One week into the tour

Featured act at Flamingo Fleemarket

I’ve had a pretty fab first week touring. We’ve been on the west coast of Florida and it’s been great. Not to mention the RV life. The RV turned out so nice after we fixed it up and it really feels like a home now. Especially since we got the brand new queen size bed and the cozy king size duvet. And it’s so nice to wake up to different places every day too. One day it’s on the beach, the next in a fruit tree garden. I’ve even overcome my fear of driving the beast.

Waking up on St Pete's Beach
Waking up on St Pete's Beach
Our cozy bedroom
Our cozy bedroom
Truckin' & Dreaming ;)
Truckin' & Dreaming 😉

This week I played at the Independent in Tampa and St Petersburg. Got invited to a real southern lunch at Otis and Sian’s place and was treated to a great massage at the Warm Mineral Springs where I did a sold out intimate concert at the spa cafĂ©. Yesterday was a long day with two gigs. One in the daytime at the Flamingo Flea Market in Bonita Springs and later on a house concert followed by a bluegrass jam. Bluegrass seems to be the melody of this neighborhood and even though I tried to pitch in, I think I’d better stick to folk music. But Roger Borg who set me up with the gig treated us all to some awesome Swedish meatballs, so I felt right at home anyway.

With John, Sian and Otis at the Independent, St Pete
With John, Sian and Otis at the Independent, St Pete
Featured act at Flamingo Fleemarket
Featured act at Flamingo Flea market
Flamingo Flea market
Flamingo Flea market
Trying to understand the bluegrass business
Trying to understand the bluegrass business

 Thanks to all who came out to see me this week. To everyone who has been so kind to invite us to their homes and to all the venues!

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Drivin’ & Dreaming tour!

Drivin' & Dreaming
Drivin' & Dreaming
Drivin' & Dreaming

In just a week my US tour begins. December is already packed with gigs all over the Sunshine State (Florida). I mean it’s the place to be when my home country is all dark and cold, right! So I packed my bags and flew over the ocean and here I am. I just bought an RV that I’m fixing up so I can have somewhere to lay my hat on the road. It’s an old Gulfstream Conquest, and it turned out to be a bit more work that I had hoped for. But now that we tore most of the interior out, we can start putting things in and hopefully we’ll be able to live in it a week from now (termites and water leaks hopefully gone).

The first gig is at the Broward Folk Club at Your big picture CafĂ© in Davie, December 2nd. Then we’ll head back to Orlando and work our way from there down the west coast and then up the east coast. You can find all information about dates and venues HERE! If you are interested in hosting a house concert or have a venue that you would like me to play at, please contact me here!

I hope to see you on the road!

xo Sofia

Drivin’ & Dreaming Tour!

Sofia Talvik 2011

Thanks to all of you wonderful people who contributed with clever, creative and crazy name suggestions for my tour. With a twenty something suggestions on his list it’s no wonder that Paul Rosenberg rode home the winning name with “Drivin’ & Dreaming”. I love the name because it referrers to the vast distances I will be driving across America to play for all of you, and the fact that I also follow my dream by doing so. It also reminds me of a favorite song that’s called “Falling and Flying” from the movie “Crazy Heart”. Paul, a CD and T-shirt are on their way in the mail to you!

On a close second place was Nikolas Huffman with his “Interstate Hootenanny Tour”. It’s quirky and yet bears a lot of meaning in it. Nikolas, you get a free download of one of my albums.

Thanks to everyone who contributed I had so much fun reading all of your suggestions!

Thoughts about booking a tour

Sofia Talvik

I’ve just started booking my US tour, starting in Florida in December, and first of all I have to say how amazed I am by these quadrillion of music venues. It seems like every cafĂ©, restaurant, library and music lover hosts concerts. I’m also amazed how many of them are folk venues, or at least host folk music as well as other genres.

Sofia Talvik
My folky me in a backyard in San Francisco. Photo by Shelby Duncan

In Sweden nobody even knows what folk music is, here it’s fiddles and Orsa spelmĂ€n (if you all want to know what happened to ABBA after the 80’s). (I guess I’m not being totally fair because people here have heard Fleet Foxes and mostly the folk genre is called singer/songwriter here though I don’t think it’s totally right.)

Once in an interview the reporter asked me how I would define my music, and I answered “americana/folk”. When I read the published interview my answer was American funk. That says something about Sweden and folk music. But in the US, folk music almost seems like a cult. And here I am ordering feather hair extensions tuning my Luna guitar. I will probably fit right in!

Luna guitar
My folky guitar

So anyways, coming from a country that may be small but is really big when it comes to music export (again with the ABBA) I must say that Sweden is a puny country when it comes to live music. I was wondering the other day how many people would actually be confident enough to host a house concert here in Sweden. To actually let musicians and other people into their homes.. I mean what would the neighbors say???

So it’s really uplifting to see how many venues there are to chose from in the US. Unfortunately I’m not alone with this knowledge and I’m competing with so many bands. I just have to pray that I stand out in the crowd and that all these people will find it in their hearts to invite me to their homes, their cafĂ©s, libraries, galleries and what not.

And if you live in the US and want to host a house concert with yours truly, get in touch here http://book.sofiatalvik.com!

V – Update #5

Delusional by Sofia Talvik, video by Martin Obert

It’s just a few weeks left until we’re releasing ‘V – Part Three of L.O.V.E’ and I just got this awesome video for the single ‘Delusional’. The video is made by Martin Obert and I asked him about his inspiration for the video, and here’s what he said:

[quote]
I imagined the video when I was coming home late in the night. I was waiting for the bus and as I was sitting leaned forward with my hands together a lamp above threw a shadow on the ground. It was shaped a little like a human head and then it stroke me – there is a cool video in there.

I made the video under my table; with two lamps, two hands, a camera and a laptop for live view. I never did any hand shadows so I’ve also had to learn how and experiment a lot. That’s what made it challenging and interesting – I had to come up with a story that is possible to tell with a very limited set of expressive elements.
[/quote]

Check out this awesome little teaser for the video. The full length video will be released soon so hang in there!

If you haven’t pledged yet, please help us fund this project by ordering any of the cool stuff here!

‘Delusional’ by Sofia Talvik, Video by Martin Obert