The Casa Murilo Advent Calendar #15

CASA MURILO IS ONE YEAR OLD TODAY!

Monday, December 15, 2008

FIRST POST

This is the first post from Casa Murilo. Obviously.

It´s the Monday night in December after our first gig on Friday. It went really well. Just me and Chris on acoustics at Chateau Neuf, Oslo University. The search for the rest of the musicians starts January.

We´ve got 4 songs up on our myspace, link below, that we´ve written and recorded in the past month or so. We´ve also got Yellow Umbrellas posted on an unsigned music chart site called Cherry Peel where we´ve been getting some positive responses.

We´re feeling good about where we´re at here in Oslo. Life´s looking pretty sweet for us both to be honest. We´ll be going back to Blighty for Christmas.

It is exactly 1 year since we met. How romantic. I´m off to buy flowers.

Casa Murilo

www.myspace.com/casamurilo

The Casa Murilo Advent Calendar #13

There is one man in Casa Murilo who towers above all others. The man is a giant. 6ft 3 inches of pure musical muscle. That man is Rudi Leo Johan Johansen.

Rudi started off as the bass player for our early gigs. He took no time at all to gel with the band and instantly became a vital member of Casa Murilo. We didn´t even know that he was primarily a guitarist, partly due to the fact that he seemed like such a natural bassist.

Soon enough Rudi spoke up about his desire to step down from the bass take to the stage as lead guitarist, once we had heard him play we could hardly say no.

Despite his menacing appearance, Mr Johansen is quite safe to approach so, should you see him out on the streets this winter, I encourage you to go over and say hello. You could even give him a high five and, who knows, he might let you touch his axe.

The Casa Murilo Advent Calendar #12

In February, before we had manipulated the rest of the lads into joining, Chris and I, accompanied by our ladyfriends, went to see a Norwegian band with an excellent name "Tommy Tokyo & Starving For My Gravy". It was an important time for us as we were still trying to find out what it was that we wanted to be as a group (bearing in mind there was only two of us and we hadn´t found anyone who was suitable for the project yet. The afternoon of the show Tommy himself had done his back in and was limited in his movement but he still managed to blow us away. Tommy himself looks biblical and uses a loudspeaker to great effect. Here is the band playing on Swedish TV.



And live in Tromsø, kicking ass.



The album "Smear Your Smiles Back On" is excellent and does all sorts of things that we want to do. Lyrically, it´s excellent, which I have to say is not all that common for Norwegian bands writing in English, though there are a few examples of really good writers working now, The Little Hands Of Asphalt being one we´ve already mentioned a few times on the blog. What I like most about Tommy is his sense of drama, both live and on record. He´s a bloody big presence but still manages not to take himself too seriously. Quite the balancing act.

Go and buy the album, you wont be disappointed.

Merry Christmas. x

The Casa Murilo Advent Calendar #11

Mere moments after our first gig, at Habibis on May 8th 2009, we were approached by Mr Eivind Fadnes, a fine gent of Molde stock who made an instant and lasting impression. He politely presented himself as impresario of a Norwegian festival, "Feriefestivalen", a name that will surely echo through the ages. He must have seen something in us that night as he asked us to play that summer, not only on the main stage aside such luminaries as The Little Hands of Asphalt and El Otro Sonido.

Thus began a wonderful relationship, not only with Eivind but his whole family, all wonderful, passionate people who are something of an inspiration to us in Casa Murilo. We are very close and we continue to make oversized plans together. Eivind in particular has a big part to play in our future and we wish him all the best for his trip to Latin America in January.

Big manly hugs to all those who were at Feriefestivalen to witness the first ever cave gig and a lovely wet kiss to the Fadnes family.

Merry Christmas!

The Casa Murilo Advent Calendar #10

Its difficult to remember exactly, but I think this was the second song we wrote. It was certainly one year ago this week. Vaer så godt.

Murilo I Love You

With ideas on my hands and a head full of plans
Should I keep my cool, sit on my hands and just wait
I said wait a second but you left in a flash
I got the brains but you got the cash and I´ll pay

So we told a few lies just to cut around the corners
and the princess at the door says Murilo I love you
the horse is on the floor as the show goes on around him
and the newspapers report Murilo I love you

You chase the questions and I´ll set the traps
set up an escape plan and stick pins in the maps on our way
They´re all growing up and I´m still getting high
It´s hard to see straight through the red in my eyes but I´ll try

The Casa Murilo Advent Calendar #9

Bodø has had a pretty good year in 2009 as far as their music scene goes I´d say.

We won´t mention the football team.

There seems to be an incredible group of bands emerging from the mountainous scenery of the north at the moment and Gouranga are most certainly one of the ones making the most noise. And what a beautiful noise indeed.



Gouranga is a young band, all their members are under 18, but listening to the music they make would offer no indication of this. They have already been described as Bodø´s most visually exciting live band, a huge compliment when you consider the competition, and played one of the most impressive sets during last months Bodø Harcore Festival. Catchy guitar hooks, clever melodies and the beautiful contrast of Elise Pernille Gryt´s and Kjetil Aleksander Bjelvin´s vocals seem to be setting Gouranga up for big things in 2010. Æ gleda mæ, as they say up in those parts.

They are currently working on recording their debut EP which should be finished in the early part of next year but in the mean time you can have a listen here. Enjoy.

Casa Murilo loves Gouranga and so should you.

The Casa Murilo Advent Calendar #8

King Of The Keys
The Cucumber
Håkon Møller

Though many vie for the title, there can only be one, undisputed ladies man in Casa Murilo. Lock up your daughters. And your mothers for that matter. That man is Håkon Møller.

I would put Håkon´s entry into the fold down to damn good fortune. We were in the studio putting together our first demo when Vegard, our producer, asked if we wanted keys. "Of course" we replied, little knowing that the angelic figure who soon floated into our ragtag midst would become an integral part of our sound and a damn good friend to boot. It didn´t take long before we realised how excellent he was and within half an hour I had what´s known as "The Business Finger" out and was telling him he should drop all other musical projects to focus on being a member of our band. Even I realised that that was ridiculous but we at Casa Murilo HQ have never let a trivial thing like objective reality get in our way.

Håkon is a gifted pianist, organist (plenty of practice), accordionist, harmonica player and come to think of it, a better guitarist than me or Chris. He is involved in numerous other bands as a session player, writer and fronts his own band by the name of Jocelyn. Go and listen to his band here without delay.

Should you spy this fine specimen of a Normann on these wintery streets then give the man a high five. Ladies are likely to find themselves instantly pregnant.

Merry Christmas Håkon. You are loved.

The Casa Murilo Advent Calendar #7

Drunken Promises

Wake up, shake up, smoke a cigarette
Have a coffee, take time trying to forget
All the things you said you´d do,
When last night´s drinks were coursing through.

Stop dead, sit down, have a look around
Have a think about exactly what it is you found
Move where you gotta move, sit on another roof
Staring at the world that turned when she walked in.

Give up the weed the wine and the white for you,
You know that I´d fight for you
Give up the white the wine and the weed for you
And I´d probably bleed for you
Give up the white the weed and the wine for you
I´m not sure if I´d die for you, but I suppose no one ever is
Oh girl
Is that what love is?

Stop thinking about that swimming pool
Penthouse, Esmeraldo
All of the cheap drinks and all of the cheap drugs
Could never replace the things that she does no

Wind blows snow flakes at my window
Hey mans Murilo very power will he ever know
That I´m freezing under the moonlight
They´re catching the sun
Throwing round wild plans for a party

Give up the weed the wine and the white for you,
You know that I´d fight for you
Give up the white the wine and the weed for you
And I´d probably bleed for you
Give up the white the weed and the wine for you
I´m not sure if I´d die for you, but I suppose no one ever is
Oh girl
Is that what love is?

Til Astri.

The Casa Murilo Advent Calendar #6

The biggest man you will ever see.
So good they named him twice.
Vice President Fredrik Baden is a god among men.

The first Norwegian member of Casa Murilo and the first man that we ever worked in a studio with. Is there anything he can´t do? No. Simply, no.

We never thought that finding a drummer for the band would be easy, so when Mr B arrived at a party at my place in February of last year and told us in no uncertain terms that he didn´t want to be in our band, we were not surprised. However, a few weeks later and many a business finger pointed VP Baden was in. The best drummer in Oslo was in our band.

Most of you in Norway will have heard of and listened to a band from Bodø called Kråkesølv and be aware of how good they are, Fredrik Baden recommends them. Listen to their song Privat Regn here and then go and buy their record here in a range of formats. You won´t regret it.

Casa Murilo are a better band because of Fredrik Baden so, next time you see him, make sure you give him a nice big hug and say thankyou. I always do.

The Casa Murilo Advent Calendar #5

Word.

Just about dried out and warmed up after this afternoon´s gig. Thanks to Rhona, Thea, Sjur and Kari, excellent work.

New Spotify playlist for you today, its a pretty random mix of music but I hope you likey.

Good Saturdays. x

Under The Yellow Umbrellas 2

The Casa Murilo Advent Calendar #4

How about a free download today?

We recorded some songs from our set at Samfunnet in Oslo a few weeks back. This one, Drunken Promises, was our final song. You should be able to listen to it below but failing that, you can download it by clicking here


Lykke til. x

• Drunken Promises - Live @ Samfunnet, Oslo Nov09 by Casa Murilo

More Casa Murilo music on iLike

The Casa Murilo Advent Calendar #3

I saw this for the first time a few days back, didn't realise we had it. We played at Feriefestivalen earlier this year and played two sets, one of which was in a cave built by Nazi prisoners of war. This, as you can probably tell, is from that very set. We covered 'Dancing in the dark' by Bruce Springsteen. Hope you enjoy it.

The Casa Murilo Advent Calendar #2

Unfortunately I have had Mac issues all day, but better late than never. I promise I shall work harder tomorrow, got something very special lined up.

Low Marie

You forgive and forget,
and you lie to your friends
cos your gold and you own them.

And you give what you get
Chopping up another empty threat
And you´re sure that they´re watching

You´re a tired little girl

You drown in the sound
Your saints are choking under the ground
Are the wheels coming off? are you losing your plates?
Tripping up from the weight of these old feet of clay

You´re a tired little girl

Now your mind, is alight
You´ve fucked another empty night
And you´re cold and you´re homesick

So you wish and you wait
And you wish and you wait
And you wish and you wait
And you wish and you wait
But the bottom never comes and you´re still on your way

Hold tight little girl

The Casa Murilo Advent Calendar #1

Is it that time of year again already? Judging by the surprisingly tasteful lights popping up in windows around Krumgata HQ, it would seem so. If you haven´t already written your Christmas lists and posted them off to Santa then perhaps some of the suggestions we give over the next month can help you out.

Every day between now and "the big day" we will post a little something, be that links to bands we like or pictures & videos from past gigs. I think we have been pretty good at keeping this blog regularly updated this year so I have confidence that this latest venture can be seen through.

Shall we begin? Okay.

The Little Hands Of Asphalt

Sjur Lyseid is, in our opinion, one of Norway´s best songwriters. His band, The Little Hands Of Asphalt´s record "Leap Years" was released at the beginning of March 2009 and received great reviews across the board. Some described it as Norwegian record of the year, others believe that Lyseid outclasses most Norwegian songwriters these days, one reviewer even compared Sjur´s melodies to those of Springsteen. High praise indeed.

Sjur will be playing a gig in less than a week at The Bedford in Balham on Monday 7th December. Those of you in London would do well to find a better option than this. In fact, you won´t find one. So go. The Norwegians among you need only to wait until 18th February when Sjur and co. will take to the stage for By:Larm 2010.

Visit The Little Hands Of Asphalt on Myspace here
Listen to them on Spotify here
Better still, buy the record here , here and here

Excellent.

See you tomorrow, CM

Last Gig Of The Year?

How times flies. It doesn´t seem that long ago that Dan and I were sat in my living room, stripped down to our underwear, writing songs and working out how on earth we were going to find musicians to play with us. Especially if we were only wearing pants. Anyway, we got dressed, found Freddy, Rudi, Sturla and Håkon and here we are. One year on.

This coming Friday we are playing what is likely to be our last show of 2009. Its at Betong, Chateau Neuf and could very well be our biggest gig to date. The Facebook event is here.

In other news, I cooked a fantastic roast dinner yesterday. Slightly upsetting that it took nearly three hours to make and only fifteen minutes to eat. Next time I´ll use smaller cutlery.

Oh yeah. We also got played on the radio for the first time ever last night. Big deal. Should have put that above the news about the roast really. A very cool Manchester/Salford based station called Salford City Radio played Mr Magnificent on their Sunday evening show called Unsigned, Sealed and Delivered. Thanks to Paul and Zac for that. You can join their Facebook group here.

Fredrik "so good they named him twice" Baden went to the "Grand" opening of Elkjøp earlier today but I don´t think anything caught his eye so he came home empty handed.

Norwegians: See you Friday
Everyone else: See you soon

L8rz

CM

Her Name Is Rio...

Last night we played at Samfunnet in Bislet, I´m pretty sure that I speak for the whole band when I say that it was the best show we have ever played. We had an awesome night, good people = good times.

Two new songs were in the set yesterday, "Low Marie" and "Tall Tales and Tissues", if you were at the show then we hope you liked them. If you didn´t come along then hopefully we will have something up on Myspace pretty soon. We feel really good about them and can´t wait to play them again which, if you are interested, will be next Friday at Betong, Chateau Neuf.

If you get a spare minute or two tonight then use it to send best wishes to the one and only Mr Ross Holmes, he has just moved to Rio from Salvador. Its a hard life.

Hope you are settling in well bro, big love from Norway.

Okay, I´m off to make dinner. I think I´ll be listening to Mumford & Sons, Port O´Brien and Jocelyn as I cook up yet another culinary delight. And Springsteen of course.

Be good.

CM

Lie Back And Think Of England

Now begins our glorious Norwegian winter. Casa Murilo is almost 1 year old and as usual good things are happening.

First off, let´s get some links out of the way. Here is a video of our show at Revolver for the good folks at Operation Dagsverk, a charidee that organises a paid day at work for young people who then donate the money to a cause of "OD"s choosing. All very groovy I´m sure you´ll agree.

A medium to big size deal for your friendly neighbourhood superstars Casa Murilo is this week´s release of the "Oslo! 2" compilation on Spoon Train Audio records, a compilation of bands from Oslo. We at Casa Murilo HQ are proselytic subscribers to the theory that a rising tide lifts all ships, i.e. that what is good for us is good for the "Oslo Indie Scene" and vice versa. I´m not convinced that there is an "Oslo Indie Scene" as such, there´s not much to unify the bands on the record, but if there isn´t a scene then one must be defined ant categorised etc before it can be said to exist. Which is surely the point of the CD. Anyway, it´s good and we´re very happy to be involved.

Reviews of Oslo 2 are here (NO), here and here (both ENG).

The Waldemar Thranes Debacle (or "debarcle" - bloody southerners) has picked up another nice review and we might be getting some local radio play in Brighton of all places. Which is very nice.

In other news, gig Friday 20th November at Samfunnet, Bislett with
JKD & The One-Egged Bastards (JKD is a rapper and he will have a band numbering somewhere around 10. Yes really) and another gig at Chateau Neuf on the 27th with Motorgruppa

We´re also writing some new material at the moment. Obviously it´s amazing.

Loveyoubye

A Boat and a Bout Of Flu

Sorry we have been so quiet over the past few weeks. Gigs, illness and visits from abroad have been the main reasons for this. We shall improve....

Talking of gigs, our busy schedule which involved six gigs in ten days went very well, thanks to everyone who came out to see us,, we had a great time. The show we arranged for Kirkens Bymisjon on MS Innvik was probably my personal favourite, a good crowd turned out for the evening and everything about the show was perfect. A big thank you is owed to Innvik, Bård, Lisa, the lighting guy (sorry, I forget your name) and Vegard, our sound guy and of course producer on the EP. All of you who came along can also take much of the credit for the 10,000kr that we raised for Kirkerns Bymisjon, amazing job.

We have also played 3 gigs for OD recently, two of which were at Revolver, Oslo. There is a video on our Myspace from one of these if you are interested. We really appreciate being asked to help out OD and all the guys that organized the events did an absolutely awesome job, congratulations.

So next on the list for Casa Murilo is a gig at Samfunnet, Bislett on 20th November. That´s a Friday. Party? Ja.

See you soon.
CM

Peer Gynt

Casa Murilo drummer Fredrik "So good they named him twice" Baden is a very busy man these days. When he isn´t providing the beats on stage for us he is working at the Nye Teater on a production of Henrik Ibsen´s play Peer Gynt. Freddy controls the music for most of the show and does a very good job indeed.

I went to see the show last Saturday and, despite the slight language barrier, have to say that I was completely blown away. Svein Sturla Hungnes´adaptation is very entertaining, moving and funny and really involves the audience.

I cannot recommend this play enough and you should do your best to go and see it before its run finishes on 7th November.

Good job Freddy...

CM

A Busy Week Ahead..

Good Dag!

Next week is shaping up to be quite an adventure. We have five gigs in the space of ten days. I better start drinking my fish oil by the pint.

The who, what, where and when is as follows....

19/10 - MS Innvik, Oslo - 19:30
20/10 - Fairtrade Konsert på Egertorget - 18:00
21/10 - Revolver - 20:30
24/10 - OD Festivalen, St. Croix Huset, Fredrikstad - 18:00
29/10 - Revolver (OD Dagen) - 23:30



The gig on Monday is for Kirkens Bymisjon, we are charging 100kr for entry with all of the money raised being donated to the aforementioned charity. Friends of the band Bård Watn and Lisa Smith Walaas will also be playing and the schedule of events is something like this...


20:00 - 20:20 - Lisa Smith Walaas

20:25 - 20:40 - Presentation from Kirkens Bymisjon

21:00 - 21:30 - HRH Bård Watn med band

21:45 - 22:15 - Casa Murilo


Invite all your friends via the Facebook group and let´s make sure we all have a good time.

In case you haven´t done so yet, you can download our EP from out Urørt page. Enjoy.

See you soon ladies and gentlemen.

CM. x

Our First Review.

How lovely. Our EP has had its first thorough going over by an outside party and its come out the other end relatively unscathed. The excellent music blog Birds Sometimes Dance and its mastermind André Lersveen have written their thoughts here.

For UK based friends, you might be interested to hear that we are also featured in this months edition of Clash Music Magazine. We are on some kind of essentials list. Are we essential? Like an umbrella on a rainy day? You decide.

I have been listening to the Fanfarlo record `Reservoir´for the past few days. Its fantastic. I urge you to go and listen now. Unless your busy.

And thats about it for now. We are currently finalizing the details for the charity event of the year on MS Innvik with Bård and Lisa, so stay posted for more info. Its going to be on the 19th October. Diaries out.

Have it good

CM

Casa Murilo Loves Kasper......

There are some great photos from Monday´s gig at Cafe Mono thanks to our favourite blogger/photographer/friend Kasper Landmark. You can look at them here.

We are spending a few hours sorting out our acoustic set for Sunday´s gig at Cafe Sør this evening and putting the finishing touches to our EP package which may very well be available at Sundays show. Bring loads of money.

Have fun

CM

Cafe Mono, Haribo and a King

Well that went well didn´t it? If you were not able to make it to Cafe Mono on Monday to watch our first gig as a mighty six piece then you will have to take our word for it. I didn´t forget my lines, Dan remembered his dance moves and Freddy, well Freddy is always spot on.

Monday saw the debut of our fantastic new bass player Sturla Hinze (pictured), who is now sitting comfortably on board the Casa Murilo bullet train. We also played our newest song, `Button Up´which seemed to go down very well with the crowd who were on top form as always. Thanks a lot to all of you.

I feel the need to give a special mention to the two very cool guys from LA that were in the crowd. I guess you are among the first Americans to catch our live show so cheers, we love you! Feel free to arrange an American tour for us, I´m free all week.....

So the next show we have is on Sunday at Cafe Sør where we are playing with Bård Watn. Its an acoustic show but we will all be there banging various drums and what have you.

See you there? Hope so.

Tada.

xx

A first listen to the new EP

Friday was the last day in the studio. It took us a little longer than we expected, but not a minute of the time we spent in the studio was wasted and, thinking back to our initial expectations of what we would get down on tape, we are very satisfied with what we came out with. To be honest, it´s a little disorienting to be finished. We spent a long time thinking about it as an organic thing that could be influenced as we went along and now it is unchangeable. Finished. Anyway, we really like it and we hope you do too.

So, we´ve put 3 tracks up on myspace for you to listen to. Click here to listen. Feel free to let us know what you think.

As usual, lots of good things are also happening right now. We´re putting together an EP package for people to buy at our concerts. We´re still not sure of whether to do a big release and get it distributed. We could do it ourselves but it would take a lot of administrative time and effort that would perhaps be better spent on developing as a band. This experience in the studio has been huge for us. We have a really exciting vision for the music we want to make and the band we want to be and, although we really like what we do now, we know that we have some serious work ahead of us. To do the work that we think the record justifies in terms of all the business end of stuff - the printing, distribution, promotion, legal stuff - might be counter productive for us at this point if we do it ourselves. Strange times. There are tons of options to get online distribution very quickly and easily, mind. We´ll sort something out I´m sure.

Big news this week is the tram gig on Saturday 19th. We´re playing on a tram with The Little Hands Of Asphalt here in Oslo from 19.00 til 21.00 ish. I know. In addition, a gig on Monday 21st September at Mono. They say it´s a big deal. Woooh! Check them out as well, they are great.

Freddy has done us an Urørt site. Check it.

In the meantime, we have a new member, Sturla, on bass. That´s a damn fine Norwegian name if I ever heard one. Remember to pronounce the u as in "WOOOHH!". That takes us to Fredrik, Rudi, Håkon and Sturla. A quite frankly preposterous selection of names.

Follow us on twitter to keep up with gig info,there´s a good girl.

Stay cool and remember to always celebrate good times. Ahthankingyooou.

South Africa 2010

Ladies and Gentlemen.

The EP is nearing completion (still!), by the end of today we should be holding a finished record of 5 good songs. Amazing. It still needs to be mastered and partnered with some lovely artwork but the hard part is done.

We are coming along nicely on the gig front and have several shows lined up over the next month or two with more to follow. As previously mentioned, a gig at Cafe Mono is one of the highlights, as well as gigs on a tram and a boat. Hopefully we can cover all modes of transport by the year´s end, if you have any suggestions for us then please let us know.

So, the dates we have for gigs at this point are.....

Saturday 19th September - Tram - Somewhere in Oslo (we´ll let you know when we know)
Monday 21st September - Cafe Mono - Tickets are 80kr.
Sunday 27th September - Cafe Sør - with HRH Bård Watn
Saturday 24th October - OD Festivalen - Fredrikstad.

At some point in October we will also be playing on MS Innvik with Bård and Lisa in the charity event of the year and an exciting show at Samfunnet in Bislett. Stay posted kids.

Bands I have been listening to recently include - Mewithoutyou, The Antlers, Sunset Rubdown, Cymbals Eat Guitars and Les Savy Fav. Enjoy. I imagine that Baddiel and Skinner feat. The Lightning Seeds will soon be joining that list.

See you soon.

Mwah.

Finishing in the studio

We´re hoping that tomorrow will see the final day of mixing the EP "The Waldemar Thranes Debacle". That´s 27 days for 5 tracks. We´ve learned an incredible amount in that period and we are a much better band for the experience. We´ve also managed to get quite a few gigs lined up including Mono on Monday September 19th, which I´m assured is quite a coup.

We´ve spent the last two days mixing and making editorial decisions for a song called "Murilo I Love You". It was arguably the biggest challenge for us to get MILY to a place we were satisfied with and after much wizardry from Vegard, our producer, some quality decision making from the lads and some input from a special guest, I think we´ve achieved that. We asked a fella called Eivind Schou, ex-Serena Maneesh to play some violin for us and he delivered something that hardly sounds like a violin but does a fantastic job for the song. You´ll hear it soon enough but that monstrous noise that goes through the whole thing is his work.

In other news, we think we´ve got a new bass player (Rudi will be playing the electric guitar. And very well I might add), we think we might have found someone to do photography for us called Tor - check his website here www.tkorset.com. Also gigs galore.

The next big step is to make promotional copies of the EP to send out to people. We´re still not sure whether to self release the record or to form some kind of partnership with one of the many, excellent indie labels here in Oslo. Self releasing would be a great thing to do because we´d get to set up our own company, deal with a lot of the business end of things personally and learn a huge amount in the process. Of course, it´s a lot of hard work and we also want to devote a lot of our time to writing and developing as musicians. Other people with the experience and expertise in this industry that we don´t have yet would undoubtedly be an asset too. Whether we end up doing it with someone else or not, we´re coming up with ideas for how to best get into the hands of people who can actually make decisions and help us. You´ll be the first to see the results.

Live long and prosper

Casa Murilo

`99 Problems and a Rap Collective Most Certainly is One´

So last weeks time in the studio was interrupted somewhat by a gaggle of rappers who were shooting a music video in the recording room. I´m not 100% sure that `gaggle´ is the correct collective term for rappers but I don´t think i´m far off.

Anyway, what with all the slightly offensive yet rather catchy commotion going on for what turned out to be 4 or 5 hours we now find ourselves back on the first floor of the Oslo Jewish Museum putting the finishing touches to our EP, which you should all know the name of by now! (perhaps the first person to leave the correct answer in the comment box can have a free copy once we are done..)

In the meantime, here are some pictures from last week..

x

In the Studio.....

Time is flying by this week and things are going great in the studio. We played an amazing gig last night which we can talk more about later, until then please enjoy the first ever Casa Murilo video blog entry. As Denis Irwin used to say, `a picture speaks a thousand words.....´

Global Takeover feat. eardrumsmusic.com

During yesterday´s Olympic Gold Medal winning studio session we exchanged kind words with Knut of eardrums, an excellent Scandinavian music blog.

Sometime yesterday he had a listen to our demos 19th Floor and Drunken Promises (click to download) and he was apparently very impressed. In fact, so impressed that he asked if we´d like to be involved in a global project called the "Music Alliance Pact", where once a month bloggers from all over the world share a song from the country they cover and all the bloggers involved simultaneously post all the tracks. Regardless of whether or not that made any sense, check out the last "MAP" post right here.

The "MAP" post that will feature "19th Floor" is to be posted worldwide on the 15th of August.

Writing from the studio, your friendly global superstars,

Casa Murilo

Day 1 In The Studio

They say the first day in the studio is the toughest.

You arrive with grand designs but soon realise that the majority of time you spend making a quality record is in waiting around twiddling thumbs while the people who actually know what they´re doing set up lots of expensive equipment. That´s a fair description, I´d say. "They" can be very astute.

Attached are two photos. The first is of Dan and Håkon at rehearsal. Enjoy. The second is a fantastic 1970s Analogue Tape Deck that we are using to record the EP. The photograph also features a fan, one of many devices we employed to stop the tape deck from exploding in the extreme heat of the studio. We even had to get some special technician guy in to try to fix the cooling system buried deep in the dusty recesses of the beast. Today was very hot indeed.

We are very pleased indeed with how the process is going. We´ve had some very kind messages and a most pleasing response from our mailing list. We´ve even been in contact with some nice blog people, including Kurt at www.eardrumsmusic.com who you might be hearing more about soon.

All is well. Sleep soundly you good people.

Dan, Chris, Freddy and Rudi

Free MP3 of "Drunken Promises"

Tomorrow is the big day.

To celebrate we´re giving you lucky people the 2nd of the two demos we recorded in June, "Drunken Promises". Free and for nothing. If you like it then by all means send us an email with the title "My goodness me, this music marvellous! Add me to the mailing list forthwith!" and we´ll know what to do.

Here it is in all its glory. Download Free MP3 of "Drunken Promises"

Attached are a few photos from what was a monster 16 hour one day session to get these two songs done. We now have more of an idea of what we do and dont want and have booked 6 days to do 5 songs, which according to my calculations will make our EP 116% better than the demo. Sounds good, right?

Remember to go here to download "19th Floor", here to follow us on twitter and we´ll be updating regularly from the studio with all kinds of fascinating things so you´d do well to subscribe to the blog via your RSS reader of choice. The boys in the band use google reader. Google it.

FYI, the gentleman on keyboards in the attached image is one Håkon "King Of The Keys" Moller. A good man. He will be joining us in the studio this week to make sweet, sweet music.

Good things.

Liverpool nil

A few months ago now we started working with a very talented friend of ours, Sindre Olav Edland-Gryt. We wanted to design a logo for the band or rather, we wanted to find someone who had the ability to design one for us!

After an evening spent discussing what Casa Murilo is all about and drinking a fair amount of beer in the process, Sindre went away to his secret sketching lair to begin his work.

A month or two later he emerged from his hideaway looking exhausted but with sketches in hand and the result of his incredibly hard work can be seen at the top of the page.

We are all very pleased with the results and thankful to Sindre for all of his hard work and commitment, we literally couldn´t have done it without him........

Feriefestivalen 2009

So its been a long time has it not?

Apologies for being rather quiet on the blogging front over the past few weeks, but we have been exceptionally busy.

On the 23rd July we made our first ever festival appearance at Feriefestivalen 2009 in Molde, Norway. It was an fantastic weekend filled with lots of great music, ice cold beers and new friends.

Our home for the duration of our stay was Bård Watn´s beautiful house, Casa Murilo´s best friend was the artist in residence at the festival and not once during any of his 6 sets did he disappoint the ever faithful crowd.

We played two sets over the weekend, the first being on the 23rd at 2300hrs in a cave! It was perhaps the strangest and most exciting stage we have ever played on, hidden amongst the trees behind a beautiful house and built by Russian prisoners of war under the ever watchful eye of the Nazis! Our acoustic set was the first ever gig in the cave and I think we did a pretty good job, the sound was great and the crowd all seemed to have their singing voices with them.

Our second set came on Saturday 25th on the outdoor stage and, whilst not quite as intimate as the Nazi cave had been, was really good fun despite the wind and rain moving in about ten minutes before we arrived on stage. A big thank you is owed to all of you who braved the conditions to sing and dance along.

I have no doubt that next year´s festival will be even better and we are all looking forward to making the trip north again (if we are invited!).

Eivind Fadnes, the festivalsjef deserves a massive thank you for all of his hard work in making Feriefestivalen 2009 a huge success as do the following people, who also helped Eivind along the way and worked incredibly hard the entire weekend

Astrid Maria Fadnes Hidalgo
Yngvild Gotaas Torvik
Daniel Dalmo Moltubak
Rikke Bendixen
Cathrine Fosseide
Andreas F Sorensen
Jørgen Krogset Dalene
Gaute Hoem
Anders Leikarnes

Casa Murilo feat. Guiness & Springsteen

Less than 48 hours to go now......

Come Saturday afternoon, we will be drinking, dancing and singing along with The Boss in the beautiful city of Dublin. I´m excited. Very.

Once we get back from Dublin its back to work, preparation for Feriefestivalen and recording the EP etc. For now though I´m content in just looking forward to Saturday, I got a feeling its going to be special....... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atmGYUsbahw

Gig Tonight @ Fugazi w/ Lars Horntveth and Martin Hagfors

Bon apres-midi.

Ce soir sees the return of Casa Murilo to the scene of our most recent and probably most triumphant gig - Fugazi. We played there on Oslo Music Day and it was terrific.

We´re supporting Lars Horntveth (of Jaga Jazzist), Martin Hagfors and Seven Doors Hotel. We´re on at 21.00.

In other news we´re creating a masterplan to have us in a really great position for By:Larm 2010 in February. Step 1. will be to record our debut EP "The Waldemar Thranes Debacle" in August and release it in September. Good times here we come.

(Image courtesy of Mr Terence Winfield)

Free MP3 of "19th Floor"

Lots of wonderful people have asked if they can have our mp3s at our last few gigs and we are now happy to say that you can download "19th Floor" right here. If we at Casa Murilo HQ are not mistaken, you can also listen to the song in the fancy box below. Oh yes.



An apparently excellent Norwegian blogger and photographer by the name of Kasper Landmark was at our Oslo Music Day show last week and has posted a great Flickr stream of us. The photo above is his, check his blog here. He´s very good.

We are moving forward on all fronts. This summer will be devoted to getting us in the place we need to be to make the most of the release of "The Waldemar Thranes Debacle" EP in September. We´ve got loads of exciting things going on and you can read about them in previous posts but for now, feel free to download "19th Floor" and share with your friends.

Enjoy the summer. Big love.

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Contact us at casamurilo@gmail.com

Could you hold line? We are awfully busy..

In a fight between a Zebra and Clayton Blackmore who would win? The answer to this question and many more will follow.....

So yeah, Esmeraldo in Oslo for music day. Amazing. Incredible. Fufudedeo. The show at Fugazi went better than we had all expected, the place was packed and the sound was great. The other bands that played were awesome, we really enjoyed Ila Auto and Hiawata in particular, check them out....

Considering how hard we had worked in order to get ourselves ready for Oslo Musikkfest, you might think that a bit of a rest would be on the cards after the show was done and suitably dusted, well you would be wrong. Casa Murilo never sleeps Mr. Blackmore, you know that.

On Monday we met with our good friend and music management supremo Maren Blomstereng Berget. She is now the manager of Oslo´s hottest new band (Casa Murilo).

On Tuesday we spent some quality time with Sindre Edland-Gryt, who is now Casa Murilo´s chief graphic designer. We spent two or three hours throwing ideas at each other amidst the delightful 30´s style decor of La Boheme and thus began the process of the Casa Murilo band logo.

On Wednesday we got together with Maren again and the four of us put together a solid plan for the next few months, we are going to be very busy little boys.

On Thursday we allowed ourselves to have a day off, it was great to be able to stretch out on the sofa and do nothing but eat Wotsits watch Wesley Snipes films, how many Oscars did Passenger 57 win?

By this point we had booked ourselves into the studio on Sunday so we had a fair bit of preparation to do. Friday night was spent doing just that, listening to our music, the music of other bands and generally working out exactly what we wanted to achieve. As soon as we were set on the plan for Sunday a more pressing matter reared its beautiful head in the shape of HRH Bård Watn . We were due to appear as (special) guests on stage with Bård during his set at the Latin American Solidarity festival on MS Innvik in Oslo, we needed to practice.....

The rehearsal at Bård´s place went well and so, at 3pm on Saturday 13th June, we were inside a small auditorium onboard a very large boat that was sitting next to the Oslo Opera house in glorious sunshine. As always Mr. Watn put on a fantastic show and had the 150 strong crowd laughing, dancing and at points, sitting in absolute silence with mouths ajar. We played two songs during our appearance, `Bendit´ and `In the Park´. People danced and clapped along and we left the irrepressible Watn to do his thing. Job done.

So, 8:45 Sunday morning we were outside the gates of Oslo´s Jewish museum waiting for the receptionist of the gay sauna to buzz us up to the studio. You couldn´t make it up. Freddy arrived soon after looking suspiciously flustered and proceeded to record all of his drums in a pounding 50 minutes, then he went to build a patio in the woods. We then set about the rather daunting task ahead of us and didn´t let up until midnight. We had some amazing help along the way from Kai Christoffersen (Bass) and Håkon Molller (Keys) and Håkon will now be joining the band to help out with some live shows and some more studio sessions.

Despite extreme tiredness and the effects of a bottle of Grants we pretty much skipped home, more than happy with our days work.

And here we are now, Thursday. Today we are going back to the studio to mix and master the weekends work, as soon as we have it ready you can find it here .

On Friday we are practicing for next week´s gig at Fugazi where we are supporting Martin Hagfors & Lars Horntveth and then we are off to Dublin for a date with Springsteen. Upon our return we have a week until we head to Molde for Feriefestivalen.

Casa Murilo never sleeps Mr. Blackmore, you know that.....

Huge Things

Tomorrow is Oslo Music Day. Obviously we are very excited about it - we´ve recruited a bass player, Rudi, we´ve been practicing, arranging, writing etc and up until tonight everything was going swimmingly.

Then something totally unexpected and ridiculous happened.

Those of you who´ve been reading the blog will know that the songs we´ve been writing over the last 6 months tell the story of our time in Brazil. It was an incredible experience to live and work there. To have all the privileges of the big flat and the money, the great friends and the ridiculous awesomeness of everything that goes with that.

We got a message this afternoon from Esmeraldo Rodrigues. Ezzy was as important as anyone in making that time what it was and we consider him a brother. He is flying in to Oslo tomorrow morning with his wonderful wife Rita and staying until Tuesday. Just to make things extra special Chris´s Mum and Dad are already here. Wonderful.

Somehow my nerves have vapourised. Ezzy being here just blows the importance of everything else away. It´s a stunning development. I haven´t seen Ezzy since my last night in Brazil when he gave me, Chris, Astri and Murilo the keys to his Pizzeria for the 2nd leg of the Manchester United vs. Barcelona Champions League semi final in May 2008. He´s a kind, decent, generous and absolutely mental man. He features in many of our songs. We can´t wait to see him.

Big love, friends. Tomorrow should go excellently. I have a feeling.

Tales From The Stable - Part 3

"Amongst the mud portraits, scribbled maps and unfinished poems in my moleskin there are some scraps of what could pass as a diary. I have included them here for your viewing pleasure and to give you a little background on the early days of Casa Murilo, or Dr Chocolate and the Salvadors as they were back then. It’s been an interesting ride..."

December 2007.

When you are up near Cachoeira da Fumaça you do encounter other groups of Walkers. You can tell them by their hiking boots, colourful nylon rain jackets, backpacks and water bottles. Rarely do you see, or rather hear, a gang of whiter than white gringos in flip-flops, Bermuda shorts and bikini’s banging out 60´s pop songs on battered guitars, playing drums on their rib cages and dragging a cool-box of beer behind them. Our guide, certainly hadn’t.

Smokey Falls are so called because there is not a great deal of water falling and it is at the end of a long deep valley, so when the wind blows the water is carried with it up into the air and from a distance looks like smoke emanating from a small hole in the rock. If you are on the edge of the valley on a sunny day with the wind in your face, and looking through the correct rainbow tinted hippy glasses, the tiny sparkling droplets of water take on the appearance of a school of mirror fish swimming and swerving straight towards you. It is truly magical.

According to the guide books there are several ways to get down the mountain, but none of them suggest running at full speed, jumping off of the huge rocks and shouting like Red Indians on a war path, but this is the route we carved for ourselves. Our guide, now lovingly named Jungle Boy, with whom we had bonded throughout our days in the rain forest, had kindly invited us into his home to meet his wife and 1 year old daughter, named malouca, meaning crazy. No one has big houses here but nonetheless we were a little surprised to find the family home a hut with no door or windows exactly big enough for a huge old-style American refrigerator and one double mattress. Bearing in mind we had had close encounters with 2 snakes, a tarantula and a nest of killer hornets, and the fact that the closest hospital was a 4 hour drive away, I thought this would be a particularly difficult place to raise a child. You had to move the mattress to open the fridge, which contained nothing but beer and baby food.

It was outside this very shack, as the sun set silhouetting the mountains in front of us and tinting the few clouds a range of electric pinks, purples, oranges and blues, that we sang an amazing 6 minute version of Waterloo Sunset with everyone finding something to play. Even Jungle Boy, who spoke not a word of English, sung along.

Some of the group were still feeling a bit magical on the bus home to Salvador. Dan and Chris were so taken with the home made pick-up/death-trap that was to ferry us back to town to catch the proper bus home that they were running around collecting cash off of everyone to prove to the driver they was serious in their intention to ride it all the way back to the big city. Unfortunately the driver was even more serious when he pointed out that the truck might not make it the 20km back to the village and certainly would not survive the 500km back to Salvador, no matter how loud we sung.

The bus has made a stop at a service station. It is a one room shack with a toothless lady selling a few choice goods for truck drivers, mainly hard booze. Dan is at the counter in full charm mode. The woman only sells rum by the glass. Dan is explaining that it is my 21^st birthday (I will actually be 23 in 7 months time) and he needs a price on all the booze in her shop. She is laughing. He leaves with a bottle and a half of rum and a packet of what appear to be home made cigarettes. The pain of returning home is easing as I write…

Listen to us: http://www.myspace.com/casamurilo

Follow us on twitter: http://twitter.com/casamurilo

New new beginnings

As always, things are moving fast here at HQ.

Tomorrow sees our first proper gig. We´re playing at Habibis Café in the centre of Oslo, with support from our dear friend Bård Watn. Freddy, mentioned in earlier posts, is now officially our drummer and he will be playing with us. We´ve arranged a couple of late surprises in the set. We look forward to seeing you all down there. We aim to entertain, as always. Bård will be kicking the evening off at 9pm sharp.

There will be a few representatives from what can only be described as the Oslo Indie Music Scene including a very new friend, the music writer Thea Melberg, who has already given us a mini write up on her excellent Scando Music Blog - Nordic Noises.

We´ve also been confirmed to play at Oslo Music Day, or Musikkfest Oslo as they call it round these parts. We´ve even done a little biography/influences piece for the programme. It´s an enormous citywide festival for one day only, that day being June 6th. We will be playing at 3pm at a bar in Grünerløkka called Fugazi. More information to come, of course.

Other than that, things are going wonderfully. We´ve been meeting some lovely and not unimportant people, putting together a very ambitious plan and as usual looking to take things to the next level. We´d like to think we´re doing that quite nicely.

It´s been nice to have such a kind response to Ross´s guest posts. We have a few more Tales From The Stable to put up. We´re just waiting for the right time. It will be soon.

Big Love. Let´s go people.

Anniversary

Today is the 6 month anniversary of Casa Murilo.

We have gone from having 0 songs, no gigs and no name to 13 songs, 8 gigs done, 3094 myspace views and 3789 listens. The eagle eyed amongst you will note that´s a marvellous 1149 unique views on our myspace in the last month. Oh yes. Things are moving so fast we couldn´t even offer a slightly larger bag of name brand insant mashed potato mix (just add water!) to the 3000th viewer. Our apologies. The prize for our 4000th viewer will undoubtedly make up for it.

The big step up to full band, recording the EP and gigs galore is coming over the next few Summer months. We´re meeting with some lovely musicians over the next week to get a little help, including the excellent Oslo Indie peeps Bård Watn and Simen Herning of My Little Pony.

We´re still hard at work, as ever. We´ve been writing some really excellent songs, recieved several more fantastic "Tales From The Stable", been offered some exciting gigs, edited the now infamous "St Hanshaugen In The Snow" video, helped build Dan and Linda´s wardrobe and chest of drawers, and generally living, eating and breathing this, our wonderful songs and band. The sun is shining brightly in Oslo and the world is well.

We also are now on twitter. Finger. Pulse. http://twitter.com/casamurilo

Tales From The Stable - Part 2

"Amongst the mud portraits, scribbled maps and unfinished poems in my moleskin there are some scraps of what could pass as a diary. I have included them here for your viewing pleasure and to give you a little background on the early days of Casa Murilo, or Dr Chocolate and the Salvadors as they were back then. It’s been an interesting ride..."

December 2007.

We had arrived. At least we thought we had arrived. We were about to climb into what appeared to be a home-made pick-up truck. I think it once was a car. And a small car at that. Now, thanks to some rural jeitinho, she has a wooden platform on the back with some tin sides half nailed, half welded on. The driver laughed at the mention of a seatbelt and, with guitars braced between legs, fedoras pulled down firmly and knuckles white we bump off down the dusty track like contestants on some kind of TV game show version of Buckaroo.

It’s noisy, it’s dusty and everyone is squinting and shouting. As we crest a particularly militant bump I lurch to my right and as I strain to see what suddenly created this space I see the side of the truck dragging along the floor and my dear friend Jobbo dangling precariously by Dan’s guitar strap just above it. It´s like the closing scene of Bond movie. His feet are thrashing about like a man who has just been hung, and how nearly he was just drawn and quartered. He is pulled back into the truck and everyone exchanges those relieved looks and puffs a bit. Jobbo lights a trembling cigarette.

For dinner this evening we went to one of the two restaurants in the village. The first option was a lady’s front room, and, not having enough chairs for us all, we went to the pizza place instead. The menu is a single, laminated piece of A4 with main courses on one side and dessert on the other. For main course there is a pizza. Dessert is exactly the same pizza with banana on it. Not a great deal of choice but what they do, they do well. We are particularly fond of the local honey and Cachaça mixture that sits in plastic bottles on every table. Alcoholic sugar, mmmmmmmm.

Jobbo is sat on his bed, he has one eye closed and is peering into the top of a whiskey bottle. “Teacher’s, Teacher’s what will you teach me today?” It is 9am. It would be fair to say he has not dealt with near death too well so far. It is Christmas Day and we are going hiking. Not to take Jobbo´s mind off things but because that is what one does when in a National Park in the North East of Brazil. Especially when at the foot of the Misty Mountain Trail...