Ocean Sound Recordings

This last week we have been making ocean sounds with Nick Terry on a small island outside of Ålesund. In this great and fresh Giske Studio on the west coast of Norway we're adding the last tracks for the forthcoming album.

The Great scenery, cool people and good food makes it a perfect experience. A tiny island surrounded by the fjords and mountains tops really makes you push the ambience to scenic levels. The darkness of the north sea at night brings out the distortion of screaming guitars (and thundering bass Rolf points out... so OK, dark tribal viking drums as well?)... all in all we're heading back to Oslo Tomorrow ready for the January mixing with Nick, a London Showcase and some Christmas festivities.

Last week we took a break from the christmas preparing and played on TV2, Norway's biggest commercial TV station. Our national TV debut. Yeah!

http://webtv.tv2.no/webtv/?progId=366445&itemId=358790

Simon´s final no!

Our names goes back to the day when Ruben challenged Simon to go solo. Simon's answer was clear, but named the band formed in the days to come.

We're now sad to announce that one of the founding members of SSN, after several years in the band, has decided to leave. Simon felt the need to focus on other things than music for while. So yeah… Simon Says No! and all that.

There's no hard feelings within the band, and it's with a heavy heart our musically paths now part.

Thanks for all the great moments we've shared together as a band through the last years Simon! We all look forward to new moments of greatness, off the stage.

Ruben, Rolf and Even.

September Tour

And then we were back on the road for a good two week roam in Scandinavia. Starting out as most bands do with loading the van in exitement and figuring out gear, merchandise, highways and all. Our first stop Kristiansand is always a treat, thanks to our good friend Louis who always take great care of us when we visit. Stavanger had their Nu music festival the day we arrived, unfortunately we couldn make the festival program this year, but heck, why not use a day off to hang out with people we havent seen in a while and play em' some new songs? We even got some krautrock questions answered by Faust who was at the venue. Then on to Bergen, Back to good ol' Hulen. Always fun to play for our home crowd. Exiting to meet and play with the legendary Telescopes. After a short break we went on to Sweden to play with our good time buddies in Blackstrap. Of course the van broke down when we travelled back from Bergen so our backline got stuck in Oslo. Fortunately Blackstrap, well endowed gearwise as they are, let us use theirs. A couple of shows with them did us really great! Hope to see em' again soon.

We were on our own again, on a bus to Copenhagen trying to figure out how to sort out our backline situation. Frenetically calling friends who live there and make them call their friends to try to muster up some amps and a drumkit we could use. We got the amps sorted out relatively quick, but what is a rock concert without drums?! The ours went by and no luck. What do we do? program some computer drums? Not play the show at all? No way! After a good falling out with the sound engineer and a few more calling of favours, we figured we´ll do a final desperate attemt to get ahold of something for Even to beat on. Send Simon out on the street to scout for a drumkit. Godspeed and not a chance in hell he would find one. But what happens; Half an hour later he shows up with a grin on his face and a bass drum in his hands, "I met some guy at a bar down the road who had these drums we could borrow, I put him on the guest list". Fab! Simon saved the night. Read the story here. So we ended up playing a great show and had a good night out with long lost friends and old SSN! band members, before we wrapped up the tour and headed back home to Norway. Thanks to all the people that came to see us and the folks who made the tour happen. Hope to see you next time around!

Love

Ruben Even Simon Rolf

Simon Says No!

What gives

Summer is over and fall has arrived in all it's mindnumbing, rainy, depressive glory. And we are taking the opportunity the weather brings to shack up indoors at Harrys Gym studios, collaborating with the the briliant sonic wizard Bjarne Stensli and maybe some professional british guy (well get back to all the details as they evolve) to start the process of recording the album that y'all cool cats have been waiting for. So far we have been kicking around some 12 new songs, and maybe in the end of the process we can get around to re- record and improve some old SSN! evergreens. Anyway in the end we are probably looking at a master reel containing between 10 and 15 songs. So if label stuff and the buisness part works out the way it should, you will most likely around spring/summer 2010 have a reason to go down to the record store to make your purchase of the first SSN! full lengt rekkid.. ever made. We are aware of having said something like this before and probably disappointed a couple of people, but do not despair, your patience will be rewarded.

Before the recording is done with, we are planning on having some breaks from the studio tinkering to do some touring. So do make shure you check in on our tour schedule on myspace or where ever you find our tourdates posted these days, and see if we are coming through your town. More dates will be added as they get confirmed continuously. On some shows we have the opportunity to share the stage with our friends Blackstrap. Make shure you catch one of their shows with or without SSN! Seeing them live in concert will make you able to justify coming in late for work or school from having a phenomenal "how about last night, huh? that was somethin.. else..!". Check em out at www.myspace.com/blackstrap001

Finally we appologize for coming across as boring and lazy fucktards who never get around to update their myspace/twitter/facebook profiles. That is because we probably are, and still learning.BUT we will get better at these things eventually, promise! Maybe not at Twitter, but everything else.

All the best

Ruben Simon Even Rolf

Simon Says No!

www.simonsaysno.com

At last you can visit us at www.simonsaysno.com

A simple portal to the world of ssn.

Right now ssn is enjoying the norwegian summer after some hard songwriting. Øya festival is coming up soon. We are really looking forward to playing this year. Be shure to se our show and dont miss Lecter featuring ssn members. It´s their first show!

In august we´ll be soaking in studio(Harrys Gym) with Bjarne. The recording is for our first album.

Heading back home (Day 21 - 23)

We finished up some guitars and vocals in the studio, it starting to sound really good, looking forward to the mix! Then we had our last night out on the Hollywood Blv together with Michael Patterson and had alot of fun!

On Saturday we started our trip home flying via New York for a night first. We will finally be back in Oslo on Monday morning and we all really looking forward to that.

We had a great time on this 3 week US-tour and we hope we will be back soon. We would like to thank all you readers for being patient with are blogging, Dany & Beth, Adam & Katie, Janne & Audun, Michael Patterson, Nick and Norsk Kulturråd for making this tour great!

Even, Ruben, Rolf, Simon / Simon Says No!

The Harlot - 3 of Clubs (Day 18 - 20)

San Francisco (Day off)

The next day we got up early to get breakfast and headed down to Mission to meet up with Evens brother, that nice fella, Stian. We got some nice Mexican food and went treasure hunting in the many pawnshops in the area. And sure enough we found a Fender Bassman 1970s head, in great condition, for the price of only 4000 NOK and some neat guitars. But with a car already full of stuff, we had to leave at Mission Thrift Store. We also found a record store that had our friends in The Low Frequency in Stereo’s newest album on their monthly-recommended albums stand. Sweet!

Downtown shopping was next in line. At the Apple store a grinning Rolf Bought himself a new iPod Touch, kind of made of for the bassman Rolf? Not really.... Even and Simon decided to get back to the hotel to do some work and relax while Ruben and Rolf roamed around San Francisco as bonafide tourists. In the evening we met up to have dinner and went out and have a couple of beers with Stian before going back to the hotel.

The Harlot

The next day was gig day. But of course it would be ridiculous for a rock band to leave San Francisco without visiting the legendary Haight Ashbury.
We got up early to take our time there and to spend as much money as possible in all the thrift, vintage clothing and record stores we could come by. We could have stayed there for a week but eventually we had to get to the venue. Nice people, nice venue, but to be honest... this was not our best gig. We got to hang out with some cool people, some more family time for Even, but that’s pretty much it. You win some and you loose some. A lot of technical problems and some frustrated guys... yeah. Punky, noisy, but nothing to be bragging about.

3 of Clubs, Last show on tour

Another day, another gig, and what a gig it was!
Driving back from San Fran we decided to bring all our frustration out, in a good way, at our second Hollywood show. The 3 of Clubs was more our type of venue. Dark, more rocky and people really into music, listening, appreciating, giving a good interaction between the stage and the crowd, ending up with our best show of the entire tour! A perfect ending! Hopefully our next time in California we’ll bring more shows liker this one.

Before we head home, we’re finishing up Captcha (working title) with Nick and Michael. It’s really starting to sound good. Can’t wait to put the finishing touch on it. We’ll have to wait for a mix though, but we’re sure that the guys will do a great job with us Norwegians hanging over their shoulder!

Los Angeles - San Francisco (Day 15 - 17)

On Saturday we got to the studio to continue the recording. Using more than
one day on recording one song is new to us and it looks like were gonna be using five. Feels kinda ineffective, but the results sounds way better.
Done with drums, bass and basic guitars and its exiting to hear the song take form. Doing things over and over, trying different guitars with different amps in different rooms with different mikes. Even use three amps at the same time. Kickass, dude! Then night came and we got out to get some food and se our engineer Nick play with his band The Morlocks. It was a great great show! And Ruben found a new idol in their lead singer.

Then came Sunday. Studio work and gig today.
We got just about done with recording the guitars. Then came time for laying down vocals and percussion. It takes a bit more time to get these things right, so we are going back next week to get it done properly. Then on to the show we was to play at a club called CinaSpace. A terribly classy place crawling with hipsters in The middle of Holywood, on the walk of fame. Nick and Michael were nice enough to lend us their amps from the studio, our backline situation solved once again. The show went well and we got a night out in with the Holywood hipsters. David Koizumi took some great photos from the show, see them here.

Monday: Travel day.
Got up to find that Evens cardholder had gone missing, so we had to find another car rental to get the vehichle to take us to San Fransisco. We eventually got a car, packed our gear and headed out on the road again. Stopped on a gas station where the counter wanted to buy our EP signed, the fans is popping up everywhere. Lookin forward to hang out and play in San Fran for a couple of days. Here is a live-set and interview we did wit Break Thru Radio in New York.

Here are photos from the last days.

First day of recording (Day 14)

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Austin- California Day (10- 13)

The last days in Austin was fun. We got time to just wander around town and check out stuff that we didn't get around to earlier. Even played another show with our buddy Adam Heldrig that we all enjoyed very much on Saturday. Check out Adam at; www.myspace.com/adamheldring The next day (sunday) we decided to join Carolina, Adam and Jonas (Adam Heldrig..s bassist) and a couple of friends on a trip to the Oasis outside Austin. Nice! Some sort of national park..ish, ranch, tourist place where we got some dinner before going back to the outskirts of Austin to check out the badass cowboy stores. Then in the evening we got everyone back to our house and played texas hold..em and hung out. Good times.

The next day we packed our bags and left for LA were our manager Dany picked us up and we drove to his house were we are residing when we are in LA. We got to meet his fiancé who also lives there. Then Dany took the ones in the band not too tired from traveling out to see Love Like Fire at the Silverlake Lounge.

Tuesday was the day for SSN!..s first show in California. The city, Fresno, venue, The Starline... cool place. We did a 30 min show, met some cool new people, enjoyed a great band playing before us (with a spanish name we're not even gonna try to spell!), and headed back for LA.

Today we've had a day off. Slept inn and met the peaple at Futuresound, out to become US/UK management. Rolf, Ruben and Simon went down to Santa Monica beach for a little shopping while Even stayed back at the office to get some work done.
Now we're getting ready for load in at The Glory Hole, Michael Patterson's studio, where Captcha will get it's first day of recording tomorrow. YEAH!

SXSW (Day 8)

The last couple of days we´ve been hanging out at 6th street, checking out all sorts of music and hanging out with friends and associates. Even(Drummer) has played with our Scandinavian friend Adam Heldring at Habana Cell 6 and is playing Wave Rooftop today. We´ve been meeting with some labels and it´s all good.

Trailer Space Records (Day 7)

Yesterday was our first gig at SXSW.
We got up and had breakfast, and headed out to downtown Austin.
The gig was around eight o clock so we had plenty of time to hang out and check out Austin.
We decided to go and see some friends of ours i Casiokids who is also playing here.
Then the backline situation. We were lucky enough that the band The Hundred Days is in town so we got to borrow a much needed amplifier from them to get through our show.
Looking forward to hang out with them more this week.
After collecting the amp, we got in the car to get to the venue called Trailer Space Records, a really neat record store. Simon was drooling over the rich array of rare punk rock vinyl stored there. The show went great apart from the PA system being a bit limited.
Then we went to get some food and checked out more of the parties that went on downtown.
Austin without a doubt the colest town in Texas, the texan answer to Haight Ashbury in San Fransisco perhaps. A liberal and cool chillout town with a lot of great people.
Loking forward to the next days in Austin.

Off to Texas (Day 6)

Yesterday we got up early to catch our plane bound for Texas. We said our goodbyes and thanks to our friends Janne and Audun and hailed a cab to the airport. Arriving at the airport we checked in ourselves and our baggage, got some breakfast and went through security and on to the plane. We middle landed in Denver where we had to wait for a couple of ours for the plane to Texas. When we arrived at our destination, we felt the beautiful texan summer heat coming at us as soon as we passed through the airport doors. It felt really so good on our pale Scandinavian bodies. As the lucky bastards we are, Ruben has family in Austin, TX and they are on holiday in Orlando this week. So we get to use their car and live in their Incredibly beautiful 5 bedroom.. i dont know.. mansion.. i mean, the place even has a swimmingpool. We are four spoiled brats! Then we headed to downtown Austin to meet our manager and say hello to a couple of other people working at Futuresounds. Then we went to check out a couple of clubs, see some concerts and play pool.. Texas is great and we look forward to spend a week here.

Fontana´s (Day 5)

Yesterday was our last day in NY.
We got up and got some coffe and headed off to XM Sirius Radio for an interview.
Not knowing much about the station or the location we were kind of blown away. In the middel of Manhatten, across the road from Rockefeller center we had to go through heavy securety, and get som elevating help almost 40 storys up!
Finally arriving in their ”lobby” we were sorounded by pictures and signatures (all over the walls!) of bands from Snow Patrol, Kayne West and Miley Cyrus (Not kidding!)... Well anyway, some huge acts! We did a 20 min interview for the program Nordic Rocks, and got to sign the wall... a weird and awsome expereinse!

After the interview it was time for get in at the club that was hosting our last show in NY for now. The club was called Fontanas, a cool basement club on Lower East side.
We had some time left before The gig so we went to Guitar Center to try and solve the backline situation and get Simon the fuzz pedal he had drooled over since we came to NY. Simon was happy and sad comeing out of the store. He got his Big Muff, but had to settle for an old POD (!!) for the night, as we did not have time to get a rented amp back to the store the next day.

Then it was time for the gig.
We played with five other european band, mostly from England.
It felt somewhat like playing in London with the crowd and everything.
The gig went fine and we stayed a while to chat, and you know what? The Pod saved the day!! The Deluxe Reverb Ruben played went dead on the second band! But our POD, the knight in red shining armor came to the rescue, and got them through the gig. We had to leave before the last band played, since we were getting up for an EARLY flight the next day. Hopefully they did fine without our little knight, if not we are sorry guys! Well home in Harlem we packed our stuff and went to bed for a couple of hours of sleep before heading for Austin, Texas and SXSW!

Day off! (Day 4)

Yesterday we only did a telephone interview with Ryans Smashing life, so we basically had the day off. We went in seperate directions... Even fixed some backline for todays Fontanas gig and the rest of the guys did some shopping and got a good sunday stroll in Central Park. Ruben got himself another pair of the boots he already was wearing.
We took the subway down to Washington Square to get some dinner with Janne and Audun whom we are staying with here in Harlem. Got some nice Italian cooking, a good Montepulciano vine. All in all a nice refreshing day off from gigging and running around with way to much gear.

Trash Bar Brooklyn (Day 3)

Yesterday was a hoot and a holler. We got up and had a great breakfast at Dunkin Donuts, and went off to Brooklyn where our next show was happening. The venue called Trash Bar was a really neat rock n roll dive in Williamsburg. It was a bit like walking in to a rock movie from the nineties (Airheads, Singles) with everything from a well endowed jukebox, pool table, buss and car seats to sit on, and everything you would want to see in a decent punk indie rock club. The stage and PA system exeeded all our expectations, and everything looked swell. We arrived early and it left us with time to go our separate ways to rome around in Brooklyn and do some shopping and eat. Then came time for soundcheck and showtime. The gig went really well and.

I was watching one of the other bands, playing last night, when a guy came over to me and said: "You guys should have called your band the Shoe Fighters! Because you play foo gaze, a mixture between Foofighters and MBV." Funny!

All in all a great day! Now we're looking forward to a day off to get some more of that New York vibe!

Oh happy day! (day2)

We have really been working men yesterday! We got up at the break of dawn to get some pratical stuff out of the way, and Norway being five hours behind New York that felt early after beeing 24 hours of travel! But it was worth it! We found out that Norsk Kulturråd had decided to give us a good bunch of toursupport. So now we can actually afford to hire some backline, hotels and not be broke out of our minds when we come home!
We did a 30 min live set at a studio downtown for break through radio. Jusing a little more time then we actually had, we barely made it to our soundcheck at Pianos. We threw down some lovelly burgers and a pint, and went on stage. Not that many showed up for our seven a clock show, but here is the beauty of shoegaze: you just look down, and play your ass off! And we did. We had an awsome time, and went home happy as kidd on Christmas morning.

Today we are playing at Trashbar in Brooklyn.... stay tuned!

Back in NYC (day1)

After a nice 15 hour travel to New York we are finally settled in Harlem. We are so lucky to have a old friend (Janne) who live here and letting us sleep on her couch.
Getting four freaks through US customs is not easy. Even though we have visas it took some time. Especialy for some... Seriously, who would let a Simon into the country?! Anyway... we are all here and happy.

Tomorrow is going to be a great day. We´re first playing a live set at Breakthru Radio and later on we´ll play at Pianos wich is a very sweet spot.

We are living in America

At least for the next 3 weeks we'll be touring the US. Early tomorrow morning we'll be on a flight for New York. In NY we're playing Pianos(13.mar 19:00), Trash Bar(14.mar 20:00) and Fontanas(16.mar 21:00). We had such a good time last time we played in NY, so we are really exited! If you don't have the chance to see us in NY we'll be heading for sxsw the week after.

I'll keep you posted.

by:Larm closing upp

This last weeks has been a blast. We have been playing release shows for our new EP here in Norway. Thanks to everyone that came out to support us and see the show. We've had allot of fun. We got some great photos from the gig in Trondheim at Samfundet. See Them Here.

We are exited and proud to play by:larms main scene Dagblad Teltet this Thursday. If you can't be there you can also catch our show Friday or Saturday on Sub Scene or Mono. Witch is the sweetest spots we can think of. There are allot of great artists playing this year. Be sure not to miss out! Espesially i would like to recommend Pony the Pirate, The Megaphonic Thrift, Heroes & Zeroes, Hellsongs and the beautiful Harrys Gym.

Follow Simon Says No! on Twitter

Hi! We'll be posting frequently on twitter from now on. So hook up and get updated on what we're doing.

http://twitter.com/simonsaysno

Back to America

It's only two months until our US tour. So I've put up some pictures from CMJ just to get in the mood. Before we head over the Atlantic we have some really exiting stuff going on here at home. First we are attending the Zoom contest, witch is a kind of "Battle of the bands" thing. Then we will be releasing our long awaited Ahoi de Angst EP and touring Norway with it. We've also been invited to play three shows at this years by:Larm, which is really exiting!

Take a look at our myspace for dates and places.

CMJ08