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Italy and UK ultimo April + 1st of May 2016

I travelled from Bergen to Oslo to Milano Malpensa early on Monday 25^th of April. I bought a pair of new in-ear phones both in Bergen (cheap substitute ones) and in Oslo (not-so-cheap proper ones), because the cable for my Bose’s is fucked up. At the plane to Milano I was at the very back, and there were nobody else next to me or in front of me – in fact the whole 2 back rows were for me only. Luxury!

Then I took the train from Milano to Brescia and Ale picked me up at the station. I don’t remember so much from this night, only that we watched Cars II (we being Ale and me and Pietro and Samuele – they are Ale’s kids and they are super cool), and that it was very nice. As it was the first night my Italian was even more bad than usual, so I mostly watched the pictures on the TV and enjoyed hanging out with the family. It’s weird how much it feels like being with family when I’m in Italy.

The next day, Tuesday 26^th, Ale and I drove to Orio al Serio to pick up Moa, who is our new synth player. I really love how much cooler the songs are live now than earlier when we didn’t have her. We went to have lunch first, and then I saw the new Panini Euro2016 sticker book and started to look forward to that. And then we went to the studio for the first practice. Some songs were surprisingly hard to do the first time, just because of emotional baggage (for me), like Don’t Kill the Clowns.

Practicing Angry Girl

That evening, after we had eaten gnocchi (<3), I discovered Pietro’s Amici Cucciolotti book, which was perfect level Italian for me. So I used some time to read about seals and sea horses.

Wednesday the 27^th was also practice day, and it became very clear that my voice is not used to singing several hours a day. But we started to sound good during this day! In the evening Samuele and I played with cars and I got grappa also, and the combination wasn’t bad at all. I really like the way we can speak to each other without worrying about meaning, like he talks to me in Italian, and I answer in Norwegian, and nobody really care that we might not be talking about the same thing, because that’s not the point.

Thursday the 28^th we drove to Bologna, after a short practice first. Driving with Ale on Italian highways is one of my favourite things to do. (I had kind of forgotten how much I liked it, but after these days I felt like writing a follow up song to Driving in Your Car, and so I did (couple of days ago).)

Driving in your car.

This gig was the first one since summer of 2013, and the first with more of a “proper band” since the summer of 2011, so it was really weird. Also we had to play Super Quiet, which was also weird, but nice to be able to hear my voice really properly. And Ale said that I sang well and was friendly :)

A really good thing about that night was also to see Enzo again. He was dj-ing as well, and that’s good because then you can be sure that there is only good music.

We drove back in the evening.

Trying to be Really Quiet!

Friday the 29^th we could have a slow morning, so we did. Moa and I went down to Ale, and then he went to the store to buy some food, and when he returned he had bought the Cucciolotti book for me! 

Happiness!

And there were a lot of stickers, and I was so happy! Then I was the most useless person for a while because I was sticking stickers while Moa was cooking and Ale was washing the floor…but also my stomach hurt super much so I would perhaps not have been so useful even without the sticker book. So before we started driving to Vittorio Veneto we stopped by a pharmacy to get something to make my stomach shut up. The pills made me kinda tired also, so I wasn’t as happy a camper as I would have liked to have been this day. But the gig was ok anyway I think, we sold 5 copies of the old album, and I could drum as loud as I wanted.

Flyer for that gig.

Saturday the 30^th Fabio returned from Germany, and we had one quick rehearsal with him before going to the airport. We went with British Airways, which is good because they have free wine.

On Sunday the 1^st of May, we had breakfast some place near our apartment in London. While we were eating there, money was falling from the sky outside. This almost never happens! They were picked up by a dude who looked like Snoop Dogg, and he delivered a rather large amount of it to the staff at the café, in case someone came asking for them, but also kept a Rather Large Amount for himself. He was fun. He ended up paying for everyone’s breakfast, pointing to each in turn saying “done, done, done, done!”. This was probably confusing for the one entering the place after the money had fallen: “Some dude just paid for my breakfast and then pointed at me saying DONE!?”.

After this Ale read a bit for me from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, and that was super nice, and we also relaxed a bit and had lunch, and then we went to the venue, which was the Schacklewell Arms. I liked that place. It was brown and had football on the TV, and you could either listen to the bands or be in the bar or be in a backyard, and they also served food so you didn’t have to go anywhere else to get that.

Moa, Big Food, Fabio, More Big Food, and Ale

We played at 21:30-ish, and there were a lot of people, and I think we were good, but you can decide for yourselves as the whole gig is at YouTube. Here's part 1, and the rest is out there (10 in total).

It was the best gig of those three we did, and also now we had Fabio on the bass and that made a huge difference. I’m really really happy with my new band. The best possible band for me!

Me and Ale in the window, Moa, and Fabio

Monday the 2^nd of May I joined Ale and Fabio to Gatwick even though it was far too early for my flight, because I had no reason to be in London with my luggage and all. 

Too Early!

And I really hate to say goodbye to Ale, and now it was even worse than January, so the security dudes seemed to assume I was some really really sad suicide bomber. I got to tell them about the gigs, so that was nice… Last time I was at Gatwick, they thought I was wearing terrorist trousers, so now I want to travel from there more just to see what happens next time. After I was through the security control, I found The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, and bought it, because I had only borrowed it before. 

Me at Gatwick - Would You Trust This Person? 

Looking very much forward to the next concerts at Indiefjord and Indietracks. It’s Good to Be Back! 

from the old myspace blog: "The Gigography" & "Is it Really about Childhood?"

Wow, they gave it back to me! Now we may enjoy several years of my wit and great humour! There's no point in posting it all tho', because there's a lot of "nice review - here (dead link)" going on, but here are two lists, one from 2010 and one from 2008.




From 17.09.2010


Soda Fountain Rag Gigography, with my comments




07.09.06 –
Phonofestivalen, Café Opera (Bergen, Norway) – The only gig with a banjo!

06.10.06 – Bergen
Bandstand, Kvarteret (Bergen) – We won! Still waiting for quite a lot of the prize.

30.11.06 –
support for Rough Bunnies, Spasibar (Oslo, Norway) – With the “band” on CD,
hehe, great to meet Frida and Anna.



01.02.07 –
Kvarteret (Bergen) – At this gig Anders went off stage, through the crowd, over
to the sound engineer and yelled at him because he was doing a really bad job, then
he went back on stage. In the meantime I did an Alx Rose-dance.

14.02.07 –
Morya (Brescia, Italy ) – Almost dead from the flu.

15.02.07 –
Lego (Cesena, Italy) – I felt like a star! First time we met Zonda.

16.02.07 –
Capannone sociale (Vicenza, Italy) – hohoholy shit, really bad gig.

17.02.07 –
Ponterotto (Firenze, Italy) – One of the best days in my whole life.

18.02.07 –
Zuni (Ferrara, Italy) – Lots and lots of people.
Driving all night and being very sad (“Driving in your car” is related to this night).

03.03.07 –
With Montt Mardie and Suburban Kids with Biblical Names, Kvarteret (Bergen) – Great night,
playing with heroes.

19.04.07 –
Torsdagsrock, Hulen (Bergen) – Why oh why did I say yes to this gig?

19.07.07 –
Loco Squad (Milano Marittima) – My mum and dad and my best friend were all there!

20.07.07 –
Bagno Moderno (Marina di Grosseto) – Haha, SFR on a beach! Now that’s ridiculous!

21.07.07 –
Nosilenz Festival (Brescia) – It smelled very much like a farm, and featured a great puppy called Molly.

22.07.07 –
Castello dei Pico (Mirandola, Modena) – Playing at the castle of an old comparative religion-hero, not bad.

25.08.07 – Support for Pelle Carlberg, Hulen (Bergen) – Nicko’s first gig! Hurra!

15.09.07 –
Kaninkanon V (København, Denmark) – Indie/DIY-party de-luxe, we stayed in
the best room with lots of cartoons, and we went to the Tivoli.

29.09.07 –
Hard Working Class Heroes Festival (Dublin, Ireland) – 15 minutes of pain.

09.10.07 –
Uka, Knaus/Samfundet (Trondheim, Norway) – 2/3 of the band had pretty poor health, some very drunk girls from Molde danced on stage and shared a cigar with us backstage.



04.01.08 –
Morya (Brescia, Italy) – A cold and Christmas-esque evening.

05.01.08 –
Mattatoio (Carpi, Italy) – Someone knew the lyrics to “The Fall”.

10.01.08 –
Relè Café Bistro (San Giovanni Teatino, Italy) – We slept in a truly beautiful apartment with 5 cats.

11.01.08 –
Traffic (Roma, Italy) – My only impression of Rome is that it is very, very dirty.

28.03.08 –
Buffalo Bar (London, England) – oh, no.

31.03.08 –
Whelan’s (Dublin) – Some videos from this gig is on youtube. A bit sad that I chose that moment
to be 10kg too much.

05.04.08 –
Din Nye Ven (København) – Always great in Copenhagen, and a really nice place too.

14.06.08 –
Fincken (Bergen) – Yes! Best gig in Norway ever! Best place to play in Norway ever!

31.08.08 –
Support for Fanfarlo, Mono (Oslo) – hmmm, but there was chocolate on the pillows.

05.09.08 –
NG2 (Bergen) – I felt bullied, but people said it was good.

24.10.08 –
Support for My Little Pony, Hulen (Bergen) – I passed out the night before, so this was a Solo and smågodt-gig.



09.07.09 –
Support for Shugo Tokumaru, Landmark (Bergen) – Wow! What a year for SFR!



27.02.10 –
London Popfest, 100 club (London) – Yes!

12.05.10 –
Astra Stube (Hamburg, Germany) – Yes, Yes!

07.08.10 –
Cosy Den 2010, Gula Villan (Haninge, Sweden) – Yes, Yes, Yes! Also this was Nicko’s last gig with Soda Fountain Rag.



From 08.10.2008

(Regarding It's Rag Time! red.anm.)

I’m a bit confused as people seem to think the theme of the album is «childhood». So, as a part of my ongoing quest to not do anything proper I went through my album, song by song, to see if this is correct:

Is it really about childhood?



1. Army of silent kids – definitively


2. The Saddest Boy in Town – yes, but in retrospect


3. You Sit and Wait for Life – nope, this is early/mid-20s angst


4. I laugh myself to sleep – not at all


5. Escalator – well, it’s all about falling, which can happen at any age I guess…


6. Go! – definitively not, it’s very childish tho’, but that’s another thing


7. Driving in your Car – nonononono


8. Angry Girl – the use of words like «boy» or «girl» does not mean it’s a song about young people. This is a very personal song. I have however moved since the song was written (twice actually), so I don’t hate my neighbours anymore.


9. The Saddest Boy Again – This is about a gay relationship that ends. So, no.


10. Oh, Brother! – Again a very personal song, about wanting brothers. Not age-specific.


11. I was Reborn – Being uncomfortable with ones gender, is not age-specific, wanting to be a toy-boy however suggests that the «I» of this song is at least older than, what, 15?


12. Monkey Girl – The «I» of monkey girl is old enough to go on a train ride to Italy on her own.


13. Don’t Kill the Clowns – Yes! It’s a song about childhood/growing up!


14. Everything Ends (Baby, that’s a fact) – This kind of madness is early 20-ish I think, so no.



That makes 3 out of 14! Haha, this was fun!

SFR spring/summer-gigs update

28.04.16 Bologna @ Zoo [ITA]

29.04.16 Vittorio Veneto @ Spazio Mavv [ITA]

01.05.16 DIY POPFEST - London @ Shacklewell Arms [UK]

09/10.07.16 Indiefjord 2016 - Bjørke [Norway]

29/31.07.16 Indietracks Festival - Ripley  [UK]

I'm back

After some years highly involuntary hiatus Soda Fountain Rag is returning for real this year.

Here's how that happened:
Frida & Ale were going to play Indietracks last summer, and asked if I wanted to play drums. We practiced once before the gig, and it was super fun. But most of all it was great to see Ale again. It sounds like a cliché, but it felt like no time had past since we last met in December 2010(!).

After this we started talking about maybe recording some songs, with him on guitar and Fabio on the bass. And so we did in Brescia in October 2015. Four songs were done in some days, and being in Italy again felt a bit like coming home. Those people are my family, after all.

Fabio

Ale

Me

A perfect drum kit

This January I went back and did five more songs, and together with one song recorded in 2010 which I thought was too good to throw away, this will be an album called Extra Life. Release will be later this spring, through WWNBB.

There was a lot of percussion going on. Ale took these pictures:

GONG!

Here's a sneak preview of one song from the album




There will even be concerts again:

28.04 -  Somewhere in Rome
01.05 - DIY Popfest (London)
9.-10.07 -  Indiefjord (Bjørke)
29.-31.07 - Indietracks (Derbyshire)


This will be great!

ONWARD!

Be nice,
Soda

It Fell Apart

Made it yesterday evening/night, and recorded it then and today.

This one was a bit hard to do. "The island" is Osterøy. The letters refer to people.

It fell apart

Some months had passed, I moved away

To another place, another pace

And I tried to make it go away

But then we were broken

I didn’t eat, I wished I could

Get the time to stop, to turn it back

And I disappeared, and never saw

The ghost I became, but

The island, the grass, and the water

The ferry, the cat, and the cows and

R and K and Y and K and T kept me safe from the

Dark thoughts and the endless cold silence

The holes, and the years – all the years

That vanished fast, and left a vast

Desert of nothing

I didn’t vanish, though I tried so hard

And I’m still around, ‘cause I tried so hard

But a big part died, I think I cried it

Out in the soil

Where some flowers grow, the silent kind

And the endless nights, the stars that shine

And I start to see another me

Not broken and shallow

***

There are days where nights used to be

There are mornings fair and aimless

There’s a hand that’s searching for me

Will you lift me out of darkness?

There are moons where wounds used to be

There are craters, plumes, and fountains

There are worlds just waiting for me

There are rivers, paths, and mountains

There are roads I’ve never yet seen

There are deserts, forests, waters

There’s a hand that’s searching for me

Will you lift me out of darkness?

Something old that was on the myspace blog back in the olden days

So this is what, a reblog? Found this on my computer, from january 2008:

"Italia III:

Back again from the third trip to bella Italia. This is what happened:

The evening of the 3rd of January we (that’s me, Anders and Nicko) took the plane from Bergen to London Stanstead. Here we spent the evening (and most part of the night), rating potato chips, reading rocky (me) and talking a little bit with a man from Sardegna (me again). 6-ish the next day we flew to Italy. There was fog and generally crappy weather, and also some technical failure, so we were circling over Bergamo for quite some time. This freaked me out quite a bit.

The first gig was on the 4^th. After some sleeping and eating (this is by the way two of my all time favourite things to do) we went to Morya, a bar just outside of Brescia. We played there last year also (in February), but then I was near dead from the flu, so it was nice to play there as a “real person” also. Nice gig and nice people I think.

The next day we went to Carpi, a town just outside of Modena. Really cool place called Mattatoio (this means Slaughterhouse). Some videos from this evenings gig are on youtube. Among these one where Anders is telling me how one of the songs start… I know it probably is a very bad habit to forget one’s own songs. At this gig there was quite a lot of people I’ve met before, and also some new faces: A really pretty boy on my right hand side, and a girl who knew the lyrics to the fall! This made me happy. There was also a dude there who yelled something about it being “brutto”, I think. (And just in case I’m right about this: Fuck off! I know not all can like my music, and that I in general have gotten very little bad words about it (which I think is a bit weird actually, it should be hateable enough), but when I’m doing concerts I’m actually happy, and although this old fart didn’t destroy the experience for me – not at all, he could have (for me or someone else)…And how cool is it standing safe in a crowd telling me, relatively exposed, that I suck? Does it cost you anything to just be polite? Write shit about me in your blog instead, asshole.) After the gig Enzo was DJ-ing. Tu sei perfetto!

This night we slept in a nice hotel. Nice nice nice.

The 5^th we went back to Brescia – or more precisely Nave, where we were going to do some recording with Ale. Very nice studio in quite rural surroundings. Mountains, fields and foggy, foggy days. I borrowed drums from Simone (drummer in LMALL). Grazie mille! We used 3 days on 9 songs. Mostly old ones that I think deserved a better recording (and some of you probably agree with me on this, right?). These are the songs: The Catcher, You Can’t Stop Me, Are Philosophers Lonely?, Pirate Love, Too Late For Us, You are Not Invited to my Wedding, Dogwalkin’ Summer, Give Yourself a Break, and New Dancing Shoes. Probably due for release sometime this fall. During these studio days we slept in the local priest’s apartment (no kidding!), as he was out of town. A really big flat above the church bar (!). The priest seemed like a cool guy, and he had lots of religious artefacts. I should get me some mo’ of that stuff. While in the studio Anders lost a lot of money to Nicko playing “North and South” (Yes, the NES-game)! I myself managed to beat my old record in Tetris. In the evenings Anna made fabulous food for us, even if she was quite sick. She is a great cook! All this great food means that I’m still a bit chubby… (more to love?)

As we finished all 9 songs in only 3 days, we had one extra day off, and went for a little road trip to the Garda lake. Also we went to a mall, and I bought some silver adidas superstars shoes, a ski hat and a pair of fat pants. And Coffee, and Nutella, of course.

The two last gigs was in Chieti and Rome. Further south than we’ve ever been before. Paolo (Spelo) was the driver, as Ale had to work. Long drive, and lots of nice things to see from the car. Really many tiny-tiny villages on top of little hills (“på små kullar ligger några lustiga hus”). In Chieti (or a little outside of this city) we played in a bar called Relé. Classy place! The owner, Manuela, was very nice, and we got great food and wine. I managed to knock over my glass and made a mess, of course. Both southern gigs was with an Italian band called The Calorifer is very Hot! This night they played before us, and then in Rome the opposite way around. They are only 2 people on stage, but it works like hell! And they are good on CD too (they also recorded with Ale). Not many people for this gig, and I found it a bit hard to know if people liked it, but we had finished they wanted more songs (some of them did, anyway), so I guess it was ok! Talked with some nice people afterwards also. For some reason many Italians ask me for my age. Do you get disappointed when I say I’m 25? I hope not. One thing that is really cool about Italians is that they almost never ask what else you do in life, or talks a lot about jobs. In Norway that’s always question nr. 2 (after the name maybe?), and I don’t like being rated based on this. Also I doubt people are really that interested in what I’m “really” doing. So: copy the Italians, people!

This night we slept in an apartment that was Manuelas grandmothers. It’s one of the nicest places I’ve ever slept! Also she has five (!) cats, and I got to say hi to a couple! For me this is perfect.

Then it was time for Rome. I think Rome has too many cars, and I can’t see how people living there can manage to drive there every day, at least without some sort of benzodiazepines… Me and Anders did some acoustic songs at some sort of Fair-trade-food conference (yes?), and Spelo talked about the label My honey, and honey. His dad’s got lots of bees, and makes honey (Spelo’s dad is really cool, by the way). It was weird (not bad weird, just weird).

The evenings gig was at a very dirty place called traffic. Quite a lot of people, and some seemed to quite like it. A pretty girl danced in front of the stage. I had a little bit of a cold, so after the show my voice was very “sexy”… This night we slept at the most shitty place ever.

Back in Brescia on the next evening we got lots of great food, and a really nice cake from Ale and Anna. Some of their friends were also there. Kind people all of them, and it was sad to say goodbye. Spelo gave us some honey! Yeah!

The worst with these trips is always having to say goodbye to Ale. This summer it was easier, ‘cause I knew I’d see him again in Copenhagen. Now it was harder…

The flight home was boring, and there were stupid people all around us. I feel that no matter where I’m going, or what kind of public transportation I’m on, I’m always stuck with some sort of people that are either annoying or stupid or evil (or a combination of these). On the train home there were two guys that, at best, would work as living adverts for contraception. 

I can’t wait to go back!

Forresten: ble omtalt i urørt-panelet den 9. jan. Om noen skulle være interessert i å høre hva en litt muggen dame og en kul fyr syntes om ”I wanna be your cat”. Egentlig ble jeg i litt dårlig humør av det (ikke pga den kule duden), men så fant jeg ut at nevnte fyr var med i reprise, og da steg hans vurdering så jævla mye sånn verdimessig (for meg) at nevnte dame kan hate på meg så mye hun vil, og mer til! Haha!"