------------Marybell Katastrophy----------------

NEW BLOG NEW SHOP

2010-05-26T12:21:00.000-07:00

GOODBYE OLD BLOG - WELCOME NEW BLOG AND SHOP

www.marybell.dk

the 27. and all that will happen before

2010-05-18T11:01:00.000-07:00

May always seem to attack you when you least expect it - suddenly we are drowned in good work with new singles, new webpage, new shop, new concerts, new recordings and all the other stuff that surrounds you with passive aggression. Next thursday the 27. we will play at Pumpehuset in Cph with Slaraffenklang - a mix between Slaraffenland & Efterklang - a lovely evening I suspect - actually Kasper, the singer of Efterklang often performed our song Lost Ship live with us, and Anders Boll who I introduced earlier is their soundguy - Denmark is very small...Here is a picture from our Roskilde show where Kasper is with us some years ago:

read about the concert here

and a bit about our upcoming single on subscribtion here

Ganz toll.

Who is the best?

2010-05-12T01:54:00.000-07:00

We have a problem choosing who of us i most worthy of recording the drums for Dexter II...last sunday we spend arguing if I should play the drums

or Q, what do you think....be honest!

I personally think that I rock, but I can hear that with some more practise, maybe Q has a chance in the future...He is just trying a bit too hard, playing cool and tough!

The thing about making music and dopamine levels

2010-05-07T06:25:00.001-07:00

My dear friend Johannes aka. Cabin Fever also has a blog about his music here. Right now his also finishing his version of Difference. Apart from being one of the most talented songwriters I know, he is also very wise and funny, a good combination I would say. A while ago he posted this graph on his blog, and boy did I recognize the feeling going through the proces of making a song:

A few weeks after he posted this I saw a great lecture on the internet about animals and humans compared, by Robert Sapolsky. About 25 min. into the lecture he started talking about dopamine rushes, when solving a task (as eg. making a song) that we humans crave and live for, and the similarity with Johannes graph was striking...

Lyrics Difference

2010-05-05T23:41:00.001-07:00

The danish poet Morten Søndergaard made the lyrics for Difference, and here it is:
difference

hi im home from jupiter
return to noise and toys
can't trust these conditions
i have spider sprinkle on

i want to get out of this loop

hi im back from pluto
but too entangled
and time is space
a blue blue tiger

let it go and the mind too

the terms of the evening light are clear and i am you and you are me
and we are here a green green beam from a star
the night is warm as usual
so we drink the cold cold water
and walk around the house the strange, strange messy house, this
messy house

hi im back from yesterday
where everything looks quite okay
andromeda and all that
only lightyears away

I tried to call the sun
I tried to get a hold of Mars
I tried to contact Mercury
And then I tried you

Listen to our new single Difference

2010-05-05T03:08:00.000-07:00

Presenting a new different member of the marybell bunch of songs called Difference

Soon we will add a new shop where you can choose what to pay for our version of Difference, and all the other versions of the same song, by different artists as a subscription for Different Difference. More about that later...

Gaffa and Rasmus

2010-04-20T05:26:00.001-07:00

I made an interview for the danish music magazine Gaffa, for the june issue about education. Rasmus Weng Karlsen is a great photographer and he took some pictures for the article and some others for his blog

The pirat radioshow

2010-04-18T04:43:00.000-07:00

Here is the radio show - very danish and cosy - in the middle you can here our new single Difference in it´s full length (not yet released)

In the radio tonight with Difference

2010-04-13T04:20:00.000-07:00

Tonight I will talk for a whole hour about Marybell, music and stuff in our college radio Aarhus Studenterradio. You can also listen here . I think I will actually bring the new and not-even-released-yet-single Difference. So go for a ride in you old car and tune in at 98,7 FM if you still know how to....

#1 Different Difference

2010-04-09T11:26:00.000-07:00

The idea is to make the song Difference in many many different versions that we will release as time passes - made by different artist we think is different enough to make a differet difference. Here you see Jens Mønsted working on his club-difference, and me and Q trying to be cool with the sound of the young. Boy, I look forward to compare this to the version made by Bronson Brothers. Hopefully they will be released together with our version (and maybe a couple more) in about a month or so, right here...

#1 Different Differences feat. Jens Mønsted from marybell katastrophy on Vimeo.

Presenting Anders Boll

2010-03-25T02:25:00.000-07:00

I will continue presenting some of the most important co-creators of Marybell as a whole. I already introduces my sister and Q the famous drummer and also composer of some of the early and upcoming Marybell songs. Today I would like to start at the beginning, introducing my first Marybell collaborator Anders Boll. He is my old friend and we followed eachother at almost every concert I played for many years - with Anders as sound engineer. Before Marybell it was my youth band Baton Rouge, then a lot of touring with Tiger Tunes. But when I started making Marybell music I asked Anders for mixing and programming help and he did a lot of the early stuff eg. on the song Hip. We are actually doing new stuff together now on some of the new songs, so I´m proud to introduce this fantastic friend! He also made the first Maria Timm album with her and does sound for great acts as eg. Efterklang.

Teaser

2010-03-18T07:18:00.000-07:00

Here is a little snippet from our newest song Difference that I told you about before - Morten Søndergaard made the lyrics and Q is playing the drums on the track. The pictures are from our last gig at Aarhus University - where Q didn´t play the drums, but took a lot of pictures as you see:

Difference Teaser from marybell katastrophy on Vimeo.

We have great plans with this song, as we invited some danish artists we know to make other versions of the song - a hole coleection of Different Differences!
We will of course get back to this later when the music is ready from Bronson Brothers, Jens Mønsted, Cabin Fever, Darling Don´t Dance, Beta Satan and hopefully more....

Gang Riot vs. Highschool Rebels

2010-03-08T23:08:00.000-08:00

This weekend we experienced some of the contrasts of this little, yet versatile country. First up the beautiful city of Sønderborg, way south, with a little yet dedicated crowd of highschool rebels, who defied the harsh reality of the upcoming examination in school the next day, and danced the night away - remembering that the body is connected to the brain, and the brain is working better the more you dance! Saturday we played a show way east on the island of shit (sorry, but someone told me this nickname, and judging from the crowd next door at the technoparty one might agree...) at Beta, just next door to Amager Bio. We had a great concert with a wonderful crowd, but afterwards we faced reality when we went out the door, facing marching youngsters on drugs shouting hippies at us, while the police tried to remain passive aggresive - oh boy - sometimes it's hard to tell where the real province is?

last two shows for a while coming up...

2010-03-03T03:44:00.000-08:00

We hope to see you for our last two shows for a while. This spring we will focus on making more new songs. Tomorrow we go to Sønderborghus as south as possible in Denmark and saturday we play as east as you can get (almost) at Beta Amager. We look forward to play with the full setup (A REAL DRUMMER INCLUDED) and also play some of the new songs - including Difference - the song we just finished.

silence before...

2010-02-25T01:46:00.001-08:00

I know it´s been a while since I have been active here, but boy have I been doing a lot of exiting marybell stuff. Our first single coming up is called Difference and is finally finished after a long journey, on the road and sometimes the offroad...
It feels like it´s a whole new continent we set foot on - more clear, simple, somehow oriental, orchestral and free - eventhough the process sometimes feels very unclear and complex and the practical arrangements as well:

Soon I will give you a prelisten and we work on an exiting new way of releasing it. But much more about that later.

Tomorrow we have the honour of supporting Gus Gus at Train i Aarhus, and next week we go to Sønderborg and Copenhagen to play the last shows for a while - we need time to record...mix...and so on!

pppphewwww

Sorry Germany, thank you explosions!

2010-01-28T09:07:00.000-08:00

One sad fact we have to face: Our german shows are postponed once again, till after summer. There is many reasons for this, that I don´t want to bore you with. But I have to say I really miss good old germany! It´s frustrating when logistics obstruct music.

But the other day helped a little bit on the frustrations: Emil and I played two songs for the opening of an art exhibition in Viborg . The exhibition is centered around a project we are a part of called Love Alley arranged by Marianne Jørgensen; a wonderful artist who once wrapped a tank in pink knitting. It´s a bit hard to explain the concept of Love Alley, but our part is a vulcano with sound. In the movieclip you can see some explosions she made in the beginning of the project outside her house... what a setting -
THANK YOU EXPLOSIONS!

MY SISTER!

2010-01-12T23:52:00.000-08:00

Today my sisters awsome blog, read by hundreds around the world every day turns

years old. She celebrates by handing out a gift to a lucky reader. She simply has the best eye for the visual and tangible and combining the two in wonderful art. She made up the name Marybell Katastrophy, the logo, the scenography and most of the artwork throughout the years. Here is a little view of some of it:

THE ITALIAN WAY

2010-01-09T10:02:00.000-08:00

We love the Italian way, and in these pictures you can see why:

Nice surroundings, here made by the wonderful artist Blu on the walls of the first venue in Scandicci.

admirable audience culture build by free entrance, cheap drinks and good atmosphere (of cause at the expense of fancy interior decoration and good sound gear...), making it possible to gather around 100 people for every concert. Ohhh how we could learn a little by that in Denmark.

Surprising hairstyles and a good self confidence

Room and heartwarmth for aggressive danish people occupying their rooms, beds and minds

The most beautiful nature to eat your lunch in...and get tipsy on

Good priorities in life

And all that wonderful art,

weird animals, and last but not least

pizza...and wine

We thank you and hope to return this year!

But of cause it was also good to be home again...

no. 3 best album of the decade...in Aarhus....

2010-01-06T02:33:00.000-08:00

In the danish newspaper JP we got voted as no. 3 best album of the decade...
actually I hate all these list of best "swimmers of the decade" and so on, but the list contains a lot of good music so that of cause make me proud. I will get back to you soon with a little dairy of our Italien tour a month ago, but I´m still missing some of the good photos from the trip, hope I will get them soon.

Happy New Year!

Snow Show Tonight

2009-12-17T09:31:00.000-08:00

Tonight we play a late snow show at Studenterhus Aarhus, in our hometown - The last show this year, together with the curious oneman show of Prins Nitram and a new, to me, unknown band called Photic. Our drummer Q is down with Influeza A, the poor kauka, so we will play our Italian Electro set....

SHOUT FROM ITALY

2009-12-07T13:20:00.000-08:00

how can I compliment Italy enough to expose how much we love it here! I have no words. Right now we are in Bologna enjoying a day off. But boy we enjoyed the shows as well, so many nice and openminded people showing up at a concert with a wired danish band they didn´t know much about - so for the first time in the history of this blog I want to give myself and my fellow danes a good old scolding: We need to go out some more to gigs were we don´t know the band and don´t have a predefined reserved meaning towards!
This little video is from a very wired empty hostel in Scandicci we visited very late on the first evening here:

Polkadots

2009-12-03T10:17:00.000-08:00

Look at this fine post about us from a very nice Italian blog:

http://www.polkadot.it/category/music

ready to go!

2009-12-03T04:47:00.000-08:00

You should know what the danish weather does to you in november and now also december... slowly dragging the last energi out off your soon to be invisible body - so tomorrow we fly to Italy and hope for just a little bit off sun, or just not rain all day long - is that really too much do ask, and of cause some great concerts and some good food!

In love with google translate

2009-11-25T09:18:00.000-08:00

I just love google translate, it gives language a new dimension. This is the presstext for one of our upcoming italian shows in Diagonal Loft Club. First the original italian text then the very funny danish one and last the also pretty wired english version. I don´t understand Italian so maybe they just have a very inventive way of advertising:

Marybell Katastrophy e' come Alice nel paese delle meraviglie electro-pop. E ti fa l'effetto dello scatolone dei giochi rovesciato sul pavimento, con i mattoncini Lego che travolgono le fatine Winks, e Barbie che scratcha col giradischi Fisher Price. Una bomba arcobaleno, una BigBabol che ti scoppia sulla faccia.

Marybell Katastrophy og Alice i Eventyrland electro-pop. Det gør du virkningen af boksen spillet op og ned på gulvet med Lego-klodser, der kan overvælde feer blink, Barbie og Fisher Price pladespiller med at ridse. Bomb regnbue, en bryder BigBabol, at vi står over for.

Marybell Katastrophy and Alice in Wonderland electro-pop. To do this the effect of box played up and down on the floor with Lego bricks, which can overwhelm flashing fairies, Barbie and Fisher Price record player with scratching. Bomb rainbow, a break BigBabol that we face.

Just to illustrate our music according to google translate and Diagonal Loft here is some inspiration photos describing us in a childish way:

ITALY here we come

2009-11-19T10:28:00.000-08:00

A little update after a small break in Copenhagen - offline! In a few weeks we pack our bags and go to Italy for a little winter tour - and we really look forward to go there. We have never toured there before, and I don´t believe many danish bands go there. We don´t really know the venues or even the cities, but boy we look forward to see what they are all about. Here is a little tour plan if you wanna come:

04/12 SCANDICCI, GINGER ZONE (I)
05/12 FROSINONE, CANTINA MEDITERRANEO (I)
06/12 FERRARA, ZUNI (I)
09/12 FORLÌ, DIAGONAL LOFT (I)

Just before christmas the 17. of december we will play in Aarhus, our hometown, at Studenterhus Aarhus.

Good we are well and no swineflu in our veins...yet

Menneskelivet er underligt

2009-11-08T07:08:00.001-08:00

how would you translate "menneskelivet er underligt" into english?

Weekend tour

2009-10-29T06:57:00.000-07:00

Hurra, tomorrow we go on a little weekend tour, first up is Aalborg Studenterhus tomorrow friday. Before we play a french band called SayCet will play, and I think it´s gonna be goooood.
Saturday we go to the capital of the west Herning, and play at Fermaten.
We will play new songs and have a lot of fun...so hope to see you there!

Are you doing anything tonight?

2009-10-27T01:27:00.000-07:00

Tonight we will play at the new and rebuild Voxhall in our hometown Aarhus. It´s a closed concert for the employees and some important music people from Aarhus. It will be a good setting to play two new song for the first time, and try them on a probably not very focused audience, before we will go on a little danish your this weekend, and play them for you! But but but I have a little and very fast competition, because we have 2 freespots on tonights guestlist, and I want you to come! So the first two that write me an email with their names before 6, to data@marybell.dk, will get the spots...so go go go!

Where they shoot the cows

2009-10-20T01:11:00.000-07:00

Our rehearsal room is located at the habour in Aarhus, right next to a slaughter house, inside some old freeze boxes that use to store meat....It smells very bad of death, and you can actually hear the cows scream when they face their destiny - I know I doesn´t sound very cosy, but we share the room with our friend Nicolai who renovated it and changed it into the most wonderful freeze box in the world! It´s a bit like Bennys Badekar, an old danish children show (or Alice in Wonderland), where you disappear into a whole other world, where the grey and sad everyday outside is forgotten for a while - and of cause it is soundproof so we can´t hear the cows scream too much....

New songs live

2009-10-13T08:00:00.000-07:00

We are on our way to the reheaseal room to try out 2 of the new songs for the upcoming shows in Denmark, and later in Italy in the beginning of december. It´s going to be very interesting to try and find a way to play the new, more orchestral parts. This little clip is a beat from one of the songs, tonight going to be transformed by Q and Jakob to a live version:

Hopefully we can transform it in to the same song but another version - for us this is the best way, and it keeps it all alive, because there is never a real and true version.

Vocals all over the place

2009-10-06T05:55:00.000-07:00

A long day with vocal recordings are over, and I am tired. I recorded vocals for five new songs, some of them I told you about and it is slowly taking form as a little bunch of electric fighters. Just to show you a little of the recording I made this little video, where I crossfade between me singing and the recording as it ended up today, for the new song"The Difference Between Illusion and Perception".

I sing into a Shure SM7b, as a tribute to Michael Jackson who used to record with this one as well - not to put anything on the same footing as him singing of cause!

The lyrics for these new songs are written by Morten Søndergaard - the famous danish poet - as we call him here in the house to tease him a bit. He is a really good friend, and his words are... I can't really start to say how much I love them and how musical they are to sing. So for now I will just say Thank you!

My humble admiration

2009-10-04T08:26:00.000-07:00

Shirin Neshat شیرین نشاط (born March 26, 1957 in Qazvin, Iran) is a contemporary Iranian visual artist who lives in New York. She is known primarily for her work in film, video and photography. She made this video installation called Turbulent and is so breathtaking. I would love to learn a little bit about the vocal technic the singers masters so beautifully.

The female singer is Sussan Deyhim and she is a composer, vocalist and performance artist who has been at the forefront of experimental music internationally for over two decades. Originally this is a video installation, in a totally dark room with the man on one wall and the woman on the opposite.
If you are in Copenhagen you can go see it at: Galleri Faurschou.
Please give me a hint if you know somewhere I can study persian singing - better today than tomorrow.

Introducing: The Pad Man

2009-09-29T01:03:00.000-07:00

Today I would like to introduce Jakob Schweppenhäuser, our electronic drummer, who you might remember transformed into a hotheaded skeleton on stage.

His triggers all kinds of samples on his pad, also including bass samples and all kinds of different sounds. It makes his role very, very important and replaces all backtrack stuff we used before basicly Jakob sets us free! I learned about him through his other "band" Schwth, an electronic act featuring the dansih poet Morten Søndergaard (who I will get back to later). Please go tjeck out their webpage, finally a site that challanges the "normal" way of presenting your music on the internet.
Furthermore he also started making some programmed drums for me for the new songs, and I´m working on a track right now, where the drums takes the lead, and decides where I should go....take a listen to a little snippet from the drumtrack he gave me:

TODAY WE CELEBRATE

2009-09-25T02:28:00.000-07:00

Today is a celebration day for us, as we release our album The More in most of Europe and Asia. We look forward to come and visit you with our music. Thank you to everybody who made this happen, just to name a few:

Maria Timm, Jim @ Merger , Kasper Find @ Ponyrec, Playground, Anders Boll, Julie Runa, Mette @ Ungt Blod, Dennis, Kristina, Sigrunn, Jakob Schweppenhäuser, Morten Søndergaard, Mr. Q, Mads Tønder

Rapman & Raptrax

2009-09-21T11:16:00.001-07:00

We have this wonderful old Casio synth called Rapman that you can hear on different Marybell songs already. One example is the high pitched synth melody on Good Old Germany.

The synth is of cause from the eighties had some accessories coming with it, very fancy little package, which include a nice pair of sunglasses, and a casette with raptrax, played on the synth! Awesome!
On this casette you find some very oldfashioned raptrax feat. amongst others the rapper Heavy D and his girlz. The track I like the most is called Girls They Love Me, and I used it for inspiration for one of the new Marybell songs, but for now you will need to settle with the original:

Heavy D & the Boyz - Girls they love me - Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

Morning has broken

2009-09-18T01:21:00.000-07:00

Later I will tell you much more about the two girls who made the artwork around Marybell from the begining - my little sister Mette who also came up with the name Marybell Katastrophy and my best friend Kristina. But till then I will just show you this video made by Kristina as visuals for a concert (you can check out the rest of the visuals on her youtube

Orchestral Oriental Electronic Musik

2009-09-17T05:44:00.000-07:00

The new songs take their form in highspeed, and I can now with certainty say that it has an orchestral-oriental-electronic-feel to it - as if that makes sense to you - so today I worked on a song with the short and catchy working title The Difference Between Illusion And Perception, the instrumental section consists of both synths, heartbeats and two Indian instruments:

The Bansuri Flute:

And the Shehnai Oboe (as you hear in the begining of this wonderful clip from a Bollywood movie (I love the way the compression sometimes tweaks their voices))

Dexter II

2009-09-16T03:46:00.000-07:00

Something strange happened today while I was working on a new song. I just made some lyrics for it, and the chorus started with the words "Dexter, you're my brother". Then suddenly it hit me, that we played a song called Dexter in Tiger Tunes. So I just listened to it again to remember, and it had the exact same feel as my new song...but maybe it´s just me who wants to hear it...? what do you think?

A clip from the Tiger Tunes song

A clip from the new Marybell song

concert and a chair dance competition

2009-09-14T09:19:00.000-07:00

Uhlala we had a good night friday, playing in our lovely hometown, at musikcafeen. We were so surprised and happy to see all of you showing up! So happy that we ended up partying all night, including a wild and crazy chair dance competition, won by Emil and Kenneth our soundguy. Ole Lauritsen, a local photographer took some very nice pictures and I got his ok to post some here, later I will put up a couple of live recordings from this magical evening.

The whale shirt atmosphere

2009-09-10T03:19:00.000-07:00

I think I will make a song inspired by this Tshirt. I had it since I was a kid and it´s from Iceland - Maybe the song will be called "The Whale Shirt" or something like that...

Pruebas palpables

2009-09-09T00:46:00.000-07:00

Mr. Ramogens send me this video from saturday, and it is now obvious also to the ear that we had to do with some pretty heavy rock´n´smoul:

First German reviews and a concert announcement

2009-09-08T01:15:00.001-07:00

Our album The More is soon (25th september) being released in most of Europe and Asia via Merger and Ponyrec. So the first reviews start to pop up. I almost consider Good Old Germany (the country) as my second homeland, but sometimes it is a little hard understanding every word, but anyway if we make earth spin around it´s axis we most do something right...?!

Tonspion (free download of the song Whiteboard)

Oh Fancy

Schallgrenzen

We will try to make it spin live this friday in our hometown Aarhus - the last i Aarhus before we go abroard. It will take place in Musikcafeen in Mejlgade, and we found a fresh and new opening act called The Boy The Man The Pale, who we look forward to see play! After our show Q and Jakob (our electronic drummer) will DJ and keep the party going like this:

"I don´t see any fucking horses"

2009-09-07T02:00:00.000-07:00

This saturday I had the pleasure of joining Beta Satan on stage at the Crunchy Frog 15th anniversary. It took place in a cellar underneath Ørestad metrostation - It was pretty late but pretty awsome. The band consists of some of my best friends, furthermore their drummer Mr. Q also plays drums with Marybell these days - as he is the best drummer in the world...the universe...denmark at least!

I was a substitute for Kaare (the normal frontman) who is having a baby these days (maybe right now), Asbjørn Grimm was the male substitute. Here are a few shots of the of the humble substitutes from Jints allways present lense.

We also celebrated the birthday by contributing with a song for their anniversary combilation called Saluting The Crunchy Frog-A-Logue. We (meaning Q, Emil and I) made a mashup between two songs namely the strange and wonderful song "Midnite and the Medicine" by Tothe International and the harsh and strong song "Amorines" by 18th Dye - of cause we named it "Midnite and the Amorines"and it sounds like this:

18th Dye also played a small set at the party saturday, and thanks god they also played "Amorines". I love their sound and their ability to cut off everything that isn´t important and rely 100% on the good song!

Here We Go

2009-09-03T02:54:00.001-07:00

I plan to use this new blog to tell you a little bit about the process of making new Marybell songs. Maybe also a bit about the rest... say touring or rehearsing or dancing or...
We just returned from a great trip to Norway, we played on the boat to Oslo, and the next day at the great venue Mono! We will certainly come back there and here soon.