News Page March 2003: News from the St. Thomas world, and updates to this page in March 2003. 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.

March 26th 2003 - Some more reviews added to the massive list on the main page. There have been twenty-six reviews published so far, and a majority of them have been very positive. Thanks to Claes Olsen from Racing Junior and Joakim Bjørnsborg for the latest reviews added to the list.

Claes also sent along a semi-complete tour schedule for the upcoming St. Thomas Norwegian and European tours. All dates have been added to to the concerts section, check it out to see when St. Thomas will be playing.

In the beginning of April Thomas will go on a promotional tour to do press and interviews in major European cities. Paris, London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Rome, Berlin, München and other cities will get a visit. A proper schedule of the promotional tour will hopefully be presented so that everyone can check out when Thomas will be in tour and get a timeframe for when to buy local newspaper and look for a St. Thomas article.

There is supposed to be an interview with Thomas and some pictures in the newest issue of the Norwegian magazine Fjords.

I might have been slightly wrong when I wrote earlier that "New Apartment" has never been shown on television. Apparently a one-minute clip was shown on the Norwegian television channel TVNorge last week. The song will be released as a radio single and the video will most likely get quite a bit of airplay in the near future.

March 25th 2003 - Today, St. Thomas' third full-length album, "Hey Harmony," debuted on a very impressive second spot on the official Norwegian album charts, VG Topp 40. As can be seen from the list on the main page, the album has been getting rave reviews in the Norwegian press, and the audience obviously shares the liking of the album. All the best to Thomas and to everyone who has helped him out, you truly deserve this.

March 24th 2003 - The promotional tour at Platekompaniet record stores in the biggest cities in Norway is finished. Lots of people came to listen to the mini-concert by Thomas and Bosse and to buy CDs and get them signed in most of the cities, so it was a succesfull tour, even though it meant the two of them had to do a lot of travelling across the country in a small yellow rental car to make it to the cities on the schedule.

I went to see them in Stavanger, and they played a nice set in front of about fifty people. The mini-concert ended with "Heroes Making Dinner" and "A Long Long Time" on sing-back, with Thomas dancing and walking into the audience. About thirty people bought "Hey Harmony" and got it signed afterwards. I would like to use this opportunity to say a special thanks to Thomas and Bosse for a very nice concert and for a very nice evening afterwards that made me feel very welcomed and very appreciated. Thanks.

On Friday the two of them appeared on the hit show "Topp 20" on the Norwegian television channel NRK1, performing "Heroes Making Dinner" with sing-back (the music on playback and the two adding the vocals live) and wild dancing and four teenagers in costumes similar to those in the "A Long Long Time" video dancing in the background. Thomas was also interviewed, and his e-mail address was read out live on television, so if his inbox is not full now it never will be. Feel free to make absolutely sure it gets filled up by sending him an e-mail at stthomas1976@hotmail.com if you have anything interesting to say or if you simply want to let him know what you think of his music.

Espen from Tundragroup sent me some still shots from the upcoming video for "New Apartment." The video has not been shown on television so far, but from the looks of these still shots it seems to be quite an interesting video. Click here to see the still shots. Thanks a lot to Espen for these.

March 20th 2003 - St. Thomas will appear on the program "Topp 20" on the Norwegian television channel NRK1 tomorrow afternoon. The show airs in two parts, from 16:03 until 17:00 and from 17:15 until 17:55. It is re-run on NRK2 on Saturday from 17:45 until 19:20. Most likely, either "Heroes Making Dinner" og "45 Seconds" will be performed by Thomas with full band, or there might be a very special performance of "Heroes Making Dinner" only by Thomas, which has been previewed on the current Platekompaniet promotional tour.

March 18th 2003 - There have been a lot of reviews of "Hey Harmony" lately, a list of some of them plus links to those that are available online can be seen on the main page. So far the album has gotten two six out of six ratings, one eight out of ten rating, twelve five out of six ratings and two four out of six ratings. Very impressive.

The album sale is going very well, also, the first pressing of the album was initially 15.000 copies, but as 10.000 copies had been pre-ordered to stores by Thursday last week it was upped to 18.000. The 3.000 limited edition copies featuring a bonus DVD are already gone. If someone from Polygram, who are responsible for St. Thomas distribution in Norway, reads this they should know that I hate them and that when you pre-order a limited edition CD you expect to get that, and not the ordinary one. But other than that slight mistake they seem to do a very good job.

A video for "Heroes Making Dinner" was made in Oslo this Sunday. It was directedby Ola Bratsås, who also did "Cornerman" and "Take A Dance With me," and features band members taking the tram down to the city to buy flowers and then going back to Thomas' apartment and having a party with Thomas' parents. According to Thomas it is a very nice video. Look forward to seeing it used for promotion near the Summer.

A video for "New Apartment" was shot in London some weeks ago. It was done by Tundragroup, who also did the cover for "A Long Long Time EP" and "Hey Harmony." Tundragroup are also making the new St. Thomas merchandise, there will be a poster, a postcard, buttons, and two different t-shirts with different colors and designs, both available in both girls and boys sizes. Theyhave also done the cover for "Live In Europe," which is a live CD that will be printed in a limited edition of 1.000 copies and sold on tour.

The concerts section has been updated with some confirmed dates for the Norwegian tour in April and May, in addition to three Danish dates. More to come once things get confirmed. Also, Thomas was guest on "Musikkmisjonen" on the Norwegian radio station NRK P3 last Thursday, I did not hear it but apparently it was a very good interview.

Thanks to Thomas for all this information.

March 17th 2003 - There has been a slight mistake with the release dates for "Hey Harmony" posted on this page, as the album will not be released in Sweden today. The album will be released in Sweden at the same day it is released in the rest of Europe, on May 12th. Also, the album is planned for release in Australia in May, but no exact date has been set. Release dates in Japan and America, if the album will be released at all, is still in the blue. Thanks to Claes Olsen from Racing Junior for the information.

March 14th 2003 - There is a one-page feature on St. Thomas in the Friday-extra in the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet today. You can read the article online here. Today there was also a netmeeting with Thomas at the webpages of the same paper, which can be read here.

Here is the complete schedule for the St. Thomas promotional tour visiting the chain store Platekompaniet in some of the biggest cities in Norway: Monday the 17th at Oslo City in Oslo, Tuesday the 18th in Kristiansand, Wednesday the 19th in Stavanger, Thursday the 20th in Bergen and Saturday the 22nd in Trondheim. All events are scheduled to start at 17:00 except for the one in Trondheim, which is scheduled to start at 13:00. The events include a mini-concert by Thomas and Bosse and record signing of the newly released "Hey Harmony" album.

Some papers and television shows have started reviewing the album, which will be released in Norway and Sweden on Monday March 17th. Natt & Dag rated the album five out of six, Hugin rated it four out of six and on the television show Sone2 on TV2 it was rated five out of six. Many more reviews are expected following the release next week, I will try to keep track of at least some of these reviews and add them to the articles section.

March 7th 2003 - The new St. Thomas album, entitled "Hey Harmony," will be released in Norway by Racing Junior on March 17th. Here is the tracklisting:

 1. A Long long Time
 2. 45 Seconds
 3. Everything Was Up For A Romance
 4. Heroes Making Dinner
 5. Be Cool Be Nice
 6. Like A Big Time
 7. Strengthen Your Bow
 8. Falling Down
 9. New Apartment
10. People In The Forest
11. Cowboy, Cowgirl - Moviestar, Moviestar
12. Institution
  + Waiting For Dave Cloud

The album is truly fantastic. Not a lot more can be said about it. This is the kind of music people should be standing in line for outside of record stores when they open on the 17th. Until then you can spend some time looking at the incredibly nice cover of the album here. The small version of this cover presented on the CD cover does this artwork no justice, so fortunately Racing Junior have put up a very large version of the cover here. The image is 1 MB in size, so it might take a long time to download.

To co-incide with the release of the album, St. Thomas will do a very short promotional tour playing at Platekompaniet record stores in four of Norway's biggest cities. The band line-up will only consist of Thomas on guitar and Bosse on drums, as on the last Norwegian tour. They will play in Oslo on the 17th, Kristiansand on the 18th, Stavanger on the 19th and Bergen on the 20th. Please check with the individual stores when it gets closer to the dates for exact times, the in-store performance will be about thirty minutes long.

There will be a proper Norwegian tour consisting of sixteen concerts over a period of four weeks starting with a performance at the Ole Blues festival in Bergen on April 23rd. The band will be playing from Wednesday to Saturday every week for a month, this time with the full band-line up consisting of Steven Sellick on guitar, Øyvind Thune on bass and Ivar Chr. Johansen on synth in addition to Thomas and Bosse.

The full tour schedule will be published some time soon.

Thomas' father will go on tour with the band, driving the bus and being in charge of selling merchandise at the concerts. A lot of nice merchandise has been made and will be sold at these concerts, including a t-shirt, postcards and an exclusive tour poster, in addition to a live CD called "Live In Europe" which will be pressed in a limited edition of 1.000 copies and will only be available for sale at St. Thomas concerts. The CD includes ten songs recorded live in Europe in 2002 and 2003, in addition to a previously unreleased cover of Ring's "Don't Believe In A Mushroom" as a bonus track, that one was recorded in Nashville during the "Hey Harmony" sessions.

Another exclusive St. Thomas release worth getting ahold of is one of the the first 3.000 copies of "Hey Harmony," which will feature a bonus DVD with the videos for "Cornerman," "Take A Dance With Me" and "A Long Long Time."

On February 27th 2003, a video for "New Apartment" was recorded in London, England. Another video, for "Heroes Making Dinner," will be recorded on March 16th. These two songs will not be released as singles, but the songs and the videos will be used for promotional purposes. The first will probably start airing around the time of the album release, while it might take until the Summer before the second gets airtime.

Those who have started planning their Summer vacation already should make sure to include a visit to Oslo's incredibly nice Øyafestivalen between August 7th and 9th in their schedule, as St. Thomas will be performing there. Thomas played the same festival with his first band, Emily Lang, in 2000, the last concert that band ever played.

Record release dates for "Hey Harmony" outside of Norway have not been confirmed yet. City Slang will most likely release the album in Europe in the beginning of April, and in addition a contract has just been signed with Australian record label Spunk for distribution in Australia and in Japan. But Thomas will go on a promotional tour doing interviews in Europe in the end of March, a schedule of where he will go and when should be made available here some time soon so that everyone outside of Norway can schedule when to look for St. Thomas information in their local newspaper.

March 4th 2003 - Last Monday, St. Thomas' "A Long Long Time" video debuted on the sixth spot on MTV Nordic's "Up North" charts. Yesterday, it rose to a very impressive third spot, thanks to everyone who have taken their time to vote for the video. The importance of being played on MTV should not be underestimated, and the only way to show the people at MTV that there is a demand for St. Thomas is to keep voting and try to make sure that the video stays on the chart.

You can easily vote for the video by following the link below, which is free. In addition you can vote by using your mobile phone and sending the SMS "up 3" to 2015 if you are located in Norway, 72220 in Sweden, 1275 in Denmark and 173266 in Finland. These SMS's cost a bit to send, I do not know how much.

Watch the program on MTV Nordic at 18:00 CET next Monday to see how well the video does. Remember, it only stays in the charts if enough people vote!

Vote for St. Thomas' "A Long Long Time" on MTV Nordic's "Up North" charts!