The van outside waiting to be packed with gear!
Dropping off the Key (Nick)Øresund Space Collective/Taipuva Luotisuora - Finland Tour March 2009
From Aural Innovations May 2009 update
8:37 I am getting on the train to go to Malmö to pick up the 9 person Ford Transit van and drive it back to Denmark to pick up PIB; NIck and Mogens and all our gear. We need to be on the road by 12 or so to make the ferry at 20:10 in Stockholm and to pick up Sebastian in Mjölby. The weather is beautiful and sunny but with a cold wind. IT is suppose to be down to -10C in Finland. We will see. We are excited as the Finnish crowds are great.
9:05 I arrive at Hertz but the van is not yet ready. They have to clean it and get the odometer reading. We will pick up Mattias, a friend of Sebastians on the ferry and he will join us on the trip to help out (and later play bass in Helsinki). He used to play guitar in Gostas Berlings Saga, a Stockholm band. . Amazing weather today.. I got an SMS from PIB and his bike is dead and he wants me to pick him up.
11:20 Just picked up PIB outside christiania and we are waiting for mogens. Nick is here and getting his gear ready.
The van outside waiting to be packed with gear!
Dropping off the Key (Nick)
12:05 We are just leaving now. It was a hard ride for mogens with all his stuff on one of these longjohn bikes all the way from Vesterbro. He is sweaty!
16:35 We are in Mjölby resting a bit. The drive has been no problem and we have been listing to a lot of cool music including ZZTOP (Mescalaro), Seid- Amongst the Flowers, Stone Oak Cosmonaut, Pothead, Taipuva Luotisuora, etc.. Everyone is a in a great mood. We have plenty of time to make it to Stockholm.
17:35 We are at a gas station filling up before heading to Finland (turns out gas is about the same price). We just heard the whole Antibalas CD- WHo is this America?. Great amazing CD. We have about 1½ hrs to the ferry or less. Seems it is around 100km or so.
22:30 We had a really meal (Tapas) with Mattias and Sebastian and some beers. Mattias does not drink or smoke or drive... damn on the later.. Anyway, very cool guy. I am very tired, some were already asleep now. I am in my own cabin with some Finnish guy. Nice. I have to avoid any snoring people or I get no sleep at all. I thought about the Sauna but in the end did not go.
March 20th
6:25 Don't think I slept at all this night. Just laid there and seem to have
thoughts in my head the whole night. Ulf was very quiet. It was very quiet on
the ship. I was comfortable, not sure why I feel like I did not get any sleep.
IT is going to be a hard day. They are starting to clean the cabins now and
have opened up the breakfast. I have a juice box and a granola bar. 
Small
island with house surrounded by frozen sea. 
Sunrise
9:30 We are hanging out at a market/cofffee bar a few km from Turku. Cold and a bit windy but nice to be in Finland. We are listning to the 2nd Taipuva CD. Cool stuff and quite different from the 1st one. We will now hear the Stone the Crows BBC 1970 disc, which is amazing...
PIB
and I outside the Market.
11:49.. We are sitting at the address that Juha gave us and have been in contact with Jairre, who has the key and is to let us in. JUha will get off work at 15-16 and then we will head to Hyvinkää. Anyway, It takes us an hour or something to figure out where he is and where we are and why he is not here and in the end, the address was not correct and he was at theother end of this street, which was blocked off from the end we were on..... We are tired and hungry. I need to sleep..
14:00 We have just been hanging out at Juha's. Very nice apartment and amazing record collection. I got a little rest, hope it will be enough for me. People are enjoying themselves having some joints, beers, cigs... we need some food. Heard a new Finnish band called the Cosmic Wizards Music Club. Interesting stuff.
17:45 We arrive at the Zoom Bar in Hyvinkää! Only two of the guys from Taipuva are there yet. Stage is quite small and we will be packed in on this stage for sure. We are moving the stuff around to try to best make us all fit on there. Both bands have 6 members. This place is super smoky.. I will have to go outside all the time and it is damn cold out, like -5C. The sound guy is super cool and named Johnny. THe booker is also a great guy nammed Jukka. This is a total rocker bar for sure..
18:00 Had a nice chat with the Taipuva guys (Ville, esko, etc..) and have set up the mics for recording.
Dr.
Space writing in the Diary book...
18:30. Only need PIB and we will be finished with the soundcheck. I am hungry and hope we can finish in 45 min or less. We will then have to take all of my geat and mogens off the stage again and PIB will have to put his drums in the corner and reset thenm all up again as they have an electronic kit.
21:30 Taipuva just finished their soundcheck and will go get some food. They will try to start at 22:30 but it seems unlikely. It will be a very late night for sure. Everyone is in a great mood and the people are very nice. I think it will be amazing. Music has to stop at 2:30 in the morning. Bar closes at 3.
00:20 We are almost set up and Taipuva was really amazing, despite all the sound problems that they encournter, including the drums disappearing from the monitors, which with electric drums means now one can hear the drums. That must be strange... I am really feeling like a zombie and don't expect I will play that well, but you never know.. Mogens is having some problems.
Taipuva Luotisuora
1:40. We are taking a break now. That was the first set, about 55 minutes. Band needs to go smoke and have a beer. The music has given me a bit of boost and I am feeling much better now. I think we had some really cool jams in this set.
Sebastian 
Audience in Hyvinkää
3:00 I am totally wrecked...gave it my all. The crowd was really into it here during this 2nd set and we would have played more but they needed us to stop so they could get the people out and clean up the place. Guys are loading the gear. I am just resting since I have to drive the 60km back to helsinki. Jaire and Juha are quite drunk... THey both enjoyed the show a lot. Especially Juha. Jaire seem to be talking to people most of thetime. Several members of the audience said this was the coolest concert and only band to have ever played this music in this toun. The promoter Jukka was quite blown away. We will be invited back for sure. We got 335€ from the door, which is quite good. The drive will be tough.
4:45 Finally get to sleep....
You can hear the whole concert at this link!
Saturday March 21st, Helsinki, Finland
12:30 I slept like a rock for some hours. Most everyone is awake now. I will need a shower to come back to life for sure and some food. Everyone had a good feeling about the show last night and are excited about tonight as well. Mattias will play the bass with us tonight. We are just having some sandwiches, joints, beers, etc... hearing music. Sebastian and Nick are making some guitar plans and playing a bit.
Nick
and Sebastian playing some guitar!
We will head into town around 15 to go see this Finnish band who is having a CD release party just down the street from where we play in a comic book store.
16:45 I bought the Reverend Bizzare/Retho split LP for 9€. The band was pretty strange, krautrock stuff. Pretty hypnotic. Cool bass lines and one stoner like guitar riffing away and one guy torturing his guitar and making strange noises. We saw about 25 minutes and then went up the club.
Before they played I was hanging out with Santtu, Juha at a guy Janne's apartment. He goes to Roadburn as well. IT was a real party lots of joints and beers. We heard some cool music.
17:30 We are setting up the gear. Quite a nice club this one and the people seem nice. A bit bigger stage but we will still have to pull all the drums and my stuff off completely. Kalle is setting up the screens and projectors and stuff for the visuals tonight. IT will look great. People are fresh today, including me. IT will not be that late as we have to stop at 1:00 sharp. Seems that we get no food from the venue, 2.5€ beers and free coffee, water and coke. I have set up the merchandise table. We have 4 of our 5 cds still for sale. I wish we had vinyl... We need to have vinyl... I hope for a good crowd. Kalle will video tape the show so that is nice.
Merchandise Table
18:30 Sound guy is here and we are pretty much set up. He just has to do the mics and we need a check. We will not get any food and have to go out to eat. We have decided on the Thai place on the corner while Mattias and Mogens will go for Pizza. The Taipuva guys are not here yet. IT is nice that there is no smoking in this room, only in the adjacent bar.
21:00 PIB, Nick, Seb and I had some thai curry and are feeling better now. Our soundcheck was fine but then PIB had to take all his drums down and me as well to make room for the Taipuva stuff. My friends Anna and Phil have arrived.
Soundcheck
Helsinki
Taipuva
Luotisuora
1:30 Crazy gig! Taipuva were really great again. Nick and I sat on the floor in the front and just tripped out. Great visuals. Sound was ok up here but back in the room the guitars were quite muddy sounding. The sound guy did not want to put any guitar in the PA, strange.. We had a bad time on stage but I think we played a good gig. PIB could not hear the bass very well and his monitor wasonly white noise. I could not hear Mogens and he could not hear me and then he got himself turned up crazy loud by the sound guy and it blew his montior out and he could hear nothing. This was very distracting for me. I played much better last night. During the last half of th show Nick played this amazing spanish theme and guitar solo. Wow..what a jam... We had a couple of tranced out grooves as well. MOgens is really getting good at this trance groove thing. My friend Mika Jarvanin from the old band 5.15 was at the gig and at the very end, came up and did some spoken word stuff. I was hoping for some real free form stuff but he was just singing lyrics from different songs and not really doing poetry or spoken word stuff.... not as cool as I had hoped. We ended at 1:05 or so and played about 90mins.
You can hear the whole concert at this link!
Outside
the Venue after the gig 3am. Go to the web site Picture
site to see pics from the gig.
7:50 I am totally wasted and we are sitting waiting for the ferry here in Turku. I have had no sleep at all. We heard a lot of cool music to keep me awake like Clutch, Pothead, Colorstar...... Everyone is asleep in the van but me. IT was a good trip and the band was well behaved, played great but we need more drivers. This is just too hard for me to have to nearly all the driving and always being totally sober and not allowed to drink a few beers. We will come back to Finland in October.
Ferry back to Sweden
14:35 We just left Marieholm on the island of Åland. Very beatuiful. I feel really strange but I did get some sleep. I must eat something now. It has been 16 hrs since I last ate anything. I go for the Tapas place again. Not sure where the others are but probably sleeping. Reflecting on the gigs, I had a fantastic time in Hyvinkää but was very distracted in Helsinki because of bad stage sound. The crowd really seem to like us again. This was a better gig than the last one in Helsinki which was too stoned and slow and spacey. Helsinki show was totally different. Finland is great and I hope we can come here 2x a year and build up a following.
15:27 I just got back from taking a Sauna and shower. That is just what I needed. Great. I will lay down for a bit.
19:15 We are on the E4 heading to pick up Seb's car in Mjölby. He is driving. We are listning to ZZTOP Mescalaro again. Cool record. Some of the guys met the guys in Soulfly on the ferry just before we were leaving and gave them some hash and got on the guest list for the Copenhagen show this friday, one of the last on their month long Europe tour. Weather is not good for driving fast as it is wet and snow mixed with rain.
2:00 We arrive at Dragens Hule. I think 6 hrs is pretty damn good considering the incredible snow storm in Jönköping! Have not seen snow like that in 15 years. Insane. We made it though.
OSC Playlist for the Van
Colorstar- Heavenicetrip
Antibalas- Who is this America?
Seid-Amongst the Monster Flowers Again
Rosetta West- IO Pan
ZZtop- Mescalaro
CCR- Cosmos Factory
Pothead- Learn to Hypnotize
Pothead- Rocket Boy
Pothead- Dessicated Soup
Pothead- Rumley Oil Pull
Taipuva Luitsuoira- I and II
Stone Oak Cosmonaut
Clutch- Live at the HiFI Bar 2CD
Circle- HOllywood
Mandragora- Pollen
Stone the Crows- BBC 1969-1970
OSC- Session 45 Jam 2-3, 11 Scott mix
Graveyard- Lille Vega, kobenhavn 2/26/09
Ole Lukkoye- Kumanria
Korai Orom- 1994
Visit the OSC web site to see all the pictures from the tour and hear more OSC music.
Reviewed by Scott Heller