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.
2. Write your suggestion on the post dedicated to the competition
The name of the tour should not be related to any of my albums and can be totally creative, fun, serious, weird, fantastic or anything you choose it to be. You can write as many suggestions as you like. The chosen name will appear on the website, posters etc. To participate, you have to post your suggestion on the competition post in the VIP group, no other suggestions will be taken into consideration.
(we keep the right to not appoint a winner if we don’t find a suitable name amongst the suggestions)
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 café, 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.
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 spelmän (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!
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 cafés, libraries, galleries and what not.
I met up with G.A.I.N who have recorded the second part of the H.A.T.E saga, ‘A – Part Two of H.A.T.E’. Here’s their thoughts about the project.
Hi G.A.I.N! You guys are doing “A – part two of H.A.T.E” how is the EP coming along? It’s coming along very well. It’s all done and waiting to be released. Niklas Stålvind of Wolf produced and mixed. Mike Wead of King Diamond and bibelblack mastered. From the final result we can definitely say that it sounds kick-ass! We’re very proud of what we’ve done and we can’t wait until we can share the result with the world!
Great! Can you tell us a little bit about yourselves? We’re just a couple of metalheads doing what we love. We all come from different places but our love for Metal brought us together. We all live in Stockholm and we like to go out and have a good old dirty time. It happens a little too often but that’s Metal for you! We live by the motto, Sex, Booze and Tattoos!
What did you think of the original songs when you first heard them and did you think it was hard to interpret them into your own style or did you get ideas straight away? When we first heard the songs we wondered what the hell we’d gotten or self’s in to. It was a little hard to “connect” with the songs at first but after a few listening’s they grew on us and now we like them. We decided early not to listen to the originals that much too ensure that our versions came more from us, so that they would sound like G.A.I.N. Some songs we had ideas for right after the first listen but some came harder. The song that came easiest was probably “King of the Willow Tree” and one that we had to work a bit on was “Glow”.
Which of the songs are you most pleased with and why? Our favorites are probably King of the Willow Tree and The War. We really like the raw drive of the riffs in both songs. They are really in our own style and don’t sound like covers at all. Your way of writing really fitted well into our kind of music. They came out just like our own songs.
What’s your favorite gig memory? Three of us remember on gig in particular. Mr Bandiit was a little too excited and played a bit fast. This resulted in that Gus had to prioritize ether singing or breathing in the last song. He chose to sing… He gave his last bit of energy in that song and as a result of that he ended up taking an ambulance ride to the hospital.
Can you tell us a little bit about the recording sessions and what was most fun with being a part of this project? We recorded everything in Viper Studios. From this experience we learned that we will never record four songs in two days again. It’s borderline impossible and we don’t recommend it. We finished all the rhythm guitars and the drums in one day and thought we were doing very well. Only lead guitar, bass and vocals left right? The lead guitar and the bass were done at about 8 o’clock the next night. The vocals took another 7-8 hours and would have taken longer if it weren’t for the excellent vocal coaching Niklas Stålvind of Wolf provided. We’re forever grateful for that. But on the whole it has been a lot of fun to be part of this project. We’ve learned a lot and would like to thank you for this opurtunity.
What’s next on the agenda for G.A.I.N this fall? Get out and play. The big damn show! This fall we will focus on getting out and bring our music to the masses. We haven’t played all summer so we’re really excited about getting out there again! We’ll just have to make sure that Gus gets to breath. Do you know where we can get a portable oxygen tank?
Thanks for hanging out! We look forward to hearing the songs.
Have you ever dreamed of having your favorite independent artist perform a private concert just for you and your guests?
Starting in October 2011 I will do an extensive tour in the US. I’m now looking for people who would like to host a concert in their home.
Simply put, a House Concert is a private party, employing live original music, held in a private home, garden, civic center, church or other space under your exclusive control. There would need to be enough parking nearby and your neighbors should be cool. It would be a huge bummer if someone called the cops because of all the extra cars and people coming to your house. You should probably not do this if you live in a small apartment with a bunch of uptight neighbors, room mates or a cranky landlord.
You should be able to host a minimum of 10-15 people. It’s up to you to invite people and spread the word about the concert. You can choose for yourself if you just want to invite friends or if you want to advertise the concert publicly. You have to guarantee the artist a minimum of 10 paying guests. A $10-20 donation per guest should be paid to the performer and it’s also customary, but not required, to offer the artist a home cooked meal and a room for the night. A stage isn’t required, and the PA system will be provided by the artist.
Your home address will not be published on the web and we will negotiate from concert to concert if you would like to publish any contact information to you about the concert or if you wish assistance with promotion.
Contact us if you would be interested in hosting a concert or would like more information.
Here’s a preliminary tour route so you’ll know when we’ll be in your state.
If your state is not on the list and you want to host a concert please throw us an email anyway and we’ll consider your offer.
2011
December: Florida
2012
January: South Carolina, Georgia,
February: Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee
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.
