Last month’s pick was the hardest rockin’ pop band in the world, The Sugarrush and now we have something little different. However, The Sugarrush actually led me to Office Building. Let’s rewind back to august 2000. Back then I had a lot of passion towards music and I could travel far and wide (well mostly to Turku) just to see bands. It’s kind of funny that back then I could take a train trip from Jyväskylä to Turku just to see Bridget play at Dynamo. Nowadays it takes me 15 minutes to walk to Dynamo and still I often miss bands that I really like, because I’m just too lazy to drag myself to the bar. I’m getting old I suppose. But in the year 2000 I was young and enthusiastic and in late august I made one of those trips. This is what I went to see, if my memory serves me right:
August 25th: Office Building, The Sugarrush (Yo-Talo, Tampere)
August 26th: Bridget at Ämyrock (Hämeenlinna)
August 26th: Flavour Of The Month 2-year anniversary (Dynamo, Turku) (Ben’s Diapers, Flavor Of The Month <-the australian duo)
I don’t think I knew Office Building beforehand. The Sugarrush was definitely the reason why I went to the show. To be honest, it wasn’t even an instant love affair. Maybe I wasn’t used to all that melodrama, maybe I was a little amazed that I’m in a bar watching bands and when the show starts, everyone sits down on the floor. I mean what the hell is going on in here. But Janne Laurila and Office Building convinced me enough during that evening and I went and bought To See Only Shadows after the show. A wise decision, because the album became extremely important to me and still takes a top 3 spot if I start to list my all-time favourite albums. However, I didn’t knew it when I was walking around the streets of Tampere during the night and streets of Hämeenlinna in the morning (I stayed up all night, because I had no place to stay) and even after arriving home, it took me a couple of weeks to completely fall in love with it. But slowly the melancholic beauty of the album found the core of my heart and I became a huge fan of Office Building and Janne Laurila. During the next few years I saw an incredible amount of Office Building or Janne Laurila concerts and I loved each and every one of them. I especially loved his solo concerts under the Elvis clock at the greatest bar in the world (Vakiopaine in Jyväskylä). He always had a good troubadour thing going on in that bar. He played a lot of his songs and some fabulous covers. I first heard about Townes Van Zandt when Janne played Townes classic Waiting Around To Die there and I asked whose song that was. Vern Gosdin’s Do You Believe Me Now? is another one that is still stuck in my head. I actually still prefer Janne’s version of it.
Here’s a bit from some old onechord.net OB review:
“A tough task for me. How to write something informative and not just getting lost in your personal memoirs and emotions. This music has so huge personal value to me. It hasn’t changed my life or anything, but it is always the music that is floating around here if I feel down, hurt or stressed. It’s there hugging and kissing me when all I want to do is crawl into the corner of this tiny apartment and relax by listening to beautiful and moving music. Eventhough Office Building’s music is my own personal comfort deluxe, I do listen to it also in a happy state of mind. So you don’t need to be fucked up and sad to realise the true value of this. But even if you are, music this strong and emotionally filled just evokes all the smiles and kisses you have inside yourself. “
That still sums it up really well and I’m still not able to write anything really informative about the band or the album. The fact is that To See Only Shadows knows more about me than most of my friends do. I’ve shared my weakest moments and darkest secrets with that album. It has carried me through some long nights and it has been my own personal therapist. That may sound naive and overly emotional, but well naive and overly emotional.. that was me ten years ago.. and it’s still more than a small part of me. I admit that I became a pretty blindsided OB fan boy and to me their albums were pretty much the second coming of the great pumpkin. Nowadays, I can maybe admit that some of the Office Building albums are only wonderful (and not brilliant masterpieces) and that Janne Laurila has become a better songwriter since those days. But To See Only Shadows. I still can’t see or hear anything wrong with it and no matter what I call it, I know it’s an understatement. Ok, maybe the melancholy and sadness gets a little overwhelming on Cut My Heart in Two and maybe that song fits better to ten year’s younger me. But it’s not an issue. To See Only Shadows is a masterpiece and the sweetest work of art. I always write from a purely subjective perspective and for me To See Only Shadows is the most beautiful album ever made.
Fonal Records’ Soundcloud set contains three beautiful songs from the album:
Office Building by Fonal Records
Office Building called it a day six years ago (or thereabouts), but Janne Laurila is still making wonderful music. Here’s one amazing sample. Live performance of a song called Tauti ilman hoitoo.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBDoF7k_nhM]
(The reason why I started making One Chord To Another was the fact that I had totally fallen in love with Finnish guitar pop / power pop bands and wanted to make them better known. Nowadays onechord.net seem to cover a lot of obscure country bands from all over the globe, but Finnish pop was the starting point and still is the main reason this website/blog exists. One Chord To Another becomes 10 years old on 17th of september, 2011. It’s been a long journey and therefore I think I’m allowed to feel a little nostalgic. This not-so-cleverly named 10 years & 10 reasons writing series is meant to select 10 albums/releases that were a huge reason why I either started making One Chord To Another or why I’m still making it. So basicly just 10 finnish releases that will always have a huge place in my heart. One every month I think, so it will be december until the nostalgia is over. Bear with me)
Next month: I will be either doing time or I’m wondering if our grain can fill your stadium, it’s difficult to decide.
The Soft Rabbit
I’m cheating a bit, but I can’t decide which early Bridget demo I should pick, so I’ll put them both here. If I have to choose the best band in the world, my choice will be The Posies. If I have to choose the band that is dearest to me, it gets a lot trickier and the end result will be a tie between The Sugarrush and Bridget. It’s impossible to decide. Maybe it’s slightly weird to be so completely in love with a band that has officially released one seven inch single plus featured on a couple of compilations, but I’ve just been totally into Bridget ever since Miettinen played Souffle from their Rusko-Mynämäki demo EP on Räkärodeo (summer of ’99 I think?). Later on Räkäpiknik I found the courage to tap the lead singer Janne Kiviniemi on the shoulder and ask if it was possible to buy the demo. A few days later Rusko-Mynämäki arrived to Keuruu and I just kept listening to it over and over again.
A couple of months later I was on my way to Turku to see Bridget, Since November and Belmondo play at Celesta Cellar(?) indiepop festival (at Dynamo) and met all those lovely Turku people that became so dear to me. That whole “Turku pop scene” (not sure were there ever really a scene, but it felt like that to me) was a huge reason why I started One Chord To Another. And even though this entry is mostly about Bridget, it was never just Bridget. All those bands like Ben’s Diapers, Since November, Boomhauer, Hundred Million Martians and Big White Monkees were/are extremely important to me. An extra special thank you to Tomi Mäkilä and Mikko Lappalainen who were always kind enough to give me a place to stay during my early visits to Turku.
The first line up Janne Kiviniemi, Saku Krappala, Janne Rinne & Jami Helmiö went on to release one truly wonderful 7″ single on Rhythm Barrel Records and featured on a couple of international pop compilations. Some years ago Bridget returned with a new line-up and the magic was still there. The first line-up is the dearest to me due to nostalgic reasons, but the new line-up made equally fantastic concerts and Heidi Horila’s harmony vocals added a new dimension to the music. I’m not sure what is the current status of Bridget, but they’ve been inactive for a year or two now. It’s a shame, because the latest pack of songs was so brilliant. These songs form an album that has criminally never been released. If I had a label, I would release it in a heartbeat. It’s such an amazingly beautiful pop album. Sure it’s a little demo-ish at times and if they had recorded it after the new line-up had really taken shape, it could have been even more perfect. But I love it even as it is now. There’s only problem. I’m ashamed to listen to it in public places. I’m afraid I look like a biological freak, because I’m aware that honey will be pouring from my ears all the time if I listen to Bridget. This next one is one of my favourite songs from that unreleased album and the song title fits well to this blog entry. A perfect way to end this first chapter of 10 years & 10 reasons. Bridget and a song called Dearest.