Walking to the sound of my favourite TUNE... Part 2

This is the second part of the story about the band I played in. In this part we start playing gigs and gain the praise of our friends. The military causes an unwelcome interruption, before we join up in Oslo and continue our quest to be the band that we felt music needed.

I remember the first time we played together. Not as a band, this was before we even decided to form a band. Lars and Arngeir suggested Espen and I join them for a weekend at Arngeir's house. They lived in this big, old, beautiful house outside a small village in Norway. Arngeir had been playing a lot with his brothers through his childhood, and hence they had a lot of equipment which we could use. We basically spent two days just playing together (sometimes in the nude) and make some simple, rough recordings with the help of Arngeir's brothers. Good times.

When Rubens Araba, and eventually Tune was formed, it was exhilarating. Finally I was playing in a proper rock band with my mates! And I discovered that I could write songs. The initial idea had been that everyone would contribute to the song writing and bring songs and ideas into the group. Some of our first songs were written this way. But whenever I wrote a song I tended to do all the bits on my own. I decided what the chords would be, the melody, the guitar, the bass line, and everything. It was as if I had this piece of music that I wanted my mates to help me perform. Lars obviously had a better voice than me which made my songs far better. Espen also had a couple ideas for songs and so had Lars. But eventually I became the main songwriter of the band.

We started playing these concerts which the music and drama department of our college put on once a month. We quickly got our friends' recognition which is inestimable in the vulnerable beginnings of a band.  I loved every moment of it. Soon we started playing gigs outside of school as well. Not very often, but time and again there would be an event or gig on that invited amateur bands to play. This is something which I still to this day think is far too rare in Norway in general. But we were relishing every chance we got to play. Although my internal Noel Gallagher'esque ego was not enjoying being just one band on the list of so many other bands. My mind was fixated on the grandiose idea of having a mass following of fans and be able to fill vast venues and even stadiums. But shyness and humility tends to put reality-accepting tethers on such ideas.

After finishing music college, both me and my brother had to do an obligatory spell in the military. I ended up in the King's guard which was based in Oslo, were both Lars and Arngeir also had moved to study. I did one year of military service and moved in with Lars. Espen, always the more pragmatic one, continued his military career for another six months before we nagged him to become a civilian and join us in Oslo so we could get the band started again. We were in the capital of Norway, the metropolis where we would finally get discovered by the big record companies! At least my ego told me so. How deluded.

We got a rehearsal room in a party venue/pub of an MC club, which was handy concerning security of our equipment. We rehearsed some new and better songs and set out to get some gigs. Oslo had a limited number of bars that would allow completely new amateur bands to play, providing they got enough people to come and watch. I say "allow", but in reality we had to pay. Most venues seem to work by this policy: We had to use the resident PA (sound) system and for that we had to pay, about £100. It was up to us and get as many of our friends to come, and we decided ourselves if we wanted to take an entry fee which we would be allowed to keep ourselves. .But it rarely covered the bill for the PA system. Ridiculous. Such an antagonistic attitude towards new bands! If we played a venue we would most likely recognise all the faces in there, unless they were friends of whichever band we split the gig with (a split gig would provide more people and potential fans). Other people turned in the door, no one could be bothered listening to some amateur band which music they probably didn't like either. I can't say I think of Oslo as a very warm place socially speaking. This wasn't going to be easy. Turns out I was right.

Espen was studying sound engineering at this school which specialised in music, drama, engineering, and everything else related to entertainment. They had a studio which they let the students use for free. This gave us the opportunity to do our first proper studio recordings! Having a demo meant it would be easier to get gigs and also attention from record companies and producers. We recorded three songs on which Espen did all the mixing, with minimal studio mixing experience. Lars Andreas, a friend of Arngeir who was already a semi-professional musician, provided keys on the songs which made them sound so much richer and well-produced. Lars knew this other musician who recommended a producer/studio technician fresh out of the LIPA academy in Liverpool called Jonas Kroon. He mastered the tracks making them sound even bigger and better. Tune was finally proper band with gig experience and now a demo!

And this is what I leave you with for now: I actually found a website for amateur bands on which we posted our songs and where you can still listen to two of the tracks. When I listen to these song (I haven't heard them in years) my body literally starts to tremble. It's hard to explain how euphoric and emotional I get when I hear those songs and think back to those days. I know I'm making it sound like it was ages ago when in reality it's about five years, but somehow it feels very distant. I cannot possibly explain to you how important these songs are to me, simply because of the memories I associate with them. I hope you enjoy them.

Tune's first gig in Oslo!

The poster I made with pictures from our first gig which we subsequently used as a promo poster for all our gigs and cover on our first EP.

"Change is such hard work"

(Quote: Billie Crystal. Yep, weird source, I know)

While surfing the web I discovered a picture posted by someone on reddit.com, a social news forum, where people share whatever they want to share with other. This particular picture really hit me (I'm sorry I don't have the name of the creator):

Now, you might look at the picture and think nothing special about it, and that’s ok. Perhaps I’m just deluded and overgeneralising a bit, but I think everyone can, at least to some degree, recognise the feelings this picture conveys. The feeling of wanting to do something, but not finding the motivation to do it. “I really should get up off this couch and do some sit-ups” or “I should probably work on that assignment”, all the way to “I should get out of bed” and even “I should do something with my life”. But somehow, the little motivation spark plug in our brain isn’t firing, and thus you just carry on with what you were doing.

I think a lot of people can look at this picture and think “Get over yourself. Just get off your arse and do something with your life! Quit whining and just DO it! Everyone has days like that, but they get over it and so should you!” In fact (and to my naïve surprise) that was the general feedback the picture got from the other users on reddit.com. Only a very few people showed the creator of the picture any sympathy.

Well, I for one can identify with the picture, and I guess that’s why it hit me so hard. I recognise the hopeless feeling of wanting to do something, but failing to muster the motivation and consequently carrying on in the same repetitive pattern; a sort of vicious circle. Now, as I said, the sentiment this picture communicates can be extrapolated to failing to muster motivation for doing the dishes, but such a feeling might also lead to depression. I’m not depressed, thankfully. But I think we can all agree on that everyone has days or periods where everything feels difficult and downright dismal. Most of us eventually find a way out of this vicious circle of misery, but for others it might be much harder.

My issue is with the people who try their best to help by saying aforementioned “Get up and do something!” Having experience periods or milder and more severe hopelessness myself, my point is that this sort of “support” helps very little. The very quintessence of the problem is that the person cannot seem to turn things around and do something about their life (or the dishes…). Therefore “just do it” only leads to walking in circles:

“I can’t do anything”
“How about you Just DO it?!”
Well, that helped… Like ringing the doorbell when no one’s home.

On the other hand, I completely see where the “consolers” are coming from. It’s easy once you have gotten out of a hopeless situation, to stand on the other side of the (metaphorical) mountain and go: “You just got to get over it and do this and do that! Easy peasy lemon squeezy!” You might even give them the exact same advice you followed or tell them to do whatever you did. I’ve done so several times myself, but I’m not sure whether it helps directly. I think the revelation has to come from within yourself. It's YOU who are down in the dumps and it's YOU who need to get out. You know you have before, but it might be difficult and even  irrelevant what helped the previous time. It might help talking to someone, writing it down, or you might like getting advice or just a “push” in the right direction from other people, or you might just climb that mountain yourself. Whatever you did, remember no one did it for you. Support is always good, but YOU took those necessary steps. YOU got out of the couch and YOU turned things around. Thus: You are awesome. So if you’re struggling a bit at times, you know there is a way out. The important thing is to not give up.

As a conclusion I would like to share with you a clip which I stumbled upon while writing this very blogpost. It is a beautiful video which is made by a guy called Luke Rudkowski for a website called wearechange.org. The website isn't that pertinent to what I've been talking about, but the video is a poignant reminder of locked-away interpersonal social nature. I thoroughly recommend you watch it. 

Much love.

(NB! If you have any comments whatsoever, whether you disagree or agree with me, feel free to leave a comment!)

Walking to the sound of my favourite TUNE... Part 1

This is the story of how I discovered Oasis and subsequently decided to become a rockstar. It shall be told in parts as I want to tell all the parts of the story and consequently it is quite long. It is also a bit esoteric, in that I think it is only interesting for people who know me or the band. In this first part I tell of how I endeavoured to play music forever. I play drums for a Christian choir and go to music college where I meet my future band members. 

I used to play in a band. We called ourselves TUNE, which frankly I think is a good band name. It's got brevity and a bit of "punch" to it. I like short band names, not tenuously long “see-how-much-weirder-and-arbitrary-we-are-compared-to-everyone-else-that-are-weird-and-arbitrary” indie band names. Also, it’s what people say when they hear a good song. Just: “Tune!”. Very Mancunian. Yep, a lot of it has to do with my past as an Oasis sycophant.

I think I was fourteen when it happened. I had already been playing the drums since I was about seven, playing along to Beatles tapes. But lately I had stopped playing. I even considered selling my drums at one point, but my mum wouldn't let me. Thank God for that.. I mean: Thank MUM for that. Anyway: I was fourteen and I was sat waiting in my brother’s car and decided to pass time by checking out his cd’s; two of which were Oasis’ (What’s The Story) Morning Glory and Be Here Now. Step inside Even’s pubescent head: “Oasis, ey? Oh yeah, they’re the ones that did Whatever and Wonderwall. I remember them, got some good tunes. Well, at least the…HOLYFUCKINGHELLIHAVESEENTHELIGHT!!!” It was a mindgasm. My brain ejaculated through my eyes, salty tears of joy and wonderment. From then on it was ALL about the music. I say “music” because I didn’t (don't) want to be perceived as a sycophant. But in reality it was all about Oasis.

My twin brother, Espen, also got into Oasis. Of course this meant I had found a Liam to my Noel. Or vice versa, I hadn’t decided who I wanted to be like the most. I played the drums and he played the guitar. The unfortunate thing was that we lived in the small suburb to a rather small town and we didn’t know anyone else who played music, let alone Oasis music (yep, at this point I'm still too close-minded to embrace the larger movement called britpop).

The only possibility me and my brother had of playing music in a band with other people in our neighbourhood, was to join the local Christian choir. A gospel choir of little white kids. I played drums in the band and Espen ended up behind the desk, engineering the sound for the choir (he went on to be bloody good at sound engineering, something he still does on and off to this day). We had some really good times playing in that choir. I honed my playing skills a lot because the guys I was playing with were really good at what they were doing. But Christian Choir music isn't rock'n'roll, not matter how hard they try sometimes...

The time came for me and my brother to go to college. I applied straight away for music college. My brother, who has always been rather technically apt (hence, the instinctive expertise at sound engineering) was applying for some technical college, but applied for music as well, just for the hell of it. And we both got accepted! And if you believe in destiny, or horoscopes, or supernatural, divine interventions, then this incident was an example of all the planets aligning just right. For in music college me and my brother met two other guys with whom we would form a band: Lars, the natural lead singer; a grunge/britpop fan with an amazing, beautiful, awesome, and unique voice. And Arngeir; a classical guitarist with an incredible feel for music, who thankfully turned his energy to playing bass in the band.

We started off as "Rubens Arraba". A weird band name, sort of an internal joke. Long story short, Rubens is a painter who painted chubby angels and we used to joke about being chubby; and Arraba means four in Arabic or something - there were four band members. Later on, I would insist we change it (I tended to  be a bit Noel Gallagher'esque at times and exert a bit of needless authority), and I suggested Tune, which they all went along with. I started writing songs, and soon we were on our way to illusory stardom...

Tune, from the left: me, Lars, Arngeir, and my brother Espen