The band has made different kinds of music during their existence. There has been straight rock records, alternative rock records, one record that is just alternative (without any rock elements) and some records that are quite electronic too. Almost always there is some indie country -like elements on the records too, and the new records isn’t an exception to that either.

I think the best song on the record is “Sky Girl”, but sadly I can’t find any streams of it on the Internet. Luckily, the two second best songs can be found:

• 22-Pistepirkko - Suburban Ladyland (youtube)
• 22-Pistepirkko - The Others (myspace)

There’s nothing new on these songs itself. On the contrary, one might say that this is music that has been done million times before. So it might sound like a bad idea to do it once again. But 22-Pistepirkko has the odd habit that when they do things others have already done, they somehow make it work better.

Some have said that they haven’t liked the new record as much as the previous material. Many of them point out that on this record Espe Haverinen, the drummer of the band, sings too many songs (5). This is probably because one of the bands best known trademarks are the original lead vocals of P-K Keränen - although many claim that Espe’s singing skills and his accent are just plain bad.

I diagree. I think Espe’s vocals are brilliant! The accent is original in a nice way, and perhaps as I am a more indie kind of person I value the sounding of his voice too. Great record, great songs, and while P-K’s singing is great, it’s nice to hear Espe too.

• Iggy Pop - Real Wild Child (youtube)

At one point I began wondering that not very many bands could cover this song without looking total jerks. Then it came to my mind that there’s one Finnish band that I think actually could do it (live, not on a record perhaps): I Was A Teenage Satan Worshipper. After a while I was looking at the song video again and the world showed me how strange it can be at times. The guitarist on Iggy’s video had the same shirt as the keyboard player of IWATSW on their home site (http://www.iwatsw.com/). At least at the time of this writing :)

Indie stuff

Ah, of course there has to be the Indie thing too! There’s a great, awfully cute French singer, Yelle. The band has made many great songs for their record “Pop-Up”, but there’s one song that found itself on the “repeat one” mode of my player:

• Yelle - Amour Du Sol (youtube)

It’s electropop. The other songs on the record are actually not so poppy.

Life

Aaaaa, terrible hangover! And I noticed I’ve managed to break yet another pair of earphones yesterday. They are third this year (actually I just lost one pair, probably without breaking them). I’ve also lost two pairs of gloves, one bag and two hats. After this I bought two new pairs of gloves (so that I could lose one pair without needing to go shopping again). Then I lost one pair while at work, but my boss found them when he had to go to the same place where I had been working when I lost them. So that day I left work with a total of four gloves. But came home with only three :D Luckily, I found the lost one on the next day when I searched the lobby of my work place.

Today I also found one of my shoes from the toilet. But I had managed to break it’s shoelaces. Probably I’d had some difficulties in removing the shoe when I came home. I’m beginning to think I’m hopeless..

The answer until now would’ve been: How the hell should I know?! But I’m happy to announce that now it’s time for something completely different. Though today’s band is admittedly of the indie genre too, it’s not the emo indie stuff, and this has nothing to do with electro either. They define themselves as punk/indie/rock, and I can hear a definite garage sound there. So, what is all this about?

- pintandwefall - Somewhere I’d Be Worshipped (myspace / youtube)

I had listened to the band’s live stuff from YouTube before and they sounded just like a mess to me. But when I listened to their record today, it surpised me as a very good garage/rock/punk record. In fact I think I’m going to see their live at 45 Special on thursday.

“Little girl likes Poets of the Fall
It’s almost pintandwefall
So she’s our fan” (lyrics)

For foreign readers, Poets of the Fall is another Finnish band. It’s more traditional modern Finnish rock and not one of my favorites (I actually think Finnish rock music is in a crisis at the moment), although I like one of their songs, Lift, very much (youtube). The lead guitar sounds good and is actually quite imaginative for a more mainstream artist :)

• Errors - Salut France (myspace / youtube)
• Barbara Morgenstern - The Operator ( myspace / youtube)

Both are filed under indie / electronica at myspace, although the songs are a bit different, the first being more raw and purely instrumental, the latter being perhaps more like indie-electro/electropop.

I’d like to thank Matti Vahtola for pointing these out for me :) Errors were even in Oulu/Finland last summer, but I missed it because my little brother thought that it was okay for him to get married the same weekend that the QStock festival was held. What nerve!

Since I was visiting my place of birth, Imatra, too, I took with me some books that were in my room there. I had last read these when I was in the gymnasium (fall 1993- spring 1996):

• Stephen King: Lohikäärmeen silmät (Engl. “The Eyes of the Dragon”).
• George Orwell: Eläinten vallankumous (Engl. “Animal Farm”).
• Anatole France: Kuningatar Hanhenjalan ravintola (Fr. “La Rôtisserie de la Reine Pédauque”) & Paistinkääntäjän pakinoita (Fr. “Les contes de Jacques Tournebroche”).

I’ve read only two books by Stephen King, but have liked them both. And it was interesting to see that I still liked “The Eyes of the Dragon”. Many people give King’s books very little recognition, so I had thought that maybe I was too young at the time of the first reading to realize how much the book sucked. But I still really liked it. A nice fantasy book over all.

When I read “Animal Farm” in 1994 it was a bit different experience from what it was now. I remember realizing what the message in the book was even in the gymnasium, but I guess I take the themes in the book much more seriously nowadays. So when I read the book a couple of month ago, it was really an agonizing experience. Still, a good book, but not very light reading.

Anatole France’s books were luckily much lighter. They were interesting to read, because they are written in the late 19th century and the use of logic and argumentation are quite different from our own. The book is kinda intellectual but in strange ways. Nice stories.

In 2007 the Finnish indie band Wojciech published their (afaik) third album, Sointula, which is their best up to date. It’s a great album, consistent and ethereal, perfect for relaxing and making oneself feel content and calm.

At the moment of this writing they have four songs on their MySpace page, http://www.myspace.com/voitsek. “Kuin aaltoihin” is the prettiest song there, but if you’re not used to listening to indie or ethereal music I would recommend “Ilotulta” since it’s easier to approach and still very beautiful :)

I’m not sure where the band got it’s name since it’s a Polish first name for a man. There is one occasion I have stumbled on the name before, and I would like to think it’s the origin, since it affected me a lot ;) The occasion is Wojciech Frykowski, a Polish writer who was murdered in the home of Sharon Tate and Roman Polański by members of the Charles Manson Family.” According to Wikipedia,

Wojciech Frykowski was shot twice, struck over the head with a blunt object and stabbed in total fifty-one times. According to his killers Charles Tex Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel and Susan Atkins, Frykowski fought very hard for his life, and for the lives of other victims.

So, he was pretty tough, and impresses me so much that I’d like the band to have gotten it’s name from him :)

Maybe some of you have followed my former blog at http://aurinkopaimen.fi/ (I don’t link this, since I’m not sure if I will keep the blog open there). If you have, then you know that I updated it quite infrequently and that I had a few problems concerning the whole concept of the blog. This is why I decided to open a new blog altogether.

Unlike the predecessor, I’ll try to write this one in English. This might (or might not) bring some readers to the blog that are not Finnish, so I’ll try to keep that in mind when writing things in here, perhaps describing things in Finland (or Oulu, the town in which I reside at the moment) for these people a bit.

I have also tried to clarify the concept a bit. These are the things I think I’ll be writing at least in the beginning:

• Music (gigs, new bands or songs I dig, sometimes old favorites, music I find on the Internet, and particularly Finnish music for the non-Finnish readers)
• Literature (books and comics I’ve read, opinions about them, but also because I always forget which books I’ve already read - from now on I can refer here if needed)
• My life in general (life in Finland/Oulu, the food I eat and restaurants I go to, sometimes about the parties I attend to, and perhaps some work stuff if I decide to go to work, maybe sometimes about my hobbies)
• Politics (I hope I’ll have enough stamina to follow the blogs of some of my favorite political writers and perhaps give English summaries here, but I could also comment on world politics)
• And of course some random rant sometimes

I hope the clarification results in a more frequent publishing rate for the articles. I’ll try to write something in every category quite soon, to get the categories show up in the category list. And since this is the first posting in this blog, I’ll keep the blog software’s default title for the first posting. Hello world! :)