Unmistakably Nordic in flavor, Sofia Talvik somehow still conforms to American interpretations of her own original music, a North Sea siren blending sparkle and melancholy, creating a special niche of folk music.
Sofia Talvik annual Christmas single "Santa (can you bring me someone else this year)"
Every year I release a free single as a Christmas gift for my fans, but since Christmas also is a time for reflection I also urge my fans to support a good cause or a charity organization.
This year’s single “Santa” is given away to benefit The Body Shop and ECPAT’s world-wide campaign “Stop Sex Trafficking”, a campaign to bringing awareness of this modern-day slave trade that takes place around us, trafficking of children and young people. The single “Santa” is free to download as long as you help spread the message to all your friends on Facebook.
I had a great time in Toronto! I did 4 shows at Indieweek and played for some great crowds! My favorite show was at Free times café – a wonderful little venue. Thanks to all who came to see my shows and to Indiweek for inviting me!
Here’s a little video from my performance at Free times café.
Sofia Talvik performing “At the End” live at Free Times Café
Lots of people think it’s just glamour, travels and good times to be an artist. Even friends of mine tell me how great it must be for me to “get to” tour and travel so much. Even they don’t realize I pay for the tour myself most of the time and bringing a band is never cheap, you guys out there who have families know a couple of plane tickets tend to eat up your budget pretty fast.
I also get a lot of questions from up-and-coming artists wondering how to go about the business of starting a record label or how to promote their music. I always try to answer the best I can, but the short answer to all of this is “you have to work your ass off!”. Nothing comes for free in this business and no one will care about your music as much as you do, no matter what that manager/label/pr company is trying to tell you.
.. but most of the time it's great!
So I was very happy to stumble upon this great website where all of the stuff about being an artist and building your brand is collected in a fun and comprehensible way. This post today is mainly for all you artists and musicians out there, but you other guys can check out http://www.eventric.com/ as well (scroll down to featured articles), it’s a lot of fun reading and gives you an insight on all the things you need to know when you want to get out there with your music.Martin Atkins who is the guy sharing all these great tips really knows what he’s talking about!
One of the things that made me laugh was the post about why you need to learn screen printing as an artist. Why? So you can make your own merchandise of course. Just like I started doing a while back. All my tees are hand printed by me, check them out here: shop.sofiatalvik.com. So it’s just a lot of great advice there for all artists, no matter where you are in your career.
I’m playing a couple of showcases at Indie Week Toronto in October! I had almost given up on going when the Swedish Arts Grants Committee came through and gave me a helping hand! I’m super excited to go, and I really look forward to seeing you all in Toronto! Don’t miss my showcases:
Fri Oct 15 // Cameron House front room // 10.50-11.20 pm
Sat Oct 16 // Drake Underground // 6.00 pm
Sat Oct 16 // Free Times Cafe // 10.15-10.45 pm
Sat Oct 16 // Bread & Cirkus // 01.00 am
Todays Spotify playlist is a collection of cool live performances, except my song that is song number 6 on my new album “Florida”.
The last two songs are two different live versions of the same song. Dire Straits wrote the original song but I really like the The Killers version from the Abbey Road studios better.
More Than I should Have – Sofia Talvik
Free Fallin’ – John Mayer
Bohemian Rhapsody – Queen
Romeo and Juliet – The Killers
Romeo and Juliet – Dire Straits
Jolene – The White Stripes
