we had given up, and continued on our journey. The bridge between Sweden and Denmark was shorter than I had imagined. We were over it in just a couple of minutes and in Copenhagen.

Copenhagen seemed like a really nice city, kind of like a blend of Helsinki and Oslo, With the cosyness of Hki and all the nice looking buildings of Oslo. We kalled the management which hooked us up with a new hotel in CH which they did in a blink. The venue was really nice here, and the sound was spectacluare. We really enjoyed playing, though there wasn't that much crowd.

After the show we came to the conclusion that we would have about 5h time to sleep before we had to start driving back to Stockholm again. It felt kind of unessesairy to pay for hotel rooms for such a short time, so we hit the road again.

It's now 6.35am local time, and we have about 200km left to drive. In a couple of hours moore we've left about a thousand kilometers behind us in less than 24h. So with the suns first light hitting our faces and the theeme of MacGyver blasting from the speekers we bid Denmark and Sweden (and possibly out real names too) a kind farewell and leave with a promise of a reunion in the near future. Thank you and goodnight!

- Gun.. Janica

Kamelåså?Ööö... spisnegr? Jaa! Oo jaa kamelåså!

The Rock @ Copenhagen, Denmark

The Danish venue was very cool. Old building with tarred stairways up and down, which looked cool, but very uncomfortable for me and my crutches. Nevertheless, cool place, and very, very professional FOH guy! The sound check was over in a couple of minutes, didn't need to explain anything or take any crap. Everything worked right off the bat and the sound was awesome!

Had our own backstage this time, ours was an old dungeon. Having an own backstage is very very important to me, because usually I like to take it easy, wipe the sweat off, grab a cold one and enjoy the silence for a moment. This time, as the place was reminiscent of a snakes and ladders game for a cripple, I took a well deserved nap before and after the gig. Not so rock n roll but fuck, it does take a toll on oneself, moving around in different venues, hotels, cars, shows etc etc for nearly a week with crutches and only one working leg.

The gig itself went great! The attendance was very low comparing to the Sweden gigs, mainly because there were a bigger show a couple of blocks away, and well, it was sunday. But the ones that was watching seemed to enjoy themselves. Somebody from the audience said after the gig that this was the best gig that she's seen in three years! Nice!

Even though I only saw Denmark from the inside of a car and a venue, I fell in love with Copenhagen. Beautiful city, cool people and great culture! We must definitely come back some time even though I can't understand shit of the Danish language! Kamelåså!

Oh shit, I just ordered 1000 liters of milk... :S

/Jonas (artist formerly known in Sweden as Håkan)

A Faint Breeze of Cheese

Backstage Rockbar @ Trollhättan

Last night was awesome! The venue was probably the best venue for us that we´ve ever played although the stage was minimal. Open bar, awesome food and exceptionally great staff and service! Can't thank you enough Backstage Rockbar in Trollhättan!!!

The place was sold out and filled to the rims with drunken metalheads. The pressure in the front row was so hard, that the FOH had to repeditively urge the crowd to take one step back. One guy passed out and was squeezed out on front of the stage. DiAnnos drummer went to help people, handing out waterbottles to those in the front row! Very cool of him!

The gig went very well, and man, it was hot on stage! A very very small place packed with about 200 people and your banging your head in a corner, it´s bound to get salty afterwards. And that it did. But luckily, with an open bar for the band, there were more than plenty ways to cool one self down.

The hotel had wi-fi, so I finally got to go on FaceBook and update this blog with yesterdays blog. Although it was late late late in the night/morning (6 AM) when we finally got to the hotel... :)

Over and out, now denmark... ->

/Håkan (aka Jonas)

(pics coming later, forgot my blackberry's usb cord in the van)

This Is Lunar Path – A Rockumentary

@ The Cave, Stockholm

Arrived in Stockholm at 12 am. The idea was that we’d leave early for Stockholm, have time to wonder around the capital for sightseeing and shopping. My back started to hurt and my left foot started to cramp pretty bad after a walking around with crutches a couple of kilometres so I had to sit down for a while and let my bulgioning, veiny and manly muscles recover for a while. First thought was to catch some dinner somewhere, but then it occurred to me, "Fuck, let’s get a tattoo". And so I did. About and hour later, I’ve got an all black, wireframe, graphic style tattoo of the Lunar Path symbol on my left arm. Veerry nniice, jagshemash.

As the Di’Anno crew apparently had a hard time keeping up with schedules, and they’d had some problems with their trip today too, so we deliberately arrived a bit late to the venue. Well, still we were the first on the scene, again. They finally arrive, about 4-5 hours late. The regular house tech wasn’t available and the stand in was "some" guy that apparently wasn’t so familiar with the tech side of the PA. Ok. Di’Anno’s band got their gear hooked up and then they waited an hour before the soundcheck could start. Why I do not know, my theory is that the FOH guy was probably in the backroom reading the manual for the mixing console.

Doors were open when Di’Anno’s band started their check. We had a small audience when we did our check, I think the time was around nine pm, doors opened at seven.

The main reason why a band would like to soundcheck in their own privacy is to prevent confusion for the audience. For example, now when we had to check with the venue open, a few of the audence members came up to us after the check, asked for autographs and congratulated us on a nice gig. They probably thought that they catched the end part of the show or something. On the bright side, more bang for your buck if you can see the same bands do two sets, and if that works for them, then great!

Everything was sort of ok, The FOH didn´t apparently know or the logic to learn the basic hand gestures for soundcheck, monitor levels etc.. "Vad är det som er gitarrist vill?"... So we basically had to stop the song every time to adjust monitor levels. Well, fuck that, it´s like that sometimes. Check ended, everything was sort of acceptable, monitors and their balance were shit but thats ok, nothing unusual. Then waiting...

But the fun didn´t stop there. Pete´s tooth went to shits and got inflamed, no antibiotics around. Mild painkillers, beer and a whole lot of traditional Finnish sisu (spirit, not the drops). We didn´t have a backstage or any storage room, so we had to keep our stuff in the corners of the venue. Yay.

Then showtime. I plugged in my guitar, did a last minute test line check and the signal was dead. It sounded like someone was farting faintly in the other room over a telephone. Nothing. The intro tape was already at full blast. As a last resort, also to check if it was the amps fault, I plugged the guitar direct to my amp, bypassing all the effects, it worked. Then challenge #2. I play live with a Peavey 5150II, and for those who don´t know, they´re fucking awesome, but very prone to feedback slightly noisy. Now my gate, tuner etc was bypassed, so we were riding bareback. So to prevent a delightful CHUGG CHUGG -HWEEE CHUGG CHUGG HWEEE, feedbacking at every stop, I had to do some volume trickery during the whole show, turning the volume up and down. Very distracting. And I could´t tune up either, so I just had to rely on my sevenstring that it would stay in tune. Luckily I beat the shit out of my guitar playing live so it´ll probably stay in tune just fine. Hehehe., That´s irony, eventhought it actually did stay in tune perfectly!

Then my amps channel switch slided slightly out of reach for me (as my foot is broken, I sit and play), and I had a hard time switching channels. My guitar mic switch was fucking with me also, sometimes cutting the volume in half. Elmeri stepped on my cord a couple of times, knocking the jack out of the amp.

Halfway through the show, Elmeri´s bass poweramp died. Luckily the signal went also straight to the PA, so the stage volume was the only thing that went to shits after that. The monitor sound was shit, nobody heard anything, so there wasn´t a lot of choices other than to mosh like hell, play the shit out of everything, hope the audience hears everything like they should and that they don´t realize shit has hit the fan on stage.

At the latter part of the show I experienced a Spinal Tap escue moment. There was this guy in the front row that had a really good time. He had a black Nikki Sixx style hair-.do, and had a awesome rock n roll attitute so I wanted to salute him with the heavy metal horns sign in the middle of our last song, as a thank you..Long story short, I accitentally flipped him the bird. Because I had a pick in my hand, my index finger was stuck to my thumb holding the pick, as a reflex I used the finger next to them, the middle finger. Oh shit, nonnononononoooo! The guy smiled with a slight confused look, and gave the finger back laughing like "ok hehe yeah fuck yeah fuck you heheh!". Well, if that guy reads this, sorry! 'I´ll buy you a beer sometimes! :P

After the gig, having no backstage or any privacy, we packed our shit and headed to the hotel. Then Di´Annos tour manager mr D. said that we have to ask the venue for gas money for DiAnnos tour bus or else they would not get to the gig tomorrow hence not perform... A. How that is any of our business, B. How the hell don´t they have money for gas. C. Why isn´t he doing his job? The answer is; I do not know. As a favor of good will, Janica got them the money they needed eventhough mr D-A tourmanager, the big D (not Dave),should have gotten the bird and not the fan in the front row. Everybody makes mistakes and miscalculations of course, but this wasn´t the first llast minuteshenanigan from his part. Well, enough of that shit, if you´ve got nothing good to say then don´t say anything, right?

Olof (aka Elmeri), myself, Mårten (aka Pete) and Sven (aka Tuukka) went to the hotel to catch some sleep and recharge our batteries. My broken foot had swollen from all the sitting. With the cast, it looked, and felt, like a ripe zucchini showed up someones ass, and it hurt like a motherfucker. So sleepytime and rest for us. Gunilla (aka Janica) and Per (aka Peik) went downtown for a drink with Skinny (Deathstars bass player).

The cherry on top of this shit sunday was when we arrived back at the hotel. I sat down on my bed, loud crack, the bed broke. Good night.

/Håkan (aka Jonas)

Bang The Drum Slowly, Dumbass

@ Virus, Örebro

Load in was at 16:00, we arrived a bit late, maybe 16:20. But no panic, Di’Anno’s crew and the backline arrived eventually 2 hours late. Well, shit happens.




The venue was surprisingly small, with a stage so small that if we’d had Petes drumset or something bigger, we wouldn’t fit!


Otherwise the whole day was pretty standard stuff. The venue provided excellent food (medium rare stake, ribs and delicious cream garlic potatoes). Cool house tech;s. The hotel was awesome too, very stylish and pretty close to the venue.

The backstage though, wasn’t really up to par with the food and service. Our table was a shelf-board on two crates. The toilet was broken, so it came with a lé picant ammoniac scent and a complimentary turd. They also didn’t realise were Finns, or they don’t have that much experience with Finns since we only got half a (small) crate of beer (about 8 beers). That’s breakfast in Finland!

Luckily we had some long drinks and such in the car, so no worries.
But all in all everything sorted out and most important, the gigs went very well!





/Håkan (aka Jonas)

Håkan ate an UFO and there was a fire in the Micro!!

We're happy to inform you that we now, in this foreign country, somehow feel comfortable enough to finally stop using our stage names. Lunar Path and crew will there for, from now on, respond to the names Håkan (aka. Jonas), Sven (aka. Tuukka), Mårten (aka. Pete), Olof (aka Elmeri), Pär (aka. Peik) and of course me Gunilla (aka Janica).

So far everything is good, we're all alive, haven't even tried to kill one an other.. yet.. oh! Exept for some outsider, who tried to scare us with a small fire in the microwave oven this morning. Makes me wonder..will they never learn?! For all of you jealous bastards out there, who insist on trying to kill us with fire... A small hint! Try water or something! Fire doesn't work on us!! Well anyway, we're all still friends; which of course comes in handy since we're living in the family suite at Örebro Plaza Hotel. Not bad at all I tell you! Four window view, very nicely decorated and with a very very nice staff. Whooh!


On the road here we kind of almost didn't find our way out from Stockholm, 'cause we decided to disaggree with the sat.nav., which fellt as a really good idea, untill we came to the conclusion that the way we were heading would lead us right back to the harbour from where we'd just left. Then we finally let the poor woman talk again, and with her help we found our way away.

After me having a minor disaggreement with the parking mashine we went to grab a bite. Everyone else managed to fill their bellies with a normal pizza or pasta, but Håkan, who as we all know also earlier has proven some tendencies to megalomaniac behaviour ate a UFO. Now were off to show some good manners, and help the headliners to load in the gear. Catch you all later! -Gunilla

Tapping the spine on TV and great expectations in Sweden

Yeah! First live tv-broadcast done! Janica, Tuukka and I (Jonas) were guest performers on YLE FST;s "Min Morgon" morning-show. Had to wake up at 3 am, soundcheck at 5... that kind of schedule is really unhumane and borderline mental torture for any long haired slacker musician that sleeps all day and rocks all night ;)

We performed an acoustic version of "Paper Dove". It went pretty well, the only fuckup was that Tuukkas DI box malfunctioned, so his guitar line was mute for the most of the song. Was not our fault, pure techical mishap, we had no idea... But hey, shit happens, and besides, you're not a real band unless there's some degree of Spinal Tap;ism in what you do. ;)

We're really exited that tomorrow we'll embark on a new journey, first time performing live abroad! The boatride to Sweden takes all night, but we're prepared, we've got jallua!

Sweden, here we come!

/Jonas

"Better late than never" dissection of the Deathstars tour

Ouuulrighty then. We did a 3-gig mini tour supporting Deathstars a couple of weeks back... 26-28 february to be exact. The other opening band was Fear of Domination.

Better late than never ;P

26.2. - Turku Klubi
The trip went nice. Basic load in, soundcheck etc. As usual, for supporting bands, soundcheck time was sparse, but no problem. The gig went well, exept for a minor case of riff dementia confusion in one new song, "Promise Me", but that didn't stop us. It's ok since the song is new, so we can almost get away with some improvisation as nobody exept us know how the song is supposed to go... ;P

After the gig most of us went partying. Tuukka and our session bass player for the tour, Elmeri, went out to party. I won't go into details, but the end result was a whole lot of shirtless def leppard karaoke, a passed out bass player, spillt urine on the hotel walls (yes, SPILLT... don't ask), somebody stole my leather jacket and somehow Tuukka had found Deathstars singer Andreas' military hat-stageprop. Hmm. Ok. Good times tho'! Rokatessa roiskuu ;)

The next morning Elmeri had the worst hangover ever. As we exited the hotel, he had a a chunky and discolored rendezvous with yesterdays dinner.

When we arrived at the venue to collect our gear and move on to Tampere, suddenly Klubis door was swarmed with blaring sirens and a bunch of firetrucks and firefighters running around. My first thought was "oh fuck no not again, this time I won't jump!!". Luckily, it was only a false alarm, no fire in the venue. It was just steam that looked like smoke to someone, someone who called the fire department...


27.2. - Tampere Klubi
That day soundcheck-time was even more sparse. We didn't get a soundcheck at all, only a quick line check before the show. But no worries, in the end we played what was probably the best show we've ever played! Tickets were sold out! People lining up on the street as early as 3-4 hours before the doors open! Fucking great! The crowd was awesome!! And the venue had (as usually) VERY good food for the band! 10+

Fear of Dominations driver fell in the backstage, twisted and broke his ankle! Ouch! Now there were two guys with crutches... We called up our ex-bassplayer Ari (it was his birthday) and sang happy birthday to him! Then afterparty to Inferno with all the guys and girls from the bands. Went to bed around six in the morning.


28.2. - Helsinki Tavastia

Had loads of time to soundcheck. Really nice house crew. First time I hear a stagemanager complain how LOW the volume is on the amps! "Goddamn turn 'em up, we're not a bunch of pigeon fuckers here! Fuck! In the days of Albert Järvinen (Hurriganes) we'd crank up the stacks so hard that your sideburns would shiver like autum leaves in the wind!". Thats the spirit!

Usually sound techs want minimal stage volume, so they can tinker the sounds on the board and get everything through the PA;s with minimal stage bleed. That "hush hush" obsession can be really irritating sometimes, so it was cool to finally have an old school kind of guy with a rock n roll attitude.

The gig went awesome! Great lights, great sound, great everything! After the gig we went to bar bäkkäri for the afterparty, and then to royal onnela for the afterpartys afterparty, had loads of fun!

After that we went for a late night snack at the MC Donalds right around the corner. There a drunken, well known finnish male ex-pornstar expressed his opinions on how tabloid wanker slash common asshole Timo T.A. Mikkonen ruins a town called Mäntsäläs' reputation and how I could get a whole lot of pussy showing off my cast to girls. Ok great :)


All in all it was an amazing tour! The guys from Deathstars we're extremely laid back and fun to work with! Professional musicians and above all great guys! A big thanks to Deathstars and Fear of Domination, it was great working with you guys (and girl)!


Here's some pictures from the Tavastia gig!:
METALSCOPE

/Jonas