No Hard Shoulder

No Hard Shoulder

Finally here I am. Monday morning after two UK gigs, still alive and surprisingly well after the experience of driving three days in the UK. It wasn't actually that hard. Just few things that took me by surprise like the toll at the Dartford tunnels and the fact that as driving reverse side one has to have the skills of a Michael Jordan to throw the coins in. And the traffic. Thought the German A 3 on a Friday is a nightmare but international truck races on the M 25 aren't bad either. And who was the guy with the hard shoulder? And apparently a pretty long shoulder, 280 yards. Me wiser now.

The gigs before crossing the channel were except of the driving (thank god I had my medication) weird but wonderful. How come I sort of get the feel that most of the venues I'm playing are in a special way very strange places? At the Bahia de Cochinos in Castrop-Rauxel I had sure one of the best audiences on this tour. All listening and almost everybody bought a cd. How can that work? Then Brussels. The Sazz'n'Jazz is for sure the most beautiful place I ever played in. Well, at least on this tour. Not many people but they were fully into it and the promoter was a particularly nice guy. The whole thing had the atmosphere of a David Lynch movie. You should have seen the interior. A gloomy 1920s club with stone dogs flanking the hallway, red brocade curtains framing the stage. I fell in love with it. Not so bad for a first time in Brussels.

Now after playing Hertford with the Trailer Trash guys and Kev's duo (what was their name again? sorry I'm relly bad in this), the Rising Sun with uusikuu and a very special appearance of Roger Winslet in a new duo lineup, I'm getting kind of into the groove and the speed of this country. It's an interesting thing I found out that each country has apparently got it's own speed. England is in some aspects slower and more controlled than the continent. Except of maybe the traffic. That's way faster than I expected...




ABOUT THE DOWNLOAD SINGLE!!!

For you who are reading this and do possibly live in the UK there is some sad news. Even though I was assured that the download single "Miss Hertfordshire" is going to be available also in the UK I had to find out that it apparently is just available on iTunes Germany. Can only suggest to get it via finetunes.net. That one should work.

And by the way: while writing this I have to also say that this bloody pile of crap named MySpace really sucks now. Why on earth they updated it in a way that makes it more or less useless? They're doing their very best to chase users to Facebook. Which is in fact working. More or less relieably. Will continue this blog in the nearer future on my blogspot site. Should be easy to find through google and the good thing is: it works.

Next gig is tonight in Saffron Walden. Check out the details in the Mäkkelä Facebook group under events.

m.

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recordrelease gig

I've given up on predicting audiences in this town. One can advertise a gig properly months ahead here and end up with an audience of 5 being mildly interested in a wonderful concert AND there is nights like yesterday. Three days prior to the recordshop gig first e-mails that we'll do a FIVE song concert (!) in a recordshop on a Friday night and it turns out to be a packed room with a wonderful, enthusiastic audience.
Joined in on one of Robin van Velzen's songs, started my set with Martin Newell's "Goodnight Country Girl", then "Church Of The Blue Nun" (sort of the single's flipside) and ended the gig with "Miss Hertfordshire" with Robin on the mandolin. For the encore there was Chilton's "September Gurls" and Roy Harper's "Another Day". In a way it couldn't have been a better way to celebrate the release of the single. Only thing is: I'm still a bit irritated that it's not physically there. But this is apparently the way things are now. Seems as if we got to get used to this.


If you want to purchase this lovely cluster of ones and nils go straight to iTunes and find it there. Strange that particularly this really worked out...

Looking forward to the coming gigs...

m

Mäkkelä informiert. Mal eben aus gegebenem Anlass.

Heiho,

und dieser hier ist nun wirklich ganz kurz, wegen auch ganz kurzfristig anberaumtem Ereignis. Heute ist die frische Donwload-Single "Miss Hertforshire" von Mäkkelä's Trash Lounge erschienen. Die ist also ab sofort zunächst bei finetunes und dann demnächst auch bei iTunes erhältlich. Vielleicht ist sie das auch schon. Keine Ahnung.



Was allerdings ganz sicher der Fall ist: heute abend wird es zu diesem Anlass einen kleinen Feier-Gig in familiärem Kreis im heiligen Kioski geben. Drei Stücke live von Mäkkelä. Darunter auch zwei von der Single. Und es wird einen Support-Acts geben. Wenn dann richtig. Das ist der Robin van Velzen. Und weil Supporte immer kürzer spielen als die zweiten wird Herr van Velzen auch nur zwei Songs spielen. Wer also nichts weiter vor hat - es geht sehr zeitig los. Viertel nach acht. Dem weiteren traditionellen, freitagabendlichen Wegschiessen steht also nichts entgegen.

Und sicherheitshalber auch noch ein kurzer Update zu den Touraktivitäten. Ist noch einiges reingekommen. Auch erstaunliches wie der Montagabend in Saffron Walden im Schloss von Lionel. Wer nichts besseres zu tun hat dem kann ich nur nahelegen einen billigen Flug nach Stansted zu nehmen und sich das anzusehen. Es gibt auch tatsächlich einige Schlafmöglichkeiten (also richtige Betten meine ich) die Lionel bereit ist für lau zur Verfügung zu stellen.

Hier die Tourdates:

05/11/10 D-Fuerth, Kioski Recordstore (recordrelease)
10/11/10 D-Nuernberg, KuNo (Lesung mit ein wenig Mäkkelä)
17/11/10 A-Wien, Cafe Carina
18/11/10 A-Graz, Explosiv
20/11/10 D-Unnersdorf, Linde (mit Robin van Velzen)
24/11/10 D-Castrop-Rauxel, Bahia de Cochinos
25/11/10 B-Sazz'n'Jazz, Bruxelles
27/11/10 UK-Hertford, The Shades (mit Trailer Trash Orchestra)
28/11/10 UK-Reading, The Rising Sun Arts Centre (mit Uusikuu)
29/11/10 UK-Saffron Walden, Cinder Hall
30/11/10 UK-St Albans, The White Lion (mit Trailer Trash Orchestra)
01/12/10 UK-London, 12 Bar (mit Mikko & Laura von Uusikuu als Trio und Black Magic Six)
02/12/10 UK-Oxford, Folly Bridge Inn (mit Mikko & Laura von Uusikuu als Trio)
03/12/10 UK-Winchester, The Railway
04/12/10 UK-Brighton, Northern Lights (mit Mikko & Laura von Uusikuu als Trio)
06/12/10 D-Bamberg, Live Club (mit Robin van Velzen)
28/12/10 D-Darmstadt, Gute Stube Hoffart Theater
19/01/11 D-Nürnberg, MuZ Club (mit Robin van Velzen als Church Of The Blue Nun)
20/01/11 D-Chemnitz, Subway To Peter (mit Robin van Velzen als Church Of The Blue Nun)
21/01/11 D-Dresden, Kunsthof Gohlis (mit Robin van Velzen als Church Of The Blue Nun)
15/03/11 D-Hamburg, Consortium

Grüße,
M.