Posted on

20161112

“Don’t work for the job you have. Work for the job you want”. (2016) Pietari Kylmälä. #ॐ

Joined “Amen 2” launch gig at Konepajan Bruno by Anthonys invitation. The album is the second instalment of Mikko Joensuus Amen trilogy which is published by Svart Records. Amen 1 concert at the St. John’s Church left a good expression. A sample on soundcloud offers a glimpse to the massive sounds. 

Guitars glimmering and people crying. A group of young men were talking about the moment they felt the touch of god for the first time (at home while watching TV). The gig felt more produced than the first concert and unfortunately the flow of individual songs came off as repetitive. The tones were made to shed tears. Anthony was playing Prophet 6 and singing.

There was a special guy in the audience. People shot video of the events highlights (visuals were a bit dull). Suddenly this guy lifted his hands and posed in a gesture as if he had a phone between his hands. He kept his empty hands in the pose trough a song and made a mental recording. This made very one shooting video look ridiculous. 

Posted on

20160513

Made a side trip to the Academy of Arts Helsinki and sat at the “Moscow Conceptualism. Erosion and After, Moskovskij kontseptualiszm. Erozija i posle” book launch. The writers sat around a table reminiscing their travels in Moscow 25 years ago. The book is an anthology and the articles I browsed focused on stories of the now famous artist. A dull approach to an important subject.

Visited Mikko Joensuus “Amen 1” concert at the St. John’s Church, Helsinki (My second church concert of the week). The music was good and it was an emotional performance. A tad too long and repetitive but good. The audience was packed with hipster-jesus-lookalikes. Antony Bentley was performing in the chorus and keyboard! I joined the after gig celebrations with his friends and family but had to leave be before he arrived.

While walking home I saw a billboard prompting a stadium gig of a popular rapper. His name was written big but the majority of the ad’s surface was covered with names of celebrities and elderly musicians the rapper had invited to feature in his concert. It occurred to me that contemporary musicians use the same promotional strategies as sitcoms, talk-shows and shitty movies: Popular artists build cartels and always invite each others as guest stars of their products and reference each others. Mega clusters of popular artist strive to control popular opinion, preserve status quo and solidify the particular media ecosystem that helped their sort of artist hood to strive.