Stamina’s Nocebo – the best album of this year? This band is worth checking even though one didn’t like obstreperous metal or understand Finnish at all. How is it possible that from Lemi, a commune of 3000 inhabitants, comes 5 young virtuosos to play in a band? They have lots of talent in song writing and they have created a unique style of their own. A sense of humour is an essential part in their records and live performances. Joe Barresi, the producer of Nocebo, grabbed some nuances out of the guys that I didn’t even believe to be found. After all he was absolutely the right Joe to guide this bunch of brutal savages. Check out the photos from last summer’s Sonisphere festival.
Recently I have several times been asked my opinion about final countd… no no, vinyl comeback - anyway it’s just the same, shit and crap. Let’s make it clear now. Vinyl is not coming back anyway, anyhow, anywhere. If only tens or maximum hundreds of vinyls are sold we can only talk about customer service and that’s ok. The sound of vinyl is not better than in CD. That’s the fact. It’s limited and narrow, cut from the high and low and always distorted and including distraction caused by mechanical playback. There are also too many questionable elements such as dirty or used stylus, lousy cartridge, greasy stains (margarine, jam, red wine), scratches, wrong rpm and eccentric perforation. Personally I only miss the fine artwork and easy storing. Vinyl LP’s are collectible, but they are not rescuing music industry. They belong to last century and now it should be time to look into the future.
Mastering lists have been updated again to these pages. The total number of CD albums was 3333 in turn of the year. Should I have a goal of 6666 mastered CD albums before retiring? After adding 2000 vinyl LP’s, countless number of singles and EP tracks I mastered in early days, the total number of listened tracks since the beginning is quite remarkable. I wish I could remember all of those. From 3333 mastered albums 1160 are metal or hard rock. For those about to doubt my ability and motivation I can only mention that the amount of my work is optimal at the moment. I don’t have to hurry and mess around but every assignment can be done carefully, neatly and with the best quality.
There were also two unfortunate and shameful rip-off masterings last year. The economical situation in Greece is so deep in the mud that a local band called Hannibal decided to leave my work unpaid. With a free sample I convinced the band to let me do the whole album mastering. After sending them the listening version of the mastered album, trusting with their devious manager, I only heard “efcharistó” and after that nothing but silence. That was obviously my own fault but my trust in honest people is gone for a while.
Another rip-off was definitely not my own fault but an outrageous robbery of my work and sound by a local contender. We both started the album mastering of a Karelian style metal band from Helsinki by doing again a free sample for them. We both also mastered the whole album but the difference between these two versions was so notable that the band and their manager let me finish the work, which I also did with these guys during one weekend. Later this neighbour apprentice began to cry after his justice to finish his work too and even have my master as a reference. Suddenly his version turned out to sound exactly like mine. I suspected him having used my master-cd by changing the cover to his name – the end result was so similar including sound, fades and gaps. I was never told why the band decided to use his version instead of mine. This amateur posing as a professional has no guts to stand behind his work but instead copies and steals another master in his name and that is pusillanimous and low. Now the credits on the album cover show an incorrect name and studio for mastering.
New photos will “soon” be uploaded here. At least of Michael Monroe’s energetic performances at Tavastia and Nosturi, Rival Sons and Kotiteollisuus at Tavastia and Amorphis at Nosturi. Speaking of Nosturi… Nightwish had rehearsals for their upcoming tour and I was there taking photos for the band and enjoying the company of friends. They played through the whole set with pyros and made some final adjustments to the big picture.
The fine tuning and trimming of the new 
In the end of May we had a listening session at Finnvox together with the band (without Anette), Karmila, Kinnunen and Stobe Harju & Petri Alanko working on the movie score. Tuomas brought some champagne and I took care of some salty and sweet snacks. After stunning and dead-dropping experience we headed off to a tight and exciting bowling match Nightwish against technicians. Using some irregular and violative arrangements in their team Nightwish won the competition. Unfortunately the anti-doping committee was not visiting on their track. Post mortem of the bowl game were forgotten during Lappish dinner in the centre of Helsinki, only without the guitar hobbit whose diet included only liquid nourishment.
