XOXO, Joanna

Fragile.

2012-01-19T05:46:00.001-08:00

I feel like I can relate to that.

Gym Class Heroes

2012-01-17T07:27:00.000-08:00

Last night was such a fun night! Even though I love rock music to my very chore at some point you just get really frustrated at metalcore shows. Moste of the time it's basically just the same show over and over and over again and even if the show is good... well, you've just seen it already. That's why lately I've really enjoyed going to other concerts as well, pop gigs are just so much fun to go to because the contrast is so big to the metal shows.

Yesterday I got to shoot Gym Class Heroes for ChaosTube. I was so stoked when I realized I have the fisheye lense so I can shoot with it instead and try it out as a concert lens. At first it felt weird because you can't zoom with it but I got used to it pretty quickly. I just hate shooting with my basic kit lens now. The fact that it's a bit broken and has some issues while focusing just makes it really hard to use when shooting shows, even though I can bare with it on any other time.

Oh yeah, and guess who were warming up for GCH!

Henri going towards the light.

Yes, 15 Minutes Before The Dive was it! Ha, it was so much fun to see them live again, it's been a while already. I didn't see them a lot after the show so if you're reading this guys; a lot of hugs! They did so good and I felt so happy noticing what an amazing crowd they had! They have a show at Virgin Oil this Friday so if you're on the Helsinki area I suggest you go and take a look!

And then to Gym Class Heroes... They were so good!! I've always thought very positively of them but never really deeply read up on them. Just knew the big hits by name and so on. It was so much fun to shoot them and when Cupid's Chokehold came on while we were on the pit, I could help but jamming a bit with Aikku every once in a while. Sometimes when shooting shows it's so hard not to dance while doing it.

I think the GCH pictures turned out really good! I'm kind of proud - for once! Especially of the last picture.

XOXO

Joanna

Fisheye.

2012-01-13T14:48:00.000-08:00

I'm keeping the school's fisheye for a few weeks and I'm so stoked already just laying in my bed, testing it. I'm going to cry when I have to give it back.

XOXO

Joanna

Helsinki - Tampere - Helsinki

2012-01-12T13:45:00.000-08:00

Whenever I have the time and money, I love to travel to see my dearest friend. He lives at Tampere which is way too far, but luckily close enough to visit sometimes. A week ago it was the last week of my holiday and I decided to use it to travel there.

I just love to travel, and I mean any traveling - even domestic traveling counts. I love to sit in the train and watch the scenery pass by. Whenever it's raining it adds a certain vibe to the mood and I love it even more. This time I was lucky enough to catch exactly that moment. The raindrops kept hitting the window and I just couldn't stop staring at them.

When a train window is full of raindrops I just can't help but to stare at them and think of them as alive creatures who are in a competition against each other. I always cheer for the smallest and slowest one. I find them endearing and the saddest as they leave behind while the other drops fiercely force themselves towards the other side of the window. I found the drop to cheer for this time as well. It curdled to the middle of the window and stopped there. I got a little sad and put my head down for a while. But when I looked again, it had decided to leave a half of itself behind and was now pushing itself towards the other side of the window faster than any other drop. It won. I was happy.

One night we decided to go check the roof. Henri moved to a new apartment last summer so apparently he hadn't climbed there yet. We took the elevator to the top floor and luckily got through the huge iron door. We didn't even have to climb to the actual roof because there was a balcony there just waiting to be visited. There were also ladders that went up to the chimney and come to think of it the railings of the balcony weren't that high to climb over to sit on the actual roof either. I bet the roof will be the number one place to be in the summertime. It was bloody cold and I had figured that I'd probably survive without a jacket (hey, it was only fucking snowing out there) so we didn't stay there forever but the view was nice.

Ever since the first day our plan for the week was mostly to do absolutely nothing at all. We like to do that a lot. Later during the evening some of his friends came over to join us for a session of Scrabble. My new mission in life is to beat Henri at it. He is surprisingly good and it's very annoying. Everytime I think I'm finally in a leading position I check the score and he seems to be leading me with a hundered points. It never seizes to shock me. Though he is always the book-keeper so I'm a little suspicious.

The rest of the week was quite laidback as well. I was supposed to meet some old friends but for some reason ended up not to. Though I did meet up with Nata from White Trash Disease, she was a sweetheart and it was so nice to finally meet her. We had dinner at Napoli and I gladly ordered the pizza I was recommended to order without any further questions. Haha, just could resist it after the sales pitch she threw at me, apparently it was the best pizza. Tested. Word.

Still, most of the evenings we just ended up having a lot of grandstands for talent shows with Henri. I Used To Be Fat was a favorite of ours as well alongside with the alleged sobbing that always comes along with it. On Saturday he invited some friends over and after a good kick off for the night we headed to Ruma, the best bar in the country. Well, at least I like to think so and so do quite a few other people as well. So fuck you whoever decided to take down the fucking building.

On Sunday I left with a heavy heart and a very light head with a minor palpitation effect. I got to the station half an hour too early and was the first one to sit in the train all alone. I didn't have my headphones on so it felt incredibly quiet and serene. Maybe even a bit too quiet, I thought as I looked outside of the window. Nothing was moving, nothing at all, not even the clouds on the sky. I glanced over all the platforms and there were absolutely no people anywhere. Strangely quiet, I thought.

I came up with a solution that the station was probably evacuated from all the people because there was a shooter on the loose at the platform area. Just my luck to be the only one left here, I thought to myself and felt a little bummed out and also kind of scared to be killed with a gun very soon. It was completely quiet except for the quiet humming of the train engine. Suddenly the train door behind me whizzed, beeped and opened. Slow steps started to walk towards my slot. This is it, I thought and closed my eyes waiting for the gun to go bang. A middle-aged woman in a flower hat waddled by me greeted me on her way to the next cart.

I guess the hangover had gotten the best of me.

When the train finally left the station, I started to stare at the scenery again. The first snow had finally came while I was at Tampere and I couldn't help but to gaze out of the window and be amazed by the winter wonderland that I was passing through. Last year we had a plenty of snow, p l e n t y I tell ya, but stil I would've liked a white Christmas this winter. Didn't get one on Christmas, but now it was finally here.

White fields and snowy trees speeded by and everything, absolutely everything was leaning towards blue except for the street lights that were glowing warm yellow light. The view was breathtaking as the sun was just settling to the horizon. Thin threads of cloud were glowing red and pink but everything else was entirely pure white all the way from the top of the trees to the ground. Finland can be so incredibly beautiful.

I turned away for a second to grab my camera from my bag to capture the moment but as I turned back towards the window it was too late. The sun had already set and everything was blue. Still, Finland is so beautiful.

XOXO

Joanna

Stockers! / A HUGE rubik cube / Disable

2012-01-01T10:35:00.000-08:00

On Friday I rushed to Tavastia where Stockers! played as a warm up act for French Films. After the show I met up with Aikku and Jenna and headed to see Pete's band Disable. On our way to the venue we found a huge Rubik cube enlightening the whole Helsinki senate square. It was gorgeous, and kind of cute.

The lights at Tavastia we're so pretty that I decided to try something different and make them the theme of the whole set. What do you think, does it work or not?

The cube looks so graphic in the pictures that I couldn't even tell that these are actual photos if I didn't know better! They look like they've been created with a computer.

Once we got to the venue, Pete showed off the coolest band shirt ever made - their's!

What else would sXe guys drink than blueberry juice?

XOXO

Joanna

Post-Bronx.

2011-12-30T05:07:00.000-08:00

Browsing through some old(ish) folders and realized I forgot to post a few pretty pictures taken after The Bronx show! Here they are!

XOXO

Joanna

Flow festival.

2011-12-26T16:17:00.000-08:00

I was browsing through some old photos on my computer and it occured to me that I never posted more than a few Midlake photos from the Flow Festival of this year. Flow was a very special event to me in a way, since it was the first time ever that I had an official photo pass to shoot the bands, I've always gone as press. I thought I did surprisingly well, but I would love to hear some feedback! (Though please have mercy, since like I said, this was my frst time.)

EMPIRE OF THE SUN

At one point the dancers had polaroid cameras included in their choreography, they snapped some pictures on stage and through them to the crowd. One of the pictures landed in the photopit and I was lucky enough to grab it. It made me very happy and is hanging on my wall now.

IRON AND WINE

JO STANCE

What a voice she had!

MAGENTA SKYCODE

I like the blue background in this one.

For some reason I love love love this picture.

MIDLAKE

He was "just" a guitar tech or something in the like but he was very cute so don't judge me.

JANELLE MONÁE

She was so incredibly cute, but she moved around a lot so I had to save a lot of things in the pictures with my best friend Photoshop.

REGINA

I felt like making these pictures really girly.

RÖYKSOPP

Yes, this was the only picture I got.

STOCKERS!

Loved the strong shadows so I made them even stronger and turned him to a silhouette.

I love the little tear on his cheek.

WARPAINT

Tataa! How do you think I did?

XOXO

Joanna

Blog tip: I shoot shows.

2011-12-26T14:03:00.000-08:00

I've always like introducing great blogs and other sites if I stumble across one, I just think the blogging world needs to do some more sharing. And the world in general as well. Anyway, a while back I found ishootshows.com!

Now I've visited other online portfolios as well and even read a lot of blogs kept by photographers but never have I been this impressed. Though I've always wondered why hasn't anyone started anything like this before (you know; not only post the pictures but also talk about the stories behind the shots, still remembering to keep the viewpoint of a photographer) I haven't found one and I certainly don't have the skills to keep one of my own.

The site shows the phenomenal photography of Todd Owyoung who is a freelance photographer specializing in live music photography and band portraits. He has shot for many great magazines such as Rolling Stone, SPIN, and Alternative Press to name a few. I'm nearly certain that the site wouldn't be such a success if the author of it would be less skilled in photography. Still, the genius of the site in my opinion lies in the articels. Ishootshows has great posts all the way from how to become a concert photographer and getting a photo pass for a show to concert etiquette, improving your pictures through editing and creating the best portfolio in town.

Overall if you're at all interested in photography or have special interest in live photography, tune into Ishootshows and subscribe. I for one have spent a countless amount of hours briwsing through the site always finding something new and interesting.

XOXO

Joanna

Yes and No work the best if they both exist.

2011-12-26T07:15:00.000-08:00

Ever since I can remember, I have been the yes-yes-girl. I'm often scared to contradict in a conversation or to speak up if I feel I'm treated wrong. The fact is I like pleasing other people, not to be accepted but to see other people happy, I love it when people smile, I like to help people out and do nice things for them even without personal gain. I like being liked, it's easier to be in good terms with absolutely everyone than to break off a friendship just because you feel that person is treating you like an asshole.

So that's what I've done for all my while. Tagged along with other people and trying to fit in, sometimes succeeding, sometimes not so much. Sounds awful but the fact is that it has worked well. Never in my life have I lost friends after a fight, I've never infected a friendship with negativity and I've always been in good terms with everyone. Why wouldn't I be? I'm the yes-yes-girl, I'm your best friend, I will agree with you.

Until I started to say; No.

I'm tired of getting hurt. I'm tired of doing things for other people and not getting back. Even though I don't do good things just because I expect to get something in return, hell no, I hate when people do that. But in general I do expect to be respected like a decent human being, especially if I do something nice for you.

I've learned that people really don't like the word. I've lost so many friends - even the best ones - after I started saying the 'no.' With that word I became an actual person with actual opinions who actually had developed an ability to stand up for herself and to disagree. As I turned from the yes-yes-girl to the yes-no-girl, a whole person, an actual human being instead of a puppet - I was no good anymore.

This is my New Year's promise; I'll still keep saying no. I'll keep disagreeing if something's not right and I won't say yes unless I really want to. I will keep doing good things for other people but from now on I will choose very carefully who's worth it. Not a lot of people are.

XOXO

Joanna

The Christmas festival.

2011-12-22T05:06:00.000-08:00

Each year our school arranges an annual Christmas festival where the students get to present their work and the complete media-assistants finally graduate. I'm majoring in new media, and our job was to present the animations we had created in our animation class. Our animation ended up being screened in the second act which was forbidden from children. Apparently our animation was "so disturbed" and "not right". Alright then. On the other hand, I can't really argue with that.

The lobby was so pretty when it was decorated with tons of Christmas lights.

This chandelier had to be my favorite! I wish I had something like that at home.

There was an actual red carpet, which was very appropriate.

Like a boss.

We found the back of Viivi's head very amusing.

The final stress smokes before the screening.

This is our twosome animator collective, we call ourselves the BrainCLICK Productions.

That is because most of the time our brains click.

"Ready yet? There's a new project about to start!" says the postcard. It provides a link to a site that offers help and support at the crisis situations in life. We had a few.

Luckily we had our muse.

The girls were STOKED! The guys not so much. Thanks a lot.

The screening was a success. People laughed, we got aplauded and we got the anticipated "wtf just happened" whispers. Now I can move forward in my life and hopefully not see a single Russian doll anymore.

XOXO

Joanna

Blography.

2011-12-16T09:39:00.000-08:00

THE PAST

I started to blog three years ago in 2009 and this blog was the first one. It's been so long ever since that I've decided to write a new introduction to replace the old one and to introduce myself to all of you new readers! Back then I wasn't familiar with blogging culture at all and had no idea what I was supposed to do, I just did what I wanted to do. This blog served me as a public diary of some sort and it was just a new beginning for me as I was finishing up my livejournal days. By time I learned to attract more readers, to write better in English and to change the layout of my blog, which I did a lot. Like, a lot a lot. I still do.

By time I also grew myself, I became an adult, my interests changed through time and so did the content of this blog. A few years back I carried my little pocket camera with me every day and posted all of the pictures here so those days wouldn't be forgotten. Now my average days are too boring and I don't even own a pocket camera anymore. I have a big Canon camera that is too big to carry around every day (though I still try to) and I don't want to post about the days that I haven't spent doing something... well, something.

THE NOW

The subjects in my blog today mainly revolve around music, photography and art, probably because that's where my heart lays. I've put a lot of thought into whether to delete this blog and start a new one and not but I didn't want to. This blog is the original one, my baby, my therapist and my best friend, and I don't want to give it up.

My daily life isn't just those cool things I post about in here (in fact my everyday life is quite dull), but in my free time I like to see live music and I'm currently learning to capture those shows into pictures as well. I shoot and write about music for my own webzine John Doe Revolution in where I at times do some interviews well. I feel very lucky to have met so many amazing people as I have through John Doe. If this blog is a friend of mine, John Doe is my lover and has had a huge impact on my life in the past few years. This blog focuses a lot on that; my life as a reporter and my hopefully bright future amidst it.

Art is another thing that I love. I have and will post more about it. Like I mentioned, I write and photograph for John Doe and writing has always been a huge deal for me. I couldn't breathe if I couldn't write everything down, that's probably why I blog and always carry around countless amounts of notebooks to scribble in. However, in the past six years or so I've started to take painting more serious as well. I've started to put some serious effort in developing myself as an artist and even studied art in school for few years. I put my first ever art exhibition together in 2010 and am hoping to have the next one in 2012. The first one, Changing Lights, was held at a Youth Center called Happi. I'm dreaming about arranging the next year's exhibition in an actual gallery, it would mean a lot to me but we'll have to see what happens.

NETWORKING: JOANNARTZ.COM JOHNDOEREVOLUTION.COM BEAUTY BLOG TWITTER

AIN'T A DJ GONNA SAVE MY SOUL, I SOLD IT LONG AGO TO ROCK 'N' ROLL

So that's my blog, what about me? Well... The paper facts are that I'm 20, live in Finland, study on the media field, work as a freelance writer and photograph and paint as a hobby. What else?

I love rock to the very chore of my being. I breathe for heavy guitars, astonishing vocals and true rock 'n' roll attitude. I love the culture; the rivets, the leather, the motorcycles, the piercings, the tattoos, the Jack Daniel's bottles and the backstages. I love the thought of misfits uniting and starting a revolution, I love the small venues, moshpits and headbanging and most of all I love love love the moment at concerts when the crowd unites their sounds into one voice and screams the words to that one song that every single person on that spot loves.

Despite my musical taste, I'm a sensitive girl. I love poetry, reading and writing, I love pink and I squeal for cute fluffy things. I like make up, and love trying to look pretty. I'm shy, I giggle if I get romantic attention, and I crave for romance. Sometimes I entertain myself with pop music ridiculous pop music and actually enjoy listening to it. I'm a girly girl and most of the time you probably couldn't see my love for rock from my outlook.

I collect earrings, bracelets, necklaces and rings, I have shitloads of jewelery and I even make them myself from time to time. I love to do stuff myself; it makes them way more meaningful and unique. I don't dance. If you see me dancing I'm probably feeling uncomfortable already so don't make fun of me. I love random facts, they say a lot about a person. I get easily sad but I'm also easy to make happy.

I believe that respect isn't something to earn, it should be the starting point. I believe that just existing as a person can sometimes be hard. I believe in being a good person. I've experienced that great art does indeed come from great pain, but it also comes from other great emotions. I have great love towards creativity and a huge passion towards passion. Anything that's different and is created with passion draws my attention. Put your heart into everything you do, and you will be great.

XOXO

Joanna

ps. I'd love to know the people on the other side of the screen! Who are you, where do you live, what do you do and why are you here?

We don't celebrate Sundays anymore.

2011-12-15T14:44:00.000-08:00

On first note: Ha, I don't talk about anything else than photography and music in this blog anymore now don't I? Oh well, I kind of like the direction where this blog is going. :) I've grown a lot as a person since I started this blog so it's pretty obvious this blog has changed as well. Anyway...

On Monday I came here to hype about the Bronx show that I was desperate to get into (and succeeded). The next day I attended yet another great show; Hardcore Superstar at Tavastia. I got a photopass for the show through the webzine and I was stoked to be working on my live photographing skills so intently this week. I really want to become a better photographer, and I think that simply pursuing it is just the best way to learn.

What made Hardcore Superstar so brilliant was probably its energy, they had a great one. A lot of bands have energy on stage, pretty much all of them do, but there are energies of all sorts. This energy was vibrant and pushed to the limit. They had obviously came to have fun and I was happy to see them connect with the crowd so strongly. On top of entertaining them, they were really present and showed their excitement.

As a reporter I get to see a lot of live shows which I am grateful of, but at the same time the bar just keeps going up when talking about "liking" a show. Comparing today to a few years ago, I need so much from the band to objectively say "that was a GREAT show!" This has nothing to do with the enjoyability of the show, of course I always adore seeing live music. But some shows just come and go with no lasting memory of them created in between, they are unremarkable, and they've started to taste like old gum.

But like I said, this has been a good week. You see, both of the shows I attended were remarkably good. I felt inspired afterwards, and I know that I will remember these shows later on in my life. The shows were inspiring.

Recently I've been exploring my skills as a live photographer. I love music, I love art and I love taking pictures so live photography is an ovious conclusion. As a reporter it's also good to expand my comfort zone and see what else I could do. If I could photograph well, I could do show reports even all by myself if I don't have a photographer interested to go with me. It's fun to compare photography and writing like that, especially now as I've tried a bit of both. In my experience both need skills and time.

In my opinion writing requires more work. When you see a concert that you're going to write about, you truly need to pay attention to the show from the beginning to the end if you wish to write a good report. At home you have to reminisce what you've experienced and felt, notes help a lot. Then you have to transport those thoughts from your brain to the paper correctly, so that other people can understand what you really mean. Once you've wrote everything down, you're still not finished. You have to read it through, maybe make changes, move paragraphs around or re-consider the palcing of words. There are thousands of opportunities to make a sentence work and look beautiful. Basically there isn't even a way to tell when that piece of work is finished anyway. Though is there ever with art?

Live photography requires a good visual taste and an eye for it, good equipment and some knowledge about using that equipment. I - in my own humble opinion - have the first one so now I'm working on the last two. I have a professional camera but for now only a kit lense for it and even that has some issues with the auto focus. Knowledge... well, that's what I'm working on.

As a photographer you have two moments to impact the way that the picture works out - at the moment when you take the picture and at home photoshopping it. At shows photographers usually have three first songs to take pictures from the photo pit, which is an area in between the stage and the crowd. At that moment it's all about quick decisions, capturing moments and pushing the button at the right time.

Once you get in front of the computer, you have the chance to (maybe) save the pictures that failed, or perfect the ones that didn't. Photoshopping is about choices as well, it may take a lot of time but in the end if you start to have a lot of pictures to go through, photoshopping becomes an auto piloting task that you don't much that much effort to. But with written reports... you go to bed with and wake up with until you figure out how to put that one simple line just right.

Another plus side of live photography is definitely that it feels way more social than writing. When you write a report, you go to a show, you come home, and you finish the raport - alone. Okay, you might go to the show with friends and meet some new people but there's no way you'll spot another reporter by one's outlook and start talking to that person. As a photographer there's the security guard that makes you line up before entering the pit, there's a lot of waiting and at some point one of you will probably open their mouth and new friends are made. This was one of the first things I noticed - shooting concerts is social (if you want it to be.)

I added watermarks to my pictures for the first time. I guess that's just something that all the photographers should do. I don't mind my pictures spreading around the internet but I do mind if there isn't any sign of the source. I've never really cared for watermarks in my picture because they ruin the viewing experience for me. An ugly piece of text at some corner or at worst cases in the middle or across the picture. Yuck, I just hate that even though I get the point.

I made mine small and have no intention of ever placing it anywhere else than where it visually fits best in the picture. I wrote down my art site's address rather than my name so that people would find their way there more easily. Besides, I wanted to highlight my art more than myself.

FI: Olin katsomassa Hardcore Superstaria tiistaina, oli huippu keikka! Kuvat ovat itseottamiani, harjoittelen vasta valokuvausta mutta koen oppivani juuri tekemisen kautta. Mitä pidätte?

Anyway, what do you think about the pictures, the comparisons, Hardcore Superstar or the watermark? (Pheew, I had a lot to say in this post!

XOXO

Joanna

The Bronx

2011-12-13T05:01:00.000-08:00

Yesterday it was a shitty day at first. Or it's been a crappy few weeks, maybe even few months. In the afternoon I remembered that The Bronx is in town and got the idea to go see them though I didn't have a ticket. I got determined and thought of different ways to go. I sent an application for a photo pass and even participated in some contests that offered tickets to the winner.

By the evening I had just given up on hope when I got an e-mail that I had gotten a photo pass to the show. Yey! I was happy that I got to do something since it feels like forever since I've spent the night out or even been to a show. Though I guess it hasn't been that long, haha. The funny thing was that the e-mail was followed by another e-mail that informed me about two tickets I had won to the show. So first I had none, now I had three. Oops. Should be more careful about what I wish for. I guess if you really really really want something, you might as well just get it. Three times. I called Jenna and got her to join me.

Tim Kasher

We got the venue just around to see Mariachi El Bronx play. It was so amusing to see them play, I just couldn't feel down anymore. I felt like grabbing a sombrero (a guy next to me had one, felt like stealing it) and fixing a batch of margaritas for us. I didn't, though.

After Mariachi El Bronx, Tim Kasher got on stage. He was a new discovery for me, and played an acoustic set. He was just fine, but he got the mood a bit down after the cheerful music that Mariachi El Bronx played. Though it's very understandable that Mariachi El Bronx and The Bronx can't really play one after another, they probably need to take a breath in between. (For those of you that don't know, Mariachi El Bronx is an alter ego band for The Bronx.)

I wish I knew enough about cameras to be a great live photographer but I'm not, not yet anyway. Still, the only way to learn, is to try different things. Photography-wise yesterday wasn't quite a success, but I got a few shots that please my eye. Just a few though, plus my eyes have a weird taste. For example, lights and lense flares that professional photographers consider to ruin their shots... I actually like them. Consider me wierd.

I know, it's weird. You can't even see the guitarist's head in the picture above. But I still like the picture for some reason. I guess there's just some sense of reality in it, in the lights overall. That's what it's like in great live shows, it gets hectic, there are lights, people and sweat everywhere around you.

The Bronx was great, by the way. Though it's not that long since I discovered them (I know, I'm a late bloomer) I loved them live and was very pleasantly surprised. The singer kept jumping to the moshpit and probably staid there for 50% of the show. The Bronx was just as energetic as a live band should be, the show definitely goes to the top of this year's shows.

People who aren't that familiar with the concert culture always seem to think that moshpits are all about beating people up and pushing them down to the ground, but it's not about that. It's about picking up the ones that do fall down. It's about unity and seeing the people alike, it's about being equals, letting out the steam in a healthy way and trusting the people around you enough to pick you up.

The fun thing was that the band had invited a special guest on stage. Michael Monroe visited the show towards the end of their set. I had had no idea that Hanoi Rocks had been one of Jenna's favorite bands on her early teens, she was so excited when I told her that Michael Monroe would be there. And man, can that guy always put on a show. This night was no exception. The event was special in many ways!

FI: Olin katsomassa The Bronxia eilen Nosturilla. Ihan huippu keikka!

XOXO

Joanna

Fun, fun.

2011-12-10T12:32:00.000-08:00

A cheer up Evening recipe:

What you'll need:

Two glasses of whine (to begin with)

Two men for each (not real)

Paper (blank)

Finger paint (bright colors)

A friend (real)

What to do:

1. Create the masterpiece.

2. Start to take pictures only when you're drunk enough.

3. Use the fingerpaint to paint your friend's face.

4. Be prepared to get some paint on your face in return.

5. Send your friend home with fingerpaint still on her face.

First snow.

2011-12-06T11:05:00.000-08:00

Last night I went to sleep in a gray world but this morning I woke up to a new, brighter one. As I moved my curtains aside I gasped to the view. It's finally here - the first snow.

I so wish I had been awake and outside when it snowed for the first time. There's just something incredibly special about the feeling of the first snowflake landing on your nose. One of my favorite holiday memories is a certain Christmas Eve. It had been rainy for the whole winter and we still hadn't gotten our first snow. I was bummed because a Christmas without snow just doesn't feel like Christmas for me. Then I opened the curtains and it was snowing. These huge, beautiful snowflakes flew across the sky, landing on the ground and actually staying there. Everything was perfect.

So today we got our first snow this year. It's been 83 years since Finland gained its intependency. In the late 1930's we fought the Winter War. Well, Finland did, I personally obviously didn't. Overall there was no individual heroes, but our soldiers as a unity were heroes. We had 250,000 men on the field, 30 tanks and 130 aircraft, the Soviet Union had 1,500 000 men, somewhat 6,500 tanks and almost 4000 aircraft. Plain to see the superiority, huh.

We lost over 26,000 men, almost 40,000 men were wounded and 1,000 men were wounded. Soviet Union in the other hand... They lost over 226,000 men, 400,000 men went simply missing, almost 265,000 men were wounded, 5,600 men were captured and on top of that fairly over 2,000 tanks were destroyed. We won, and for that I am forever grateful. We're independent, we have our freedom.

For me the independence day got a new twist exactly five years ago when my father got in a car accident and passed on. From that day on Independence day has ment nothing to me, at least nothing else than than the day my daddy died.

Today I somehow feel at peace. I still miss my dad and love him greatly, but today, with the white snow and everything... it just truly feels like an independence day.

XOXO

Joanna

Please sign this.

2011-11-23T04:31:00.000-08:00

I just added my voice to this urgent appeal, standing for human rights in Russia and all over the world. Medvedev and Putin's party is pushing a law to vote this week that would make any mention of lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender issues illegal.

The bill, being introduced as early as this Wednesday, would criminalize any book, article or speech about sexual identity and gender orientation, labeling it "homosexual propaganda". This is outrageous, and now is the time for key world leaders to speak up, we need every voice.

Will you take a minute to add yours?

allout.org/russia_silenced

♥ Kvelertak

2011-11-15T06:19:00.000-08:00

XOXO

Joanna

About the Bring Me The Horizon show yesterday.

2011-11-07T04:07:00.000-08:00

Bring Me The Horizon is one of my top favorite bands, I absolutely love them and their music makes me feel so good inside. Their latest album is so fucking good that it's almost hard to handle. Nothing will ever change these things, not even anything the members of the band decide to do because that doesn't really change the music. Still I can't possibly describe how what happened yesterday made me feel and how disgusted I felt to find out more today.

During the last song yesterday, the band stopped playing as the guitarist jumped into the crowd and started to beat someone the hell up. Other members joined him by jumping into the crowd. Once the singer got back on stage he shouted to the microphone that if anyone has a problem with them then get the fuck out and leave and if anyone has anything to say then get the fuck up on the stage and say it.

Bring Me The Horizon was supporting Machine Head which meant that basically half of the people were the bulk metalheads who were there to see the main act, and the rest were there for BMTH, which I guess didn't match very well. I recall someone being very hostile towards the band throughout the whole show (shouting stuff with middle fingers in the air) and that's what probably started the whole fight. Nevertheless if a middle finger is what initiated the fight, I think the band has a lot to learn.

The guitarist broke his arm.

I got back home and returned to the events of the night passed. Found another video on YouTube that I had missed earlier at the beginning of last month. It was from a BMTH show in Utah when a group of hardcore kids rushed the stage. The incident started when the concert goers threw water bottles at the singer and he threw water right back while calling them pussies. 20-30 people rushed the stage to throwdown. Only a few made it up but the rest started fights in the crowd. The guitarist on stage right brought his guitar down on the head of one of the attackers. The band quickly left the stage and the whole group of attackers ran out the side door towards the buses. There were several fights that night and a couple guys totally knocked out. After 30 minutes, BMTH returned and played a short set.

It makes me so incredibly sad that people feel so suppressed, angry or anxious that they need to act out in violence. That is never the answer, never ever. As it was completely stupid and arrogant for the people in the crowd to act so disrespectfully, that's also no excuse for the band to return with violence. In the other hand though I don't know the band per se I've met several members of the band in interview situations and considered them harmless and nice, that makes me think about how unsafe the stage must feel for them after the several attacks. Afterall we all do know how Dimebag Darrell passed away due to no fault of his own.

The kids have a lot to prove BUT the kids have a lot to learn...

XOXO

Joanna

♥ Bring Me The Horizon

2011-11-07T00:29:00.000-08:00

EARLIER DURING THE DAY:

XOXO

Joanna

Creepy shit.

2011-11-04T10:19:00.000-07:00

This was the view outside of my apartment this morning. The sad thing is that I haven't photoshopped the colors, it actually was that grey.

XOXO

Joanna

On the set of Running Man.

2011-11-02T03:09:00.000-07:00

Some time back back my friends at 15 Minutes Before The dive shot their first (ever) official music video for their song "Running Man." The video was shot indoors at Suvilahti, the same spot where Flow Festival and Tuska Open Air are held in the summertime. We got around after five, and bumped into J and Madu who were just taking out the garbage (hey, what else is a musician to do) and they told us that the filming was going on at the third floor and we could go up already.

We got on set and I smirked because the set looked exactly like them; a lot of colors, random props (like paper cut -letters and a skateboard) filled the area that at other times is just a blank room of concrete. Thomas, who sings in the band, biked to us with his Karaoke King (at least that's what it stated out in the sticker) -bike with a cart and said hi.

He told us that they had begun filming yesterday, that was mainly just him laying on the floor for three hours, or more like on a canvas as an artist sketched the song into pictures to around him. The bike was also actually a stage prop rather than just a cool transport of his, apparently the whole band had been on it on the previous day.

Sometimes hanging out with these guys just feels like being on a commercial for cool shoes.

Thomas cruising around.

Henri was on camera when we arrived. You know those parts on movies like Spiderman, where someone is climbing up a wall and in real life the 'wall' is actually just the floor and the camera is set to make your mind think it's the wall? Well, that's basically what was happening this time as well. Henri was jamming with his guitar and then suddenly just flew to the air five feet off the ground. Except that in real life Henri was actually just laying on a skateboard and rolled it away from the wall. It was such a mindfuck to follow this live.

After a while it was time to shoot a scene where the band is playing and the crowd is jamming to the music. There was a short of extras so me and Aikku jumped in and jammed along to the song that I bet was stuck in all of our heads for the rest of the evening. Apparently we and the others made quite a great crowd since we got the scene in one shot!

Mindfuck!!

These look like gigantic 2 meter letters but actually they're just a few cm's tall letters sitting on the windowsill.

It's a wrap!

After we were free to leave, we decided to stay outside for a while and take some photos. Suvilahti is such a fun and creative area because there's so much space. I took some fun photos of Aikku. As I was laying on the ground J came outside and I pushed him to come to a picture with us. He wanted to jump over me as I was sitting on the ground but as he was speeding up he backed out. Wuss.

XOXO

Joanna

Journey.

2011-10-31T10:50:00.001-07:00

XOXO

Joanna

Soundeffects and overdramatics.

2011-10-29T03:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday at school we got to go to the studio on our sound production class so we decided to record some sounds effects and some voice overs to our animation which will be released at a Christmas festival in our school. We had so much fun!

FI: Nauhoitimme eilen koulun studiossa ääniä animaatioomme, oli superhauskaa!

XOXO

Joanna

Pueblo

2011-10-27T14:33:00.000-07:00

Today my friend (and everyone's friend really) Mikko played an acoustic set at a Mexican bar Pueblo.

XOXO
Joanna

Every time you go.

2011-10-24T14:47:00.000-07:00

I really do believe that quality trumps quantity, that's why I've been keeping things quiet with this blog. I don't want to do shitty posts just to post something. I'd rather post about something interesting once I really do want to post.

Here are some photos I took from Aikku a while back. Poor her, I made her take her coat and gloves off on the freezing island of Suomenlinna but luckily the end result was all worth it. What do you think?

Did you get in the atmosphere?

XOXO

Joanna

Carnival of Lights

2011-10-09T21:28:00.000-07:00

Me and my friend Aikku went to the Carnival of Lights yesterday, it's an annual 10-day fest that includes all kinds of entertainment for the whole family, such as a fire show and ice-skating rink. In addition, 39 amusement park rides are open for visitors to enjoy in the dark autumn night under shining, colourful lights. During the Carnival of Light, you can see peculiar creatures in the amusement park, such as ghosts, witches and wizards.

There weren't much people present yesterday due to crappy weather but we were just there to see the lights. It's been so long since I've done something random or more precisely went somewhere random with a friend for no apparent reason at all. We had a good time walking around the park in a brisk autumn breeze and taking pictures with our new cameras, we even bought liquorice strings.♥

FI: Käytiin Aikun kanssa kuvailemassa Linnanmäen valokarnevaaleilla!

XOXO

Joanna

Like Bambi.

2011-09-26T11:41:00.000-07:00

Last autumn someone collected piles of red leaves next to fences near the railway, then decorated the fence with them, writing lines from songs all over the city. After the fall, came three other seasons. Over spring, summer and winter the leaves slowly started to fall off but never entirely. The city didn't remove them either so now, a year later, small tufts of last autumn's leaves are still wrapped around city fences.

Like a child, I turned to my mother last spring and asked how long did she think the leaves were going to last. She said until the next fall, then someone would replace them with new ones. Somehow I find that thought extremely comforting.

Sometimes I wish I was rather born as an autumn leaf, a tree, a flower or a bird, maybe I had turned out better that way. Evidently I was born as a person, a girl, and I have never been good at living my life as one. I don't know how to live this life I've been given. It's lonely to live your life as a stranger to everything around you. I don't really feel like I can relate to anyone or anything in this world. The fact is I'm like Bambi, all lost in the woods and I have no idea where anyone is. Some might think it's alarming that I can relate to nothing as well as a imaginary deer. I just think it's kind of sad.

Sometimes I think about starting over; moving abroad and abandoning everything here. I picture myself wandering in the city of New York, sleeping under a bridge and trying desperately to rise above, make something of myself and my life. I picture myself in Europe, some country with a strange language that I can't understand, trying my best to find a way to communicate with people. Sometimes I picture myself in a crack house, laying in a pond of my own blood and filth completely unaware of the world around me. In all of these scenarios I'm less lonely than what I am right now.

I exhale by creating new; writing, painting, anything really. The truth is all of that is actually just a bandage for my life that's in ruins. I rather paint the canvas in red than my arms, but just for the sake of being left alone. I guess what you ask is what you get. I'm all alone again but I'm sure I'll figure it out, I always do. The thought of it doesn't make me feel any less lonely though. I'll just keep wandering around the woods like Bambi. That's what I do best.

The Skyline @ Darkside

2011-09-26T00:19:00.000-07:00

Click for gif that is too crappy to work otherwise.

Samcrobatics.

Joel didn't like the flash of the camera.

But he likes their new EP.

And so do I! You can also listen to The Skyline's new EP "Encounters" from Spotify and download it from Bandcamp!
<p>&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://theskylinesounds.bandcamp.com/album/encounters"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Encounters by The Skyline&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;</p>

♥ 15 Minutes Before The Dive

2011-09-25T04:23:00.000-07:00

On Friday I rushed to Gloria to see 15 Minutes Before The Dive. I was planning to take some pictures with my new camera since I hadn't tried out any live photography with it, especially in any other than festival circumstances. I only had a kit lens so it wasn't the easiest thing to do, I just messed around with the camera settings and tried to make the best of it.

15 Minutes Before The Dive have come such a great journey to the point where they are now, it was such a blast seeing the crowd singing to their songs from the bottom of their little hearts. I remember back in 2008 when Thomas (the singer) came to me and said they had kicked off a new project with Henri (the other guitarist) and that they're just uploading their very first track on good ol' MySpace. I had known both of them for several years and always secretly hoped that they'd get together at some point, uniting their talent and creating something even more special than their other work I was familiar with (which was very special too).

The song in question was "Murdered Her", I listened to it, smiled, listened to it again and started craving for more. Over time I got to know the other members as well; Madu, who's the most nice and easygoing guy you'll ever meet, Mikko, who pulls them all together with his assertive exterior and Fatta, who will most likely make you laugh online with his enthusiastic, corky writing and in real life fill the room with laughter as well.

I've always said that regardless of the time or place, every time I am in the presence of this band and its members they only enforce the image I have about them. The important, governing element of 15 Minutes Before The Dive is the obvious love and trust between its members. The group dynamics they behold is energetic, easy and happy, and they seem so fortunate to have found such fit people to form a group. There's so much laughter and joking around when these guys are in the same room.

I was there when the band got on stage for the very first time. I'm pretty sure that I was underaged to go to a bar but I cared about the event too much to care about the age limit in the door. I recall 3/5 of the guys being crazy sick with fever but I also remember the show being so excellent that I didn't notice anything wrong before they afterwards told me that they weren't sure if they'd come off the stage alive. I shot the whole show on video, burned it on DVD and made a copy for them and for myself. I'm so happy that today I can put it on my player, look back and smile.

I was also there when they started to play shows in other towns than here in Helsinki, I was there when their first EP "Fleece Is The New Black" came out, I was there (laughing for an hour) when they played a Halloween show with a tennis-theme and a huge picture of Björn Borg as a wall drop, I was in the studio when they were recording their first album, I was there when they were kind enough to play in my birthday party when I turned 19 and again when I turned 20, I was there when they were warming up for Yellowcard, I was there when they added "Raise Your Glass" by Pink and "Friday" by Rebecca Black to their setlist, and most recently I was there for their very first video shoot for "Running Man" which will be an epic video.

Still though, as happy as all of these events have made me... I'm pretty sure that nothing will make me smile as much as the day when I will have their debut album on my hands. I remember being at their studio, doing an interview with them just as they were "finishing up" their debut. This was in 2008 and it's 2011 now, ha! But that's just how things change and schedules evolve. Nevertheless, I'm so proud to know what a fun road they've driven, how far they've come and super happy that I've had a chance to be a part of it.

Madu posing.....

XOXO

Joanna

Girl writing hearts.

2011-09-21T14:32:00.001-07:00

The story of a lonely fairy.

2011-09-21T01:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I really got to work with my brand new camera for the first time! We got a school assignment to pick a song and take pictures based on it, tomorrow we're going to show them to the class in the form of a slideshow.

The song I picked out was "Yksinäisen Keijun Tarina" ("The story of a lonely fairy") by Chisu. The song tells the story of a fairy who tries to express her melancholy to those around her but because "fairies aren't said" no one believes her until she passes away out of loneliness.

I asked one of my best friends, Jenna to model for me. She's done sone modeling before and still does so she knows what she's doing. She still knows how to receive instructions as well so we had super fun hiking around the near by woods. She also has such delicate fairy like features that it was a pleasure taking pictures of her.

Anyway, here are some shots! You can find all of them from my flickr!

XOXOJoanna

We walk.

2011-09-19T03:20:00.000-07:00

You know that moment in school when the teacher gives you an assigment to solve an mathematical equation and you spend the next hour or two trying to figure it out but can't so you just sit there stewing in your anger and end up ripping the whole book to pieces before ever figuring out what the bloody answer is?

Well, HA-HA, I'm in a school now where we get assigned to take photos. Muchos love. Our assignment today wasn't really about taking photos as much as finding a location. We were sent to the surroundings of our school to find a proper location for a "pretend" photo shoot for hiking shoes.

We first went to the shore and in to the woods after. Our approach was to highlight the fact that these sorts of shoes need to survive anything; water, mud or leaves.

FI: Haha, kuinka huippua koulua käynkään! Tänään tehtävänämme oli kuvata kenkiä.

XOXO

Joanna

Home

2011-09-18T11:24:00.001-07:00

ps. I'm working on another video as well, it's a trailer of video clips from our trip to Hamburg in the summer.
XOXO Joanna

Think outside the box.

2011-09-02T13:55:00.000-07:00

We had such a fun day at school today. Our assignment was to create a photo based on another assignment we were given earlier this week. To cut a long story short, our starting point was the title "Man in a box." Elina got an idea to make suits out of boxes and put us inside of them. I thought it was brilliant and my first vision was two woman models with neat hair, dark eyebrows and red lipstick standing in these box made man suits and paper cut moustache, with a stern look on their face. Eventually, that's how we went!

The (wo)man with a plan.

As Elina has dreadlocks in her hear, we agreed that Nelli and I would be the models and Elina would be taking the photograph. I felt so silly wobbling around the school building in a box, especially when I first couldn't move my legs that much because the box reached all the way from my neck to my ankles. We cut the boxes a bit shorter later to make them look better.

Ha-ha. There was some making of -photos for you. Then we started the real deal. It was so hard keeping a straight face while standing in a big box with a peace of ~~"moustache"~~ black cardboard glued under your nose. But we managed to do it and I myself was so pleased with the results. In some of the pictures we actually kind of looked like dudes.

The all color version.

Here you can see the difference in pretty much the same picture being in colors and in black and white. We pondered a lot about which one presenting to the class but we ended up picking the black and white since it's more dramatic, artistic and deep.

The picture in colors (above) looks very very good and has an amusing vibe in it. Like it could be a postcard or a poster for mine and Nelli's stand up -show. Filled with black humor. And a lot of moustache.

But then again the black and white picture (below) that we ended up picking has such a cool stylish and profound vibe in it. It makes you think what does this picture really say? Our conclusion was that it represents women in the mans world, as we are two women locked inside of a man box, trying to look like men.

The final version.

Like I said, I myself was really happy with the result and I hope that the girls were too. After we were finished we had to take a few group shots to capture our laughter. We did it, yey!

XOXO

Joanna

Cheer up, buddy.♥

2011-09-01T05:13:00.000-07:00

My friend's been feeling down lately so I decided to make a little cheer up -present for her. I love making gifts and specifically making them myself, if a gift maker or a gift shopper was a real job I'd be so good at it. I wish people would give out more gifts for no apparent reason at all.

I gave her one of my bracelets, one I love but never wear because it's golden and I'm more of a silver kind of girl. It's basically a gold chain with different amulets hanging on it; a feather, a planet, stars, a rocket, hearts, a rose and glasses. I decided to write a poem to go with the bracelet and to find out what each of the amulets actually symbolize. Here's the outcome.

Float like a feather Spin like a planet Shine like a star Rock like a rocket

Love like a heart Look like a rose Know your style That's you, I suppose.

A feather is a symbol of truth, speed and lightness. A planet is a symbol of change, invention and revolution. Star is a symbol of good luck, protection and guidance. Rocket is a symbol of courage. Heart is a symbol of motion, emotion and intuition. Rose is a symbol of balance, passion and faith. Glasses portray how a person sees the world around themselves. I wish my friend will have all of these things.

Jessie J - Stand Up

XOXO Joanna

Once in a lifetime.

2011-08-16T14:30:00.000-07:00

Today my 1,5 year vacation ended. I felt weird, didn't sleep much the night before, just kept moving around in my bed. I felt excited about the new, yet scared about the unfamiliar. Today I grabbed my backpack and headed to the bus stop early in the morning. I arrived to the campus area around 9am and ran to the building for thinking I'm running late.

I wasn't. I went to the auditorium which was full, sat and listened to the teachers introducing themselves and telling us a bit more about themselves, the building, the campus and the media assistant degree itself. I'm so stoked about the opportunities I will be given and the things I will be taught; film production, photography, sound production, animation, art, culture and so on and so on. The fun part is that since I dropped out high school (yes, that is indeed the fun part hah) most of the classes that I passed there, still count! That means that I've already done all the "boring important stuff" and can mostly focus on all the cool important stuff for the next three years.

A few hours later I sat in a classroom with people who will my new classmates for the next three years or so. We got a tour around the school and I was amazed by the amount of gear, supplies, and studios around the building. We were also told about our schedules for the near future and our work experience periods during our second year. Apparently we have an opportunity to go study abroad for a little while. I got really stoked about that and started thinking how much fun to go work in England. London for example would be really cool. Work where, one might ask. I won't give it away yet, since I don't want to get my hopes up.

As I later on walked back to the bus stop to go home, I couldn't help but noticing how comfortable I felt in the campus area. There's the University of Art and Design right next to our building, and Metropolia University of Applied Science next to that. Both are very distinguished universities and hard to get in but have always also been a dream of mine. If you don't dream big, what's the use of dreaming?

Here are some pictures from the Flow Festival I went to last weekend.

FI: Tällä hetkellä kuuluu lähinnä loman lopettelua ja koulun aloittelua. Kuvat viime viikonlopun Flow-festareilta!

In live photography (that I stressed about in the previous post) I did pretty good I think. What do you think?

I secretly took photos of him as he was cleaning my lense. :D

XOXO

Joanna

Slutwalk

2011-08-11T15:21:00.000-07:00

It all started from Canada, Toronto where a Police officer started labeling women and people most at risk of sexual assault as 'sluts'. Someone thought about making noise and demanding for more than an apology. Women have a constitutional right to a freedom of expression and a freedom of assembly so should use it.

I love the sign on the front as much as I also love the sign behind
that says "NO. NO. Regardless of how often I say YES." It made me think.

Putting that into action, the girls behind the movement wanted to go right to the Toronto Police Service’s front door at 40 College St. with impassioned numbers uniting against these damaging stereotypes. Thus SlutWalk was born and began with SlutWalk Toronto. Women are taking their frustration to the streets – literally. Toronto’s Walk was the first and was incredibly successful with an estimated 3,000-4,000 people joining us on the street and many others supporting us from afar. Finland supported the action last weekend with the march. I couldn't make it, but I got inspired so I wrote a (FYI, fictional) poem.

I got drunk at a party and a friend got me home

though it turned out soon he wasn't a friend at all

I didn't ask him inside but he pinned me to the floor

and told me to hush because I was just a cheap whore.

Actually I work at a cafe but I guess that's how he feels

evidently my mistake was putting on high heels

and wearing a nice dress with them and looking all fit

so he slapped me to the face and said I was begging for it.

He took off when he was finished but I couldn't move

he had left me with a feeling that I should improve

By that he meant that I should shield myself with clothes

so I put on a huge plastick sack entirely from head to toes

I marched to the police, still feeling scared and hurt

I was looking for comfort but instead I got burnt

The officer said that I looked quite good in my sack

and that if I took it off, the man would be back

Evidently my mistake was not wearing a sack

but wearing a skirt instead and looking good in that

The officer sighed and I think even laughed a little bit

He declined my report, said I was begging for it.

I didn't quite recover, and neither did my style

I thought they were right so I stayed in that sack for a while

Above that time I remember; there was a dark cloud

But today I'll try to strut my high heels proud.

Stand up for your rights,
Joanna

Clouds and other shapes.

2011-08-11T14:57:00.000-07:00

Sorry for not posting for a while, I've noticed I've even lost a reader meanwhile. Summer is almost over and so is my year and a half vacation off school. I'm trying to make the best of it so I've been doing other things (making my room "studying friendly", meeting friends, doing interviews, baking (I've really gotten into that) and all that stuff). I want this blog to be as honest as possible and that's why my text here is never forced. When I write, what I write just bursts out of me and then I shape it to be decent. I think that's the way it should be.

Tonight I stopped by at my friend Aikku's house to pick up her system camera. I was supposed to go to Flow Festival with her this weekend but the organization only approved one of our press applications - mine. Therefore I need to take some shots as well, though I intend to give my pass to her for Sunday. We will split our work in half and both get to go, seems fair?

I know absolutely nothing technical about cameras, but apparently this camera is a Canon EOS 450D. I recall Aikku buying a new cool lens for it this summer but I have no idea of what it's called or how to describe it. Except that it's a fucking long tube and zooms a lot further than the original lens. Ha, know you really must understand that I truly don't know nothing about cameras. (I'm hoping to take a course on photography at school this season so maybe I'll learn something new. (Since everything is new to me.))

On my way home, I decided to test the camera a little to get the gist. There wasn't that much to shoot, just some ordinary city scenery around the area. But it helped me to get a hold of my camera a bit so I won't rush to the pit tomorrow totally blind.

Once I got off the subway I witnessed a beautiful late summer evening sky. I figure the sun had just settled and the clouds were still filling the sky with a spectrum of colors. I've always thought that a sky with some puffy clouds is always way prettier than a clear sky.

One of my favorite little things in life is to stare at the clouds, or more precisely; the shapes of them, and try to figure out what they look like. It's kind of like the inkblot test - it leaves so much up for the imagination. And if you find some decently shaped clouds that look like something you can make up stories based on them. Better yet if there are more of them clustered together - why? Why is that "penguin" cloud next to that "dragon" cloud? Are they friends? Or are they enemies?

A penguin far on the left and a small dragon under it. I have no idea what the huge cloud on the right could be. It's a shame, it might add a lot to the story.

Octopus on the right. Yes? No?

I'm kind of nervous about tomorrow since I've never officially shot a festival before. I've been in a photo pit (the area between the crowd and the stage where the photographers go to take pictures) before but only with a video camera. No, wait! Due to some misconceptions I was in the photo pit in Hamburg... with my borrowed old Panasonic pocket camera. It was quite humiliating.

Flow is a festival often addressed to be 'the hipster paradise' and I would probably agree, though this is my first time attending. Flow is the festival where you go to discover bands you have previously never heard of. Then there are the very few acts that you actually take interest in beforehand. For me, this year those acts are Midlake (fell in love with them last winter as I saw them live at a club), Röyksopp (been in love with their The Understanding album since forever, and probably always will be) for Friday and Magenta Skycode (breathtaking), Iron & Wine (a quite new acquaintance for me) and Lykke Li (simply lovely) for Saturday. Someone I know is also performing on the open source stage around seven, so I'll definitely be there supporting them. Other than that it's a discovery fest!

Aikku was kind enough to mention that I could borrow the camera more often if I liked, apparently most of the time it's just sitting on her shelf anyway. I got really excited because there are a lot of times I have an idea for a photo shoot but no camera. I've wanted a camera of my own for ages but just haven't been able to afford it, it kills me but what are you going to do. Some day, I will have a very own decent camera and I will shoot a lot of clouds and shapes with it! Until then, I'll just keep borrowing Aikku's, ha!

XOXO

Joanna

In the fall.

2011-08-09T16:54:00.000-07:00

The rain falling on the windowsill makes me feel like I'm home. It sounds sad, though I find it very beautiful. Sadness often is. The fall is here and I'm ready for it, it's my season. Everything dies or goes to sleep, I do that too and I find it comforting that I'm not the only one. Moreover I know that everything will be reborn in the spring.

It's almost as if the world pauses for a split moment, life stops going on as fast as it usually does. That's not for me. The fall is. In the summertime everything feels light and I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy that. But I'm not that much of a light person, I feel inspired in the fall. It's the time that matters in where most summer days are unremarkable, they just go by without having any specific impact to the future apart from those summer days when you actually do something.

I can't get over the fact how much has happened in a year or so. I've travelled, I've achieved, I've loved, I've been loved, I've missed, I've laughed, I've been honest, I've written, I've been broken, I've lost, I've been lost, I've found, I've been found, I've really lived, and now I'm ready for the rest of my life to begin.

I lied in my bed today and suddenly I realized my feet were cold. I smiled because I realized that the fall is here. My season. I put on my woolen stockings and started waiting for the days to come; when it's unbearably cold outside and I get to be inside, warm, under my blanket, with a cop of hot chocolate, watching a good movie. That's my kind of time.

XOXO

Joanna

UH-HUH

2011-07-27T01:25:00.000-07:00

One of my good dear friends turned 20 today and as a gift I burned him a CD of my current favorite tracks. Actually I burnt the CD in quite a hurry but it turned out to be a good thing; I didn't get into thinking the songs too much and instead I just went with my guts and picked out songs I liked the best at the moment. I titled the album after a Munchausen by Proxy -song Uh-huh.

Eventually the CD had three parts, one for good mood, partying or hanging with friends, the second portion spiced up with a little bit of attitude and the third part filled with calm tunes. To the cover I drew a baby owl. Of course. What would be more related.

FI: Tein syntymäpäivälahjaksi ystävälleni levyn, jonka biisit löytyvät alle. Kanteen piirsin tietenkin pöllön.

UH-HUH, 2011

---------------------- for good times

A Day To Remember - The Downfall Of Us All

The Ark - Clamour For Glamour

The Clash - Train In Vain

Florence And The Machine - Dog Days Are Over

Flogging Molly - Drunken Lullabies

My Chemical Romance - Vampire Money

Munchausen By Procy - Uh Huh

Semi Precious Weapons - Semi Precious Weapons

---------------------- for attitude

Fireal - Pyromania

Kvelertak - Ulvetid

Sonic Syndicate - Turn It Up

Original Heteroes - Bang Bang Penetration

The Used - I'm a Fake

The Sounds - It's So Easy

---------------------- for soul searching

City & Colour - Waiting...

Hurts - Stay

Midlake - Acts Of Man

Edward Shape And The Magnetic Zeros - Home

XOXO

Joanna

Breathe

2011-07-26T02:03:00.000-07:00

Setting up.

Lights!

Camera!

Go!

Iiii caaan't breaaatheee...

XOXO,

Joanna

Networking

2011-07-25T03:10:00.000-07:00

By the way, I'm learning about blog promoting tools because I really want to get my blog(s) out there. If you have any tips, drop a comment! Anyway, I learned that a good way to attract readers is to connect your blog to Facebook, so I did! If you want to get a notification to your Facebook front page every time I update or something else important is happening, like my page and that's it. You can also suggest it to friends if you will.♥

Also, I've been requested a style blog for a while now and I finally gave in. I named it after a song Riviera by Pariisin Kevät, it's called Muuttolintuja Syksyllä which in Finnish means migrant birds in the fall. (Wow, that sounds clumsy in English, ha ha.)

I was originally against style blogging but I really wanted to write something light, something new and in Finnish as well so I created the blog to see if it turns out okay. This doesn't mean that I will be giving up this blog. No way, this is my home. The style blog is just an experiment to see if I like it since I've thought about it for so long. If it falls through, I'm going to quit it.

Tuska Open Air

2011-07-25T02:48:00.000-07:00

On Friday I headed out to Tuska straight from the Zoo. I met up with Tanja and her friends and we sat at the vip cafe for most of the evening, I was so incredibly tired from walking around the Zoo all morning. We pulled out to see a few bands though.

Killing Joke was interesting, they've been around since the 70's so it's pretty obvious that their band has went through a lot of changes during the years, and they've certainly grew a lot since then. Their music has been a key influence on industrial rock and it has influenced many later bands, such as Nirvana, Metallica, Opeth, Dead by April and Foo Fighters.

Morbid Angel was, well, interesting in a way as well. The vocalist looked like a parody version of Nikki Sixx gone metal and one of the guitarists kept the same (duck) face through out the show, and the same spot; he didn't move around at all. They sounded okay but nothing new, nothing special. I didn't stay to see the end of the show, I went home and got some sleep.

Epica

On Saturday I got around to see Epica. They were nice, their lead vocalist Simone was gorgeous and I couldn't stop taking photos of her. I also have a thing for (decent) female vocalists in heavy metal, a pretty voice among something so hard and tough always makes me shiver. This incredible voice just came out of her, and she didn't even look as if she was trying.

Tanja with her spontaneous beard!

Oh, that doesn't look good.

The rain caught us by surprise around three as had been predicted, but surprisingly it lasted only for a while. We sat at the cafe for half an hour and by the time we got out the sun was already shining it was bloody hot outside. It stayed like that for the rest of the day.

At some point me and Nelly bumped into Samuli who had bought a one day ticket to see Devin Townsend. A good choice, I might say! Devin is always a pleasure to see live, he's always refreshing his live show and bringing something new to the table. He's also always seemingly having fun on stage which always gets me, the viewer, on a very good mood. This time I was also amused by a slideshow that was playing on screen before Devin got on stage. Priceless.

The only thing I ate during the weekend. :( A cookie, and some juice.

On Sunday I got on spot just in time to see Kvelertak. I saw them live for the first time in April when they were supporting Comeback Kid at Nosturi. I did an interview with both of the bands. The last time I saw the band live was only a week back at Ilosaarirock, they were great there but this time they completely stole my heart. They're brilliant. I love them. I love them I love them I love them.

They're so upbeat and fresh which is pretty rare and hard to do in this genre if you still want to stay hard music. But they really know how to do it, and how to do it well. In addition to that they're really energetic and fun live. Ahh. Did I mention I love them?

Kvelertak

Agnostic Front got on the same stage a few hours after. They're known as the pioneers of NY hardcore. I had an interview scheduled with them but it eventually fell through later during the evening.

However, we did do an interview with Meshuggah later. The band was in so much hurry that we only got ten minutes with Mårtin but it was okay, luckily he had a lot to say in ten minutes. We talked about their current status and about the importance of music in general.

After the interview we stayed on backstage and waited for the next interview to begin. Erlend from Kvelertak came up to me, hugged me and asked me how I was. I got a bit moved afterwards because I never think my interviewees remember me. It felt nice to be acknowledged. As we waited, someone also brought a piñata box for the kids. Then they got to hit it with a bat eyes closed until it broke and all the candy fell through. They wanted the candy so bad that they were really into it. It was the cutest thing I've seen for a while.

The headlining act, Amon Amarth gathered around all of the crowd. I looked at them for a while but couldn't wait to get home and get some sleep so I headed out before they were finished.

The change of the festival location from the park of Kaisaniemi to the field of concrete in the middle of factories and other buildings was a minor step down for me, but it wasn't a total bummer. Overall this year the festival was a success, even despite of the new location in Suvilahti.

"A tip for tomorrow: Some rest!" I agree.

It's over!

XOXO

Joanna

Your body is a temple, but how long can you live in the same house before you redecorate?

2011-07-21T08:33:00.000-07:00

I find tattooed people exquisite. For me tattoos are all about dreams, about being whoever you wish to be. Just like rock stars and athletes are admired because they get to live their dream, make a living off of whatever they love the most. I find people who surrender their skin to art very interesting. And if the tattoo is located on their neck or other place that can't be covered that person has made a irreversible choice for their life. I find that honorable.

The idea for my new tattoo was born step by step. Originally I was supposed to have a cage and a dove breaking free from it tattooed on my wrist, representing my favorite quotation from all time; "Boundaries don't keep other people out, they fence you in." Also, my passed father had a dove tattoo so I wanted to have one to honor him. And also, I just fucking love bird tattoos.

I had planned that that I'd get a key tattoo on my other wrist after, the kind that would metaphorically fit the lock in the cage. I sketched out both tattoos but surprisingly I liked the key tattoo so much I wanted to get it first. Here's the creation process of it step by step.

My sketch.

Victoria's sketch.

First I looked up some pictures of key tattoos to get some inspiration, then I sketched what I'd like; a very girl and delicate key hanging on a pearl chain. If you're not that keen on drawing you can also describe the tattoo artist what you'd like and they'll sketch it for you.
Then I started looking for tattoo artists online, the kinds that might be into the style I was looking for my tattoo. I was very interested in having a female tattoo artist for a change, especially as I wanted my tattoo to be very feminine as well.
After a while I had found a few potential artists but hadn't really settled yet. I got to talking about it with me friend Pete and he suggested Victoria who had made her girlfriend's peacock tattoo, the one I had instantly fallen in love with when I saw it for the first time. I think the best tattoo artists can be found by recommendations.
Pete gave me her contact info and I e-mailed her my sketch and what I'd like in particular. I told her what I'd like to remain in the tattoo from my sketch; the diamond heart, and the feminine and decorative aspect of it. I also told her the location I'd be getting it and the fact that I'd like the pearl chain to go around my arm for a few times. These things are the most important info when communicating through e-mail, if you're making an appointment on spot at a tattoo shop, the artist will ask these questions anyhow.
Closer to our appointment Victoria sent me her sketch, on the left there was the actual line drawing and on the right there was a quick sketch of the colors she had thought about using. I told her what I liked about it (pretty much all of it) and what I'd like to have changed a bit. When planning a tattoo with an artist, it's very important to speak your mind so you'll get what you'd like. It's been said a thousand times but only because it's tattoo; the ink will stay on your skin for life.
At our appointment Victoria showed me her final sketch and I loved it, she put the design on a transfer paper and placed it on my skin, I checked if the location was okay and she started setting up her station. I made some requests about colors and such but most of it was all her and that's the way it should be. Even though it's important to be honest and active in the process you need to trust that in the end the artist knows best what will look good on the tattoo.
Does it hurt? Well hell yes it bloody hurts! A tattoo isn't exactly licked on by kittens, instead it feels exactly like what it is; a needle (or at times more than one needle) struck through your skin and moving it around while it shivers. This tattoo was specifically painful under the elbow.
Does it cost a lot? The average amount tattoo artists usually charge is about 100 euros per hour, at least in Finland. Artists who tattoo at home instead of a tattoo shop usually charge less but rather run after quality then good price and never let a bad artist tattoo you just for the cheap prize.

And the final piece! It's still a bit swollen and red and I couldn't really take a decent picture of it but... TATAA!♥

XOXO

Joanna

Ask ask ask!

2011-07-20T03:40:00.000-07:00

I have an appointment for a new tattoo tomorrow and I'll be posting about it soon after! If you have anything to ask about the creating process of a tattoo or about tattoos in general ask away, and I'll write about it! You can leave your questions under this post or on formspring.

XOXO

Joanna

Ilosaarirock 2011

2011-07-20T03:00:00.000-07:00

We arrived Joensuu on Thursday, built our tents and set our camps. We drank and listened to music to the wee hours of the night. On Friday the advance clubs opened their doors, we had bought tickets to Töminä, the more rock orientated one, that also had Cigarette Crossfire playing later in the evening. A band of our friend's. We checked them out and later returned to our camp.

On Saturday the actual festival begun, the line up included bands such as Michael Monroe, Kate Nash, Buzzcocks, Kvelertak, Madness, Aphex Twin and Red Sparrowes. I have to admit I wasn't that stoked about this year's line-up, the only act I really took interest in was Kvelertak. But this was also a plus, when I had nowhere I needed to be, I had the opportunity to be anywhere I'd like. I followed my friends from one show to another and made some new discoveries in music. Red Sparrowes, for example, was surely interesting!

We left Joensuu early in the morning on Sunday. The drive back was just as long as it was when we arrived (6 hours approximately) but it felt so much longer with the weight of the weekend pressing on your back. We had to stop quite often and in the end our return took somewhat 8 hours! Pheew.

FI: Käväistiinpä iloisessa saaressa, iloista olikin!

As you can see, Sami helped a lot with our tents.

Can I get an "AWWW!"

Sami the space reindeer from the future.

A girly moment.

Dooley's was a friend of mine. ♥

My baby owl made some bigger badass owl friends.

Sami is surely focusing on our human pyramid.

Just as the pyramid was coming together...

Jere decided to jump on top of it... NOO!!

Just guess who picked the wrong shoes for a festival.

A rainy cloud in the Yle X tent.

Where Kvelertak played a great show.

So great, apparently, that somebody left the sole of their shoe to the moshpit.

XOXO

Joanna

Take my hand and let me lead you back to yourself.

2011-07-05T13:09:00.000-07:00

I held Riitta's hand in the plane as she was a bit scared to fly. A bit.

The kitchen at our hotel room!

There was also an entry hall and a huge bathroom with a bath tub in our hotel room. It was amazing.♥

Team awkward.

Rathaus.

The ordeal.

One of the pigeons.

Prayer For Peace.

Angel on earth.

St. Nikolai.

Hamburg. ♥

...

The Deez Nuts, While She Sleeps, Architects and Bring Me The Horizon show at Gruenspan.

Bye bye Germany. This is my last post about Hamburg... for now.

XOXO

Joanna

The red light district.

2011-07-01T12:23:00.000-07:00

After the show on Wednesday we took a taxi to our hotel and then returned back to the venue as we figured some nice people from the show would probably hang around in the bars of the area. We had asked around about rock clubs near by and the list we got was the following: Lewitz, 3 Monkeys, Headcrash, 99 Cent Bar, Lunacy, Ex Spar and Molotow. We decided to go to Headcrash and as we asked for directions a few times on our way, everyone kept saying "It's definitely the place to be!" With that said, we were definitely bummed once we got to Headcrash and realized it was closed.

We decided to stop by in a pub next to Headcrash called Pooca. It was the cutest little pub I've seen in a while, it was really small and beer was pretty expensive (for Hamburg) but what got my immediate attention was the pub's open stage and the amount of talented people that rose on it. I liked the bar a lot but we decided to do a bar tour so we left and moved on.

Picture of the red light district from the New York Times.

We were close to the red light district area that we were interested in seeing so we walked there. Red-light district means an area that is associated with the sex industry; sex shops, strip clubs etc. In some of these places prostitution may legally take place and in Germany prostitution is legal and regulated. The area we were on is one of the most well known red light districts in the world.

We walked around, amazed by all the lights and amount of strip clubs. We had heard big stories about the prostitutes on the streets, people smoking dope and so on but we hardly saw any of that. In fact, we were kind of bummed that we didn't saw a single prostitute on the area. On the other hand it was a weekday, we were told that the weekends are the ones that are totally out of control.

It was hard for us to tell which ones were strip clubs and which ones were bordellos. Luckily at a Döner stand we bumped into three helpful guys who wanted to stand under our umbrella (ela ela e e e). Their names were Ole, Philipp and Fynn, and they walked us around the street for a bit, helping us seperate the bordellos from strip clubs. They took us dancing to a nice club called D Light in where we stayed for a while and danced a lot.

From the window we spotted a strip club (with table dancing!) called Dollhouse. There were two entrances and Ole explained to us that the other one was a soft one, and the other one was a hardcore one. As me and Rita started arguing back and forth about which one to go to, the clock was ticking and by the time we got out of D Light, Dollhouse was already closed altogether.

We walked down the street and in the corner there was a bar called Kaiserkeller. The security guard on the door asked us if we liked gothic music. We smirked and said "sure" though we were both kind of amused by the idea of a gothic night club. We went in anyway and I bursted into laughter once we got downstairs; there were maybe six people there besides us, three of them were playing pool, one elderly gothic lady who bumped into us on her way out, a gothic teenager who was dancing alone in the corner, and a chubby, bald gothic man in a leather skirt, dancing the oddest moves I've ever seen on the dance floor. Oh, well, I guess that's gothic.

This picture is from the red light district of Amsterdam.

We walked back to the main street to get a taxi and started lurking to different strip clubs on our way, we decided we have to visit one since we're one of the biggest and most well known red light districts in the world. We stopped in front of a small strip club and asked how much does it pay to get in. The bouncer on the door was exactly what you'd expect to see; tall, beefy, with tattoos, an earring and a leather jacketon. He said the entrance is free but you have to buy a drink that costs 6 euros, so basically we could take a look and if we don't like the place we can leave. He then explained it's the policy in all the strip clubs in the area.

We went in and decided to stay, ordered our drinks and sat to the corner table. The girl dancing on the pole was gorgeous; she was kind of sedate, dark, teasing and mysterious, and her legs looked seven feet tall. Unfortunately she was just ending her dance as we sat down. After her another stripper got on stage, she wasn't as tall and breathtaking as the first one but still very pretty. Unfortunately, she was quite a let down as she danced approximately about 15 seconds, and then sat down to a chair next to the pole, lighted a smoke and started texting. We were really bummed and decided to leave but now looking back it was kind of amusing to think how bored she looked.

Overall the red light district of Hamburg was way 'cleaner' than I thought. I've heard that there should be prostitutes in display windows and all that but everything I saw was in good taste. Though there were quite a few bordellos, I didn't see any prostitutes on the streets (or on display windows) and even the girls on the strip club seemed to be doing fine. The stripper was gorgeous and she should embrace that. I was a bit scared of injuring my fragile soul while exposing it to all of this but I have to admit that I didn't see anything too hardcore, though I do feel a bit worry about the red light culture in general.

We got a few hour sleep as we got back to the hotel and were probably still drunk as we got to the airport. We had a five-hour-stop in Copenhagen which we used for sleeping. Finland seems ugly now that I'm back, but I guess I'll adjust. The buildings were prettier in Hamburg, and the people were nicer. I had no idea that this trip would be as relaxing as it was. I hope to God that I will get to visit the place again in the near future.

XOXO

Joanna

Room 200.

2011-07-01T11:29:00.000-07:00

Our stop was Reeperbahn.

On Wednesday we got up a bit earlier so we'd have some time to do our final shopping before coming back to the hotel and heading out for our girl's night. Our plan was to see a concert in the evening and party a bit after. We took a subway downtown, as we had realized that the trip that had previously taken us 40 minutes by walking, would only take 10 minutes with public transport. The underground map looks difficult and surely different than our pathetic excuse for a map in Finland, but as long as you take a small moment to explore what it's about, it's pretty easy to figure out.

Once we got back to the hotel, we took a extended nap and woke up in the afternoon. On Tuesday we had bought all sorts of food to our hotel room kitchen so we cooked some pasta and stakes alongside some good rose wine and champaign. As a dessert we had chocolate frosted banana, it was quite heavenly. The prizes in Germany never seize to amaze me, you can easily eat out under 10 euros and you can get wine from the grocery stores for a couple of euros.

As we started getting ready I burnt three of my fingers and my elbow in the oven. It hurt like hell, but luckily the alcohol helped a bit. We took a taxi to the venue (in case you're wondering how we had the money to travel around with a taxi, it was incredibly cheap in Germany! Just as anything else, really), which had a nice atmosphere to it. The outer walls were painted with street art and on the outside it seemed like a such a small venue though it actually seats 800 people. Apparently the venue was founded in 1968 as a music club and event centre, in a former movie theatre situated in Grosse Freiheit Road, next to the Reeperbahn. The discotheque became known for concerts and progressive rock.

We were only aware of Bring Me The Horizon and Architects playing in the venue but we had no idea that there were other bands as well. The first band was ending their set as we entered. They sounded really familiar but I couldn't figure out what band they were so we started asking people, they either had no idea or claimed that they were Architects. I saw Architects live back in January so I was absolutely certain that this band was not them.

Sam from Architects

Tom from Architects

The next band was Deez Nuts, an Australian hardcore punk band that's been together since 2007. I pushed through people to get in the front on the photo pit area, people were surprisingly polite and made room for me. Once I got to the pit, the security stopped me. I showed them my photo pass and he looked suspicious. "Where's your camera?" he asked and I showed him my pathetic little pocket cam from the 90's. He laughed at me and shook his head in disbelief, I felt ashamed and tried to explain that I was originally supposed to have a permission to bring a video camera, but all I got was a photo pass so this was the best I got. He then let me go through. Once I got to the pit, I kind of laughed at my self as well and shook my head. I felt so small standing next to these actual photographers with good camera gear, I got a few alright pictures though, but they would've definitely been better with a proper gear.

Bring Me The Horizon was up next, I was stoked to see them again and to get to take pictures of them, even if just with my pathetic little pocket cam. After I had gotten my pictures, me and I stucked around and stayed in the front. I hadn't realized before that they're definitely my favorite band at the moment, they're new album is so good and I'm in love with their lyrics in particular.

Their live show was brilliant again, about halfway through their set, Oliver raised his hand in the air and stated out that he wants to high five every single person in the crowd. "How's that going to happen, you may wonder" he said. "By fucking crowd surfing your asses up here!" he shouted and kept exciting the crowd for a while before kicking off the song. The security guards tightened to the front of the stage as the crowd surfers started falling to the front. Oliver kept his promise and actually high five every single one of them, there were probably almost 100 crowd surfers over all during the song.

Oliver from Bring Me The Horizon

Jona from Bring Me The Horizon

After the show I spotted Lawrence, the singer of the first band (which turned out to be While She Sleeps) from the bar. I went up to him and asked if he was the singer, he said he was and I thanked him from the great show and said I was bummed I got to see only the last few songs since I had no idea they were playing here, let alone that early. He explained that the show came with a short notice as they had bumped into Architects a few days ago at Graspop festival in Belgium and they had decided to take the band on the bill for tonight. I asked if they had played in Finland before and he said that they played in Helsinki when Adept was headlining not so long ago. I figured that's why they seemed so familiar, I attended the show back then and did an interview with Adept.

Overall the show was a success and I was excited to see two bands more than what I was expecting. The biggest differences from what I've used to in Finland were the people. Everyone was really polite and let people politely go through to up front, in the other hand the people who tried to get through to up front were polite as well and didn't just rudely push through. The security guards were nice as well. They were helpful and fun and they looked like they're enjoying their job. They even smiled, which is something finnish security usually never does. After they survived the Bring Me The Horizon crowd surfing incident, they high fived each other in gratitude. Good times.

XOXO

Joanna

THE BANDS MENTIONED:

Bring Me The Horizon - Blessed With A Curse

Architects - Early Grave

While She Sleeps - Crows

Deez Nuts - I hustle everyday

I am young but I have aged, waited long to seize the day.

2011-06-28T17:41:00.001-07:00

We woke up today without an alarm around 10 am, slowly woke up, got ready and headed to our favorite cafe/bar yet, the Elbperle. We've completely fallen in love with the place already and don't even have the slightest interest to try any other restaurant.

We ate our breakfast, took out our maps and started to walk towards the city. The receptionist at our hotel had explained to us that by walking the centre is about 25 minutes away. We didn't mind walking at all; by the water we could see all sorts of different ships and the town still arose on our other side so we could still see all these cool buildings and once again admire all the architecture.

We were so glad we walked, because if we hadn't, most likely we wouldn't have bumped into the St. Nikolai church, that's arising to the skies in the middle of the beautiful town of Hamburg. The history of the church is truly amazing; it was originally build in the 14th century but was then destroyed in Great Fire of 1842. The building was re-built in 1845-74 but was destroyed again in 1943-44 leaving just the tower and the outer walls. The ruin is maintained as a monument against war.

We took an elevator to the top of the remaining tower, almost a hundred meters up, enjoyed the view and the history and pondered the tragic fate of the building. Once we returned 'back on earth', we used our ticket to also visit the documentation center that also beholds some beautiful remains from the church, such as the gorgeous painted windows.

During the second world war all of the windows of the church were removed and stood in the cellar of St. Michaels church. Because of this the windows survived the bombing of the British and US forces in 1943 although most of the choir and tower were destroyed. For 40 years the windows of the St. Nikolai church were forgotten in their resting place in the St. Michaeli's church. They were stumbled upon by chance and were then lovingly restored.

We left our mark to the church's guestbook.

After our tour, we started to look for nice shops, I bought a leather backbag, a knit and a t-shirt that says "Ceci n'est pas une robe." The tee is based on a painting by René Magritte, that portrays a huge pipe on a light yellow background. On the bottom of the painting theres a text that says "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" - "This is not a pipe", which is brilliant because it's not a pipe, it's a painting. It's one of my absolute favorites.

We got back to our hotel via subway, or was it really just a train? Anyway, it took us pretty close to our hotel. We had no idea how close the station is from us, now that we do, well tomorrow probably head downtown with public transportation.

XOXO

Joanna

Wish you were here.

2011-06-27T17:09:00.000-07:00

We left Helsinki early in the morning, tired because of the weekend celebrations and sort of lacking the traveling mood. Riitta started packing 1,5 hours before we needed to leave, when I knocked on her door she was still throwing some things in her bag, her hair was all wet from the shower she had taken in the hurry and and she was hopping towards the out door with one leg as she tried to put on her other shoe at the same time as she tried to close her bag and ask if she had anything she needed.

We took a buss to the Helsinki-Vantaa airport, checked in an found out our flight to Copenhagen was 20 minutes late. The time still went by quickly and soon we finally got on the plane. The airhostesses were quite unfriendly and rude, for example, when Riitta asked one of them to be careful with her bag because there's a laptop in there, he simply answered "It's not your grandma's china", and harshly threw it to the shelf. Still at that time I, or probably the both of us, finally started to feel like we're actually traveling somewhere.

To Copenhagen we got around noon, it's such a cute place I'd love love to visit the actual city some day rather than just the airport. It's the cutest airport, though. There is so much art on the walls and so many brilliant shops to go to while waiting.

My absolute favorite was the shop of Elephant Parade. The parades mission is to to be the world's largest financial support organization for the Asian elephant, that is threatened with extinction. This independent charity supports various projects throughout Asia, varying from elephants hospitals to the lease of land, where elephants have enough space to mate and live in peace.

The elephants are absolutely gorgeous and I would've wanted to buy all of them. Sine I couldn't decide, I didn't buy a sculpture at all, instead I bought a cute pink elephant mug. If I have money left to spend on my way back to Helsinki, I'll definitely buy another one.

This one was kind of creepy but still amazing!

We got to Hamburg in time and took a taxi to our hotel. I couldn't stop staring out the window, the culture shock isn't that big but it's still very fresh and new. We checked in to our room and found out that 'room' isn't really a proper word to use, a small apartment would sound more like it.

Walking in, the first thing is a view to our beautiful bathroom with a bathtub and all. Turning left, we got to our actual room and squealed out of joy, the room is huge and it includes a living room, bedroom, and the best of all; a kitchen. A freaking kitchen with an oven, a dishwasher, a toaster, a coffee machine and a shit loads of dishes. We're probably going to cook a bit tomorrow.

We sat down for a bit but not for long, as we were starving and needed to go somewhere to eat. We didn't need to walk for long as we found a small restaurant on the side of the road by the water. We were both shocked about the prizes as they seemed to be a small portion of what we're used to paying in Finland.

We ate our little tummies full and decided to go back to the hotel to change our shoes before taking a walk in the city. When we got to the hotel, we decided to take a 'small nap'. Before we realizes, it was 10pm and we were still in bed. We decided to still spread our feet a bit and grab something to eat again. (Because there aren't better activities than eating and sleeping.) We went to the same restaurant and fell in love with the waitress. She was incredibly kind and helpful and made it easy to relax, she even brought as blankets without us even asking her. Tips for her, and we'll definitely be going there a lot of times before we return to Helsinki.

We decided to take a walk on at the docks near our hotel, we walked by the water and sat at the end of the dock to hear the squeaking of the old ships that arose to the skies in front of us, they were huge and sort of looked like ghost ships in the dark. The sky was still clear so we could see the stars in the sky. At the moment I truly felt like I've never been this happy, everything is completely alright.

I never thought this trip would be so relaxing, my company is brilliant and there's absolutely nothing to worry about in here. All my troubles, if there are any, seem so far away. I've put my phone away for the whole trip and have absolutely no intention of answering it. I took a bath once we got back to the hotel. Man, this is life.

Now Riitta is already asleep and I'm sitting on our entryway floor because this is the only place where I can currently get our internet to work. Overall, Hamburg is beautiful and has already completely stolen my heart away even though I haven't yet even left the hotel area. The weather is perfect, the architecture is amazing and the people here are interesting and polite. I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings. Whatever it is, I'll be there.

XOXO

Joanna

First roadtrip this summer.

2011-06-16T03:35:00.000-07:00

XOXO

Joanna

Brand New Day.

2011-05-31T09:09:00.000-07:00

I've been on an undefined hiatus for a while because I've felt a bit uninspired with this blog. Yesterday something happened, not just on a blogging level but in my brain. I felt like renewing everything in my life, and I do mean everything; new blog, new crowd, new school, new hair... Unfortunately the only one of these things that can be executed in the matter of days is the blog (and the hair).

First off I chopped my hair off entirely. I kid, I kid, I only chopped some bits from here and there. But it's not about how much hair is gone, it's about the power of cutting large pieces of it off without even caring. Next thing to renew was the blog, and here it is!

What's new?

The layout, as always! I'm also considering about even changing the blog title from xoxo joanna but I'm still hanging on balance with that one since I've had this name for years.
The translation gadget makes the blog easy to read even if you don't understand English! It might translate the blog a bit goofy-looking but it helps if you can't understand the least bit of English!
The tags, it's way easier to browse through the tag hash now as I've reduced the amount of tags overall. You can find the tags from the navigation bar on the left!
The graveyard of the old entries. That's right, the old blog is a graveyard now, you can find the gravestone from the navigation bar and by clicking it you're redirected to all the old posts.
The banner, there's a banner of my blog in the navigation bar. If you'd like to spread the word just copy the code below it to your blog or website!
The FAQ, these are the things I get asked a lot. Read more...

What's the same?

The author, me, hi! I'm still here and I haven't changed! Well, actually I've changed a lot. But I'm still as sensitive and awkward as I always have been.
The content, well, mostly. I've deleted or edited all the stupid/pointless entries from my blog. Mostly a lot of the old ones. They're at the graveyard.
The readers, that's right, you! I hope you like the changes I've made, I certainly feel happier! If you have any hopes or ideas, just drop a comment! :)

XOXO

Joanna

This is an awesome headline for this post.

2011-05-25T13:48:00.000-07:00

A few days ago some CD's dropped into my mailbox. Main theme of the package was clearly punk, psychobilly and blues, which is a nice change to my usual music repertoire. I gave all of them a listen and now I'm introducing them to you!

Seasick Steve, You Can't Teach An Old Dog New Tricks
Steven Gene Wold, commonly known as Seasick Steve is an American blues musician. He plays (mostly personalized) guitars, and sings, usually about his early life doing casual work. I'm very fascinated by him as a character; he's had problems putting down roots in one place, and he and his wife have lived in 59 houses to date. Pheew, that's a lot! He's currently living in Norway and UK.

I personally loved the vibe on this album, I strongly recommend this to any chill hangout occasion or a moments of self-exploring, like a roadtrip for example. I also got wrapped up in the lyrics and found a few especially intriguing ones, such as: Maybe I should leave well enough alone, I might not be perfect but I'm me to the bone. I don't need to change my style, been this way for a long long while. There ain't nothing that I got to fix, you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

You can get this album at the end of this month as well, May 30th to be exact!

Rezurex, Dance Of The Dead
A refreshing style of musical mayhem that stands alone in the current music scene, Rezurex brings back the roots of early 1950’s rock n' roll and combines them with influences of the 1980’s that have long since been forgotten by mainstream music. Rezurex hails from Los Angeles, California, and is influenced by numerous bands and artists including the Stray Cats, The Damned, Billy Idol, The Misfits, Elvis Presley, and The Cramps.

The band has attracted me with their haunting lyrics and adventurous spirit. They have already caught the attention of psychobillies, punks, goths, metal heads and anyone that truly loves catchy sing-along music. You should try them out if you'd like to hear something new and experimental, yet old school.

They also get extra points from the appearance and wrapping of the physical CD. A lot of bands seem to have given up on the CD culture and I think it's sad to see it fade away to a lost form of art. This band hasn't, the package looks great! (Of course I've managed to hide this specific album at the picture, erhm.)

The Sewer Rats, Rat Attack
During the last four years The Sewer Rats have put their name on the map of the European rock and punk scene and whoever went to shows, read fanzines or listened to college radio came across this four-piece rat pack from Cologne, Germany. Even I have certainly bumped into their name a few times.

Loved by greasers, rockabellas, billy-punks and skateboard kids alike, the band combines catchy sing-along punk rock in the tradition of Rancid with stand-up bass driven rockabilly influences. Adding a fistful of outlaw feeling à la Social Distortion and the coolness of the Stray Cats and Blondie, the band creates a subcultural cocktail which tastes classy but yet refreshingly new.

This would fall in the same category with the previous album, Rezurex. If you gave them a go and liked what you heard, you might as well add this album to your playlist!

Juke Joint Pimps, The Gospel Pimps
Erhm. After first browsing through the album booklet and the lyrics, I was left quite confused. Especially by the lyrics; One day I'll hear the angels sing, till then I'll listen to the Juke Joint Pimps. The angels have the greatest sound but they don't play here down on the ground.

The name of Juke Joint Pimps was completely new to me before receiving this album so I had no idea of what to expect other than what I could only assume from the album booklet. As I placed the CD on the stereos, I was terrified to hear some sort of gangsta rap making fun of religion and the church. I was quite pleasantly surprised as I heard bluesy sounds coming out of my speakers.

If the previous album would fit on the same playlist with its previous album, this album would pair up with the Seasick Steve CD. As the Seastick album mainly praised low key bluesy tunes in the name of solitary, The Gospel Pimps would bring the upbeat bluesy vibes with a definite twist. I'm still a bit confused.

Flogging Molly, Speed Of Darkness

Speed of Darkness is the name of the upcoming first studio album by the Irish-American Celtic punk band Flogging Molly to be released through their own, recently formed Borstal Beat Records. This is the fifth album of the band and is set to be released on May 31st, 2011. Internationally over 2 million albums sold, Flogging Molly is also known as a hardworking live band. This summer the band lands to the safe soil of Finland for two shows; to the Cable Factory of Helsinki (I'm hoping to catch them there) and Jurassic Rock at Mikkeli.

You can read my precise review at johndoerevolution.com!

XOXO

Joanna

She fell in love with a monster before Twilight made it cool.

2011-05-22T16:02:00.000-07:00

Beauty and the Beast is set in France and tells the story of a spoiled, selfish and unkind prince who gets turned into a beast by a gypsy lady, who turns up at his door selling a rose and asking for shelter but gets turned away because of her unpleasant look. The gypsy is in fact a beautiful fairy who wants to teach the prince an important lesson; beauty is what's on the inside.

Though the story revolves around the prince... or the beast, the true hero of the story is Belle. She is kind of a loner, but doesn't feel sad over it nor desperate to fit in. She's a shy beauty interested in literature and is seen as the weird outcast in the village, though still one kind amongst her peers.

Belle doesn't feel motivated by love or have the need to have a significant other to do anything, instead she sets a high value on family relationships and when his father gets imprisoned by the Beast she offers to take his place herself. In fact, even when she begins to fall in love with the beast and gets the news that her father is sick, she puts everything else aside and sets her family first to be there for his father.

What also shows her independency is the fact that she doesn't give a shit that the hottest piece of man-ass in town wants her because that person is a total semi-retarded asshole and Belle knows she could do better. Gaston is interested in Belle for her looks but doesn't care for her intelligence, he's mean and makes fun of her father and turns the city against Belle after getting rejected. He's simple minded and shows hints of conventionalism which shines through his comments such as "Women shouldn't read, you might learn how to think."

The actual villain of the story is actually Gaston, despite of the 'monster looks" of the Beast. After the fairy has cast the spell on him, he falls into great depression. As the Beast has previously set high value on his looks as a prince, he feels ashamed of his new appearance and pushes people away with his cold and rough essence.

Unlike a lot of other Disney princesses, Belle is nothing like the blonde helpless girls in need for rescue (eg. Sleeping Beauty). Belle is a lot of things that a girl should look up to; she's independent, tolerant, loving, smart and strong.

On top of all this, Belle's man was an 8 foot Chewbacca-buffalo hybrid and she still saw the character behind him and that he was a kind person who loved her and she fell in love with him too. When Gaston is acting like a dick by getting everyone to attack to the castle and kill the Beast, Belle breaks the fuck out of that cellar and rides a horse to rescue the Beast after she has nursed her father back to health. Belle is basically the coolest woman in Disney movies, ever.

XOXO

Joanna

Blog tip: Lads on tour

2011-05-21T11:46:00.000-07:00

I've been geeking over Bring Me The Horizon ever since their show together with TDWP and Architects here in January. Their new album is definitely one of my favorites or even the favorite and I can't get enough of their lyrics and interviews. I'm seeing them again next month in Hamburg and the month after that at Ruisrock and I'm trying to catch an interview with them both times.

lads-on-tour.tumblr.com

There's a lot of talk and hatred (as well as psychotic fandom) revolving around Oliver Sykes which makes the band reputation sort of questionable, but I consider Sykes to be a very interesting character. It also gathers a lot of personal respect from me if you're a creative force in more than one field and he certainly is talented not only as a musician and a lyricist, but also as a designer for his own clothing line Drop Dead.

Lads On Tour is definitely one of my favorite blogs to follow at the moment. It brings diversity to the usual spectrum of fashion- and music blogs with its interesting presentation of touring life of one of the most popular metal acts at the moment. If you like reading, deep subjects and fashion tips this most likely isn't your thing, but if you love videos, occasional pictures and touring life stories, this is definitely a blog worth checking out!

XOXO

Joanna

The Skyline

2011-05-06T02:14:00.000-07:00

(See pictures at nellytatti.blogspot.com!)