Hi All!

I'm staying at my family's summer place while writing this, and I realize what an extraordinary privilege I am enjoying. Yes, my personal life is lovely; adorable. <3, And my professional life is a full fuelled star shuttle ready for takeoff, preferably fuelled with some ecologically sustainable energy form! But frankly the greatest of privileges is in the writing of this blog! (right now)


I’d like to give you a sincere picture of our daily doings and happy happenings. Normally our days are densely packed with dire labour, and I really mean it when I say that this could and should  be a true quote: “They are the most hard-working group in the industry”. But I have to inform you: this week I’m spending with my dearest treasure, in a lovely lakeside environment, joined by dozen of my amiable old friends in the weekend.

Last week was all busy, starting with a gig on Monday. Tuesday we had band practice and two meetings. One meeting was with the film makers Artur and Emil Sallinen from Clutch Productions with whom we planned an upcoming music video. The other meeting was, and is über secret… XD After the hard work Axel took us on a thrilling ride in the Helsinki archipelago. We stopped for pizza on a small island where I frightened my taste buds by picking one with goat cheese, fresh arugula, sweet basil and STRAWBERRY! The risk was worth it I tell you =) !!

I’m had some problems supplying this blog with pictures, as my phone (and all the rest of my valuables too x’/  ) got stolen on Cyprus. Now Cyprus asks for a bailout from the EU to back up it's banking sector. That lucky Cypriot who took my MacBook has already got his share of the common European welfare.
In this desperate moment of picturelessnes I have refered to Olli and Facebook for help =)


But life goes on, although unmistakably a bit slower, on a packard bell minilaptop borrowed from my mum. <3

(just got the post up 3min before Tuesday)

Ciao!

//Paul <3

Lintsi

Wow! It's only Tuesday, yet it has been a crazy week for us! First let me apologize about the fact that I'm a day late with this blog entry, but yesterday was so hectic that I simply didn't have time. So what happened?

As many of you might know we had a gig with the Finnish teen sensation Robin yesterday at the Peacock-theater at Linnanmäki (Amusement park in Helsinki). It was a sold-out show, which meant that a thousand people were cheering at the top of their lungs. We also did an episode for a Finnish TV program called "Summeri", like I said it was a busy day! :)

The day started when we first arrived at the Peacock-Theater in the morning, and I have to say it was so nice to open the door to this big room and see that everything from the instruments to the lighting were all set up for us. And there was this huge led-screen behind the stage blinking "Satin Circus" in all the different colors and animations. Since everything was set up and the catering looked so tempting, we decided to start the day with a nice breakfast on the sunny rocks of Linnanmäki.

As we were halfway through our soundcheck the camera crew from YLE rushed in. We were supposed to do an interview for a youth TV-show called "Summeri", but since they were a bit early, they decided to film the rest of our soundcheck too. Usually we take the soundcheck a bit easier but since there was a camera crew filming us for the TV, we put on the full show. It must have been the most intense soundcheck those sound engineers have ever seen! :D

So after the check we headed to the amusement park to do the interview. Now, could you imagine a more perfect place for Satin Circus to do an interview than an amusement park? Me neither. So for a few hours we went around Linnanmäki doing the interview, went to the roller coasters and merry-go-rounds, played the amusement park games and had such a fun and relaxed time despite the fact that we were filmed for the whole time.

And the gig itself! It was amazing! 1000 people going crazy in this packed room, the light show and the led-screen! One of the best gigs so far :)

After the gig we spent some time with Robin and his crew. He's such a nice guy and we had some great fun with him. We also went out to see our fans, to write autographs and so on. It was so nice to once again see so many people who were so thrilled about us and our music. Thank you so much to all our fans (Popsters)!!! You guys keep us going! <3

                                                                              Meeting some fans after the gig

This morning we had a couple of meetings already, and there are some big things ahead! But that's another story… ;D

Enjoy the summer!

- Social Joe <3

Midsummer

Hi guys!

Axel has been in Germany and Paul's been in Cyprus. So guess what Olli and I have been doing? I'd like to say we've been super productive. But we're allowed to take it easy every now and then as well! :) We had a great Midsummer in town! The best thing about Midsummer in Helsinki is that it's so calm and silent. 

 That said, we did finish a new song. Can't wait for you to hear it! By the way, we just released a new teaser of Own the World Tonight. Enjoy!

We have some great gigs coming up. We play at the Peacock Theater in Linnanmäki the 2.7 with Robin. Get your tickets HERE! And fast because there's not many tickets left! We're also playing with Alina Devecerski in Helsinki, Korjaamo the 5.9. Her hit song is #2 in Spotify's most played in Sweden. For a full list of our gigs check out our website. Also don't forget to follow us on Twitter and subscribe to our YouTube account! Stay tuned!

  (Yay, so many links to click on!)

We just got a teaser of the fruits of our labor from the lovely photo-shoot with Karri Harju, Timo Varamäki, Petriina Suomela & Kristian Palmu. Here's a preview of the upcoming set! They did such a great job!

So I hope to see you all on Monday the 2nd in Linnanmäki, it's gonna be great! If you want to hear our song Peach Party just listen to Radio X3M! You should also send in SMS texts (for free on their site) and request it! 

That's it for me now! And sh#t, I'm 16 minutes behind schedule Hope the boys won't kill me :)

Stay Classy Popsters! krippe ~~~ヾ(＾∇＾)'ー♪

Summertime

Hiya popsters!

It's been a really long, but really really fun week! So many things have happened in such a short time, so there hasn't really been any time to sleep or eat or do anything else at all :D Last week we did two unplugged gigs, a radio interview, a festival gig, some vocal and guitar recording, and wrote a new song and practiced more than ever. And confirmed 2 new gigs! (Kaapelitehdas 21.9 and Korjaamo 5.9, check out the details at www.satincircus.com)

The Yobot-gig was great! We played in the Frozen Yogurt bar and everybody had a great time. And the froyo was goood! 

On tuesday we recorded guitars and vocals at Neomusic to the song Hello Hello that some of you have heard on our recent gigs. On Friday we did an interview for Radio X3M and played Peach Party and Hello Hello unplugged. 

At YLE

The best part is that Peach Party got chosen to X3M's radio playlist which is a really cool thing since they choose only 4 new songs a week. We had to compete against Katy Perry and Coldplay but I guess they liked us ;) So, to hear the full version of Peach Party, listen to Radio X3M!!! It's the only way to hear the full version since it hasn't been released anywhere else yet!

On Saturday we played at Popkalaset in Jakobstad. 25 degrees and sunny! And our backstage included a swimming pool and a mini golf course! Awesome! 

Btw we now have an instagram account, check it out, just search for satincircus!

We signed dozens of autographs and took lots of pictures with new fans, it's really nice to see that when people see us for the first time some get hooked immediately! After our gig in Tammisaari last week we got 40 new facebook-fans in one day! Crazyy!

This time (in Jakobstad) we stayed til the end and saw all the other bands too, and our favorite was The Pusher, a Swedish pop/rock band that were just soooo good on stage, you could see how they enjoyed every move they made! They had to borrow my midi cable cause their own was broken so i felt kinda important too :D 

But the coolest thing about the Pusher was that they had their own Segway in their tourbus(!!!!!!) Watching the other artists trying to operate the device was amusing, apparently it's not as easy as it looks :D That's one thing we need. Im not going anywhere on tour without a Segway! Or a hot air balloon.. (now THAT would be something.)

We chatted with the guys from the Pusher and although our music styles are quite different, the basic idea of the band is the same: four best friends making music together and enjoying every minute of it. During the last month we've been practicing every single day and writing songs and recording stuff and playing gigs and taking care of gig-booking and stuff, so when we're doing all these things 8 hours a day we're kind of becoming a family. (A very weird kind of family though…) When we drove home from Jakobstad and were way too tired off all the partying and laughed at the worst jokes in human history and ran in the summer rain to get candy from the store I just realized that this is it. We may some day be the biggest band in the world but that's not really important. Doing all this with the guys is already a dream come true.

Why do they always spell it with a K????????

Coke in a glass bottle. Pure happiness!

The Pusher's been warming up for Sunrise Avenue during the last months, and speaking of Sunrise Ave, I just arrived in Berlin, probably the only capital in the world where a Finnish band gets more radio airplay than Katy Perry and Lady Gaga together (Hollywood Hills was the most played song on the German radios last year, with more than 50 000 plays!) I hope the people here will like us as much when the time comes ;) 

Blog writing and breakfast in Berlin!!!

I'm in Berlin cause this week is one of the two weeks we decided to take vacation from Satin Circus this summer, but when things start to happen there really is no time off. As I'm writing this in a Café in central Berlin, Krippe's on a gig, Olli's on a meeting with Music Export Finland, and Paul.. Well he's at Aya Napa in Cyprus partying like the party animal he is ;) I came to Berlin cause my good friend is currently living here, looking for inspiration for an opera he's composing music to. I'm looking forward to getting to know all the cool places, after all this might be our home some day..

And Sunrise Avenue's on the Café radio again.

I saw Krippe two days ago, Olli yesterday and Paul this morning at the airport but I already miss them all. Can't wait to get back to the SC-life!

And speaking of that, we're warming up for Robin at the Peacock Theater in Linnanmäki July 2nd at 6 pm, it's almost sold out so get your tickets soon!

And Osla Live is approaching too. Can't wait to play our synth riffs to Europe, after all they wrote the best synth riff in the history of the world ;)

I might have some meetings this week with German music industry people, but let's see what happens ;) love you all <3

// Axxl

Festival Life

Ciao!

The first half of Popkalaset 2012 festival is over. Despite the subtle but continuous rainfall, we had a gig to remember! First of all I want to thank all our fans and friends who were attending in spite of the weather, and also the fans who joined through the live stream =), and my own beloved, crazy, fan-club especially. You never let me down <3


Backstage arrangements were nice, with enough candy for all of us, and enough towels to keep our onstage MacBook Pro® s dry =/. And all the staff was friendly. I don't have a pic of our backstage room, but, you probably know one of those trunks that construction workers live in on the construction sites?... Yea, it was one of those =). I mean, it was cool. Not bad! Our own bad was that we had messed up with our hospitality rider, and you know; didn't get all the food and "soda" we wanted. But at least they had good sandwiches <3 ...and towels. 

When we started from Helsinki the rain started pouring down, and by the time we were in Tammisaari the stage and festival area were all soaked. The crew were armed with wipers, and wiped the stage dry, and carried literally all our stuff onstage. Ahh, that treatment! I wish we could do that on every Liberté gig. Any volunteers?


I think we really nailed this gig. Everything felt so good. We had a really, really good monitor mixer (in case he reads this). We had a slightly more refined, and "fashion" look than usual, with the aid from our visual artist Timo. Who do you think looked best? =) Now for a short stream of pics from the show. Many thanks to Maria Manelius for the colorful photos!

 Thanks to Yle for this photo =)

 Lovely audience!

After the gig: autographs!


Personally I love being on a stage of this size. You have the freedom to move (which is not always the case in our practice place!! (man, I thought moving freely was written in the human rights code)) and I somehow feel more comfortable up there, than on a small intimate stage.


I think the gig will be shown on the Finnish channel "YLE Fem" in the near future, but I'm not quite sure now. I'll keep you informed.


Remember our acoustic video from Luomustudio?
Well, theres more of that to come!!!
On Wednesday 13th at 14:30 p.m. we'll do a acoustic gig at Yobot, a frozen yogurt bar in Töölö, Helsinki. It's gonna be a small setup, for a few lucky fans, and some even luckier passersby. (this is one of those more intimate shows *shivering* =D)
Check out Yobot here:
http://www.facebook.com/YobotYogurt




Next week there'll be more on Popkalaset 2012, but from another town, and another band member.


'Till then, have a grrrreat time!




//Paul

See You in June

Po-po-po-popsters!

Wow, Saturday is coming and it means only one thing: Popkalaset http://www.popkalaset.com/artister/)! We're gonna hit the big stage there at 4 pm, and boy are we excited! We've been getting ready for this gig for a while now and the show is gonna be on a whole new level. I don't want to reveal too much, but it's going to be the biggest leap forward since we started so you might not want to miss the show!

There's this cool new frozen yogurt place called Yobot  in Töölö that we like a lot. What would be a better place for Satin Circus to throw a gig? Exactly! So we'll play an unplugged gig there someday next week (we'll tell you the date once we get our schedules straight). So if you want to have a relaxed afternoon with us, eating frozen yogurt and listening to Satin Circus' songs, please stay tuned to our Facebook and Twitter and we'll tell you the exact time when it's "going down, baby"! ;D

Last week we rolled out the "Peach Party" teaser from our EP and now it's time reveal the next one for "See You in June"! 

P.S. We just got word from Germany that we can start playing our songs on the Finnish radios, so don't be too surprised if you suddenly hear Krippe's voice everywhere :P

And we're live on Radio X3M on Friday, June 15th at 3PM!! We'll play a couple of songs unplugged and do an interview! You can watch the live stream at X3M.fi or listen to 98.8. (in Helsinki)

P.P.S. Look what I just got from New York!! You don't see ones like these everyday! 

See you in June,

Social Joe <3

Gigs & Photo-shoots

Yo Popsters!
Another great week behind us! We had two magnificent shows and one amazing photo-shoot session. More gig offers have been raining in so you have more chances to see us live. For example @Popkalaset! Be sure to reserve your tickets fast! :)


Big thanks to everyone that attended the Liberté & Kaivohuone gigs! You made it a night to remember! <3 For all of you that haven't yet been able to see our show, we give this live experience right in your home! Enjoy, Peach Party!


On Sunday we had an absolutely amazing photo-shoot session with our designer Timo Varamäki, photographer Karri Harju & our personal stylist Petriina Suomela. Kristian Palmu was our helping hand! We are so happy to have them on board! Here's a quick photo of the whole team, except for the photographer Karri of course!

We're so excited and eagerly waiting for the rest of it!
Loving the new looks! Quite sassy if I may say. Timo is full of crazy and lovely ideas <3 Along with Petriinas amazing styling expertise and Karris incredible photographing skills this session turned out extraordinary! A new lovely Satin Circus.

Here's some more photos from the
gig in Leipätehdas, Vaasa.

The ever so lovely Paul with a sweet tie!

                     Woop Woop!

Photos (last five) by YLE X3M / Ann-Catrin Granroth


Summer holidays are already here for some of us! But for the ones struggling with the last week, you can do it! :) Stay tuned for we'll upload more teasers from our EP the following weeks!!! Here's Peach Party once again! Pop on!



Have a lovely week and take care! Stay classy dear popsters! <3
-krippe ~~~ヾ(＾∇＾)'ー♪

EP!!!!! and Luomustudio!

Heyyyy! Summer is here, and so are the smoothies!

It's been a great week! We finally got our EP ready, and that's a really big thing for us. We've had this band for two years, and up until now we've done everything ourselves. We've learned a lot during these two years so when we finally went to the studio with some of the best pop-producers in Finland we had really high expectations. Fortunately the results after almost three months of hard work were even better than we could have expected! We've spent a lot of long nights at the studio with the producers and we weren't the easiest clients, but the final result speaks for itself!! Thanks to Janne, Joonas and Miikka for the patience!

The last process of making the EP was the mastering, something that nobody (apart from those who do it) really seems to know anything about. It's the final polish that makes the music magically sound good on any device, from your phone's own speakers to the car's and to house-sized stadium speakers. Our mastering was done at Chartmakers. It was really cool just sitting there on comfortable chairs, listening to when our good-sounding songs got even better :D

 Mastering Room at Chartmakers

Svante Forsbäck, the number one mastering engineer in Finland, mastered our EP. He's also mastered records for Rammstein and other international acts.

HERE IT IS <3 (don't worry, that's not the final cover :D)

Celebrating with a bottle of Bollinger at my place!

We're SO sorry that you can't listen to this EP yet, but don't worry, the time will come! We've sent it to a couple of industry professionals in Europe, and though I can't tell you anything about the answers we've got, I have to say that it turns out we're not the only ones who think this stuff is good ;)

Just wait for it… And while you wait, be sure to come check us out LIVE!! After all, the reason why we do music is to be playing it live for our fans, and that's what we do best. So this wednesday, Club Liberte, 9 pm!!

https://www.facebook.com/events/377332182330682/

Another thing that happened last week: our unplugged Peach Party video was released by Luomustudio! One camera, one microphone, totally unplugged! (batteries for my toy synth were allowed ;))
This is what it looks like!

We've been planning to have an unplugged mini-concert in the beginning of the summer at a place called Yobot in Töölö. They have the best frozen yogurt!!  (AND SMOOTHIES!) Stay tuned on our facebook and twitter so you don't miss it! :)

See you! (in June…)

-Axxxl

Popturné 2012

AY CARAMBA PEOPLE! WE WON the "PoPturné 2012"! 

And this is a big thing, 'cause guess what? They left a spot for the winner on a big Finnish summer festival "Popkalaset"! 

The final round of the competition took place in Vaasa, in a bar called Leipätehdas. Our trip to Vaasa started just like any other normal Satin Circus day: with a phone call to Krippe. 

A: "Where the hell are you?" 

K: wakes up "uh? Oh Shit!" 

Besides that (not totally unpredicted) delay, our trip to was awesome. We argued about finnish grammar, remembered 46 american states out of 50, listened to our own, now nearly complete recordings and goofed around in Axel's Volvo for five whole hours. 

Driving five hours for a 15 minute gig may sound totally insane, but it made perfect sense to us. Yes, the final was between five bands, each playing only a maximum of 15 minutes, and then the winner was chosen by a jury. Tough game!! All of the bands were good, and one that we especially liked was Timshel, with their playful songs and their lead singers funky moves. Don't get me wrong when I say this, cause we believe in our thing to 100%, but this time we were totally not expecting to win this competition. And when the time was due for the judges to decide the winner, we where all shaking! I haven't been so nervous since high-schools book presentations. X-/

We won! And we, and Radio X3M have not left anyone uninformed about that, I think. =D Satin Circus was in all media that night! Simultaneously live-streamed to the internet and live on the radio. As winners we got to warm up for Amanda Fondell, the Swedish Idol winner from 2011. I also did my first radio interview. It was not easy, not that I thought it would be =). So much happening right now!!! And Vasabladet published a short note--->

Here is a link to the later gig. It will be up for one month.

Ah, and the day before the competition we were all in the studio with the producers doing final mixing for our EP (until 3 am...) So Krippe's sleeping in can be forgiven. And now I'm finally calling it final, because the mastering is booked for tomorrow. The EP will unfortunately only be for promotional purposes until further notice, so stay calm. All of this "no music on facebook" and this stuff is not meant to distract and annoy you listeners/readers, it is only a temporary sacrifice for something bigger and better.

Check out our most recent youtube upload. =) Live @ YLE - Speed of Love <3

Oh, and Vaasa was a lovely city! And now it's filled with good memories too =)

Millions of big hugs and kisses to Mirva and her family for hosting us! 

Sorry 'bout the pic'lessness tho. We where too excited to remember to take photos. =P

See you in June, that will say, on Popkalaset

// Paul

How do I look?

Wow! It's been crazy busy last few weeks, but that's how it should be! :D The other guys have been writing about the recording, video sessions and such normal band related stuff, so here's a little something about the others aspects of Satin Circus :)

Yesterday we had a meeting with the "SC visual crew", the group that consist our costume designer Timo, hair- and make-up artist Petriina, photographer Karri, lighting designer Kristian and the graphic designer Vertti. They are super nice and talented people and I know for sure that in a couple of weeks we're gonna have some amazing new promo pics and a whole new look! :D 

We had so much fun! Timo had a huge pile of Vogue Hommes International magazines and scissors. We sat around and cut out the pics we liked and then made this collage out of all those things. I don't know if the result actually helped anyone but at least we had fun and got some great ideas in the process! :)

We've always thought that bands don't pay enough attention to the visual side of the "package", so we've given a lot of thought to clothing and all other things that the audience can see, rather that just concentrating on the hearing part. The problem was that even though we've always been very interested about clothing, it's not so easy to come up with a look that represents who we are as a band and also maintains each member's own personality at the same time. And to make that even more difficult we want to look like something special and unique, not just like four guys who went to H&M together and bought some clothes.

So now with these new people on board we'll be able to create a memorable look that no other band has! :) We've already booked a photo studio for the first session, so you'll be able to see the result quite soon. 

I'm also so thrilled to get to work with Petriina (hair and make-up). I haven't done anything new with my hair for a while and I'm looking forward to have a new look. Can't wait… :D

We're gonna put some more live videos to Youtube sometime soon, so check our channel regularly! The EP is also almost ready. The sad news is that because of the upcoming EP, we have to delete our demos from Facebook and satincircus.com BUT(!!!) we're gonna keep those at our soundcloud page until the EP is out, so if you wanna keep listening to those, you can do that at http://soundcloud.com/satincircus

The one with the natural sweetness ;D

Social Joe <3

Ps. This Friday we're going to Vaasa to play in the Popturné final! If we win we'll get to play on the big stages during the summer, so keep your thumbs up! :D