we're making a music video

here are some photos of the work in progress:











we're trying to learn how to relax a bit at the moment. things are strange without the girls (apart from emily) at rehearsals. been doing odd things the last few weeks, lengthy experimental racket james. ..just today was the first time in ages, jere and i, sitting down and just playing together in an empty room. photo below

listen to your genitals

A WEEKEND REPORT FROM THE PROMISED LAND OF JYVÄSKYLÄ:

we arrived at jyrock on friday evening, drove up to jussi's place, left our sleeping bags and things at his flat and walked back to ilokivi to see some of the wonderful bands playing there. paavoharju played their lovely folky weird music to a packed upstairs room, rubik kicked ass downstairs and alamaailman vasarat made a wonderful klezmer racket. we trudged back to jussi's flat in the rain looking forward to the next evening..

on saturday, we left for pieksämäki at around two in the afternoon to fetch our drums, bass and guitaramp, kindly delivered in a van by another band from helsinki, strong, who had a show up there the same night. unfortunately, we had accidentally taken one of their guitars, which we only realised once their guitarist called us and asked to have it back. much shifting of all our equipment into one car at the side of the road in the middle of nowhere ensued, and while andrei and i turned back east, sampo drove our gear to jyväskylä in a rush as we were already late for soundchecks. sampo et al had already set up the drums onstage for the other bands to use as we got back (after spending about twenty minutes lost on the other side of jyväskylä), and we sat upstairs having lunch while felix zenger did his soundcheck.

we went on stage at quarter past nine, and started our set while sampo fiercely projected hardcore porn at the wall behind us. some little problems came up, but they usually do, so no worries there. we met some nice people afterwards, and spent the rest of the evening watching bands (marissa nadler! kaukolampi/puranen/nykänen! RISTO!!), and sitting in the back room listening to the guys from paavoharju tell us some very strange stories. all in all, the whole weekend was one of the best experiences i've had at a rock festival. our neverending gratitude to jyrock, to jussi for the place to sleep, to sampo and andrei for filming the show, and everybody who came to the event.

here are some links:
photos by mikko niemelä
photos by henri lassander
and photos by henri järvenpää
puimuri has a video-interview with the organiser of the festival juha luomala, and some festival-footage too
and finally, desibeli has a finnish language review of saturday night at jyrock here.

next....

athletic burns vol. 2 is ready:

1. aircrash at loennrothsgatan
2. turned 3/4
3. not a whisper
4. crocodile teeth + darkest days

it lasts about 30 minutes, available to buy at live-shows for 3 euros, or plus postage if you'd like to have it mailed to you - contact us at athleticarms@gmail.com for more info if you like..

in other "news", the future of the band is resting on rickety beams at the moment. the show at jyrock (april 21st) will be our last with the present line-up (at least for the time being), as both violin players are leaving the group. the gig following jyrock (telakka/TRE 18.5) will similarly be iina's last with us, again, for the time being.

any other shows that we already have planned will be played with some or all of the present group, but no more new live dates will be taken on for the time being. we need to re-think it all, and that may take some time, but we hope to be back on form later this year. below then, are the shows we have lined up presently:

21.4 - jyrock, jyväskylä
18.5 - telakka, tampere + on volcano
24.5 - rocktown, helsinki
31.8 - sähköjänis 3 festival, pieksämäki

athletic burns vol.2 is coming soon

improve your sensing to the speed of horses, improve it to the speed of robots. arriving in your ears at the speed of tetris on saturday april seventh at the tvo show in turku. more details coming soon....

timetravel dream

i have this recurring dream about touring in time and alternate realities. we have to find a special door to go through to get to the next venue or end up in a waiting-room and sit around there in anticipation of the next door opening. my dad is always there lounging on a sofa, but he never says anything - he just looks at me with this expression that seems to be saying "you're late".

so the first place we end up in is a tram full of people (definitely influenced by sitting in a rented tram last night). i try to explain to some man that i'm lost and try to tell him where i'm from, but he keeps interrupting me. get off the tram, walk through a door and i'm in something that looks like the wild west, except that every house here is a japanese restaurant (that only serves cajun cooking). we try to organise a rehearsal but emily is the only one that shows up: i go looking for the rest of the band in one of these eateries, a whole lot bigger than before and they're sitting on the floor, watching a video of themselves, eating. i lose my cool and shout at them for always slowing things down and being lazy.. they pull pillows and other such padding from under their clothes and leave me to pay the bill, and i stand there wondering why i always have to go fucking mental for no good reason.


i follow the others through a door, and we're in flamenco-land (i've dreamt of this place before), it's permanent night here, and the place seems to be deserted apart from these mariachi-types playing baritone-guitars dancing in circles, in utter silence, the only sound here is the desert wind (or the kind you get at beaches at night). the guitarists are always surrounded by three lady-flamenco dancers, that look like holograms. the greens and reds on their big sleeves shine brightly in neon, but they don't look real. we start to leave. essi tells me that jere wants to stay here, i turn around and see him walking back through the spaghettiwestern archway we just came through towards one of these mariachis. he only has two hologram-dancers, and when jere gets close enough, he sort of shimmers and turns into one of these women. and i think to myself that that atom is stable now. we go through a door and we're in the waiting room. my dad's still there, and we all are now, except for jere, but nobody wonders why he didn't want to come with us.

semifinal 29.3

we probably played the best show we've done at semifinal on thursday. everything stayed nearly-in-tune and nobody made many mistakes.. more good times to be expected at tvo in turku. consider this our farewell tour. it seems now that we might be having a rather drastic change in line-up at the end of april (so in effect, jyrock is the present group's last show). but we'll still keep it up i expect, towards new adventures etc.

here are some pictures from backstage.

vadelma 24.2

vadelma was good fun, even though we ended up being badly out of tune during the last half of the show, and the vocals were inaudible from start to finish. it felt more relaxed than any show we've done in the last six months, and that alone merits a good night for me (although some of the others seem to disagree).

we managed to sell most of the first batch of 50 records of the athletic burns vol.1 cd-r and now only have five left, which will most likely run out by the end of the week. if you haven't got one, you shouldn't feel too worried; we are making more of these, at least a second lot of fifty records before we move on to volume 2.

in other news, those friendly people at jyrock 2007 have booked us to play at their festival. it's all happening in jyväskylä, 20th-21st april. tickets are 24 euro for two days, and 15 for a single day. the other acts include:

Differnet (SE)
Marissa Nadler (US)
Agent M (EST)
Alamaailman Vasarat
Magenta Skycode
Kaukolampi, Puranen, Nykänen
Rubik
Felix Zenger
The Scaramangas
Paavoharju
Risto
Tuomas Toivonen
Keuhkot
Le Futur Pompiste
Shogun Kunitoki

more information on the event at the jyrock website

how to measure, cut and fold 50 record-sleeves in five hours or less

although it took us about seven. the following is a tutorial for anyone who wants to do something like this themselves in the future. the work is repetetive and very slightly boring, but it's fun with a friend, and the end result makes it all worth it.



1. measure up an A3 size sheet of 250g/m2 paper, and divide it into three parts in 26cm by 14.8cm size





2. once you have three same-size pieces, give each an 8mm margin on the long (26cm) side




3. fold the paper so that the 14.8cm sides are in line with each other:




4. cut two small triangles either side of the center crease, make sure they don't go over the 8mm line!




5. cut off both margins that don't have the triangle cut near the center crease



6. fold the remaining two margins inside and glue them to the opposite surface before placing them under a press of your choice (we used two atlases and a bowling ball)

athletic burns vol.1 : FF3

we're working towards getting the first in a series of self-released cd-r records finished in time for our gig at vadelma on saturday. the first batch will be one of 50 copies, and it will most likely only be available at live shows to start with.

the song is an alternate extended version of force field 3 in anticipation of the studio-recording we started in january.



photos from the sessions below







next: max designs and cuts up the outer sleeves







next: maija paints the inner sleeves

friction on your rails

everything has been recorded and mixing has begun. we're working on new songs at the moment, mainly parts 1 and 2 of force field, both of which are going in interesting directions. ff1 has five parts and is fairly easy to follow, in that it is turning out to be a nice straight-forward quiet song, even though it uses 3/4, 4/4 and 5/4 time simultaneously, with lots of keyboards and samu using the ringtone composition feature of his old mobile phone through his guitar pickup. ff2, on the other hand, is more likely to go in the opposite direction, sprawling all over the place and featuring some of the most complicated structure we've ever dealt with. the vocals aren't finished yet though, so once emily starts singing, the whole thing will most likely start to sound a lot easier to approach, hopefully consolidating all the various bits and pieces that sound, in turn, like ennio morricone, fly pan am, bacharach & david and 'false advertising' by bright eyes.

click this link to download a 37 minute long jam on one of the parts of FF1.

we have some shows lined up for the spring now too, saturday the 24th of february at vadelma (www.vadelma.org), thursday 29th of march at semifinal with mesmer and murmansk and saturday april 7th at TVO (turku) with navigations, imaginary friend and pocket knife.