News entries for the year 2008

22.12.2008 A gig on da axe with the Sugarrush in Helsinki's Semifinal club. Sometimes it happens that a gig is destined to go all wrong but it actually ends up being great - this show was one of them. We had a really shitty soundcheck, no one could hear what the others were playing except for Andy's guitar which was blastin' at me from the monitors. Then when we showed up at the venue there was basically no one there. But then - magically - as we hit the stage the place was suitably full and the feel was super. i really enjoyed playing and the crowd seemed to be really into it, we got a load of enthusiastic feedback after the gig too. The only negative aspect of the gig was that I cut my fingers about a song and a half into the set and bled on my instrument the whole set. Also the next morning I found my forearm pretty nastily bruised apparently from hitting my guitar - oh well, miniscule sacrifices for a good show. So thanks, Hell-city!

16.12.2008 Yesterday tackling "Seasons" at the studio. We got the vocals down pretty good pretty fast which meant that the rest of the evening/night was spent horsing around and recording all kinds of craziness (broom sweeping among other things) onto the track. We did get the whistling part re-recorded however so I guess this one's pretty much done.

15.12.2008 An Atyd session on Saturday. It was a bit different session than we've had before since we spent the evening recording a demo of sorts. Harri and Micke were already well on their way with the basic track when I arrived, and after some jamming I came up with the guitar part and a vocal which I was pretty happy with. I think it's a pretty strong song despite the demo being a bit lacking productionwise, we'll see how it ends up when we have time to really record it. It's called "Chariot".

12.12.2008 Guess what I did yesterday? Damn, Sherlock, yr good! Another vocal session, this time back at Killing Music Studios with Julius. And I'm pleased to say that another successful session it was, I don't know if Julle agrees but I think it was our best yet. The song we worked on this time was "Remains of You" which is one of those songs that has some tricky high notes for me which have proved difficult earlier on but yesterday they seemed to come out pretty easily, I was pleasantly surprised since I was of course expecting the worse. I thought that singing this much would've taken its toll on my voice but I guess it's really the other way around, that my voice benefits from having been used more frequently. I felt nice. At the very end of the evening Julle cut up some of the last chorus to present an idea which we'll try out once the backing vocals are recorded - a sort of a soul-ish type of an idea, the main vocal leaves out some gaps for the backing vocals to fill. Okay, more singing hopefully next week.

11.12.2008 Still some more singing, a Conquistadors sesh with "Secrets" on the agenda yesterday. We actually started with me trying out some lead guitar to a song Mikko's written for a third artist but it soon became obvious that my skills as a guitarist didn't cut it. Luckily we got much better results with my singing even though we had to use some interesting strategies to get the best possible result. The verses of "Secrets" are damn exhausting to do just right so we ended up recording them in bits so we could avoid unsmooth breathing noises etc. We even got out a cool new sound effect from my vocals to bridge the transition from "Secrets" to the next song on the album, reminiscent of a fire-alarm gone mad or something. Listening to the song now, I think it's the best we've got on the album and the voc track ain't too bad either.

10.12.2008 Some more singing yesterday, I did the Atyd (or it's not actually Atyd, it's the current Atyd lineup trying out working with this Norwegian dude) song's vocals at my home studio and added some ideas to the track. I think the song is called "Draume" and I'm quite happy with the end result (or at least this current version, I just mixed my vocals on top of the mix and it's really not the way to go).

09.12.2008 Aaaaand of course just as I was praising my wealth of sleep...feel tired like roadkill. The vocal sessions dragged pretty late into the night yesterday and after the session I really couldn't get any sleep because of my poor little brain working overtime with the sleeve for the upcoming record etc. Anyway the session itself went pretty much great, we got "The Light Is Changing" and "Hollywood" wrapped up as far as I'm concerned. It felt a whole lot easier to sing "Hollywood" in its current form than it has before, all the high notes came out sounding ten times better than they did on the demo track where I really had to strain to reach 'em (and you could really hear it too). So a job well done, I'm hoping we can squeeze in one more session this week...

08.12.2008 This week I noticed that I do have quite a number of projects, aside from the vocal sessions for Graceskull and Conquistadors records, I also produced a demo for Royal Piss song "The Pieces" (on Friday), wrote lyrics to an Atyd song and sang a demo of it too (Saturday) and also tried unsuccesfully to book some shows for The Bullets. I know some people wonder how I can keep up with this many bands and manage to get some sleep but actually nowadays I sleep a whole lot better and more than I did in the early days of Graceskull when that was all I did. I guess getting all kinds of artistic ideas realized is good for me. Either that or I'll spontaneously combust any day now. Anyway, tonight I seem to be heading back to Killing Music Studios to record some more Graceskull vox and that feels just super.

05.12.2008 And another vocal session yesternight, this time on a Conquistadors song "Kill The Light". Now this is another song that I've sung a million times but it's still kinda hard to do, has some difficult high notes for me. The verses got done pretty quickly but when we started on the choruses I wore out my voice and couldn't see myself completing the song that night. After a pleasant snack (some tasty sandwiches crafted by Mikko's GF) we however started to work on the middle eight and then proceeded to the ad-libbing stuff right at the end of the song - and then something magic happened. My voice kinda opened up or something and when we tried to do the choruses again, it worked like a charm. What we were left with at the end of the day was one helluva voc-track. Really proud of this one, I am. (Sorry for the Yoda-talk, have been watching too much of The Clone Wars TV-show.)

04.12.2008 Back in the studio after a bit of a pause, I've been having a flu etc. We recorded vocals for "Hush" and "Kings & Queens". "Hush" proved a bit tricky because it has one note that's the lowest that I can reach with my voice and it's really tricky to get there sometimes. It came out alright, I think but what really came out good was "Kings & Queens". Okay, it's a song that we've played a million times so by now you'd think that one would have a pretty strong grasp on how to record the fucker and this time you would be right. It felt relatively easy to do, hopefully when we listen back to the tracks next time it doesn't sound like poop. Oh yeah and we got some cool ideas on some harmonies for "Hush", it just might be that we need someone else to do it. Let's see.

01.12.2008 Was over to a new venue in Vaasa called Ritz (or Kulturskafferiet) on Saturday and checked out Julius's band Jack Dalton Orchestra. It was a special kind of gig for them since they celebrated the release of their debut album "Departures". They had a string quartet and a trio of brass players to back them up, oh yeah and a percussionist too. The house was packed and the gig was cool, I thought that especially the first half of the show was excellent and well thought out, it had a good flow. Of course as you can expect with musicians at this level, everybody played just fantastically and the sound was nice also, although it took some getting used to (the room is kinda special at Ritz, an old movie theater). It really got me thinking that this was the kind of concert I'd also like to pull off in my dreams, of course with Graceskull it would be a less rockier kinda affair etc. but I'd love to have strings to back us up and a few hundred people sitting and enjoying our music. Oh well, you can always dream, it's good for you. Anyway, you really should check the record out, Jack Dalton Orchestra's MySpace can be found here.

20.11.2008 And they're off! The vocal sessions started yesterday with "Bring Me Love". We got down the verses pretty easy but the chorus appear far more difficult to nail down. The chorus proved hard to do because I couldn't get the breathing timed right off the bat and when I'd gotten a better sense of it I had already worn out my voice and it sounded less than stellar. We did however come up with a pretty good harmony for the chorus which I guess we'll leave to someone else to sing. Also I'm now officially recording four records at once (that's Graceskull, The Conquistadors, The Royal Piss and now The Bullets) since Frankie Magnum and Band Bang had started recording the drums for an upcoming album by The Bullets yesterday. I visited the boys briefly during the day and I thought they'd gotten pretty damn good stuff on tape. Frankie's studio complex is however relocating in a couple of weeks so we'll see how we'll continue with the process. Exciting times, mah friends, exciting times.

17.11.2008 Spent the weekend trying to mix the songs so that I can start singing on them this week and I got them pretty much sorted. But I did realize that the poor bugger (that's you Arttu:) ) that ends up mixing this record is up for a challenge. Sure I'm the worst mixer ever but I know this much: getting all the stuff heard what's on here is gonna take a herculean effort. Luckily we have a real magician lined up for the job...

12.11.2008 Back to some Conquistadors stuff, yesterday we recorded what is quite possibly the final vocals for "Do You Know Part 2". It was a very good session if you ask me, I've rarely been this pleased with a vocal track, especially some ad-lib'ed stuff came out just great. We also made some adjustments to get a single edit going as this song will be the first single off the "Citiscapes" album, added some stuff as an intro and some other stuff which made the song a lot more alive than it was before. Next up to get final vocals is probably "Kill The Light", hopefully next week.

11.11.2008 A nice daytime session at Julius's place yesterday. We recorded what's probably the last of guitar stuff by me for the record. Yeah, all of it wah-wah stuff...and yeah, probably some of it will be left on the cutting room floor but we got some good stuff on tape too, at least on "Seasons". Actually even Julius played some gnarly bended chords to "Seasons" - for the Gramex money of course! Aside from "Seasons" we also recorded a lil' sumthin' sumthin' on "Hush". Next up on the schedule - finally! - the vocals.

10.11.2008 Got some more drums down for the upcoming Royal Piss EP on Saturday. Actually come to think of it I think we have seven songs that we're gonna record so I'm not sure if it is an EP or a mini-album. Well, anyway "Angel Eyes" and "Unhappy Mondays" got their drum tracks sketched out, I'm sure we'll still do some work on those with Andy when we got the whole bunch wrapped.

04.11.2008 Royal Pissing the night away yesterday. I actually started recording our second EP all by my lonesome, tapping in the drums for "Iggy's Green". Trying to get them sounding as natural as possible I steered away from the usual beaten programming track and played that shit basically live in a couple of takes and then cleared some of the more blatant errors. Once Andy heard the track he said it sounded like me drumming which is probably a good thing. We discussed also recording the cymbals for the programmed stuff live with real cymbals since you really can't get the right groove and aggression from the samples on a computer. That should amount to a fun session or an interesting one at least.

27.10.2008 A quickie Sugarrush rehearsal late on Friday and a new song on Saturday. The Sugarrush is playing at Kuudes Linja in Helsinki on Wednesday so you should be here - it's my birthday by the way! Yeah and that song that popped in my head, it's called "Everybody" and it owes a whole lot lyrically to a song by a great artist, at least a couple of lines do. Anyway it's not hidden in there or nuttin', you'll hear it when this song gets played sometime. One of those rare ones that started with the words instead of the melody.

20.10.2008 A busy weekend yet again. The Bullets show at Vaasa's Doo-Bop went just dandy, it felt really great to rock out on the stage again, it's been too long a while. The only negative aspect of the gig was the exploding of my finger, I ripped it quite brutally possibly on the mic of my bass. I didn't notice it at all during the gig, I thought the sticky strings were due to the doughnut I had during the gig but it was blood. The next day we hopped in the van and drove a couple of hours to Pietarsaari where we played at MusicClub Jeppis. It looked pretty bad pretty long into the night since the audience showed up awfully late but we killed time by enjoying a pizza at Kumar's across the street and it proved a great choice, not for the pizzas which were alright but for the stand-up routine-ish antics of the waiter, the guy was crazy! Anyway, the audience did finally show up and we did rock them all. The boys from Bad Habit (nice guys all around, by the way) said it was even better than the night before so who am I to disagree. At the end of their set they asked us back on stage and we played a few rock'n'roll classics together (forgot whatthe other one was but the first one was Zeppelin's "Rock'n'roll"...what else), me playing an unplugged guitar of course. Fun times, our thanks go out to Bad Habit for being stand up dudes and arranging this gig, hopefully we'll be touring together again in the not so distant future. On Sunday after a night very poorly slept (we drove home in the middle of the night) I felt myself quite energized anyway so whilst playing around with the guitar I got a new Graceskull song going. "Morning Mist" it's called for now, really some classic Graceskull shit - and that feels good.

17.10.2008 A quick Bullets rehearsal with a three man lineup yesterday, we just reminded ourselves of how the new stuff went pretty much. Nevertheless my ears were ringing like crazy after it was over. Tonight we'll see if it was worth it when we rock the Doo-Bop! Come on by and don't forget tomorrow's Bullets gig at Pietarsaari's MusicClub Jeppis either.

14.10.2008 A quick session with Julius yesterday, we fixed some guitars on "Dying Days" and tried out some stuff to "Bring Me Love" and "Seasons" too but they were just more like sketches or ideas for the real licks. We'll see whether we can flesh 'em out come next session.

13.10.2008 An action packed weekend. First up on Friday I attended one of the greatest concerts I've ever seen, an evening with the great Leonard Cohen. Everyboby knows [pun inteded, sorry] that I love his lyrics to death so it's surprising that the thing that most caught my ears was the sound of the show, it was just phenomenal. I've probably never heard a sound so rich and full in my life and was not expecting to hear it in Helsinki's Hartwall Arena - an ice hall. So Lenny, in case you're reading, give the tech guys a raise - do it now! Anyway, Leonard enchanted the crowd with his enormous charisma from the moment he ran up on the stage and proceeded for a staggering three and a half hours. We laughed and we cried (well damn near anyway for my part agood couple of times but the lady a few seats from me did anyway), just crazy good show. His songs have been on my playlist of tha head now constantly after the gig and I had to order a couple of his books the very instant I made it home, so it goes to say he really made an impact even though I really didn't need to be won over. Okay, enough with the praise, just go see the man if his tour extends to your region. Late on Saturday after I'd driven all the way from Helsinki I had a Sugarrush rehearsal to get to and it was a whole of a lot fun, maybe I wasn't as tight as the last time but I was bit tired too, ya know. The next morning there was one more rehearsal with the same guys, a quick one. We just ran through the set of songs we're gonna play in Helsinki at the end of the month.

10.10.2008 A tiny Conquistadors session yesterday, we recorded what is hopefully the final vocal for "Off The Rails". Actually we recorded just the verses since we thought the choruses were already pretty much the shit. We also tried to get a vocoder idea working but failed to get it sounding just right, remains to be seen if it ends up on the track or not.

08.10.2008 Another Bullets rehearsal yesterday. Monday night's session was about dusting the old machine but this time we were fully oiled and ready to rock! Before the other guys made their way to the rehearsal space, me and Macke had time to come up with an idea for a new song which sounded quite promising. I had made a setlist which we ran through and boy was it a furious tempoed one. Should maybe hit the gym a couple of times to make it through the upcoming gigs, the set is really that friggin' fast. Looking forward to playing on the stage again, seems like aeons since last time.

07.10.2008 A Bullets rehearsal for a change yesterday, it has once again been a while. We rocked through the oldies and tried to get some of the newer ideas working and I think they worked pretty well, the one ditty that me and Macke had been working on sounded really cool, we just need a chorus for the bugger - the ones we came up with at the rehearsal were...well, let's say unsuitable. We have a couple of gigs coming up next week so you better add those into your calendar: Friday 17.10. at Vaasa's Doo-Bop Club and Saturday 18.10. at MusicClub Jeppis in Pietarsaari.

06.10.2008 Back on track after spending the majority of last week in bed with fever and stuff. We recorded some more guitar with Julius yesterday, the wah thingy for "Found My Place" that we half finished the last time in the studio but also some rhythm stuff for "Dying Days" and the wah-wah also found its way onto that as well. I don't exactly know how the thing hopped from Julee's shelf onto the record but we both like how it fits in there, we'll probably add it to some other songs as well, since we seem to be on a roll.

30.09.2008 A bit of a rough session at Macke's studio yesterday, we tried to get the song we'd been working on finished so he could present it to our "client". I had written lyrics to the song on Friday so we sang those and proceeded to finetune the song when I started to really feel like shit beforfe you knew it I had a grand, grand fever wash all over me. I was shivering like crazy so I decided to leave Macke to it to get the work done. He called me just a few secs ago and told me that they had liked the song and were probably recording a version of it sometime in the future. It's always interesting to hear your own songs done by others, have to wait and see...Oh yeah, and I'm feeling a bit better now, no worries.

29.09.2008 On guitar duty at the Sugarrush rehearsals on Saturday, can't really remember the last time. Anyway, it was great fun actually, to my surprise I remembered a lot of the songs quite well and got on board the new ones pretty easily too (at least that's what I think). I think the Sugarrush is playing a few gigs at the end of October with Mummypowder so ya peeps in Helsinki and Turku, watch out!

23.09.2008 On double duty yesterday. First off over at Julius's we recorded some guitar tracks on "Found My Place". The basic tracks came out alright I guess but the real pleasant surprise of the evening came when we started jamming on a lead-ish guitar part that Julle had had an idea for. In the end we recorded a jammin' track on which Julius pumped the wah-wah and I tried to funk it out the best I could. Yeah yeah yeah, it came out sounding like The Afghan Whigs but who gives a shit. I do love that band, if you already didn't know. Even though it came out quite nice, I think we'll redo it, there are some details and stuff I'd like to get right. After the studio session I drove over to Atyd's rehearsal space where I joined Harri and Micke and we proceeded to sketch out some songs, at least a couple of them actually started to flesh out and I think we're continuing the work today when we'll hopefully get also Jocke and Paati to join us.

16.09.2008 A lil' sesh with Macke at his studio yesterday. Macke had some ideas for a new Bullets track (actually he had a quite nice rough demo) which we worked on and I think we did a fine job. I guess the track is a bit in the vein of "Manwhore", a raw thumpin' slice of bad attitude. I like it, it's called "Changes" for now. We also worked on another song which Macke thought should fit another band he knows, it was far too poppy for The Bullets. It was really cool to be working with Macke since neither of us knows the tech stuff and Logic that well, we proceeded on instinct, harhar.

12.09.2008 Editing the guitar stuff from Tuesday's session yesterday, relatively painless ordeal. One surprise decision came however on "The Light Is Changing" where we decided to keep the older track as well as the newer since they complimented each other really well, it was just a fuller sound with both of them there. We also tried to get a sensible backing guitar idea for the chorus on "Dying Days" and I think we might stumbled onto something promising but we'll see in the coming weeks how it plays out, I think we might be recording some guitar by yours truly next week.

10.09.2008 Guitarwork by Macke yesterday, he provided the needed tracks (and then some) to the two songs with the bad guitar sound - "The Light Is Changing" and "Remains Of You". The coda of "Remains" got also some added cool stuff on it when Macke layered a symphonic sounding stack of guitars on it, it really sounded powerful. Editing these maybe later this week. After the session made a brief visit to Macke's new studio of his own, he shares the space with Julle's bandmate from the Jack Dalton Orchestra, Petter Näse. It was really nice...and tidy, harhar. We've had talk of maybe writing some songs together with Macke at the studio, remains to be seen when we find the time to do so.

22.08.2008 An efficient evening yesterday, we spent it reviewing and editing the guitar tracks we've got on tape so far. It was actually a pleasure to find out how much stuff we had ready-to-go, I had a feeling that the sound or whatever was unusable on a bunch of tracks but actually just "The Light Is Changing" needed a fresher sound so hopefully we get Macke to do it over, the stuff he plays on the track is super but the sound is too raw for this track. Our bad. There remains still two or three that we didn't have time to check out but I think we're returning to the studio to sort them (along with the acoustic tracks I did a few weeks ago) out next week.

19.08.2008 Some more guitar added with Macke yesterday. We worked on "The Passenger", "Hush" and "Stifle". The latter was really brought to life by Macke's playing, I've been considering it my least favourite of the bunch of songs but now it kinda made its way up the chart. On "Hush" Macke produced some cool solo-type stuff which we probably have to edit to find just the right bits (we recorded a LOT of tracks). We also listened to some of the guitar we've already recorded and noticed that some of it had a much worse sound than the stuff we did yesterday. So I guess we'll be redoing some tracks in the weeks to come...disappointing but we want to do this shit just right.

14.08.2008 Another Atyd session yesterday, this time with Micke and Jocke. I think we produced some new stuff that was quite good...and also some that was crazy terrible. We rocked on a tune we called "A Is For Einar" that was basically "Wild Thing" by Tone Loc (or "Funky Cold Medina" or any Tone Loc song, I can't tell the difference), it was a barrel of laughs.

07.08.2008 Drove over to Helsinki yesterday and caught the Gutter Twins live on stage at Tavastia. Surely I'm always pleased to see my great hero Mr. Greg Dulli in the flesh doing what he does best but this gig was my least favourite of the three times I've managed to get my ass on one of his gigs. I think he's at his best when he's the sole center of attention on stage and so when the stoic Mark Lanegan is there to add his own weight into the balance, the balance seems a bit off to me. I also thought the band wasn't nearly as tight as before, Jeff Klein played made a whole heap of strange mistakes and stuff. The real heroes of the gig were however the axeman Rosser and the new kid behind the drumkit, Cully Symington. Rosser plays with such sense of style that you can't help but be amazed of his ear for the aesthetic and Cully is pretty much the opposite, he played the damn drums probably harder than anyone else I've ever seen. The setlist itself was a bit strange since they played a lot - a LOT - of stuff in the main set that nobody seemed to recognize. Also the set was built as just a bunch of songs whereas the Twilight Singers shows have always been great as a whole performance. The greatest tunes of the show were the Jose Gonzales cover "Down The Line" and the Mark Lanegan songs they played in the encore (worked way better ad harder than they do on the record, if you ask me). Anyway a good gig, more than worth my 25 euro. An added thanks also to Mr. Rumpunen for riding with me on this journey, made it extra fun.

28.07.2008 Acoustic guitar. Friday night. Yay. All acoustic guitar tracks for the upcoming Graceskull record were put on tape (or hard drive, whatever) during a session on Friday with me sitting in Julius's sauna - a candle lit at that. I think we made a decision to not have the acoustic guit featured in that many songs but we actually recorded it to quite a number of tracks, I think there were eight of them maybe. Anyway it was so late when we finished that we didn't have the juice to listen if the tracks were usable but I hope so. Surely some editing is in order since I'm not much of a guitar player but I think there were some nice moments too.

24.07.2008 An ATYD session last night, it was hot as a sauna in the rehearsal space. We doodled on some new stuff, just me and Micke, and then later on Paati even dropped by and erected his electronic drumkit. It remains to be seen how this new space works for rehearsing and how we get this more electronic stuff to work right.

23.07.2008 Another Royal Piss rehearsal yesterday. And boy if wasn't even better than last time. We had Coma playing the second guitar and (I'm trying not to sound prejudiced) he played it amazingly well. Considering he had never heard the majority of the songs we played, he actually played fantastically. Some great noise was made and I think we all were pretty hyped about the Royal Piss shit. I think we had maybe eight songs now ready for the road (okay, one of them was "Iberia" which is...well, a bit free-form). Hopefully we get some gigs booked soon for da 'Piss. I also worked a bit on the lyrics to "Nahkafaija" earlier in the day, I already had one verse from before and managed to squeeze out one more. And on a matter not related to bodily fluids, Julius had also a rehearsal with the Jack Dalton Orchestra yesterday and he is playing with them tonight at Vaasa's O'malley's Pub. Check them out, dude! I know I will.

22.07.2008 A session with Hills (of Vaasa) yesterday. Me and Coma coughed up some new shit, I think maybe two, three songs worth? Unfortunately no drums were present so we couldn't fully realize these ideas but I think they were promising nonetheless.

17.07.2008 Some nite-time work with Julius yesterday. We tried out a hefty set of microphones for my vocals and for the acoustic guitar to find out which ones provided the sound we are after. At the end of the night we had found our winners for both and quite surprisingly they were one and the same mic, the AKG 414 (or something like that...) It provided a rich and smooth sound which suited the best and so I'm pretty sure it's the one we'll use when we get those electric guitar tracks recorded and get to work on the vox and the acoustic. Oh yeah, and earlier in the day I also wrote a verse type thingy to a new song called "Only".

15.07.2008 A historical Royal Piss rehearsal yesterday, we had a drummer on the scene! If you didn't already guess, it was of course Paati behind the kit, who else? And fuck me if it wasn't the funnest I've had in a good while! It really didn't take much to explain to Paati how the songs went, even the new ones (actually he knew the songs from the EP better than either of us - me and Andy, that is) and we rocked hard - and loud. Really, really loud. Anyway the only song that we didn't really get working right was "Anotha Year", the one that worked really damn well was a new song by the working title "Silence2". Great stuff, it would be fun to really get this machine gigging.

10.07.2008 More guitar yesterday, Macke came by to drop some diamond stuff on "The Light Is Changing", "Remains of You" and "Found My Place". He also touched up his tracks to "For The Remnant" but the real gem of the day was however the stuff he did for "The Light Is Changing", some really soulful shit, I tell ya.

07.07.2008 Some guitar action on Saturday. We got our two axemeisters in the studio and got down a good few songs. At least "Dying Days" and "Kings & Queens" are done now in my book, some real guitar magic on those two. Also "Bring Me Love" was one that the boys changed with their licks. "For the Remnant" proved the most difficult of the bunch since it's so slow and I think we have to revisit that one due to some not-so-tight timekeeping. By the time we got to "Seasons" the overall tiredness begun to play its tricks and despite getting some damn great ideas on tape, I think there's still some work to be done on that one. Hopefully we'll continue with more guitar later on in the week.

02.07.2008 Finally got the tambourine tracks sorted yesterday, I think they should be about as good as they need to be. We've been preparing all week for a electric guitar session with both Macke and Jocke which should take place this Saturday. Julius has been getting the studio ready for the session, making cables and whatnot, and after getting the tambourine stuff done bounced the backing tracks for the axemen to play on top of. Hopefully we get the shit done this weekend, I think the guitars are the only main thing missing (apart from the vocals of course), so it would be great to get them on tape.

25.06.2008 Finishing off some Conquistadors tracks yesterday, we remixed "I Want More" so that it now works better with the rest of the songs on the album. We also added a lil vocal thing to the middle eight of "Kill The Light", Mikko thought it sounded too barren without vox. We've also been thinking about the track order for the album and have come up with a sequence that I'm quite happy with, remains to be seen just how we get the transitions working and such. All in all, the album sounds pretty fucking good. I'm proud to say that it is a pop album, and as you might know, good pop albums are not easy to make but I think we've done pretty good. Next up is recording the vocals and getting them just right, some of the songs are really sensitive to the mood of the vocal Iäve come to notice...

23.06.2008 Working on dem tambourine tracks during the weekend, on Sunday to be more precise. I think I got about half of them done and groovin' just right, hopefully I'll get the rest of them done later this week.

18.06.2008 Got myself a new guitar yesterday as a beautiful 'Bird landed on my lap. That's the classic Gibson Hummingbird we're talkin' about, bitches! I got rid of my previous acoustic (also a Gibson, a L-4A) a few weeks back and managed to find a good Hummingbird pleasantly fast...okay, I had been looking at Hummingbirds on the net for a good six months before getting active on the instrument swapping front. Anyway, the first impressions on this baby are very nice. It looks like a million dollars and sounds and plays just as great. It felt so good to play that within 5 minutes of owning it I had written a new Graceskull tune on it...or at least a part of one, I'm calling it "Before" for now. I think I have to take for a spin at some guitar tech's place since there is a slight buzz in the high E string, I would've taken it there for a check anyways since this is a vintage instrument and not out-of-the-box.

13.06.2008 Tambourine action! We recorded all tambourine tracks to the Graceskull stuff yesterday, some played by yours truly and some by Julius, I pretty much got the faster tracks and now the palm of my hand is aching from banging the tambax too viciously. Yupyup, there's still some editing to be done before we can call these tracks finished (I never said we were expert percussionists, now did I) but the recording part should be alright for now. Lastly Julius also got his wish as we also added some claves (lovingly performed by the man himself) to "Hush". I don't know what this sudden interest in claves was about but he fiddled with them all friggin' evening. Maybe I don't wanna know...

12.06.2008 A lil' singing yesterday, we recorded some scratch vocals for a couple of Conquistadors tracks. We started off with "Secrets" which I thought would be easy as fuck but instead it was quite the contrary. It's one of those songs that you need a vocal with the precisely right feel or else the whole thing goes down...or nearly so at least. Anyway we got it done and also "Off The Rails" (basically first take, it was so easy after "Secrets") and "The Smoking Gun". There might be one or two ditties still missing vocals with the correct lyrics, hopefully we'll do those ones next week.

09.06.2008 Some work on "Hollywood" and also a couple of other tunes over the weekend. They're now in such shape that I can hand these demos over to the guitar boys so they can get their stuff planned out. I think we'll attempt recording guitar stuff late June/early July or something, depending on their schedules.

06.06.2008 Worked out "For The Remnant" so now there's only "Remains of You" remaining (bad pun intended). Okay, "Hollywood" is surely not in the finest of forms but I guess it'll have to do for a rough version.

05.06.2008 A kind of a Bullets rehearsal yesterday, Eric Colt was however not to be found so we carried on by the three of us. We jammed on some new stuff and came across some other new stuff, some of which demanded further investigation, I think.

02.06.2008 Work on a bulk of Graceskull tunes during the weekend, I tried to get the songs into shape so that we can give 'em out to the guitar guys to learn and develop stuff to. "Found My Place" craved the majority of my time, the intro to the song (and the album) is a bit tricky but I think it's about right at least for a rough mix. There's still a couple of tracks that need attention, namely "Remains of You" and "For The Remnant".

20.05.2008 Working on the latest Conquistadors tune yesternight, mainly just getting the song working right since the composition was all done and the basic structure too. I think we got really close to the final version of the song (still called "Living My Own"), we even got pretty good scratch vocals done.

19.05.2008 Some minor work on a few Graceskull songs during the weekend, I switched sounds and refined some of the first tunes I did programming to. Those sound choices were the first I made so I hadn't really found the right stuff and some of the programming was quite bad too. I hope it's a bit better now.

15.05.2008 After being pushed forward by Julle I finally greased my joints and hopped on the task by the name of "Hush". This song has been one of the scarier ones to do since I haven't really had an idea what it should sound like. But now that we have the bulk of the songs pretty much ready, I took those as a blueprint and did some appropriate strings on it plus a whole heap of other things including a banjo-line. And by the end of the night I was pretty pleased with it, it has the same feel as the others while it's still a bit funkier...err, yeah funkier ...than the rest. This was actually one of the songs I imagined we'd drop off the final album but it has now bounced back, on my chart at least. Now all that's left to program is "Hollywood" which scares me ever worse than "Hush".

12.05.2008 A tight lyric day on Friday, I managed to pen the words for Conquistadors new ditty we'd produced the night before plus made a proposal on lyrics to a Sugarrush song ("Cure-riffi") that the boys asked me to do. I think I did a pretty good job, it's always strange to try and write something that someone else is going to sing. On Saturday me and Julle managed to do some studiowork, namely re-record the Hammond to "Remains Of You" and a solo (or something) to "Dying Days". While fiddling around with the Wurlitzer Julius had an idea that we'd add it on the intro to "Found My Place". We did just that and I think it sounded fantastic, really added something to it, some life or something, it has been a 100% programmed effort so I think some warm analogue sound is welcome. I think it's gonna be even better with some added guitar on it, we'll see.

09.05.2008 Another late night at the studio with the Conquistadors. But it paid off since I think we now have the songs we need for "Citiscapes" the album. This one got started off as usual, with a simple idea that got left on the petting room floor once the song started to develop into full bloom. It has the beat stolen from both Ministry's "Just One Fix" and Faith No More's "Digging the Grave" but 'm pretty sure the song itself isn't quite that heavy. The demo MP3 is called "Living My Own (Haista Vittu [ranskaksi])" for now - don't ask, we'll change it soon enough. Anyway, the next thing we have to do is get this one and "Do You Know?" properly done, meaning find the right instrumentation and arrangement and then we'll start recording the vocals. The vocals are to be recorded somewhere other than Petting Room studios since Mikko is relocating his setup to a new location pretty soon, I believe in the beginning of June so it will happen either in the new location or then we just might set up a portable studio someplace special. We'll see.

05.05.2008 Alright, The Bullets were back in action on Saturday playing a gig with Thoby Loth at Superstereo. We had a new stylistic approach to our rock as we had purchased dead stylish police uniforms and had some appropriate props to back up our look. Light Moron had even gotten his hands on a light that was akin to the blinking ones they have on the roofs of cop cars. Anyway, it was very much fun rockin' rpoperly, it has been a while since last time. Also having a kick ass setlist helped (even though Mr. Eric Colt switched up a few songs, as usual), I think we have some great fucking rock songs which would deserve to be recorded asap. Even though a bit too progressive for my feeble brain, I could understand that the dudes in Thoby Loth play pretty darned well and tight. Either they practice dead often or they are just super musicians, maybe both. If you lean towards 70's-ish prog stuff, be sure to check these guys out.

30.04.2008 A Bullets rehearsal yesterday and a great one at that! I thought we sounded fucking golden and I'm really into the new songs we've got - rockin', rockin', rockin'. Aside from playing we mapped out some stage antics and quite possibly we're upping the anté on stupidity once again on this coming Saturday's gig. You just need to be there to witness it.

29.04.2008 Sum mo' lyrics to "Do You Know?" by The Conquistadors, I think just about the whole song should be covered now. I wrote the verses and adjusted the chorus a bit, it was a lil' too complicated, the original version.

28.04.2008 Busy day on Saturday, we first had a little rehearsal session with The Bullets even though Mr. Colt was unavailable. Went alright, we even coughed up a new song in the process...are you waiting for the title? No? It's called "First you disco, then you ensemble". For now. Aaaaanyway, later on it was time for the spectacle that goes by the name of The Toilets, which is The Bullets playing without a setlist heavily intoxicated for at least three hours straight in Superstereo's ladies' room. It was fun again and hotter than we'd ever had before but I'm pretty sure everyone had a good time. The cables to my bass were all covered in god-knows-what when I opened my bass case the morning after, I'm hoping it's only alcohol but you never know. Maybe I should get them disinfected.

25.04.2008 Again in the studio but this time at Julle's (we're calling it Killing Music studios). We recorded the harmonica parts as planned, both "The Passenger" and "For the Remnant" got their shit done. We first thought that we were missing the harp with the correct tone for "Remnant" but Julius changed his parts a bit so he could play it with another one and I thought it sounded even better than before.

24.04.2008 Some lyric writing yesterday, The Conquistadors' latest ditty "Do You Know?" got a chorus.

23.04.2008 In the studio late again last night with The Conquistadors, I now have a massive headache. But it's not all bad since we got a new song built and it feels like it's another good one. We tried to make it a slow one since we felt the album needs one more of those but it eventually morphed into something completely different. We however decided to keep both parts and ended up with a 7 plus minutes monster. We might split it into two tracks on the record, I'm not exactly sure yet. Anyway, right now it's called "Do You Know?"

21.04.2008 Did some arrangement stuff on "The Passenger" Friday night, it came out pretty simple but the song requires it pretty much since it ain't that complicated either. We're planning on getting the harmonica parts recorded later this week, possibly Thursday, which include "The Passenger" and "For The Remnant".

17.04.2008 "Citiscapes" the song has had me worried for quite some time now since it's been half finished and not really living up to the expectations I've had for the tune. But not anymore, since yesterevening The Conquistadors were back in the studio and wrapped that mother up. It became much more electronic than what I had had in mind but it works, it works, it works. Now that this baby is done I think we need to sit down and see if we have an album ready or not. I think we're a couple of tunes short still, some of the older ones need to be cut or redone or remixed in order for them to fit on the album. We'll see how it turns out, I think the spiritual aim is to get it done materialwise before the summer. And that's seems quite son from where I'm standing.

14.04.2008 Played around with the Hammond parts a bit during the weekend, on "The Light Is Changing" and "Bring Me Love" especially. It's actually a bit harder than you think to get the tracks working with more elements, you can't just drop the track in there and it works. This is the stuff you need somebody who can mix to do, and I'm definitely not that someone. I also got struck with inspiration and demoed a song that popped into my head, my first demo on Logic no less. It sounds a bit like "Crazy" by The Afghan Whigs but that's just the music - the melody which is quite different. It's called "Fate" or "New Day", I got the text for chorus written pretty much on the sopt - now that's unusual! So there's one for the album after this next one...

11.04.2008 In the studio yesterday working on the latest Conquistadors tune "The Smoking Gun". We did some magic to the tune cause it had been bothering us all that it was unfinished and lacked a certain something in the chorus, and now it sounds like a million euros. Some guitar, some cool brakes, some crazy trance effects and there we have it. We also tweaked "Desertscapes" a lil', it wasn't sounding right either but it was just a matter of mixing it better to get it just right. Before the studio session I stopped by Julle's and picked up the Hammond tracks we recorded some weeks back. I think I'll start working on those later on tonight, adding them to the songs and wishing it will bring me new focus to the songs that I haven't programmed stuff on yet.

28.03.2008 Work on a couple of Conquistadors songs yesterday down at the Petting Room studios. First up we constructed the skit-ish lil' tune that I'm calling "Desertscapes", it's just over a minute long but its purpose is to strengthen the theme of the album. It features even the same piano thingy we have in "Citiscapes" and "Secrets", you get the picture. We had the honor of being visited by the great Mr. Jouni "Tami" Tamminen in the studio and while we were working he passed time by fiddling on my guitar. After a while Paati noticed that he was playing some cool stuff on top of our song and roughly two seconds later we had him in front of the mic playing his stuff. So he has the honor of being the first non-Conquistador to feature in any of our songs. After wrapping up with "Desertscapes" we proceeded our work with "The Smoking Gun" and got a little closer to getting the song all done. We changed the intro to something completely different which suited more comfortably with the rest of the song and even wrote a breakdown section (or middle eight, whatever they're called). There's still work to be done with this one but Mikko keeps telling me that this tune is a hit. I, of course, don't have a clue about these things but he should know, he's crafted a few before. We'll see, now wont we.

25.03.2008 Pretty darn busy Easter I had, ladies and gentlemen. Friday started the weekend off quite laid back, I just wrote the lyrics to "The Smoking Gun", you know the latest Conquistadors tune. I actually thought it would be called "The Only Ones" but after talking to my beloved bandmates I changed it back and crafted a new chorus that incorporated the original idea. On Saturday I had a rehearsal with Atyd that resulted in one new song, "The Dark" it's called. Harri (our man on the beautiful black Rickenbacker four string) was apparently ill but I thought he fought his fever very good and we got through the handful of songs with flying colors despite a missing guitar dude. Luckily the next day we one more rehearsal with the whole team present, Harri still with fever though. I think we managed to get the songs into fine form though there still are details in them that I'd like to polish. Okay, that's that for Atyd reporting, let's backtrack a bit now to Sunday morning. I hopped in the steel carriage and drove over to Julius early Sunday morning and during the day (before I attended the Atyd rehearsal in the evening) we recorded pretty much all of the Hammond organ stuff to the forthcoming Graceskull album. After some starting difficulties (hey, it was bound to happen) we made our way alphabetically through all the songs and I think the only thing that was left unplayed was a solo thingy in the middle of "Dying Days". Julius made some magic happen here and there and the instrument really strengthened up quite a few songs. The way he had the Leslie cabinet mic-ed looked just plain crazy to me (I think there were six mics some of which hung from a contraption Julius had made from a plank and a brick) but the sound we got was good. A good day's work, for sure. I talked to ol' J.Lo today and he had been choosing takes and editing stuff last night and planned to get more of that done tonight. Next up on the menu: the guitars!

19.03.2008 A new song emerged from a Conquistadors session yesterday, we're calling it "Smoking Gun" for now. I had an idea of using my voice as a riff for a song but we ended up with something quite different actually, a poppy eighties-ish hit. That's at least what Mikko said, and he should know, you know. Anyway the clock was ticking so we didn't get it all done but I think the song itself is ready, just the arrangement needs work. In the meanwhile Julius has been hard at work preparing for a recording session for his Hammond parts to the Graceskull record. This will be the first shit we're gonna record in the "Killing Music Studios" which - though still much a work in progress - are the main base for future recordings by Graceskull. our session is slated for Sunday, hopefully we'll get to start early and get shitloads done.

17.03.2008 Tinkering with "Kings & Queens" a bit during the weekend. I got some ideas that worked and others that don't, ie. I think I've got too much going on in the outro and some shit like that. Hope to have some more time later this week to get it done properly. Oh yeah, and I had an idea about a new song too, but I'm not exactly sure if it's a Graceskull, a Hills (of Vaasa) or a Bullets song...I'm calling it "Band of Gold Of Shit" for now, hurhur.

14.03.2008 Yup, got "The Light Is Changing" done yesterday. I actually didn't do all that much to it but it took some time to make the decisions to leave things out and leave something as they are. After wrapping the work on that one I tried to get something happening on "Hollywood" and then "Kings & Queens" but I really didn't have the energy or the right feel available. I'll have a try on them later on, usually the right stuff comes along eventually.

13.03.2008 Yea, I got "Dying Days" pretty much done yesterday. As I said yesterday, it came out sounding much better than I had anticipated...and feared. I also started work on "The Light Is Changing" and actually proceeded pretty nicely with that one too, although I made the mistake of piling a bunch of stuff at the end so it was a bit hard to find the right ingredients for the first two verses. More work on this baby later on today. After my lonesome session I luckily had another late night rehearsal with the Bullets. I think we spent the majority of the evening jamming on this snippet I'd thought of earlier in the day but after some hours it was discarded since it started to resemble some Lapko song a bit too much for Eric Colt to stomach. "Last Call Alcohol" was another tune we worked on, in two separate versions actually - one for live, and one for the record. The live one we got working pretty good, a sort of a set starter, but the mellower studio version didn't really lift off the ground either. We'll see what happens with it in end...

12.03.2008 Back on dat ass, as they say. I worked a whole lot on getting some meat on the bones that is "Dying Days" yesterday and I must say that I came further than I thought I would. And as you probably guessed, that means a whole heap of strings and some horns as well (plus some rough FX that work nicely with the aggressive nature of the song...well, aggressive in terms of it being a Graceskull song). There are some details (a lot of them actually) that require some fixing before I know if this baby works this way but I think i did pretty well with this baby. I've been really afraid that this will be a song that won't work on record but I think it's starting to work quite darn good now. More work on it later on today!

09.03.2008 Edited and checked out the remaining guitar tracks yesterday, also the acoustic ones. So the end result is that we have a couple of tracks with a shitty sound that we're gonna have Macke play again and then get Jocke sprinkle his axe magic on the stuff. The acoustic tracks proved all good which is nice so we don't have to set up a session again.

07.03.2008 A Bullets rehearsal yesternight. We rocked on some oldies and got right down to writing some new shit. Lo and behold, at the end of the session we had ourselves a new hit we're calling "Maybe Swayze". Maybe. Okay anyway, it all started of with a riff or an idea of some sort that good ol' Frankie had in his back pocket that we mangled and mutilated in the usual Bullets fashion and eventually it ended up as being something quite different but great nonetheless. Julius and Macke had actually been rehearsing with another project before the rest of us got in, they're playing Muse songs with some other guys at the traditional musicians' gettogether happening in just over a week from now, Vaasa BandJam. I think Julius also has another project there where he will be performing alongside a troupe rocking out some classic Whitesnake - nah, I wouldn't have believed it either had he not told me himself. So don't you miss it!

27.02.2008 A Royal Piss session yesterday with Andy J. We were quite productive, came up accidentally with a new tune (for now called "Beibi Come Back") and also wrote lyrics to "Angel Eyes" and "I'm Long" (both of which are due for a change of name soon enough). We're actually only one text short of having all the material together for the EP, so I guess we'll be recording it sometime in the Spring if Mikko only has time to produce it.

21.02.2008 At Macke's record release gig yesterday, selling the discs (every last one went!) for Nature Sucks Anyway. The gig was fantastic, I love how he sings especially live and also in great form was his piano dude Tobias, crazy stuff. I suggest everyone get this disc, called "Heartbeat", while you still can, it's quite a limited edition and we're running out of 'em pretty fucking quick it seems. Oh yeah, and I got lyrics for the Conquistadors song "Take Me Under" (which actually might be called "Off The Rails" now) done just seconds before Macke started his set, I put the rare quiet moments at the sales desk to good use.

20.02.2008 In the studio with the Conquistadors yesterday, we worked on getting the Pro Tools sketch of "Citiscapes" onto the Logic platform. I think we did pretty good but I was so fucking tired that we couldn't really move onwards from the demo version which means we'll be on this fucker again probably next week.

18.02.2008 Some more work on "Found My Place" on Friday, this time on the actual tune. I added a bit of bass drum thumping to the entire beginning of the song (it starts already in the intro) and it really added something nice to the whole vibe of the song and how it moves forth. Also added even more piano (there's already loads) and of course strings that I think work really well for the big last chorus. There still is a lot to be polished in the arrangement but I think we're a hell of a lot closer to getting this song just right than ever before. On Saturday we had a brief rehearsal with Atyd and while people kept coming late and leaving early (guilty on the latter) we probably got more stuff sorted than in any rehearsals in the past. One that we got pretty much down was "Sydämeni laulu" which actually was sung on the record by former Graceskull vocalist Ilkka, feels a bit strange to be singing that tune. It worked really well I think but after I'd left the boys had found a real gold nugget of an arrangement for "Maggot", I haven't heard it yet but all of them had a visible hard on for it when I talked to them later on that night.

15.02.2008 Then onto "Found My Place". Well, actually not technically since the work was mainly done on the intro-esque beginning of the song (and the album) which might be called "Finally" or "Once". Anyway I built the fucker up from scratch and I'm pretty pleased with the result (except for the horrible sound on the vocals since I had to use the computer's built-in mic to record 'em), it has just the feel I've been planning that the album starter should have - yeah, yeah, a hint of Twilight Singers or the Afghan Whigs for sure but who better to look for help when it comes to lead off tracks?

14.02.2008 Yesterday's session I spent on "Seasons". the first thing I set right was the beginning of the song which I have long had an idea for, I've wanted it to be really fucking desperate and barren - like a beginning to a Lynch film or something. Mission accomplished, motherfucker! I slowed the tempo down a bit and added some humming and droning sounds and removed all else except for the vocal. I'm pretty much singing on top of one single note until the chorus kicks in and I really like it. Also the string arrangements to the ending of the song came off pretty well, it's quite important too since this is the song that closes the album. I can tell you it's not really easy to have control of a song that's this long (over 9 minutes) and has many different feels shades to it but I think we're gonna get there in the end.

13.02.2008 Some work with Graceskull's "Bring Me Love" yesterday. I've cleared up the rest of the work week in my calendar now to get some work done to these Graceskull tracks and "Bring Me Love" was the first one of this time's batch to get a programming treatment. I think it came off pretty good although getting some guitars on this mutha will surely change the balance of the strings I've added. Anyway the most pleasing thing I got working on this song was the beginning which I've been having bad dreams about, I didn't have a clue what do do but now I think it works really well. Also the final minute came off pretty good and I think this might be one of the stand out tracks of the forthcoming record. More to come tomorrow!

08.02.2008 Been working on some Conquistadors lyrics in my spare moments, mainly on "Take Me Under" (working title "Cameltoe") which has only half of the chorus missing as we speak. I've also written lyrics to a song we haven't recorded or composed just yet but the concept for it has been long evolving in my head. It's basically a semi-instrumental interlude or something that should maybe strengthen the theme of the album and give a sort of a breather in between all the action of the rockier songs...or something. And my concept is that it should be based on the first and last track of the album. Lets see how we pull all this together, I'm guessing this will be the last track we'll record for the album.

06.02.2008 Further work on the "Cameltoe" tune by the Conquistadors yesterday. I think we have the song pretty much ready to go now, apart from some minor sound choices and a few lines of lyrics missing. There was something wrong with the chorus we'd come up with the last time but Mikko had figured it out and had found the right basic notes which helped a lot in getting the tone set right for the chorus. We also did some drumming to the chorus and constructed a new middle eight which I like a lot.

30.01.2008 In the Conquistadors studio yesterday, it had been quite a while since last time. And that's why probably we had a bit of difficulties getting the song off the ground but sure enough after a project or two thrown into the trash we hit gold...or something that's gonna be gold someday. We kinda ran out of time as the clock was ticking in the wee hours. Anyway, it's a bit of a departure from the usual Conquistadors sound I think, maybe a bit house-ish with the thumping beat and filtered shit all over the tune but with a bit scary feel to it. I think it's a good addition to the album probably. Might be called "Take me Under", at least that's what the lyrics I wrote to the verse say. Mikko had also cleaned up some of the older songs of the batch during Christmas and got them sounding pretty fucking great, a job well done!

07.01.2008 Even more Graceskull programming during the weekend, Friday and Saturday evenings were spent with hands on the MIDI-keyboard and ears under the headphones on my part. And you know what? I got pretty much done. I finalized the shit I had been working on for "For The Remnant" and got a string arrangement for "Stifle" that I'm very pleased with, it really does wonders to the chorus. I think now is probably a good time to take a lil' break from the work since I've been having a hard time getting any sleep since my head's been so occupied with this shit. Probably some more work next weekend or the one after that. Maybe.

04.01.2008 Spent the New Year's Eve at Julius's place and it was very nice - fireworks, food, good company, all that stuff. Been working on the computer on the Graceskull stuff pretty much every day since then. I got the tempo stuff sorted for "Found My Place" (Julius remembered that we'd not used the tempo track whilst in the studio) and apart from that have mainly been adding some orchestration to "For The Remnant". A lot of horns and flutes and such finding their onto these tracks, I think - I like it. It makes the sound a bit different. Different from what? Fuck if I know, just different. More work probably tonight.