Friday, September 29

No Europe, Norwegian dates added

Motorpsycho will hit the road next month with an run of Norwegian dates. At this point it has been confirmed by booking agencies in various European countries that the band will not tour outside of Norway this fall. However, due to public demand second nights at Oslo's Rockefeller & Bergen's Kvarteret have been added. The tour now calls at:

October 20 - Bodø, NOR @ Sinus,
October 21 - Trondheim, NOR @ Blaest
October 22 - Trondheim, NOR @ Blaest
October 24 - Oslo, NOR @ Rockefeller
October 25 - Oslo, NOR @ Rockefeller
October 27 - Stavanger, NOR @ Folken
October 28 - Bergen, NOR @ Kvarteret
October 29 - Bergen, NOR @ Kvarteret

Permanent tour-schedule link with more infos to be found here.

This is Motorpsycho's third tour in support of their latest effort "Black hole/Blank canvas", after a 19-date European spring tour & a festival-mini-tour in August. According to the band's label Stickman Records Bent & Snah are currently working on new material.

Saturday, September 16

Tough for Motorpsycho

Yesterday an article adressed Motorpsycho's finances:

Tough for Motorpsycho

A deficit in running the company Motorpsycho Management Inc. forced the rock-band Motorpsycho out on tour again in 2006.

2005 became a quiet and non-profitable year for Motorpsycho Management Inc., which runs administrative tasks and touring for the trønder rock-band Motorpsycho. Figures for 2005 show that there were only 625.143 NOK in income, and over a million in expenses. The deficit was 466.232 NOK.

"The corporation's stock-funds is lost. The board's decision to cover the expenses has been done by extensive touring in 2006" the board writes in their annual statement, given August 28th this year. In the board is board-leader Håkon Gebhardt and board-members Hans Magnus "Snah" Ryan and Bent Sæther. Daily leader in the corporation is Cecilie Lykke. Together the four own a 1/4 each of the company Motorpsycho Management Inc. Motorpsycho had their best year financially in 2002 when they accounted for over 4,5 million NOK in total incomes. In 2004 and 2005 total transactions were around 1,5 million NOK. Also in 2004 the company had a deficit.

Motorpsycho started their spring-tour at Studentersamfundet in April, and later visited 3 other Norwegian cities before the journey continued to Denmark, Germany, Belgium and Italy. This Summer Motorpsycho did a big Norwegian festival-gig, at Øyafestivalen in Oslo.

Thanks to Eirik Helleve for the news & Thomas for the translation (both via g35)!

Wednesday, September 13

Tjuvstart



My-o-my, those lucky Trondheimers! I so miss the feeling of holding a ticket for an upcoming Motorpsycho concert!

Thanks to Knut Skogstad for the scan.

Sunday, September 10

HGH to support KAIZERS ORCHESTRA

Hell yeah, Ladies & Gentlemen -- HGH have just scored their biggest engagement to date: They will support the increasingly & already immensely popular fellow Norwegians Kaizers Orchestra during the second part of the final leg of their "Maestro"-tour, according to Kaizers.no!

Despite relentless touring since 2000, HGH, Norway's soulful traveling preachers in support of love, tolerance & movement, have never faced yet crowds so big! Their support slot for Kaizers Orchestra will expose them to almost 800 people (or more) every night, which is 10 to 15 times as much as a HGH headlining show would draw -- in other words: during one single night with Kaizers Orchestra HGH will perform to as many people as during an entire tour of their own!

The joint HGH/Kaizers tour calls at:

21.11.2006 Cologne, Germany Live Music Hall
22.11.2006 Bochum, Germany Zeche
23.11.2006 Nuremberg, Germany Hirsch
24.11.2006 Munich, Germany Backstage
25.11.2006 Wien, Austria Wuk
26.11.2006 Zürich, Switzerland Rote Fabrik
28.11.2006 Berlin. Germany Postbanhof
29.11.2006 Hamburg, Germany Uebel & Gefaerlich
30.11.2006 Gent, Belgia Handelsbeurs
01.12.2006 Groningen, Holland Oosterpoort
02.12.2006 Amsterdam, Holland Melkweg
03.12.2006 Utrecht, Holland Tivoli
06.12.2006 Århus, Danmark Train
07.12.2006 Copenhagen, Danmark Vega

The first part of the Kaizers tour, which comprises dates in Scandinavia, will feature Geoff Berner as support. Tickets to the shows are on sale already, expect them to sell out well in advance!

HGH features the incredible talents of Håkon Gebhardt, formerly of Motorpsycho, and Martin Hagfors of Homegroan & Groan Alone cult-fame! The duo has issued four albums so far (their debut as a trio though), available on Stickman Records.

MotorpsychoNews likes to congratulate HGH for the great opportunity to spread their message & gain exposure for their art. Also congrats to the Herren Kaizer for their great choice! I am looking forward to this great & entertaining concert evening (at either Berlin's Postbahnhof or Copenhagen's Vega)!

Thank you to Jette Krabbe, our one & only connoisseur of Norwegian music for the early heads-up & as always to The other Anders for translation help! Gasmask-picture also by Jette Krabbe, taken at Berlin's Knaack Club in 2004.

Thursday, September 7

Sensory pleasures: HGH on film!

Motorpsycho has spawned very few side-projects to this day, which is quite strange for a band of their creativity & work-ethos, but it's probably just another feature of their formula for significant art/music & success: to devote everything fully to the one project, no compromises. This statement reminds eerily of Gebhardt's departure from Motorpsycho last year, and yes, that's where I am heading: there is one sideproject, however, who many of us are familiar with, HGH, Geb's main outlet for creativity these days. Anyone who has attended one of their lovely concerts in Norway, Germany, Holland or Italy over the years will recall it with the sweetest smile on his/her face!

You can now watch HGH on film/DVD & bring back that sweet feeling! This is the first time ever footage of HGH is being made available! We are talking a 35 minute excerpt of one of their German shows (Osnabrück @ Ostbunker 22.01.2002), featuring following songs: Dead Cat, Paranoia, Sin Song, Garbage In The Mud, Love Song, Who Placed The Ark In Arkansas, Damned Cat, Trash Grass as well as an interview! The DVD is available for download at Dime, hop on that torrent, make it fly & spread the word of love, tolerance & movement!

Here are some screenshots:







So many thanks to Martin Schmidt (and Elektrolurch) for filming, authoring & seeding the DVD!

HGH are always on tour, check their dates here! Also, please please please support the art of Martin Hagfors -- his healing voice & songs deserve everyone's attention!

If this doesn't satisfy your hunger for sensory pleasures check out HGH in Hamburg 2001, or torrents with recordings of Motorpsycho in Japan 2003, at the For Noise Festival 2006 as well as in Brussels 2006.

Motorpsycho will tour Norway next month!

Wednesday, September 6

Un tape d'Brüxells

On the heels of the swiss summer show, another download: this morning I made Motorpsycho's show in Brussels this spring (07.05.2006, compare the 2006 CC Pt.1) available at Etree (no sign-up required)! I promise, you'll simply love this concert for the very well-behaved & silent crowd & particularly for the extraordinary psychedelia the band creates -- one might be truly hard-pressed to find a more inspired "K9" during the 2006 tour: they weave a very delicate fabric of sounds & layers during the quiet jam parts throughout the entire show, I am tempted to say this is Øyvind's record of virtuosity, he really really shines & they allow him to conquer all spaces here! The download requires the BitTorrent technology & the FLAC-codec. Enjoy!

The band will hit the road again next month: newer news here!

Tuesday, September 5

Swiss show on Dime

The Pully/Lausanne show from August 12, 2006 (compare the 2006 CC Pt.II) went up on Dime today! Go get it, if only for the new song & a juicy "Triggerman -> Manmower -> The wheel"-sequence! Thank you, thank you, thank you to Philip!

Saturday, September 2

Kanon


pic: Adressa.no

This picture was taken at last wednesday's Kanon-improvisation gig in Trondheim, featuring Øyvind, Bent & Snah among others (MN reported previously). Apparently the action at the show itself was just as hot & mindlowing as this picture suggests -- check out the 2006 Concert Chronology Part II for a few updates regarding the setlist & general proceedings by way of a mesmerized eye-witness report. If you understand Norwegian you can read a review here (this is also were the picture was taken from) -- as always, a translation for all non-Norwegians would be very welcome!

If you attended or recorded the show, please get in touch!

Many thanks to Frode K. & Knut Skogstad.

Check out more newer news here (yesterday's post).

Friday, September 1

Lots of newer news

"I just want to sream...hello..." because i am back from a lovely vacation at the sea -- oh boy, I cannot remember the last time I have been that happy -- and it sure is about time I give MotorpsychoNews an update with lots of newer news!


Firstly, most importantly, just as expected, two new concert-dates have emerged in the meantime! The respective venues have confirmed Motorpsycho shows for October 20 in Bodø @ Sinus as well as for October 28 in Bergen @ the relatively tiny Kvarteret. The confirmed dates now make a neat list with no less than six confirmed Norwegian concerts, that's already one show more than the entire Norwegian leg of the spring tour did encompass! If you look at the tour-schedule it's fairly easy to fill up the gaps between confirmed concerts with potential supplementary dates: assuming they won't play the venues again they have already played in the spring (except for Rockefeller obviously) concerts in Skien, Kristianssand & Tromsø seem very likely, though the band will need an off-day at one point, from my own observation during the last years, seven concerts is the most they have played in a row without a day rest, which is still a very impressive number!


Anywho, as the baron would say, the question of the moment is: will European-continental dates emerge soon or will this tour be exclusive to Norway only? The total lack of concert confirmations- & rumours regarding European shows makes every serious psychonaut living south of Norway worry if he or she will be able to be part of the experience in the fall again -- some of us already semi-plan a trip to Norway due to missing dates down here! It's too early though to give up hope, imo, because given the expected timeframe of potential dates outside of Norway, which would be the first half-, maybe middle of November, we still got one, maybe even two more weeks for concert dates to surface; typically dates are being confirmed at least two months ahead of the actual event. It's a slight chance I refuse to let go, positive thinking on this wonderful day you might call it, but really, would it be too much to ask if they simply reversed the spring-tour country-ratio: tour Norway extensively, fair enough!, and add a handful of complementary European dates? Generally both scenarios -- a Norway-only tour & an extensive Norwegian intinerary with additional European dates -- seem likely, compare from the band's history e.g. 1998, 1999 & 2000 for exclusive Norwegian fall tours, 1997 & 2002 for comprehensive European fall tours.

Speculation aside, here is the updated tour schedule for now! Newly confirmed or rumoured dates will be added instantly; please find the link in the sidebar also!


In other news, psychonauts residing in or near Trondheim were treated to an extraordinary event yesterday: the Trondheim Jazzfestival hosted an Improv-Gig at Blæst by Motorpsycho-collaborator, vibraphonist & sound-artist Øyvind Brandtsegg yesterday (August 30, 2006) supported by a small ensemble of musicians among them Bent & Snah! Go to the festival's event page to see the complete line-up. Here's a translation of the announcement featured on that site:

"Ø. B. has got a 'cannon team' of Norwegian musicians for this evening! In order to attain the perfect gunpowder mixture he has selected musicians who each have their own unique view on improvisation and energy. Newly written material gets mixed with 'standards' who are by no means taken from the traditional jazz repertoir.

The energy of rock & the playfulness of jazz makes the boundaries for compositional momentums taken from contemporary music [sic!]. Brandtsegg has an art scholarship at the University in Trondheim, and is exploring the use of compositional techniques when improvising. His live-sampler 'ImproSculpt', when it was released, established a new standard for level and complexity for electronic instruments.

This work has been commisioned with support from the Norwegian culture-council (Norsk Kulturråd)."


If you attended this gig on wednesday & made a recording, took some notes or just want to share some observations, i.e. something that sort of resembles a setlist, e-mail me, information of all sorts is always welcome!



Finally, Motorpsycho's mini-festival tour in August spawned yet another exiting broadcast in addition to two songs from Haldern on the radio & the complete Øya-performance as webcast & partial radio broadcast. Last weekend, late at night, we got a wonderful portion of Motorpsycho's show at Haldern Festival (check the link for a backstage message by the band) on TV! Rockpalast, the infamous music program on German TV WDR, aired "Manmower"/"Kill devil hills"/"Devil dog"! The footage is beyond beautiful, especially "Manmower" is very moving. Expect a fan-made DVD of this recording to be making the rounds very soon. The pictures in this article were taken from this very footage, btw.

Speaking of pictures, I also want to urge you to check out the small gallery here, some pretty cool quality shots from Øya, though the pictures from the respective festivals certainly do look alike, thanks to Snah wearing his Joe-tee, lol. :-)


Well well well, those news make for a nice start to the second part of Motorpsycho's "Black hole/Blank canvas"-era, so here's to an eventful autumn!


Sources: Thanks to the Unoff. Also thanks to the nice folks at the phorum for keeping track of tour dates: TGBD, Laika & particularly Jonne for the potential additional dates, thanks to otherdemon for the Øya-gallery link. Many thanks to Rolf for the Jazzfestival translation. Thanks to Funki for recording Haldern from TV. And last but not least to Susann for being there & the loveliest holiday there could be...

Site Meter