Name my tour!

New Sofia Talvik Florida t-shirt

Now you have a chance to give my upcoming US tour a name and win a Florida t-shirt and CD at the same time. Here’s how you do it:

1. Become a member of my VIP fan group on Facebook here

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)

Concert in your home!

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Your home address will not be published on the web and we will negotiate from concert to concert if you would like to publish any contact information to you about the concert or if you wish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

Santa – reviews

Sofia Talvik annual Christmas single "Santa (can you bring me someone else this year)"

My new Xmas single “Santa” has only been out for a day but I’ve already got some lovely reviews:

Women’s Radio has written a fun review:

“Santa” has that 80’s music vibe that will make listeners bob their heads unknowingly.  Imagine Santa Claus bouncing around with a Mohawk, jean jacket and tight leather pants.  It is a cheerful, bubbly and hope-filled piece that will bring positive energy to Talvik’s cause this year.
Read the full review here.

Free Christmas Music Blog says:

“This year’s single, “Santa (can you bring me someone else this year)”, was just released today, and it’s every bit as good as I expected it to be (which is a relief, because I often worry when my expectations get too high for something). Musically, “Santa” is a fun, synthesizer-based pop song that would not sound out of place on a mid-80s Madonna album.  If you’re a fan of songs like “Last Christmas”, this song is a must hear.”
Read full review here

Santas Working Overtime has chosen “Santa” as song of the day! Thanks!

Wears the Trousers magazine did a nice little write up – check it out here! .. as did the lovely blog With Music in My Mind!

Stubby’s House of Christmas wrote in their review:>
“I love this woman.  And every year Sofia Talvik releases a free Christmas song, so what’s not to love?  This year’s effort is a fairly uptempo danceable indie track, even if the lyrics are the “I’ve been alone since we split up” type.  It might be her catchiest yet.”

Read the whole review here

Fab Womens Radio has already put “Santa” in rotation and writes on their website:
“Highlights?  Just about every single track, but why not start with this week’s FEATURED FEMMEP3, a glorious new track from our favorite Swedish singer-songwriter, Sofia Talvik, titled, “Santa”.”

Download your copy of “Santa” here

Sofia Talvik annual Christmas single "Santa (can you bring me someone else this year)"
Sofia Talvik annual Christmas single "Santa (can you bring me someone else this year)"

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 acoustic album

Sofia Talvik 'Florida Acoustic'
Sofia Talvik 'Florida Acoustic'
Sofia Talvik 'Florida Acoustic'

I hope you all enjoyed my latest album”Florida”! Now it will also be available in a acoustic version “Florida Acoustic”, where all the songs is recorded live with just me and the guitar (and piano on one song).

To celebrate the release of “Florida Acoustic” I’m doing a mini tour in Sweden, playing 7 acoustic gigs in 7 days. But don’t worry if you’re not in Sweden next week. All the concerts will be streamed online so you’ll be able to see them anyway! If you are in Sweden however you can catch me here:

Sunday 4/7 Effes, Gotland
Monday 5/7 TBA
Tuesday 6/7 Fettmules sommarfestival, Gnesta
Wednesday 7/7 Restaurang Landet, Stockholm
Thursday 8/7 Katalin, Uppsala
Friday 9/7 Flyt, Stockholm
Saturday 10/7 Papas, Båstad

check www.sofiatalvik.com/gigs for more specific info. All concerts are held at 8pm (kl 20) Swedish time.

Here’s a video from when we recorded “Florida Acoustic”: