close and far away

St andrews and kulturnatta

2011-10-12T13:07:00.000-07:00

St. Andrews long before 'Sticky fingers' became its neighbour...

Yesterday me and Joel G went to practise with the chamber choir we're are splitting a gig with this friday, Kören Krydda. The concert will be in st Andrew's, also known as "the english church" here in Gothenburg and besides us and the choir, David Åhlén will appear as well. I've never been there before but it's a beautiful, pretty small neo gothic church in the centre of Gothenburg. It was really nice meeting the choir again and fantastic hearing them doing 'the best of the worst days', 'puppets' and a few other songs. If you want a hint on how it's going to sound, check out the video below from our release concert earlier this year featuring the very same choir.

If you want to go and see us on friday you can buy a "kulturnatta-pass" from us (email us at alibitom(at)gmail.com) or by a ticket at the door, but be there in time! Maybe even at eight o'clock when two birds and We hold doors are playing!

//Markus

Ett finger i dörren.

2011-10-10T01:08:00.000-07:00

8 okt 15.38 i bilen på väg till Söderhamn.

Det finns spelningar dit man kommer där scenen är pytteliten, ljudet och begränsat till en 4 kanals-mixer och två halvtrasiga högtalare men det är mycket publik. Det finns också spelningar där allt är perfekt förberett, scenen och ljudet är magnifikt, affischer finns över hela staden och lokaltidningen har skrivit om det. Vi hade en underbar spelning i Falkenberg -alla tre banden, men var alla människor befann sig är en fråga man bara kan gissa sig svaret på.


Falkhallen. In Michigan -en studie i hur en spelning ska avslutas.

I Linköping spelade vi på Skylten som verkade var något av ett replokalsmecka, detta var även Joel Gs och mitt första gig på turnén som duo där vi gjorde alibi tom-covers. Just denna kväll dök ett filmteam från ett produktionsbolag som gör en dokumentär om två ambulansförare upp för att filma lite i replokalerna. Det var inte speciellt mycket aktiva band där, så det hamnade istället i konsertlokalen där de stod och filmade slutet på vår spelning. Det är alltså inte omöjligt att vi dyker upp i det där programmet framöver med andra ord. Vi trivdes väldigt bra på skyltens scen och stämningen var helt rätt den här kvällen för vår musik. Detta var nog den första spelningen någonsin då vi i de tystaste delarna blev överröstade av rökmaskinen. Bara en sån sak…

Stillhet på Skylten, Linköping

Nu är vi snart i Söderhamn där vi ska spela på HC Steakhouse, In Michigans hemma-hak. Ska bli kul.

9 Okt 10 mil norr om Stockholm i en minibuss.

Det finns bra och dåliga rastplats-pauser. Vi har just haft en dålig. Joel samt Martin från Adore skulle snabba sig till toalettkön för att slippa hamna bakom en hel busslast från en Brynäs-buss. Joel är ungefär sekunden före Martin ur bilen, som oturligt nog sätter fingret i dörrkarmen samtidigt som Joel drar igen dörren bakom sig. Ett lite annorlunda ljud hörs när dörren går igen, inga skrik däremot ett distinkt knäppande ljud; Ljudet av en nagel som spräcks och öppnas upp vid nagelbandet när Martin instinktiv rycker bort fingret från den stängda dörren. Tack och lov är Calle i Adore sjuksköterska och efter Brynäsbussens första hjälpen-låda och några alvedon kunde vi åka vidare.

Gimmie five.

Gårdagens spelning på HC Steakhouse var en värdig avslutning på det här 4-dagarsäventyret. Det var bitvis ganska mycket folk och stämningen hög, kanske lite för elektrisk för att Joels och mitt akustiska och lågmälda set skulle gå hem hos alla, men det var en fin spelning! Publiken var däremot helt Adores och In Michigans. Adore gjorde sin bästa spelning under turnén.

Bongo-brallor

2011-10-07T09:07:00.000-07:00

Jönköping
6 okt 12.30

Det känns fint att skriva på svenska igen. Nu är på väg iväg från Jönköping och gårdagens gig på Bongo Bar. Det var något med stället som fick mig att tänka tillbaks på Holland. Förmodligen att det var K-märkt. Holländarna verkar ha haft större intresse att bevara gamla byggnader än vad vi haft i Sverige, men så har vi ju mer naturresurser att gödsla med än vad de har -på gott och ont.

Bongo bars bar.

Vi reser runt i två minibussar i 5 dagar tillsammans med rockbandet Adore från Jönköping och skatepunkbandet In Michigan från Söderhamn. I dag kommer vi spela i Falkhallen i Falkenberg, imorgon på Skylten i Linköping och på lördag på HC Steakhouse i Söderhamn. Vi kommer ha lite annorlunda sättning på den här delen av turnén. Joel, Joel och jag kommer göra de två första spelningarna och därefter blir det bara Joel G och jag. Spännande...

setlist för alibi toms tillfälliga trio

Gårdagens event stod helt klart In Michigan för. Förutom en högoktanig rockshow så lyckades en av deras gitarrister (Kobra) att flänga iväg sin splitter nya gitarr i ett snurrförsök ute på dansgolvet (ja, dansgolvet. ). På något sätt lyckades även hans shorts spricka upp minuterna senare.

Notera även sprickan i Gitarren. Rock.

Sweden

2011-10-07T08:34:00.000-07:00

5 Okt, morning.

So we’re back again in Sweden. The weather is awful as usual. There’s a steady wind blowing and it rains.

/Markus

Middelburg and the beach

2011-10-03T00:27:00.000-07:00

1 okt 17.50 Gebouw T, Bergen op Zoom.
Tonight we stayed the night in a jewelry shop. I know it sounds weird and it’s not all entirely true. Arjen, who was the promoter for yesterday’s gig in Middelburg, is married to Anke who is a silversmith. Together they have the shop Ippy Edelsmid in central Middelburg. We slept in the storage room of their shop. Cool!

Yesterday we played a living room gig at Loes & Hugo’s place together with Simon Karelis a.k.a Arend-Jan van der Scheer from LPG. I really love the concept of being invited into someone’s home to have a concert. You get better contact with the audience and besides, they probably feel more at ease than in a club. Furthermore, it does our music more justice than the average club sound drenched in far too much sub bas to make sense.

2 Oct 17:56 somewhere in Denmark.
20 degrees outside right now. Yesterday we heard from someone that it was the warmest day in October since 1901. Don’t know if it’s true, but we sure had a marvelous july-like summer’s day at the beach outside Middelburg. Me, Joel and Joel went to buy ourselves a pair of 5 Euro trunks and together with Erik and Jeroen we took the car out to the golden dunes. We spend a couple of hours swimming and throwing Frisbee before we hit the road to Bergen op Zoom for our last gig together with Marike Jager. It was also our last gig with Jeroen as bassplayer.


1st of Oct or 1st of July?

The gig in Gebouw T went pretty good, we struggled a bit with the sound for bass and drums during soundcheck, which suddenly left us with only 20 minutes of dinner, clothing and "set listing".

Marike Jager did a great performance, but as usual we missed the first half because of that we had to load in our instrument and backline in the trailer. Her latest album was recorded using a lot of analog equipment and an echo chamber which I absolutely love. I’m not going to get into anymore of the geek stuff here, but the album sounds great!


soundcheck @ Gebouw T


Marike Jager on stage

Under the stars in Hendrik Ido Ambacht

2011-09-30T03:37:00.000-07:00

30 Sept 12.37 A basement in Ridderkerk

Yesterday evening we had a gig under the stars in front of 50 people in a garden in Hendrik Ido Ambacht. I would actually prefer to say secret garden since it was pretty hard to get in there, or even to find it. A group of people from the festival we played at in Hendrik I. A. the other day, break free festival, arranged this garden party and gig. Thank you Laurens, Benjamin and Bernd for arranging this night in a very short notice!

It's hard to describe the evening, but I think the closest you can get is magical. Even though it's practically October, I don't think the temperature dropped under 18 degrees even at midnight. It really felt like the summer's last sigh or something (even though it's the same weather today!). So, lit up by open fires, torches and a few spotlights we had one of our most intimate and memorable concerts ever.

photo: Marije Valster

photo: Rosa Vrijhof

Besides us, Laurens Collee (one of the organisers) and Franc Timmerman from Blaudzun also did an acoustic set each.

Our 2nd livingroom gig is tonight in Middelburg together with Simon Karolis (also known as Arend Jan from LPG). Check the event link if you would like to come, I think there are still a few tickets left!

Our last gig on our tour in the Netherlands is tomorrow in Bergen Op Zoom at Gebouw T as opening act for Marike Jager.

//Markus

Interview with Joel and Markus (in english)

2011-09-28T09:28:00.000-07:00

Here are two videos I couldn't embedd before. Now like then + an interview with Joel and me from 'relidaily'.
We've had 25 degrees in Ridderkerk today on our 2nd day off on the tour this far. Summer is still here in the netherlands!
/Markus

Alibi Tom from ReliDaily on Vimeo.

Alibi Tom Interview from ReliDaily on Vimeo.

Caravan sessions

2011-09-27T03:47:00.000-07:00

A month ago we shot this video of 'holes' in a small caravan at Flevo festival in Holland. I just thought of it now and I remember that I couldn't really embedd the video on fb, so I might just put it up on our blog now. Better late than never.

Tonight we have a gig in Nijmegen at "cultuur op de campus" together with Mensenkinderen.

//Markus

3am 3fm

2011-09-26T05:00:00.000-07:00

26 sep 3am. The car, finding our way out of Hilversum.

Me and the Gps have unfinished business. Whenever there are road works we end up guessing where to go and get 0% help from the machine. Thank you. We missed our get in time at the radio with 20 minutes and almost didn’t get there because of that. It was even worse on the way out, but we ended up at the right street after all.

Tonight we did a revisit to Xnoizz and the One hour song writing-thing we did 3 years ago (it’s weird how time flies). We got to pick among 6 different song titles and the most interesting one was “the others” from the mystical anonymous who turned out to be Irene. Erik had a chord progression in mind that he showed us earlier today and Joel G had another one that was kind of weird, but could work if we only were to get weird song titles. The hardest thing was the lyrics, but we came up with a theme that we liked. We went with the idea that you/we are always a part of someone else’s “the others”.

Check out the video!

creativity in the middle of the night.

26 Sep 13.55 A basement in Ridderkerk

Tonight we have a gig at Dwaze Zaken in Amsterdam, maybe the gezelleg place there is in A-dam. We've played there in the past with our previous band but we've been there after that just to have a coffee. We love the place!

Hej då!

//Markus

Sjonge jonge jonge jonge

2011-09-25T08:21:00.000-07:00

24 Sept. 12.08 In the car.

Yesterday we went to Utrecht again for a 2nd gig in one of Hollands most gezelleg citys. This time we played on a small café by the name of Averechts. It was a great evening with a mixed audience at all ages that even included two dogs that barked on occasion. Cool. We planned for a 45 min set, wich is pretty normal for a gig, but after doing one encore someone said –ey, you know you have another 40 min set to play, right (He was from London)? Nope, we didn’t know that. We dug out a couple of old earrings that we didn’t play for a while + a new song we never even rehearsed acoustic and for some reason the 2nd set turned out to be really nice! Anyway, we are on our way to a festival gig in the town of Hendrik ido Ambacht.

"backstage" @ averechts

25 sept 17.09 A basement in Ridderkerk

Summer is still in Ridderkerk! I took a long walk outside and it’s still 22 degrees, which impresses a Swede like me. Not the walk though, the temperature.

We’ve had our most intense part of the tour this far yesterday evening in Almkerk we did our 3^rd gig in 24 hours.
Before the gig at Break free festival we shot an acoustic version of 'now like then'

preparing for an acoustic version of now like then

/Markus

Motorways

2011-09-22T11:12:00.000-07:00

We have spend between 5 and 9 hours on the road each day this week and by and by a certain Swedish-Dutch cross culture between ours and that of Jeroens has started to develop. There have been a lot of useful language lessons in both our native languages. I’ll list the most common topics below:

1. Things that has to do with travelling by horse

2. Explaining ones love for lorries

3. Gezellig vs mysigt

4. Kan du typ passa min häst medan jag tar en dusch? And other common questions for the everyday use.

5. Unlistable Swedish (on request)

Today is the first day off on the tour this far and we only had 300 km to drive which meant that we could actually sleep a bit longer in the morning. The theme on great breakfasts has been intact during last few days as well. Yesterday we had a nice breakfast together with people from lokomotor a band from Hof and today we had a great bagel and coffee at Teilchen und Beschleuniger in Münster.

And yes, we have picked up the Bass in Utrecht!!!

//Markus

Wir haben die bass in Utrecht vergessen (don't worry Martin).

2011-09-21T00:16:00.000-07:00

19 Sep 18.30
Ok, first minor problem of the tour. The bass guitar is still in Utrecht at Ekko. I think I´m the one to blame because I put the case aside since it was broken and I didn’t want the bass to be dropped on the floor. It’s not even ours you see, its Martin’s (our old friend/member). Funny thing is that we actually even brought an extra bass on tour, but that’s still in Jeroens apartment. What are the odds?

Hoffentlich können wir ein bass leihen.

19 Sep 01.10
And yes, thanks to a rental shop we had a functional squire precision bass for the show. Jeroen has also organized a bass for the remaining 2 gigs in Germany. Next gig in Holland is actually in Utrecht, so that’ll make the picking up convenient.
The Pony bar had a livingroom-like live room and we did an acoustic gig. To our surprise we heard someone call out for encore’s in Swedish. It turned out that one man in the room had a Swedish mother who seemed to have taught him fluent Swedish. I do believe she was from Stockholm based on his dialect, but I might be wrong.

The promoter that put on the show, original ton, had a band flat we could sleep in. That’s one of the best solutions I’ve seen so far!

Morgen wil ik op mijn paard naar Hof rijden.

Peace love and wienerbröd,

Markus

20 se 09.18

We just had the best breakfast on the tour so far. Park café in Hamburg, check it out!

21 sep 08.19 Hof

Today we woke up in a record label’s office in Hof. It might sound strange, but it’s actually the 2^nd label office we’ve been sleeping at. We’ve spend several nights at LEON music art fashion’s headquarters in Oxfordshire as well J. Yesterday on the gig at das Loch Joel changed language into German in the middle of ‘remind me’. Refreshing!

//Markus

zucchpumkin

2011-09-18T06:15:00.000-07:00

Ridderkerk 18 sept 15.09

On this tour we have the pleasure of playing together with Jeroen van der Werken as bassplayer. Not only is he a good friend, a great tour manager and musician, but apparently also a very good gardener. He and his wife Esther grow tomatoes, Zucchini and pumpkin in his parent’s backyard and for reasons unknown the pumpkins and zucchinis thought it was a good idea to crossbreed. The outcome was beyond weird.

The “vegetable” on the picture weights 18.9 kg!!! Rumors have it it answers you right back if you knock on it…

Yesterday we had our 2^nd gig with Marike at Atak in Enschede. This video of Botanisten/Dew at Atak was shot by a girl named Sharon. Thanks!

It’s time to get ready for tonight’s gig at Volkoren Festijn at Ekko in Utrecht.

//Markus

Finally wi-fi

2011-09-17T05:10:00.000-07:00

Peter Pan 22.20 15 september

We’re getting pretty used to ferries. This is the third trip from Sweden to Germany by sea during a month but it’s the first time we’re using this ferry company for a while. Erik’s working on the tour budget and I’m sitting here trying to write something, but I get frequently disturbed by a cheerful bunch of seniors already getting in to their 2^nd round of tax free beers -the ferry culture. Is that why the named the ferry Peter Pan?

The biggest difference between this ferry company and the one we’ve used the most is that this one doesn’t have wi-fi…

Den Haag 23:58 16 sept

We woke up this morning at 6.30 to arrive in Travenmünde an hour later. We had a good 600 km trip to The Hague ahead of us, which take some time since we’re travelling with a trailer for all of our stuff. We need instruments for acoustic sets as well as 'full on' ones, so I can tell you it piles up…

In the Hague we played at the venue “het paard” opening up for Marike Jager, who managed to sold out the place. Marike and her band makes well arranged popsongs that made me think about the Beatles, Feist and Emiliana Torrini –and the audience loves her! We couldn’t get a better start on the tour: Friendly staff, good stage sound, great food, fair-trade bananas in the dressing room and they even had a Swedish guy in their staff :-)

I’ve never been in the Hague (den Haag, pronounced “den hach”) before. The city has both small picturesque canals as well as an impressive skyline with asymmetrical building under construction. A friendly advice though: Don’t trust your gps in this city…

//Markus

This sleeping tour!

2011-09-15T04:45:00.000-07:00

First of all, welcome to our new blog! We're going on tour! Yes!
Tomorrow we have the first gig at Het Paard in den Haag as support for Edison Award nominee 'Marike Jager'
Check out the tour poster below for all the dates.

Well, I have to finnish packing my bags because we're soon leaving to catch the ferry.
cheers,
Markus