According to tradition (heh),  we will be playing Klubb Øya, the Øya festival kick-off, club night thing. Like last year, we are playing in the lovely back yard of Dattera Til Hagen, and it all takes place tuesday August 5. There are tons of other (both good and bad, naturally) bands playing all over Oslo that night, so be sure to plan your schedule well and drop by Dattera around, (say) 19.55. Ish.

More info ici et la (it seems I have been renamed "Eirik").

Morten

The forest fire is out and has been so for a while, so things are looking good for the Feiring gig tomorrow. I found the program for the whole shebang here and, more elaborately, here (PDF).

It seems that if you get up early, you can help yourself to free breakfast, see a tractor and learn how to line dance. We love the Feiring government.

I am sorry to announce that the Horten show is cancelled.

That is, the party (which I found out was in relation to the regatta "Færderseilasen") will go on as planned, but we will not play. The reason is that the powers that be (in this case, the Directorate for Civil Protection and Emergency Planning) have decided to call me in for forest fire duty. So I will be spending the weekend in smoke and ash and a grey uniform.

We are very sorry for this, and we hope we get the chance to play in Horten some other time.

Morten

As usual, we've been too busy to update this site.

Coming Saturday, we're playing a late night show in Horten, put together by Horten Jazzclub. I have at this point no idea on how much the tickets cost or how to get there (except I know where Horten is), but if you're interested, you'll probably work it out.

We will also be debuting some new band members. Firstly, we have a new drummer. Not in the traditional "our old drummer's a fucking junkie, we need a new one"-way, but more in the "the drummer couldn't make it this time, why not try out a new one, and then keep them both"-way. The new guy is called Christian and plays in bands like Nancy Drew, Stella Polaris and Ex-Queen Of The Astronauts (hope I got that right), and tons of other places. Secondly, we will be joined on clarinet and soprano sax by Robin, also from Stella Polaris (where tenor saxophonist Aleksander ("Bosse") is a member).

The Captain & Me have always believed in the saying "the more, the merrier".

And then, next Friday (20^th), we will fire off the three-four-five day midsummer's celebration in steel guitarist and banjist Frode's home town Feiring.

We would like it if you came. It won't be as good without you.

in case you wondered, the recordings are going good. Except for a tuba and a trombone we're looking into, we are completely done with all the instruments, and have moved on to singing. And I am desperately trying to get the last of the lyrics commited to disc. We'll probably throw out some teasers once we get some mixes that we're half pleased with.

Thank you for stopping by.

Morten Horten Porten Epleskrotten

Even and I are well on our way recording the album. The last couple of weeks we have been working on laying overdubs on the (percussion-heavy) tracks from the Sono session. We have recorded accordion, banjo, some mandolin, a little guitar here and there, shakers and tambourines (yes, more percussion), autoharp, Moog (yes) and will soon be getting into more exotic things, like balalaika, ukulele, sitar and pedal steel. And then the horns. And then probably violins and it's bigger siblings. And then, finally, vocals.

Yes, we have a lot of work to do, but at least we're having fun doing it.

in other news, C+C records will be releasing a tribute album to Prince (on his 50. birthday). We have contributed a cover of Strollin'. Mind you, this is not your ordinary tribute album. It's a monster release, 80 tracks spanning 5 CDs. According to the C+C site: "This is more than just a Prince-tributealbum. This is actually EVERYTHING the Norwegian musical scene have to offer 2008. All is made with love to the worlds greatest artist ever, Prince." Also, there's a MySpace page.

And finally, we will be playing the Working Class Hero festival in Drammen may 3. Be there or b².

Morten

We had an incredibly efficient day yesterday. After an invigorating breakfast, we started were we left off wednesday night. After not too long, Evens drumming skills started to shine, and we could go from song to song, spending about two hours on each.

All together, we recorded drums on seven songs yesterday.

The way things look now, we're going to finish the drums today, and then move on to the really fin part: Percussion. There's practically a mountain of percussion instruments lying around here, and we're looking forward to jangling those around in this magnificent recording room (the reverb!)

I still haven't found a solution to getting images from my camera to the computer, but I took some pictures with my mobile yesterday, just to give an impression of what it's like down here.

We arrived at Sono Records at around 11.30, after a taxi driver had picked us up at the airport, stopped by a shop at the way for water and beer. We started working right away, setting up drums and microphones and all that. Andreas (the producer) has been here before, and knows the room and the equipment, so the set up an deciding what to do went fairly quick.

The recording room here is huge, about 150 sq. meters, and sounds incredible. In a couple of hours Andreas and our skilled and helpful assistants Michel and Tamasz managed to get a good sound out of the drums. The only problem was that the drum skin on one of the toms that were too old and worn. So while Tamasz (as the nice fellow he is) drove to Prague to get a new one, Andreas, Even and I used the opportunity to catch up on some sleep. After all, we were up at 5 in the morning.

Right now, Andreas is putting on the new skin, while Michel is fixing some obscure electrical problem somewhere. As soon as Andreas is done, we will be starting recording a song. We are excited and a little nervous.

I wish I could post some photos, but it seems that the one thing I forgot (always one thing) was the cable that connects my camera to my computer. Will see what if I can fix that somehow.

until next time
Morten

PS: Did I mention that this is the studio where Bowie recorded "1. Outside"?

First of all, I'd like to thank you all for coming to Gamla on Saturday (well, technically Sunday). It was great fun to see you all dancing out there, we had a wonderful time. I know there were some good people taking pictures, I'll try to scare them into sending them to me.

Next, I apologize for my forgetfulness. I sat here trying to write the last piece, and the last gig I could remember we had done was the one with Thomas in April. But how could I really forget the wonderful shows at Passagen in Larvik and in the backyard of Dattera Til Hagen during Øya? If I had half a mind, I simply could have checked the concert history on this very site. I guess I'll blame laziness.

And finally, I'm glad to relay the good news that Even and I have booked a studio for recording our next album, code named "Album 2". Come mid-March, we're leaving for Sono Records outside Prague, and our producer Andreas Eide is coming with us. We will primarily be recording drums and percussion, but we hope to find the time to do other things as well.


Morten, 28 and senile

Saturday february 23., The Captain & Me will play our first show since, uhm, since April, at Oslo club Gamla, during club:Larm. Club:Larm, or almost-by:Larm, is an official side-programme to the annual, ambulating cattle show that is by:Larm.

We will be appearing fittingly late, at 00:30, and only followed by the fantastic youngian live experience El Cuero (who, if my memory serves me well, appeared before us at Fête de la Musique a couple of years ago).

Read more at bylarm.no

Morten

PS: When at by:Larm, be sure not to miss Charlotte & The Co-Stars, featuring TC&M bassist Alex, plus Einar Stenseng, featuring Frode, the TC&M banjo and pedal steel magician.
PPS: Oh, and if you at some point think you have arrived at Gamla, but they are charging a stupendously high cover charge at the door, you have probably tried to enter the strip club next door.

It's been a long time since the last update, and I think it's time to fill this space with something else. We know for a fact that Thomas' family wants as much quiet and calm and time to mourn as possible these days, so let's give them that.

Just a short note:
Sadly, Saint Thomas' next album, which was to be recorded in large part by Even and me, had not come to any stage near completion. We have Thomas' demos, but there is no way we can make something that will be anything like the album was supposed to be. And even if there was, we're not sure it would be right to do so without Thomas, and it would be all up to Thomas' family. In other words, there are no chances of "Mouse In A Crowded House" ever being released.

In other news, Even and I are currently in the process of writing new songs for our next album. We meet thursday evening every week, sit down with guitars, and try to make magic happen. Interestingly, it usually does. Apparently, you can force creativity.

Right now we have simple demos for 8 or 9 songs. And ideas for 4 or 5 more. We're planning to have all the songs written (or half-written, as there isn't much lyrics at this stage) by christmas. Then, sometime in january and february we will start the recording sessions by laying down drums and possibly bass for all the songs in an actual recording studio (yes!). The rest of the album will be recorded, as before, in Even's bedroom.

I have a vague plan of reporting on this page as things progress.

We have received a nice lump of money supporting the recording of th album, so everything is looking good. On the other hand, we don't have a record label anymore, but we like to think that things work out. We're both positive, yes-people.

Have a good one,
Morten

They found him last night. This is a sad, sad day.

Racing Junior has published a press release on behalf of themselves and the family.

Our condolances go out the his family and everybody who knew him and played with him.

Morten

Yes, you guessed it! The Captain & Me in concert have been captured through the wonders of modern technology. A sequence of still images, shot at exact and precise intervals, when shown after each other at the same intervals, create the illusion of real life movement, i.e. The Captain & Me playing a song on stage in Larvik last tuesday. The phenomenon is called "moving pictures", or just "movie". Yes, it has sound too! So life-like, you can almost taste the beer.

See it here (made possible by the hypertext transfer protocol, via a complex system of electronic devices commonly known as "The internet"):
http://tbtv.tb.no/player/kultur/1840-full-troekk-paa-passasjen.html

Oh, and there is also the short article which provides a lead-in to the "movie".

Morten, amazed at the wonders of modern technology

Click here to read an article in Østlandsposten about our show at Café Passagen in Larvik last tuesday. It was an extremely rewarding night, thanks to everyone who showed up.

Morten

The Captain & Me will appear on the Øya Festival night-warm-up-thingy, Club/Klubb Øya, on Tuesday August 7. The venue is outside in the backyard at Dattera til Hagen. There will be snacks, to quote Andrew Bird. The festival in itself is just about completely sold out, but I feel obliged to remind you that although everyone with festival passes get in to Klubb Øya for free, these concerts are not strictly for the priviliged few. Just turn up at Dattera with NOK 100 in your hand somewhat early, and you will be able to enjoy a very, very nice evening, including great bands like Blind Archery Club, Harmonica, Monzano, Dinosau, some bands I don't know and uhm... beer.

Told you there would be snacks, didn't I?

www.oyafestivalen.no

I'm also hoping for snacks on tomorrows gig in Larvik, Even's home town. We will be playing at Café Passagen, and the show starts at 22.00.

www.myspace.com/cafepassagen

Morten

I have some good news and some bad news, as they say. I'm a positive person, so I'll start on the bright side.

This coming wednesday (April 18) Saint Thomas and The Captain & Me will play Garage Oslo. It will be good. For everyone involved. And we have just confirmed that we are playing Passagen in Larvik this summer, more specifically July 10. (This time without Saint Thomas.)

Then the bad news:

Saint Thomas + The Captain & Me were scheduled to play Storås pub in Trondheim thursday April 26, but the hard realities of school and work has come in the way for several of the band members, and as the live band shrinked, we found it less and less appealing. And when there were only drums and guitar left, we decided it wouldn't work out. We are very sorry, and we're working on booking a replacement gig some time later. We're hoping something good will come up.

Peace,
Morten

Geir, our guitarist, is a hobby photographer, has a really nice camera, and was more or less the tour photographer. I got all his pictures from the tour, but when I looked through them, there weren't as many from the Captain & Me shows as I had expected. Of course, there is an obvious explanation to this; Geir is on stage, busy with his guitar when we play. On some of the gigs, he handed the camera to Ilse, our tour manager, and she took some really nice pictures.

See them in the Images section.

Geir took a lot of pictures from the Saint Thomas concerts, though. So in time, I guess they will appear on his site or somewhere else.

Morten

I'm sorry about the lack of information during the tour, but I guess I wasn't prepared for what touring does to the part of the brain that provides motivation for these kind of things. Even the updates on Saint Thomas' site stopped after a few days. Anyway, here's a short summary.

The tour was all in all great, both acting a support band for Saint Thomas and as his backing band. The stories I could tell are crazy and numerous, and I have no idea where to start. The top shows of the tour for my part were Berlin, where we played at a nice café with dancing drunks from the audience on stage at one point; Munich, where 8 drunken friends flying in from Norway managed to fire up a crowd that wold have been great even without the norwegians; and the last Show in Brüssel, where we just gave it all we had and burned every last bit of energy we had left.

The downparts must have been when Even got sick with a fever in Darmstadt and we sadly had to cancel a few shows in order for him to get through the Saint Thomas concert without fainting on stage. Somehow I managed to find the guts and energy to do an opening show as my solo project, Captain Democracy. And then Geir also played some songs in Frankfurt. It worked out fine, but it still wasn't the same as playing with The Captain & Me.

We sold a lot of records, met loads of great people, and had too much fun almost all of the way. And even though 23 concerts in 15 days takes it's toll, it's strange to see how everything comes alive and everyone is envigorated once we get on stage. No matter how tired we have been of the endless load-ins, load-outs, sound guys with strange ideas, the ever-returning problem of where to park the bus, etc, we always had fun on stage. I guess that must be a good sign.

Thanks a lot to all the good people that came to our shows, to all the guys that took care of us at the various venues, and last but not least to Ilse, our fabulous tour manager. I have a lot of pictures that will be posted pretty soon in the Images section.

[Edit, a few days later: In my tour-lagged state I totally forgot to give thanks to one place where it's due. Thanks to Saint Thomas too, of course, for bringing us on an exciting tour, and for letting us be his band and play his wonderful songs. Maybe it was too obvious to remember.]

Morten

Check out the "Live" section to see the complete Saint Thomas/Captain & Me european tour. As you may know, The Captain & Me will serve as both opening act and backing band for Saint Thomas. We will be starting off with a prologue in Bergen March 8, before the real thing kicks off at Hafenklang Exil in Hamburg, March 15. We will be visiting towns all across Germany, as well as Switzerland and Austria, before the tour wraps up in Brussels, Belgium, March 29.

We are very much looking forward to this tour.

And as a little celebration of that, we have opened up the "Music" section of the website. Here you can download songs from Automata, and once we start working on the next album (yes, we are currently making plans), there will probably be some teasers. Yes, we're giving it away. Piracy never killed any music. Only sailors.

See you in a club somewhere in Europe,
Morten

Saint Thomas will play a gig at Mir monday February 19, and as announced upon the release of "Automata", The Captain & Me (most of, at least), will serve as the saint's backing band. The price at the door is 50 kroner, and there is a swedish artist/band playing as well, but I can't seem to remember the name (probably due to this flue that has taken hold of my body).

This gig can also be thought of as a pre-prologue to the european tour we will be doing with Thomas in March. The actual prologue being a gig in Bergen (Kvarteret) March 8, before the real tour kicks off in Hamburg March 15. We will announce the full tour pretty soon.

Be there, it's bound to be fun.

Morten

Review in groove.no (5/7)

Written very nicely, and he likes the album too. So everybody wins. And it turns out pizza delivery guys like Automata as well. A fun review:

Review in musikknyheter.no (8/10)

Morten

Webzine musiq.no reviews Automata to 5 out of 6 stars, and we are very pleased. In addition, the reviewer seems to have made up his own mind about the record, which makes it all the more flattering for us.

Read the review (if you understand norwegian).

There is also a mention of Even and The Captain & Me in a recent edition of Larvik newspaper Østlandsposten (Even being a larvikite seems to be the incentive here). Not much of a piece, it looks to be just a little addendum to a more thorough article about X-lover, but anything that mentions Yuri Gagarin must be a good thing.

Morten

Another review, this time in Bergen newspaper BT.

We're kind of puzzled by all this. How can three different people write three different reviews and mean exactly the same things? And why is it that we don't hear these things that seem to bee "too much" for everybody? Don't they get it when there's a saxophone and a banjo in the same song? Is 5/4 too confusing? I suppose the answer is that we made the damn record, so we have lost all perspective and so-called "objectivity".

And mind you, we're not complaining. 4 on the die is good, and it's great that people care - and even people in newspapers that people read. We just find it a little strange.

Read the review

Oh, and this little piece is the start of something new. I got bored with writing short, matter-of-fact news headlines. Let's get personal.

Morten

Spasibar lost their alcohol license, earlier this week, so the concert had to be moved.

Luckily, Parkteatret was planning a club night called "Balkan Beat Party" the same day, and the good people there were willing to take us in on short notice. Thank you!

Tomorrow, Saturday november 18, The Captain & Me will celebrate "Automata" at Spasibar. The fun begins at 20.00 and will cost you 50 kr. There will be food, vodka and records for sale. Be there!

Bjørn Hammershaug from the webzine connected to MIC - the Norwegian Music Information Centre - did a telephone interview with Morten Krane. The piece touches on The Captain & Me's influences, work methods and future plans. In addition, Morten, tries to explain the background to some of the more complicated stories and themes on the record.

Read the interview (in norwegian).

Local newspaper Oppland Arbeiderblad reviews "Automata". It says pretty much the same things as the Dagsavisen review did, but we're grateful nevertheless.

Read the review (in norwegian).

The Captain & Me will appear on Harald Are Lund's radio show on NRK P3. Tune in to NRK P3 Thursday 09.11. at 20.03. Even Vaa and Morten Krane will be on the show live, and Harald Are Lund will be playing some songs from the album. Don't miss this!

Listen to the show here.

The album gets a solid 4/6. "A norwegian band can't sound less norwegian than this."

Read the review (in norwegian)

"Automata", the debut album from The Captain & Me, will be released on November 6. all across Norway. It is released on Cornerman Records, and will be distributed through Tuba, so it should be available from your local music dealer. If not, your local dealer should smarten up.

We are proud to announce our new home on the web, thecaptainandme.com. Here you will find news, tour dates and info about balkan-country band The Captain & Me. The site is a little thin on info for now, but that will change as the coming days and weeks.