Summer 2021 / Summer 2022

Tale 04: Of How It Started
(#oslotoistanbul p.01)

Europe

It has been over a month since I came back from a trip of a lifetime… A project that demanded everything from me, a project that delivered the highest highs, the lowest lows and tales I will tell my grandchildren one day. But let´s start at the beginning. This is p.1 of 3 (i think) tales of the wild collaborative project

OSLO TO ISTANBUL. How it all started.

July 2021:
Wonderest Festival in Romania.

In the summer of 2021, three Australian artists (Musketeer, Lucas Laufen, Edward Hughson) asked me to join them on a roadtrip to Romania to be part of a small festival in the mountains of Transilvania. I will at some point write a more detailed piece on the festival but to make a long story short: It was absolutely magical. So many things went wrong at the festival and it was absolutely amazing and beautiful to see what can happen when a bunch of creative minds from all over the world come together to create moments and experiences that touch souls and make beautiful memories.

Voriger

On that weekend, a seed was planted that grew into a project that brought us across Europe and back to Wonderest one year later.

Inspired by the spirit of collaboration and with the intention to connect more artists with the same mindset across Europe, Joe (Musketeer) and I came up with the idea for a creative road trip that would have us and a bunch of other artists travel across the continent, organize and play concerts with local artists, record a collaborative album and film it all to tell the tale. What started as a silly idea quickly turned into a vision. And that vision brought us from OSLO TO ISTANBUL.

Leading up to June 2022.

It wasn´t that hard to find other artists that would want to join. David Ost was the first on board and Lucas Laufen was in for half of the trip too. I had worked on a music video with a filmmaker and photographer called Gildo Cassimo who I thought would be perfect for the trip. And without hesitation he said yes when I asked him if he wanted to film something crazy. Timon and Alise joined the crew shortly after and would make up the core of the band we put together to play each others songs. I am still in awe of their commitment to the project and each other. Keeping a relationship alive and thriving through a stressful and creative project like this is quite a challenge. Last but not least, David recruited Robine, an insanely talented singer from Groningen, NL that he had worked and written music with before.
We organized the project through the company of the Pink Alligator Collective that me and a lot of the artists are part of.

From the beginning, we faced multiple challenges that would maybe lead other groups to split, give up or postpone. But (speaking for myself) this obsessive feeling of I CAN NOT NOT DO THIS kept us going and working.

Challenge 01: Booking

When we started working on O2I, we were still in the middle of a pandemic. The creative sector, concert- and cultural locations, bookers and everyone involved in the live music industry was insecure, unsure and economically unstable. Trying to book concerts in cities and countries that we haven´t played in yet as small independent artists is quite a task and required a lot of emails, assurances, sacrifices and trust from bookers. It wasn´t until a few weeks before we started the trip that we knew where and how we would play. We even added a show and changed some while being on the road. Joe and Alise, who were the “booking team” were close to mental breakdowns before the tour even started. But all of us coming together we managed to book 11 concerts. And between some shows that were just … ugh, most shows we played ended up being great and magical experiences.

Challenge 02: Ourselves

Organizing a project like this in a group of 7-8 people with very different needs, expectations, work ethics and creative minds requires a lot of patience and ideally at least two managers. As most of us are full time artists and disciplined organization is not necessarily in all of our skillsets, we struggled and stumbled through the process. David and I, both coming from full time work backgrounds in an agency (me) and a tech startup (David) took on the responsibility of trying to give structure to the madness. But all of us having our own projects, needing to make a living, spending time with loved ones, we had to accept that things are just going to be a bit chaotic. Personally, I had to come to terms with pushing my artistic self to the side and go full on organization mode for a while. And to be honest, I hated it. I think we all did. But we also knew that we were working on something special.

Challenge 03: Money

I hate to say, but money was the biggest challenge in this project. You can do everything when you have money. And you have to make a lot of sacrifices if you don´t. Soon after we started working on the project, we managed to get meetings and calls with potential partners and sponsors that liked our idea and our ambition. A lot of them were willing to (and ended up) giving or lending us important equipment and products for the tour. Which is fantastic in so many ways, because we can still use it to improve our live performances, studios, sleep, outfits and work long after this tour. Sponsors included SHURE, ZOOM, KURZWEIL, AER, BLACKROLL, FC ST. PAULI and more. But the one thing that was missing was money. cash. dinero.

For context: In the meantime, Russian president Putin decided to make some terrible and evil decisions and led his country into a war that left many people and families in the Ukraine with great loss and the rest of the world in shock and the next crisis after Covid.

In the midst of a crisis and after a few failed funding applications, we had to make a tough decision: Can we pull this off without money, potentially even loosing money in the process? The answer was yes. We started a crowdfunding which made around €3.500 that helped a lot and I made the decision to throw all my savings in the ring to make sure that no one on the tour would have a significant financial disadvantage. It was still more than tight. But the knowledge that we would create things that could potentially help us make some of the money back (a record and a documentary) and create a project bigger than all of us, made my decision easier. After all, I cant imagine many other things I would rather go broke for.

On June 07, me and Joe hit the road towards Oslo in my van Flipper to meet the others.

... to be
continued

All the time

Tale 03: photo favs (01)

One of my favorite things to do is taking photos and capturing beautiful moments and people that experience them. These are some of my favorites of the last 12 months in random order.

I would love to take some more photos, learn more about the craft and share my skills.
Shoot me a message for booking or creative ideas!

February 2022

Tale 02:
of palmtrees above clouds

Salento / Valle de Cocora, Colombia

Salento: A small village in the coffee region in Colombia. 7 hours on busses south of Medellin.
Valle de Cocora: Valley where the tallest palm trees in the world grow. 30 minutes in a jeep plus 5 hour hike from Salento.

Sometimes you come across places that inspire and move you on a different level. Salento and the nearby Valle de Cocora was like that for me. Maybe it was because I had just come out of a week of being sick from a stomach virus and I finally regained some energy again to explore and enjoy. Maybe it was because of the humble and generous people I met or because of the fact that the surrounding mountains look different every time you look at them. Located in the heart of Colombias coffee region, Salento is surrounded by lush green mountains and often covered in fog. I love fog. And I love mountains. And I love palm trees.

I want to build a house.
Where palm trees grow
above the clouds.
Where the sky is pink
and I can´t help but think.
That the rain over Salento
makes me sing.
I want to build a house. Where mountains hide
behind the clouds. Sky, open.
give the storm to us.
Let the rain over Salento
wash away the dust.

Rain Over Salento.

After spending 8 hours on busses from Medellin, I spent the first few days in a beautiful hostel on the edge of the village. I was still recovering, using the downtime to catch up with some work I had not been able to finish due to spending days on end in the bathroom. Ugh. Obviously there are better things to do in a place like this than spending time in front of a laptop. But there are few places I would rather be to get some work done. I had the place to myself during the day, because most other guests were out doing tourist stuff.

Fully cleansed, work done, energy regained. Time for a hike.

The Valle de Cocora was on my list of “must sees” in Colombia. Who would want to miss the tallest palm trees in the world? As it happens while traveling, you always find other people whose plans align with yours for a few days or weeks. So my lone hike to a mystical valley turned into a group thing before it even started.

Voriger

The weather forecast looked promising until the afternoon, so we set out early. On the main square of the little town, the eight (!) of us caught one of the jeep taxis that drove us closer towards the valley. Cramped in the back of the car, some standing, holding on to the back of the roof and eyes watery from the wind. We figured, something wasn´t quite right with the jeep as we had to stop quite a few times and some locals got to work on the engine with worried faces. The jeep appeared to have issues with the brakes (very very old car), which meant, we didn´t get to our destination as early as we wanted. But we got there after all. Alive.
I guess that´s what matters.
We still opted for the hike instead of the tourist shortcut to the valley. It had rained heavily a few days before, which turned some parts of the trail into fields of mud and caused other parts of the trail to be closed due to broken bridges and raging rivers. Add so much fog to the scene that you can´t even really see the view, one might be disappointed. But honestly, I find excitement in these unexpected hurdles. It makes travel unpredictable and fun and turns boring days into stories one wants to tell and listen to.

And then, as it started to rain, some of the fog cleared and revealed breathtaking views of mountains and palm trees above clouds.