Category: Ramblings & reviews
Posted: Monday, 01 January 2007 21:45
Hello all!
I hope the holidays have been good for each and everyone of you and that 2007 looks like a good year for you, it certainly does for me.
2006 has been an exciting year for me, especially compared to 2005 which more or less sucked big time. Enough about that! 2006 was the year when I released two new album, created a new band and did 18 shows. Not much perhaps, but at least it's something.
First of: Krigshot. We recorded the "Till vilket pris som helst" album in December of 2005 and January 2006 and it was released by Communichaos Media in April, in which we also had a little release party show at Kafé 44 in Stockholm. I am quite pleased with the album. It was the first real thing I recorded on my equipment and I also mixed the album and did the cover - a real ego trip for sure.
And the show was good as well. We also did a second show at the Augustibuller festival which was sort of interesting in many ways. On my way to the festival I was apparently speeding (hm...) so the cops, of the "slaniga snutar" as we say in Krigshot, arrested me and gave me a ticket of huge proportions. As I was already late for the festival I sent a textmessage to the other guys saying that I was running late because I had to drive according to the rules.
When I got to the festival I was very late and during this time a rumour had started that the entire band had gotten arrested for drug possession! Rumours! Anyway, that show went well also but since then Krigshot has lain low. There were talk about a Stockholm show but it never happened.
Right now I don't know what's in the future of the band. I'd really like to do a 7" or something just quite sponteaneously but we'll see.
If you haven't heard "Till vilket pris som helst" I suggest you buy a copy at once! More info about Krigshot at
krigshot.com.
I also did a show with Regurgitate during the summer. Jocke was expecting another child and couldn't leave the country to do the Grind your mother festival in Italy so I was asked to help. I did a few shows with Regurgitate in 2004 when Jocke was ill so it wasn't that surprising that I would do it again.
It was a fun trip with Rugge, Urban and Glenn, especially to get down in Europe again and meet some cool people. Napalm Death was at the festival too so it was great meeting these friends again.
The biggest thing for me 2006 was of course starting a new band, getting a record deal, recording an album, releasing the album and touring in less than a year. You should know what I'm talking about because everything happened here in the blog.
It was in January that I first explained my wish for a new band and I even announced for members in the blog. I found Anders B and Oskar and in February we had our first rehearsals and then the ball was rolling. In two months the band was completed by André and Joel and through our multitrack rehearsals we were able to get a deal with Relapse Records. Two months later we had our first show with Gadget and then recorded what became our debut album "The Contaminated Void".
Everything went very fast for this band and I am so happy about this achievement during 2006. Not in my wildest dreams could I have expected something like this to happen.
The future for Coldworker - as the name of the band is - is very bright and I hope that the band will grow during this coming year.
Do buy "The Contaminated Void" if you haven't heard it yet, and check out
coldworker.com for more info.
What else has happened? Well, in December I had two sessions with Regurgitate as a recording engineer putting 16 songs to disc, to be used on splits and whatever. The recording is in the mixing stage right now and I think it sounds pretty cool. I guess you'll hear samples of it in time.
And - of course - how could I forget, "Grind Finale" was released on both CD and 4xLP during the year!
And finally, for the drummers: Just before New Year's I got a late Christmas gift in the shape of a custom-made cymbal! The truth is perhaps not as exciting as I made it out to be, but I currently have a pretty unique cymbal in my set up that I choose to call "the 11,5" custom-made bellsplash"!
The story: Earlier this year I discovered a crack in my ride cymbal, a 21" handhammered Sabian ride. I took the cymbal to the store where I bought it to see if I could get a new one on the guarentee, but too much time had passed. I didn't bother bringing the cymbal back from the store so it's been there for a couple of months.
The 27th of December I got a call from Peter Damin, a drummer extraordinaire that works there from time to time who asked me to come and get it. When I went there I asked Peter if it was possible to do something with it as I knew he experimented a lot with broken cymbals. We agreed to saw it down to a much smaller size to hopefully get an interesting effect cymbal out of it as the bell part of the cymbal was very distinct and cool.
Peter said that he would look into it after the New Year's, but just two days later as I was riding with Coldworker to Borlänge for the last show of the year, I got a phone call which started with: "Listen to this!" and then a cymbal was hit in my ear. Peter was very excited about the result and asked me to come right away, but as I was heading for a show I couldn't make it. I got it the day after and today, on the first day of the new year, I went to the rehearsal place and tried it out.
It certainly is a nice addition to my set up and I'm eager to work it into my playing. After being a four cymbal guy for about ten years I think that I will do a few additions to my set up during 2007.
Anyways, here are a few picture of my set up and the new cymbal:
And if you want to hear the new guy, just
listen to this.
While being in the rehearsal room I wrote down everything I have as people seem to ask about it from time to time. Now I have it in print, so here it is:
Cymbals:
14" Zildjian K Custom dark hi hats
18" Zildjian Z Custom medium crash
20" Zidjian A Custom crash
22" Zildjian K Custom ride (this will be exchanged to a 20" Earth ride tomorrow hopefully)
20" Sabian AAX chinese
Drums:
14" Mapex Black Panther snare
12", 16", 24" DW drums
Pedals:
DW 5000 (which I have been trying to exchange to a pair of Axis A Longboards during since September without luck...)
So there you have it, and there you have my sum up of 2006!
