Pleasant surprises

Another mindnumbing day at the office and B is feeling weary while holding the Internet together. The phone rings. "Hello?" "Hi, this is Aamulehti calling. Your band is one of the four bands chosen to perform in our Big In Tampere competition final." Err, okay, what?

Then Bartsi remembers. A month earlier he had noticed a band competion that had an interesting main prize: a gig in the Monsters Of Pop 2007 festival in August. Arranged by Aamulehti's (the second largest newpaper in Finland) weekly Friday supplement Valo and the MOP Festival itself. Band competitions are usually pretty stupid idea, but this sounded too nice so B filled a small entry form, felt a bit bad about being a sellout for a while and then forgot all about it. And now we were chosen from around 70 bands. Well, we must be doing something right, then. Probably.

"Yeah, we're coming." "Ok, to our next issue we'll need some photos of you and a quote about why you should win." OMG, promotion! Bartsi kindly provided the newspaper folks with the lamest quote ever, something about "not believing in there's something like winning or losing in this kind of events, it's all just playing and doing your stuff." Well, that's truthful but naturally he should have said "because we're monsters and we're pop" but you really never think of an snappy answer when you need it. Some promoshots also exhanged hands, or mailboxes.

And so on next Friday 134 000 Aamulehti readers now knew who Streetcar were. Cool. They also now knew that we occasionally have 6 members (erm, no we don't), we are a tight live unit (hmm, hopefully), 'Galvatron' is a song about fleeting love (it's actually about Mara's old neighbour) and we have a touch of Lou Reed in our music (well, that's true, we hope). And that we have a drummer who gives lame quotes.

The other lucky chosen ones were Garage Flower from Helsinki (organ-driven garage rock), Poor Jim from Jyväskylä (modern rock), Genzale from Riihimäki (psychedelic 60's rock). And then there was us (err, streetcar music), which meant that Big In Tampere competition didn't actually have anyone from Tampere compeating. Oh, the irony. All bands sounded excellent and also very different from each other. This was going to be interesting.

Driving is fun!

Then a small logistical hell started. Ok, in Tampere? How will we go there, will we be overnight or go straight back? Who'll drive in the evening? Nobody wants to so overnight it is. And Mara would be in Jyväskylä on the 20th with The Scaramangas in Jyrock and would come from there. But wait, Scaras could have a gig with a Polish reggae band in Nosturi the same evening. What? Okay, but this would to be an early gig so we could still perform and then Mara would still have time to make it to Helsinki. And somehow the whole population of Finland wanted to stay overnight in Tampere that very weekend and all the hotels were booked, but finally we found a room in a small cheap hotel. And then we cancelled it, we would be going by train anyway. There's no place like your own bed. Yes. But look at all this gear we would be carrying around in Tampere totally drunk at 23:00-ish and in Helsinki at 0:30. "Aww, fuck it", B thought finally, "I'll drive". And what will the weather be like? Snowstorm? Goddamn, it's the train then. No wait, latest weather info just in, it's just 3 degrees and really irritating cold rain. Okay, by car then. And no reggae gig for Mara either. Great. Säätö, säätö, säätö, but finally we were ready to leave on the cold noon of 21th.

You used to be so cool so turn the heat up to 29 degrees

Okay, all the stuff was loaded into the car. This time it was easy since there was a full backline waiting in Tampere. A pop-orientated backline, we might add, so no Marshall stacks or large drumkits, thank god. It was really cold so chilly Peppe insisted immediately that the car temperature would be kept in maximum 29 degrees. Us indie musicians really should get some heatpreserving lard over our thin bones and ropey muscles. Luckily some of us have it already, Bartsi was comfortable running around in just a coat and a t-shirt. And onwards to the autobahn our little hothouse went with Neil Young blasting from the stereos.

Tampere. The city of wonder. There's Näsinneula and...erm, something else. And Yo-talo, that we located easily and found Mara there inside waiting totally un-fresh from Jyväskylä. After hearing some interesting Scaramangas adventures it was time to soundcheck. Damn, stage sound has never been better, everything was crystal clear. Totally satisfied Streetcar observed an endless flood of really young looking folks dressed in brown (Genzale) carrying loads of exotic equipment to the stage. Sax. Trombone. Large Fender amp. A very big home organ! Wow. These guys can't leave home without a truck.

Then it was time to go to eat some local exotic speciality called kebab and drink some special local brew called Karhu and wait for the magic moment to come. Since this gig was kind of a Saturday matinee running from 17:00 to 21:00 the moment actually came very soon and it was time to go back and check out the competition, since we would play last.

Race for the prize

After some hassle with lost judges and some words of welcome from our nice organizers (who all seemed more or less have something to do with the band Tigerbombs) the race was ready to begin.

First up: Garage Flower. GF had a problem with a missing drummer but their solo guitarist filled the spot and so the band was perhaps a bit more punkrock-ish than expected. What happened to those lovely country songs from band's myspace-page? Good but perhaps some variance would be nice. Nice jumping though and a lots of kudos for rock'n'roll song endings (and all those jumps). And while the stage sounds were good the overall house sound was perhaps a muddy, vocals were especially quiet for all the bands.

Second up was Poor Jim who definately were the most skilled musicans here today and also had at least one very potential hit song with 'Spaceman'. Or was it 'Spaceboy'? 'Spaceperson'? Well, someone from space anyway. They seemed to have lots of friends present. We had some too, both of which were called Teemu (+ their girlfriends). Though Teemu #2 knew also Poor Jim, so he was kinda like a double agent. Teemu #1 took some really excellent photos with his totally pro camera. Cool.

Genzale was third. Now, Genzale was the band that had sounded most like the winner at least according to their myspace-songs but there was always a hope that they would really suck live. Did they? Fuck no! 20 minutes 60's influenced tunes followed all played back to back with no inerruptions, songs just flow from one to another. Horn section blasts, organ tweeps and beeps and language changes from english to finnish and back again. And the band even look really cool, though a bit, well, young. But that's so adorable, too, at least that's what the audience seems to think. Damn, awesome stuff.

Well, how do you follow a Sun Ra Fucking Arkestra? Do the best you can, of course, and that's what Streecar tried to do next. And we didn't fail, probably one of the best gigs we have done, though it was so short that we really didn't get the motor running at full speed. Fun was had and the audience seemed to appriciate too, though some "old hippie" (Ville's description) came to say afterwards that "That was really great but you need to do something about your looks." Erm, okay? What's wrong with 'Ville & the local tech support team' -look?

After Streetcar there was some suspenseful waiting (we did leave our gear on stage, just in case...) and then the judges gave their verdict. Or first the audience gave their verdict since the "audience's favourite band" prize went to Poor Jim. And the main prize goes to...*artistic pause*...*ta-daa*... Genzale! Well, no real surprize there. So we had to clear the stage for the big G who did a couple of songs more, still sounding great.

And then we packed all the gear back to the car, found our way out of Tampere (that was hard) and drove home while doing karaoke versions of Tom Petty and Joy Division songs and taking a lot of piss breaks. And we arrived to Helsinki just in time to see how the really cool people party in Belly.

So we didn't win anything but were another experience richer. And on the other hand it's as Ville teary-eyed explained: "we were all winners for being here" (though some were more winners that others i.e. they actually won something).

But just as we were leaving the doorman was explaing the proceedings to his colleque who had just arrivied to work. "Ok, the first two bands were Tigerbombs-wannabies, the third one was really great and the fourth one was...". And then he noticed Ville and B who had quietly stopped and were eavesdropping by the doorway and never finished his sentence. So now we'll never know the final ultimate verdict of our abilities. Oh, well...

The usual crap pics and some better ones, too:

Yes, we are definately in Tampere!	Ville the Vegetarian	Elephant penis?
"Uuh, hot!"	Hanging around in Tampere	The usual crappy Streetcar stage photo but notice the photographer taking some good pics.
This photo is so great!	Ville	Mara looks a bit like Neil Young here.
B/W action.	The hunchback of Yo-talo.	"Streetcar...dix points...."
Goin' home at 130 km/h. B is a good driver, honest!	Backseat karaoke.

Photos 7-12 by Teemu Keskinen