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

  

Mayday! M'aider!

I've been sick as a dog the past few days. Feeling incredibly under the weather. The worst thing is the weather has been lovely. Poor poor me. It's become an annual thing. Me getting ill around the first of may! Stupid pollen! Alas, enough with the ranting! 

May Day or first of may is an ancient northern hemisphere spring festival that is widely celebrated throughout our country. For obvious reasons people started to celebrate the Mayday Eve as well, more partying! And that's today! Party Time! Excellent! Except that I'll probably stay home. But I know what I'll be doing! I can watch our brilliant HD video clips from the YLE (the Finnish National Broadcasting Station) live video recording sessions! We were so lucky to be part of their training week. They filmed us from six different camera angles in their famous Studio 2. All the signals went back to a huge truck outside the station(!). It had fancy facilities and it's the place where all the TV producers were sitting. Nowadays that's where all the magic happens. We even had different directors for each of our three songs. I won't tell you which songs we recorded but you'll see soon enough :) You might even spot some mistakes, we are human after all. Or maybe it's just our beloved keyboardists personal artistic choice we get to enjoy ;)

Guess what?! Our EP is so near completion and we are so very stoked! Can't wait to show you what we've been working on the past months! We have so much stuff coming up for you so stay tuned! The quality live videos, some acoustic madness and the actual EP! Even some more surprises!

So I advice you all to have an absolutely wonderful day. Enjoy the weather, your friends and your life! After all, your happiness is all up to you! And if still feel blue, put on your favorite song and remember that I'm home, sick and alone, watching Finding Nemo. Eating crisps and drinking coke. Wait a minute... that was suppose to sound sad and make you feel better, but I bet I end up having a much better time than you! Toodles!

krippe- ~~~ヾ(＾∇＾)'ー♪

Oxford Circus, Cambridge Circus, Piccadilly Circus. Where is Satin Circus?

As you can see from my previous posts, I'm this band's true jet-setter . Whenever I'm not sippin' on a smoothie or writing by my baby grand, I'm most probably in some place out in the world that is too cool for the other SC-members ;) Recent visits include New York and St. Petersburg, and now it's time for London!

Having been in more than 30 countries, and having seen most of the European capitals, I can say that London is truly something unique. Nowhere else in the world you actually get thrown out of a bar at 11 pm, and they give you a plastic mug for your beer. Basically take-away beer! (That happened the first night..)

My friend Kira, who we went to see, studies at UCL, one of the top universities in the world. Coldplay was formed in the halls of UCL so for me it's the best university :D They've even left a crappy piano somewhere in the halls cause Chris Martin basically wrote Yellow on it...

We lived in Camden, the hippest place around. The place where Orlando Bloom lives, where Amy Winehouse died, and where Colplay's two previous albums were composed and recorded at their own studio "the Bakery". Camden is also the place for cool LED T-shirts, so you know what I'll be wearing on the next SC-gig!  

Traveling with Vertti, the next big thing in the world of industrial design, and Stella, the soon-to-be record company boss, it was easy to find things to do. Vertti, an artistic type as he is, insisted that we got to watch an exhibition by Damien Hirst, the richest artist in the UK. Modern and very shocking art…

Being in London without seing a musical is like going to Rome without eating pizza. (although apparently some people in our band seem to think the food in Rome is not that good…) There's a difference between a musical in London and a musical in Helsinki. It's like comparing Coldplay's live show to Arttu Wiskari's. You know.. We saw We Will Rock You, not the best I've seen, but the professionalism and the way they do it still amazes me! (sorry about the coldplay-comparisons, that's what london does to you..)

London has the best pub food in the world. As you can see from this picture, it's really something else. mmmm <3

And my breakfast at the legendary Breakfast Club: Pancakes Eggsited (pancakes, ham, cheese, egg, and maple syrup.) yummy! and the pomegranate smoothie <3333

We also had London's best Lebanese food!

That was London. I've already bought tickets to Berlin for the summer, and hopefully that trip will involve something more than just chillin'. Let's just say we know some very interesting people who live there…

---

In the studio things are moving forward, and we're getting close to the end of the production! We've spent two whole days recording backing vocals for the 4 songs, and today we did the final lead vocals and the saxophone. The mixing starts tomorrow! We're all really excited!!! 

We're also having another videoshoot on thursday, but we'll talk more about that later :)

-Axel <3

Natural Sweetness

Hello, hello! 

Today we're taking part of a cool new concept called "Luomustudio". The finnish word luomu translates to "ecological", but it also contains the meaning "natural". Their aim is to portrait a song in the most genuine and stripped down way, all acoustic, with only one camera-angle! 

While I was buying batteries for our Brio toy-train I found a nice surprise in the ice-cream department. One of my favorites from my childhood:

Childhood is also the theme for our luomustudio video. We have collected our favorite toys from our early years, and put together a massive playground, full of teddies, cars and building blocks. And coolest of all we have a massive Brio wooden railway, with a golden gate bridge and all! 

Childrens games are innocent and natural, and we want to grasp all that happiness and beauty in our songs too. It's good for anyone to sometimes leave the "adult" problems alone for a while, and just let go. Play a board game, or listen to your favorite music from years ago, or perhaps do a few dance steps to a Satin Circus song. =) 

Ah, I just can't get over how nice this video is gonna be! Axel's playing his new best friend, a 80's model Yamaha toy-synth he bought on Ebay. I'm playing my upright* =D  And were all acoustic! It sounds great!

Check out all the pics of this funhouse! I bet it's gonna take a while to clean up after the take. Or… why not just leave it there? What do you say Olli? (It's his apartment!)

The video will be up in a few weeks on luomustudios youtube channel. Check out what the other bands have done: http://www.youtube.com/user/luomustudio

*sounds funny to call it an upright-bass, since I was voted to play it sitting 3-1. 

Yes, Satin Circus democratic system can be hard to deal with sometimes. =D

See you next week <3

//Paul

choo-choo!

Gigging

Hey you popsters! 

Ahh it feels so good to be doing the very thing we play in a band for: gigs! After a somewhat long pause we've been "on the road" again and had two amazing gigs. And there's more to come (check our page regularly to be up to date, more gigs coming up all the time)!  As fun as it is to work in the studio, it's not the reason we picked up the instrument in the first place. I guess Teemu Brunila (the singer in The Crash) managed to verbalize the feeling when you're on the stage and see everybody in the room dancing, smiling, enjoying and just going f**king crazy(!): the-whole-body-orgasm. Now there's a feeling you want to experience again :D And the instant feedback you get when just watch people's faces while playing is just priceless. Especially when it's positive! :)

As Krippe mentioned last week, we were in Tallinn promoting Satin Circus at the TMW-festival. It was such a great experience and I think we came back as a whole new band, meaning that now we know exactly what we want to do and how we want to do it. We also learned that what we are doing is just so unique even in the international scale that the world is just going to go nuts when we get the EP out (in May, be patient:)! We met the guy who pitched "Stronger" to Kelly Clarkson (Billboard #1) and the manager of the boy band Blue. So that gives you an idea of the caliber of people who were down there. And the best part is that they wanted to hear our upcoming EP! So big things ahead… x)

By the way we've been bouncing around this idea of starting video blogging. What do you think? 

So here's a guy playing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" with cats...

Social Joe <3

Ps. So what's the deal The Hunger Games (movie, not the book)? I mean I can see why Twilight is so popular but wow… I went to see it and was just utterly amazed by the quality of this thing (and not in a good way, if you wondered). It made the box office record on it's opening weekend so obviously I've missed something here. Can someone please point it out for me?

X3M & TMW

Hey guys!

It's been an amazing week! So much has happened during the past days! You know the feeling when you've just bought your favorite candy (mine's Rowntree's® fruit pastilles), you take a few and suddenly they're gone! Like candy in the wind. Anyhow, I guess you get my excellent metaphor! So much has happened in a short amount of time and we've had a great time!

So this Wednesday we had the privilege to play in Bar Soho in Porvoo. It was the semifinals in Radio X3M's band competition Popturné! Axel did a great radio-interview earlier and they even played our song on the radio! We hadn't expected anything from the band competition, we just wanted to put on a good show. And guess what?! We won! So now we get to play in the finals, which are in Vaasa. The semifinals were incredibly tight, the other bands were great! We especially enjoyed the great rock/punk trio The Onetimer! Here is an interview I did for the music forum Musik&Talang (Music&Talent) after the gig. It's in Swedish, but I guess you all speak the international language of happiness n_n



I know you're all wondering if I wear pink lipstick, but I don't. Apparently I don't need to :) So the Final is held the 11.5 in Leipätehdas, Vaasa @ 21:00! We're super stoked and hope as many of you can make it there!

On Friday we headed over to Tallinn for the Tallinn Music Week festival. It's a showcase music festival mainly for people in the music business. We had a great time! Loads of inspiring panel debates and innovative new ideas within the music field. Met loads of new people and got great contacts! Our favorite was Dire Straits' legendary manager Ed Bicknell! He's a funny man I'll tell you that :) People were surprised to see a band directly approaching them and everyone were positively surprised! "Ohh, you're one of the colorful ones" was heard frequently :D Our promotion led to that many were genuinely interested but I won't reveal anything more ;) You'll see what the future brings! We also came across an amazing duo called Instrumenti! Absolutely breathtaking! They were multi-talented virtuosos with great persona! One of the best live bands I've ever seen! They will surely be out there soon!

But what Paul really enjoyed the most were the strobes!

Also great food at great prices! Lovely architecture combining old and new! I even went to my first dubstep disco! Had loads of fun! Wobble wobble! :)

We came back on Sunday and feels good to be back in routine! Even our Monday Morning band practice felt great! We are getting everything together neatly for tomorrows gig!! I can't wait to play our new songs for you! Everyone's eager to show what we've done with our existing songs and to present you with our new tunes! So this is a gig you REALLY don't want to miss!! So tomorrow Tuesday 3.4 @ 21 Satin Circus pops out in Café Mascot Neljäs linja 2!

That's it for me now! Have a lovely week and hopefully I'll see you all tomorrow! -krippe ~~~ヾ(＾∇＾)'ー♪

Birth of the Cool

It's my birthday! Yeah! I got a pink ice-cream machine today, awesome (only found pics. of a blue one)
=) But where's my presents from the guys? No cake?! Sucks to be a boy-band. No signs of care here.....

[UPDATE]: Here's proof for Axel that my epic S5510 Samsung phone has a camera! And actually a 3,2 MP one!! Proof that the time of the clampshell-phones is not over yet... Proof that Apple will fall... Proof that.... x-/ ....Proof that I don't have enough money for a smartphone. (Yet) ...So you just sip that smoothie till then! XD

Its been a really really messed up week, 7 days of practice and work, fighting the flue and such. But out of the dust, Satin Circus rises, with new fresh live arrangements to tackle this weeks gig like a bull on froot loops...with tight, colored jeans of course.


As you've been thoroughly informed of, there has been a lot of time spent in the studio lately. Krippe is actually there a.t.m. singing lead vocals for our new song "Peach Party". We love the song, and its a true product of our love for pop-music. There is not a single bar or phrase that we haven't worked out together all four of us. The keyboard verse theme was originally a bass-doodle I had come up with, and on that we started adding up ingredients. The lyrics were worked out together on different occasions, and the chorus took its time 'till it came out right, but now it's ready. It represents the progress we've made so far together as a band and as songwriters. Our true strength lies in working as a group, sharing brains. All in all I think it is the most genuine Satin Circus song so far, in many aspects. It's crystallized positive energy!
We play it live for the first time in Porvoo this Wednesday, so if you want to be a pioneer("PoPsTeR"*) then you know what to do! =) http://barsoho.fi/ @ 21:00
Don't miss the Café Mascot gig either!!! http://www.facebook.com/events/397526966941927/

* Peach Party True Respecters

Right. See you soon =P

//Paul <3