So apparently its 2017 which is great as everybody seems to have become a bit fed up with 2016. For me 2016 was pretty ok with a lot of travelling and touring and then an incredibly productive fall.
Some of the highlights were without doubt the Necromonkey tour in October, Recording with Fredrik Klingwall, The Pixie Ninja album, The Gösta Berlings saga sessions, the Akaba tour in February, playing with Il Tempio delle Clessidre in Genoa just to mention some of the adventures. The Necromonkey tour stands out as it was a kind of weird struggle. Within 24 hours after leaving Stockholm everything sort of fell apart. Losing our luggage at JFK, our Fender Rhodes contact in Brooklyn being a no-show, trying to use a so called repaired set of Taurus pedals that turned out to be glitchier than ever and than slowly piecing our backline back together and finishing on a remarkable high note in Chicago with a guest appearance by our friend Mike Keneally.
Both me and David are fairly resourceful people but these issues and just the sheer amount of them were impossible to solve by ourselves. The tour would had been a very stationary quiet event
if it wasnt for Jim Robinson, Ray Loboda, Jon Yager, Cat Roache and Tom Doncourt. We cant thank you enough. We were also very lucky to get to open for Rikard Sjöbloms band. Great guys and a complete pleasure to tour with.
Jon, Jim, Tony and David in Chicago
Touring is a long series of problem solving, gaffa taping and spotify cruising and than the occasional music playing. Ive been doing it my entire life on different levels and I still enjoy it immensely. When you have a well oiled machinery on the road there is simply nothing better.
Thomas from Änglagård was asked in a interview why he wasnt touring with the band and he said "I try to make my life as simple as possible, touring (with Änglagård) is the exact opposite of that".
Someone asked me why Thomas wasnt touring with the band and I always replied "He is the smart one"
After I came back home a feverish flood of recording started. I try to do as much as possible without questioning or taking things apart. I just record them and wait. I might go back and add stuff but its also very possible Ill just throw them on the heap of 700+ songs I have written and just see how it survives. Picasso is apparently the most producrive Artist of all time and did 144000 pieces...They cant all be Guernica, right? Some of them must be small, simple and spontaneous.
Cthulu Cream is one song that is exactly that. Its simple, naive, clumsy and short. But it is something. And if you hate the song the title is still pretty great.
https://soundcloud.com/rothhandlestudios/cthulu-cream
