I put together a video of live pics from the day of the show at Ocean Sound Recordings in July, 2010. Featuring pics of myself, violinist Lise Voldsdal, backing vocalist Ragnhild Giskeødegård, guitar/banjo/pedal steel-player Kristian Blø Olsen and engineer Eyvinn Magnus Solberg. Also including various shots of the surrounding area of the studio on the Giske island.
In between recording two new albums I am doing a few shows here and there. Since I never was any good at keeping up the momentum of past successes I’ve hardly done anything to make sure people remember me from time to time. Now I woke up the other day thinking; I haven’t really played a proper show in Oslo in 5 years. Just one-offs as part of a charity event, an acoustic club night with two or more acts, release parties announced on the day of the release, etc. I’ve been really shit at this. Perhaps it’s just the result of the independence I strived for and the fact that I am, with Aimee Mann’s words, a Super-Ego.
I finally got one of my full-length albums on vinyl. My new record RHETORIC was released on November 4 on LP and CD, as well as the modern way of buying or listening to music… digital download and streaming. Anyways, let’s focus on the fresh smell of this black circle of beauty. From before I only got a couple 7inch singles out (Got None and Beirut) so this is the first Long Player I have put out on vinyl.
When I was a kid, my brother and I threw half of my dad’s record collection as Frisbees all over the vast fields outside my grandpa’s house and all the way down to the ocean. And they all got smashed. I remember that they wore different colors and that there were lots of them. We didn’t know what was on them. It was a lot of fun. We left the small pieces of plastic to be buried and forgotten between growing green grass and wild flowers. Later I found out that there was music on these round plastic plates that I so playfully tossed away.
I discovered another passion in life. It’s just the feel when I lay down that crooked arm, the paper sleeve…
Just like Eddie Vedder sings it in the song Spin The Black Circle from Pearl Jam’s Vitalogy. “Viva la Vinyl” – scribbled down next to the lyrics in the booklet. It was huge for me to understand that my biggest idol at the time had the same love for vinyl records as myself at a point where the CD took over the whole market and LP’s were being stopped manufactured (at least from the major labels). I kept trying to get hold of any record that I loved on vinyl. Most of them I got from record dealers selling old records. New releases on this format were few and far between, but Pearl Jam kept it real all along and that’s why I got to collect LP’s of their complete catalogue up to this day. They even put out Christmas singles on 7inches just for the fans and members of the Ten Club. I always loved them for doing that.
So when I was invited to a student’s club night in Oslo called Vin & Vinyl (Wine & Vinyl, see how similar Norwegian is to English?) to play and talk about vinyl and also do a show I had no choice but to pay tribute to the number one band of my teenage years. I covered the aforementioned song. Here’s a video clip of it:
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