News Page April 2002: News from the St. Thomas world, and updates to this page in April 2002. This page is not an official source of information, if in doubt of accuracy of info please get in touch with webmaster of this page or the info source. Click here for latest news.

April 29th 2002 - Thomas sent along a very interesting tour report that he wrote after the concert at Fabrik in Hamburg tonight. I have taken the liberty of translating parts of it into English:

"We are just finished with the concert in Hamburg, another succesful performance. We were up to six people on stage today, Eivind was even there to play the violin, he is going back home after Amsterdam tomorrow. We have Matt Swanson on bass, Norman Nietsche the tour manager on drums and Tony Crow on melodica, organ, percussion and synth. Norman will be replaced as the tour managed by Sebastian, another Berliner, as he has to go home and work on his own musical project, Mina, who have a contract with Bungalow Records."

"We had to cancel the concert in Stockholm. We were supposed to go on Lambchop's bus, which has beds and goes at night, because the distance between Bergen, Stockholm and then Hamburg is too long. But they had an accident with their trailer on the way to Bergen, so there was no place for us on the bus. Espen and I will join them on the nightliner from today and until Portsmouth, as Lambchop now have two busses as the band gets expanded by five people in England."

"Most of the concerts have been sold out, and every CD sale is going fabulously well, the response from the audience is usually very, very good. The Lambchop audience fits us very well, and we are enjoying a great deal of respect even though we are only the support band."

"We do a set of ten songs every night, and six songs which are in consideration for the next record have their own place on the set. The next record will be recorded in Nashville in October, with a release planned for January. The working title right now is "Stay Away From California." I have ambitions of making an optimistic pop record, and I am aiming at a top spot on the record charts in January. It is good to aim high."

"We have now played twenty-one concerts with Lambchop, fifty-one all in all, there are fifteen left. Our condition is pretty good, with regards to very hard work and the difficult start, especially in Norway. We have a lot more focus on what we have to do: Play well. We learn a lot every day, the whole Lambchop group are indescribably nice and pleasurable people."

Thanks a lot to Thomas Hansen for this tour report. He added that "I'm Coming Home" has now sold 8.000 copies in Norway, "Mysterious Walks" has sold 4.500, and they think "I'm Coming Home" might reach 10.000 sold copies before the Summer is over, due to performances at Roskilde and Royal Albert Hall. They played eleven songs tonight, Thomas had plans of talking less and playing more, it went almost as planned. The set is the same as almost every night, with only some minor changes now and then:

"Heroes Making Dinner From The Outer Space," "Sunny Day," "Institution," "New Apartment," "Mysterious Walks," "Goodbye Emily Lang," "The Cornerman," "Invitation," "Falling Down," "The Cool Song" and "With The Feather."

Thomas also wrote that he hopes to put "With The Feather" on the next record, in a re-recorded version. "It deserves better than to be track number three on an EP released on in Norway."

April 27th 2002 - Thomas was on television last night. On the program "Absolutt Underholdning" on the Norwegian channel TV2 they had a segment about Lambchop and St. Thomas playing at Rockefeller in Oslo. A clip of the "Cornerman" video was shown and there was an interview with Kurt Wagner and Thomas. To be honest it is one of the worst segments I have ever seen on TV, even though it was positive it suffered from an obvious lack of direction.

April 26th 2002 - Lamchop and St. Thomas played in Oslo and Bergen in Norway on Wednesday and last night, the Oslo concert got great reviews from both Panorama and Oslopuls, read the first review here and the other one here. Both are in Norwegian. I have yet to find a review in the two national newspapers, Dagbladet and VG.

Worth to mention is that in Oslo, all eight members of Lambchop joined Espen and Thomas on stage for a 'fully choreographed' dance along to the karaoke version of "Invitation."

April 25th 2002 - Apparently St. Thomas' Roskilde Festival performance will take place on the Blue stage on June 28th.

Lambchop and St. Thomas will perform at Logen in Bergen, Norway tonight. According to the norwegian newspaper Dagbladet, this performance is part of Ole Blues Festivalen 2002.

Here is some information regarding the performance at Passionskirche in Berlin, Germany on the 23rd, thanks to Franziska Ress:

"I got to the venue at a few minutes to seven, and they had not started letting people in yet. St. Thomas were just having their soundcheck, but I could not recognize any songs, except for the last one which was 'With The Feather.' A few minutes later they opened up. I went towards the stage, and Thomas got out from backstage and said hi. He said that the sound was a bit difficult in the venue, and that they would perform a completely new song, "Heroes Cook Dinner In Outer Space." They could only play for half an hour, because there was a curfew at 22:00."

"Thomas and Espen suddenly got on stage at 19:40, even though they were supposed to start at 20:00. Before they started playing, Thomas called for someone named Tony Crow, from Lambchop, who was supposed to play organ on the first song. He also said they were going to play seven songs, out of which six had an ambition to get on the next album: 'Heroes Cook Dinner In Outer Space,' 'Sunny Day,' 'Institution,' 'New Apartment,' 'Goodbye Emily Lang,' 'Falling Down' and 'With The Feather.'"

"The first four songs were played by Thomas and Espen, and on the last three they were joined by Norman, the tour manager, on drums, and also someone from Lambchop. As usual Thomas talked a lot between the songs, he introduced everyone on stage with their ages, and told everyone to buy their CDs, because so far they managed to sell CDs to ten percent of the audience every night, except for in Vienna where twenty percent bought one, and it has become an obsession for him."

"In the beginning quite a lot of people were talking during their songs, which was really annyoing. There were also some people getting into the venue, since they had started playing earlier. So after the second song or so Thomas said that they had played seventeen gigs so far, and everywhere people had been quiet, and asked the audience there to be kind and do the same. He talked about their last gig in Dresden, where they played at a place that used to be a hotel and was now some kind of ballroom. He said it was spooky, there were ghosts there, and that the audience did not seem to know any English, they just looked at them with 'stone faces.' Backstage after the concert he told me the audience there had been older than usual, so maybe that was the reason."

"He also told the story about 'New Apartment' again, that he moved to Berlin five months ago and that this song was basically about his apartment and a cowboy hat. When the other people joined him on stage he said that the tour manager, who is from Berlin, was their tour manager and driver, but that he helps them out on drums and that he had this Berlin coolness. He said that people in Berlin are pretty cool, with their sunglasses and hair and stuff. A bit later he said that the record company people had only wanted him to play two songs with the band, and he did not really know why and seemed a little bit annoyed by that, if you ask me."

"After the concert I stayed backstage with Thomas until Lambchop were finished playing. Thomas went out to sing in the background choir twice, but he did not know the names of the songs. One was towards the end of the set, and the other one was the last song. Espen was on stage with Lambchop a couple of times more."

"A new St. Thomas album will hopefully be recorded in October, and is planned for release in January next year. On the last tour they sold a strange CD, which was actually a bootleg of St. Thomas on a radio show that they had made themselves. It sold out, but they are going to make new copies. Thomas said they had to record a tape for the car, as he and Espen are going in a separate car than Lambchop, and the car only has a cassette player."

"I asked him if there was a difference between the Madrugada and the Lambchop audience, but he did not really think so, except that the Lamchop crowd was a bit older. The last concerts have all been sold out, and the places they are going to play in England are all so large that 1000 to 3000 people fit in. He told someone else backstage that we had good movies here in Germany, but that everything was dubbed, and he had not found any video rental places with English videos yet."

In addition, Franziska asked Thomas some questions that I had sent along:

The St. Thomas feature on the FM4 radio show in Austria on the 18th probably consisted of an interview Thomas did with them a few weeks ago.

In Vienna only Espen joined Lambchop on stage, and Kurt Wagner joked that the reason for Thomas not being on stage was that "St. Thomas gets his nails done tonight." In reality, Thomas just does not feel like going back on a stage again after having played his own set, usually because is too tired. Espen sometimes does some percussion or background choir singing during Lambchop's performances.

Thomas did not know about upcoming concert plans until he happened to read about it on the Internet, as the booking agency had not contacted him about it yet. They agreed to have more contact in the future so that something like that does not happen again.

He liked the article that was published in the Norwegian music magazine Mute. They made him put on their t-shirts for the photos, but at least he could keep them. They had a lot more clothes there, jackets and stuff, that they wanted him to wear, but he refused to do that.

Thomas will not participate on Lambchop's next album. This is a journalistic mistake. The Lambchop people might record his album and Kurt Wagner might produce it, but that is all.

Thanks a lot to Franziska Ress for all of the information.

On the forum of the German Intro page, someone posted a message saying Thomas was supposed to play one song with Lambchop somewhere, or do some background singing, but he was too drunk to do that and walked away in the middle of the song. The accuracy of this information is questionable, as Thomas has stayed away from alcohol for the last two weeks.

Radio 1 in Berlin taped Lambchop's Berlin performance, but not St. Thomas'.

April 24th 2002 - St. Thomas has been confirmed for the Roskilde Festival in Denmark that takes place between June 27th and 30th. The exact date of performance is yet to be confirmed. Visit roskilde-festival.dk for info.

April 21st 2002 - St. Thomas was featured on the program "Homebase" on the Austrian radio channel FM4 on the 18th. Thanks to Bernadette for the info.

A Ducth article and an English translation of it done by Marc Verhees has been added to the articles page. About ten more articles, mostly in English and German, will be added as soon as I have some time for them.

April 20th 2002 - The Norwegian label Rec 90 will release a compilation album called "This Is Norway," which will include "Cornerman" by St. Thomas. The album is scheduled for Norwegian release on the 22nd, and for European release on May 17th. Thanks to Jan Saghaug for the info. Visit the label's home page at rec90.com for more information.

The "Labels Vision" sampler DVD that will be included for free with copies of "I'm Coming Home" sold in France, Germany, Italy, Belgium and The Netherlands between April 22nd and May 31st features the St. Thomas "Cornerman" video. According to intro.de it has been available for pre-selling for nine euro from April 2nd. Thanks to Franziska Ress for the information.

Labels France have put up a St. Thomas website, available here. The page is in French, but those who do not understand the language can spend their time there watching the "Take A Dance With Me" video instead. The page also has a little bit of information about the "Total Lee" tribute album to Lee Hazlewood, including that there were plans to release a Hazlewood-tribute album in the early Nineties, with grunge bands such as Nirvana and Mudhoney participating. Nothing was ever made out of those plans, unfortunately. Thanks to Jan Saghaug and Franziska Ress for submitting the link.

April 14th 2002 - After a little bit of work and talks with some very nice and helpful people, a St. Thomas videography has been finished. The section focuses on St. Thomas-related videos, and should hopefully be an interesting read for both those who have seen the videos and those who have not. Thanks a lot to director Ola Brattås, Claes Olsen and Thomas Hansen for their help.

St. Thomas' cover of Lee Hazlewood's "The Railroad" is available for download at the City Slang page. To get access to the song, click the "MP3 Club" link at the bottom of the main page, join the club by submitting a valid e-mail address, check your mail for a password, enter the club and download the song. You will also get to read what Lee Hazlewood says about St. Thomas and the cover version of "The Railroad":

"This is good to my ears... They're good. If I heard that on the air I wouldn't believe I wrote it. No, I know I wrote it, but I like that. That's very good. Now who was that? St. Thomas? Well, I enjoyed that. Mine is straight ahead, but that's a strange little song to choose to do. It has such a good feel to it. The feel's better than the song. And the artist is better than the original artist! (laughs) That's what makes it sad. It didn't depress me, I just wish I had that feel on mine!"

The song will be released on "Total Lee - The Songs Of Lee Hazlewood," a tribute album to Lee Hazlewood scheduled for release by City Slang in June.

The concert chronology section has been updated. There were some errors in the tour schedule for the Lambchop support dates, but these are fixed according to City Slang's latest confirmed tour schedule.

April 10th 2002 - According to the official page of the Working Class Hero festival in Drammen, Norway, unionscene.no, St. Thomas will play at the festival, which takes place on the the 14th and 15th of June.

The "I'm Coming Home" album is going to be part of a Labels Vision campaign. Between April 22nd and May 31st, the album will be sold at a reduced price in France, Germany, Italy, Belgium and The Netherlands, and will come with a free Labels DVD featuring videos and live material. The DVD is a sampler, and it is unknown whether there will actually be anything St. Thomas-related on it. The campaign also includes twenty-two other albums, for more info, in German, visit the German Virgin page at virgin.de, and choose St. Thomas.

April 5th 2002 - The Austrian webpage SPA have put up a five-minute St. Thomas video. It features live clips of "Walk With Me," "Strangers Out Of Blue," "The Cool Song" and "Invitation," plus an interview with Thomas, all filmed at B72 in Vienna, Austria on March 28th. The video can be seen by going to SPA's page and selecting the St. Thomas special in the menu to the right. There are two different versions of the video, one large and one small, go directly to the small one by clicking here or to the large one by clicking here. Thanks to the fan site st--thomas.com for the info.

During this tour, St. Thomas have suffered musically due to the lack of bass player, but the video shows that Espen is now taking responsiblity for the bass parts, at least on certain songs. An uninteresting tidbit; in the video Thomas is mistakingly referred to as Thomas Hans.

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