Saturday March 21st, Helsinki, Finland

12:30 I slept like a rock for some hours. Most everyone is awake now. I will need a shower to come back to life for sure and some food. Everyone had a good feeling about the show last night and are excited about tonight as well. Mattias will play the bass with us tonight. We are just having some sandwiches, joints, beers, etc... hearing music. Sebastian and Nick are making some guitar plans and playing a bit.

Nick and Sebastian playing some guitar!

We will head into town around 15 to go see this Finnish band who is having a CD release party just down the street from where we play in a comic book store.

16:45 I bought the Reverend Bizzare/Retho split LP for 9€. The band was pretty strange, krautrock stuff. Pretty hypnotic. Cool bass lines and one stoner like guitar riffing away and one guy torturing his guitar and making strange noises. We saw about 25 minutes and then went up the club.

Before they played I was hanging out with Santtu, Juha at a guy Janne's apartment. He goes to Roadburn as well. IT was a real party lots of joints and beers. We heard some cool music.

17:30 We are setting up the gear. Quite a nice club this one and the people seem nice. A bit bigger stage but we will still have to pull all the drums and my stuff off completely. Kalle is setting up the screens and projectors and stuff for the visuals tonight. IT will look great. People are fresh today, including me. IT will not be that late as we have to stop at 1:00 sharp. Seems that we get no food from the venue, 2.5€ beers and free coffee, water and coke. I have set up the merchandise table. We have 4 of our 5 cds still for sale. I wish we had vinyl... We need to have vinyl... I hope for a good crowd. Kalle will video tape the show so that is nice.

Merchandise Table

18:30 Sound guy is here and we are pretty much set up. He just has to do the mics and we need a check. We will not get any food and have to go out to eat. We have decided on the Thai place on the corner while Mattias and Mogens will go for Pizza. The Taipuva guys are not here yet. IT is nice that there is no smoking in this room, only in the adjacent bar.

21:00 PIB, Nick, Seb and I had some thai curry and are feeling better now. Our soundcheck was fine but then PIB had to take all his drums down and me as well to make room for the Taipuva stuff. My friends Anna and Phil have arrived.

1:30 Crazy gig! Taipuva were really great again. Nick and I sat on the floor in the front and just tripped out. Great visuals. Sound was ok up here but back in the room the guitars were quite muddy sounding. The sound guy did not want to put any guitar in the PA, strange.. We had a bad time on stage but I think we played a good gig. PIB could not hear the bass very well and his monitor wasonly white noise. I could not hear Mogens and he could not hear me and then he got himself turned up crazy loud by the sound guy and it blew his montior out and he could hear nothing. This was very distracting for me. I played much better last night. During the last half of th show Nick played this amazing spanish theme and guitar solo. Wow..what a jam... We had a couple of tranced out grooves as well. MOgens is really getting good at this trance groove thing. My friend Mika Jarvanin from the old band 5.15 was at the gig and at the very end, came up and did some spoken word stuff. I was hoping for some real free form stuff but he was just singing lyrics from different songs and not really doing poetry or spoken word stuff.... not as cool as I had hoped. We ended at 1:05 or so and played about 90mins.

7:50 I am totally wasted and we are sitting waiting for the ferry here in Turku. I have had no sleep at all. We heard a lot of cool music to keep me awake like Clutch, Pothead, Colorstar...... Everyone is asleep in the van but me. IT was a good trip and the band was well behaved, played great but we need more drivers. This is just too hard for me to have to nearly all the driving and always being totally sober and not allowed to drink a few beers. We will come back to Finland in October.

Ferry back to Sweden

14:35 We just left Marieholm on the island of Åland. Very beatuiful. I feel really strange but I did get some sleep. I must eat something now. It has been 16 hrs since I last ate anything. I go for the Tapas place again. Not sure where the others are but probably sleeping. Reflecting on the gigs, I had a fantastic time in Hyvinkää but was very distracted in Helsinki because of bad stage sound. The crowd really seem to like us again. This was a better gig than the last one in Helsinki which was too stoned and slow and spacey. Helsinki show was totally different. Finland is great and I hope we can come here 2x a year and build up a following.

15:27 I just got back from taking a Sauna and shower. That is just what I needed. Great. I will lay down for a bit.

19:15 We are on the E4 heading to pick up Seb's car in Mjölby. He is driving. We are listning to ZZTOP Mescalaro again. Cool record. Some of the guys met the guys in Soulfly on the ferry just before we were leaving and gave them some hash and got on the guest list for the Copenhagen show this friday, one of the last on their month long Europe tour. Weather is not good for driving fast as it is wet and snow mixed with rain.

2:00 We arrive at Dragens Hule. I think 6 hrs is pretty damn good considering the incredible snow storm in Jönköping! Have not seen snow like that in 15 years. Insane. We made it though.

OSC Playlist for the Van

Colorstar- Heavenicetrip
Antibalas- Who is this America?
Seid-Amongst the Monster Flowers Again
Rosetta West- IO Pan
ZZtop- Mescalaro
CCR- Cosmos Factory
Pothead- Learn to Hypnotize
Pothead- Rocket Boy
Pothead- Dessicated Soup
Pothead- Rumley Oil Pull
Taipuva Luitsuoira- I and II
Stone Oak Cosmonaut
Clutch- Live at the HiFI Bar 2CD
Circle- HOllywood
Mandragora- Pollen
Stone the Crows- BBC 1969-1970
OSC- Session 45 Jam 2-3, 11 Scott mix
Graveyard- Lille Vega, kobenhavn 2/26/09
Ole Lukkoye- Kumanria
Korai Orom- 1994