Wednesday 11 December 2013

Estonia to Finland and back again.

The last week has seen me play a show in Tallinn before boarding a ferry to cross the Baltic Sea to tour around the South-East of Finland. As Latvia was seemingly basking in an extended Autumn, the first snows had arrived in Estonia as my bus wound it's way to Tallinn through gently blanketed fields.

Here are some assorted memories, photos and soundclips:

Tallinn:
In support I had the husband/wife duo Kalle and Eleonora Tikas who create improvised music using non-effected vocals and heavily effected guitar:


Helsinki:
Back to Myymala2, the venue I played in Helsinki just over 2 years ago on my first visit to this region. This show was organised by the lovely Dmitri and Sasha who run Jozik Records, they also organised the last show of the mini-tour in Espoo, but more of that later. 

Support came from the enigmatic Patrik Pakokauhu, whose performance was streamed live into the venue from his practice space and KYYNELPÄÄ (see pic below).



Pori:
In Pori I was hosted by the kindly folk of 3H&K: an art gallery and culture center who were preparing for their festival of performance art and music. It was a wonderful evening of pizza, interesting paintings, new (to me) board games, Guinness, a strange Finnish spirit that tasted like Pernod and the only Irish Bar in town. The next morning in an attempt to alleviate the hangover and before the bus ride to Turku I managed a quick walk around town to take in some sights and sounds:




Turku
After short and warm bus ride I arrived in Turku, fortunately the venue was not a huge walk away from the bus station. In support was the atonal noise rock duo Dana, you can hear their awesome racket here: Dana - Music Video; in the intimate confines of B-Galleria these guys were really ferocious.



Espoo:
Possibly the strangest venue of the trip was a huge library in Espoo, a town just west of and connected to Helsinki. The train journey between places went smoothly, gliding across the winter wrapped landscape with it's crags, fells and farmland lightly covered by ice and snow. By this point in the journey I had started to lose my voice and if that wasn't enough, the electrics on my guitar suddenly stopped working. Fortunately, Joona Makala came to the rescue and lent me his guitar. 


After the library show and many bus trips, I was led to a small squat on the edge of town to see Dmitri and Sasha's band Fate vs Free Willy. To use an NMEism here imagine Teenage Jesus and the Jerks crossed with No Age, the crowd gathered certainly dug them. Here they are rockin' out next to a shipping container: Fate vs Free Willy


A big thank you to everyone who helped make this trip possible, to all the promoters, venues and people who allowed me to stay at their houses. Hopefully I'll see you again sometime. 

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