Remember to check out the new release from Emperor! The picture on the frontcover is by me.

 

I am now a proud owner of a Engl Powerball amplifier. This top will be used for the upcoming Gjenferdsel album which will start next month.
 

More info: http://www.engl-amps.com/e645.html

A lot have happened at our distro Black Forest Records lately. We have increased our stock with a lot of new and killer titles, and we can now announce that we have reached 666 products!

This Asian Flash game is so good, I just have to share it. My record is 9849.90 m, how much is yours?



>PLAY NOW<

GJENFERDSEL announces that their next album will be entitled ”VARDE”!

 

Iudex comments the title;
”VARDE is a Norwegian name for a stone monument that are built on heights in the terrain. In the middle ages these monuments also contained of firewood, and guards were placed by it to lit the firewood if danger was approaching. Nowadays these stone monuments can be found around in our mountains as guidance for wanderers.

This album will contain faster, darker and more dismal material than our debut, and therefore we want to warn about danger, hence the title!”

Some songs that will be included on the album are “Illverk”, “Vesaldom”, “Regin”, “Strid” etc. The album does currently not have a release date, but will be recorded and released during 2009!

Apart from this, GJENFERDSEL also have a new bassist, Efferus, which will be joining them on our gig in Holland January 16th!

GJENFERDSEL also have a new website! Feel free to have a look at:www.gjenferdsel.no!

Hariton Pushwagner is probably one of Norways coolest living artists, and he's having a major artistic breakthrough in Norway as well as internationally these days, at the age of 68! From being a homeless drugaddict, who signed off his entire artwork to his agent (lithographys, paintings, prints, sketchbooks and probably even napkins with drawings on them), he is now on top of it again, trying to gather it all.
What recognizes Pushwagners art is his insane detail works. It´s said about Pushwagners painting 'Jobkill' that it is one of the most comprehensive and detailed artworks in the world.
His art reflects a mechanical life in a dehumanized, dystopian future. Anonymous people, often standing in an endless line. This is top notch social criticism! Even his name is a critic; Pushwagner is a allegory to the shopping carts found in most supermarkets ;)
Right up my alley! I highly recommend checking out Pushwagner. You can se a interview in Norwegian here and a documentary here.


Self-portrait - all the little dots - all over - are a little person!!

You can see more of his works @ pushwagner.no

BE THERE!!!!!

Last night we went to Enslaved, Audrey Horne (cancelled), Krakow and V:28 live in Hamar. When we arrived at the venue, V:28's cold and industrial atmosphere was pounding the walls to pieces. With all the mess from the arrangers, it was a relief to actually see that V:28 really played this night, since they wasn't promoted like the rest of the line-up.



Enough whining, and over to the matter; V:28, which nowadays are adding the last nails into their coffin. They are making their career complete by playing a few selected liveshows, ending it in their hometown Arendal. Now, Hamar is at hand, and some few people had decided to show up early despite the lack of promotion. Actually most of the people we talked to was there mainly to see V:28, and was really looking forward to this. Personally this was also the main reason we went to the gig, and was quite excited to see them live. And they didn't dissapoint either. They played a nice selection of songs, where the highest moment being «Soldiers of the Neverending War». Even though we knew that they don't use a drummer, we caught ourselves looking for him now and then. The only thing we could see was Krakow and Enslaved's empty drumkits. Not that this is a bad thing at all; the use of programmed drums fits perfectly into their industrial sound, making it more static and robotic. After the show we talked a little with our collegue Eddie (vocalist/guitarist in V:28), while a guy came towards him and said; «Man, it was an awsome gig, but I have only ONE negative thing to tell you», in which Eddie responded «aaaaaaaargh...don't tell me......the drummer thing.... I KNOW!!». The guy followed «noooo, not THAT...your set was waaay too short!». A compliment in which we agreed.

The next band out was Krakow. We have been in Krakow. It's a nice city.

Enslaved was the headliner. None of us are really big fans of Enslaved, except Jan which enjoyed the Eld album a lot. The new stuff have pretty much gone by without much recognition. And since they mostly played new material, the best moments for us was their so-called «hit-songs» like their title-track from ISA and «The Watcher» from the new album «Vertebrae». We were a little dissapointed they played the song «Eld» from their older materials and not for example songs like «793 – Slaget ved Lindisfarne». All in all it seems that Enslaved was THE band this evening, as a lot of people had showed up, and they seemed to enjoy it a lot. One of the good things with Enslaved's liveshows is their use of visual effects. And we are happy to see that they had improved it since their gig at Inferno some years ago. Some of it reminded us of the great Ingmar Bergman, which is a compliment in itself. They've evolved onstage, and have become a quite professional extreme metal band, even though we personally think the progressive part and the viking part don't fit quite together.



The sum up the evening, Enslaved and V:28, accompanied with a whole lot of alcoholic beverages, made 25 bucks worthy spent money.

The review is also published at www.beattheblizzard.com

Pitch Black Restaurant - Beijing, China

Exactly as the name says; this is a restaurant without lights inside. You will have to eat in complete darkness, and are being served by staff wearing night-goggles. If we should believe the restaurant, it will close out the visionary sense and make food taste like it never has.


`s Baggers Restaurant - Nürnberg, Germany

Here you are being served food by robot-staff. You select your meal from a touchscreen at your table, and are being served automatically a little later.


http://www.sbaggers.de/main-ger/

Modern Toilet Restaurant - Taipei, Taiwan
Eat from toilet bowls while you sit on - no, not seats but - toilets, and eat ice-cream shaped like faeces.
http://www.moderntoilet.com.tw/

New Lucky Restaurant - Ahmadabad, India
This restaurant is famous because it has been built on a cemetary, and the locals consider eating among the graves brings luck.

Hospitalis - Riga, Latvia
This is a hospital themed restaurant.
http://www.hospitalis.lv/

Website:
http://professorlaytonds.com/
Release Europe):
November 7th 2008

Finally, this fabalous game by Level-5 is being released in Europe. The game has been released February 15, 2007 in Japan and February 10, 2008 in US. Therefore, we European gamers must’ve imported this game to enjoy the massive fun that is packed into this game.

Actually, the Professor Layton series contains 3 games (first one was only released in Japan, and the third is yet to be released), and there is also some rumours about an upcoming movie.

Professor Layton is an English gentleman, and he and his apprentice and assistant Luke is being invited to a village called St. Mystere by Late Dahlia, widow of the late Baron Reinhold. Their mission is to solve the mystery of the Golden Apple. The Baron stated in his testament that the one who can find the Golden Apple, would inherit everthing he possessed. The problem is that no one in the village know about the Golden Apple, and what it is.

Now you have to navigate Layton and Luke through the village, solve puzzles, find hidden paths, and solve the mysteries you meet on your adventure. And never did I believe that it would be this thrilling and fun to solve good old puzzles. There are about 130 puzzles around in the game, and you will unlock more as bonuses throughout the game, and you can download new puzzles through WI-FI.

All in all this is one of the best games I’ve played on the DS till now, and probably one of the best adventure/puzzle game I have ever played. The story and cinematics of this game will give you goosebumps! A must buy!

Rating (5 being best):


Trailer:

Swedish rock band The Hellacopters was formed in 1994, and have released atleast six albums. A lot more releases if you count compilations, EP's etc. In October 2007 they announced their break. But first they are going on an extensive European tour and release a double disc live album. They have been one of the most influential Swedish rock bands and one of my favourite rock bands. October 16th they will play in Oslo and we will be witnesses when the devil steals the beat from the lord!

Film-maker and surrealist Salvador Dalí and his wife Gala in one of his neat shortfilms where they are born from an egg.

This is a ten minute clip from the famous 1950s-show "What's my line?" - the guest is Salvador Dalí, so this is surreal indeed! I lol'd alot while watching this, and I highly recommend this youtube-clip:

I visited my good friend One (cool name, huh?) last weekend, and she lives on a farm. I wanted to take some pictures of her riding her horse out on a field. And so we did. The cows found us really entertaining, so they piled up for a show. And the horse of course found this as entertaining as the cows, and stared back. So this is a spontanous shot of the event;

Since it's autumn, we made mandatory applecake, ate lots of berries, knitted scarfs and collected loads of mushrooms so I can make homemade mushroom sausage. Yummy!

And I realize, I must be quite a nerd, since the first thing coming to me when hearing the word 'mushroom' is www.badgerbadgerbadger.com Haha :D

The worlds leading search engine Google is celebrating their tenth birthday. They have made a website where they present the ten past years of Google with images, video-clips and facts.

http://www.google.com/tenthbirthday/

Found this review that Jed from UK wrote on this book that is being sold on Amazon. He simply claims that it doesn't work properly.

http://www.amazon.com/review/RNSHSIU8RCHUT/

As previously posted, Gjenferdsel had a gig i Bergen last friday, so me and Jan flew over the mountains instead of driving for eight hours. We had to get up pretty early, and drive to the airport. Arriving at the security check on the airport, I realized I was wearing both clothes and shoes with alot of metal on them, so I caused a queue (as usual). Well, well.. I'm usually not a big fan of flying, but this time i was kinda excited, since I knew it would only take 40 minutes. I think I got to read three pages in my book before we suddenly arrived in Bergen. So the flying was pretty much taking off and landing. Finally at the hotel, the band went to soundcheck, and got back in time to eat before the concert. The gig went well. Not alot of listeners, but I think those who came were satisfied! Gjenferdsel had a setlist with both old and new material, all together seven songs.





After the band had showered off their corpsepaint, we decided to go see Nekromantheon at a bar nearby the hotel. Thrash! You should think people from Bergen are pretty used to black metallers, since they have alot of really known bands like Taake, Gorgoroth, Burzum and Enslaved. Still, some drunk person actually yelled "there goes Nemi" and pointed at me. Thanks alot, man! At least he did'nt ask me for a lighter.



Anyways, after sleeping way to long, and being generally reduced, we went out to see the city of Bergen by day. After wandering our way into the middle of a anti-abortioncampaign (with banners stating 'Yes to life', and a Ludvig Nessa-copy singing Amazing Grace in a megaphone.. I was pretty fascinated actually, some people are just truly fanatical) we went to the famous Harbour and tasted fresh fish and shrimps. Yummy! It wasn't time to visit the most famous places in Bergen, like Fløybanen, Trollhaugen, Akvariet and Ulriken, but we have both been those places before. Next time, we'll stay a day longer!





More pictures from the Gjenferdsel gig can be seen at www.gjenferdsel.no!

Gjenferdsel is playing live at the 'Fritt Fall'-festival in Bergen, Norway friday 19th of september! CC is 70NOK, and it's a free agelimit. New material will be presented, together with material from the debut.

Check out www.bizarre.no

The Smoking Gun have published a lot of famous artist riders.

A lot of them are actually quite amusing to read. Who would for example except Marilyn Manson - The Antichrist Superstar to need his Haribo Gummi bears, and have to state that HEATING IS REALLY IMPORTANT!

Read his rider and plenty other here:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/backstagetour/