15:45 I have finished packing up all my gear and went over to my friend Ole’s to borrow his video camera. I had good timing as it has started to pour down rain. Took some things out to Dragens Hule last night when I picked up all of Mogen’s stuff from his apartment.

16:20 I am up in the studio with Lars and all my stuff is up here now and one case of beer in the fridge. Magnus will be here soon. He is just preparing his apartment for the Swedes to sleep there.. We still have a lot of stuff to move up with both guitar set ups, and the huge Mesa Boogie 400+ bass rig we are borrowing from Morten from Pickled Platypus.

16:45 Mogens arrives with his new MicroMoog that he just picked up in Sweden. The Swedes also send an SMS and say they are on the way! Everyone is a in a good mood and we have moved a lot of stuff around in the big recording room. It will be more or less a lot like how we have set it up in the past.

17:20 I am resting now and having a beer after a lot of moving gear around.
17:30 Swedes arrive now and so has the Sax player, Anders from the Universals who will play with us for the first time. Hope he adds something cool. Stefan just walked in the door with a smile and a little wet!

Lars, the Studio Engineer Band waiting to Play

Setting Up Stefan Setting up

Stefan New Strings Anders and Magnus

20:07 Nearly everything is set up and the lines are all being checked and headphones set up. We ordered some food from Hugo’s the pizza place near my place. People are in a good mood and having red wine, beer and some joints. The mood is shattered while we are eating though as Kaufmann (drummer) just got a call and his best friend was in the hospital after a fire started in his apartment (probably from him falling asleep with a lit cigarette). He is critical condition with severe burns and suffering from smoke inhalation. Sounds really bad. Kaufmann said he might have to leave if they call and think he will pass away. I have called PIB and he can come and play tomorrow if Kaufmann has to go. Bummer

The Gear List

Octave CAT SRM II
Yamaha CS-10
Nord Lead 2
Korg Kaossilator
Hammond Organ with Leslie Speaker
Moog MicroMoog
Roland RS-09
Nord Modular
Russian Synth
Mesa Boogie 400+ Bass Rig
Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier Solo Head
Mesa Boogie Guitar Cabinet
Carvin 4x12 Guitar Cabinet
Teisco Checkmate 100 guitar head
Sonor Drum Lite Kit. Lots of cymbals
Saxophone (he also has a lot of effects)

Guitar Effects Pedals- Magnus
Big Muff Pi, Tube Screamer, Fulltone Wah, Small Stone phaser, Boss DD7 Digital Delay, Tremolo

Guitar Effects Pedals- Stefan
Univibe, Line6 DL4 Digital Modulator, Digital Delay, Wah Pedal, Volume Pedal, Cry Baby, Flanger

Bass Pedals- Bass Chorus, Ibanez Phat Hed

21:30 Having problems with my Nord Lead 2 giving a very weak signal. They have to change out all the line boxes, cables etc.. but finally get it sorted out. Most everything else seems ok now and we will soon play some music. People are really ready. Anders looks cool in this plexiglass cage.

22:52 We finally recorded some stuff and wow it was something like OSC has never played before. This was jazz… Acid Jazz rock. Reminded me a lot of Alien Planetscapes. What great band communication. It took a bit to get the flow but I was pretty blown away. Still having trouble with too little synths in the PA and headphone levels not that good but the basic band is really flying! Par played the bass on these first two jams. People need to get high now.

Jam 1 23min
Jam 2 38mins

23:17 Joints and vapour and the band is soon ready to fly again. Jocke will play the bass this time. The mood is great and no one is being pulled down by Kaufmann’s friends situation but this music is dedicated to him recovering. This will be the last jam for the night and we will be back tomorrow at 15.

00:44 I am totally wiped out and have left the room. Stefan has already left. The rest are still in their playing some pretty strange stuff. This jam was really spacey and stoned. Very slow most of the time, a lot of incredible moods created and we really went around and around with great musical exchanges. This was over 90 mins and we will have to edit this but some amazing stuff is hidden in their for sure. I was getting drowned out and could not hear my Nord Lead at all and the batteries went down in the Korg Kaossilator. I was not experimenting much as I could not hear my sounds well enough and I am not coming out of the PA at all or very low so no one hears what I am doing. It is not that important for them as I only come in and out and in the spaces…. Interesting jam and totally different from the Jam 2. I hope we will play some more heavy and uptempo stuff tomorrow.

Jam 3 91 mins

1:20 Swedes decide to stay at Magnus’s so I drop Anders and Mogens off at the metro next to my house. Mogens has to work at 7! Yiks… We will be back at 15 for some more space rock!

Saturday Oct 4th

I woke up early and put some of the pics and one jam from the Edirol on the web site. It is from Jam 3. It seems only 13 mins was recorded before the batteries died. I have charged up the batteries and will record more today.

I spoke to Kaufmann and his friend is stable so he will not have to leave it seems. I will call PIB latear and let him know he does not have to come. It seems that they had a late night jam last night with magnus and lars on guitars, Kaufmann on drums and jocke on bass. About 40 mins. I hope today that we will play some more heavy stuff. I missed that yesterday.

15:00 Magnus, Par, Jocke, and Kaufmann got some take out food and came over to my place for lunch around 14. We hung out and heard some music and some of my mixes of the Uppsala concert before heading out to the studio again. Mogens and Anders were there having coffee. Stefan arrives soon after we do so we are all here.

16:00 People are very slow to get going even though we know that Par has to leave to go to a concert and Anders (sax) has a gig tonight. People are socializing a lot and maybe a bit tired as well. Come on guys…lets get going here..

17:18 We had the first jam of the day. 68 mins recorded (jam 4) Jam 5 if you count the late night one. The end of of this jam was totally amazing with Stefan laying down some killer blues guitar and a super cool rhythm. The jam started really spacey but Stefan kicked us in the ass and we moved on. Cool stuff.

17:51 We just went outside to take some band pictures and get some air. Last jam was sounding really good in the studio monitors.

The Space Crew 2008

19:07 Jam 5 67 minutes

This jam is probably destroyed as when Anders the sax player left he unplugged the mics for the microphones on the guitars and lars did not notice for like 20 mins so for 20mins in the middle of this jam there are no guitars on the recording except what leaks through other microphones. I wonder if we can put in what I recorded on the edirol? There is a lot of guitars on this recording. Also bass. It is probably destroyed though. Bummer. Be more careful next time…

Thomas from Gas Giant has arrived and is making joints for people. He is happy and said what he heard sounded awesome.

20:20 We just finished eating some food. We will have two more jams and call it a session. Thomas might play bass on the last jam. We all had pizza from Hugo’s again. Glad I ate a really good healthy lunch.

20:38 People are in a really funny mood and quite stoned now. I still want us to do a slow and heavy jam. We gave mogens 150kr for some more beer.

21:56 jam 6 61:44

That was amazing high intensity space rock! Wow.. I was totally blown out into another universe and Kaufmann must be busted after drumming like that for like 30mins straight or more. Phew… Both guitar players were killing and it has been a long time since I have seen magnus rip up the fret board like that.

Some possible song title or CD titles:

Roadsmoke, Satanic Onions, Planet Prog, Pada

People are pretty much musically wasted after that. Note sure we will play more or not. We will see. Stefan and I seem to be the most tired. The band is in a great mood and talking crazy shit and laughing and drinking red wine and beer and more joints. Ok.. we decide to play one more jam with Thomas on the bass.

23:31 Jam 7 92 minutes..

Wow.. these guys just could not stop. Jocke played magnus guitar, magnus played keyboards with mogens and I. Thomas on bass, Kaufmann on drums and Stefan on guitar. Both Stefan and I bailed out after about 35-40 minutes. Just can’t play anymore. I was amazing they just kept going and going. They had a pretty cool groove going at the end and this would be great if Tobias could over dub some lead guitar, then it might be useful for something. These guys were like unstoppable.

00:28 That was the end of session 45. We had moved most of the gear out and I was heading out with Thomas to the metro and home. Stefan left on his bike with a smile on his face! We all gave 100% and created some amazing music for the world. Can’t wait for the fans to hear this stuff but it will take at least half a year I guess..