venue Archives - Page 4 of 5 - Sofia Talvik - Americana / Folk with Swedish Roots

January 23, 2012

Drivin’ & Dreaming through the South

Here’s a little map that shows our current gig schedule in the US for the Drivin’ & Dreaming tour. We’re booking as we go along and our plan is to hit most states in the US. Hawaii and Alaska my be a challenge for the RV though. See my full gig schedule here! I will keep adding to it every week! (And if you feel like booking me to your venue, please click here!)

Speaking of the RV we just had some major rain falls in Atlanta, GA and discovered that the overhang still wasn’t properly sealed. So now we’ll have to tape it together some more. I bought a dryer duct at Walmart that we taped to the heater in the driver’s compartment and put up there to dry it out while we were driving to Auburn today like the white trash McGyvers we are. Hopefully it won’t rain more but you never know.

At least Auburn, AL is warmer than NC. We even had the windows open today wohoo!

I’m psyched to be going to New Orleans for a couple of gigs. I’ve been watching the Treme TV show, and it seems like a cool town, that is unless you get robbed, shot and raped. Let’s hope none of those things happen to us. So far everyone have been really nice and taken care of us. Would be totally awesome to find a private spot to park in NOLA.

Well, that’s all for now! I’ll see you on the road!

December 30, 2011

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

This has been a great year with lots of stuff happening. I made 4 EP albums with 4 different producers, the wonderful guys in my backing band. And all of you chipped in and funded the releases so that we were able to finish the project. 4 ass-kicking metal bands did 4 ass-kicking cover albums of my EPs and one of them actually released a video too (or rather will release in a few days so I’m cheating by telling you now) Badmouth made a video of their cover of my song “To watch the bridges burn”, check it out here!

Throughout the year I have worked hard to get an artist visa to the US, and thanks again to my wonderful fans who helped out with house concert contracts and letters of recommendation I finally got my visa and packed my things and went to Florida in November. In December my big “Drivin’ & Dreaming tour” took off and I’ve now been all around Florida playing in different venues. One unexpected thing that I experienced is that I had at least a few loyal fans show up for every gig. I didn’t know there’s be so many of you!

Throughout the tour we’ve had the RV break down and fixed, nothing major yet thank God. We’ve been invited to have dinner with Greg and Michelle of The Refinery, Tampa, for southern shrimps and grits at Sian and Otis’ in St Petes and to stay the night in a really cool A frame cottage with Doris in Melrose to mention a few of all the lovely people we’ve encountered along the way.

It’s now time to say good bye to Florida and head up to South Carolina and Georgia for January. Many new experiences are to come, many new shows to be played. We’re heading into new states and a new year. In January my new album “The Owls Are Not What They Seem” will be released and I hope you will continue to support my tour as I go through America in my old RV – Drivin’ and Dreaming.

Happy New 2012

/Sofia

December 13, 2011

One week into the tour

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.

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 café. 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

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!

Don’t miss out on downloading me free Christmas single and support ActionAid in their fight against poverty here:

November 25, 2011

Drivin’ & Dreaming tour!

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 Café 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

September 4, 2011September 4, 2011

Thoughts about booking a tour

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.

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!

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.

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!