Pledge for ‘V – Part Three of L.O.V.E’

V - Cover

It’s been amazing that I have received so much help, support and interest from my fans during the production of my two latest EPs. Thanks to YOU I have been able to record and release them, and for that I am eternally grateful!

Now it’s time for me to start making part three of the L.O.V.E saga and I need your help again. This time it will be a little bit different. For one I’m using Bandcamp instead of Pledgemusic and this time I have affixed packages to make it easier for you to choose your level of involvement. Like before, you’re very welcome to send me an email or comment below if you feel that something is missing amongst the items available to pledge for and I’ll be happy to include it. You will still receive updates from the project such as blogs, pics and videos.

The interesting thing about this project is that I have four different producers, the four guys that also happen to be in my backing band. They are all very talanted but they all have very different taste in music and I thought it would be interesting to see how they interpreted my songs if I gave them the chance.  ‘L’ was produced by my cello player Christian Hörgren and ‘O’ by my drummer Joakim Lundgren. We’re now down to ‘V’ and this time it’s my bass player Janne Manninen who produces the EP. His roots are more dance and electronica than the others and this EP will be very different from all my other stuff. But it’s still me doing the vocals and guitar and it’s all my songs, just in a new exciting suit.

So, go and check out the new design on the tees and posters and start choosing your pledge package. Go to the pledge site for more information about the different items and how to pledge. Thanks again for helping me out!

V - Cover
V - Cover

The hard work of being an artist!

Sometimes everyones tired and grumpy...
Sometimes everyone's tired and grumpy...

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!
.. 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.

Here’s some fast links to my fave posts:

11 (of 27) Things Touring Bands Can Do NOW To Make a Difference

11 MORE (of 29) Tips Touring Bands Can Do Now To Make a Difference

10 Ideas For Making Your Show an Event

Just remember that it's a lot of hard work!
Just remember that it's a lot of hard work!

New album released today. Get Florida here!

Florida Album Cover

I’m excited to announce that my new album “Florida” was released worldwide today.

Florida Album Cover
Get your copy of the album today!

I’ve worked hard with the album for such a long time and it feels good to finally see it come online on all major music stores. Do you want to listen to it today?
You can stream and listen to the album from my official homepage.

I also have personally signed copies of the album and other great stuff like t-shirts, bags, lyrics and much more in the Sofia Talvik Music Shop.

You can download the album from my own private shop or these providers:

iTunes
Amazon
Rhapsody
Napster
EMusic
7Digital

or buy a CD from these providers:

Sofia Talvik Music Shop
Bengans
CDON
Megastore

Worldwide Pre Order + Bonus

Pre order "Florida" from Bengans.se

As you know I got three different Limited Edition Boxes on my private shop that include some really nice stuff. But since all of you don’t want the exclusive stuff I got another way for you to pre order the new album.

Worldwide pre order of the new album!

You can now pre order unsigned CD’s directly from one of Sweden’s largest online retail stores Bengans.se.

Pre order "Florida" from Bengans.se
Pre order "Florida" from Bengans.se

They ship worldwide and you will get the album on the release day 12:th of May. I will also reward those that pre order from Bengans.se by giving you a download code to the acoustic version of the album.

Just contact me with the order confirmation at info(at)makakimusic.se and I will send you the code to the download on the release day.

No country for old men

We’re on the road. Stuck in a too small pick up truck. The only upside is the Jack Daniels for the guys and the scenery for me. Tonight we’re staying at a really lousy motel. Motel 6 would look like the Hilton compared to this ;-). Well at least I have wifi so I can do my blogs, check my emails and all that. We’ve been joking about staying at a motel like the ones in “No country for old men” and now we are. We walked to a Mexican restaurant across the street and while we were in there the guys spotted a man that looked EXACTLY like the guy in “No country for old men”. I tried to take a picture of him with my iPhone, it’s not great but you’ll see.

I’m really looking forward to coming to Austin so we can decide our own pace and our own stuff and have some fun and play some music.

Check out the guy in the back

The real deal

An here’s some “on the road” pictures

Beautiful scenery in California

the back seat crew

on the road

Janne met a giant roadrunner

Welcome to Texas


A giant roadrunner made out of sneakers