MERRY X-MAS

After a really busy year, meeting lots and lots of wonderful people, playing probably more gigs than ever before in now almost 12 months time and now, all of a sudden, it's christmas. When I realized this last Friday i thought there should be a little x-mas message to all of you who helped making this year a really nice one. Recorded this song my friend Grae J. Wall wrote many years ago, in my living room 'round 3 am on Saturday morning.

I wish you all a wonderful christmas time. Hasn't been easy for many of you (I know this) and for those who had or are still having a hard time: it'll get better! Promised! Here is a little present for all of you  I met on the road, at gigs, in bars, who took care of me, who promoted gigs, the whole lot. As I said - the songs was written by Grae. He said it'll be ok if I upload it on soundcloud. Hope he will not regret when listening to it...

http://soundcloud.com/maekkelae/acacia-avenue

Mäkkelä

Urban Voodoo Motorist

Next day we wandered with our host Reto across the Thun christmas market where we found among other things a donkey singing C & W songs. Which was obviously a highlight on this tour for Clark Nova.

Clark & Reto. You can see the donkey right behind Clark.

I bought a pair of smoked Swiss sausages and decorated my rearview mirror with them knowing I wouldn't have a lot of company on the way to the UK.

My new Swiss friends.

Feels as if this tour is now turning into a very urban voodoo motorist thing. Or how would you describe someone living more or less in a car, decorating it with pieces of meat as for to have someone to talk to and just get's of the vehicle to play songs nobody knows but him?










The duo gig with cello player Tobias at the arts gallery in Bruehl went down nicely but the whole scenery was sort of surreal to say the least. Right outside the door there was a traditional christmas market with all the features a christmas market usually has, inside the gallery mulled wine was served and the exhibition was, well, contrasting this all. Photographies of naked elderly and fat people in bondage, s&m gear, the whole lot, well, you name it. This with us two providing an almost

Tobias Stutz soundchecking in Bruehl.

chamber music style soundtrack to the scenery was for sure different to the usual shows I play.

Leaving Cologne early, cruisin through Belgium in snow storms, arrive in Dunkerque and off to Blighty. Will I manage with driving? Not too much choice, eh?

Found myself in Dover, slightly confused by a satnav that guided me almost to Canterbury before finally finding Barry's house. Barry booked me up a couple of times at his regular "Big Untidy" nights at the Rising Sun Arts Centre in Reading, and now was my host and promoter for this first ever Maekkelae gig in Kent. On top of that he guested as my percussionist (well done, Barry! Honestly!). Place was a pub named The Louis Armstrong and as you might guess a pretty jazz focussed place. I had two slots during the regular monthly night of Zen Bicycle, a Dover based free form Jazz trio.
They were brillant (and i assume they're always), fantastic players and lovely blokes. Definitely a good one to start with. Next morning Barry took me down to the local community radio (DCR) he's involved in building up. Had a little live set and interview there of which you can see one song on Facebook. Must not forget to mention that Barry is quite good at making curries. Yummy.
A great surprise - really, it was like christmas - was the fact that a box with the cassette release from Stourbridge had arrived. What a beauty! Thanks Armed Within Movement Records! Will be hard to sell them. Want to keep 'em all.
  
3 December. Supposed to play the 12 Bar together with Janne Westerlund tonight. The first of five shows we're going to do together from today on. Drove up to St Albans, dropped my stuff at Grae's place there, got on the train down to London. The 12 Bar is on good old Denmark Street and like always I can't resist having a look at the vintage guitar shops and like always I wonder who for chrissake would pay bloody five-and-a-half grand for a Gibson Les Paul. Anyway. Good place. Here's pop history, this being the London Tin Pan Alley in the olden days. If you get down to London - have a look at everything down there. It's not very unlikely this all will be gone in a few years time in favour of another glossy shopping mall.

I think we done pretty ok that first night and Malcolm Kaksois (who booked us there) and his friend Allan even drove us back to St Albans. Really appreciate this. What just comes to my mind is: last time I played here there were those Korean girls who wanted a photograph of me with them and promised to send it... Never happened. So if you, unknown Korean girls, read this: send me that bloody photograph! I deserve it. I don't even mind if my head's not in the picture. I know you were few inches smaller than me.



Next stop Bath. Played there once in 2001 on the first Anglo German Low Stars tour and just remember it was a really lovely old town.

YHA in Bath

As the venue there doesn't provide accomodation we booked a cheap B&B which turned out to be a lovely little, pretty old building on one of the hillsides of Bath, with us having the room right on top of the little tower, overlooking the city of Bath. You can see it. We left the light on.

Failed with sightseeing though. Arrived there just after dark and had to leave around dawn for Glasgow. The show at the Bell Inn was a good one, opening with an intense guitar & bouzouki version of Janne's "Last Of Our Days Together".

I quite liked this one...

I must not forget to mention the fantastic Chicken Vindaloo we grabbed on our way back to our night place and the funny shops we passed by...

Mäkkelä & Nova's adventures. Part II

28 November. Sitting in Denkmal, Salzburg in Austria, a charming little venue.Listening to Stefan Ebner's set. A guy we met on one of our earlier tours here.
Stefan is playing a support set for us and like always he's fantastic.
Good singer, great songwriter. Maybe even better now that he quit drinking. Intense performer. We're still a bit knackered from the drive here which  was surprisingly ok but hey - five hours are five hours and a first idea of winter got us  midway here. It's been pouring down and it still is while I'm here on what looks pretty much to become a quiet evening. Appart from a guy named Dieter whom we soon namert Dieter Tourette. A bit too loud to ignore him which leads eventually to him being kicked out by the venue guys.
Yesterday's off day helped to recharge a bit but it wouldn't be Nova & Mäkkelä if we hadn't found a way to blow this on the way.
Stopped in a village near the Austrian border for a bite which turned out to be big chunks of meat, enough for four of us. Ate it all though. Low price high nutrition.
A detail which so far didn't cross my mind i have to add. This town has got something I used to think Vienna is reknown for. I'm today pretty sure that was wrong all over the years. Thinking of the perfect place to slide into a proper depression or commit a decent suicide Salzburg would be the perfect place. A damp, cold, dreary, conservative and old fashioned city at the foot of whatever alps, particularly in late November. Unfortunately I'm in general a positive character with a tendency towards optimism. Well, most of the time.

Dachau. 29 November. Yes, at the end of the night Salzburg was exactly what it was with our previous shows there. Someone at the bar put something in our drinks and no matter what it was it did it's
job. Woke up at the hotel, felt terrible, had breakfast (that's new - never managed here before) and drove down to Dachau. Not the longest drive but a pain in the neck. Snow, rain, hangover don't match with a three hours drive.
But then there was Cafe Gramsci. One of the finest venues i know in Germany. There is sure no appropriate way to describe that evening. And no - I'm not exaggerating. Played about two and a half including encores, sold one hell of a lot of merch and had the most enthusiastic audience on this tour so far. If you read German have a look at the review posted on weissblau.de and you might get an idea how this went down. Had a traditional Bavarian Weisswurst breakfast the next day before setting out for Switzerland. Keep on going Christian, Kai, Klaus and whoever works there or been down to see us play that night. It was a blast.


And then, dear reader, happened what will go into the history books as Mäkkelä & Nova crossing the alps. See, we're smart secret agents, sometimes people try to tell us not to do certain things which usually is just rubbish. We're booked because we know better i assume. Or because we're exceptionally talented in making fools out of ourselves.

Almost in Switzerland. T'was even better there

This time we decide not to buy one of these bloody overestimeated motorway toll stickers. 33 EUR just for using Swiss motorways. That's a bit expensive, eh? You might object the Swiss possibly knew why they built their motorways. They got harsh winters there with massive snowfall and they're on slightly higher ground than for instance Berlin or London. Don't tell such rubbish to Mäkkelä & Nova.

Weather's been fantastic when we climbed up their first mountian range following a caravan of road construction machines first gear and it took us just an hour. Fantastic view on a tremendous landscape.
Weather turned out to be not exactly as fantastic when we realized that moving ahead with an average speed of 35 km/h might get us into the situation arriving at the venue about 7 in the morning. In other words, we didn't really pick up speed when it got dark and snowfall set in. Skyfall we do know how to handle, snow fall is something completely different. Serpentine roads, navigation on mobile breaking down regularly and a lot of snow did not capture my idea of a fun ride to a gig on a friday afternoon. Arrived there almost in time though after an easy 8 hours drive.

Do you guys really need this, you might ask? Apparently we do. The gig at Mundwerk in Thun, Switzerland was almost as convincing as the one in Dachau. On top of that there was Reto the owner who is just a smashing guy. We got pretty enthusiastic after the gig, this being the end of the Mäkkelä & Nova bit of this tour. Led to me singin karaoke which is among the things you would have to force me on gunpoint to do in other circumstances.

Tuna we spotted in lake Thun. Mother animal and young.

And solo again. 2 December. Dropped Nova at train station Trier (another 8 hours drive) and moved ahead towards Cologne for my afternoon gig with cello player Tobias Stutz. We're speaking about week three of this tour now. Or does it just feel like that?