Willowtree in Emmerich

I hereby give you a confused compilation from Emmerich ;)

Written during sound check at Emmerich:

I am currently backstage at the festival area. I have decided that everyone in here will have to listen to Jazz from my laptop. People here are really nice, it seems like they want us to be drunk on stage. They have offered us beer five times by now.


Picture taken by Lisa from Unna

Hotel Herrlich in Emmerich

First night when we arrived to the Hotel in Emmerich it was empty. The door is open to the hotel, and not a soul working there!

another brother treating the keys right... good night.

up with olle creating and recording.. it's fun, a lot of fun. i always tend to think that i'll never be able to outdo previous events. songs that is. but, fortunately i'm always incorrect. good for me, good for the band.

this night's new creation sounds something like 70s-groove-am-the-autobahn type of music. cool. olle really hit the right keys on the wurtz this time. i myself handled the guitar. songwriting is fun. especially in twos.

only downside is of course that we have to get up in 3 hours. BUT that is sooo worth it.
speaking of the autobahn, that's were we'll spend the day tomorrow. on our way to emmerich.

now time for bed

27th is the shit

almost forgot.
another pulse raising thing is that it happens to be my birthday on the same day as the open-air festival. hopefully this will be a nice get together for us all.

now i'm off for yet another morning meeting with joel and olle, today at the simon dash strasse in our neighbourhood of friedrischain.

excitement

ahh, tomorrow is getting really close.

nice.

see, at 10 o'clock i need to pick up the rental for the trip to emmerich. fun, i'm looking forward to it already.

today we're gonna go thru some newer tracks, all for the purpose of making them justice on friday eve. also exiting is the fact that since johan and adde is in stockholm at the moment, we can't do it all together, but apart. this is a new way of doing it for us, but i must say it's really tickling my musician nerves in a good way. we've all been hanging out in the 'ol rehearsal room for ages thruout history so we kinda know what to do by now. hence excitement.

post-party berlin life

after last night's party night. i got up at 16.00 in the afternoon. after the arising some of us felt like breakfast and started to prepare accordingly. took a while to get out of the door but at 17.00 we had taken ourselves across the street. at the place we immediately scanned the menu for breakfast. now to the interesting part. when the waiter kindly let us know that breakfast was no more (only till 17.00) we were a bit mad about that they could treat us that way. i mean, of course we are the the customers and thus always right.
well well, we ended up with some good food and could instead sit and reflect on whether we are just spoiled berliners that demand breakfast possibilities the whole day or if we're just... well, spoiled berliners demanding optional breakfast into oblivion.

same same

maybe the spoiled needs a trip back to stockholm to remember normal breakfast hours.

In the last minute

So here it is, my third blog post. Made in the middle of the night just because I have too. I feel ashamed and will try to be better this coming week.

Three really nice things in Berlin at the moment:

1. The “Wunchteller” at the Libanese place “Babel” on Kastanienalle. Costs 7 Euro. Its hard to describe how it taste. But if I would have had a great Libanese grandmother, she would probably make food like that.

2. Bar 25 any warm summer night.

3. The skyline from the terrace at Week-End. Damn.

Yet another week gone by.

just another berlin night

at the moment we're waiting for better times.
that is, olle, jim and i waiting for this typical berlin night to begin.
pre-party starts at 1.30am
our swedish restlessness makes us not wanna wait for that long though.
so we just decided to leave early.
bye bye

Donations are welcome!

Tilateos - Laitosmainen empatia

Author: Unknown

more exchanges

sadly ville left earlier, in a hurry i might ad.
i had to phone the crazy german taxi companies in order to find him a taxi witin minutes.
it work out in the end.

now as i'm writing our friend jim is arriving.

i better go and say hello.

Berlin - Helsinki is track of the day today at Garageband!

Morning Meeting

So, this morning we had a really good meeting about our new homepage. Sometimes you should be really glad that we can be serious too... well, you’ll get what I mean when you see it.

why timerlake will never be a musical partner

the birthday party of a friend is already over. everybody left about 30 minutes ago.

the fact that the party is over is of course sad… but.. not to forget.. the good in the bad this night, is that the room housing the piano, now is available.
thus, i sit here humming along to the melodies of the eve.

soon it's time for the hard part though. hard part being to remember that last night's (tonight’s) glorious creation was. what actually has been created. will i remember the song or not?

there are different solutions on how to go about with the addressed problem. justin timberlake is an outspoken fan of the „standing the test of time"-technique. The STT-technique is about letting go of the fear of forgetting.
their claim: what is good will be remembered.

i think timberlake and his fellow believers beliefs are not for me.
they say:
"no good songs get lost, period."
but, I must wonder how can one really know that for sure?
instead maybe we should look at it from another perspective, actually the right across opposite one.

how many bad songs are, well, just plain bad, but yet remembered till the next day? even though they might face and cause next day’s laughter, i still think that this is an important clue to a greater insight into this highly important issue.

conclusion:
only if a person writes music and it always, and i mean always, turns out to be that masterpiece of music composition. even as the person listens with fresh ears post-awakening in the morning. then, but only then, you could say with some kind of certainty that mr. timberlake has a point.

The creator is then a genius and I must rest my case. I agree to that extent.
It's just that in my own case I don't feel that way. I feel that the band’s speakers and mind’s has had it’s fair share of there is crap and that in itself is my proof.

Thus the post-conclusion must be that:
I need to be paranoid about forgetting.

Anyways… since this took me this damn long to write, the party that left earlier actually somehow made it back to the flat again. Funny, well well. enough musical small talk for now. gotta go see if they brought some newcomers.alk for now. gotta go see if they brought some newcomers.

Women and children free zone?

And also, what the hell is this about? Can someone explain?

Is this the Colditz Castle?

Why do I always forget my keys, can someone please tell me. Is it just me or am I in a prison? I really need to know cos tomorrow I'm suposed to leave the apartment again....

Alex out, Ville in.

Alex got his apartment on Friday evening. He will furthermore not need to stay in my room. We will all miss the nightly visits of Alex with a six pack cold Jever under his arm.

Instead we have a guest from Helsinki here in the apartment. Ville brought two wonderful gifts. The latest CD of Tilateos and a bottle of Jaloviina.

Tilateos is a remarkable band, one CD costs 211,01 EUR. And the album cover consists of an old six pack of the beer that they consumed while making the album.

Jaloviina is Finnish national liquor and consists of a mix of cognac and vodka. Despite all odds it actually tastes real nice. According to Ville, the only thing you should mix it with is tonic water. Same proportions like a gin and tonic. If you do that you will get a cocktail called “Rokkitähden kuolema”


Jalo and Tilateos


Ville

earplugs or empathy?

hello blog,
doorbells in germany are very loud. especially when pushed for longer that a few seconds.
i'm awake since joel and his friend ville just decided to come by to sleep over, we're at this other place i sometimes hang out at.
i took them to the adjacent room where some girl already (in true german fashion) had been out really early to get the best spot, in this case the couch. i handed them a pillow and a blanket, showed them the foldable 180x80cm mattress and left the room quickly. I wish them the best of sleep.

this is just another display of how we adopted to the berlin lifestyle.
or.. could it actually be that berlin have had to adopt to us?

crazy but funny thought.

band economics for dummies

i don't think of myself as a non-thinking individual, but sometimes i have to doubt my level of expertise. this is one of those days.
the day has been spent trying to figure out why the studio suddenly decided to go "out of order". after 7 re-installations of the music making tools we use + an additional 3 for the whole operating system, it was clear to me that this had to be sorted with a hardware upgrade.
the way i see it, i think problems generally have a tendency to solve themselves when cash is handed its way. with that in mind i happily pulled out the visa from my pocket for some serious troubleshooting. only problem was... account balance approx 5€.. which gives room for some thinking on how to proceed.

5 min later.

the deal’s closed. ebay, a trusty place on (cyber)-earth. all one has to do is to press the button. the “buy it now” one, easy as easy can be. other side of the (non-existing) coin is of course the actual lack of money. but that we can call tomorrow’s problem.

why live for the day when you can plan for tomorrow?!


disclaimer: don’t try this at home

Aerodynamic device for Eastern Germans?

Tonight we went to the Zitadelle Spandau to see Tommy (a Swedish friend of mine) perform. He's playing in a band that's supporting John Fogerty during his German tour. I must say though, It was really interesting to experience a Fogerty concert. It will definitely stay with me, at least for a couple of days. I don't think that I've ever felt so young as tonight, the average age must have been at least 65. And I've never seen so fuckin' much old people getting together, drinking beer and singing along to such an old and worn-out artist as Fogerty. We stayed to see some of the Fogerty stuff but It was really hard to focus with all those mullets out there... My god, I mean what's up with those Fogerty fans. It seems like they all decided to cut there hair just like Jaromir Jagr, and then dance away to Fogerty's swamp rock. Could someone please explain to me; what kind of connection is there between Fogerty and the mullet? The only thing I'm sure of is that my eyes have gotten a life time supply of interesting hairdos.

Wikipedia info on the German mullet:
"The German term is "Vokuhila", meaning "vorne kurz, hinten lang" (short in the front, long in the back). The opposite to this is "Volahiku". It is topped by "Vokuhilaoliba", meaning "vorne kurz, hinten lang, Oberlippenbart" (short in the front, long in the back, mustache). Because of its supposed popularity among men from the Eastern parts of formerly divided Germany, the hair cut is in Western Germany also known as "Ossispoiler" ("aerodynamic device for Eastern Germans")."

Insane manager

Our manager will be insane now. Because in the last second of our final demo mix, we just decided five seconds ago to record one of the songs all over again. Heee…

Oasis is “power pop” in the US

No wonder European bands have a hard time breakin in the US. I am currently trying to plant some Willowtree songs on music sites over there, and I have understood that we fall under the category “power pop” together with 90% of all the other European bands.

“Power pop” :D

When I hear that word I think of pink bubble gum.

Oasis = Pink bubble gum
Creed = Big juicy double whopper

Other interesting categories listed are:

Modern Rock (Creed, Fuel, Stone Temple Pilots)
Pop (backstreet boys, Christina Aguilera, Destiny's Child, Elton John)
Indie Rock (Pavement, Modest Mouse, Built to Spill)
Alternative Rock (Radiohead, Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam)
Alternative Metal (Incubus, korn, Staind)

My conclusion:

If you wanna be a proper American, always listen to Creed and always be way too hungry to settle for chick food.

under the spell? time will tell...

to the ones that wonder about why the hell this guy, the guy that once swore to never have a blog, is now having one…. the answer is easy. capitalism. see, i have been threatened by dark forces to pay a fee if not writing in the blog at least 3 times before the dawn of monday. verdict: he fell for the sake of money to be kept in his pocket. i find it funny though. now that i’ve had to do this, i think it was all for the greater good. now I know how it feels and I must admit that for the duration of these writings, i’ve felt quite amused by the whole idea,. who knows? i might even grow to like it. 

crappy us

why are we always stealing? we (us), the people. warum? the only reason that i could write about my u-bahn experience earlier is cos i no longer have a bike. see, someone decided that my bike was now his/hers. sucks, dince now i’m stuck on the public transport with people i wouldn’t have had to have even in the vicinity if rolling down the street, tv-tower in sight, with just enough (usually a bit more) music to work on in the headphones. damn, it’s just not the same anymore. should i weep? no, instead i play it like a man with some lidl lemonade in my hand, missing train after train cos of my non-scheduling brain. i bet a new bike is gonna be in my possession by the end of the week.

u-bahnitory

this city is something special, that one understands as one find himself seated next to a drug junkie on the underground. not sure of what kind of lines was drawn there but it was as hell no idealistic ones. seemed more to me like this fellow berliner had landed himself a morning treat.

to quote one of the not great: “only in belin, kids, only in berlin”

gute nacht und viel glück.

Mayumi & Nomi

Yesterday we had some visitors over. It was are great fan and friend Mayumi and her friend Nomi. We made them dinner, gave them some merch and then we did a secret show here in our apartment. It was a great night that ended up at the CCCP-bar at Torstrasse. Way! Thanks for coming over to our place and hope that we see you in Emmerich!!!

Mayumi & Nomi waiting for dinner...


Mayumi & Nomi RED


Mayumi & Nomi WHITE


Willowtree giveaway

Midsommar!

So, not to long ago we had our Willowtree midsommar dinner. We invited some friends and had a really nice night even though we didn't have a real midsommarstång. :( Better though was that Johan got he's hair done at the same time by our personal and very secret hair stylist.

Our very nice midsommarstång


don't show my face...


I said: DON'T SHOW MY FACE


Well, I know I'm a bit late with the reporting of the midsommer shit but what the heck, better late then never, or?

There is a fine line between genius and madness

The apartment here in Berlin is amazing in its own depravity. The toilet and heater is broke, fortunately though we still have a few warm months left. The ceiling sets off four meters from the floor gives us a sense of creative freedom.

The musician is living the life of the nomad. In our case we got a laptop each and a pair of blazers. The music has completely ruined us, and our expensive jeans have been patched too many times.

At the moment we are mixing Rachmaninoff vodka with synthetic orange juice from Lidl, while we are closing your eyes trying to imagine a Harvey Wallbanger cocktail.

Berlin has given us inspiration for something greater. We have a separate hard drive in the apartment filled with songs for the coming album. And at the moment the music is overshadowing everything else that could have priority in our pitiful lives.

I wouldn’t argue against anyone that would claim that it is complete madness to spend your last set of euro on an expensive blazer or a microphone preamp instead of having proper food to eat. But as someone said in the past, there is a fine line between madness and genius.

Report from the god forsaken apartment at Frankfurter Allee

John and I are currently sitting in the studio. I have spended some time lately on writing lyrics for our new demo. A good friend of mine, Alex Ljung is currently staying in my room. He has moved to Berlin in order to market his new web-concept. The Swedes are really invading Berlin!

Uaah!


Alexs blog:

Welcome to Graceland

haha, no no no... drums is a bit to athletic for me I don't even think that I will be able to play guitar after eating stuff like this... :)


photo: das chaos in deinem kopf

So as mister Gustav said have we been recording today. We are working on new songs and I really hope that we can post some of them really soon on myspace. Way!!!

Working

Full activity in the Studio. John is writing chords for Johan and Olle is working on a drumfill. Perhaps Olle is considering change of instrument?