30/12/2008Christmas has been cool, calm and relaxing...plenty of good food and drink and nice family time - just as it should be. Our new, extended house is just about finished and Charlotte, Elin and Rasmus managed to decorate what I must say is one of the more spectacular Christmas trees I have ever seen. And now New Year's is at the door which always is a time of contemplation for me; a time to summarize the year that has passed and readjust my mind for the challanges of the coming year. 2009 could turn out to be a great year for UTS, I think. The work on the documentary of our Jamaican tour will begin in earnest i January and after long discussions back and forth I have now finalized a deal with Howard Hendriks and Ra-umi Alkebulan in Jamaica. So hopefully very soon I will be able to announce it officially that they will be taking over our management. Keep your fingers crossed and hope for the best because I have nothing but the greatest faith in the fact that these guys can make great things happen for us. Will keep you posted! Finally - all the best to all of you from the Urban Tribe Stockholm camp and a HAPPY NEW YEAR to all! 30/11/2008I realize with shame that I have been neglecting my blog for far too long.
Things have been frantically busy with work, the house and other energy
consuming things so it was a great relief to finally get some much needed time off when we went to Thailand on November 7. We spent 2 glorious weeks at our home away from home in Kamala Beach and loved every second of it. I did happen to catch a bit of Montezuma's Revenge though so about 4 days of my trip was spent more or less in bed with a stomach in turmoil. Anyway - now, finally, things are starting to happen for UTS again. We did a show at an event for IBM here in Stockholm last week which was great - it actually featured both Frank and Sven on stage both playing keyboards which was fantastic. The interesting thing is that it was the first time they ever met. That's the way it is with UTS, we tend to do things all backwards. Stay tuned because I think good things are in the works. 28/09/2008Life right now is extremely busy and wrought with uncertainty and problems. Me and Charlotte are having our house extended and the final price-tag of the ordeal just went up considerably, leaving me with the riddle of how to come up with a quite staggering amount of money that we didn't foresee. The house, though, is going to be absolutely great. At the same time I am getting out of my studio in downtown Stockholm; I have already set up shop here at home, even though the new part of the house isn't ready yet. Life in turmoil - boxes and stuff everywhere. At the same time I am repainting the whole house. Plus working from 06.30 in the AM to 4 PM. On top of that fall offers its own variety of duties; the patios need to be oiled, the boat must be taken out of the water - I guess you know what I mean. The recent financial crisis in the world has also left its mark on our personal economy; the intrest on our house loand have gone up in a disconcerting way. So UTS has not been a priority lately, which is frustrating. I am so far behind in so many ways I doubt if I'll ever catch up. But good things are in the works - the new single is sounding awesome! Soon come. 18/09/2008Me, Charlotte and my stepson Simon went to the Globe arena here in Stockholm last night to see Coldplay. You might be going "what's a rootsguy like Adam doing messin around with Coldplay?". My answer is I think they're great! My musical taste has never known any boundries and I listen to all kinds of music. As a matter of fact me and Charlotte are going to see Emmylou Harris on Monday. And we got married to a looped version of the intro to the Coldplay-song "In my Place". Right after we got together we went to Thailand together where we bought the Coldplay-album "Parachutes". It became our theme-music for the trip.
So Colplay have a very special place in my world. And yes, the show was absolutely awesome. I think that my diverse taste in music have a lot to do with the way Urban Tribe sound. If I had limited myself to only listening to reggae we wouldn't sound the way we do. If that makes us better or worse I will leave up to you guys to decide. To me there are only two kinds of music; good music and bad music. 13/09/2008It was with great distress and misgiving I read parts of an interview with Republican vice-president candidate Sarah Palin where she talked about "winning the war in Iraq" and also about not hesitating to go to war with Russia if need be. Oh dear Lord allmighty. Save us from this woman! She makes an old warmongerer like John McCain pale in comparison. This is the time where the rest of us poor suckers who can't even vote in this election should join hands in prayer that Barack Obama wins in November. No more Republicans in the White House, please. Just look at the mess that "W" has left the world to deal with after 8 years of totally misguided leadership. If you could call it leadership, that is. There should be some debate about that. 15/08/2008We were supposed to do morning TV today but it got cancelled. Unfortunately Entertainment Report also got lost in the mix - remember how their cameraman was late for work last week so we missed shooting it? That proved to be the nail in the coffin for that one. But what the heck, what can one do? So the daytime was sort of off. Christian and Numme (our cameraman) had left for home at 1 AM in the night so now it was just the 4 of us. We headed out to Treasure Beach for a final swim and lunch at Jack Sprat's before checking out of the hotel and heading for Kingston and tonight's show at Weekenz called Jamaica Vibes. Along the way we stopped so I could do a live radio interview with Newstalk via phone. The interview went great and they played "Empire", "Soul Rebel" and "No Solution" on the air. Weekenz was a really classy place with an outdoor stage. 6 other acts were performing and we were the headlining act. The show went well; I actually go to play guitar this time around. We performed "Empire", "Hello Carol", "One Fine Day", "Nothingness" and "Soul Rebel". Then came the chock - someone had stolen my MacBook backstage. (that's why this blog has been late) Me and Charlotte were inconcolable about this. I mean losing the MacBook in itself is bad enough but what really gets to you is the content inside. 6 months worth of e-mails and photos, among which were all the photos taken during the first half of our trip to Jamaica. The clubowners were devestated and vowed to get in touch with the local gangleader to see if we can get it back. Irie TV + several radiostations promised to make appeals on the air for the safe return of the computer. You see, when you're an artist or entertainer in Jamaica you are virtually untouchable; the gangs don't like to see you messed with. So wer're really hoping that these efforts will bear fruit so we can get it back. Mr Callum and Richie dropped us off at the airport at about 1.30 AM wher security were kind enough to let us in (our plane didn't leave until 06.25 AM) The journey home was uneventful with stops in Miama and Atlanta along the way - we acutually slept most of the way home.
Talk about a busy day! Full speed ahead from early on. Mr Callum, our driver, and Richie Innocent picked us up at 06.00 at the hotel and we set sail for Kingston. Our first port of call was a studio where we were to voice our contribution to the Half Pint song. And we're not talking just any studio here...we're talking Harry J studio where (among countless other legendary records) "Rastaman Vibration" and "Catch a Fire" were recorded! Talk about hallowed ground! We were awestruck just to be there and even more so to actually be recording there. I was more than a little nervous when I stepped into the fantastic recording room. But it went really well! We all recorded our parts in about an hour. Afterwards a TV-crew from J-TV (nationwide TV) met up with us to record what would become a 30-minute segment featuring us on a show called Teen Scene. It
went really well that too. After lunch we headed to nationwide radio for an in-studio interview. The inteview was breezy and natural and we sang "One Fine Day" and "Hello Carol" a capella (as we also did on the TV-show by the way). Next stop was the cable-TV show Yaadbeat. Now this was something different! It was shot out side "in the yaad", so to speak, with sweat pouring down our backs. Finally we headed over to Irie TV to do a cableshow called Hype TV. This was a very proffessional setup. It is funny how we always have to start from scratch; that every where we go people won't give us the time of day until they have heard our music or heard us sing. And man does the attitude change then! On Hype TV it was tangible. We were supposed to do a short interview and then perform one song. You could litterally see the jaws drop in the studio when we performed "Empire". So they ended up asking us to do another one (we did "Hello Carol") + asking us for a photo-op outside afterwards. Following last night's successful show we were rewarded with a full day off - a full day off, what a treat! We hired the help of our now good friend cabbie Richie Gordon who took us out to Treasure Beach, to our favourite spot. When we got there we saw to our dismay that barbed wire was being set up; apparently someone had bought the land and a house was going to be built. Needless to say, we snuck in anyway. We had a relaxing time on the beach and finished the day off by having loads of lobster and pizza at Jack Sprat's further on down the beach. On the way home we got caught up in a major traffic jam. As it turned out it was due to the fact that 2 people had gotten shot. This just goes to show that the securitymeassures taken by Howard to protect us really have been necessary. Since coming here we have heard about 9 murders - and keep in mind that we're not really following the news here; these are just the murders that have happened close by that people have told us about. Absolutely horrible.
We spent a quiet evening at the hotel since we were all exhausted from our busy schedule. Part of the day was also spent writing our parts for the Sly and Robbie / Half Pint collaboration we are due to record in Kingston in the morning. 11/08/2008Slept in a bit because of the party last night then went through the
bush down to Howard's house. We had the day off today so we
wanted to get some time at the beach, but again things were not
working for us. The credits on my phone had run out so calling our
driver had to be done via Howard who was extremely busy today
since a relative of his wife was to be buried today (gunshot victim).
Seems to be a lot of that going around; just the other day we heard
of two tourists found with their throats slit and their faces bashed in
not far from here. Absolutely terribe. Just goes to show that all the
precautions taken by Howard for us here are absolutely necessary.
We don't get to go anywhere on our own ever, which ofcourse is a
constant source of frustration for us and is something I find it very hard
to get used to. Anyway I did a great live interview of national radio
lasting about 25 minutes around midday with really initiated questions
and interesting reasonings. One of my best interviews so far, I think.
And you could tell that the interviewer really liked to music which he
thought was stunningly authentic and heartfelt. Basically he wished
us heartily welcome to Jamaica. We didn't get to go to the beach until
2 PM and, wouldn't you know, during the ride massive thunderclouds
rolled in with heavy rain in tow. Just our luck. We went to a public
beach and went for a great swim when the rain subsided. We were the
only persons not of colour there so I guess you could say we stuck out
a bit. After coming back from the beach we had some downtime at
the hotel and then we left for tonight's show at about 9 PM. The show
was here in Santa Cruz so we were close by. I must say we became
a little apprehensive when we say that the guard at the gate had an
M-16 around his neck. We're talking hardcore here for sure. Big stage,
massive grounds, plenty of people and some of the greatest stars to
perform later on; Movado, Richie Spice, GT Taylor, Fantah Mojah,
Anothony B and so on and on and on. We were more than a little
nervous. Our friend Richie Innocent was the MC for the night and
big upped us plenty before we came on stage. And how did it go,
you ask? The crowd went wild! By far our biggest success since we
came here and to have this happen on the show that was the most
difficult one, the most massive one, naturally was fantastic, We did
"Empire", "Hello Carol", "One Fine Day" and "Soul Rebel" with the
crowd cheering and screaming inbetween songs - and remember
how Jamaican crowds are the most difficult ones in the world? They
don't cheer for anything unless they love it. And they did. This is the day that proved to be the most frustrating yet.
We awoke fairly early because we were supposed to be
able to spend all day out at Treasure Beach since we
were doing a show there this evening. After the last days
of hard work we were really looking forward to it. But alas!
Like usual things don't go the way they are planned in
Jamaica. Howard wanted us to go see his studio so me,
Bamma, Stefan (the cameraman) and Howard went to
the studio, which was in a rural setting outside Santa Cruz,
in fact an old bar converted into some semblance of a
studio. Anyway, the gas ran out in Howard's car and we
ended up spending a (too) large portion of the day waiting
for someone to come with gas. At this point I was fuming
inside. After we finally got back to the hotel we had to wait
for Mr Cullum, our driver. And the time went. In the meantime
I did a live radio interview with a radiostation in Florida -
the interview went really well.So we didn't make
it to the beach until about 5 in the afternoon. The show, which
turned out to be at the parking
lot outside Jack Sprat's bar and restaurant went well apart
from the fact that my voice cut out again. It had been allright
for a few days but now it was the same again - very irritating
not being able to perform your best under these circumstances.
We did 6 songs and 2 encores. After this we had a quick dinner
and headed back to Santa Cruz. Mr Cullum called a supermarket
and got them to stay open extra long so we could stock up with
beer and wine. We borrowed the cooling box from the car and
set up camp in my and Bamma's room and ended up getting
pretty hammered the lot of us. A much needed vent!
All in all we felt that the day had been exhausting
and at the end we were left with very little to show for it.
Except for the fact that Jake's want to book the whole band for
a show on New Year's Eve, ofcourse! That would be quite something. |
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