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Kuudes Aisti, 27–29 July 2012, Helsinki
Fri 27th
Shotgun Club
I arrived just in time: Shotgun Club were playing their
hit “Casino” in its Finnish form. Something about bears,
weird. Vallu Valpio hitted 80s electric drumpads like a little child,
everybody had a good time.
Moon Duo
Gentle hypnotic riffs from this duo. Fender Jaguar
shaped guitars dominated this event.
Black Lizard
Tight 60s styled garage combo, youngish looking drummer
made me wonder: he’s anything but jazz, or is it jazz after all?
Distortions?
Rättö ja Lehtisalo
Yesss!!! Amusingly, this duo was presented as
the first band of this stage, and yes, they were a big band.
Rättö grinned like Kauko Röhkä while removing
each note sheet after accomplished hit. The curly haired guitarist
(Westerlund?) got relieved for using distortion pedal after so many
numbers with dry Strat & Fender amp sound.
Pertti Kurikan
Nimipäivät
Nimipäivät is unbeliavably popular!
And true: I don’t sense anything artificial, like
Elämä Lapselle charity concert. The guitar sound of Pertti
Kurikka is interestingly sludgey, something similar to early Motorhead
or Discharge.
Kurt Vile
Time to go home, one the main stage Kurt Vile and
the Violators. Nothing negative to say about the band.
Sat 28th
Thombstoned
To my surprise Thombstoned did not play metal. They
played heavy rock. I think the only Marshall amp of the fest was seen
on their gig. Bassist playing a Fender bass with one chrome plated
neck pickup and a curly cord, how much more 70s you could get? Funny
anecdote, singer-guitarist said “Thanks for waking up this
early, I’d rather slept”. I woke up 5 AM.
Kim Gordon
Madam comes supposedly from Sonic Youth camp. Her
Asian accompanion was limited to background rhythm noises. What was
so funny was the absurdity: why do we come on festivals to hear stuff
like this? Plus Mrs. Gordon mastered the feedback techniques of her
guitar equipment.
Death Laser
A girl band where a couple of hogs have intruded?
Oh no, that doesn’t sound promising. Surprise, Death Laser is
a truly rocking band! But funny, the original female members look
like guests in the band. Hats off to the drummer!
K-X-P
Would this be the culmination of the festival?
Kaukolampi getting out of his monk robe, revealing his harsh leather
& staples outfit while sharing analoque synth sounds through a 8
element bass cabinet and a Fender guitar amp. Bassist diving into the
depths of the low frequencies with his headless bass. Human methronome
Tomi Leppänen was teaching Anssi Nykänen how to play the
drums.
Hidria Spacefolk
I hadn’t seen the guys for quite a while, I must
say they rock! Hidria played quite loud, the sound of the P.A. system
was a bit distorted, but the overall balance worked out and the unity
of the group was clearly proved. Hidria Spacefolk still do it after
all these years!
Black Lips
Oops, I must have been quite tired. Looking at wrong
day’s schedule, passing these guys wondering ‘where’s
the woman?‘ Luckily I reached my ride home soon.
Sun 29th
Levon Zoltar
DJ Levon Zoltar played quite challenging beats.
His Finnish “kiitos” thanks through vocoder sounded
funny :-)
Rubik
Rubik was ok, just not my taste.
Rubik
Haha, “relax” appeared to Rubik’s
backdrop :D How many people needed that command on this festival?
Reino and the Rhinos
Reino and his group are just getting better and
better. I knew to expect good, but this topped it. In his group he
had a breathtaking dark beauty on background vocals, a dark guy
blowing silver sax, he made a diva restart as the bassist wasn’t
on time, etc. :D
Veronica Falls
I watched Veronica’s group for a while, my
body said it’s time to go home.
www.kuudesaisti.org
Text and photos by Zone webmaster
Gutter Island Helsinki: Baby Woodrose,
The Flaming Sideburns, Heavy Tiger, The Country Dark,
11th May 2012, Bar Loose
Last week we in Helsinki were served a heavy dose of
garage rock when the Danish Gutter Island Festival stranded at Bar
Loose. This was an excellent opportunity to catch again Baby Woodrose,
one of my favorite bands, and also to see Helsinki’s legendary
garage rock group The Flaming Sideburns after a long time. Some more
international blood was drafted from Sweden and Norway. The
festivities started already on Thursday and continued this Saturday,
but unfortunately I was personally only able to take part of the fun
on Friday. I heard that the Thursday’s pre-party didn’t
draw that many people but especially later on the crowd on Friday was
okay.
The Country Dark
The Country Dark from Kuopio started the evening with
their music that has something from country, rockabilly and punk and
I wasn’t that convinced about them, although the
rock‘n’roll blast they played the last was very energetic
stuff. I could also sense some psychedelic influences from time to
time which was good.
The Country Dark
Another new act for me was Heavy Tiger from Stockholm,
a trio formed by young girls. Their music is really nothing exceptional
in itself, just your usual (hard) rock stuff somewhere in between The
Rolling Stones, KISS, AC/CD and many others, but the performance of the
girls was so tight and full of energy that you just had to enjoy the
show!
Heavy Tiger
I’m sure The Flaming Sideburns are one of their
idols since I guess the band is even named after one of their songs.
Their originals sound quite positive and the cover song that in
particularly struck to my mind was “Tallahassee Lassie”
made famous around here by Hurriganes and this drove the Finnish
audience nuts. This is a really good band and I’m sure we will
hear a lot about these young ladies!
Heavy Tiger
It had been at least ten years since I last saw
The Flaming Sideburns live but they still had plenty of energy
and strength. The fierce performance of the band really made the
adrenaline running through your veins and the alcohol didn’t
hurt either. Right in the beginning of the gig I got a gig amount of
singer Eduardo Martinez’s spit in the middle of my forehead,
that’s what you get for going into the front row I guess, but
hey this is just rock and roll. I really enjoyed the show that also
featured another singer that I didn’t recognize on a couple of
tracks. Also the other seemed to have a good time and the people were
dancing like crazy. I hope the Sideburns will also be motivated to
make another studio album soon!
The Flaming Sideburns
The Flaming Sideburns
The Flaming Sideburns
The Flaming Sideburns
The Flaming Sideburns
The Flaming Sideburns
The Norwegian dj duo Farbror Fuzz &
Joao Caveira also offered some very nice music in between the bands
and later in the night from behind the dj desk.
Baby Woodrose
The essential reason for me to be there still was Baby
Woodrose, the kings of psychedelic garage rock. I have followed the
career of this band led by old On Trial drummer Lorenzo since the
first album and collected all their releases as well as all releases
by Lorenzo’s other projects. The last time the band played in
Helsinki was last year when they performed at Tavastia with this
renewed lineup on their autumn tour. In between they have released
their splendid Third Eye Surgery but unfortunately they only played
two tracks from that one: the more beautiful, melodic 60’s
styled psych rock piece ‘Nothing Is Real” and the heavier,
spacey and hypnotic “Bullshit Detector”. These both worked
out extremely well, though! of course the band’s back catalogue
includes loads of other great songs so no problem... For example the
wild “Volcano” always kicks seriously ass, and other more
energetic numbers that should be mentioned are “Baby Blows”
and “Right to Get High”. A bit surprisingly, in the middle
of the three-song encore they played The Kinks cover “Till the
End of the Time” that also sounded very good.
Baby Woodrose
Baby Woodrose
Yet another great gig by Baby Woodrose, I only wish
they would also have an organ player in the live band! On the other
hand, the two guitars do produce a pretty full sound already... This
is more or less their set list (according to Lorenzo’s memory):
What a Burn
Disconnected
Nothing Is Real
Let Yourself Go
Pouring Water
Volcano
Roses
Chemical Buzz
Bullshit Detector
Maya
Pandora
Lost You in My Mind
Baby Blows
---
Right to Get High
Till the End of the Day
Everything’s Gonna Be Alright
Baby Woodrose
On Saturday, they had the Swedish band The Nomads,
Hola Ghosts from Denmark and Finnish bands The Souls and Disgrace,
but that week’s party was over for me by then. Thanks for the
organizers of this mini festival as well as the performers, I hope
we’ll get more stuff like this in the future! This year, the
Gutter Island Garage Rock Festival in Denmark will take place on
August 24th–25th.
http://www.gutter-island.dk
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