Finnish music, Headline, News

Robin Pahlman & Ghost Town on Tour

No Comments

robinpahlmani

I usually only post tour dates, if some foreign artist that I like/love is touring in Finland. I will make an exception this time around, because Finnish indie folk singer-songwriter Robin Pahlman is currently living in Vienna, Austria and you don’t often have a chance to see him play around here (of course this is also another great chance to re-post his excellent debut single Miss Lonelyhearts that was released digitally few months ago). Next week you will have that chance to see Robin Pahlman & Ghost Town play a live concert. The tour dates are as follows:

14.8 Club Liberté, Helsinki (With Ochre Room, Marty The Random Guy)
15.8 Bar Kuka, Turku
16.8 8raita Record Store, Turku (acoustic instore gig)
17.8 West Music Fest, Pargas

And here’s that great debut single Miss Lonelyhearts.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/86233810″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”100″ iframe=”true” /]

 

Robin Pahlman at Facebook

Continue Reading

Finnish music, Headline, News

Topi Saha – Kolme veljee

No Comments

topi

The first part of my vacation is over and one of the highlights of it was finally seeing Topi Saha’s live performance. I’ve been a fan since the days when Myspace ruled the social media, but somehow our paths didn’t cross until now at Indie-iltamat. The show was unfortunately a bit short due to the schedule of the evening, but I did love every second of it. It also reminded me that I still haven’t even mentioned Topi Saha’s second album Kolme veljee that came out in march on Warner Music Finland. Major labels rarely get things right, but it’s time to give credit when credit is due. Releasing such a magnificent record by a young Finnish folk singer-songwriter is definitely worth a praise. This small blog entry is also a note to self: Buy the record man. So far I’ve been only spinning this thing on Spotify and that just ain’t right. This is Se joka karkuun pääs.

topi saha – se joka karkuun pääs from Stickmen Hki on Vimeo.

Topi Saha at Facebook

Continue Reading

Featured, Headline, News

Small Houses Finland Tour coming up in September (updated 23.7)

1 Comment

smallhouses2013

This is an early shout out, because exciting things are happening in September. One of my favourite current singer-songwriters Jeremy Quentin aka Small Houses from Philadelphia (originally Flint, Michigan) will be touring in Europe this September/October and the tour schedule includes four shows in Finland (+ in-store performance at 8raita record store) with the wonderful local group Ochre Room. I couldn’t be any happier. Wonderful American troubadour touring with a Finnish band that I love dearly. More about this closer to the tour, but this is the schedule at the moment, so you can already mark your calendars.

Small Houses Finland tour

11.9. Klubi, Tampere (with Ochre Room)
12.9 Soppi, Rauma (with Ochre Room)
13.9. 8Raita, Turku (in-store performance)
13.9. Flavour Of The Month, Pikku-Torre, Turku (with Ochre Room)
14.9. Helsinki, Korjaamo (with Ochre Room)

And here are couple of great recent Small Houses videos that I haven’t posted before. Excellent new song Old Habits first and then great live version of I Saw Santa Fe from his great 2013 album Exactly Where I Wanted To Be (Yer Bird Records). I Saw Santa Fe is a video from Halfway House Sessions at SXSW.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGAkkQy-d3c]
 

Small Houses – I Saw Santa Fe – Halfway House Sessions – SXSW from Halfway House on Vimeo.

And here’s Don’t Try by the excellent Ochre Room.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/87676561″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”100″ iframe=”true” /]
 
Small Houses Website
Ochre Room Website

Update 23.7.2013: Added Kahvila Soppi, Rauma to the tour schedule.

Continue Reading

Featured, Headline, International music, News

The Heavy Blinkers to release Health on July 30th

1 Comment

HeavyBlinkersHealth

Finally. This is worth of a parade of some sort. Health by The Heavy Blinkers is ready and will be released on 30th of July. I’ve been waiting this one for years and at times it almost felt like this album is just a beautiful myth and I will never have the chance to actually hear it. Thankfully after 7-8 years in the making, the Canadian masters of orchestrated pop music, The Heavy Blinkers have finally finished this epic album and the first outtake from Health surfaced today. The song is called Perfect Tourists and I’ve been listening to it all day long. By some miracle, it actually easily lives up to the out-of-this world expectations I have for Health. This is Perfect Tourists.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/99797815″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”100″ iframe=”true” /]

 
Did I already tell you that this band is very dear to me. Our love affair started when I heard their previous album The Night and I Are Still So Young when it came out back in 2004. It was not the happiest time of my life, but the harmonic beauty of this album always managed to shoot a rope arrow into the sun and drag it back into my sight, if it tried to drift away behind the corner. Later on I bought the back catalogue and during the time myspace ruled the social media, I noticed that Jason Michael MacIsaac had a great taste in music. I always try to find new music to love and cherish and Jason recommended a lot of good stuff at myspace during those days. So in some very minor scale, he was a like pop mentor to me at the time. Just like people like Duglas T. Stewart of the BMX Bandits have been. I can’t remember did I found the great and way too uknown Ilona V through Jason, but I remember that he was also very much into her music. If I did found her through Jason, I’m grateful. Anyway, this is getting way too long and personal. Let’s close this post with the title track of the album The Night and I Are Still So Young. More about the mythical Health when it comes out.
 
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEaz_Z7sZuA]

The Heavy Blinkers at Facebook

Continue Reading