What if we fall over?

Sofia Talvik on her bike

We’ve been touring for little over a month now and gone from sunny Florida to cold North Carolina. I’ve overcome my fear of driving the RV and since Jonas fixed the cruise control I don’t mind driving at all. But there’s still one thing that scares me. What if the RV falls over. Every time we’re on a sharp curve on a highway exit I dread this. Even though Jonas says there’s no chance of that happening I still feel like it could happen.

Sofia Talvik on tour
Me and Jonas in our hoodies in the RV

After spending a few days in Savannah, GA (what a wonderful city!) I decided we had to buy bikes so we could bike whenever we came to a city like that. So we got one off Craig’s list and one from Walmart. For a few days the bikes were parked inside the RV and were taking up all the space we had. Because even if a bike is only $50 at Walmart, a bike rack for the RV is way more expensive. It doesn’t make sense at all, but we had to get one so we did. Only if we were to mount the bike rack we had to dismount the spare tire. So now instead of bikes we’ve had a hundred year old spare tire in the RV. No it didn’t fit into any of the storage compartments. Someone said we should put it under the bed but it’s old and smelly and had dead frogs and moss on it. So I don’t really think it’s going to be useful if we ever come to need a spare tire in the future.

The day after we got the bike rack and put the bikes on it we stayed in the parking lot behind the bar where I played in Charleston, SC and in the middle of the night I woke up of sounds and the RV rocking (you’d think it’s steady but it’s like a boat really). I looked out through the bedroom window and there was a guy trying to do something to the bikes, probably steal them. That’s not really something you want to wake up to. As soon as he saw my face in the window though he took off, but I couldn’t go back to sleep for hours and then I had nightmares the rest of the night.

Sofia Talvik on her bike
Me on my bike in Winston-Salem

Everything got better once we came to Wilmington, NC and stayed a night with our friend Majsan. Wilmington is such a beautiful town. Actually all the towns we’ve been to since Savannah has been pretty great. We’re in in Winston-Salem, NC now and it’s beautiful. We’ve biked around the city which doesn’t have much of a city center but lots of beautiful houses. The gigs have all been great too. Sometimes one would wish for a larger audience, but at least the people who’ve shown up have been there to listen to me and that’s what’s important after all. I was pretty disappointed that SxSW didn’t come through with an official invite this year. I’ve been incited the last three years of which I’ve played two. And every time I’ve had to pay for expensive plane tickets and hotels for me and the band. So when I’m finally here, doing a great tour, having a new CD out January 31st, they don’t invite me. But I still have a few unofficial SxSW shows so if you’re going to be there you can still see me play.

Me, Majsan and Spades in Wilmington, NC

Ok that’s all for now folks!

See you on the road

Stockholm Sci Fi convention

Storm trooper

So you already know I’m somewhat of a sci-fi nerd, and even more of a zombie nerd. I’ve also been hooked on vampires since reading the Ann Rice books in my teens, or maybe even before that. When I was a little girl and was so afraid of them I put garlic in my bedroom window to keep them out.

Anyways I saw that someone had posted something about a Sci Fi convention in Stockholm this weekend, so I thought I’d check it out. I’ve never been to one and I figured I’d at least get a good laugh out of the trekkie-nerds (sorry guys, your moms did a great job on the costumes.. eh I mean uniforms).

Storm trooper
Storm trooper

So I went to their website and saw that they had actors from different sci-fi movies there (but since when is Faulty Towers and Allo’ Allo’ sci-fi??) and who doesn’t want to see Edward Furlong 20 years older? (Actually they did have Joe Flanigan from my favorite Stargate show, Stargate Atlantis, so that was kind of fun.)

At the convention I was surprised over how small it was, and that it all seemed to be about comic books, ugly t-shirts and action dolls. And I wondered if all the storm troopers where hired to walk around there or if they were visitors. And if they were hired, did they travel with the convention or did they hire new ones in each city the came to?

avatar at sci fi convention
avatar at sci fi convention

At one end of the convention you could be photographed with your fave sci-fi actors or you could buy their autographed pics for 200 SEK ($30). I was thinking of how I usually sell my albums for $10 at my gigs and wondered how it would go down to sell autographed pics for 3 times the price. It must be so weird for the poor fellas who once starred in this or that sci-fi movie to get these kinds of gigs, going to a cold and snowy Sweden to sit in a convention hall and sell their signed pictures.

But apart from people putting on blue make-up to look like avatars and nerdy guys with too tight Trekkie suits I actually met a friend of my hubby’s. He was part of the team that made a movie called “Psalm 21” (which I haven’t seen yet but look forward to seeing) and now they’re making a zombie movie called “Zone 261” that looks totally awesome!

I think Swedish movies usually are crap but I have high hopes for this one! So keep your eyes open!