Årets Norgesvenn
Sorry I have not been writing recently. I've had too much work-stress, illness and even a tinge of Nesodden syndrome with which to deal. Why all the stress? Surely the result of becoming allegedly more important and significant in the land known as Norway! So important in fact that I have just won an award for my vague efforts: Årets Norgesvenn, "the year's norgesvenn" for 2006. This, according to the suave radio presenter who handed me the award at Indigo last night, is for my services to Oslo's underground music scene with my work at Sound of Mu and with my musical project Dacianos. What's that I hear you say? "What's this all about and aren't they insane to be giving the likes of you an award?" Well, it was part of the prestigious By Alarm ("city alarm") awards. They reward underground activities like "best CD-R release". It is organized...
Vikersund
Vikersund is a small place in the countryside that hosts one of the biggest ski-jumps in the world. Holmenkollen is a stunted dwarf compared to this jump, which has had a record of 219m achieved on it ...so far. I went to Viksersund to attend a ski-jumping (ski-flying to be exact) event, a world cup event, apparently, and I was wondering if the record would be beaten. So I stood with Norwegians in the freezing snow, and many of them were all dressed flags painted on their faces etc. Not that the heated, sawdust-strewn drinking tents were unpopulated. Long wooden benches were full of beer-drinking celebrants. This was a big day for Vikersund's locals. The world cup hadn't come this way since 1998. There were ski jumpers from everywhere from Finland to South Korea, but this bar was populated only by hardy Norwegians. It seemed to me I was the...
Not The Last Oslo Nightlife Anecdotes By A Long Shot
As diligent readers will be aware, I bear responsibilities for a certain Oslo nightspot. During a particularly busy night, a man in his early thirties came in from the cold and the snow through our portal, to order a multitude of drinks. But something did not escape his notice in those first few moments inside. He directed a complaint to me about the "smell", which he intended to endure, but of which he wished me to be aware. A vigorous investigation ensued. One of our 'operatives' was placed outside in the night and asked to enter the building and smell what genuinely could be smelled. "Do you know what it is?" she reported back to me, with a smile. "It's the smell of people." Yes, we all know what it is like. People have a tendency to wrap up in winter coats and scarves and hats and gloves when leaving...
North
"...let us fly to the countries that are the counterfeits of Death. I know just the place for us, poor soul. We will pack up our trunks for Torneo. We will go still farther, to the farthest end of the Baltic Sea; still farther than life if possible; we will settle at the Pole. There the sun only obliquely grazes the earth, and the slow alternations of daylight and night abolish variety and increase that other half of nothingness, monotony. There we can take deep baths of darkness, while sometimes for our entertainment, the Aurora Borealis will shoot up its rose-red sheafs like the reflections of the fireworks of hell!" At last my soul explodes! "Anywhere! Just so it is out of the world!" - Baudelaire.
1965
In what I hope is one of the last anecdotes from the bar at Sound of Mu... One of the strangest phenomena in Norway of the twenty-first century is the perpetuation of pop cultural myths from the distant past among creatures who I find it hard to believe are actually for real. Two of these came my way the other night. Both dressed in black, one of these young men had a pudding bowl haircut and sported a (to be quite honest questionably genuine) black moustache, and was singing the Who's "My Generation" over and over to himself. That song came out in 1965: surely it was his grandparents' generation that was being sung about? The other was wide eyed, with red hair and beard, looking something like a fire demon in his black garb. He looked at me with the seriousness only drunks can manage and expected me to...
The Map of NoLand
Recently I brought the Irish band NoLand Folk over to Oslo to perform two shows. Their influences are supposedly, "Last night's session, green tea, a hallucination from 1911, jazz, folk," and "a dog's snoring." How could I not book them? Here you can see a very unusual map. Norway joins the North of Ireland, and the West of Ireland is joined to the South of Norway. This way you can actually sail from Lahinch, the village where NoLand Folk live, across the sea to Dublin. Or you can drive from anywhere in Ireland to Oslo. NoLand Folk played with Hanny the first night, at Sound of Mu. As Hanny are on the Metronomicon Audio record label, you can see they are represented on the map by a metronome, standing atop the Aran Islands. Cowboy poetry orchestra Lasso, notable for songs about horses, headlined the next night at Mir (Grünnerløkka Lufthavn)....
The hairy, the beautiful, the other, nuts and hippies
HAIRY CUSTOMER Imagine me working behind the bar at Sound of Mu. It was a kind of quiet night at first, with people coming and going (it got busy later). There were maybe two tables occupied, when a hairy guy I've definitely met before a few times (one of the drunks usually found at Cacadou?) came in the door, stood at the bar counter and stared at me. He was focusing on me in particular, not seeming interested in the alcohol on offer. I wondered if he was stoned, but his eyes seemed ok. "Ingen ting?" ("nothing?") I ventured to ask. "Oh, I was waiting for you to speak," he said in English, obviously knowing who I am, "You don't like to serve?" Unsure about what he meant by "serve", I asked, "Do you want something to drink?" "No" he said dismissively, and left. I'm sure I'll see him again...
I Was A Chinese Free Improviser
Back on 7 June 2006, Yan Jun visited Sound of Mu here in Oslo and I had the experience of playing improv with him and others at a concert. Who's he? Well, his self-description goes like this: "Yan Jun, sound artist and improviser. Well known as music critic, poet and organizer in Chinas indie music and sub-culture scene for years. Born in Lanzhou in 1973. BA in Chinese Language & Literature. Now lives and works in Beijing. Founder of Sub Jam and KwanYin labels. Founder of Tie Guan Yin (free-form electro-acoustic improvised project). Runs the Waterland Kwanyin weekly event for experimental/improvised music and sound art." You can download an mp3 recording of the show here at yanjun.org (128kbps, 25MB). It's a cross between free jazz and noise - not something I would normally play but it was a special occasion. Details: Recording: MD with cheap microphone Yan Jun: laptop (for...
Return to Telemark
I've been out travelling in "real" Norway! Yes, I took another visit to Telemark, a part of Norway I've written about before. This time I was not with a busload of Americans, and I had a working camera. The mist prevented much in the way of photography, but here you can see an old wooden house that stands on my friend Ingebjørg's farm. It's either from the 1100s or 1300s - and, it's said, definitely not from the 1200s. Can you see the sheep? They're rebel sheep who seemed to be immune to electric fences and decided to have a munch of forbidden grass of the garden. One look at me though, and they fled. Anyway, the sheep were only visiting here for the summer. Autumn has come and now they're on another farm. They left behind them a brownish-looking field, quite a contrast from the green garden. Ingebjørg told...
Zero
I may be the poorest person you know! At least I was, in the tax year 2005. In Norway, everyone's incomes and the amount of tax they have paid are made public on the revenue service's website. You can look up anybody. I think this is fantastic. Imagine the consternation this would cause in Ireland where everyone is vague about their true earnings! Ha. Best of all, when you look me up, you just get zero! As a matter of fact I did do some work in 2005, and I paid tax on it, but the tax was returned to me this month. I earned so little that it was tax free, and so little it doesn't even register. Or, at least that's what I'm saying! Instructions: Go to skatteetaten.no. Click on "Søk i skattelista" (in the big blue rectangle on the right hand side of the screen). Then look...