05.08. -06 Turku, UMF, Manilla, JoJo theater

Very nice and relaxed summer festival action! Extremely hot summer sun scorched Turku all saturday. This means HOT ACTION! We played in the warm summer evening in a nice theater space. First the gig seemed doomed since the theater was the only place in the festival area where you couldn't drink alcohol. ALCOHOL! YEAH! But MAGICALLY the theater seats filled with people who chose listening to music over drinking beer in the summer night breeze. GOOD PEOPLE! MUSIC OVER ALCOHOL! It was a strange gig, felt sort of like being in a school play, BUT IN THE NICEST POSSIBLE WAY. People actually listened to what we were doing. And a lot of guys and gals who had never seen us before came down to thank for "saving their day" after the gig. UMF-audience, a great audience.

It must be also mentioned that we stuck to the schedule. And Nukkehallitus and DXXXA ruled. Dxxxa sure is an ERILAINEN JÄBÄ.

Later on we headed for good ol' Pikku-Torre where DJ Kaveri was playing excellent records because it was a HYVÄN MUSIIKIN KLUBI.

www.musaskene.com

On our way we met T.A. Kaukolampi who called us the Chipsy Kings. We had some potato chips with us. PO-TA-TO!

14.07. -06 Joensuu, Ilosaarirock, Sulo-klubi

Big time summer festival action! Ilosaarirock's smallest stage was actually quite big. It was fun to play on a stage where you can jump around and fall down without kicking some other band members in the face. We had a half an hour to rock, so we started rocking right away. Playing only the rock'n'roll songs was fun for a change. No time for balladery. BOOM-BOOM-ROCK-A-ROCK-A-BOOM! Surprisingly many people came to see us play and seemed to be actually interested in our gig, which was nice. Many of them danced too. DANCY-PANTSY-PEOPLE-OK! It was a very good summer night party that just ended too soon. And luckily mr. Mixer who was mixing was the same excellent dude who took care of us on last trip to Joensuu.
GREAT-ECHO-DELAY-REVERB-STEREO-BOOM-CHICKA-BOOM!

Otherwise, Ilosaarirock was still the nicest festival there is. We witnessed good stuff by Tuomari Nurmio, Saul Williams, Kid Koala and Barefoot Brothers. And Of course Club Kasettiasema in Kerubin Kuppila had all the best acts in the world. Laurila! Anssi Kasitonni! Benway! Ville Härkönen sings Jaakko Teppo! Syntetisaattori Alanko! MIcragirls! And as usual, Heavy-Ilkka the driver was in no condition to drive and rolled over the astonished city of Joensuu like stampede of rabies-crazed buffalos. ALL WEEKEND!

08.04. -06 Joensuu, Teatteriklubi

Good ol' Joensuu! Since the long gone Kerubi bar was sort of our home away from home way back in the nineties, we've always felt comfortable playing in Joensuu. The karelians, or karjalaiset people, are a good drunken party bunch who can appreciate good semi-artsy electronic guitar rocking. Teatteriklubi is a hot little hole, and if a hot little hole is filled with good karjalaiset people, it will be a good party. And so it is. We play good, people listen good, sound engineer mixes good, dancers dance good, Ville's mom & dad show up good (since they are good karjalaiset people), our mexican artist roudie mingles with the locals good, nice girls and boys give us many heartwarming compliments good, Kimmo and Eeva provide us with everything we can dream of good, Ilkka is a drunk good, discussions about docktape and pissing are good, even the night time burger chow tastes good. IT*S SOOOOOO GOOD to be back in good ol' Joensuu.

And oh, we also spot Steam Häyrinen. he's got the voice. And a nice name. Almost as nice as Carbon-dioxide Häkkinen.

Gustavo will kill us later.

Turku, S-Osis 30.03.06

It's a student partee happening for some medicine-students! Us playing our semi-artsy electronic guitar rock in a student party is always a hazardous endeavour. This time it seems so in the beginning as we eat the foul tasting pizza slices they offer us and listen to the soundcheck of the night's headlining act, a covers band consisting of party students. We might be in the wrong place. But it ain't that bad as we start playing. We play mostly our rocking stuff and at least nobody in the party student audience gets frustrated or angry. Quite a few seem to even enjoy the show and dance to the beat. NICE! And there are some dudes and dudettes who are there to see our gig, so it's a painless show with a couple of good musical moments here and there. After the show we pack our shit, get the money and drive off to the night. Lots of sananmuunnoses are used in the car. SANANMUUNNOSES!

3.3.2006 Kuudes Linja

We notice that we left a billion dollar vintage delay machine in russia. WHATEVER DUDE, SHIT HAPPENS. But not tonight, since we are in an excellent condition and play a SHIT HOT HAPPENING SHOW. We have fun, people seem to have fun and even the staff of the bar say they have fun. Even the "acoustic" bit in the middle of the set almost works. ALMOST! FULL FRONTAL YEAH YEAH! Kuudes Linja still feels like the perfect addition to Helsinki rock club scene. Intimate but spacious, good sounds and a good stage. KEEP GOING, KUUDES LINJA! Thanks to Eppu for making us feel comfortable and sound comfortable too. The If Society dudes sell and play some records. GREAT STUFF, DUDES! LATER, DUDES!

25.02.2006 Sound scape festival, Club Platforma, St. Petersburg

The word festival may just be a bit too pompous, but still it is a great two day happening with four finnish acts. We start our ride friday morning in Helsinki. Aavikko, Regina, Boys Of Scandinavia and Us are packed to a bus and head for the border. There's a DVD of 90's hits played at maximum volume. Four non blondes, Crash test dummies, Scatman John, Spin Doctors and others. It's easy to say that the 90's SUCKED SOME MAJOR ASS. After we crossed the border, our driver floors it. FULL THROTTLE SPEED FREEKISM. This takes us to St. Peters in no time.

Friday night Regina and Aavikko do their thing. That Tomi "Leppä" Leppänen sure has a way with english words. "This song is dedicated to the finnish curling champions. No, don't laugh. Curling: the best game in earth." That Tomi "Leppä" Leppänen! What a dude!

Lot of Heavy heavy drinking takes place. After all, we are in Russia. And boy, those russians, they sure try their damnest. Once in a while they come with the most magnificient churches and cultural icons. Sometimes they just come up with a shower that has a weird gas-flame get up in them that can never be shut down. Anyway, HURRAH for our russian brothers and sisters!

Saturday we eat excellent Blini and buy some crazy russian children's books. And some Ukrainian black metal for mr. Lehtisalo. Castle Rock, the record store that sells ukrainian black metal, is a heavily urine-flavored hole in the ground on some dark back alley run by guys who look like russian nationalist skinheads. YEAH! What a place!

Then in evening it's our turn. We play a good show. People dig it. We mostly play the rocking numbers. This seems to suit the St. Petersburg audience, which is a nice audience. There's not enough of them to make the happening a commercial success, but enough of them to make us feel great on stage. It's the birthday of a big brain surgeon/drummer extraordinnaire, mr. DUSER. So a lot of HEAVY HEAVY HEAVY HEAVY HEAVY HEAVY HEAVY drinking takes place.

Next day we head back to good ol' Finland. On the border we realize that our groupvisa is still in st. Petersburg. This causes some fear and loathing among us. After some desperate attempts at communicating with the border officials who speak only russian in different tones and at different volumes, we somehow get across the border. Finland loses the olympic hockey final. It's all GOOD GOOD GOOD.

26.01.2006 Tampere, Klubi w/ I Walk The Line, Echo Is Your Love, Lighthouse Project

Klubi is always a nice place to play in. They got the POTATO CHIPS backstage. And mr. PEVE behind the mixdesk. It's always a pleasure to play with PEVE. He makes us sound kinda like a real band. ALL HAIL PEVE!
Lighthouse Project kicks off the evening with some fast hardcore outbursts. GOOD! Young guys screaming and playing fast hardcore. GO GO YOUTH! YEAH! TWO THUMBS UP! Then Echo Is Your Love do their GOOD GOOD GOOD indie-thang. Good stuff. The upcoming album must be a HOOT. HOT HOT HOOT. Then it's our turn. We are a bit nervous about how the punk rock crowd will react to our artsy bluesy electronic pop rock music. But pretty fast it becomes obvious that they like it. They even embrace it. It's a good show. We like it, the audience likes it, PEVE likes it and Klubi's new monitor guy likes it. YEAH! ROCK*N*ROLL! It's a good start for the mini tour. A SHIT HOT HOT HITS TOUR.

28.01.2006 Hämeenlinna, Hälläpyörä w/ Tapes, Laurila

There's only one drunken guy in Hälläpyörä when we are checking the sounds with our good ol' mixmaster Mikko. This feels a bit strange since Hälläpyörä used to be a SLEAZY LOWDOWN WATERING HOLE for heavy duty alcoholics. Now it's almost clean and there a decent lights and
everything. We say OK!
Tapes starts the night by playing his excellent acoustic stuff to bunch of people who hardly listen. BAD PEOPLE! Then Laurila rocks the house with their houserocking rocks. A tough act to follow. Yet we follow. And the good ol' Hämeenlinna crowd party and dance with us nicely. HÄMEENLINNA CROWD: GRADE A PARTY CROWD. YES! It ain't the best gig, we don't really do anything great, but the crowd makes it kinda rock. NICE! KINDA ROCK! The Hälläpyörä sound is crappy, but who cares? NOT US. Sometimes we like it crappy. Many props and RESPECT for Svengi-jengi for pulling this off.

30.01.2006 Helsinki, Tavastia w/ I Walk The Line, Echo Is Your Love, Lighthouse Project

Monday night at Tavastia. The staff act downright mean as they do in Tavastia. GREAT! We are almost certain that no one will come on a monday night. BUT THEY DO! There's a good bunch of people, and they don't even leave after the punk rock show of I Walk The Line is over. They miss the last buses and stay to see our show. We are deeply moved by this gesture. THANKS A BILLION.
Again, we do pretty good. It's NOT great and feels a bit shaky at times but it ain't bad either. The stage sound is the best and mr. HENKKA makes us sound good off stage too. A dvd we get later proves that we do our thing as we are supposed to do our thing. It's A SILLY THING FOR GROWN UP MEN TO BE DOING. IT REALLY IS. TWITCHING AND HOLLERING AND BANGING ON INSTRUMENTS LIKE AUTHISTIC INFANTS. Nice going, grown up men. Do it some more!

And we do.

04.02.2006 Jyväskylä, Lutakko w/ I Walk The Line, Echo Is Your Love, Lighthouse Project

It's a billion below zero. Too goddamn cold for human existence. But there's a punk rock thing in Jyväskylä we have to take care of. And we gladly do. Again the house is almost full and all our tourmates are EXTRA GREAT PEOPLE! A TRIPLE HURRAY FOR EXTRA GREAT PEOPLE HURRAY HURRAY HURRAY!
That Ilai Rämä of Echo Is Your LOve is a strange dude. And He stopped a video store from being robbed while wearing women's pantyhose. NO SHIT either, he really did. So a triple hurray for ILAI. H H H ! Heavy-Ilkka the driver teaches the Lutakko staff some basic facts about cheese. We play an Ok gig, and it seems like some people like it. After the show we hear disturbing things like "only vocals and banjo were coming from the PA". We say OH CRAP. Crappy sound, sometimes we don't like it. And it's the gig that was recorded onto a million dollar multi-track system by RISE POHJONEN. Thanks RISE! WE hope we can mix the stuff somehow and maybe even let all of you wonderful Black Audio fans hear it someday somewhere somehow. Then it's a zillion mile ride back to Helsinki at night. It's a quantidrillion below zero. AND THERE's PRE-LEATHER FROZENLY FLAPPING ON OUR LEADING STAR. On our way we "Vierailemme Huttulassa". GET IT?

08.02.2006 Turku, Klubi w/ I Walk The Line, Echo Is Your Love, Phoenix Foundation

A brand new stage and PA -system welcome us to the always nice Klubi. So does the trustworthy Kääntö Hostel with their brand new comedy-DVDs. Look Around You. YEAH! We do an interview for the rock-magazine SUE. We are taking over the media like never before! Good going, If Society dudes! MEDIA TAKEOVER! HOT MEDIA SHIT! SHIT MEDIA: -HOT!
Again we have HENKKA behind the mixing table, so it's comforting to play and know that it sounds somewhat the way it's supposed to. At least all the other songs except "Which Side Am I On" that Ville fucks up. How come it's usually Ville who fucks up the songs and he ain't even got an instrument to play? TOUGH SHIT, BABY. THESE THINGS HAPPEN. But all an all it's a nice gig with many musically great moments and hard dancing by some lovely members of the audience. And of course the mandatory crappy half second handstands which always make everybody clap their and say yeah in exstatic joy. It all seems like a bigger amount of people are starting to be interested in our stuff. GOOD GOOD GOOD!

Again some of our new albums are sold. And this has happened in many record stores also. OUR RECORDS ARE BEING BOUGHT! Who would've thought? NOT US. But we say OK! And BIG THANKS to I Walk The Line, Echo Is Your Love, Lighthouse Project and Phoenix Foundation. GOOD PEOPLE, GOOD MUSIC, GOOD MEININKI. See you the next time we see you!

20.01.2006 Helsinki, Vanha Yo-talo w/ Plain Ride, 22-Pistepirkko,
Digitaalimiehet, Janne Laurila

It's goody good two shoes charity happening to support Animalia, who work tirelessly for animal rights. We love animals too and of course also good music, so we are there partying for our right to fight. FOR ALL ANIMAL RIGHTS AND LEFTS. GO! GO! ANIMALS! GO!
As you can see the line up consists of the absolute best finnish music has to offer. Too bad the concert is located to Vanha, where every single band (excluding Lee Scratch Perry -style dub reggae) sounds like crap. It's all echoes and painful volume. The tiniest snare drum sound sounds like the BIG BANG on "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" by Bonnie Tyler. SOUNDS LIKE CRAP. The stage sound is a lot better and we enjoy playing a lot. It's a relaxed gig. If only the people in the vast hall of Vanha could have known how it all sounded nice on stage. And after our set the other charity happening bands keep on rocking. They ROCK GOOD, yet sound like CRAP. It's all echoes and painful and/or almost no volume at all. YEAH! But we see a lot of happy smiling faces in the audience. Animal lovers are a nice crowd. Thanky thanky we say and walk a million miles to Kallio in a crazy snow blizzard. The next day it's a thousand degrees below zero and the car won't start. MOTHERFUCKER!

13.01.2006Telakka, Tampere w/ Laurila

Friday the 13th! Record release party! For the first time ever in our brief history we actually have our record in stores the day it's supposed to be released! It's an extremely nice feeling. Good going, If Society dudes, good going!

Telakka is propably the nicest bar in Tampere. Very cozy and intimate. Not the greatest soundwise, but atmospherewise Telakka is HOT SHIT. And I mean that in a good way. GOOD SHIT. Nice food, too. And a great sauna, which we don't get to use. But a great sauna anyway. We are supported by one of the greatest rock'n'roll bands ever: Laurila! They play their extremely catchy songs in an extremely catchy way. Tough act to follow. Yet we follow. We do good. People like it. Even the reporter for the rock magazine Rumba kind of semi-almost likes it. NICE. During "Down Home" Ville pushes Vesa's billion dollar computer-system off it's stand. It starts it's deadly fall towards the floor. Vesa's inhumanly quick reflexes help and he catches the computer in mid-air. The song takes some rhytmic damage. TOUGH SHIT, BABY. THESE THINGS HAPPEN.
All and all, it's an Ok gig. Not as good as the new Alice Cooper album "Dirty Diamonds", but hey, what is? We like it, audience likes it, even the one's we don't know. WHOAH. We sell a couple of our brand new cd. It's a HIT. A HOT SHIT HIT.