Back on the Balcony
We’re back in Oslo after a very long trip home. Had a great time, the last show in LA was also a very nice experience.
You’ll find more pictures on tour manager Beth’s blog.
Author: Ulf
Hollywood stuff
Arrived in Hollywood last night, and now we’re treating our bodies to coffee on Hollywood Bvrd.
Playing at Hotel Café at 9 tonight. We’re off to Santa Monica Beach in an hour. No sun, but probably lots of fun!
And oh, you get pictures from our Seattle gig and more on our tour manager Beth’s blog.
Frisco Kids
Just a short update from San Francisco – we played yesterday, which was great fun, in a slightly odd setting, though (Norway Day, which is not very rock’n’roll). We spent Friday in a small wine bar run by a massive Flunk fan, drinking champagne and finishing off the evening in a rather surreal sushi restaurant…
Now we’re off to LA in half an hour, playing Hotel Café tomorrow night.
Oh, and the picture is from Lombard Street in SF.
Airport situation
The show at Chop Suey last night was great, almost full house and a bit like ‘coming home’ playing for old friends, well, that kind of vibe. Now we’re off from Seattle, though. Hope to be back when the next album is out.
Right now we’re at Seattle Airport waiting for the flight to San Francisco. Should be great too!
Live at KEXP
Here are some Flunk people outside radio station KEXP in Seattle this afternoon. We did four tracks live in the studio, and the recordings will be put out as a podcast soon on KEXP’s site.
We did Your Koolest Smile, Play, Kemikal Girl and a beautiful stripped down version of Depeche Modes See You.
Now we’re off to soundcheck at Chop Suey…
US blog
And please check out our tour blog, written by Beth Sereni from our US label Kriztal.
You’ll find it here!
Right here, right now
Just a photo proof that we’re in Seattle, and doing well (on the right you see Anja and Jo going into yet another guitar shop), on the left Jo, drummer Erik and Anja down by the water…
Arrived yesterday, did an interview for the show Fusion today, and getting ready for the gig at Chop Suey tomorrow night!
We love the city, by the way!
Practice, eh?
Just a quick note between rehearsals for the upcoming US tour (and to show you very rare pictures of Flunk actually rehearsing!). We’re doing Seattle in just over a week, and really looking forward to it. We’ll do all the Flunk favourites, there’s a rather fresh new band version of Your Koolest Smile and Play, hopefully there will be one or two brand new tracks, but the song we’re most excited about right now, I guess, is a cover of Depeche Modes See You.
The studio sessions are moving slowly, but it feels like a great album. Lots of tracks, too many, but we’ll sort it all out!
Loving it!
OK, so we’re making an album again.
I love it, because Flunk is honestly the most beautiful thing I’ve ever been involved in (except my girlfriend and our daughter and the the first ray of sunshine through the kitchen window when winter has kept it out for four or five months). And this album will be like the heavens and the earth collide. Will put some tracks out soon, promise!
Meanwhile – this is what I think:
I would love to make a song like the new Massive Attack single – with Terry Callier singing like he would never breathe again (the strings suck you in, don’t they?) or Katie Melua singing «Nine Million Bicycles» (OK, it’s kind of fluffy, but…) like there are no words or distances or light years or any aspect or understanding out there to describe real feelings – when they’re overwhelming (if you like Melua, please, please, please check out Swedish pop/jazz artist Lisa Ekdahl’s «Vem Vet» (you’ll find it on the Audio/Video page on her web site) – it’s just like «Nine Million Bicycles» – only slightly more charming and well produced).
In any case: I hope and believe we can touch these things with the new album.
I’ve read a lot since the last album. Not like I’ve been through shelves of books of philosophy and Nobel Prize thoughts – I tend to read magazines and papers (love The Guardian), and there are some quotes I’d like to pass on – because they mean something in the making of this coming album:
1) Leo Sayer is not very hip, but suddenly he was no 1 in the UK charts (with a remix). He said this in an interview with The Guardian: «I’m like a painter, who tries to amass a large amount of material, so when the retrospective is held, there’s a lot of work there to be judged.»
2) Bruce Springsteen said this to Mojo (I was kind of «off» Bruce until I read this piece – he is a very wise man! – sorry, Broooce!): «…I’m always going to trust the art and be suspicious of the artist because he’s generally untrustworthy flimflam, a stumbling clown like everybody else».
Thank you, please remember this – it is true!
3) Ray Davies of The Kinks said (also to Mojo): «…But with new bands I always listen to the third album; that’s the real key to know what’s going to happen. A lot of them don’t know how to approach the third album or even get a chance to think about the third album».
OK, Ray, we’ll show you, we do whatever we want to do and we know just how to approach it – we’ll just make it the way we’d love it to be!
Will be back soon with some roughs – we’re all feeling good about this!
Right now we are (well, I am) listening to:
Joy Division «Atmosphere», «Twenty-Four Hours» (…so this is permanent…) etc
Gang Of Four Please get Return the Gift, and you will hear where the likes of Nirvana and Franz Ferdinand have nicked both words and/or riffs
Arctic Monkeys
New Order Power, Corruption and Lies
Cat Power The Greatest
Massive (that «Live With Me» single)
and also Death Cab For Cutie and Dntel (his Life Is Full Of Possibilities is going to have a deep impact on this album!!)
Here we are now
OK, so we should have other stuff to do – for instance make a new album. But we are, and we’ll try to tell you about how it comes along.
Jo the guitar player is back from six months in Iran in a week or so, which means we have the troops ready for the studio sessions. I have done some homework, and singer Anja is shortly due to figure out some tracks.
The working title of the album is Night Beat, a title which Jo is not very fond of. I guess we’ll have to talk about that one when he gets home. I’d like to call it Alcohol Makes You So Much More Fun, but our US label doesn’t really think that’s a good idea, for some reason…