There is nothing to add to the
actual LIVE review, except for: "Look what I spotted at 'Klubi'
after the gig!"
I used to have that poster of the
Michael Monroe Band on my front door, back then when I lived
in Helsinki-Vallila. Well, this concert evening was special in many
ways...
It's just three weeks ago since the
year 2015 has begun, but...
2015, you blow me away!
As some things are
still "in the making", I will share only a part of the things that
happened during the past three weeks. More will be revealed
later... ;o)
After rocking into the
new year on Viking Line's cruiseferry "Viking Grace", the
party continued at home, at least for our stomachs, since many of the
Christmas presents we received this time were eatable / drinkable [A
fact which I liked quite a lot, by the way...]...
A small part of
the gift basket we received at Christmas 2014
Danerolles
croissants from the can, filled with Cloetta's "Royal"
chocolate
I also baked for real
during the past three weeks, of course, but that topic is reserved
for my food blog...
We also went to
IKEA from where I got myself amongst others more boxes from the IKEA
series "Pingla", this time just in another colour than last time, for our walk-in closet whose re-organisation is more
time-consuming than expected...
Despite the constant
lack of time, we went for a longer walk in our lovely hometown Turku / Finland the other day...
Definitely the cutest
letterboxes I have seen so far...
A cute little bridge
somewhere in Turku
Entering the
forest...
A few days later,
walking outside wasn't that fun anymore as the road surfaces have
become icy and slippery. In December 2012, people in Stockholm made a great hullabaloo about the gently falling snow in the capital of
Sweden; everyone was talking about a meteorological phenomenon called "snökaos" [in English: "snow chaos"]. One would
think that Sweden should be familiar with handling snow, even if it
is a bit more. But one would also think that Finland would know how
to handle icy, slippery road surfaces...
Icy, slippery
road surfaces, barely taken care of. Everywhere. Every year.
That's definitely
one thing that does NOT rock about Finland since many people get
seriously injured and end up in hospital. However, my humble self had
to walk outside, amongst others in order to review the gig of Viper
Arms within the framework of the Turku Band Festival 2015 last
Wednesday (14th January 2015)...
More about the gig to
come soon, but here is already a video clip from that night when
Viper Arms performed "You Will Not Possess Me" at
"Klubi"...
The days after, I
fortunately could work from home, without risking any bone fractures
- and with the possibility to admire our beautiful view...
Since there are currently so many things "in the making", it can take a while
until the next blogpost - but we'll read again... ;o)
I know, I'm a few
days late, but: Happy New Year 2015, everyone! ♥ ♥
♥
Spending New Year's Eve 2014 / 2015
on Viking Line's cruiseferry "Viking Grace" somewhere on
the Baltic Sea between Turku / Finland and Stockholm / Sweden
turned out to be the perfect choice: Lots of food, stunning
landscapes, live music... As expected, our New Year's Eve cruise was
indeed wild and fancy! ;o)
More about our
New Year's Eve cruise to come soon, but here is at least an
audiovisual impression of the live music played on "Viking
Grace": Alice Cooper's "Poison", reinterpreted by the
Swedish rock cover band BULLDOG...
Furthermore, I already
put my first New Year's resolution into action: My food blog, simply
entitled "Sound Kitchen - The Kitchen".
After developing a
growing interest in food, nutrition, cooking and baking over the past
few years, I had plans to also write about this interest of mine for
about a year - but, unfortunately, nothing in that direction really
worked out in 2014, so for 2015 I decided to take matters into my own
hands... ;o)
And already
during the year 2014, I got rid of some online and technical clutter
/ time wasters such as facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and my Apple
iPod... It feels very liberating!
I guess the
re-organisation of our walk-in closet is the next thing on the to-do
list... And maybe another trip to IKEA... ;o)
I hope you all had a
peaceful and contemplative Christmas time. We surely did. Before
Christmas, we went amongst others to "CaféArt" here in Turku / Finland... Highly recommended!
The other day (Friday,
19th December 2014), I met the one and only Michael Monroe during my
Christmas shopping in the shopping centre "Skanssi" while
he was signing the updated version of his autobiography in the
bookstore "Suomalainen Kirjakauppa"...
And now I'm
drinking some coffee out of one of my Christmas presents, this lovely
girly Moomin cup, since I need to get myself going; a lot needs to be
done before jumping on the "Viking Grace" ship tonight,
celebrating into the new year while floating around somewhere between Turku and Stockholm / Sweden...
In the meantime, it
snowed again here in Turku / Finland. This time, the snow
remained an entire weekend. And this time, I also enjoyed the
beauty of the snowfall a little bit more than last time... ;o)
One of the reasons why
I was able to enjoy this time's snowfall a little bit more than the
snowfall before might have been the fact that I could finally fix the
plans for New Year's Eve 2014 / 2015. This year, New Year's Eve
will look something like this... Just a little bit wilder and
fancier... ;o)
Using a hashtag
and presenting my latest "hauls" (formerly known as
"purchases"): I'm so hip(ster) right now! Nah, don't worry,
I'm just kidding... ;o) But, indeed, I lately spent some money and
thus supported my local record stores here in Turku / Finland,
namely "8raita" and "Levykauppa Äx - Turku". Two
CDs I bought myself...
Deathstars - "Night
Electric Night (Gold Edition)"
Dregen - "Dregen (Exclusive
Hardback Cover CD)"
... and one CD I got as a present...
Finntroll - "Nattfödd (Limited
Edition Re-Issue)"
It's not that hard to
support the local record stores when they have such treasures in
their stock - but especially in times like these, it's very important
to support the rather small shops. Here in Turku, we recently faced
the close-down of both branches of the Finnish department store chain
"Anttila" as well as the close-down of many other shops.
Loads of empty facilities with "To hire" or "For sale"
signs everywhere... I wonder how the city centre of Turku will look
like in the near future...
Apart from buying CDs,
I'm also not getting tired of buying boxes of whatever kind in order
to keep my stuff in order. My latest catch were these super cool tin
boxes; I simply couldn't say "no" when I saw them at "Tiger
Store"... Retro-style rocks!
Ok, what else? Well,
yeah, we had this winter's first snow here in Turku last week, and it
was the first time that I wasn't happy about the first snow. After
living over half a decade in Finland, one simply knows too well that
snow might be the only thing one can see outside, all the way until
April. Fortunately, the snowfall turned into a slush which vanished
the very next day, so it's still possible to cruise around with the
bike... :o)
Look at that:
This year, I even manage to write a Halloween post, despite all the
work I have at the moment... ;o) Although I must admit that Halloween
2013 was way more stressful than Halloween 2014 could ever be. The
muffins you see in the picture above were baked by me for a Halloween
party which was held last year here in Turku / Finland and
entirely planned, organised and accomplished by my humble self. Due
to that Halloween party and me being the event manager of that Halloween party, there
was no opportunity to go to any gigs. Then again, the year before, in
2012, we visited more than one Halloween event...
... and then we jumped
on the boat to Stockholm / Sweden in order to attend the fabulous
"Berliner Nacht's Halloween" party at "Kolingsborg",
presented by the one and only Damón Zurawski (The Catastrophe
Orchestra) and featuring amongst others Deathstars' Skinny Disco as
Osama bin Laden...
Halloween 2014
will probably be less spectacular as there aren't any gigs we will go
to this year. Our schedules are in fact that full that I rather
started to plan New Year's Eve. If you have any suggestions
regarding interesting events on New Year's Eve, feel free to share them here in a
comment...
The work never stops,
and so I had to rush to "Vimma" (Turku Rock Academy) last
Wednesday (22nd October 2014) in order to attend the drum clinic with
Stratovarius drummer Rolf Pilve...
I don't want to
reveal too much about it yet since there is a LIVE review
on the way, but here is already an audiovisual impression of the drum
clinic... Enjoy!
And then, on Friday, it was time for
the first gig after 3 1/2 months... Yes, that's right: Before Friday,
I haven't been to a single gig, not even to a party, not to mention
to any festivals this summer. Why? Well, I could say that I was too
busy with other stuff, and it wouldn't be a lie, but the truth is
also that basically none of the events going on this summer were
appealing to me, especially not any of the summer festivals this
year...
Within Finland,
it's mostly the same national acts touring over and over again while
some international acts apparently never include Finland in their
tour schedules. And if they do, then
it's usually only one show, and for that one show, one has to travel
all the way to the capital of Finland which is Helsinki. Well,
luckily for me, a show in Helsinki means in most cases that the tour
schedule also includes a show in the capital of Sweden which is
Stockholm. Living between these two capitals, I always go for the
option "Stockholm". Or at least it used to be the case
until March 2013. After March 2013, things changed. Either we were
busy with other things or - if we had the time to go somewhere -
there was simply nothing interesting going on regarding parties,
concerts and festivals. Not even in my beloved Stockholm. And
sometimes, one got to know about interesting events just afterwards,
due to poor promotion. Well, don't get me started on those people who
seem to know how to post a picture of their lunch with a hashtag and
the trendy term "foodporn" but not how to create a simple
facebook event with proper information - and within a reasonable time
frame.
Well, things
changed even more in June 2014 with the final close-down of Stockholm's biggest and most popular rock and metal club "Rocks". With
that, the heart of Stockholm's rock scene is gone, making it even more
likely for us to travel to other European cities such as Rome (Italy)
and Berlin (Germany) in the future, in order to join the one or other
event... If only gigs and tours wouldn't be postponed, preponed,
re-scheduled or completely cancelled so frequently these days! In the
end, we often decide just to stay in Turku instead of running the risk of
losing money on flights, hotels et cetera in case of a cancelled gig
/ tour. And so we rather wait for the good stuff coming to town, as
it was the case on Friday when Santa Cruz first had a guitar clinic
at "Vimma" (Turku Rock Academy) and then played a gig at
"Klubi" which was bursting at the seams. The corresponding
LIVE review is going to be published soon - but here is already an
audiovisual impression of the guitar clinic with Archie (Vocals /
Guitar) and Johnny (Guitar) at "Vimma"...
Also this window at
"Vimma" deserves some admiration... ;o)
Santa Cruz were not the
only "good stuff" coming to town on Friday as I also
received another visitor from Helsinki: My friend who accompanied me
to the gig at "Klubi" in order to take pictures of the
event. While she is working on the pictures right now, here are two
shots by me...
Unfortunately, my
friend had to return home already on Saturday in the early afternoon
- but no sooner had she been on the train than I received already the
next visitor. This time, it was a friend from Stockholm who also
brought a friend of hers from Germany, so we were quite an
international table while drinking some cappuccino at "Tintå"...
;o)
Another thing I finally managed to do
after two years of living in Turku:
Grabbing some cappuccino at
"Tintå"
So, yeah, as I said: The past one and a half weeks were quite active...
![Stefanie Singh [Sound Kitchen]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglV7glbjPYAAJMl2-YWa4xqC1fQ2DPw2-GirWsikZKoFXi_zIDsswuxyygPgJ7z5gzXqh2QWP3OasVtTdNw91bc4x_j_FQEC46c_I9hQddr89Ejw5r4k2T8XHsd-a967kHCFWVhBRQ-bI/s1600/BlogspotBannerBlueberry2014.jpg)
