General, Headline, News

Flavour of the Month 15.5.2015 – Mäkkelä (GER) + Nightbird

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makkela

We have one more Flavour of the Month event coming up before the summer holiday. The event takes place this friday at Pikku-Torre, Turku. Mäkkelä and Nightbird will share the stage. They have both played at our club before and therefore I know that they are excellent and this is going to be another great FOTM evening. Read more about it on that Finnish press release below and check out these sound samples.

FLAVOUR OF THE MONTH esittää:
MÄKKELÄ (GER) showtime 23:00
NIGHTBIRD showtime 22:00
+ Flavour of the Month DJ team
pe 15.5. 2015 klo 21-03
Pikku-Torre, Yliopistonkatu 30, Turku
VAPAA PÄÄSY!

Perjantaina, toukokuun 15. päivänä heitetään hyvästit Flavour of the Month -klubin kevätkaudelle ja siirrytään viettämään hyvin ansaittua kesälomaa. FOTM-klubin tyylille sopivasti peijaisissa kuullaan kauniinrujoa musisointia, kun Pikku-Torren lavalle ovat lupautuneet aiemminkin Flavourissa vierailleet saksansuomalainen Mäkkelä, alias Martti Trillitsch, sekä vaasalaislähtöinen Nightbird, alias Anna-Stina Jungerstam.

Suomalaisia sukujuuriaan taitelijanimessään vähän erikoisella tavalla peilaava Mäkkelä saapuu jälleen toukokuussa Suomeen lyhyelle kiertueelle promoamaan uunituoretta albumiaan ”Last Of A Dying Breed”. Mäkkelä kokenee itsensä todellakin lajinsa viimeisenä, sillä keikkajulisteessa tarjotaan kuvausta ”last of the trash folk gentlemen”. Musiikissaan hienovaraista folk punkia, rujoa indietä ja monenkarvaisia elektro/blues/roots -vaikutteita kanavoiva Mäkkelä tunnetaan tunnelmallisten ja hauskojenkin keikkatuokioiden luojana, joten uuden levyn myötä on odotettavissa lisää viihdyttäviä turinoita ja ennen kuulemattomia biisejä.

Illan toisena aktina paluun FOTM:iin tekee Nightbird. Naisen ensimmäinen visiitti klubille on jäänyt mieliin hyvinkin vakuuttavana. Pelikenttänä on pelkistetty akustinen folk ja blues, vaikea laji, jonka Nightbird kuitenkin hallitsee.

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General

Personal mumbo jumbo and a bit about John Moreland

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johnmoreland

Things are still fairly slow or actually completely still. I’ve been in a really dark place with these health concerns of mine. I still haven’t figured out or any of the doctors, chiropractors, physiotherapists I’ve seen during the past 6-7 months haven’t figured out why my left hand and left foot are numb or tingling 24/7. At least I can breathe a little easier now after paying the money and having that head MRI earlier this week. That was a damn scary experience, but thankfully everything was normal. So at least I can now quit spending my nights googling brain tumor symptoms, because based on my recent experience, I can definitely confirm that if you are looking for something to do during the night. Sleeping is definitely a better option than googling brain tumor and multiple sclerosis symptoms. Anyway, I hope I can put this thing behind me sometime soon and start focusing on the blog… and well just focusing on living actually and not just being worried all the time. Being sure that it’s not the head that is causing this is definitely a major step forward and makes everything a whole lot easier. However, I would still love to get a diagnose and be 100% sure what actually is causing this. This shit isn’t normal and it only seems to get worse. Perhaps I just have to get that neck, cervical spine MRI done as well, just to be sure there isn’t something fucked up there like a pinned nerve or a herniated disk. That’s just another 600-700€ and I’ve already spent more than 1500€ to all kinds of treatments that haven’t gotten me anywhere. I could have bought a lot of records with that money…

The thing that has kept me somewhat sane during these dark times is the new John Moreland album High On Tulsa Heat, which I love wholeheartedly. I’ve spent some pretty heavy nights listening to that record and finally falling asleep 3-4am with the headphones still on. Especially during these last few weeks when I was waiting for that head MRI and the results, that record was one of the few things that kept me from getting some serious panic attacks. It’s obviously the new album of the month and hopefully I manage to write a full piece about it at some point. Here’s Losing Sleep Tonight from that great album. It’s not the best song on the album (still gorgeous of course), but it fits well to this silly and extremely personal blog post, because I’ve been indeed losing a lot of sleep during the past months. Check out the whole album at Bandcamp.

John Moreland at Bandcamp

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General, International music, News

Harlan Pepper, Graham Nicholas, Luke Bell & HT Heartache

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Before getting fully into 2015 releases (there are plenty of good ones already out there), I will quickly go through some 2014 release that I either bought or received during the last couple weeks of 2014. I know I’m already far behind on the 2015 stuff, but it would feel wrong to leave these out without even a mention, because I’ve been listening to them a lot during the past month.

harlan

First we have Harlan Pepper from Hamilton, Canada. I’ve been aware of their existence for a while and finally picked up their 2014 album Take Out a Twenty and Live Life to The Fullest from Zunior’s Boxing Day sale. I’ve been enjoying this one a whole lot. My favourite song is this one called TV (Let It Slide). That line “Let it slide / that’s my motto / It hasn’t done me much good” hits me every time. I’m guilty as charged.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBDVUOzLarI]

Harlan Pepper Website

grahamnicholas

Staying in Canada. Next we have Canadian singer-songwriter Graham Nicholas and his excellent album Sometimes Chicken, Sometimes Feathers. I was extremely interested when I read comparisons to John Prine, early Ryan Adams etc and this somehow managed to live up to my expectations. Of course I didn’t expect him to be as good as those guys, because well hardly anybody is as good those guys. Nevertheless, this is a damn fine Canadian country/folk album. This is Wandering Angel from the album.

Graham Nicholas Website

lukebell

Time to leave Canada behind for a while and locate into Nashville, TN, where Luke Bell is delivering awesome country sounds. I tried to find his album Don’t Mind If I Do before writing my albums of the year lists, but his Bandcamp only contained three songs at the time. I bought them for 5 bucks and recently Luke added the whole album there and I was finally able to download this whole gorgeous country album. So Luke, if you read this. I kind of owe you $5, because I got the whole thing for half price (but don’t send any wise guys after me, paypal address will be a better option). Anyway, it’s a great album and it indeed might have ended up on my albums of the year list If I had heard it in time. This one is a great song called Sometimes.

Luke Bell at Facebook

htheartache

Moving on to Los Angeles and it’s time to end this little blog post with something breathtakingly beautiful. HT Heartache aka Mary Roth might not be someone that I listen to on a daily basis, but when the time is right, the slow-paced beauty of her new album Sundowner definitely has the quality to get under my under skin and take full control of my heart. This is HT Heartache’s music video for the song Cowboy Poetry.

HT Heartache – Cowboy Poetry from HT Heartache on Vimeo.

And this is Roam Cold Highway from the album.

HT Heartache Website

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