On the go

To be honest, this is all getting a bit edgy. Still a bit knackered from playing the "Mäkkelä meets Wax Mannequin" hoedown on Friday (cheers guys - that was a fun night!) and the "Stadt aus Draht meets GoHo Hobos" on Saturday at Blaue Nacht in Nuernberg.
Only ten days until I have to hit the road for what I hope will be an at least warm tour. What makes it a bit disturbing for now are the plans of spending time in the studio with the GoHo Hobos, with Church Of The Blue Nun, playing a little festival gig on Saturday, djing with David tomorrow night in Bamberg, preparing for Bayerisches Fernsehen (public tv) who just told me yesterday they're going to do a special about Kioski and trying to sort out my car's broken axis, my everlasting trouble with tax authorities' deadlines, pre-producing the June issue of my radio show and about a hundred other more or less annoying, time consuming things...all prior to the tour. But hey - this can be done in ten days. Possibly without a nervous breakdown. Positive thinking.

Made for walking. Photo: Frank Johannes

Among the good things we can list the weather here. Looks as if summer just arrived intending to stay. Good. Hope it follows me up to Turku for my first tour gig on 22nd at Pikku-Torre. Another one is the fact my autumn tour dates start rolling in. This year it's going to be a long one indeed. Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland, Catalonia, Netherlands (possibly), UK (definitely) and back
The 7" ep is slowly assuming shape, at least in theory so there is not too much more to do but record it and hope everything goes according to plan and that little thingy is here by the time touring starts in October.

As for the upcoming Finnish dates this will be an interesting thing particularly re. the Church Of The Blue Nun gig in Helsinki. First and apparently only Finnish COTBN gig  this year with Ulla-Riikka on cello. After leaving Finland there'll be a Mäkkelä's Trash Lounge gig in Växjö/Sweden with Robin van Velzen guesting (hmmm... or is this a COTBN show then?) and a Church Of The Blue Nun gig in Malmö which raises the question who is this Mäkkelä, who is that Church and do I have to be worried about being schizo?

Will try to keep a more decent tour diary on this trip than I did last time. Might work out as most of the time I'm on my own and writing keeps me from talking to myself.

All tour dates on Bandsintown bottom of this page.


 

Previously unreleased song online

Hiho!

My favourite British cowboys at Trashville put this up. An amazing, free compilation! Have a listen! Good stuff.

Few things have to be mentioned here: Mr. Robin van Velzen played the Banjo, Stefan Nast-Kolb the accordion and my Hobo buddy Michael Stroell recorded this song. If you ever get to Brighton don't forget to have a pint at the Northern Lights.

And even more good news. I'm more than pleased to announce that the upcoming shows in Vienna and Munich are going to be with the amazing Isi Roessler on upright bass. The second gig she did with me last Monday was nothing less than a blinder! There are some quite nice pics on Konstantin Himonakis' facebook page.

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