Usually when I read stuff like this I catch myself thinking something along the lines of “ahhh, how unique and special that performance is really going to be?” – well, this time we promise you that it’s true – at least it’s unlike what any of us has ever done before – and we will only do it this one time.

With the help of electronic music artists T. Finland and Mikkel Meyer we will try to pull off a live remix concert at this years festival. This is not to be understood as that they will be remixing our records live on stage. NO, they will be remixing and re-structuring our music while we perform it. Live on stage. In real time.

On a practical level this will mean the stage will be split between the band (consisting of us musicians) on one side and the remixers on the other side. We hear what we ourselves play through the headphones we’ll all be wearing while Finland & Meyer will decide what audience hears. They will re-construct all the elements of the songs into brand new remixed variations of the songs. And they’ll do it right there on the spot – and that will be what the audience hears. We, the musicians will still be hearing the actual sound of the instruments in the headphones – so even if they e.g. decide to kill the guitar on the chorus, the guitar player will still be hammering away on his guitar as always. They even have power to switch off the entire band and rework the songs as a capella numbers if they want.

We are super excited about doing this show. It’s going to be extremely complicated to plan, rehearse and execute, but I guess those things shouldn’t hold you back, right? Artistically I believe we’re gonna produce some gorgeous music through this show, and as music nerd I think its super cool to be able to give the audience an experience that’s very different from the normal procedures for a concert.

We got into this through the festival’s grand old man, Gunner Madsen, who approached us in October last year and told us that he had heard about our collective and thought it sounded like the kind of collaborations that musicians and artists did back in the 70s in Århus. Especially in the way that our collaboration doesn’t have any specific purpose or goal behind, but is more based on a shared ideology (although ours is not quite as political as groups he was thinking about). He said he liked that way of thinking, and told us, that if we wanted to try out something new, crazy or just different from what we normally did, he might be interested in including it in the festival.

Based on that, we brainstormed on a bunch of things and ended up decided that this was the most crazy/diffucult one to pull off – so we had to go for it.

A collage of artwork from the CopCol bands

We shot the video at a cool cafe called Din Nye Ven in December 2010. We didn’t really prepare it much, but were pretty happy with the end result. Our very own Leif from CODY recorded it and made sure it sounds great. Thøger Kappel Nielsen og Christopher Hornstrup Thuesen filmed and edited the images and made us look like this. Thanks guys. Band of Horses themselves were really nice and posted our video on their Facebook page last year boosting the views to number much higher than we expected. Thanks for that too. And for writing the song in the first place.

They look like this:

From Sarah: Ask, David & Moogie

And their great track “Spit it Out” sounds like this:

Enjoy!

Billetter kan købes her: http://billetto.dk/da/events/copenhagencollaboration

The collaboration has been started up in order to assist Tivoli in reaching the smaller genres. Apart from the traditional friday-rock-shows and the even more traditional bigband performances etc. new genres reach the theme park. All in all a line up of 9 acts performing 17 concerts will run between May and September.

The different acts are:

Basco

Basco

Frisk Frugt

Mames Babegenush

Trio Mio

Afenginn

Afenginn, foto Henrik Bjørslev

Henrik Jansberg Band

Falgren Busk Duo

Let me play your guitar

Danjal

Eggs laid by tigers

The program:

• 20/5 Henrik Jansberg – 17.30 at Harmonipavillonen
• 27/5 Trio Mio – 17.30 at Harmonipavillonen
• 3/6 Mames Babegenush – 17.30 at Harmonipavillonen
• 9/6 Danjal – 17.30 at Harmonipavillonen
• 17/6 Mames Babegenush – 17.30 at Harmonipavillonen
• 23/6 Danjal – 17.30 at Harmonipavillonen
• 8/7 Frisk Frugt – 21.00 at Pantomimen
• 13/7 Eggs Laid By Tigers – 14.30 at Plænen
• 15/7 Let Me Play Your Guitar – 21.00 at Pantomimen
• 3/8 Henrik Jansberg – 14.30 at Plænen
• 10/8 Trio Mio – 14.30 at Plænen
• 18/8 Basco – 18.00 at Promenadepavillonen
• 24/8 Afenginn – 19.30 at Plænen
• 1/9 Basco – 18.00 at Promenadepavillonen
• 12/9 Falgren Busk duo – 20.00 at Plænen
• 22/9 Basco – 18.00 at Promenadepavillonen
• 23/9 Basco – 19.00 at Harmonipavillonen

Mix and mastering:

When getting your record mastered let the engineer know that you are intending this to be pressed on vinyl. In a perfect world you should also consider this when mixing – we did not do that for our recent record, and it still worked out fine. At the place I had the Stærosaurus records cut there was an engineer who analysed the files to see if they would be alright for use on vinyl.

Getting it pressed:

Before I made the actual order to have the records press I spent some time (with help from my girlfriend) looking for different places to get vinyls pressed and got some quotes on prices. I quickly found out that it was pretty hard to compare prices of vinyl makers directly because there is a number of choices you have to make before you can start cutting.

#1: How many do you want?

Most of the companies I talked to had a minimum limit for the smallest number of records that they would cut. I was looking for 200 or 300 copies. So I was only looking for companies that could provide these quantities.

#2: What size do you want?

7, 10 or 12 inches. As I have made an EP I was looking for a format that could contain a total of 18 minutes of music. This, it turned out, fitted perfectly on a 10 inch record.

#3: Sleeve and jacket?

Not all companies are able to provide a printed cover for the vinyls – especially with quantities under 500. During my search for prices this confused me a number of times. Also because not all factories call the pieces of paper and cardboard that the records is wrapped in by the same names. Here’s a pic to explain the most common terms:

#4: Test print?

Another thing to consider is weather you want to get a test-print or not. I did that for my record. It cost some more money, but that way they sent me a copy of the record before they made the full batch and I could check the sound of the record – it did not include a test print of artwork.

How much? and who?

I was interested in making 200 or 300 copies of 10 or 12 inch records with coloured jackets and white paper sleeves. I ended up getting my records made at www.recordindustry.com. As you can tell from the enclosed document these guys were not the cheapest I could find, but since I wanted to have a test print and wanted to use a company that had a sound engineer that could check if my master was suited to be cut to vinyl, I ended up choosing this company. The production time was around one month from I uploaded the files to their FTP untill I had the records in my hand in my apartment. I am very happy with the record now that I have it. It sounds and looks great.

Here’s a list of all the companies I contacted.  In the overview document you can see the details and approximate prices I got from the various companies.  They were all very nice and replied quickly to my emails.

Breed Media – www.wearebreed.co.uk

Flight 13 – http://www.flight13-duplication.com/index.php?id=60&L=1

Key Production – http://www.keyproduction.co.uk/Prices/vinylPrices.php

Pallas Group – http://www.pallas-group.de/vinyl-01.php

GZ – www.gzdm.cz

Handle with Care – www.handlewithcare.de

AGRM – www.agrm.com.uk

I’m really broke these days and therefore my mind is kinda preoccupied with money. I know it’s something you’re really not supposed to talk about (especially if you’re a musician), but hey.. f… it! We all need money, because this is how modern society works.

I constantly hear about no monies being left in the music industry, but still more and more albums/EPs are being recorded and professional producers/mixers/mastering engineeres are still getting paid pretty high rates. Before the Shows last album cost around 30.000 kr. ( 4022 EURO // 5682 US DOLLARS) to make and that was only for the mixing and mastering, and at that time there was no way we could have paid for the album by ourselves. Fortunately, we were lucky enough to recieve financial support from government funds to pay for it all, but never felt comfortable telling anyone. Why? Because it’s not a very cool thing to tell, I guess.

It’s too bad, though. We musicians could really benefit from being more open about such financial issues, because running an ambitious band is an expensive ordeal. All the time spent on touring and recording is costly, especially when you’re not making any money yet and still have to make rent, etc.

Don’t really know what my point is here exactly, but I know this: every time I read about a young indie band touring all over the world, or flying to Antarctica to record their new “arctic acid”-concept album with a top notch producer, I’m always left with the same unanswered question: “How the f… do you pay for all of this?”

One of the songs from the new album is named This Road to Hell (how rock is that??) and as Rasmus Gajhede Sejersen (EBOLA co-project manager and the drummer in TPP) told me, the producer Jacob Bredahl (Hatesphere, Dead Rat Studios etc.) argued that TPP needed to create a song that was suitable for drinking beers – and so they did!

Check it out here:

When asking Rasmus about his thoughts on doing a split album he replied:

We grew up in the 90′s listening to rare split albums by our favorite hard core metal artists. : Zao/Training For Utopia, Heaven Shall Burn/Caliban, Converge/Hellchild and so on. These split albums which were very hard to find and went on to become collector rarities. Today the split album between fellow bands is dead.
Therefore the EBOLA split album between The Psyke Project and As We Fight is a personal high ambitious project for me and the rest of the members, and I like the fact that this release is extremely limited and vinyls only. Sometimes you need to look back to keep ahead.

As We Fight in the studio recording EBOLA:

The album EBOLA is released, may 7th @ KB-18 Copenhagen. See you there!

Here is my favourite example. The song’s called Simeon’s Dilemma and is a pretty disturbing story about a guy promising a girl a present for her birthday that he is keeping secret in his hand. As the song progress we learn that the present is in fact the number 25 carved into the flesh of his hand. Exactly what to make of that I am not sure – but to me there is definately something exciting and very different about this song.

Enjoy:

Stalker’s my whole style
And if I get caught I’ll deny, deny, deny

Today you’re twenty-five, I made you something fine
It’s in the palm of my new hand, it’s out
You’re mostly what I think about and I’m proud
I’ve been coasting on this singles route
But I still hear your name in wedding bells
Will I look better or will I look the same rotting in hell?
You’re the only proper noun I need
Hurry, my copper crown’s gone green
Pull me, pull me on out of this tree
I’m stuck up a branch waiting
Clearly caught between two things unclear to me

Are you a female young messiah for stowaways in dugouts?
And are you what church folk mean by “the good news”?
Pulling plastic bags off heads
Or are you giving me a dirty look in the rear view, clicking the button on your U-Haul pen?
Don’t pretend you didn’t see me coming round the bend
On my fixie with the chopped horns turned in
Trailing behind your biodiesel Benz

Stalker’s my whole style
And if I get caught I’ll deny, deny, deny

Twenty-five carved with a butter knife
On the palm of my new hand, it’s out
You’re mostly what I think about