Thursday 25 June 2009

Prepare with John Wayne

Hi Everyone,
just a quick hello from Stavanger here. Hope you're all doing good. Here is a little snippet from the show we did at Borderline in London about a month ago. This song is called John Wayne. Hope you enjoy it and also hope to see many of you again tomorrow at The Garage.

Take care,
Thomas Dybdahl

Monday 22 June 2009

"Time Flies When You’re Flying"

I’ve probably read that somewhere. Did I mention I hate flying? Well, not the act of flying through the skies at 850kmh while letting your mind wander aimlessly through the maze that is your L.I.F.E , but just about anything leading up to that point is a bitch. And yet I do it with increasing frequency. Why? I don't really know sometimes and also, I think I lost my train of thought there. Yes I did. And much like that these days pass on an endless search for that one clear moment when everything is just crystal clear and true.

I hope this blog finds everyone in good form and spirits. Contrary to what it may seem like from the introduction, I am actually getting some things done, believe it or not. Like I wrote in the last blog entry, I have been waiting to get the masters for the movie score I just finished from Nathan James at The Vault Mastering in NY. Nathan used to be an assistant to Scott Hull at Masterdisk and has worked on most of my previous albums with Scott. He is now running his own outfit and this is the first time he has mastered my music by himself and he did a fantastic job with it. It sounds unbelievably good and so it was a pleasure from start to finish to be in the mix theatre in Oslo last week as we finished mixing the sound and music to the locked picture. Me and my partner in crime, Øyvind Jakobsen, spent two days there with director Arild Ommundsen and sound engineer Gisle. What we did was basically to make sure that all the music was coming in at the right times, with the right volume, right fade ins and outs and so forth. When all this is done, they render the project finished and then eventually they put it back on a 35mm reel that the cinemas use to show the movie. At least I think that’s how it’s done. This movie was shot digitally, using RED cameras, so the cinemas that can show it digitally will hopefully do that, as it looks good and fits the digital format. (NERD INFO: the movie was shot at 25 frames per second, but when they show it in the cinemas it will most likely be showed at 24 frames per second because of the conversion from digital to analogue. Which means that all the sound and music will go slower than it was recorded. This will, most likely, make me puke)
I've been back and forth to Oslo a few times the last weeks doing a few different things. I just told you about the mixing of the movie, but I was also fortunate to be asked to sing on Thom Hell's next album. Thom Hell is a Norwegian artist that I respect a lot, so when he asked me to sing on a song of his called "The Feeling", I had no trouble deciding what to do. I think it turned out beautiful, hope Thom was happy. (Or Thomas as he's really called) The same day, we managed to squeeze inn a photo shoot (seems I'm always squeezing them in) with my good friend Johannes Worsøe Berg and graphic designer Snorre Seim. They have both worked on a lot of projects with me before and it will be cool to see what they do for the cover of the Norwegian Best Of CD that's coming out this fall.

No week is complete without a trip across the North Sea these days, it seems, and last week was no exception. I got to see a different side of the UK this time around as I spent my first couple of days in Great Yarmouth, where one side of my wife's family comes from. A quiet seaside town near Norwich, I think Great Yarmouth saw its glory days a few decades ago (it was a bit like the Florida of UK), but we had a great time nonetheless. It was great to meet my wife’s family and to be able to put some faces to the names I keep hearing. Finally, after a longer than necessary, train (and bus) ride we got back to London. I seem to remember writing something kind and romantic about British Rail last time around, but it was premature... I now think they suck. Things are getting hectic in London, as we are getting closer and closer to the release of my album there and I love that feeling. There’s always a special kind of energy leading up to a release. There are a million things to get done in time, lots of decisions to make, people to woe, covers to get done etc. But I love it and it’s a very special day when you get the finished product in your hands.

The first single from the album will probably be sent to radio soon and we’re crossing our fingers. You never know what’s gonna happen with a song, but we all have a good feeling about this. Call and bug your local radio! I’ll see you in London at the Garage June 26th, where I will play with a full band again. We will try to kick ass of course. Have a great week,

all the best,

Thomas Dybdahl

Thursday 11 June 2009

work

in a movie theatre mixing music for a movie. I LOVE MY JOB!!

Wednesday 10 June 2009

Hail Brittania!

Post #1
Thomas Dybdahl - Official wroteon June 5, 2009 at 1:33pm
So here I go, the least likely guy to ever blog is finally catching up with the times. Bear with me, these thing will hopefully only get better and better as I have no clue what I´m doing. The past weeks have been very exciting for me as I am finally getting ready to release my music and start touring the UK. Except for a few one off gigs in London I have never had the chance to play there and I have to say that if these last 8 gigs are anything to go by I have some great times ahead of me.
We started our summer tour in London at a packed Borderline where we were fortunate to have Nate Campany and Susanne Sundfør as support and what a great night it turned out to be. I was nervous as hell (as I tend to be) because this was the first gig we had played as a band in over 6 months. And to be honest, I could kind of tell, but there was something to be said about the energy that comes from that kind of resting period also. And on this night I think it played to our advantage. Thanks to everyone for showing up! We moved on to play The Great Escape festival in Brighton where we ended our 3 gig stay with a show at The Duke of York Picture House. What a great place to play a solo show, lovely acoustics and seated audience! Can´t ask for more. The last week we have been lucky enough to fall in love with the English countryside, as we´ve been traveling crosscountry by rail. Newcastle, Liverpool, Bristol, Nottingham and back to London. It´s called dart booking I believe, but we had a really good time so all´s good. Back in London I played Bush Hall as support for The Duke and the King I was told. This is the night that ended in the infamous Cocoa Pops incident which I will tell you more about at some later point. I think I had fantastic evening. Bright and early next morning I headed for Kensaltown Studios where I worked with a guy called Andreas B. Olsson on a new version of an old song of mine for UK radio. Also managed to squeese in a photo shoot with photographer Derrick Santini on that day. A fantastic photographer and patient guy. (you have to be when you´re working with the worst "poser"in the world). Been working hard on my "Blue Steele" ever since. For the time being I´m back in Stavanger in Norway just hanging with the family when I´m not in the studio working. I´m waiting to get my first movie soundtrack from mastering and then I head to Oslo to do the final soundmix on the film. I´ll try to keep this blog fresh and updated as time goes by and if nothing exciting happens then I´ll just make some shit up. No, seriously. Hope you all stay well,

all the best

Thomas Dybdahl



Road Fodder:
Book(s) brought - Underground by Haruki Murakami and Freakonomics by Stephen and Steven
Albums for the road - Histoir de Melody Nelson by Serge Gainsbourgh and Empty Words for Music with Piano by John Cage
Most memorable meal - BBQ´ed burgers at Al´s place in Putney
Movies seen - Once and Spirited Away