We were supposed to attend Best Fwends during Øya Festivalen.
Make sure they had a good time, ate regularly and woke up in time for their shows.
Turns out, they attended us.
All of us, in my living room for 15 glorious minutes until the cops turned up (just after the boys had wrapped up their show) and chased everybody off.
It turned out to be the best night of our lives.
Kind of a shame to peak at age 25.
Still to be resolved is the state of the ceiling in the apartment under us.
Here is a video, pictures and a story (only in norwegian) done by a norwegian teen magazine.
Thanks to our new Best Fwends, the Gargoyles, Øyafestivalen for hooking us up and everyone who attended.
I hung out with Best Fwends during Øya Festivalen and at one of their shows I was introduced to their label bosses. They are great guys and we talk for a long time. I´m being witty and they laugh at my jokes. This is networking at it´s best.
But I´m rapidly running out of jokes and subjects. I had saved the best one for last for use in emergency, hoping it will open a door to a world of other jokes and subjects
- So, I´ve been wondering. Moshi Moshi, what does it mean? The words. Is it just nonsense?
- No. It´s actually japanese. It means “hello”.
- Ok.
(akward pause. I can´t think of a reply.) - Cool.
(akward pause.) - So… Errr.. What do you do at the festival?
I answer and suddenly the label boss is reaveled.
- You should do something with a band of ours. The Wave Pictures.
I meet Dave and 2 minutes later Jonny. And we arrange to get together just before they leave for the airport the next morning.
On the way home I bump into a french couple. She is on the ground with chalk drawn around her body and a white sheet over her face. But that´s another story.
The next morning we meet up with Jonny, Dave and Franic and they play two beautiful (and unreleased) songs for us in their hotel lobby. Enjoy.
The second song, “Christine”, will be up soon aswell.
Pål Moddi Knutsen meets us in the parking lot outside an old recording studio in Gamlebyen in Oslo. He and his band has been taken in by it´s owner, Ernst, and allowed to rehears there for the Øya Festival they are playing the next day. Ernst has to be two meters tall. He wears boots, a denim shirt, jeans,has a mustache and eats grilled cheese for lunch. He greets us with open arms, gives us the short tour of the studio and has coffee prepared for us.
The studio is a small house, almost like a barrack right next to the railway. It´s crammed full of things: ornaments, paintings, instruments, recording equipment and furniture are everywhere. Supposedly he hasn´t changed it much after he took it over some years ago. All over you can see pictures of famous norwegian singers and songwriters. Even Jørn Hoel´s old guitar case is there
“Tell them the story about the studio Ernst”, Pål shouts from the other room.
Ernst smiles. You can tell he has told this story before.
“Well, when I first bought this house I thought it was strange how every single door had a lock on it.
I asked the owner: “how come there are locks on every door?”
The owner blushed immediately and then admitted that he used to run a brothel here.” Ernst giggles.
The rooms are small. We have the piano in one room and the drums in another. But Ernst has advice. He starts taking down his security camera and putting it up in the room with the piano. It takes some fine tuning, but at last he gets it right.
What we do is usually very simple.
“Where should we do it?”
“How ´bout here?”
“Ok”
…and soon afterwards we´re rolling.
But when you´re at a festival you have sounds attacking your ears and our mics from all fronts.
The Hellacopters are onstage and shows no mercy. We´ll have to flee.
Silje (or Silyeah according to her myspace) and her friends packs their car with instruments and we´re fleeing.
Silje´s band is international. At least 3 nationalities by my count. I talk to one of them in english for 3 minutes before she asks me if i´m “also norwegian”.
We find a fairly quiet spot at the site of the festival cinema.
Silje and her band needs to rehearse. Her percussion is replaced by a can for cigarette butts and their drum case. They seem very particular about their performance which is rare in this setting. Their sound man is all over our sound guy, listening in on his headphones and has opinions on where to put the mics. We have discussions on where to start out with the camera. Suddenly it all feels very rehearsed.
I´m 5 meters away when they play and it´s very subtle. I can almost not hear Silje´s voice at all. Then i put on the headset and it´s all there. And that is what you will hear.
Truls and his band mates has become dear friends do us. Although we hide it under a thick layer of irony and loving insults. We hung out with them for hours each day during the festival and under their wings we won access to the beach reserved for artists. Guess what? You can get a haircut at the beach for free if you play an instrument or can sing. Incredible!
After doing an interview with MTV they´re good to go. We drag them out on the pier and find the most nationalistic and idyllic setting we can find. A wooden boat, a flag, the ocean and Lukestar.