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

May 30th 2003 - The St. Thomas European tour seems to have been going great so far, I have received some updates from Thomas and from his dad on the mobile phone. Also thanks to the people who have sent e-mails with their thoughts of the concerts and so on, it is appreciated. Worth to keep in mind is that Thomas likes to check the guestbook of this page very often, so if there is anything you want to let him know when it comes to your thoughts about the music, please feel very free to post it in the guestbook.

Thomas and Karim have apparently played some fabulous concerts lately, Thomas said the concert at Atomic in München on the 26th was probably the best St. Thomas concert ever. The webzine Gaesteliste.de wrote a review of the concert, which can be read here.

On Wednesday Karim went home to have his final exam, and Thomas performed yesterday's concert at Gimle in Roskilde, Denmark by himself, with his girlfriend Ilse filling in on tambourine and background vocals. Apparently it went very well, Thomas will most likely also do a similar concert like this at Egersund Visefestival in Egersund, Norway on July 4th, as Karim will be busy with another concert that day. On the current tour, Karim will return today and the remaining concerts will be performed as a duo.

A new concert date has been added to the concerts list, St. Thomas will be playing somewhere in Amiens in France on June 5th. I do not know at which venue the concert will be taking place.

May 23rd 2003 - I got home from the Norwegian tour with St. Thomas earlier this week, but it has been hard to sit down and write anything about it. Lots of things happened, both good and bad things, and I suppose it takes some time to summarize it all in your head and try to make sense of it all.

First of all some good things: I had a lot of fun. It was fabulous to get the experience of travelling with a band that I love and with people that are very down-to-earth and who seem to appreciate to have me around. I brought my video camera on the two-week trip and ended up with about fifteen hours worth of St. Thomas material on tape, in addition to fifteen MiniDiscs of audio from the six concerts that took place. This should end up as a pretty decent documentary kind-of video, and with lots of great audio that will be made available through this page.

But then there were bad things too: Bassist Øyvind Thune and guitarist Steven Sellick left the band before the last two scheduled concerts. Being in the middle of such a break-up in the middle of a tour was pretty horrific, not recommended for any fan. The following concert in Odda got canceled, and Thomas and Karim performed the last outdoor concert in Skien on Norway's national day as a duo, it ended up sounding very good actually.

A long and proper story will be published here some time soon, including pictures, audio and video clips.

Thomas and Karim will be performing the European dates as a duo, but they rock and Thomas is able to carry any show on his shoulders, so it should be a great experience to see them live in the forthcoming weeks. The first concerts in Sweden in support of Evan Dando were scheduled, as the Swedish booking agency realized only earlier this week that Evan Dando would indeed bring along two support acts of his own for these concerts. The European tour starts in Hamburg tomorrow night.

As it seems now, Thomas will be performing the Danish dates solo, as Karim has to fly home to Norway to take an exam at that time, it is his final exams of his medical studies, and if he passes he will start working in the emergency room at Rikshospitalet in Oslo this Autumn.

Lots of European press on St. Thomas at the moment, co-inciding with the current European release of "Hey Harmony." The release date in England is May 26th. Here is a decent review in English from Guardian Unlimited. Bang Magazine has an excellent review and a nice picture of Thomas in their June issue. In addition the prestigious Sunday Times have "Hey Harmony" as 'album of the week' in their May 25th issue.

English The Fly rate the album five out of five and write: "Combining Neil Young's upper-octave style with a folksy yodelling of stories happy and sad, St Thomas, a former Norwegian postie, has produced a work of heart-wrencing beauty. That he now has behind him the same producer who delivered Lambchop and Will Oldham's latest albums gives credence to the fact that he has come a long way artistically from his previous album. [...]"

X-Ray rate it four out of five: "There's more to Norway that the denim-clad grease monkeys that are Turbonegro. Hey harmony is a sweet collection of genre-straddling songs that veer from alt.country to yodelling Norwegian folk to the purest of pop. [...] Consider him also as a happier Ed Harcourt or more charming Richard Hawley."

In addition to Bang Magazine there will be reviews in MOJO, The Independent, Q, Uncut and other English magazines in the forthcoming weeks.

There has also been a bit of St. Thomas attention in Sweden, Helsingborgs Dagblad and Nordvästra Skånes Tidningar rates the album four out of five and Värmlands Folkblad and Smålands Posten rates it three out of five.

In Norway "Hey Harmony" has sold 13.000 copies since the release March 17th this year. Thanks to Claes Olsen from Racing Junior for all the information regarding articles and record sales.

May 14th 2003 - Just a short update to notify everyone that St. Thomas will be featured on the program "P1-Scenen" on the Norwegian radio channel NRK P1 on Friday night between 22:00 and 23:00. Parts of the band's performance at Ole Blues Festivalen on April 25th will be broadcast.

May 5th 2003 - I went to see St. Thomas in Farsund a week ago, and they sounded a lot better than what the Norwegian tabloids have wanted people to believe recently. It did not sound perfect, which is pretty natural as it was the new band's third-ever live performance together. After that they have played for another week, and according to Thomas it sounds better every day.

On Wednesday I will go to Oslo and join St. Thomas for the last two weeks of their Norwegian tour, starting in Sogndal on Thursday. I am very excited and am looking forward to a great experience. Due to this, the page will not be updated for quite some time, as I doubt I will have much time to sit in front of a computer. But some time after May 17th there will be a massive update with a tour diary, interviews with everyone in the band, MP3s of live recordings done during the tour and video clips from behind-the-scenes and of the band on stage. That should make up for the lack of updates recently!

Those going to see St. Thomas at Rockefeller in Oslo on May 10th should keep an eye on the merchandise section, as a very limited numered vinyl edition of "Hey Harmony" will hopefully be available for sale at that concert. The vinyl features a different cover than the CD, actually a re-make of Thomas' hand-made cover for his demo CD called "Hey, Harmony." The LP comes in an edition of 300 limited copies, on heavy 180 gram vinyl. Collector's item de luxe.

There should be reviews of "Hey Harmony" in the following British magazines: X-Ray current issue, Bang mid-May issue, MOJO mid-May issue, The Fly May 1st issue, Stereoeffect webzine, Uncut July issue out early June, Q July issue out June 1st. Some magazines are likely to run reviews: Rocksound, Time Out, NME, Sunday Times, Ceefax and XFM website.

In addition there will be a St. Thomas feature in the mid-May issue of Bang.