News Page June 2002: News from the St. Thomas world, and updates to this page in June 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.

June 21st 2002 - The Norwegian music organization TONO will be handing out the Edvard-price in six categories during Norwegian festivals this summer. The rock category will be awarded at the Quart Festival in Kristiansand, and St. Thomas has been nominated for "Take A Dance With Me" in this category, along with Stockhaus for "Underdog," Kaizers Orchestra for "Dr. Mowinckel," William Hut for "Scarlet" and "Haakon for "Peace Comes Down." The winner gets 40.000 Norwegian kroner, approximately 5.000 euro. Thanks to Nettavisen and Dagbladet for their short notices containing this information.

St. Thomas will perform at Lt. Creutz Pub in Kongsvinger, Norway tomorrow. Thanks a lot to Raymond Hauger for this information.

June 7th 2002 - The complete St. Thomas concert as support act for Lambchop at Le Cabaret Sauvages in Paris, France on April 12th at the Labels France website, here. Select the link to St. Thomas audio in the right column. RealPlayer is required to play the audio file. Thanks to Emmanuel Plane from Labels and Thomas for this information.

As might be noticeable from the last couple of updates, Thomas has been showing a lot of interest and support for this page. Obviously caring about his fans, he would also appreciate getting e-mails from those who care about his music. Those who want to e-mail Thomas can do so by using his personal e-mail address stthomas1976@hotmail.com.

Public service announcement: Those who want to see St. Thomas live at festivals this summer and want to recognize the band should be aware that Thomas shaved his head three weeks ago, using a razor blade.

June 6th 2002 - As mentioned in the news the last two days, there are plans for another St. Thomas album to be released at least before 2003. It is not a new album per se, but Thomas found a tape of forgotten songs in an old bag, and want to release them. The working title for the album is "Mysterious Walks #2" and the idea is for it to be released by Krank Diskoz in co-operation with Racing Junior as a limited edition of five hundred copies on twelve inch vinyl only.

Here is what Thomas has to say about it: "The sound is between the 'Songs' EP released on Krank 1999, and 'Mysterious Walks' from 2000, extremely lo-fi. I want to release this because I feel it is an important part of the St. Thomas songwriting-story, and gives a close look into a beginners totally honest, unpretentious, melodic and intense music. I would recommend a well-trained ear!" He thinks this will be an interesting release for the enthusiastic St. Thomas-collectors.

The tracklisting for the "Mysterious Walks #2" twelve inch seems to be:

1. The Butcher And The Famous Duck  2. The Morning In The Evening Song  3. Untitled #2  4. Life Ends On A Normal Day  5. Clown  6. Almost  7. Morning Sundowner  8. Hot Spot  9. Become 10. The Building Down Society

This is not a confirmed tracklisting, but Thomas' current idea of how it might end up. "Hot Spot" written by Henrik Borge, the lyrics for "Almost" written by Berit Kyllingbergtrø.

Thanks a lot to Thomas Hansen for this information.

Phil Waldorf from Misra Records sent along some more American press reviews, one from Pulse! Magazine can be read here. The other reviews he has kindly submitted, plus some old articles and reviews I have yet to find time to type up, will be made available on the articles page soon.

This page has now changed webhost and address. From now on, the official address for this St. Thomas website is http://www.lamestain.com/. The word lamestain is slang for an uncool person, and should be easier to remember than http://st-thomas.madrugada.de/. The madrugada.de address will keep functioning for quite some time, but please update any links, bookmarks or other references to this page to fit the new address, thanks. References to the old address on this page itself will be changed sooner or later...

June 5th 2002 - Here is another update with information directly from Thomas:

The last two concerts in Ireland were canceled, and the band went to London, where Thomas got to spend some time with his girlfriend. After a couple of days there they went to Beverungen in Germany to play at a festival organized by City Slang, a very small festival with 1500 people attending, and St. Thomas did a very good concert.

There have been some change of plans, and Eivind on violin and Frode on drums are currently not part of The Magic Club, the St. Thomas backing band. Reasons are simply that Espen and Thomas did some very good performances by themselves with help from Lambchop members, and that it is not a very wise economical decision to be bringing along two people on tour just to play violin and drums. Bosse Litzheim will be joining the band on banjo, organ, drums, accordion and backing vocals, Espen will be taking care of bass, guitar and backing vocals while Thomas will play the guitar and sing.

Bosse did a fantastic job during the recording of "I'm Coming Home," and was supposed to have joined the band last Autumn. But he had problems with his ears, and was not allowed by his doctor to go on tour to play music every night, but luckily he seems to be in better shape now.

Thomas will go to Oslo on June 11th, and he, Bosse and Espen will start planning forthcoming live appearances. The unconfirmed schedule is looking something like this:

Working Class Hero Festival in Drammen, Norway on June 14th, Halden, Norway on the 15th, most likely two concerts on the 21st and 22nd, and the Roskilde Festival in Roskilde, Denmark on the 28th. Most likely they will be playing in the Blue tent at 14:30, which should be a good spot as there are not many big bands playing on other stages at that time.

After that all three will go to Berlin to do pre-production for the new album, namely recording demos. The album is scheduled to be recorded in Nashville in America from October 6th to 24th. In Berlin the three of them are planning on recording fourteen songs and then send them on to Mark Nevers who will be producing the album, and the musicians who will participate on the album: Jeremy Barnes (from Neutral Milk Hotel, Olivia Tremor Control and Bablicon) on drums, Matt Swanson (from Lambchop) on bass and Tony Crow (Lambchop) on piano and synth.

After demo sessions in Berlin St. Thomas will play at a festival in Dour, Belgium on July 14th most likely. There also seems to be quite a lot happening in August, but not much has been confirmed. Performances at Lost Weekend in Askøy, Norway on August 9th or 10th and Groruddalsfestivalen, Norway on the 31st will most likely be taking place, while Kongsvinger and Farsund, both Norway, also seem to be getting a visit this summer.

Before recording in October, there will most likely be an American tour, with Espen and Bosse joining Thomas on the road, maybe with the additions of Matt Swanson and Sam Baker from Lambchop, but this is undecided.

In other news, Thomas has gotten a computer and will be spending more time online and playing his new football manager game. He has found a nice video rental place in Berlin called Negativeland where they have English videos, and has been watching a lot of Hal Hartley videos lately. In addition he thinks that Kaizers Orchestra and Ai Phoenix are the best bands in Norway at the moment, but he has heard the new demos of Påsan, and thinks that this release will be great.

Thanks a lot to Thomas Hansen for all of this information.

The latest issue of Norwegian magazine Musikkpraksis features a five-page interview special with Thomas, and has a picture of him on the cover. The interview is a nice and interesting read, but for anyone who has paid attention to St. Thomas for the last half a year it will probably be a confusing experience to read. The interview seems to have been done around October last year, but the author has shuffled around some parts and tried to make it and up-to-date article. This leads to factual errors and a confusing article that would have been better off had it just been stated that it was an old interview and have some lines about what has been going on since been added to the end of the article, in my opinion.

June 4th 2002 - The St. Thomas seven inch "Songs," originally released in a limited edition of two hundred in 1999, is now available in another limited edition of two hundred on 33rpm black vinyl with black and white cardboard cover. The original release was by Krank Records, as kra021, while the label has now changed name to Krank Diskoz and the new version is krd005. Other than this and a new label logo on the back, the two releases are identical.

Here is a 'press release' on the seven inch: "Re-release of St. Thomas first release. Originally released on Krank records in 1999. St. Thomas in a more lo-fi mood at that time. Very good songs, and nice nice crappy sound."

Those who want to order the seven inch can contact Filip Ring Andersen from Krank Diskoz at filip@krank.no for price and information on how to obtain a copy, or visit the Krank Diskoz webpage at krank.no for other releases and more contact information.

According to Andersen, he has talked to Thomas just recently, and Thomas is interested in releasing more of his lo-fi material on Krank Diskoz. A rough guess from Andersen is that a twelve inch LP will be released this Autumn, including material from Kristiansand in the Summer and Autumn of 1999, and Bergen in Winter 1999 to 2000. But all of this is unconfirmed!

In other news, the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet arranged a netmeeting with Number Seven Deli yesterday, where St. Thomas was mentioned in one of the questions. A guy named Bjørn asked "What do you think about the music of the new Norwegian comet St. Thomas?" to which the band answered "We have had the honour of having a double concert with St. Thomas at Last Train in Oslo. That was a nice experience."

The biography has been heavily updated, with some old information added and an update to what has happened since the biography was originally written some months ago. The lyrics section has been updated with lyrics from "Mysterious Walks" and "The Cornerman EP," while there have been various updates to the concert chronology and to the discography.

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