Photos from the Russia tour

I got the photos from our Russia tour developed and scanned. I had a break from shooting film, but i got back to it on this tour and i'm happy i did, cause the photos came out looking exactly like the warm memories i had of this tour. Above is the entrance to the place we played at in Petrozavodsk.

And this is what it looked like inside. It was a part of an old tractor factory, really nice place but really hard to warm up, so we were all freezing there.

Preparing for the show.

Big merch table.

Love Cult performing.

Olli Aarni.

Walking around the city the next day after the show.

You can whisper your wishes to this tree and it should make them come true :)

There were almost no people walking outside that day, the weather wasn't to pleasant, but we had a really nice walk.

Chrysanthemum tea with biscuits in Moscow.

Chinese take-away in Moscow.

We got a huge watermelon as a gift in Saransk after the show. The people were really nice there. We played in a university auditorium, but unfortunately i didn't take any photos there.

Drinking tea in Saransk.

Walking around Saransk. Love those houses!

In a train back to Moscow.

"Stirka 40" cafe/bar/laundrette in St Petersburg.

Banana Pill Tour CD-R

This week is the last week before we go on tour and it has been a bit crazy as usually. I stayed up really late making covers and t-shirts. Today i can finally slow down a bit. I still have some things to do, but at least the biggest things are ready and i don't have to go to school today.

Two big things basically were t-shirts and a new Banana Pill live CD-R we've made especially for the tour. Now that the t-shirts are drying after a successful wash (the images have not disappeared!) and the CD's are packed i can finally show you the result of my work.

The idea of this CD-R was that we make it fast and cheap, so that anyone could buy it and we could give it as a gift to someone if we want to. We included only live tracks there, so that people who hear us and like it can buy it and listen to something similar to what they've heard.

So i went with this very simple design. I've ripped apart one simple white CD sleeve, traced it over this nice carton, cut it out and glued together. Then i've stamped the text on the front of each sleeve with my alphabet stamps. Stamping letter by letter doesn't give you perfectly straight text, but i like it because this way each sleeve is unique.

I've stamped the CD-R's the same way. I just needed to remove extra ink with a tissue, otherwise it wouldn't dry so well. I used inkjet-printable CD-R's.

Even though i didn't expect this CD-R to look any special, i am really happy with a result. Very minimalist and stylish. Cheap and easy, but it sure takes some time.

Banana Pill tote bags

While waiting for the blank t-shirts to arrive, i've decided to also make some tote bags for the tour. They are cheaper and i don't need to order them. I just got them from the local craft shop Tiimari.

First i thought of getting the bags from a regular food store and i was worried they would be too white and boring. But i found these and i really like them, because they have more "dirty" natural white color.

I used different types of leaves, so each bag is unique. Will do the same for the t-shirt. Hopefully all the leaves won't fall off by the time the t-shirts arrive.

Banana Pill t-shirt

We go on tour with Banana Pill very soon. We'll tour Russia! And we've decided to make t-shirts to sell on the tour. As usually, i've started acting at the last moment. A couple of weeks before the tour i've made my test t-shirt. I went with a simple design, because it's my first time, and i used the same idea i had with leaves and watercolor, only this time with textile paint. So it is really autumn inspired. Here are some pictures of my process:

First of all i've collected some nice leaves on my way home from school. Then i've spent ages looking for a good font in Photoshop. When it was ready i printed it out on a sticker paper and cut the letters out.

Then i attached the paper to the t-shirt and painted over the letters.

I waited for a little while for the paint to dry and took the sticker paper off. Then i got one leaf, painted it over with another color and stamped it on a t-shirt. I waited again for about an hour and ironed the image through another piece of fabric.

I was quite happy with the result, so i ordered some new blank t-shirts online (this one was Mitya's old t-shirt). I hope the postage won't take too long and i will have time to finish them all before the tour.

For this project i got lot's of help from a tutorial on Maiorov DIY blog. He is really good at it! Without his tips i would have messed up several t-shirts before getting it right.

Banana Pill / Timothy C Holehouse split packaging

We met Tim in Lithuania when we were on our Europe tour with Banana Pill. We played two shows together.

We really liked what he does and he liked what we do so we decided to do a split tape together. And now it's finally out! We released it together with Tim's label. He took care of the tapes and we did the packaging.

I really like the "reel-to-reel" tapes Tim chose. We wanted to use this kind of tapes for a while now, but we never ended up ordering them. Now we finally have them.

I did the same carton covers for this release as for the previous one. I didn't know what kind of carton to use, so i just went to the stationary store to see what they have. Once i saw this black carton, i was sure i want to use it. It was perfect thickness, and i liked how black and shiny it was.

I came up with this painting some time ago. When it came to deciding what kind of artwork to do for this split, i thought why not use this idea. I did the painting again in "portrait" shape and added the names of our projects to it.

You can check the description and sounds at Jozik records.

The most time consuming poster

This is the most time consuming poster i've ever done. It took me ages to first draw all the letters on patterned paper (keeping the patterns vary as much as possible), then cut out all the letters, then arrange them on an A4 and finally glue each one to the A4. I got so tired cutting the artist names, that i decided to just write all the other info with a marker.

The poster was for yesterday's show. The show was great, all the artists were awesome and we had our first Banana Pill collaboration with a great artist Olli Aarni.

I can't wait to post the artworks for the new tapes! I tried some new things, and they look good! But we are releasing them in a batch of four, and only three are almost ready, so it will still take a while.

December Pill

Since it's Christmas and since i did not yet post any music in my blog, i guess this is the time to share something we've done with Mitya recently. This is the track we recorded not so long ago for a compilation that will be out on Full of Nothing some time soon hopefully. I think we were inspired by Christmas melodies coming from all over, when we were making this track, and that is why i would like to give it to everyone who reads my blog as a Christmas present :)

Merry Christmas and have a very nice holidays!
We are off to Murmansk on Sunday! I'll bring some nice photos of northern sceneries :)

Installation for a poetry evening

Last Friday we took part in a poetry evening by exhibiting an installation. We did the installation together with a group of photographers called PMAM as well as a group of poets. We did the music for the installation as Banana Pill and i also took part in video editing.

I made a video preview of the loop for you to check out:

We made two videos like this and originally they were supposed to be projected on two sides of a white cube-shaped box with a sound coming from inside the box (two loop-stations connected to a small combo were placed inside the box). The box was placed in a dark room, next to the room where poets were reading their poems to visitors. Unfortunately, we had problems with projectors, so we had to keep only one video on one side of the box. It looked good anyway, but i didn't manage to take a good video of the whole installation.

Hopefully we get to do more things with those people. I really like when artists from different genres work together and i enjoy the results.

Back from the tour

The tour was great! We met so many nice people, played with good musicians, got invitations to some splits and compilations and saw beautiful towns and cities we wouldn't have seen otherwise.

I've found travelling by bus much more fun because you get to see lots of tiny villages on the way from one city to another:

Staying over at different people's apartments lets you meet lots of new people as well as some cute pets:

And of course the best thing is to play shows.

And see other great artists play.

Big thanks to Arma from Lithuania, Madame Claude club in Berlin and Tim from Hamburg for organizing shows and being such a nice people! <3

Banana Pill Euro tour!!

Lately i've been spending all the late evenings making CD and tape covers, because very soon Jozik records distro is going on tour!

I had to put together more of kakaokamkami "Snowballs" CD-Rs, finish sewing envelopes for the 4-way split and most importantly make the whole new design for the new Banana Pill CD-R.

We finished recording our material for the new CD-R on saturday. And last night, finally, Mitya has finished mastering the tracks and i finished the cover design. Now all i need to do is to cut out the rest of the inserts and to attach the CD-stickers.

I bought the pink envelopes for the CDs from the local craft shop Askarelli. The painting for the front cover is done by me, except that as a sample of a bird i used some image i found on the internet. The back cover text was made using letter stamps i bought from the other craft shop Tiimari. I tried to design it so that i can make the covers and CDs fast, cause we have to have these on our tour.

On friday we are leaving for our tour as Banana Pill. We'll perform in Estonia, Lithuania and Germany. 7 concerts altogether, including the start-of-the-tour performance in Myymälä2 gallery in Helsinki on thursday. I hope we will not be totally broke when we come back.