CCAP

The Sound Of Stavanger

Apr 2009

New Helldorado single!

A MP3 version of "Ten Little Demons" from Helldorado´s new album has been added to the jukebox on the "CCAP ABOUT" page. Have a listen and let us know if you like it! The tracks is being sent out to radio and blogs this week. The track will also be available through iTunes, Spotify etc soon

”Ten Little Demons” is the first single from Helldorado´s forthcoming album ”Sinful Soul” (CCAP085). The album will be released throughout Scandinavia in May 2009, parallel with international digital release. Physical release in the rest of Europe in the fall supported by a European tour.

Helldorado has been described as “the sensation of a burning sun on your neck, crunched sand between your teeth, a salty taste on your lips, a shaky finger on the trigger of a Colt 45, circling vultures silhouetted against a blue-white sky, a double whiskey on an empty stomach, and the smell of bacon, beans, gunpowder, leather & sweat”.

Any further attempt to define Helldorado would reveal that they are firmly entrenched in the rock-punk-surf-folk-americana-country tradition, with Tarantino and Morricone hiding in the wings... They succeed in combining elements of their favourite American & European music traditions and subcultures, and still manage to sound unmistakably like Helldorado.

Discography
Lost Highway (minialbum) - 2002
Directors Cut - 2004
The Ballad Of Nora Lee – 2005
Sinful Soul – 2009

Biography
Helldorado was formed in the spring of 2001 in Stavanger, Norway. Most of the members had been playing in the local band The Tramps for several years, and had considerable live and studio experience with that band. They where looking for a much darker and broader musical landscape than they could find in The Tramps, and got together playing punked up surf covers with their new band Helldorado. After a while the band and their sound started to develop. They started adding their own songs to the set, and after a couple of gigs the rumours about the band was flying around town. In the fall of 2002 they entered the Stavanger traditional ZOOM week at legendary local rock club Checkpoint Charlie (a full week of local bands playing & battling for a spot at the ZOOM national finals in Oslo). Helldorado won the Stavanger leg, went to the final in Oslo and won there as well. The band was awarded a full Norwegian tour + a couple of gigs in the UK and Germany (Popkomm in Cologne).

In November 2002, shortly after winning the national ZOOM finale they released their first mini album Lost Highway at the local label CCAP.

The album received stunning reviews in the Norwegian music press (Dagbladet; “..six strong, minor tuned song”s, VG; “Dusty and dramatic”, Stavanger Aftenblad; “Helldorado is a mescaline cactus. The best Norwegian rockband today”, Rogalands Avis; “Americana to kill for”, Nordlys;” This is the best CD I have heard in a long, long time” etc) After they finished the extensive ZOOM tour, they spent considerable time in the studio in the summer of 2003. They developed a more aggressive, heavier and minor based edge. The fall was spent touring and perfecting their skills and their live sound In February 2004 Helldorado finally released their long awaited debut album Directors Cut in Scandinavia

"HELLDORADO - Director's Cut ”This is an aptly named album by this excellent Norwegian outfit - their echoey, gothic take on rock'n'roll drips atmosphere and attitude, and would be perfect soundtracking some Quentin Tarantino flick. Blood Shack's clattering tale of lust and vampirism sets the mood, and the other 11 tracks are filled with epic quantities of murder, deceit, guts, gore, hellfire and brimstone, all of it leavened with a dark, twisted sense of humour. There's also more than a hint of Nick Cave in Dag S Vagle's songs and voice, and in a fair and just world, Helldorado would find similar amounts of fawning press coverage and sales. Some chance." (The Belfast Telegraph)

After Directors Cuts release in Europe by Glitterhouse in October 2004, both critics and music lovers all over the continent are discovering the band.

Glitterhouse UK says this about the Directors Cut album: “Hellfire seems to be burning in each of their songs, be it the mighty, but balladesque tracks like "Diesel & Bones", the hard-rocking tracks like "Payrolled" or "Killer on the Highway" or the plain desert-rock anthems, such as the masterful "Blood Shack", there can be no doubt, Helldorado rocks! Apart from that, they are looking way cool (as if they just escaped the lunatics' asylum), and their live shows are legendary. Their musical roots are pretty clear: Gun Club, 16 Horsepower, Morricone, Chris Isaak and/or The Cramps, obviously without being copy cats of the aforementioned, they add something very specific to their music. It may be their ability to write fantastic tunes, hooklines that will make you shiver, and their ability to keep the quality of their songs, as diverse as they may be up on the highest level throughout the 11 tracks of "Director's Cut"”

The Ballad Of Nora Lee is the third release from the Norwegian quartet. The album shows a band that is still deeply fascinated and inspired by American music and subculture, combining elements from different genres but still managing to sound unmistakably like Helldorado. These guys are no copycats, they mean it man! They pick from the best and make it their own. Mighty ballads, stompin´rockers, desert-rock anthems, Mexican trumpets, spooky strings and rocking attitude, Helldorado´s got it all. Since their last album, Directors Cut, the band has taken a step closer to the Mexican border, but the band still evokes the sensation of a burning sun on your neck, crunched sand between your teeth, a salty taste on your lips, a shaky finger on the trigger of a Colt 45, circling vultures silhouetted against a blue-white sky, a double whiskey on an empty stomach, and the smell of bacon, beans, gunpowder, leather & sweat.

The Ballad Of Nora Lee also saw the band having a surprise hit in Turkey with the album track “The Drinking Song”. The track was playlisted by Radio Eksen and quickly attracted a lot of attention. Helldorado has done four sold out tours of Turkey, been covered extensively in Turkish media and gained a new level of popularity when an adapted version of Drinking Song became the official song of the Turkish National Football Team.

Helldorado is a fantastic live band and their gigs are legendary. Combine their abilities as a live band with their natural coolness and a bunch of rocking tunes that other bands would kill for, and you have a success in the making. So get into your 65 Chevy, a few bottles of Whiskey, grab some good looking, mini-skirts wearing girls and drive through the night, waiting for what will happen. The perfect soundtrack is already there!

www.helldorado.no
www.myspace.com/officialhelldorado

New shows added to Geoff Berner tour

New message from Geoff Berner

Dear Everybody,
 
Well, the advance tickets sold out for the Thursday show at Sound of Mu.  We'll still sell a few at the door, but lately I've found that the anxiety of having sold out a show and having to turn friends away is just as stomach-grinding as the anxiety of the old days when nobody showed up.  So we've added an extra show for Friday, April 10.  Lasso will play again, and Oslo's own accordion songstress Guro von Germeten will join the bill. If you decide to come to both, I promise I'll play different songs.

 Also, sorry I forgot to mention the Aarhus show in the last message.  What kind of person forgets Aarhus?  Unforgivable.  I'm playing at the University Bar there, on Monday, April 27.

April 6 - Kristiansand - Charlie's
April 8 - Trondheim - Blaest
April 9 - Oslo - Sound of Mu, with Lasso, 21:00 Advance Tickets may be purchased at Sound of Mu.
April 10 - Oslo - Sound of Mu, with Lasso and Guro von Germeten 21:00. Advance Tickets may be purchased at Sound Mu.
April 15 - Helsinki, Finland (11 am) Live performance on Radio Helsinki
April 15 - Helsinki, Finland - Bar Loose, with Mäkkelä
April 16 - Tampere, Finland - Kulttuurikahvila Hertta, with Mäkkelä
April 17 - Sein joki, Finland - Rokkikellari, with Mäkkelä
April 18 - Stockholm, Sweden - KGB
April 20 - Göteborg, Sweden - Mitt Andra Hem, Andra Långgatan 29
April 22 - Malmö, Sweden - Bodoni
April 24 - Aalborg, Denmark - 1000fryd, with Dusty Awe
April 25 - Copenhagen, Denmark - Selina Bar, with Dusty Awe
April 26 - Odense, Denmark - Studenterhus (EARLY AFTERNOON SHOW!!!  16:30!)
April 27 - Aarhus, Denmark - University Bar
May 1 - Belfast, Northern Ireland - Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, with Jinx Lennon   

 

Thomas Dybdahl compilation

This fall Universal Norway is releasing a Thomas Dybdahl compilation including tracks from the October Trilogy albums released on CCAP ("that great October sound", "Stray Dogs" and "Now You´ll dance For Me, New York City") and the "Science" album released on Universal. Thomas will also tour Norway with Lars Horntveth & Trondheimsolistene. More information on Thomas Dybdahl´s website

Everywhere in Scandinavia, and the Key to Bruno, Saskatchewan

The latest newsletter from Geoff Berner:

Dear Everybody,
First of all, I want to alert you to the fact that now it's finally time to hit Scandinavia with the new album.  It's out on the Checkpoint Charlie Audio Productions label on April 1st, no joke!

I'm coming your way if you live in Scandinavia.  Oslo! Helsinki! Stockholm! Göteborg! Copenhagen! Aarhus! and much, much more, dammit.  If I'm not coming TO your town, I'm going to be somewhere awfully NEAR it, at least by Canadian standards.  Look below to see.

The Canadian tour's all wrapped up, and I'd like to thank you all for coming.  Had a lot of sold-out shows, went to a lot of fascinating places, and saw my whole country, except for the North.

I love playing the major cities, but sometimes the most interesting shows are those small town shows we plug in for the early part of the week.  That's where you go off the beaten track a little bit.

On the last leg of the tour, a big highlight was our visit to Bruno, Saskatchewan, population 571.  Bob Wiseman booked the show, and drove us there from Winnipeg.  His GPS device told us to take a turn off the highway onto a road that didn't exist.  We eventually found an icey dirt track that took us into town, across beautiful white open prairie.

The show was put on by Tyler at "All Citizens".  Tyler is a hip (and more importantly, very nice) artist from Vancouver, who somehow found his way to rural Saskatchewan, and realized that it was where he really belonged.  Sort of a "Lawrence of Saskatchewan" story.  He sells clever, cool art on consignment, to the bemusement of most Bruno-ites.  But he seems very comfortable and well-integrated there, having furnished much of his place from the closing of the town convent, when the Last Nun (a pal of Tyler's) retired.

Before the entertainment began, the Deputy Mayor of Bruno gave a short speech, thanking Bob and I for making the effort to come to Bruno, and presenting us with the Key to the Town.  It's an actual key, hand-crafted from wood, with our names on it.  Follow
this link to see a photo by of us receiving it:

Bob and I have agreed to share custody of the key on a semi-annual basis.  It's my understanding that, legally speaking, having the key to a city or town means that you can go in any door within the town limits, locked or not.  So Bob and I both realized that it would probably be wrong for one man to wield so much power all year long.

So if you see me in Scandinavia, and I look all puffed-up and full of myself, that is why.

The tour dates are below.

Take care, and enjoy the Spring!

Yours,

Geoff

April 2 - Stavanger, Norway - Cementen
April 3 - Voss - Vossajazz Festival
April 5 - Bergen - Logen
April 6 - Kristiansand - Charile's
April 8 - Trondheim - Blaest
April 9 - Oslo - Live Performance on NRK National Radio, the Harald Are Lund Show, 19:00
April 9 - Oslo - Sound of Mu, with Lasso, 21:00 Advance Tickets may be purchased at Sound of Mu.
April 15 - Helsinki, Finland (11 am) Live performance on Radio Helsinki
April 15 - Helsinki, Finland - Bar Loose, with Mäkkelä
April 16 - Tampere, Finland - Kulttuurikahvila Hertta, with Mäkkelä
April 17 - Sein joki, Finland - Rokkikellari, with Mäkkelä
April 18 - Stockholm, Sweden - KGB
April 20 - Göteborg, Sweden - Mitt Andra Hem, Andra Långgatan 29
April 22 - Malmö, Sweden - Bodoni
April 24 - Aalborg, Denmark - 1000fryd, with Dusty Awe
April 25 - Copenhagen, Denmark - Selina Bar, with Dusty Awe
April 26 - Odense, Dendmark - Studenterhus (EARLY AFTERNOON SHOW!!!  16:30!)
May 1 - Belfast, Northern Ireland - Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, with Jinx Lennon

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