Free Palestine Music and Arts Festival, Barril da Alva, Portugal June 15th, 2025

This was a wonderful day and I met and hung out with a lot of different people. Weather was fantastic. About 30C but the park was totally shaded by large trees so a very nice spot.  Different things for kids (Face Painting, theatre area, inflated jumping area), lots of drink stands, craft beer from Arganil (Puro Mall), falafel stand, vegan burgers, cakes, and some people selling clothes and books and stuff to raise money.  The auction was very good with a table full of stuff that you could bid on. I won a very nice serving plater made by Debbie Manson, a local ceramic potter expert.  Lovely..  Money goes to a great cause.

These two guys with dolls were awesome.  They did really cool rock songs like Bad to the Bone, Voodoo Chile, etc..  Check out this little video. Wow.. So much fun..

As far as the music went it was a lot of cover songs, mostly.  I arrived when Jim Black and Kate were playing.  An acoustic duo. I do not remember much of them as I was meeting people I know and saying hello. 

Undying Heads

Undying Heads are a bunch of UK expats playing mostly original songs and some covers with a sort of punky dirty grimmy edge to it. Mixing rock and folky stuff with some great political lyrics.  They were really fun.   

$Med Records, were two kids (one really young) who rapped over different songs and beats. No idea if they programmed the music themselves or anything like that. They were decent rappers but I just find it a little fun these white kids making all these “black” moves and hand gestures, etc.. you ain´t black… make up your own original moves.. Anyway, they had the biggest crowd of the day and people loved it…

Dave Hendo and Becky, are again two locals. Becky sings and plays violin. I have seen Dave around in a ska outfit, with the Crusties, and solo. Super nice guy. They did mostly cover songs (Small Faces, Beatles, etc..).. Probably a few originals as well. 

Snazzy Ragamuffins, were a five piece band with a female lead singer.  Again, mostly cover songs, so of which she sang well and some she was very flat on the vocal.. Not great.. The two guitar players were the main focus. It was a well received set and they ended with Imagine, the John Lennon song. Sadly, we are still far away from John´s vision.. Very sad…

The Crusties used to be a 3-4 piece band and are not a 5 piece.  it has been a while since I had seen them. They play all covers but some very interesting and more obscure stuff.  Really old blues stuff, Bowie songs, etc… Fun band and nice to see my friend Christian playing Cajon with them. They had a younger new electric guitar player as well.  They were great. Best band of the day musically. 

The Crusties

I Spy, local politically charged rockers always get the place moving and are getting better and better every year now days. They have a new CD out called a Drop in the Ocean. Check it out. 

http://andyshades.bandcamp.com 

I did not see the DJs at all.. Great event and nice to see and hang out with so many people..

Øresund Space Collective- Space Boat X, Hamburg, Germany May 23-24th, 2025

May 22nd- I have to drive an hr to the train station and then take the train from Coimbra to Lisboa. Takes about 1hr 40mins. It is hot. 29C here at Coimbra..  Only going to be below 15C in Denmark and Germany. Bummer..  I arrived late (23) into Copenhagen and met Jiri at the airport, he was just coming back from a trip with his family. 

May 23rd

We are soon leaving to the rehearsal room to get the gear and Nick,who slept out there.  Jonathan arrived last night and he and Jiri got back about 22. I had a beer with my old friend Ulrik and dinner with Clotho and was just relaxing.  We have the ferry booked for 1215.. A bit of sun but lots of dark clouds around. Supposed to be a bit windy and cool, only 14C today in Hamburg.  27C in Portugal…

Mood is good. Mattias is flying directly into Hamburg and will meet us at the harbour at 16. It will be a bit cold today and maybe some rain, We will see. Just hope all else goes fine….  Will be fun to play for the fans again… The same line up as last year except Mattias on the drums…  

We were perfect time for the ferry. Jiri paid in advance and also for the gas before we left CPH. Some crazy weather as were heading down to the highway after picking up Nick at the rehearsal room. Mood was good but Jonathan did not sleep that well.  I did ok but would have liked another hr or two!!   

We had our schnitzel and Jonathan fish fillet. I paid the bill 79€. All went well with the drive,  I spoke to Jonathan about my thoughts about the stuff we made in Stockholm and the possible releases that could come out from this.  He put a lot of work into this. 

We arrived about 10min til 16 and Klaus and Sabine drove up with in 5mins of us and then Anders as well so we were all there on time.. Weather was much better than expected. A mix of sun and clouds..  As usual, the set up is hard and you are not aloud to play music so no soundcheck, so we just could check there was sound.  Mood was good but that rocking of the boat was making me feel weird so I tried to stay off the boat. Had some food with Anders and Jonathan. Nice fried fish and chips. Had a Fritz cola, a Hamburg classic.. As good as real coke, I think. Met a lot of the fans and some folks that came all the way from NY. They had just got married and this was part of their honeymoon.  Such cool and nice folks. Wow.. 

Boat left on time and it was 70% of the same people. Amazing, this was the 10th boat!!!  Mattias plays so hard and loud that everyone had to turn up, especially Anders as no one could hear him other wise on the far side of the stage.  Mattias just likes to play so each set was just one long jam. First was about 95mins and we had a break and played another 70, I think.  Amazing music, grooves, musical textures..  Fun.. People were so happy and the weather was ok. We had a few sunny patches but no rain and the waters were not too rough.  So many happy and smiling people. They loved it….

Here is the recording. Sadly the first set the drums and organ are too loud but we adjust this for the next set and next day..

https://archive.org/details/OSC2025-05-23.FLAC4 

Day 2

I shared a room with Anders and Jonathan and Mattias were in a room and Nick and Jiri Sabine also stayed at the hotel. Anders and I met Sabine at the breakfast. Nick eventually came down and then Jiri. Mattias and Jonathan were late but they let them have breakfast even though they had officially closed it.  We left for the boat about 1040.. Boat was there when we arrived. We agreed to use the vocal mic to put some of Anders in the PA so he did not have to play so loud. 

Weather was great today. Warmer and mostly sunny.. People were so happy and there were 7 more tickets sold, so only about 15 unsold tickets. Mood was great again and people from the first day were ready.. We started off really spacey and then off for one about 65min set. It was really warm as they had all the plastic siding on still. I wanted to take off my shirt but I resisted!!  Cool set and I felt I had found some new sounds.  Fun..  We had a small break and then off again. We played another set and a small break and then played again. Sadly, towards the end of the 2nd set my modular stopped working. Fuck..  So I got to just watch the 3rd set as a fan and mingle and talk with the audience. They were great. Wow.. What a band!!!  

Another amazing spaceboat. These are the most happy fans I have ever met.

https://archive.org/details/OSC2025-05-24.FLAC 

Amazing time. Special thanks to Sabine, who puts so much hard work into making this such a cool event and a success!!!   Also thanks to Klaus, Birgit, Rolf and the others that helped Sabine out.. See you all next year…    Keep a look out for tickets and dates in January 2026.

https://www.sapphirerecords.de/ 

All Fotos by Sabine..

Unifantastico Festival, Travancinha, Portugal June 7th, 2025

This was a lovely one day family festival with a ton of kids running and activities and workshops and contests and of course music!  4€ if you are a member of the unifant organisation or 8€ if not. 10€ a year to join so you could join and get in for 2€…. 

I arrived about 1430 and there were a lot of people roaming around. A guy named Emil had brought a bunch of drums for the drum circle that was supposed to start at 15. It started about 1530. Filipe (Idiotheque) was awesome and about 5 other drummers, male and female. I met a really cool guy from Finland, Pasi!  He is a guitar player but he also played some drums and percussion here. An older guy had an Oud, 7 string guitar and tried to play a bit but was drowned out by the drums so he switched to some Moroccan hand cymbals. It was fun..

Next was a workshop up in the dome or kids Olympics games and face painting, etc.. Lots of stuff going on.   I was there for the social interaction and to hear some live music. 

Ball Zee, a UK and world Beatbox champion performed but also gave a little workshop showing us how he made some of these amazing sounds. He was mindblowing. I had never seen anyone make such authentic bass and percussion and other techno like music with only his mouth. Wow..  Blew me away..  He showed us how he made these sounds and then a strong or small kids gave it a try. Most were not any good but at least they gave it a go!!  Fun..

Nick and Issac (they had recorded some songs in my studio), gave their debut live performance and played 5 songs (3 of Issacs, 2 of Nicks). They were nervous and it was not perfect but sounded great. Their voices really work well together and they both play acoustic guitars. I think Nick should play acoustic bass that would work better.  On Issacs songs, he is mainly playing a similar chord variation and could add more with a bass.  It was great. I loved it…

Lisa Oribasi (partner of Ball Zee), played a solo acoustic/electric guitar set and Ball Zee added some drum like parts and other sound effects on the last 3 songs (all on the electric guitar).  She did mostly originals and had a wonderful voice.  Her cover of Toes by Glass Animals was the best song though…  Her first few originals were great. She played a new one Oscillation but it was the weakest song of the set..  Very nice guitar playing as well. Lovely..

https://lisaoribasi.bandcamp.com/album/red-earth

After this started the psy trance DJs so I headed home. It was a lovely day and awesome small festival.. Met many friends and made some new ones as well.  The DJs that played later are listed below.

Strangeiro, Itsan, Kobiko, Yoka

Rock dos Romanos- Condexa da Velha, Portugal May 30th, 2025

This was a great little two day rock and metal festival just south of Coimbra. Took me 75mins to drive there on this hot day.  When I arrived to meet the Madmess guys, there was a very young metal band playing called Dream On. 5 piece with a female singer, all around 17 years old.  I think they were playing original metal songs.  Impressive actually…. 

Epiiepsia Alienígena. This was a very cool band from Viseu, more psychedelic rock of sorts. Sadly you could not hear the synth guy at all the entire concert. Sucked. Sound guy was not good when it came to keyboards. Must be a metal guy.. the band guys were really great and nice folks as well. I did not see them having a CD at the merch place.  They have a bandcamp page but no new music since 2016.,

Sete Pês (Seven Feet), played all instrumental like melodic rock fusion stuff and were good. The guitar player did most of the solos while the keyboard player was way in the background most of the time except of one longer solo.  Great bass and drums. They also had a conga-percussion player.  I bought there CD, Flying Carpet, which was a bit disappointing compared to them live!

Set List: 22/23, Raposa, Funky Samba, Primeio Voo, Coral, Cruzeiro

Madmess, we were up at 2200. IT has been 15 months since the last time I played with the guys. The set list was in a different order and they had dropped all but one of the older songs and played all the new album plus a Black Sabbath song. I had a lot of fun playing along to their normal set. They do not jam at all and everything is played perfectly and exact every night, which is a pity but it is still fun to find my place here and there and add to the live experience. There was a lot of positive feedback about my contribution, which is cool. Super cool guys. Love em and a great band.. Powerful….

Set List:  Burnt, Widowmaker, Albatross, Death by Astonishment, Velvet Nebula, Endless Cycles, Hazy, Sauerkraut, Rat Salad

I had to drive home after the gig so I did not get to see Baliea Baliea Baliea or Máquina.  Spoke with the Máquina guys and they are all super cool. They will play at Sonic Blast again..  Fun night...