Session 30- Hemliga Trädgården, Stockholm 06/04/07

This was the start of the first ever OSC tour of Scandinavia, with 3 concerts in 6 days in 3 of the 4 capitals! I picked up the van in Sweden the night before and loaded some of my stuff and picked up Mogens, Søren, Michael and Magnus at the Mantric Muse rehearsal space at 8:00. We loaded up the gear and headed off to Malmö to pick up Luz and his percussion gear. We were only 15 minutes behind schedule and people were in a great mood despite most of these guys staying up all the night and only getting like 2-3 hrs of sleep. I got 8hrs the night before and was well rested. I have bought a case of coke so we have some sugar and more.. This van is quite small for us and all this gear. We are totally packed and we don't have Luz's stuff or sebastian yet...

The new Abramas Brama live CD was stuck in the CD player from the day before and I was a bit worried we would be without music (or have to hear Abramis Brama over and over) for the trip but luckily, Mogens and Magnus, after nearly taking apart the front section of the car, got the CD out and we had no further problems.. phew..

9:30 We take off from Malmö and bid Kaufmann goodbye. See you Monday night,late...

11:35 I have been driving and now people need a food and nicotine break (joints as well). We are in Vaggeryds Kommune, some small town. It is only a couple of hours before we will pick up Sebastian in Mjölby.

12:08 The 2nd joint is smoked and everyone is happy and had some food and coffee and we will hit the road again. We have been listning to Allman brothers- Hittin' the NOte and the new Titan CD and the new Hidria Spacefolk and the new remixes of Bland Blanden stuff with Luz overdubbed on it. SOunds great...

13:45 We are having trouble getting Seb's Vox amp and space echo and stuff all packed in. Anyway, we are only about 2½ hrs from Stockhplm and making very good time, driving about 140km/hr most of the time. Everyone is happy to see Sebastian and smoke another joint and we hit the road... Listen to some Kingston wall now..

16:30 We arrive at the venue. I call Sam from Siena Root and they will come in 30 minutes. His apartment is 3 minutes walk from the place and it turns out KG lives only 1 min walk more from here as well. It is sunny but really cold here. About 2-3C. This is a strange place and we are wondering if we are playing in this house on the hill or in this outside like summer terrace place with the blue tarp for aroom. Place looks like it will fall off the hill. Sam and the Siena Root people come and find the strange greek guy who runs this place and it turns out we are playing in the terrace place. What a mess!

18:15 Damn it is fucking cold in here. We have moved all the gear in here now and are trying to figure out how to set up. The stage area is way too small so we decide to set up on the floor on the side in the club. People are a bit down to play in this sort of place and who will come here? Turns out we will have to pay for some food and all our drinks. The greek guy will cook the food and charge us like 30kr per plate. This is going to be cold and what if no one comes???

20:38 We had a short soundcheck, not that good. Drums are very loud in this room. Siena Root are setting up now. We ate some spaghetti with olive sauce (pretty awful stuff...) with bread and salad and feta cheese. Everyone is have a beer as well. Rebrandts gold 3-5% alcohol. We are all freezing in here and decide we have to smoke some joints and sit in the car with the heater on to keep warm...a few people are starting to trickle in...

1:19 Wow... what a night.... A lot of people (like 80 paying people 30kr each) showed up and it turned out to have a really cool atmosphere. Siena Root played a 40 minute set and were great but played really loud. Two neighbors came and complained. This place is a normal neighborhood with lots of apartments really close. THe sound just flies out of this place. Anyway, we set up and started playing soon after and we were amazed at how into it the people who were here were. It gave us a lot of energy but not warmth. Luckily people were fully stoned. We played about 75 mins and need a break as we were really thirsty. Unfortunately, the batteries died and only 45 minutes was recorded of this set. After another joint and a beer, we hurried back to play another 45 minutes and Sam from Siena Root joined us on the bass to give Michael's blisters a rest. That was a really cool jam. We sold a few CDs and talked with a lot of really cool people. One guy bought one of everything from our catalog! Thanks man.. if you read this, please write to me so we can put your name in our next CD!

CD1

Cold Shock, Bringing back the warmth to the Body 21:07, Cutting Away

CD2

Sam ba Lamba 13:12, ColdWooden Terrace in Orbit 19:44, Stockholm Survivors 13:14

7/4/07

8:20 I am up early and listening to a bit of the 2nd set. SOund is not that bad but the drums are still the loudest thing by far, except my synth sometimes comes blasting out to fry your brain! I did not sleep well at all on this small but comfortable couch at KH's (guitarist in Siena Root). I feel like I woke up every 30 minutes the whole night. We crashed out around 3:30 after packing down all the gear and putting it in a room under the place where we played.. Ended up being a nice night but I was frozen solid. We are listening to this really great sitar player Niladri Kumar. Really nice stuff to hear on this morning. We had a great breakfast and chatted a lot. KG is a very serious sitar player. I hope he will jam with us one day!

11:00 We meet up with the rest of the people, who all crashed at Sam's place. Some of them were up drinking until like 5, beers and whisky. They look tired, especially Magnus who has a really long face and totally bloodshot eyes... We will all go up for some coffee and food at Tellus, the theater and cafe where Sam and Love (drummer in Siena Root) both work. We hang out and people had a really great time playing.

14:00 We are now all loaded up in the van and people are starting to come back to life again. A nice sunny but cold day today. Our ferry to Helsinki leaves at 16:45 and will arrive the next day at 10 in the morning. Long trip... Should be able to get some rest... We head down to the ship and park the car. Magnus is buying a midi file handler (Yamaha, I think) from a guy who will meet us there. We get the thing and head off into town and get some coffee and go to a cool music shop and just walk around Gammel Stad and come back to the car.

16:00 As we are in the line people get a little paranoid when the Customs people come up to the van with a drug dog. He just sniffs all the way around the van and goes away.. Phew...

16:20 We are in our cabins now and people are quite relaxed. We will go for a really nice meal soon.

21:06 We ate at a really nice resteraunt and had a beer. After dinner we just chilled out and had some beers (bought 2 cases at the tax free shop and some Salmiaki Korskenkorva).We sat around and told old stories of our younger drug adventures, just me, sebastian, luz and magnus. Everyone is feeling good after some herb vapor as well. Seb, Magnus and I decide to go take a sauna.

22:30 Sauna was amazing and we are quite relaxed and feeling great. I will crash early to be fresh for Heslinki but I am a bit worried some of these guys will stay up all night and get completely wasted and be useless in Finland.. I hope that I am wrong.. We need to play a great gig...

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