THIRTY SECONDS OF APRIL

Not totally sure whats going on, if I am standing still in space or what, as time seems to go faster day by day and year by year. So just like swish! April went by and here is what it looked like, compressed to one tiny second per day:

FOUR THINGS RIGHT NOW

Or, that were today.

Long time no smoothie! I have a bit of chaga at home of so I made an antioxidant-rich smoothie out of chilled chaga-tea, mango, some cherries and physalis.

Admiring my super huge (1,81m) Mucha-poster that I ordered from the Mucha museum. I saw the original sized theatre posters there when performing in Prague earlier this year but couldn't get it then due to luggage restrictions. I ordered it on Wednesday in the afternoon and it arrived in less than 24 hours on Thursday morning! I will glue it to a board and then hang it in our living room.

And then on with a lurex dress and out to listen to music! Went to the Russian centre of culture for a mesmerizing concert of Altai' music with Alexey Chichakov. (He is playing in Heinävesi Sat 13. and Tampere Sun 14., go listen if you have the chance!)

And oh! Next week season 2 of Vintage-Valtakunta starts. Tuesday 16th at 20, Yle 1! Finland only I'm afraid.

520 SUNDAYS

Considering how rather unstructured my day-to-day life's routines are, as in not-really-there and lets-see-what-happens-next-week-in-life, and supposing it is not the first impression I tend to give, I am actually rather un-enthusiastic about change.  It's not that I am reluctant to change, just lazy about it. Mainly small everyday bits, perhaps as a balance to even out the lack of certain routines and certanties. When the big thing is messy and loose around the edges, keep the smaller things intact.
Like tending to stick to one and the same lipstick or nepalese dish or handbag once noticed that it works. (I'd probably always do the same nails too if I would not force myself to get a bit creative there.) You know - if it ain't broken, don't fix it.

And thus I have been adding to the same playlist for ten years. Ten years folks!
That is some 520 and Sundays! It is weird how time flies, isn't it.

But that is because it is the best playlist for soft and mellow, daydream-filled Sundays there is:
Soft Sunday.
With some 11 hours of music I usually tend to listen only to parts of it; often the latest ones that I felt like adding now, or a section that reminds me of a summer a few years ago for example. Sometimes I think about taking some song from that list away, but then I don't because they all had a reason to be added back when they were. And I just can't make a new similar list, nope, that would be cheating.

Here's the latest addition to the list, a video that I really liked back when it came out, but then forgot about, and that fit the mood and Sunday-test today:

BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY

Waiting for November then!

Queen was the first band I was an actual fan of! I did my first presentation ever in school about the band. My mom helped me put it together. That was a terribly long time ago already.

Biopics like these can either be a hit or miss (and sometimes going back and forth between either one), but lets hope this one is good! So far I like how the song mix for the trailer is made, so lets make that a god sign.

Ze interwebz told me the movie has a campaign where you can sing Bohemian Rhapsody karaoke-style with your phone and perhaps get your voice in the films (guessing ending credits?) and apart from the looking-for-a-shot-talented-singers I keep thinking of the thousands and thousands of terrible ones that have to, just have to (forbidden karaoke songs: immigrant song by Led Zeppelin or Bohemian Rhapsody) happen. And that somebody has to listen trough. Give me half a bottle of red and a late night and I'm in! (No, please don't).

SUPERWOOD

Today I am traveling to Strasbourg to perform at a festival (at Elsass Rock & Jive) in warm and sunny weather!

So, logically I thought I’d look back some six months ago to to a very different kind of season, festival and ambience - Paola Suhonen’s SuperWood Festival.

The very first Superwood took place late last October just east of the Helsinki city centre in a now hotel, then 1960’s bank conference building; Hotel Rantapuisto. In all it’s 60’s design glory is a prefect base for the event, which, as one would expect when created by Paola Suhonen / Ivana Helsinki, mixes music, art, design and Finnish nature.

It’s a rather grown up festival, in a good way, with nice dining and movie screenings - forget muddy fields and tents, and enjoy lounge bar concerts with a living room feeling design hotel rooms - with a twist of spooky woodland vibe:
(Photo credits at the end of the post)

I only attended the first night but immediately regretted not booking the whole weekend. I managed to miss my old pal’s Suad’s sunset concert opening the night (Finland, October, it sets early) but got to listen to a truly magical Mikko Joensuu auditorium set, and then join the wood tour, which Paola put together of different musical performances and installations in the woods surrounding the hotel. A super idea although a bit over crowded, but let’s see how they do it this year.

The hotel restaurant had put together a vegetarian buffet of which lots of the ingredients were picked from the backyard -like sugar coated lichen decorating the dessert. And Pekka Haavisto (Finnish presidential candidate) was DJing! I ate so much I had to lounge on a pile of cushions to get over my food coma while watching one of the feature films.

Looking forward to this upcoming autumn to see how the second year of the festival will turn out!

Photos from the Superwood FB page by
1. Aleksi Tikkala - 2 & 5. David Jakob - 3. Tero Kiiski - 4. Mira Lintunen - 6 & 7. Paula Hiipakka

Square instagram photos by me except photo of Pekka Haavisto from @pekka.haavisto

BLUE MONDAY

Lets end the week with some creative music playing. Or making.

Orkestra Obsolete play Blue Monday using 1930s instruments  (BBC Arts)

In Swedish there is actually a separate verb for playing and making music on an instrument, more in the sence of performing it or playing together: musicera, as can you say 'musisoida' in Finnish. One can refer to that as musicerande (kind of like something that someone or some people were occupied with, or "the music that they were making" as in the present particle of the word. < I had to look that term up, as it is after all almost 20 years since I last had grammar, erhm). But there does not seem to be an English equivalent for such a word... Briefly and totally non-academically based on how other words and endings are used (for example a demonstration of something - to demonstrate), I would make the word musicate up, but it already exists on the internet (not in Merriam Webster though) and means something else: to be absored in music. But well, why not:
Let's end this week with some creative musication shall we?

FOUR THINGS RIGHT NOW - IN THE AFTERNOON SUNSHINE

Four things right-right now.

The books above my head.

A cat in the after noon sunshine.

Reading the Egytptian Book of the Dead (but now I got distracted with a documentary on Marie Antoinette's coiffures.)

I want Mikael Hadreas pants.

As a side note; this was the first time I made a post in one sitting without moving anything else than my arms to take photos and grab the laptop. So now we know that!

FOUR THINGS RIGHT NOW: BLUE, GREENS, SHINY PINK, INVASIVE

Today I've been wearing blue.
From top to toe, rather literally; I have a new sky blue faux-scarf turban that I've been hiding my somewhat un-styled hair under lately.

And so today as well, serving also a practical reason to help my hair stay put and away while I finally got around changing the soil for all the plants in the house (all those plants that survived winter, that is). Re-potting and cutting and all however resulted in more plants than before.

The smartest thing is of course to dig in to the potting soil without any gloves when you've just had new fancy Fabergé egg-looking nails done.

My fourth thing now  today's sountdrack. I don't tend to listen that much to domestic music, even less to music of Swedish speaking Finnish origin (you know, like me) for some reason but today this has been playing.

UMK: TWO MORE DAYS TO GO

Most of my time the past months, or if not most then at least a lot, has been taken up by my participation in UMK; the competition for new music, which in other words is the national selection for the Eurovision.

It has been an interesting project in many ways, but we'll get back to all that next week when this is over!
 

Some time ago we were filming some inserts for the finals. Chrzu was directing and gave us lollipops.

Everyone loves our glitterboots. But hey who wouldn't.

 

But even awesome glitter boots need to be taken off every now and then.

Btw you did know that Dali designed the logo for Chupa Cups, right?

Last weekend it was our turn to do a Facebook live for UMK. Which we casually shot at Weird Antiques. Love that place. 

 

Tinker Bell and I play miniature bongos.

The place has monkeys. And you know who loves monkey? Me! Me! Me!

They have this monkey-o-matic BimboBox that I one day must own.

And today we had the first rehearsals at the Metro Arena. I'll spend the rest of my week there and on Saturday we go!

(And, oh, there's still time to pre-vote -nr.5- for a few hours, *wink wink*. Only in Finland though, and by signing in to Yle.)

DO THE TWIST, DO THE GO GO, DO THE -

Here's the music video for the UMK17 participation song that I am a part of!

We filmed it in November with a bunch of our friends and students taking part of the shoot.
Some people love it and others hate it but that's how it is with most things in this world.

It's going to be really interesting to get to do the actual show on January 28th because it's, of course, a production of a size a lot different than the ones I normally get to work with. It's also naturally a rather time and energy demanding process, albeit also a fun one, of which you can see more of in my instagram and the Ruby Knuckles instagram aswell.

SHOOTING THE MUSIC VIDEO

The other day we shot the music video for our UMK song.

The second look for the day.  That's a lot of brushing and hairspray there I tell you.
...and a lot of conditioner afterwards.

A bunch of fabulous friends as well as our burlesqe students joined in on the shoot.

My glitter boots are surprisingly comfy but after a whole day of dancing on an uneven concrete floor the only thing you want to do is take them off and put your feet high high up in the air.

 It's good the behind-the-scenes interview was done only waist up. Wool socks for the win!

Checking out the group dance shot with Antti; our director. I have worked with him on a few occasions before, when we shot Iskelmä Suomi for example.

Shoot done! All the videos will be out on the 31st of December!

UMK!

Photo: YLE / Miikka Varila

So, you know I've been rather (add ""...) lately, and one reason is the fact that I am part of UMK, which is the competition for the song to represent Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest.

I'm a huge lover of all things kitsch and camp and thus also a huge Eurovision fan (and prefer it at it's most glittery self) and I also have this thing of never saying No to anything as you never know what one thing might lead to. There are a lot of catchy tunes and both fun and interesting artists in the competition this year, and I know glammy rock n' roll is not up everybody's alley, so this will be an interesting ride. And I promise mine will be filled with a lot of glitter.

SIGN OF THE DOG

Here's the video for Dark Country that we shot earlier this spring!

You can see some behind-the-scenes footage and making-of in my previous post.

DARK COUNTRY: BEHIND THE SCENES

In April I filmed a music video for my friend (and total multi-talent) Sampo's duo band Dark Country (Sampo Marjomaa & Jami Pietilä).
The setting was something of a classic 50's horror tale with werewolf vibes but also a comment on on the wolf hate and hunting craze that still is around in this country (and hate/haters in general as well).

Here are some behind-the-scenes from the days of filming:

It was a big and nice crew to work with! But outdoor filming is always outdoor filming -I have never (well, almost) filmed anything anywhere that would actually be comfortable all the way, no matter how lovely it may look (me walking on a hey field in summer - so sticky! I had pants and my old harbour boots on underneath the dress! And last winter we filmed the Knucklebone Oscar video in a warehouse with -10C indoors for example...there's always something!).  This surely was no exception - it was an especially cold weekend for the time of year when filming the woods part, and it rained most of the night when we shot. But anything cold and wet just makes one feel real cosy and relieved afterwards when thinking about it and seeing the material now the rain really looks like it would have been ordered and suits the whole picture perfectly.
 We'll get back to the final video in just a bit!

Indoor shots by Minna Lehtinen, outdoor photos by Roscoe Lee.