LASSE MARHAUG (ORIGAMI REPLIKA) LIVE 091196 Replika - "Barad Dür" - Knaus - Samfundet - Trondheim - No
A commissioned work for a Tolkien-night with a.o. David Day (Tolkien - The illustrated Encyclopedia). As Major Ego A22 was in prison, Lasse A73 took over the control. Kelly A34 (Medit) came from Oslo, and Mads A101 (Clop Neplat) joined in. Performance actor was Nils A100. The stage and room were sigilized and decorated by Martin A40 of Origami Ballistika. Lasse says: "Mads A101 did analog synth, Kelly a34 did boxes, Lasse A73 smashed a mic'd mail box, Nils A100 ate jelly, drank wine, shaved his tomatobean-covered legs, carved a cross in his chest, vomited and rolled around in it. People were really friendly and said they liked it, but I heard someone had puked afterwards, which is the best compliment I could ever get." Tore a22 says: "Yet another proof on trivial magik; here I was sitting in jail knowing that my friends should act out my role the same night. When picking up my mail I see that my mother had sent me the "Tolkien - Illustrated Encyclopedia", a very nice present. I called her and found out that she didn´t know about the Tolkien affair at Knaus, as I thought I´d told her. On top of that it´s author David Day held a lecture on Tolkien the same night. A weird coincident, or...?! I guess the Tolkien-link was sealed. [taken from 068 ƒ (ting), info: thboe@online.no ]
040197 Replika/Lasse Marhaug Band/Gom/Clop Neplat - "Ka/Blod" - Veita Scene - Trondheim - No
A releaseparty for the Replika cd, the Lasse Marhaug and Gom split-7" and the Clop Neplat cd. Tore A22 says: "The soundcheck went better than ever before, never have I met a sound engineer that respected my lo-tech equipment and weird/harsh taste in sound that much (except of course those we know from before), Kai A80 was a good consultant, relaxed as he is. Martin A40 and Elisabeth A15 put up the usual stand of merchandise and all was set for a good night. First on stage was Clop Neplat (Mads A101 of Origami Replika), sitting down almost in the dark with a 4-track he manipulated ambient sounds with the reminisence of Deathprod, a short set, utterly discreet. Slowly people came, and reached about 70 persons, which is not bad considering it to be four days after new years eve and promoted as a noise-event. Then came the duo GOM, not their night for sure, one guy with an old synth and 4-track and the other with guitar. And so, it was time for Lasse Marhaug Band, Lasse of course being Lasse A73 of Origami (Replika). As he was a "band" this night, he had brought with him the very expressive and energetic singer Kim X-mas of Nomad Nipples (whose debut cd was produced by Tore Ylvisaker A02 and Tømmervik A06 of Origami Teknika). It was a total blast-off, Lasse operating his few boxes and beating up the empty box of olives, Kim jumping around on the stage screaming and shouting, twisting and twirling, even falling down from it. He fell over Lasses 4-track as well, damaging it. Lasse got angry and punched him, pushing him away. It was a funny show, not so high-frequency noise as expected, more of a rock'n'roll feeling to it. It lasted only nine minutes. I put on the Linton Kwesi Johnson tape, for everyone to relax to some great political dub (mostly because Lasse hates it), and 18 minutes it was my turn. This time I had to be alone on stage, as Lasse A73, Kelly A34, Mads A101 and Nils A100 stole the fame at the Barad Dür concert 091196, when I was in prison. Guess I needed some ego-ejaculation. It was supposed to be a well-disciplined performance, as I intended to act out the cold focussed artist role in my nice stockbroker suit and italian shoes. But after two tracks of "new age" instrumentation (the metal sheet and the giant rainstick) it escalated totally. From there I almost can't remember what happened. I started screaming and jumping around as well, taking my jacket and shirt off. I threw the metal sheet, the four-piece effect box and the metal percussion instrument (after beating myself with it - hard) out from the stage. The only lyric that came up was "mediatrash! - desire!" on top of the prerecorded Medit-drumtrack, and before I was finished rolling around shouting, the last track came about. I´d prepared a cover version of Neil Young's "My My Hey Hey", just stolen the first 20 seconds and then making a short loop from it (the Weld version). I started stating "My My Hey Hey, Rock'n'roll is here to stay. It´s better to burn out than to fade away...", a respectful joke, but I´m not sure anyone understood it, or even heard it. The people in the audience really thought I´d gone berzerk, and it was pretty close, guess all the anger towards authorities made me do it. Luckily enough we have a good video from both Lasse and Origami Replika, which will be released by Wertham in Italy."[taken from 068 ƒ (ting), info: thboe@online.no ]
Friday june 20th saw the Replika SchMerzPunkDaDa Alive show at Eat The Rich Festivalen;
The stage stood in some open asphalt field surrounded by nice old houses. There was almost nobody there when we started to play, but it didn´t actually matter much. It was good to know that people had the choice of coming or leaving, and nobody had payed anything. A couple of kids left too early, they looked very interested. People passed by at random, some even told us they liked it. We did! On top of the "techno/dub" cassette playback we broke into heavy outbursts of noises and loops. Lasse went on smashing the mixer in the asphalt in front of the stage - the sun kept on shining and we were happy - while I stood there as a DJ of some weird kind, shaking my ass. It was filmed on two cameras by friends and by the student television. We´ve got a oh-no-they´ve-turned-the-volume-up-and-down-again DAT recording of it and photos.
..Later that night DEL (the new band of Lasse Marhaug, and people from a.o. Slowburn/Apartment) played an improvised set at The Lo-Fi Café, actually the living room of one of the arrangers. The nice intimate atmosphere made it feel and hear like a Velvet Underground show in the late 60s. Guitar manipulations and descreet drumming. I´ll keep a close watch on these guys. Later I joined in the jam by putting on a Parlamentet tape that I brought along and slowly started scratching some guitar-strings. Some other people joined in (someone who should send us a demo; a cool thing to say in the middle of a jam!).[taken from 068 ƒ (ting), info: thboe@online.no ]
30-08-97: Replika - Live Over New York City.
We were invited to do a 30 minute concert via phone for a radio festival in NYC last wednesday. Judge Replika A22 and Mister Marhaug A73 met at his place, bringing various tapes and effects. The broadcast went well, sound technician Susie said later. We blasted our fiery frequencies for the listeners in NYC, including funny messages and the lyrics to Flicker Fight, and it all ended up with five minutes porno moarning for the cab drivers. There was a bunch of other bands doing the same type phone concert, but we haven´t received the documentation yet, but mostly noise/trash/fun I guess. Good fun.[taken from 068 ƒ (ting), info: thboe@online.no ]
02-08-97: Replika guests for Nomad Nipples, Sjonstock Festival 97, Mo I Rana.
Nomad Nipples is a band you´ll hear more from as we´re currently infiltrating on their next cd, and 'remixing' them for SchMerzPønkDaDa. They invited us along to appear with them at this weird festival an eight (!) hour drive north of Trondheim. We came there early saturday morning after a drunk night with no sleep, and the surroundings were extremely beautiful. 250 people in tents inside the area and the sun shining. I fell asleep for some hours but was rapidly awakened by a horrible punk band, and I knew I just had to go along with it. There were one rock'n'roll band for every second spliff, and I had forgotten that bands like these even existed. Stupid heavy metal, stupid punk, stupid whatever. But nice to be there. Only other band I somewhat liked was Erotic Jesus. It started raining of course, and when we finally got to play around 2 am sunday morning, nobody was in front of the stage, all hiding in their tents. Mister Marhaug and I started the set with the usual blast off, but not quite sure if we were on. Nomad Nipples came on stage and played a tight - but uninspired - set, nicely put together. Front man and singer Kim Xmazz (A108) is a stage personality for sure, what energy! When it came to an end we came back on and ended the festival in KAscades of noise and screaming. I wonder what the people inside their tents thought about it all, but who gives a shit. Really hope some of them had wild sex. Enjoyable. The next morning; oh oh, long way home to a shower, food and toe sucking... [taken from 068 ƒ (ting), info: thboe@online.no ]
LEEDS 5th - THE ROYAL PARK PUBLIC HOUSE - Headless Piss/Lasse Marhaug Band/Origami Replika
We met Smell & Quim, Dave from Grey Wolves, Phil from Betley Welcome Careful Drivers, Paul from Expose Your Eyes, Mike from Con-Dom and several others. All our british Heroes from way back. A good time spent in the function room below the pub. Headless Piss first out with a 30 minute three guitar one drummer blow, cool stuff, like a mix between Velvet Underground on a bad day and a Sonic Youth tuning session. Great, Neil Campells savage violin did the trick. Then it was LMB, a bit trouble with feedback (uh, might sound as a contradiction for The Skandinavian King of feedback manipulation), first gig with Depla A117 on vocals and shouts. Not too much to be said about this kind of music, but evocating and extremely purificational, so good to let it all out. NRG BLOW. Then I was on, opening by pulling all my clothes off and handing out candy to the audience, some thought it was acid, but I shouted 'it´s chocolate - it´s only chocolate!'. Then back to be 'the traumatechno dj' for a couple of tracks before the noisy ending; Lasse and Depla came onstage, started shouting and screaming whereas I started running around and over the audience, naked and sweaty, french kissing mr. X and handing out flowers to each and everyone (including a quite astonished barmaid). Ha-ha, a good blast, so weird to do this laughing and smiling in front of an audience of utterly extreme artists. After the show we all went to Mr. Pig's place for an 'after show party', much good humour, Lasse surveiling with his dictaphone (some really great stuff can be expected). Even later we went to the house of Bilge Pump (known from a.o. Jazzassin's Tribute To TG release) for more beer and late night chats with the folks. Hello - thanks - see ya! Next day Pig offered free soup and fruit at the university...[taken from 068 ƒ (ting), info: thboe@online.no ]
LONDON 7th - LONDON ASTORIA I - Origami Replika/Evil Mother/Einstürzende Neubauten
Coming back to our London base, Martin A40 of Origami Ballistika showed up. He sigillised the rest of the gigs, an important trick. Support for Einstürzende Neubauten. I think the night was saved when Blixa came outside our dressing room pointing out that our name was spelled wrong on the paper hanging on the door (oragami replica). Before that we had a nice conversation with Ash, the new associated Neubauten sampler-guy. Everything was delayed, so no time for soundcheck. Five minutes before going on stage we found out that we´d drop the rhythms and rather do an improvised powerambient set. Typically Replika I guess. So there we were, Lasse and me with our little stash on each our oil barrel, barechested Depla on his knees between us, alltogether taking two square metres of a huge stage filled with equipment. The technical personell was really grateful for our four DI-boxes-nuthin'-else demand. It went well I think, and already around 2000 people had shown up! We got a good applause when finished, the set couldn´t have been long, some 10-15 minutes of deep powerambient drones. After us came Evil Mothers, a kind of Uh-Swans-Power-Guns & Roses-Goth band, very American, boring - glossy and gloomy, only cool thing was their extremely energetic two drummers, should only have left ALL the rock crap out of it. Anyway, I won´t go into the Neubauten gig, I know it´s hip to think everything was better before, but I do not agree. I LIKE NOW. Fucking powerful. They even played a new track, in the Schacht Von Babel area. Blixa telling the audience they had to be finished by 11pm, weird. After we were all invited to an after show party arranged by Mute Records. Meeting up at the Neubauten dressing room the first guy we stumble over is Nick Cave, but none of us had any wish to talk to him though, but the other guys: hello - thanks - see ya! So we went to this bar, free alcohol and soft drinks, Lasse trying to ruin Mute by pouring down a bunch of cokes, ha-ha. We mostly spoke with the Evil Mother people, Martin asking why they were evil. Ha! Maybe we´ll meet them again if we go to the US. Lasse speaking with Andrew Unruh for a while, and rumours had it that even PJ Harvey was there, but who gives a shit. Klaus (the Neubauten manager) came in from USA, hello hello! A good night, we have it on video, both looks and sounds good.[taken from 068 ƒ (ting), info: thboe@online.no ]
NEWCASTLE 9th - CUMBERLANDS - Culver/Lasse Marhaug Band/Origami Replika
From a hip London gig and back to our roots, nice! We met up with Lee of Culver the day before and spent the night at Paddy and Lisa's. This gig was also in a function room, but this time above the pub. Whitehouse played there some time ago with only 10 people attending, this night we were 16 (including all band members, that is). But my god, what a good night. Culver started up, and after only hearing them on tapes, this was a surprise. They were three for this event, cheap synths through effects, guitar played with cymbal and tapeplayer, stuff... Cool noise noise outburst noise like it´s supposed to be. Then came Lasse and Depla doing their best set on the tour. Strict, disciplined and ending up very physical. Lasse kicked Depla's ass - HARD. So, they stole some of my live action tricks, what was I to do? Well, without the others knowing I included Martin in my set. First he was going to hand out the sigils, then he was supposed to come on stage and pull my clothes off. But altered by the good energy of my set, it had to end up differently. So instead I tore Martins shirt open and started licking his chest, downwards, to his belly, then I opened his pants and gave him a blow job for some seconds. It all happened at the feet of the audience, and EVERYBODY was happy. Yes, I´m to blame, it just happened... We went back to Paddy's, Martin and me sat down with the Culver guys and enjoyed long hours of more and more far out conversation. Hello - thanks - see ya! Next day we went to a museum to see the very last Merzbau that Kurt Schwitters made in a barn outside Newcastle. It was actually closed, but when Martin explained our sincere interest ('we´re an artist collective coming from Norway...') we were let into the room. A great experience as Merz is the artistic idea closest to the core of the Origami myth/philosophy.[taken from 068 ƒ (ting), info: thboe@online.no ]
LONDON 13th - 121 CENTRE - Lasse Marhaug Band/Origami Replika + many others
After spending a couple of days in London, relaxing and sight-seeing, our last concert came up. It took place in a squat in the midst of crack-dealers and raggamuffin. Waiting, waiting and waiting for the sound system to show up, we got to talk with various people from the other bands. Barry Nichols of Action Concrete did an excellent installation upstairs, and we finally got to meet. He´s also a member of Origami, since he made the cover artwork and additional sounds for the Arktika Sondring cd and putting out tapes by us. He even wore one of the very limited Origami t-shirts when he came. Well, finally it all started. Lasse and Depla went on first. This duo will certainly get their stuff together, powerful and physical. The sound was not to my liking, I hate the mid-frequency range of the typical techno sound system, a proof on the mediocre. But still it looked good, and sounds good on the recording. Depla trying to look angry, fighting with Lasse, but they were in fact only sweet! More good stuff came later, like the set of british Name, and late at night it was my turn. Should I go into it or leave it out? Ok, I fucking hate the selfcentred image of the DJ's that didn´t understand that this was a night of concerts, not a rave. Totally out running on speed the engineer turned down the volume, telling Lasse he was scared of his equipment. That could in another context have been understandable, but how come that the fucking DJ's played so much much louder than me? How come I was so delayed due to all their stoned'n'stupid DJ friends wanting to play other people's records? After a while I got pissed off, having to focuse on the volume button instead of the performance. So there was no take off, I simply pulled the plug and went off. Fuck DJ culture! So I had to apologise to the people who actually came to see us perform, and to Guglielmo and Andreas who´d put all their effort into getting us there... WE´LL BE BACK IN A 100% RAVE-FREE ZONE! Anyway 3 out of 4 concerts went well, so no problem.[taken from 068 ƒ (ting), info: thboe@online.no ]
BERGEN September 26th - Hulen - Anax Imperator + Origami Replika:
The guys from the goth/industrial band Anax Imperator brought us over to Bergen for a double-venue. Suddenly we found ourselves doing the SchMerzPunkDaDa-show for a crowded audience who were all there to see their local heroes Anax. Major Ego tore his clothes off, Lasse revealed his secret urge to become a rock'n'roll star, posing in front of the audience screaming his head off. Musically this might have been the best SchMerz-show so far, Major Ego had total control over Lasses output as it all went through the onstage line mixer, making it possible to manipulate (cross-fade, distort, pan...). The sound engineer was excellent, as usual they told him to turn the volume up (without being volume-fetishists), but they didn´t catch that he was into noise music, so most of the audience found it too loud, which was not intended, as this was pop-music. Anyway, it all went well and I´m looking forward to hearing the recording (for the SchMerz Alive dbl-lp for sure). So came Anax Imperator, presenting their EBM-ish goth-techno, musically precise and pretty obvious, with an all-maked-up Cure-style singer. Stage decorations and the clear sound made it a good show for the local goths and friends. As agreed on beforehand, Lasse and Major Ego went on stage for a jam on their last song, the singer suddenly going crazy, fighting with Lasse, some exciting samples coming from the two keyboardists, Major Ego spinning the cd-player on full speed. I really wonder what this must have sounded like, but I was told it was energetic as fuck. Then (almost) all became drunk and had a good time backstage. Hello to Arild, Jon, and the new Replika members (they chose to call the last part a Replika-session) Henrik A121, Tollef A122 and Nico A123.[taken from 068 ƒ (ting), info: thboe@online.no ]
ORIGAMI ARKTIKA vs ORIGAMI REPLIKA European Tour May 1998:
Origami Arktika: Benny A07 and Tore A22 Origami Replika: Lasse A73 and Tore A22. April 24. Klubb Kanin/UFFA, Trondheim, Norway. With Arm as guests. The opening show of the tour found place at our self-organized Klubb Kanin, at UFFA. Friends showed up and I think we were hiding our nervousness well. The Arktika-gig was average, couldn´t await it to be at its peak so soon, as there was a wide range of tiny details and fragile sounds to be incorporated. Then Arm did another of their excellent performances, this time really discreet (not so many people in the audience even knew there was a performance going I guess). Sitting on the front of the stage and on the floor made them look like they were sliding off it. Drums and prerecordings and whatmore. We are so happy that we got to meet and work with this bunch. They´ll pop up in this e-zine quite often I hope. Then it was time for the Replika-extravaganza. First gig, so a lot of trouble with the levels. The beats didn´t get enough punch, so it was carried by the stupid rock-vocals, screaming and Lasse's tubesax and noisebanjo. We were far from satisfied, but some of the audience seemed to like it, to our pleasure the ones not at all into the noise-thingy. Maybe it was heavy enough for them? But for us, no, softcore. May 2. 1000Fryd, Aalborg, Denmark. Denmark was basically on strike, so we were lucky to get there in time. Martin A40 of Origami Ballistika had already sigilised the area when we came there, saw it before we met him. We met the people from the Join Kao zine, who´d set up the gig and in good style were doing all support acts themselves. After a short ambient dj-set, Arktika was to play, as the rest of the night would be dedicated to noise-noise-noise. We played a calm set, extremely focussed on the details, and working well. Then hell broke loose with the Luca Brasi's Revenge, Kummerlige Forhold and Maalet Helliger Midlet666. Humorous noise-noise, first each guy solo, then a total jam of naked people jumping around, friendly fighting, breaking equipment, one guy gets a tape-deck thrown at his forehead, crushing plexi-glass off old printing machines etc etc etc... Everybody was happy. Sounds familiar? Yeah, so what should Replika do to top that then? I can´t quite recall, I think we started with some SchMerzPunkDaDa-stuff, but suddenly the stage and floor was crowded with people doing the same things over again, crawling around, jumping at Lasse this time, more breaking and shouting, yeah, yeah, just like it ought to be. Then we spent all next day there as well, seeing some 'goth-event' and speaking with all these nice people. May 3. MS Stubnitz, Rostock, Germany. Benny had been telling us of this boat, and I´ve read something about it before (via dBUT), so we were excited to check it out. We were immedeatly comforted by the friendlyness of the people on board, taking 'art and music' into a different surrounding, one of more workmanship and construction than usual. It was a last minute booking, so we were to play after the main band, Headmix Collective (being friends of the Zion Train). They played a quite regular folk-punk-dub concert, but I didn´t consentrate. We decided to join the Arktika and Replika sets together, so Lasse had his one-time session with Arktika and Benny with Replika. The sound was powerful and majestic, even though there was a load of buzzes and hisses and crackles and sparks in the mix, due to weird electricity in a humid room and stage entirely made out of steel. I got naked, with a fair chance of being electrocuted. This show was to sound like none of the others. Benny humming mantra-like vocals, Lasse playing his tubesax without noise (??? is he really a musician in the old sense of the word?!), and I even got behind a drum kit whirling jazz-like snarebeats. After enough Arktika I skipped the loop-cd into the first Replika track, almost bursting the loudspeakers. Ha-ha, we were at it again. A short and intense set it was, but sounding good (if that is the word considering it being a total cascade of broken noises?). I did a vocal-only version of Warm Inside and played our Anti-Black-Metal track directly off the promo-cd. Fun. Thanks to Coost and the M/S Stubnitz crew. We would be lucky enough to meet them again in Stockholm, Sweden for the recent Nursery Festival (see next issue). May 4. Robert Blum Str Café, Neubrandenburg, Germany. A nice café of small rooms in the basement of a squat. It was quite cold and humid, but we decided to strip for the Arktika gig. The friendly dj that was behind our table/stage didn´t dear to come out under the show, as he then almost would have to be touched by our... I think we did a good show, and you can hear funny remarks on the live recording. To my recall it was a quite dark-sounding set, and we were close together in the corner of the room, sharing our wine. After the show we went upstairs to relax, but suddenly Lasse came running for me, having started the Replika set immedeatly after Arktika. And I had to change my psyche totally in the seconds it took me to get down 'on stage'. My god, it was a take off, but I was confused so I screamed to Lasse 'stop, just stop' or something. And for the first and last time he followed my stupid comments on stage. It didn´t have to be that short. I painted on the wall even; the old KomKol-androgyn and wrote 'Choose Life', of course spilling paint all over (luckily by then I had my clothes back on). A good dinner we got, and thanks to Gordon and the others. May 6. Galeria Hitler, Düsseldorf, Germany. I hope you understand that the name Galleri Hitler is a bad joke. It is actually a factory room situated in the middle of some industrial area. Organisers Corinna and Roland brought us there along with some friends of Benny. The Arktika show was as ok as ever, maybe even above average. The intimate venue had a great effect to my liking. And when Replika entered the scene it took off as usual, specially on these early dates. Jumping, screaming, dancing, Lasse playing his tubesax like Miles Davis on crack. We even made it to an encore, a long freeform happynoise soundscape, were I was crawling on the floor, face down, with the vibrator and electro-magnetic mic first on my chest, then on each side of my testicles. Nine volts of pure pleasure and shattered walls of noise all around. I was rubbing my face into the dirty carpet, and only a week ago I pinched a tiny piece of broken glass out of my nose. Pop-punk-show. I handed out the mic to a guy calling himself Der Kommander, who shouted and played bells. Later he insisted on being 'inspirated by Frau Basisdemokratie', and I could see why. May 7. Lichtwirtschaft, Leipzig, Germany. Got to spend some time with Markus of Pain Art (who co-released the recent Galaktika double-lp with Suggestion). The venue was a good one, good space on stage, making it quite easy to play rock'n'roll heroes. Sitting in the open windows in a street full of squats. Enjoyed a very delicious meal. Nude Arktika went on stage, doing an above average gig. I stumbled onto stage for a quite punky Replika set. There was a true old-fashion punk in front of stage, shouting. I sat down beside him sharing the microphone. Ha-ha... Spend a wonderful day in some park/nature reservation, recording frogs jumping in the water. May 8. Az Conni, Dresden, Germany. Youth club. Two other Norwegians bands Skarnspage and Smorgasbord were supposed to play as well, but cancelled just days in advance. Maybe they didn´t dear to challenge us, as their poster said 'noiserock' or something...? Benny got his leatherman stolen, we sat outisde in the nice weather. Then Arktika was on doing one of the best shows of the tour. Then a typical Replika-set came around. Energic and wild, passionately unplanned. Lasse wrote that it happened in Leipzig, but I remember it to be here; I hurt my mouth in some way, so I was bleeding. Happy bleeding well worth it. One of the few time Benny and me got drunk. Had a great dictaphone-walk-man duell with some journalists from the Revolverblatt. Yes, in a good Spinal Tap tradition Benny and me managed to get locked out of the nice bedroom. We stayed up longer then the others, then carried all our bags down the narrow staircase to find the locked door, then returning to the backstage room laughing our heads off. Took some great late-night photos moving all the furniture around to make the best royal beds in Europe. Slept well. May 9. Bauwagen-Siedlung, Rodenbach, Germany. Came to Hanau and met Wolfgang of the Matrax club. Since he couldn´t book us there, we still got to make a 'live recording' onto dictaphone. He had forwarded our request to a bunch of REAL hippies, living in a squatted area deep in the woods. They used old workmen-barracks on wheels as houses, and it was their 7th anniversary. The only day they had electricity and concerts there. We were spelled by the beauty of it all, like walking into some romantic film about the 60s. But these people were REAL. Children playing around, a huge bonfire and the concerts taking place in some kind of garage made of wood and canvas. Arktika delivered the goods, really the right atmosphere for us. I was using pieces of wood and pebbles as instument, dropping them softly on the contact-mic. Flutes and mouthharp. Ethnic edge to it. We decided to make the Replika set something special, as we though these people weren't the most die-hard noise fans after all the silent years in the woods. So I started reading from the Kontemplatie book, and Lasse doing some loops. Then the local original sat down on stage insisting on joining us on a bass he´d found. It was of course ok with us, so I left Lasse and him there for a long funny bass versus noisebanjo duell. They were laughing and making faces, good for us in the audience. Later that night, one of the guys who booked us said 'I was waiting for some really extreme noise, you´ll have to come back'. So they were open for even that. After us came a bunch of freaky people calling their project Zekuschex, doing a long and good humoured cabaret-like show. Jamming and exchanging instruments all the time. They´d just put out a cool double-cassette, and were spending most of the day putting the cardboard-covers together (a work of precision). They wanted 5 DM for recording both our shows onto mini-disc. So hello and thanks to them, as well as all the friendly hippies. May 13. Statna Galeria (Slovak State Gallery), Banska Bystrica, Slovakia. Did a long interview on Slovak State Radio, which our friend Miro of Vresk translated. For every short thing I said, he went on forever. Wonder what he said? There was even a contest to guess which country we came from, and this old lady called in 'Norsko'. She won two tickets for her grandchildren. Spending our spare time in B.B. is never any problem, almost our second home as it is. And the beauty of the slavonic opposite sex is blending. The show took place in the backyard of the gallery, we played really loud, specially Arktika. Our friend Misco had shown up in time, so we were ready even if it was so early, at six in the afternoon. I think the show went well, and I handed out the rest of the nice blue/silver/cut-up sigils Martin A40 of Origami Ballistika had given me in Aalborg. With Replika we decided to be 'artists', so we did a slow magmastream of loops and frequencies. I had mic'ed a steel plate and wood-block, so I could carve/write short cut-ups from the Kontemplatie book in Slovak, thus making extreme sounds from it on my own amplifier in front of the stage. May 15. Clubus, Lucenec, Slovakia. We were to play at the opening of a new club/bar. Really friendly people here was well, we played around with some kids, one of them was called Tomika, so we called him Origami Tomika. We played a strong good set with Arktika, and the audience seemed so happy with it that Benny started playing a melodica version of 'Grünervalsen' (of Bøyen Beng fame), that he had practiced on under the soundcheck. First and only Arktika-extra on the tour. I joined in on mouth harp. Short, sweet and funny. People laughed and applauded. With Replika I had my own amplifier in front of the stage, directly plugged. It separated the sounds from Lasse and me in a cool way. Hard. Harsh. I fell off stage, half a meter or so. Lasse threw something at me, a cymbal maybe, and I was cut again. Vocals were good, specially Madonna's Just Like A Prayer. Loud brickwalls of sound dropped in the mix by Lasse. Late in the show we started fighting (even though I have to admit it was more like some good boyish hugging, but the chance of a snowball in hell you get Lasse to admit it!). We were carried away totally by the response. Kids heading for stage to say hello and ask for autographs (I´m not lying). I had a stack of the english/slovak Kontemplatie book, so we handed them out for free, sometimes underlining the sentence 'choose life' in the slovak translation. I was asked by an older guy if it 'is true that Origami base their work on first hand experience rated over secondary analysis' or something wicked... I of course said 'yes', and before I knew it I was in his car, with his friend. We drove a couple of hundred meters up the road. They got me to follow them out in this field full of sheep, and made me touch the wool. And started laughing, 'is this first hand experience?' he said. Each single one of the rockstar-trio were invited to have breakfast with some 16 year old girl's family the next morning, but I guess we would have been arrested. So looks were enough. And a bunch of free slovak beer served by smiling slavonic beauties. Our egos blew up like balloons, but we did return to our hotel alone. The only night in a hotel bed had to be here. May 16. Public Netbase, Wien, Austria. We met up with Lasse's friend Alex who brought us to his nice flat, were we could wash our clothes and have a shower. Originally we were to play at a club called Chelsea, but it was too small for us (wonder how Motorpsycho was able to play there some days later?). So they had changed our venue to a sort of internet-café/center, with a clock on the wall you could hit and automatically send a hate-mail to Bill Gates. We managed to send some e-mails and browse to our websites for every visitor to see. There was a metal-fence around the stage, really not in the vein of Arktika, but cool for Replika. With a ton of digital equipment crackling all around, Arktika played a really shitty show. Instead of our usually elegant 'powerambient' it became a horrible pseudo-noise set. I turned off and plugged out my stuff in the middle, smoking at least four cigarettes during the second half. The Replika set prooved better, Lasse being electrocuted, and I jumping at the fence like some captured wolf, even kicking off a chip of my front tooth. Good fun. I ended by screaming 'Wien - Du Stadt Meiner Traumas', a rewrite of 'Wien - Du Stadt Meine Träume'. Friendly people came around and bought a lot of our records. That night we did a long totally absurd Replika-interview at the toilet, and the next day Benny and me did a longer more serious interview and Lasse one for Jazzassin, both with some glossy music paper. Then a long pop-star style photo session took place. We went to eat Wienerschnitzel. May 18. Hohlgroth, Zurich, Switzerland. A squat where they had a psycho-dog. We came early in the morning, before anybody was up we had found ourselves some comfort in the backyard, surrounded by blooming spices. Chill out. I went to sleep for some hours, as I didn´t get any on the nighttrain from Wien (lasted 14 hours due to some problems). Arktika did a fairly reasonable show, Replika decided to skip the SchMerzPunkDaDa that night and went into a high pitched 'healing' session, hah-hah. My body aching, I decided to just sit down on a chair and use a metal plate attached to the wall as percussion/noise source. Lasse turned his buttons well, doing one of his best tubesax performances of the entire tour. After a while the damn metal sheet fell off the wall from the vibrations, it almost hit my eye and made scars both in my forehead and in my cheek. So much for taking it slow. A true freeform noise event. After that I did a short not-so-loud loop improvisation without anyone noticing. Hanging in the bar for a while, checking out what the local shop-in-a-bag record pusher had to offer. Suddenly found out the barman was the other member of Waldrand and should play with us the next night. Nice people. May 19. Rosengartenhalde, Luzern, Switzerland. Expensive country. Beautiful country. Disciplined country, so we had to meet the people in opposition. Like a commercial for chocolate. Nice basement club in huge swizz villa in the explosive green hillside. Nothing on the walls. Had dinner with lots of visiting german crustpunks. Arktika played a medium to good set. Not so much to say about it. Replika sit-down concert. Cool intro sound of Escalation. Screaming, low vocal output, screaming my lungs out. I was even singing Sunflower from the Teknika album on top of the Straight On chaos. Extreme feedback. Recording is 197% disorted so I´ve got no clue what it actually sounded like there. Then our friends in Waldrand played, Pille's project (who arranged the swizz gigs and runs allied tape label Gecko/Gürteltiertapes). A long weird soundcollage with acoustic guitar, homemade bass, feedback and tapes. Of course we joined in after a while. Await the forthcoming AVVIK I tape split between us. After the shows we made an interview with a magasine (can't remember the name right now). The guy had met Benny before, and had done his homework well, so he asked a lot of in-depth intelligent questions. We were taken by surprise, but enjoyed it a lot. When going to bed, Pille was to give Lasse a tape he had released, so we watched him carefully putting the labels on after colouring them by hand, cutting out the cover and putting it all together with the tape, caring. Made us feel like home, restless networkers meditating. May 20. Torkiera, Milano, Italy. Playing outdoors at a huge squatted area. Friendly atmosphere. Lazy hours in the sun/shadow. Building the stage. Late night before we started the show. Strange old man insisting on speaking something reminiscent of german. Had pizza and a meat/bacon-burger. Italian beer (well...). Quite a few people came around after a football match on tv. Arktika reverbed and sounding good. Strict bass-solo, grass and gravel dropped on the contact-mic. Summer breeze. Minimal. Wanted to see Lasse do the Replika-set by his own. He took it as a challenge. Good to be interchangeable. Cool as dj, noisy and groovy. Elegantly balancing on the edge without wrecking the beats. Lawnmower. Jamming with the guy who came to tell him to turn down the volume, even louder. Ha-ha. Slept on a dusty floor. No water due to trouble with the authorities. Had been firebombed by the neo-nazis, news-paper clippings on the wall. We were dirty after the days in Switzerland. I could smell myself, a good solid feeling when being in beautiful places like this, so you know it´s not an illusion. May 21. ClanDestino, Faenza, Italy. Finally 'back home' to Morena in this beautiful small town. Good to get in touch again, haven´t played there since 94. Welcomed with food, then soundcheck, then sightseeing, then more food, then a good nude Arktika-gig in front of a sitting audience. One of our best. Then it was time for Replika, did seldomly good versions of German Bass Suicide and the neil Young classic My My Hey Hey. It being a return to the more jumping side of SchMerzPønkDaDa, I had to sit down in the staircase for a while, and Lasse was looking for me. After the show some people wanted to buy records, but we had none left. Yet another memorable night, specially when Lasse and me were sitting outside the bar before the gigs trying desperately to fix my vibrator. You could see that several passers by recognised this little motor of intimate pleasure, they blushed. Ha-ha. Little did they know it was among my main instruments on this tour, but they should find out some hours later. Thanks to Morena who put on all the Italian shows for us. May 22. Nondimeno, Orbetello, Italy. Out in bleeding nowhere again, to an old local pub outside Orbetello having been restored by two enthusiastic people. Here the local youth came from the surrounding villages to get drunk (first time I´ve seen that in Italy), hugging, kissing and flirting. The Arktika-set was just below average, some annoying sounds from cables being plugged and disconnected destroyed a rather skillfully performed powerambient show (Arktika being at its peak regarding audiodetails at the time). I got this idea about Replika that Lasse should act like he was me, and the other way around. So finally I was up there on stage shaking my hips, mixing the tracks and playing his tubesax and noisebanjo like mad, trying to impersonate the somewhat sloppy but funky appearance of Lasse. Since he was me he had to jump around and shout his lungs out, without knowing any lyrics, but so what!? A fun thing to do, and also even more confusing to the audience we´d met before the gig. We were driven far away to some camping area called Africa where we spent the night, and got free coffee at the bar next morning. Benny and me went for a swim in the ocean, so it´s true when we later have been saying 'we even went for a swim in Africa'. May 23. Macchia Nera, Pisa, Italy. A huge industrial area being squatted. 'Cyberpunk' sculptures in the backyard, a drug policy like Christiania. Many famous bands had been playing there before. We spent some hours recording bullshit-conversations onto the dictaphone, easing down. We had a dinner, where I ate some raw meat that tasted like leather. After hours of weird and sometimes good dj-ing, Lasse sleeping on the stage, Benny and me almost 'sleeping' around in the room, talking with various people, it was time for Arktika to do a good show, including some tracks from Faqul we didn´t play elsewhere on the tour. Benny using tin soldiers as scraping-sound instrument, and a pretty complex and evocative bass-solo he did too. The Replika set was a take off again, during the first part I really got a grip on the rock'n'roll posing, and vocals were strict and powerful. I thought we were about to finish, but suddenly Lasse just keeps going on and on, maybe 'inspired' by the fact that the local promoter had put Origami Drum'n'bass on the poster. He mixed and played and shouted and whatever, the longest set in the history of Replika for sure. At the end he got a couple of people from the audience to scream along, handing out the microphone. Both a funny, and a good show. Slept at the first floor, sitting in the open window for a while watching all the 'business' going on outside. May 25. Nomadenoase/Golden Pudel Club, Hamburg Germany. A small legendary punk club in St. Pauli that also houses the Nomadenoase gallery run by students at the art academy. They have a 'group' called Akademie Isotrop, who was co-editing the most recent issue of Guttorm Nordø A63's mail art paper El Djarida (see next e-zine). Also some artworks by Guttorm and May-Irene Aasen were exhibited. Lasse and me scanning the pornshops of Reeperbahn, and enjoying a huge Frikadelle (almost hamburger) at a real downtown Kneipe. It should be here that both Arktika and Replika did their last gigs, in the sense of everything being at its peak. Arktika did a long slow detailed show, cd-loops being mixed in and out, everything working well. Since we were recording I wanted to have Lasse and me exchanging places/persons again, so Lasse was yelling his gills out and I did the mixing and others. Good fun as always. After the show we met a norwegian guy that was there by coincidence, he didn´t know we were Norwegian, and refused to believe we were touring on interrail tickets until we showed him. We went out for a late night Kebab (and falaffel of course). May 26. Ungdomshuset, Köbenhavn, Denmark. The last concert was taking place at this legendary squat situated in the Nørrebro area, infamous for its militant squatters and occasional street riots. The house was barricaded due to some immigrants fighting with the armoured police nearby, and it was just some days before a serious vote about the EU/Amsterdam agreement, so the atmosphere was dense. We met a friendly Norwegian who put us up and helped us with keys etc... Then took a walk in Copenhagen, our capital of Skandinavia. Good to be there again. Obligatory visit to the 'town' of Christiania, and eating Kebab (and of course falaffel). Martin A40 came to visit again, and good friend Marte came as well, making up the audience together with a few people from the house. The Arktika set was quite uninspired, we didn´t play much actually. I don´t know if it was a puzzle of my mind, but I´m quite sure I heard policecars and shouting as we went along. Good to be finished. The Replika show went much better, I only stayed on stage for two songs, doing the absolutely best vocal version of Mediatrash Desire and a vibrator-solo on 8000 Coca-Cola Lightyears From Home. I wenbt off and Lasse did a tremendous finale with It Matters Too, going into a long noise outtro looping the words 'goodbye forever', just as Swans did at their final show in Trondheim. Bye Bye. My wife came down and we spent a week chilling out, being true tourists, eating a lot... The little mermaid is a disappointment. [taken from 068 ƒ (ting), info: thboe@online.no ]
Del - Lo-fi Café/Eat The Rich - Svartlamon/Trondheim, Norway 130698:
A year has past since the last Del-gig now ending up on the vinyl I wrote about in the previous issue, and again it was time to press oneself into the living room of Terje for another session. This time I heard rumours that they would do the next Sonic Youth cover (of the series of five split-7"s or whatever), and they´d brought Alexander of Arm in as guest guitarist. Starting slowly with some loops from Lasse Marhaug, with almost unhearable percussion and guest guitar, it should grow into a long weird and wonderful jam (?) when guitarist PG finally found his cable. I don´t know what should be the Sonic Youth track or not, but a cool session it was. They managed in some strange way to make it more than just any other psychedelic happening, I don´t know, it was like it was some more focussed musical spirit haunting them. Alexander was at first just picking his guest guitar, but later stood up in a rock'n'roll pose and the journey begun. Members of the audience ended the session in a turmoil of a jam, Martin A40 of Ballistika beeding from his hands. A good night OUT. I really hope this was recorded properly. [taken from 068 ƒ (ting), info: thboe@online.no ]
Lasse Marhaug Band - Nursery Festival - MS Stubnitz, Stockholm, Sweden, 190698:
So roles should turn after the long tour of Replika, so I had to be a backing musician for Lasse, along with Kim Xmazz on vocals and with a guest appearance by Ronnie of Bad Kharma. Driving all night, coming to MS Stubnitz early in the morning, strange to be playing at the same venue but in a wholly different town. Stockholm is the 'cultural capital of Europe' this year, so an impressing list of cool projects have been/are to appear on the Nursery festival (arranged mainly by Mikael Stavostrand, respect for the effort and hassle!!!). Of course there was a lot of trouble with the authorities, as the social-democratic closet-fascism of Scandinavia just doesn´t cope with all this 'otherness' at one and the same time. So the Stubnitz crew and festival management had to be exposed to a long list of media-lies about open drug abuse, alchohol served to minors and what not. So no alcohol licence, and no licence for dancing (yepp, same laws applied in Sweden as in England to 'avoid illegal raves'), so few people came, MS Stubnitz losing a lot of income, and techno-oriented arrangements had to be cancelled. I could go on, but ashamed of even coming from this overregulated area of the world I choose not to. Yes, they proved the 'cultural multitude' ok, fuck it makes me so angry. Well-fed fascist state that demands a licence for dancing, when will they ask one for breathing, sleeping, shitting, loving? Caring has been illegal for decades! Oh, sorry, this should be a live report. Lasse Marhaug Band rules the happy-noise scene, that is for sure. Kim Xmazz hitting his head hard over and over again with the microphone, leaving a bunch of bruises. Lasse going berzerk on his tubesax and various, Ronnie turning buttons and playing some toy instruments and god-knows-what, and myself (listed in the catalogue by Lasse as Mad Emperor Anal, so much for my seriousity!!!) trashing a lot of broken cymbals I´d brought along, shouting and finally trashing my nice well-working tape deck. It lasted about 30 minutes and we were all happy. All a pure crap happy noise blast... We even tried as hard as we could to dance, hoping to be arrested by a Hitsquad of Anti-terror Police, but no luck, maybe they were raiding the swedish dance restaurants that night. Next day we met up with various people, among others Mike of Con-Dom, who had an interesting conversation with Hybryds, as they claimed him to be a fascist (which he pointed out that he was not). I found the SchMerzPunkDada LP in the shipshop, hadn´t seen it before. Kim and me had some beers downtown, and performed a long dictaphone-duell in the streets on the way back to the ship ('Lasse never takes care of the people he works with' was the encore), almost getting run over walking straight out into the highway, then we fell asleep in the afternoon and was wakened by Lasse in time to see Hybryds, Stratvm Terror and Con-Dom live. Great shows, specially the strength of Con-Dom. After that we did a late night tv-interview and Nils A100 (Urd) drove us back home safely. [taken from 068 ƒ (ting), info: thboe@online.no ]
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