Header

Sunday 29 April 2012

QWicked! Scandinavia unveil new web phenomenon

Scandinavia announced their first foray into social networking today, with their Qwicked site set to go live in early September.


'Obvious choice'

'We wanted to create a streamlined solution for today's world', Warrick enthuses. 'People have been frustrated for a while now by twitter's verbosity. There just isn't time to read tweets, let alone write them, so Qwicked's one-word posting system is truly emancipatory.' Qwicked users will be given 12 characters to play with per 'Qwix' update, though there are no limits to the number of updates permitted in a 24-hour period.


'Streamlined solution'

'It's very lean', said Tom thoughtfully. 'You can say a hell of a lot with a single word - we're removing that temptation to use unnecessary bumph.'


'Removing unnecessary bumph'

Commenting on the cheekily iconic appropriation of the logo from the musical 'Wicked', Chief Brand Architect Tibor claims it was an obvious choice. 'The Wizard of Oz is a classic tale, a simple allegory with a moral depth and emotional resonance that just wows you. Winnie Holzman took all of that and just went...' He pauses, letting the weight of the unspoken word sink in. 'The letter Q is so unique, and adding it to the front of 'Wicked' was a no-brainer for me'. With typical modesty, the former drummer blushes and quietly chuckles that 'Coming up with the term 'Qwicked' got me my promotion'.


Promoted

The band say they have most of the functionality pegged, and a number of high profile celebrities including Scarlett Johannson, Kanye West and hipster grandee Tim Burgess of The Charlatans are currently taking part in a trial run. 'It's so easy to Qwix!' enthused Burgess on Saturday. 'Twitter is toast. It was a real bind having to think up 140 characters every time I needed some attention. With Qwicked I don't even have to think up any! I've got through the first week using only the drop-down menu. I'd go as far as to say I'm a natural Qwixter.'


Channelling Spector - Burgess

'What I'm really excited about is the AutoQwixt app' said West, referring to the predictive algorithm that will update a user's page every two hours based on aggregate Qwixes from the previous month. 'My life is basically about parties, so to that extent it's fairly patterned. It's great to have a solution that can take the responsibility of communicating with my fans from my shoulders. I'm behind this site 100% and I think the guys from The Scandinavia (sic) have done really well.'


AutoQwixt works

Charismatic Scandinavia frontman Nadim Samman has also been testing the waters, Qwixing five times a day. 'It gets straight to the heart of the matter. For example, yesterday morning I was eating Breakfast and it took me all of three seconds to post 'Breakfast' to my Qwicked profile. 'Who cares what I was eating? Fandinavians want the essentials'. Asked whether exploring entrepreneurial avenues was a distraction from music-making, Samman was expansive. 'I know people see me as a singer, but I look at it differently. I'm CEO of a burgeoning multinational. We need to diversify with the times and remain at the heart of efforts to make sense of the world we live in.'


Breakfast for Samman
'Quiet while I Qwix'

Monday 23 April 2012

Scandinavia abandons recording in fight for survival

'Fragile and easily manipulated' - Samman and Neville
The crisis in the Scandinavia camp escalated last night as the coterie of yes-men surrounding the band were expunged from the Granary Studio premises amid rumours of a pending showdown between feuding band members Nadim Samman and Warrick Harniess. In a bid to save the band, bassist Thomas Parkinson and drummer Tibor Beetles made the decision to ban anyone from the camp who is not officially a member of Scandinavia. 'They're not welcome here anymore', drummer Beetles stated plainly. 'In retrospect, we should've known something like this might happen. Warrick and Nadim are fragile, and easily manipulated. But they're integral to Scandinavia, and Tom and I feel a duty of care towards them'.

'We were high' - Parkinson
At the centre of the row are renegade filmmaker Ted Byron Baybutt and Tim Neville, a self-styled 'musical mercenary'. In a statement released last night, Scandinavia vowed to abandon the late-night jam session they'd recorded with Neville, 29, after Harniess, 32, fled to a love nest in a neighbouring village. It read 'Scandinavia have deleted the files recorded with Tim Neville and the band remain committed to completing their second record, as planned'. Contradicting filmmaker Baybutt's assertion that the recordings with Neville sounded 'incredible', bass player Parkinson, 31, today shrugs off the notion that there was ever a chance that the project would be derailed. 'We were drunkenly jamming on the Who and the Stones, for a bit of fun. We might've joked about releasing it when we were high, but in the cold light of day it was never going to happen'.

With characteristic nonchalance, the unflappable Parkinson repudiated all claims of their imminent breakup. Drawing a line under talk of vicious disputes, he emphasized their vitality, promising Fandinavians a worthy follow-up to their debut album, Good Living. ‘I can’t say it’s going to please everyone, but we’re very, very excited about this new record’.

Yesterday’s reports from documentarian Ted Byron Baybutt, 32, have been dismissed as manipulative muck-raking by the songsmiths. ‘He’s a charlatan’ says charismatic lead singer Samman, 29. ‘First he came across as a professional, he was really friendly but the whole time he was actually playing a sick game’. The unethical filmmaker has now been unmasked as a modern day Iago, bent on sewing discord within the Scandinavian ranks. ‘I’ll admit, we haven’t always had a cohesive vision, but it’s really come together. We’re friends, and the creative tension has always come from a good place. But we’re not too big to put our egos aside for the sake of a tune’, Parkinson now says.


Bodge job - Baybutt
Bodge job

Contracted to produce a film about the making of Scandinavia’s second album, the unsavoury filmmaker turned out to be more bungler than Bertolucci. ‘He was out of his depth’, Samman relates bluntly. ‘He showed up in his Heath Robinson getup without an adaptor for his camcorder battery or even a toothbrush. At one point he jimmy-rigged a tripod out of a packet of chewing gum. He was unprepared, totally inept and a major headache. The shoot was a bodge job from start to finish, but the major problem was that he was just weird’.

Sinister Baybutt was unceremoniously ejected from the Scandinavia camp at 5pm on Saturday together with Neville, whose hand-wringing attempts to ingratiate himself with the band had begun to cloy. 

Pledge of unity - Scandinavia
Streamlining

With Saturday’s streamlining of the Scandinavia entourage, confidence has returned now that the band have circled their wagons and applied themselves anew. ‘It was Ted’s doing’, said eccentric guitarist Harniess. ‘He was always putting Tim forward as a cure-all for difficult overdubs. I think he was trying to drive a rift between Nadim and I for the sake of his film. But we’re stronger together and I really, really respect Nadim’s work’. Harniess, whose recent ethno-eclectic stylings haven’t always pleased Samman, was philosophical – ‘creative differences are okay, when they’re not being exploited by a machiavellian outsider’.

Sinister - Baybutt
Creepy - Neville
Asked for a comment on his rift with the Scandinavia, Baybutt was sanguine. ‘My style’s abrasive’, he acknowledged, smiling a little while leaning on the bar of a well known Soho media haunt, ‘and I won’t apologise for that. I get between the cracks to tell the real story. It ruffled sensitive feathers but in the end I got what I wanted. They may have deleted the jam session recordings, but my videotapes have it all and time will expose the truth – in a cinema near you’. Neville could not be reached for comment but is thought to be hiding out in a London suburb.

Scandinavia’s second album, The Gods, is released on 16 June 2012 at www.scandinavia.bandcamp.com. 

Sunday 22 April 2012

Arrogant Samman insists 'it's my band'

Scandinavia are at breaking point a source reveals.

'Easily manipulated' - Samman is under Neville's spell
Filmmaker Ted Byron Baybutt, 32, has lifted the lid on the infighting that is tearing Scandinavia apart. Just days into a recording session in Lamberhurst, Kent, relationships are at breaking point – with guitarist Warrick Harniess, 32, increasingly isolated. Baybutt suggests that the recent presence of guest musician Tim Neville, 29, is acting as a destabilizing force, with a new power alliance emerging between him and charismatic frontman Nadim Samman, 29. ‘It’s been brewing for a couple of days’ said Baybutt, who is filming for a forthcoming documentary of the band.

Love Nest

After a night out at the Brown Trout, a gastro pub favoured by fellow guitar innovator Jeff Beck, Harniess decamped to a love nest in a neighbouring village with a paramour, much to the dismay of his fellow Scandinavians. ‘It was like he didn’t care, really shocking’ said Baybutt. Neville, a recent addition to Scandinavia’s bloated entourage, cajoled the rest of the band into returning to the studio for a late night jam session.  ‘They sounded incredible together’, said Baybutt. ‘It was stripped right back to the essentials, nothing laboured at all’. Some reports have put Harniess’ increasing eccentric contributions at the heart of discord, with Samman impatient with the subtleties of 'world' music. Baybutt also reports that Neville has been pitching a brace of songs in the Scandinavia mold to Samman and erstwhile keyboardist Thomas Parkinson, 31. ‘I don’t know if they’ll make the album this time round, but the guys seemed impressed. There’s no denying his talent.’

Loggerheads

The two adversaries were on the verge of blows on Sunday morning when Harniess returned to the studio to find Neville rerecording his guitar parts at Samman’s behest.


'Eccentric'


Baybutt self-portrait

Saturday 21 April 2012

Nadim quits Scandinavia

Nadim has repeatedly quit Scandinavia over the past two days, due to his frustrations at not being able to get on the mike and just 'rock the fuck out'. Tom has made repeated conciliatory gestures, asking Nadim for his opinion about piano parts, organ overdubs and various other instrumental flourishes, to no avail.

Nadim currently has his head buried in facebook, occasionally looking up to give me a furious, suspicious look. I suspect he may try to murder me in my sleep tonight, so I've hastily booked a B&B as a safety precaution.

Meanwhile, Tibor tidies up his drums, Tim reads the Guardian and Ted, who has caught much of the drama on film, looks like a slightly unhinged young inventor in his Holden Caulfield hat, wonky specs and blue knit jumper.

The final straw came when Guy enthused 'it's sounding like Elton John', at which Nadim leaned forward and screamed at the mixing desk 'it's not supposed to sound like fucking Elton John, it's a house song!'

We are hoping to persuade him to rejoin after a few beers at the BBQ tonight. In the meantime, here are a few photos from the bunker.










Sunday 15 April 2012

New Scandinavia album


On Thursday we're decamping to a barn in Kent to record eleven new Scandinavia songs, almost a year to the day since we recorded 'Good Living'.

We've spent the past year travelling around the globe, listening to talented world musicians, trying to find some inspiration. Nadim went to Morocco for an art show. Tom went to Turkey and got a job. Tibor went to his native Hungary and bought some percussion. I went to Croatia and discovered my inner European.

Yep, we're going Ry Cooder with this one; whether it works or not is another thing altogether - indeed, it's all part of the fun.

Album launch - save the date!

We're putting on a show at the Wilmington Arms on Saturday 16 June. It'll be similar to last year - Scandinavian aperitifs and hors d'oeuvres, and a copy of the album via download. We'll post more details about that soon.

Artwork

That's the proposed front cover above. Nadim is working on a watercolour that might prove a last minute challenger. I'd like to get this cow picture in there somewhere. If you've seen any choice photos we could steal from instagram or pinterest, send them through.


Album title

The jury's still out on this one. We briefly considered Chandler Bing, but everyone we told about that recoiled in horror, so we've scrapped it (although we're hoping to write a tribute to our favourite Friend in the near future). 'The Gods' is the current frontrunner.



Songs

In no particular order the song titles are:

  1. Croatian t-shirts
  2. What can you give a girl who's got it all?
  3. Trending
  4. I don't do drugs (I just have fun)
  5. Shed a few layers
  6. San Pelligrino
  7. San Pelligrino (reprise)
  8. Bodies
  9. Fractions
  10. The Queen entranced by ancient prayer book
  11. How we use our brand
  12. Popular little street

Finally, Scandinavia is an enlightened democracy - what do you think of the artwork, album titles, song titles etc??

Thursday 12 April 2012

'I like whippets'

If ever there was a living, breathing definition of an idiot savant...

Or Jekyll and Hyde...

Or a charming sociopath...

Or maybe a loveable rogue?

It's Joey Barton. That he's a mediocre footballer only makes me like the guy more.

Of course, the art world is ridiculous, but what could be more absurd than a much-maligned Premier League jailbird in the polite environs of the National Portrait Gallery, talking to a Guardian journalist of all hacks, about an artist as revered as Freud? The funny thing is, by all accounts Freud was twice the sociopath that Barton is.

Joey Barton talks to the slides