Finals, interview, review, photoshoot and new EP

"The band managed the feat of delivering an incredible energy without letting the songs suffer" -Patrik Wirén, GAFFA. Read more about the recent past in this post which contains information about:

• The district final of Livekarusellen
• A radio interview
• New EP
• A review in the music magazine GAFFA
• Last weekend's photoshoot

To begin with, we got to the finals of our district in the music competition Livekarusellen. But that's when our luck turned against us. The night before the show, Sanna became ill and threw up every 30 minutes until early in the morning the date of the show. We were so close to cancel it all, but she summoned her last powers and rocked anyway! As if that wouldn't be enough, Oscar had a cold with fever too. Anyway, we didn't win. Congratulations to Spectra who did and we wish them good luck in the last finals at the amusement park Gröna Lund.

Our gig got taped and afterwards we made an interview with Daniel Svensson from his school's radio station. We don't know exactly when it will be aired, but we'll let you know!

Another funny thing is that we have put our plans of a second EP in actions. We are right now looking for a fitting studio and hope to be done recording by late summer. We promise you four new songs, one never heard before. The band is looking forward to this EP, which will reflect our live sound more than the first one. Until then, check out our YouTube Channel for the latest songs, gigs and on-stage action!

If you would like to READ about our stage performance instead, don't miss the review in the music magazine GAFFA! Here's the link, page 41:
http://www.e-pages.dk/gaffa/2012-5-SE/41
The review is in Swedish but here's a loosely translated quote: "The band managed the feat of delivering an incredible energy without letting the songs suffer" -Patrik WirÈn, GAFFA.

And finally, this Saturday we spent a whole day taking pictures of the band with photographer Emil Magnusson (http://emilmagnusson.com). The result? You'll see soon... Here's a sneak peak ;)

That's it for now. See you later! And oh, like us on Facebook ;)

Yesterdays gig on YouTube

Damn, I’m so excited about yesterday's show! I fucking love everything around a gig, but above all, the feeling of being on stage and just let all the emotions flow with the songs. And it's so great to play on such a big stage as "Arena Satelliten" in Sollentuna. For the first time, we were involved in how we wanted our light show to be. The result was amazing! Check out some videos from the gig on YouTube. We've uploaded two of our new songs that haven't been recorded yet; 

Solitary Worker and Verbal Diarrhoea

Hope to see you on our upcoming shows!

More pics will be posted later. This is a screenshot from one of the videos:

Niklas says hi

Just wanted to say hi and try out the new blog portal. I'm off from work today so I will be focusing on resting and finishing the final pieces of our songs before the show tomorrow. Always at the last time. What happened to our planning? :P They say that the plan making part of the brain is fully developed sometime in your early twenties, but I'm 23 now and obviously not evolved yet, he he.

Anyway, last rehearsals I tried my Fender Stratocaster once more (together with my new amp, which sounds great btw!) but just as last time I ended up with the Les Paul again. Before that, I hadn't played the strat for a long time 'cuz I just don't find the singelcoil pickups to be powerful enough. But I like all the rest about it, after I'd changed the string height and some other details, so I think I'm going to buy Humbuckers instead (of singelcoil size) and the replace one or two singelcoils to get the sound I'm looking for :) I'll keep you posted on that!

Today's the final rehearsals before our small tour of six dates. Feels great to be performing live almost every week until April - Ha ha! The thought of that made butterflies visit my midsection ;) I'm very excited as you can tell. Hope to see you in the audience!

Ps. My new guitar picks arrived today! It's my own design ;) I'm happy with the result even though they're a bit cut at the edges.

A certain bassist's birthday...

Damn what a rehearsal last night! First some rearrangement in the rehearsal room when we rigged up Niklas' new amplifier. AND MY NEW MICK STAND. It sounded great and we're excited as hell right now to enter the stage on Friday. Feels awesome to get started with all the upcoming gigs, way too long since the last one! And the new song that I talked about yesterday, will be on our setlist on the tour ;)

And if you didn't know, today is a great day. Today it's our youngest member and bassist's birthday. Congrats to Oscar Ahlqvist who's turning 18! So come by the gig on Friday and celebrate him with us. ;)

You find the Facebook event for the gig here. Invite your friends and I'll see you there!

Social Pretender rehearsals:

Shopping!

Tomorrow is rehearsal time! And I've done my homework finishing the lyric and melody of a new song. I really dig that new song and it actually makes it more difficult to finish it. But I think I'm happy with the result now so it will be interesting trying it out. Hope I'll remember the lyric though... Time is short when it's closing up for the first gig of our spring tour. On Friday we'll play that new song among others so hope to see you there guys!

The Social Pretender spring tour so far:

2012-02-17 Fritidsgården Duvnäsgatan SÖDERMALM 


2012-02-24 Satelliten SOLLENTUNA 


2012-03-02 Kulturhuset Lava STOCKHOLM (wait, this is moved to an unknown date!)

2012-03-13 Fisksätra folkets hus NACKA


2012-03-23 Nova VALLENTUNA 


2012-03-31 Broder Tuck SÖDERMALM

Then we've also done some shopping from Thomann that finally arrived today and that we'll bring to the rehearsals. Feels like fuckin' Christmas! This is what we've got: 

Niklas bought a new Marshall amp.

A strobe!!! Flashy right?! 

I've always wanted a round base mic stand 

'cause they just sounds better...

Pickholder. Why not?

Guitar stand. You can never have too many.

Bass strings

Guitar strings