News entries for the year 2007

31.12.2007 Sat on the computer all day yesterday, moving the Graceskull tracks that we have recorded for the next album (drums and also some bass, Rhodes and piano) onto the new software platform I'm now using to make music. I got all transferred except for "Found My Place" which has some spooky shit going on on the click track and I couldn't get it working, I think I need some help from Arttu who recorded the stuff originally to make it work. I also programmed some minor stuff on a few songs, shakers and stuff, but got some more serious stuff done to "Remains Of You" which got some strings, keys and other pretty stuff laid on it. Still loads to be done on that one as well but with all the songs now on the computer, it's only up to me now to get some shit done. Felt really good working on some Graceskull stuff for real again, and it was nice to realize how fucking great the sound on these recordings was. "So when is the album ready?" Well, we still don't have a clue but wish you a Happy Graceskull New Year 2008! ;)

29.12.2007 What the fuck, I never write anything on here on Saturdays! Well, I'm on a friggin' X-mas holiday and I've watched so many films and episodes of Heroes now that I need to do something else for a change. And that's why me and Coma had a lil' session yesterday, Hills (of Vaasa), you know. Coma had a new song which we jammed on and I even came up with a pretty good beat on the fucker, I really like the song, strong melody etc. We also drew up a list of songs we have pretty much figured and there were six of them. I think we're gonna try and record those once we get the lyrics and structural details sorted. I started on the lyrics (as I've known to do) pretty much as soon as the rehearsals were over and came up with a good few lines to this one song that might be called "Survivor" or "I'm About To Survive".

27.12.2007 A couple of Atyd rehearsals during X-mastime, suits perfect, hardyhar. First up on Sunday we managed to get "Scorched Garden" into a pretty fine shape, it somehow reminds me of Nine Inch Nails...maybe. I had a guitar with me which might've had something to do with it ending up that aggressive, I don't think I'll be playing the guitar on stage though. Which brings us to why; yesterday it was the first time Jocke had time to attend the Atyd rehearsals. We did the handful of songs we've readied and Jocke of course jumped on them faster than a motherfucker. I even recorded some versions of the songs on my cellphone and they actually sound quite cool through the tiny speaker, all banged up and distorted. Sounds like Atyd to me.

20.12.2007 Had Julius over yesterday to check out the new computer I'm sporting...well actually he was over on some other business but anyway we ended up working on some programming to Graceskull's "Bring Me Love" as I showed him how the new software I'm trying to learn works. We did some sketches on string arrangements and some piano too, I guess. I should transfer all the drum sessions onto this new program (Logic Pro, if you're interested in that stuff) so we could get working on all the filling these tracks need, strings, percussion, all that shit.

19.12.2007 A televisual experience yesterday, The Conquistadors played live on "Strömsö" which is a lifestyle program for a Finnish TV channel FST5. It was a New Year's special they taped and the theme of their New Year's party was that of a masquerade which suited us just fine, for the first time we fit in with our audience, haha. Anyway, it was fun doing it even though I started to pretty much hate "Something Good" by the end of the evening, we did it surely a dozen times for editing reasons. It came out sounding pretty fucking good in the end though, so I think it was worth it. Actually sounds like the recorded version almost, probably gonna wound up being accused of lipsyncing but you, our trusted readers shalt know better! The show is gonna air on FST5 30.12. at 17.15 and on New Year's Eve 31.12. at 20.25, don't miss it!

14.12.2007 Finally (ooh, a week) I got the lyrics to the new Conquistadors tune done. They've been bouncing up and down in my cranium but I have them on paper now. The tune might be called "1000:1" or "Secrets" but probably both, as in "1000:1 (Secrets)". I'm pretty pleased with the outcome, should provide a nice first chapter to "Citiscapes" also lyrically. Had also a rehearsal with The Royal Piss yesterday, we just basically played through the songs for the upcoming EP and jammed a bit (mostly ZZ Top's "Rough Boy" with me on the drums...it's impossible to tell you why we laughed our asses off during this 30 minute version of the song but that we did). We also made a decision to do the drums to the EP by programming them (Mikko's suggestion), we'll do it in the vein of My Bloody Valentine who painfully programmed their psycally ill drummer's beats on "Loveless".

10.12.2007 A Friday night rehearsal with Atyd, I think we're getting somewhere. We tinkered with a few songs and started to find arrangements which we're comfortable with. The best work was done probably with "Celebrity Lifestyle" (a Swans cover) which grooved and moved pretty nicely and is pretty much completely different to the recorded version. It will be interesting to see what kind of a set we achieve in building - by the looks of it at present, it will at least be loud. On Sunday I finally got some lyrics down for the new Conquistadors tune, it had been echoing in my head for a good few days at that point. I actually managed to only get one verse down but I do have a concept that I'd like to get across in the song which should help in bringing the rest of the text on paper...although it sometimes is precisely that which makes finishing lyrics so damn hard. Hopefully not this time.

07.12.2007 A great day at the Conquistadors' studio yesterday, yet another new song is ready for "Citiscapes". And this one's fabulous, really great vibe and unexpected positivity. The resemblances mentioned at the session were at least A-Ha, Smashing Pumpkins' "Tonight, Tonight", U2, Rubik and Kent - probably none of them can be heard from the final result by someone outside the band though, that's often the case. Anyway, this one is pretty much set for the opening tune to the forthcoming album, I think alongside the title track slotted as the last song they make superb bookends for the disc. Oh yeah, the title...it's currently "Shitty Escapes" but I already have another title in mind.

22.11.2007 And as of yesterday the lyrics to the aforementioned Conquistadors are done. Actually two sets of lyrics since I wasn't feeling the first version I did. I believe that the title is now "Fever".

21.11.2007 Finalized The Conquistadors tune "Androgynecologist" yesterday. Okay, still some of the lyrics missing though. Aside from the extensive work on the arrangement details, we got a cool middle eight going that added an another dimension to the song in my book. Personally I think this might be one the best songs we've managed to come up with with the Conquistadors. Great stuff.

19.11.2007 Rehearsing with Atyd on Saturday, it was pretty strange. I mean it's really been a while since I've had to be a part of a band in a rehearsal, trying to get songs to work with just the instruments and stuff. Interesting. Anyway, after a sticky start (tech stuff that didn't quite work right) we got basically two tracks sorted out, one of which I sing on that's called "No More A Secret". Micke had this vocal effects unit with him that provided some spacy sounds that added to the drugged vibe of the song, I was actually surprised we got it working that well. We might be rehearsing some more in a couple weeks' time, let's see what we come up with.

15.11.2007 A new song by the Conquistadors appeared on Mikko's hard drive last night. The stunning working title is "Androgynecologist" but I may have a real title for it sooner than you think. I like this tune a lot, it has a powerful drive to it.

12.11.2007 A lil rehearsal with Coma on Saturday. We finally had some drums to our disposal so we jammed out some of the songs we've written thus far on the drums, with either me or Coma behind the kit. Coma also had a new song which instantly became probably my fave Hills tune so far, we got the kick drum heavy beat pretty much sorted to this one too. It sounds like Sparklehorse to me. We also had one more tune appear from the clear blue (actually pretty murky gray) sky which might be something to work on later on, maybe with another kind of arrangement.

06.11.2007 A Royal Piss session yesterday. We've worked hard - okay, not really hard but efficiently - and now I think we have pretty much the songs sorted out so that we know what the basic tracks for vocals, guitar, bass and drums should be like. Yesterday's main course was getting the beats in order and finding out which one of us will play them in which songs. We split the drum duties in half which means that the fifth song will be me playing the verses and Andy playing the choruses. Why? Because we can. Hopefully. Anyway, now we have a few lyrics missing but that's not really a problem, as you may well have noticed. Especially The Royal Piss lyrics pour out from my pen pretty easily, you could even call it fun.

31.10.2007 Sang the demo of the Mikko T. original with my text yesterday. We also sprinkled some acoustic guitar on it, even some slide stuff, came out sounding great actually. Hopefully whoever it is that gets this song does it justice.

30.10.2007 Wrote some lyrics yesterday for a tune written by Mikko. It was some song to some other artist and I believe Mikko wants me to sing the demo too. Probably gonna do it later on tonite. The tune might be called "The Sparkle Of Your Love".

24.10.2007 The Conquistadors studio night yesterday again. We continued on building the tune we started the last time, there were a good couple of beats we tried on the song and the chorus but eventually we got it pretty much together. The flow of the tune isn't quite perfect to my ears just yet but I guess we'll get there. How the chorus melody came about was a nice textbook example how the three of us can tap into the same idea, Mikko played something on keyboard which Paati started humming in his own way and I picked it up and sang my version of it on tape a few seconds later - good stuff!

17.10.2007 Aaaand on to the nest Sugarrush dude. In studio yesterday with Paati and of course Mikko as The Conquistadors. Mikko has acquired some new equipment, ie. a beautiful new iMac and a magic wand that we can also call Logic Studio program. He previewed a bunch of dirreferent functions on the darn thing and I was sold - I need to get this program, maybe it would help getting the Graceskull album together too. It just might. Anyway, the start for the studio session itself was a bit rocky as the program and its sexy loosp and stuff kept exciting the boys a bit too much so we ended up with at least two laughable tracks that ended in the bin (no, we still don't keep any works in progress) after which at around midnite we stumbled upon something that's gonna be the next song. It has a bit of the same vibe as "I Alone" off "Mil Mascaras" but is more positive. Maybe. I'm too tired now to even remember how that song went, anyway I'm sure it's a good one. Maybe. And on a different note, I am very sure I got also lyrics done for The Royal Piss tune "Iggy's Green" yesterday.

16.10.2007 And a rehearsal with another Sugarrush jussi yesterday, The Royal Piss worked on the material for our next EP (called "For The Golds" if you already didn't know). It feels good to say that I think we have the arrangements pretty much in place for the six songs (well, 5 and a half could be more precise) we're gonna record probably in December with once again goldfinger Mikko Tamminen behind the knobs. We figured out how "Iggy's Green" (previously "Iggy's Old Chord") goes and made a cool ending for the tune also. "Nahkafaija" also begun to show shape and got a brand new middle eight that I quite liked. Unluckily Paati still had his snare and cymbals elsewhere so we couldn't work on any drum arrangements on his drums but I'm hoping on doing that shit the next time we hit the rehearsal space. I have a pretty good feeling about this EP, I do.

15.10.2007 Another rehearsal with Coma as Hills (of Vaasa) last Saturday. Much better vibe for me this time than the last (I was kinda sick, ya know), we got a good few of the song ideas off the ground. My fave was (we don't have any names for the tunes thus far, can you believe it?) this tune Coma came up with that we actually built a beat around despite having no snare or cymbals at the rehearsal space - even the demo sounded great to me! There's also this tune that might be called "I'm About To Survive" that I quite like, we added a new part to that one also and it started to sound like a song. We're getting somewhere, slowly but surely...

11.10.2007 The Bullets gig went just great yesterday. We were a bit uneasy about the fact that we played quite early and there was no booze sold at the venue (Club 25), how can a rock gig work under these circumstances? We'll we are the motherfucking Bullets, that's how! Naw, the audience was fantastic, just fantastic and I can't give enough thanks to the organizers (the food and candy was super). Sure we fucked up a bit in a couple of songs but it nearly felt like playing at the rehearsal space, really relaxed and super-fun. The highlight of the set was when we decided to donate our legendary black plastic jackets to the charity (it was a charity gig for the street kids of...fuck it, can't remember the country) - so it was an end to an era for the Bullets. But you know we have something planned that even better than sweaty plastic jackets. Yowza. After the show (and after the boys had drunk the gig salary down their throats in just under half an hour) we checked out Lapko who played in Fontana. And what a show it was, I'm sure I've praised the bassist before but the man is just plain coolest guy on stage Finland's ever produced, he plays in a style completely his own without missing a note despite appearing to be totally fucked up by some mushrooms or some shit. Overall too, it the best set I've ever seen them play, sound was nice and the whole set was fuckin' tight. Great stuff.

09.10.2007 A Bullets rehearsal yesterday, we have a gig coming up on Wednesday so we thought we'd run through some of the songs. The first round, I must admit, was a bit slow and tired but once we'd gotten the oiling all done, the second time we played the set everything started to fall in place and the energy was once again there. It's going to be great to get to rock out on stage again, too long time since the last time.

01.10.2007 Hey, I know it's been a while. Why? Well, the explanation is that my beloved laptop died on me and I've been working on getting back the song ideas and whatnot back on the replacement hard drive. Luckily for all of us just about everything is now in place and I can continue my life like nothing happened. Okay, let's backtrack a bit to last Saturday. I was feeling like I was coming down with the flu but nonetheless made my way to a rehearsal with Coma (of The Sugarrush of course) as the Hills (of Vaasa) - a band we started a few years back but haven't really been active for almost exactly that long. Anyway, we got a few ideas going but I certainly wasn't in the finest of forms. I think we have the most work to be done on finding out what the Hills' sound is like and what kind of a band it is - neither of us has any problems on producing songs, you know. It will be exciting to see what we come up with...and when will do just that...

21.09.2007 A little session with Graceskull yesterday, it surely has been a while. We set up the ol' Wurlitzer in Julius's newly (almost nearly) finished basement and jammed on a good few of the new songs and came up with at least one new one (called "67" for now). I think "Don't Hesitate" was the song that we most reworked, it might now have a Radiohead-ish coda - or then again it might not, we'll see soon enough. Julle also had a great rhythmic Wurly riff for "Born Alone" which I loved and it makes this song even better - and maybe a bit further away from xeroxing Twilight Singers' "Martin Eden". It might be my favourite of the bunch. Why are we working on new stuff even if we haven't finished the work on "The Once And Future"? Well, I think it's good to be prepared for the following album once we get this one done - I'm not planning on doing it the same way and taking this many years either. And naturally, the following album will be our best yet.

17.09.2007 A Conquistadors gig at Lutakko in Jyväskylä on Friday. It was an indoor festival of sorts, called Kickstart and we were among the first performers that night so the turnout wasn't exactly tremendous. I think we played pretty good and sounded even better but I at least had a hard time coming across any energy from the audience. Oh well, what can ya do. Luckily it's always superfun to go on a trip with the good ol' boys so all negative feelings were blown away by the time we'd hurried ourselves out of Lutakko into the nightlife of JKL with our pockets stuffed with beer bottles from the venue. Never seen that many meters of dreadlock in one town before in my life, crazy.

23.08.2007 As The Conquistadors' "Hands" was pretty much finalised on Tuesday, I had to get the lyrics done and actually got them all done yesterday. This is the third version of the lyrics for this song but the first I've managed to finish. I finally found the right angle, probably the new version helped me in the process. I also took a peek of the lyrics for "I Want More" (I wish I had a better title for this song...maybe someday) and was surprised how fully realised they also were and after a few finishing touches they were ready to go too.

22.08.2007 Some Conquistadors studiowork yesterday. We listened through the material we have so far recorded for the next album and made a list of things that should be attended to in the songs. Pleasantly enough we had pretty much everything in the list done by the time we headed home last night, even the biggest task of re-recording "Hands" basically from scratch. And boy did it come out great, it's now more aggressive and stylistically more in line with the other material. It was nice to get the recordings on their way again, we're hopefully recording more stuff next week.

20.08.2007 Julius got on stage for the first time with his other project Jack Dalton Orchestra on Friday in Pietarsaari. According to his reports the gig was fantastic as they were backed with a fine horn section who received rave from J.Lo. On Saturday they proceeded to Vaasa's Amarillo and apparently the gig was at least as good as the previous night's, unfortunately I was unable to attend. I guess their single "The Sacrament" is out right now, so it is most recommended that you get your hands on this disc! The full album is coming out early next year from what I hear.

17.08.2007 Some deejaying in Tampere last night with the Conquistadors mask on my face the whole night - yeah, sweaty stuff. Unfortunately the sweat was only due to the mask since the turnout wasn't exactly extravagant, but like always when there's not a lot of people you can play whatever you like with no moronic requests. What was actually surprising was that I played every request made that night, these were some class people with great tastes in music! Anyway, as always the setlist is here for you to peep. And a closing alert: Julius is playing with Jack Dalton Orchestra in Pietarsaari tonight and in Vaasa's Amarillo tomorrow - don't miss these historical first shows of this band!

16.08.2007 Tonight Conquistador #1 will hit the decks in Tampere's Doris and provide a spectacular DJ set for the good folks who have the brain to get their asses in there. And yes, I will be playing Grant Lee Buffalo's "Fuzzy", I always do.

13.08.2007 A great gig by The Conquistadors on Saturday at Helsinki's Liberté. At least that's the way we, the band, felt and judging by the audience they weren't exactly suffering either. The sound was just right on stage and again it was great having Mr. Kulju behind the axe. The stage was a bit crowded with Zacharius Carls Group's stuff waiting for their set there as well as our gear and I guess Paati took it a bit hard since he would've liked to run around the stage for once now that he's playing bass (it's a Cox!) in a couple of the live tunes. But all in all a very pleasant gig. After the gig however things started to get more fucked, especially once we reached the hotel. No one quite knows what happened during the really wee hours of the morning but we all know now how much smoking costs in a non-smoking hotel room (it was cheaper to ingest the complete contents of the minibar, we know how much that adds up too now). If anyone has by the way seen a white Boss tuner pedal lying around all alone in Liberté or near it, please contact us - we miss it and can't afford a new one after the hotel bill!

10.08.2007 Both me and Julius were gigging last night during The Night of Arts in Vaasa but not together however. First up it was Julius (alongside our trusted boys Paati and Andy J.) playing keys with Gemie who he's played with previously in the Depeche Mode cover project. Having witnessed their set I can only say that I thought it was a great set. The boys played wonderfully even though I heard they'd only rehearsed twice - talk about stone cold professionals! After they'd finished their set we all proceeded to Superstereo where The Conquistadors hopped up on the stage and despite the not so promising circumstances - stage time was 2 o'clock in the morning on a Thursday - had a good gig. I think it might've been our best thus far even, we might've finally stumbled on a setlist that's working properly. Let's see how it works for people in Helsinki tomorrow when The Conquistadors are hitting Liberté alongside Zacharius Carls Group.

08.08.2007 A lil' time spent on lyricwriting yesterday. I penned the majority of lyrics to the ditty "Born Alone" which may still yet change its title. I'm really liking this song, it's very simple but strong somehow, I'm already listening to the finished song in my head which means I have a bunch of ideas for the arrangement of this one already. It will surely be recorded sometime 2012 so I hope my mental notes will hold out.

26.07.2007 Frankie Magnum was unable to play at The Conquistadors gig happening today in Kuopio's Henrys Pub so occasional Graceskull gig-axeman Jocke Kulju stepped in. We rehearsed (without Paati) with him only once, yesterday, and one can only be amazed at the craft of this man. I'd handed a CD of the songs to him only a few days before but he had nonetheless every song down. We only played thru them once because there was no need for a rerun. Crazy. I'm really looking forward to playing tonight to get to hear his performance actually. Of us Graceskullers it wasn't only us two rehearsing, also Julius had himself a rehearsal yesterday with the Jack Dalton Orchestra. They're playing in Vaasa and in Pietarsaari (if I'm not mistaken) in a couple of weeks' time so stay tuned for more info on that. They have string and horn players booked so it's probably going to be quite a show!

13.07.2007 A lil' studiowork yesterday with The Conquistadors, me and Mikko worked out a remix of sorts for the forthcoming b-side of "Something Good" single. I must say that I wasn't really at the best of forms, I think I was too tired to function properly so the vocals on the track are not really cutting it for me. Let's see if we decide to redo them or not. Otherwise the track is pretty removed from the original, it's kinda South American in its vibe - mellow and acoustic.

09.07.2007 A session with The Royal Piss on Friday. We rubbed the two new songs ("Nahkafaija" and renamed "Unhappy Mondays") until they were shining like..well something that shines a lot. I think they're both about complete now, just in need of playing them through a few dozen times so they stick the right way. We started off however by jamming an instrumental intro to our next release, we're calling it "Iberia" - mainly because the bass riff is a shameless semi rip-off of Spain's "World of Blue". After working on the two I mentioned earlier, we proceeded to write sketches or ideas for two new songs ("Silence 2" and "The Fish") but before long it was too late to get anything productive done so we left them cooking. On Saturday morning I was feeling productive and good after the session the night before so I wrote lyrics to "Unhappy Mondays" - this time amazingly I got 'em all done. Can you belive it? Oh yeah, we also got a tentative title for the next EP, it might be called "For The Golds".

27.06.2007 A gig yesterday at the Kaivohuone in Helsinki with the Conquistadors. The place was magnificent and the stage was very nice indeed, I heard they had spent about one million euro in restoring this venue and it showed. The gig was alright, we did a bit of a faster version of the set which was fun but the audience that had been quite nice before the gig appeared to dissolve already during our intro - okay, they'd been dancing to eurotechno greats all evening before the gig so I guess one can't blaim them. I don't mind not being their cup of tea, hardyhar. Anyway this was probably the first gig I've been on where the rider had been fully realized which meant that in addition to the usual alcoholic beverages, there was candy, fruit, meaty snacks and even Coke in a glass bottle! To top all this they'd even hauled a gigantic mirror there to fulfill Paati's request for one. I could get used to this.

25.06.2007 Midsummer brought along a new song with it, I guess it might be called "Born Alone". The sun is up all night and Graceskull names their new song "Born Alone"...well, we are Graceskull.

13.06.2007 A return to the rehearsal space for The Royal Piss yesterday. We had a good evening with Andy and finally left with two new songs in our catalogue. The first one was a Manchester-beat driven tune that is called "Clearasil" for now, I have no idea as to why. The other one - called "Nahkafaija" - we worked on a whole lot longer, it started out a bit more aggressive than our previous tunes but eventually evolved into a classic Piss ditty. Andy made it faster than the version I had in my which made it a whole lot better, I think it was a bit reminiscent of The Wannadies "Hit".

28.05.2007 A Bullets rehearsal on Friday, can't really remember when was the last time we've rehearsed. Didn't sound like we'd been away that long however, it was great fun playing together and we even wrote a new tune which might be called "Dinosaur (Kick It In)". We also brushed up the other new-ish tunes we had in store and I think we now have pretty good working versions of a good handful of songs. Hopefully we have the time to get a few more written and arranged so maybe we could start booking a studio, it's been a good few years since the last joint.

21.05.2007 Some lyricwork on a couple of them newer Conquistadors songs. On Friday I worked on "Citiscapes" (the title song from the future second album) and got it pretty much all done. And pleased I am too with this one, it should wrap up the album's theme just perfectly. At least in my head, it does. Today I had a new approach to "I Want More" which was basically all written already. The original idea for it was good but I didn't quite get the point across as much on an emotional level as I would've liked to so it felt very good to have this other idea struck me. I got a chorus and one verse done and the whole song feels much better now. I think I'm keeping the original idea in my back pocket for use in some other song later on, it's very much a subject I'd like to touch upon sometime.

14.05.2007 The first Conquistadors gig in Vaasa is now done. I personally was very suspicious about the gig as in would there be more than a handful people there considering the gig was on the same night as the Eurovision Song Contest but luckily my suspicions were blown away by a very healthy number of people who seemed to enjoy the show quite a lot actually. I think the sound of gig was pretty good but the extra additive that made the gig worth checking out was the light show constructed by our trusty Light Moron, Mikael. He'd really made an effort to get the show as rich with dynamic as our music is and I think he pulled it off just great. It would be fun to have him onboard every time we get on stage but unfortunately the economic aspects are what they are at this stage. Anyway, a great big thanks to everyone who came, we had a super fun time playing. Hope we can bring the Conquistadors extravaganza to Vaasa again sometime soon.

09.05.2007 A Conquistadors rehearsal yesterday, not a glitch in sight. We hadn't played together at all after our gig in March but all the pieces fell together just great. We rehearsed in the bigger room of Petting Room studio complex which was way more fun, I think everybody heard theirselves better and that always makes it easier to enjoy what you're doing.

07.05.2007 First solo gig over and done with - and I think I did pretty good considering my meager talent on the guitar. Actually I also played piano during Frankie Magnum's set on one of his songs, another first for me. I had taped the piano so that I'd find the right keys because I have no idea where to find the right notes on a keyboard. The evening was however kicked off by Henrik Boldt who had a wonderful voice a couple nice tunes to boot. Then it was our dear friend Frankie (who performed under his Macke Granfors alias) who took the stage with Petter Näse (the mastermind behind Jack Dalton Orchestra where Julius also handles key-duties) accompanying him on the guitar. I thought they sounded just fantastic together (and surely even better with me behind the piano!) and especially a tune called "Johnny Dunder" nearly brought tears to my eyes. You can expect good things from his solo stuff, apparently he's heading studio-wards sometime this summer. And a little note on Mr. Näse's playing must be made, this guy has a fantastic sound and he plays just super, check him out if you get a chance. It was a bit difficult to get on stage after all these guys and it proved even a bit more difficult than hop over the mental barriers as my acoustic guit was fucked directly off the bat. I had to switch over to Frankie's fine Martin but fine as it may be, it was naturally a bit more difficult for me to play than my own tool. Anyway I had the lengthiest set of the night and got through it pretty good, I had to abort only one song ("Wish I Was Drunk") due to not just getting the last part right...at all. But I guess it just brought an quasi-interesting element to the show and I think the audience laughed with me more than at me - a small victory in itself. I had Frankie turn in the piano favour as he got behind the keyboard for "Tinkerbell" and I think it sounded pretty cool. Another presence on the stage that night with me was of course the already infamous Thölix amp which made its debut when I switched to the electric guitar for the middle third of the set. It kinda felt that there was a whole number of people at the venue just to see and hear this baby work and it performed just fine, I'd gladly have had it on a bit louder but the guys behind the mixer wouldn't have it. My favourite moment of the evening was playing this one new song I'm calling "Distance" for the time being. I like that song a lot, in fact so much that I sung it even though I don't have any lyrics written to it at all - I'm sure some of it might have sounded funny as I was singing gibberish all the way through but I thought it added up to the singer/songwriter theme of the evening, I kinda let the good folks who showed up catch a glimpse of a song in making. Aanyway, all in all it was a fun night and I was glad that we all had a different kind of approach to the subject of singer/songwriter crap - let's do it again sometime! Here my setlist:
Intro/Faith
Bring Me Love
Sleepwalker/Don't Hesitate/Spiritual (Spain)
Lullaby
Harbour
Wish I Was Drunk [aborted]
Tinkerbell (The Conquistadors)
Kings And Queens/White Flag (Dido)
Distance
Underneath The Storm (The Royal Piss)

02.05.2007 Another solo rehearsal yesterday. I played around with a handful songs, again throwing some to the trashbin and taking some other ones to the set. As nice as it is to play by yourself on the other hand, it's also a bit dangerous as you don't really get much practise since you dont have to play that good at all - sloppy is enough. So I don't know whether I'm going to be in form come Saturday's gig but I sure hope so. Also got some lyrics down for "Harbour" and "Plains of Eden" which was nice since I think those two should be in my set - at least if I don't change my mind before the gig again. This was by the way the first time I got to rehearse on the spanking new Thölix amp Julius built for me. It's a great machine with a beautiful crunch to the sound, sure enough I have to explore it more to get the right feel and sound but yesterday it sounded good pretty much however I set it up.

26.04.2007 A Conquistadors day on the telly yesterday. First up me and Mikko (Paati couldnät make it down to Helsinki) were on SubTV's live morning program chatting away for a good half an hour or something (they had us drawing masks and shit) which was pleasant enough, light entertainment you know. Then after a few hours rest we chatted to Sonja from Voice TV which was great. It's always nice when the interviewer can react to you like a person instead of just hammering you with the questions they have on the paper - conversation instead of interrogation. It should air probably sometime in the next few coming week, I'll post some details later on.

23.04.2007 A rehearsal yesterday, all by my lonesome. Quite strange actually, I really haven't played alone - home or elsewhere - in a long while so I guess it was as good for me to do that as it felt awkward. I got some songs working for the future gig and some got tossed out the window but there's a good couple of songs that I should write lyrics for. Surely some of the tunes are going to sound like sketches of songs but who gives a shit, it's my show so I can do whatever the fuck I want. Heading down to Helsinki tomorrow, The Conquistadors are appearing on SubTV's morning program Subbari which airs pretty early on Wednesday, I believe it was 8 o'clock sharp.

20.04.2007 Was over to ol' Julius yesterday and have a try at the amp. And yeah, it sounds great with the new (okay, new vintage) speakers and louder than it ought considering it's not at all big in size. Also we tried out the logo I've designed, trying to find the perfect size for it and I think we got there. There's just a few minor things Julius has got to fix, like some unwated buzz and the piping, but then it's ready to go. Hopefully it's just about done in time for my solo show at Doo-Bop Club May 5th.

12.04.2007 Was over to Julius's place yesterday to try out the amp. Sure there remains a glitch or two yet to be fixed but the thing sounded fantastic! And looked as good too. I think it's gonna be the perfect thing for me, both clean and distorted sounds rocked. Hopefully he will get it all done in time for my solo gig, I'd sure like to showcase this baby live.

11.04.2007 The Conquistadors album "Mil Mascaras" is finally out today. Go get it at your local record store or get it way cheaper in electronic form over at Itunes. Thanks, now keep on rockin'.

10.04.2007 Julius is nearing the completion of the first of the Thölix amps, with yours truly the future owner of the machine. I think there still are a couple of things to be sorted out but I've already heard how great the tremolo sounds and it was over the phone on Thursday. After a Friday spent in Tampere doing a couple of interviews on The Conquistadors, Saturday dawned to me with a couple of new song ideas (these were for Graceskull however, I only write for Conquistadors in the studio as you may have heard). After a lazy Sunday, The Conquistadors attended a photo shoot with trusty ol' FLB behind the lens. The first few frames didn't quite come out right but when the lighting was changed up things started to happen and you can see the results at theconquistadors.com (the top four Polaroids). After working on the photos all day I needed some sleep and didn't catch The Conquistadors interview on YLE2's program "Musiikki-TV". Luckily for you and me they have the whole show available for one week in this address (the interview starts somewhere around 20 mins and it's in Finnish). If in Vaasa region you might also want to check out today's Pohjalainen magazine where there a lil' story about the very same band of masked musicians.

30.03.2007 A few days on The Conquistadors train. On Tuesday we packed our bags and headed to Helsinki where we crashed at Coma's place (thanks a million). In the car somewhere near Tampere I did an interview on the phone with City magazine, plenty of good question and stuff. After a bad night's sleep we first had a couple of interviews with Sue Magazine, Desibeli.net and Volt which were all really nice, it feels good to get to tell people what we're all about. After those we headed to Liberté where we first shot an interview for a tv-show called Buusteri (it will be shown on Nelonen April 28th, I think) and I also played an acoustic version of "Tinkerbell" with trusty ol' Frankie doing some guitar magic on the background. We were supposed to have soundcheck before 7pm when we were due to appear on YleX radio but of course the schedule was fucked up and in the end it was decided that Mikko and Frankie would just check that everything works while me and Paati would do the radio show. This we did and when we got back the boys were just about ready. Mikko reported that everything was okay but after the gig he revealed that he didn't want us to worry, the "soundcheck" had been catastrophic and he wasn't sure if we'd get through the gig at all. But surprisingly we did okay, this being the first gig we've ever done and all. Surely it was no spectacle or nothing but a good gig I assume, a good start. I think we'd need some better lighting and some smoke to get the show done the way we want but I'm sure we'll get there too. The majority or the crowd seemed to be there just to see us (they left after the gig even though there was one band to go on the bill, Takida - who were funny guys by the way) which was nice to see, hope they got their money's worth. We should've had one more interview that night, with Suosikki, but the interviewer informed our PR person that she was way too drunk for an interview so it was left for later (probably a telephone interview). The next morning we were tired as fuck of course, but we still had one more interview to do which was for Yle's MusiikkiTV program (airing 9.4.). We were pretty stupid with half of the interview being just joking around but I guess that can be somewhat entertaining as well. Funny thing was that the host of the show Tomi Saarinen also masked himself for the interview, so it wasn't just us being tired, the seriousness was doomed from the start, harhar. In the car riding back home I did one more interview with Pohjalainen which was a bit more difficult to do, maybe I had been spoiled by the in-person talks. Upon returning to Vaasa a Rumba magazine waited on my doorsteps with The Conquistadors all over the mag: a great positive interview, a brutally negative record review and a few mentions in a few other articles. So we've got the media pretty nicely in the palm of our hand, some are just on the hairy side.

26.03.2007 Conquistadors activities all around. On Friday I managed to write down some lyrics for the new song "Citiscapes" we were working on, I think I got the first verse down pretty much and maybe some of the chorus too. Later on me and Paati appeared on Radio X3M and talked about the upcoming album and some other crap, it was in Swedish but I think I did alright (my Swedish is far from perfect). On Sunday we had the final rehearsals before our historical first gig and what made this rehearsal special is that we rehearsed on stage at Club 25 with a full blown PA system. It was a very long day but a rewarding one as well. It felt great to sing with the monitors blasting away, much easier to control your voice when you hear yourself that good. Also the duo of songs we've been rehearsing but that aren't in the set - "Disappearing" and "Everyone Knows" - went really, really well, Frankie Magnum pulled some great shit out of his axe that made the songs more living and breathing. Many thanks to Härmä for dragging himself to work that early on a Sunday. And so now we're ready for gigging. Liberté, Helsinki, Wednesday 28th March 2007 - that's where you gonna go. If you are unable to catch us there, you can at least listen to YleX the very same night where we'll be bullshitting on a program valled X-ryhmä at around 19.00. Over and out.

23.03.2007 A lil' rehearsing with The Conquistadors again, our first gig is coming up fast - it's next week, March 28th at Liberté in Helsinki city. The rehearsals went really good, we were all really pleased with how the stuff is rolling now. After the rehearsals we had our usual "tinker with a new song" session and we came up quite certainly with the closing song for the next record, quite possibly called "Citiscapes". The time run out again though so we have to finish this one later on even though the song itself is ready in our collective mind already.

21.03.2007 A couple new song ideas popped into my head yesterday. For once I have no stupid working titles for the duo, let it just be said that the first one was a slower number and the other one was a faster tune with a piano(?) riff that drove it.

22.02.2007 A Con-rehearsal yesterday. Jesus these songs are hard for me to sing. We played the set two times and my voice was pretty much shot after that (I even was unable to catch the high note at the end of "Kill The Light" on the second round), it will be quite a task for me to get through the live set with a decent grade I tell ya. Frankie had bought a new amp which he had with him, a really cool Orange head, I believe it was called Tiny Terror or something. When I layed myself down for the night I couldn't stop working and actually got the latest Conquistador song's ("I Want More" is the working title) lyrics finally done in my head. Rest, sweet rest. (Oh yeah, and I amazingly even remembered the lines in the morning.)

21.02.2007 A lil' songwriting yesterday, I sketched out a song I'm calling "Plains of Eden". This is probably one of the songs I'm going to do May 5th when I'm doing my solo set at Doo-Bop in Vaasa but it's clearly a Graceskull tune so you'll probably hear it at future GS gigs too. Check out today's Vasabladet by the way (if your Swedish is fluent), there's an interesting story about a band called The Conquistadors.

19.02.2007 Studio day for The Conquistadors again on Friday - or maybe it would be more apt to say studio night as we got to work around nine o'clock in the evening. It was a succesful night though as we readied the ditty titled "I Want More" for the time being. We worked out butts off getting the chorus done just right and I think we really nailed it - the breakdown section came just really easily which was nice since this song has given us enough trouble already. On Sunday I started to work on the lyrics and have been working them in my head ever since, I have a really strong idea for the song which just seems really hard to get transformed into words (based on a disturbing true story I read not too far ago). As usual, I got a whole lot of shit done for the verses but the chorus is problematic. I'm sure I'll get there though, I usually do.

16.02.2007 A lil' rehearsing with The Conquistadors yesterday. Well actually a bit more than a lil', I left the rehearsal space / studio with a shot out voice. I guess it's just that the songs are way up there on my vocal range and doing them over and over again takes its toll. Whatever, it should be good for my voice to have some practice. Frankie-boy ended up only playing a few songs with us until he had to exit, he had an appointment at a hair salong (first things first, you know) but we proceeded to rock out way into the night. We figured out a setlist too which felt pretty good with the songs we have, I guess a couple more faster hit tunes wouldn't hurt. After the rehearsal we took out the song we'd been unsuccesfully working on last week and surprisingly enough it sounded just fantastic and suddenly the chorus we just couldn't figure out a week ago appeared to me like a flash of light. Paati figured out the drumline for the chorus too so basically we have the upper hand on this song (tentatively called "I Want More") now. We should continue work on it tonight.

14.02.2007 A new guitar (electric at that, for a change) arrived at my doorstep yesterday. It's this 60's Gretsch replica by maker of cool repro axes, Eastwood Guitars. We tried it out with Julius and thought it was a bargain for the price - naturally the looks of this instrument are suberb. I also was interviewed for a local newspaper during the day concerning the Conquistadors, I guess they're running the story next Wednesday. The interview was done in Swedish which isn't my native language but I think I did okay, I occasionally tend to forget some words and grammatics but I hope I got my point across.

12.02.2007 It dawned to me late on Saturday that the next Graceskull album is called "The Once And Future". I've yet to discuss the title with Julius but I'm quite sure that I can explain it so that he'll back up the decision. We've been trying to find a proper title for this album for so long but I think this really is it, it's a fitting title for a good number of reasons - reasons which will remain for you find out when the time is right.

07.02.2007 A frustrating evening at the studio yesterday while working on a new ditty for The Conquistadors. We had an idea for a song that we worked and worked and worked on it but left the studio pretty much empty handed. Well I guess that's not exactly true, we got the verse and bridge done and working (this wasn't easy, we tried out surely five different approaches) but failed to get a chorus in there. Probably the late hour caused us to not get a proper chorus out, so I'm sure we find it the next time. We actually were left with another idea that I've been thinking about all day which might form into another song - it all remains to be seen. Julius meanwhile has taken a break from his amp construction work and is currently enjoying a drink or ten in Spain, I guess the weather's a bit nicer down there.

30.01.2007 Another Conquistadors rehearsal yesterday, this time with the full four-man lineup. And it worked like a charm and there were a handful of songs that really started to work this time, "Something Good" being probably the best example of this. Paati's electric percussion kit looks really impressive and sounds as good - at least when he doesn't dig into the soundbanks called "Industrial" and "Old School Hip Hop". "Pop!"

25.01.2007 Another Conquistadors rehearsal with Paati missing from the lineup. I think we're getting to a stage where everyone starts to know what they're supposed to play (and in my case what to sing). Which is nice, of course. After the rehearsal me and Mikko stayed around at the studio for a while and suddenly a new song emerged out of nowhere...well I guess that's how they always do. Anyway we got the basic ideas for the verse and the bridge down but decided to head home before the chorus hit us because the hour was pretty late. Meanwhile back the Killing Music studios Julius has been hard at work building the amps for himself and yours truly. I haven't seen them in person but judging from the pics he has emailed me they look just fantastic. We're still working on getting a cool name for the unidentical twins but for the time being they remain nameless. If you got a suggestion, you know what number to dial...

22.01.2007 Alrighty, The Bullets gig on Saturday. Frankly said I wasn't all too pleased with the gig which might have had a thing or teo to do with the aneamic audience response, I guess they were waiting for "Boten Anna" to blast out of the speakers instead of some high-octane rock'n'roll. One thing that did however please me was that the new songs we've got are just friggin' great, I've had them playing in my head all Sunday long. Hopefully we'll get some more songs together of this caliber so we'd have an album's worth of hits. Just wait.

18.01.2007 Another Bullets rehearsal! Jeez, we've probably never rehearsed on two consecutive days before. But I'm glad we did because we left the rehearsal space later on with two great new Bullets tunes. Frankie had worked on the riff presented the day before by Eric which made us throw the Tuesday night's version of "Out of Control" in the trashbin and basically rewriting the song completely. It came out really good and I felt it was a bit different to our usual antics but still sounded like the Bullets of course. It made me think of Refused a bit which is only a good thing. The other song was built on something that I had come up with during the day and to my surprise we also got this baby twisted into a real rocker! Hopefully we'll present both at Superstereo on Saturday - just be there!

17.01.2007 A Bullets rehearsal last night, it had truly been a while. We have a gig comin' up on Saturday at Superstereo so we thought a lil' rehearsing wouldn't hurt. And sure enough the old songs came back just as rockin' as we'd left them (okay, I had some trouble remembering all the tiny details but this is rock'n'roll we're talking about). We worked on a couple of new songs too, actually one of them was a new version of "Out Of Control" which I believed we've even played live once. We worked on that one quite a bit, we had a little TSOOL thing going there and I thought it came up pretty nice and even wrote the lyrics for it when I arrived home after the rehearsal. Also worked on were a duo of riffs from Frankie and Eric but we didn't really get that far with them because we run out of time - maybe next session will bring some new ideas on the table. Earlier in the day I also worked on a new tune which I thought would be included in the solo set I'm doing in May at Doo-Bop Club's singer-songwriter night. I'm not really sure if I've confided to you about it or not but I agreed to do a solo set there because I'd already blown the arranging people off once because I didn't have time to do it just then. I've been trying to figure out what kind of an approach I'm gonna take for the set but I've not settled for an idea just yet - I just wouldn't want to play some Graceskull stuff with an acoustic, I'd want something more versatile maybe. Well anyway the song idea I recorded on my computer ended up being lost before the day was through so I don't even have any songs that'd take me into the right direction...oh well, I have a couple of months on me to pull it together.

12.01.2007 While I've been keeping busy in the Conquistaland, Julius has been hard at work in his infamous garage. No, he's not been building the studio but a set of two custom made amps, for him and me respectively. Thus far he's got the looks (always number one, of course) and the blueprint for what's inside them figured out and judging by the pics of the first one he's upholstered, they're going to look just spectacular. And weird, au naturelle. Hopefully he'll get the technical aspects as finely done as the exterior. Can't wait to show up at a gig with one of these babies!

08.01.2007 More rehearsing with The Conquistadors on Sunday. This time we had Frankie Magnum on board behind the guitar but Paati was unavailable to attend until the last half an hour of the session. Mikko had been mixing the stuff earlier on at Club25 to get all the backing tracks worthy of live play and he sure did a helluva job - that shit rocked. We also sorted out the majority of what Frankie's gonna play so we're one step closer to having the live stuff under control. The rehearsals per se were the most fun this far, or at least that's how I felt - when you don't have to think all that hard to the songs and the lyrics and whatnot (ie. when you've learned the songs good enough), it makes the situation a lot easier to enjoy.

02.01.2007 Happy New Year, dear readers and indeed listeners! Before hopping over to 2007 we actually managed to get even some more work done with the new Conquistadors material. Last Friday was spent almost entirely in the studio which resulted in two songs getting done. First up we worked on "Kill The Light" some more and it is now ready - and ready to rock. I think it must be the fastest tune we've done so far but it's not all in the speed of the beat, it rocks on a multiple of levels. The other tune we did was 100bpm slower then, it appeared midway through working with "Kill The Light" as a riff jam on Mikko's Juno and my acoustic guitar. We threw the acoustic tracks in the trash can though and it made a hell of a difference for the better. What we finally ended up with was something pretty strange as the song sounds like three songs crammed into three and a half minutes. It starts off like something from Radiohead's "Kid A" and ends up with something that you could hear on soundtracks of classic Spaghetti-westerns. At first we called it "The Dentist" (don't ask) but it's now called "The Storm Is Over" (or possibly "The Storm Is Over/Clean Slate") after I got the lyrics down just in time for the New Year's celebrations (which of course meant checking out the annual Sugarrush gig at Sky).