News Page January 2004: News from the St. Thomas world, and updates to this page in January 2004. 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.

January 31st 2004 - Special appearance at Rockefeller
The St. Thomas concert at Rockefeller in Oslo next Wednesday will feature Trond Ingebrigtsen as a special guest. Ingebrigtsen is the singer of one of Thomas' favorite bands, Bjølsen Valsemølle, who were big in Norway in the Eighties. They will perform three Bjølsen Valsemølle songs, and Ingebrigtsen will also sing on four St. Thomas songs. Thomas reckons this will be the highlight of his musical career.

In addition to this, old guitar player Espen Mellingen has returned to the band to play at four concerts on the current tour. He played guitar and sang at the two concerts in Bergen, and will also be on stage in Oslo and in Trondheim. Thomas expressed gratitude to see Espen back in the game, since he was part of the early incarnations of the St. Thomas band. Thomas rates the Bergen concert on Friday January 23rd as the best St. Thomas concert ever.

January 31st 2004 - St. Thomas forum
The St. Thomas forum is now up and running through the official St. Thomas page at stthomas.no! Click here to visit, and feel free to start posting!

January 30th 2004 - Server change
This page and stthomas.no are being moved over to a different server. Everything from the old server has been backed up and copied to the new server, so nothing should go missing. Today and maybe also tomorrow some visitors might experience that non-static pages such as Thomas' news, these news and the guestbook will have varying content, due to the fact that some will see the content on the old server and some will see the old.

Hopefully the transition will go fine. As soon as everything is up and running, the St. Thomas forum will be unveiled on Thomas' official page. Hopefully it will be a useful resource for discussing everything related to St. Thomas amongst other St. Thomas fans and even Thomas himself. Hope you like it, I expect it to be available through stthomas.no by tomorrow morning.

January 28th 2004 - Angry St. Thomas
Artists have to deal with bad reviews. It comes with being an artist and releasing records. But just because you are an artist and you release an album, does that mean you also have to accept that reviewers publish their thoughts of how the artist "seriously stimulates the sadistic gene we all carry in us"?

St. Thomas thinks not, which is why he published a very personal letter to this specific reviewer on his webpage at stthomas.no. Personally I understand Thomas very well, I feel that certain people in the Norwegian press have taken their liberties in ridiculing Thomas not just as an artist but also as a person, sometimes going way over the line when it comes to what they get away with when writing about him. Obviously, Thomas has chosen to stand up against this that he feels is very unfair treatment, and I can only hope that certain reviewers bother to read through his letter and take notice, and maybe next time consider the fact that they are writing about a person with feelings and emotions.

You can read the original review here (in Norwegian) and judge for yourself.

January 28th 2004 - Animated St. Thomas
The program Lydverket on the Norwegian television channel NRK1 will feature a segment with the animated story of St. Thomas tonight. I have no idea what it is all about, but it should be pretty interesting. The program will be aired tonight at 23:10 and re-run on NRK2 Sunday at 18:40. You can also view the program online here after it has been aired.

January 22nd 2004 - Report from Stavanger, January 21st
Thomas played in Stavanger the second time in just one week, this time a proper concert at Checkpoint Charlie with his usual band consisting of Karim Sayed and his girlfriend Ilse Lazaroms. The concert in Stavanger was the first on the Norwegian tour, but preparations were not ideal as Thomas' guitars got stolen in Trondheim last weekend. Luckily he got ahold of good replacements which he likes very much. In addition to that, the wagon they were going to rent to put their equipment in turned out to be too big and too expensive, so at the last minute it was decided that the equipment would go in the car along with Thomas and his father who is the tour manager and driver, while Ilse and Karim would go on the Norwegian tour via train, bus and boat.

They met up in Stavanger for a soundcheck that went very well, great sound right from the start. The concert started at ten, which is pretty early for Norwegian concerts. Checkpoint Charlie have been very strict with when it comes to when bands go on stage lately, and seem to have gotten a grip on the common problem at concerts in Norway; the few drunken idiots in the crowd who manage to ruin a good concert for everybody else. The audience last night was great, Thomas got an excellent rapport with the 110 people who paid to see him, telling long stories in-between every song bar one or two towards the end.

A very good concert, towards the top of the list of the St. Thomas concerts I have ever seen. Make sure to check him out on the current tour if you have a chance to, he has never played better guitar, his voice is getting better for every show he plays, and the vocal harmonies with Karim and especially girlfriend Ilse on certain songs just sound lovely.

Thomas has written a short report from the concert himself at stthomas.no, which is a page worth checking regularly for news directly from him. The forum should also be up and running very shortly, giving St. Thomas fans a place to spend time on the Internet.

Pstereo have a review of the concert here (in Norwegian).

Here is a picture from soundcheck:



January 21st 2004 - Album chart
"Let's Grow Together - The Comeback Of St. Thomas" debuted on a very weak 25th place in its first week on the official Norwegian album chart, Topp 40, 23 places lower than where "Hey Harmony" debuted. Some things indicate that this position might be slightly off target, though, as in the charts for album sales in the West of Norway his album debuts at the 3rd place, and he has usually sold much more in the East around Oslo than elsewhere.

The reason for this low placement might be that the album is being sold both as a usual single-CD and as a limited edition double-CD with a DVD, and that these two might be counted as separate entries on the charts. Time will tell.

Hopefully people will show up on the St. Thomas tour stops and show their support, starting tonight at Checkpoint Charlie in Stavanger.

January 21st 2004 - Guitar problem solved for now
Thanks to Myhrbraaten Musikk in Oslo, Thomas has gotten two new guitars for the upcoming Norwegian tour. The electric guitar is a Fender Telecaster re-issue of the original 1952 model, in a color called butterscotch blond, and the acoustic is a Martin D-1 with a Fisherman pickup.

His two stolen guitars are still missing, though, and if anyone can help feel free to send Thomas a mail at stthomas1976@hotmail.com.

January 18th 2004 - Thomas' guitars stolen
Thomas' two guitars were stolen from his car last night, in a parking house in Trondheim. Someone broke into his red 1979 Dodge van and took the valuable guitars and their carrying cases, but left the car and all the other equipment untouched.

The first guitar is an acoustic Martin SWD made of ecological wood and with golden tuners, featuring a Skeid sticker. The second one is an American-made Fender Telecaster, Sunburst, with white pickboard and a Bjølsen Valsemølle sticker. Both carrying cases are the originals supplied with the respective guitars, and are full of band promo stickers.

If anyone suspect they know where these guitars might be at, Thomas would naturally appreciate all help he can get when it comes to getting these valuable guitars returned, so if you can help him in any way then please e-mail him at stthomas1976@hotmail.com.

The Norwegian tour starting next Wednesday will go through as planned, but Thomas will have to look around and try to borrow replacements.

January 15th 2004 - Report from Stavanger, January 14th
Halfway through his promotional tour at Platekompaniet record stores in Norway, Thomas and his friend Alexander pulled into Stavanger in Thomas' very noticeable red 1979 Dodge van. Alexander turned out to be an incredibly nice person, whose drumming style fits to the St. Thomas music, and who can also play the banjo and harmonica. Thomas knew he fit in well in the St. Thomas style when they got to London last week to meet the record label people at Track & Field for the very first time, and they walked straight up to Alexander and greeted him with "Hello Thomas!" when they met. Alexander's drum kit proudly displayed a drawing by Thomas in the style of the album cover saying "St. Thomas live featuring Alex."



As has become usual with these Platekompaniet concerts, Stavanger is the city where the least people show up. There were maybe thirty people present, but just like last time a lot of them bought an album and got it signed. The audience was very quiet and nice during the close-to forty minute concert, which saw Thomas and Alexander play the following songs: "Winter Sprinter," "Sunny Day," "An Artist With A Brilliant Disguise," "Like You Know," "The Cool Song," "Take A Dance With Me," "Let's Grow Together," "Cornerman" and "The Red Book."

After the concert Thomas did a very interesting interview for Pstereo.no, going through the album track-by-track and telling the story of each song. It should be available some time soon, but be sure to check out the page even if the interview is not available yet, as it is a fantastic place to learn about albums and artists you will love once you hear them. They even placed Thomas' favorite band Herman Düne as number one on their Top Albums list for last year.

Thomas said that he would update stthomas.no with reports from all the promo concerts when he gets back to Oslo this weekend. Alexander has brought along a digital camera on the tour, and Thomas will post some of these pictures. To compete with Thomas' great-looking page and promises of exclusive pictures, I have had to decide to start using some more pictures on this page, too. I hope you like it. Together with Thomas I will try to make both this and his page much more interactive in the following weeks, plus we will try to add a bit of multimedia, so that a visit to these pages will be even more interesting in the future.

January 15th 2004 - Introducing Alexander
Alexander Lindbäck is the newest member of St. Thomas' The Magic Club. He is a stand-in for regular drummer Karim Sayed whenever he is not available to play for St. Thomas. When playing with Thomas, Alexander plays drums, banjo and harmonica. Some at the same time, others not.

Below is a picture of Alexander with St. Thomas at Platekompaniet in Stavanger on January 14th 2003:



Alexander will be twenty-five years old in February, and he has his own band called Seven Doors Hotel. Whenever he is by himself, he also has his own solo project, which is called Seven Doors Hostel. It is the same as his band, only without the other musicians. Their homepage can be found here.

His first concert with St. Thomas was at the Winter Sprinter festival at Water Rats in London on January 7th 2003, after having rehearsed with Thomas eight times. He has known Thomas for some time, and became a member of the band before Thomas had even heard him play. Thomas believed that he was good and wanted to play with him, and at their first rehearsal he found out that he had been right.

January 15th 2004 - Radio and television appearances
On the program Absolutt Underholdning on the Norwegian television channel TV2 last night, the St. Thomas segment was filmed when Thomas and drummer Alexander went to the radio station NRK P1's studios in Oslo to perform on the program Kveldsåpent. The television segment featured an interview with Thomas and Alexander, and footage of them performing "Like You Know" on the radio show.

The actual recording of "Like You Know" and "Sunny Day" plus an interview will be aired on Kveldsåpent on NRK P1 tonight Thursday January 15th between 19:07 and 22:00. For those that miss it, there will apparantly be a chance to listen to the performances online through the program's webpages, which can be found here.

Thomas and Alexander also performed three songs for Cowboy & Indianer on NRK P1. The songs were "Love Is A Rose" by Neil Young, "An Artist With A Brilliant Disguise" and "Winter Sprinter." The show was aired last Friday and re-run last Sunday and two nights ago, and only the two first songs were included on the broadcast. For those that missed it, like me, there does not seem to be a chance to hear it online.

There will be at least two forthcoming televison appearances on the Norwegian television channel NRK1. Thomas has said yes to appear on Frokost-TV, most likely in the beginning of February, and on Etter Skoletid some time in the near future.

Lately, Thomas has been very public in putting emphasis on being fed up with being featured on hit shows like Topp 20, where he felt uncomfortable amongst all the other more hip and trendy people, and often had to lip-sync to his songs. Part of his 'comeback' has been to re-take control of his career and no longer participate in events he felt uncomfortable with. Funnily, just yesterday he got a phone call from Topp 20 asking if he would be a guest on the show. They obviously did not get the hint. He politely declined.

January 13th 2004 - Segment on Absolutt Underholdning
There was a St. Thomas-segment on the program Absolutt Underholdning on the Norwegian television channel TV2 tonight. The program will be re-run later tonight from 01:30 to 01:55 for those that missed it. Thomas said that it was a pretty funny segment. The album was also reviewed, and got the usual three out of six rating that has become pretty common by now, but the reviewer was pretty positive and said that half of the album was really good, but what dragged it down was the remaining half. He said it was an album which would make fans of St. Thomas love him even more, and those who hate St. Thomas hate him even more, which according to Thomas might very well be true.

January 13th 2004 - First reviews
The first reviews for "Let's Grow Together - The Comeback Of St. Thomas" have started ticking in, and it is not very pleasant reading. The two major Norwegian newspapers VG and Dagbladet both rate it three out of six, which the Internet newspaper Nettavisen also does. You can read that review here. Fædrelandsvennen, which is located in Kristiansand where St. Thomas will play two concerts today, rates it two out of six.

In a comment to this, Thomas says that he feels the listener has to put the album on a few times before it will start growing on them.

January 12th 2004 - Album released in Norway today
"Let's Grow Together - The Comeback Of St. Thomas" was released in Norway today. Expect lots of press about St. Thomas in the following days. The album also comes in a limited edition of 2.000 copies featuring a bonus DVD "On The Road With St. Thomas," which includes a tour documentary made by Thomas, and four music videos. The seven-inch "Winter Sprinter EP" is also available.

January 12th 2004 - Norwegian tour
There will be a Norwegian tour from January 21st to February 9th, including a performance at Rockefeller in Oslo on February 4th. Check the concerts list for the entire schedule. The line-up for these concerts will be the usual one featuring Thomas on vocals, guitars and banjo, Ilse Lazaroms on melodica, percussion and vocals and Karim Sayed on drums and vocals.

Thomas' father, featured on the front cover of the "On The Road With St. Thomas" DVD that comes with a limited edition of the new album, will be driving the band around in Thomas' newly-bought Dodge van from 1979.

January 12th 2004 - Platekompaniet promotional mini-tour
The Norwegian St. Thomas tour starts on January 21st, but before then Thomas will take along Seven Doors Hostel's Alexander on drums and banjo and do a promotional mini-tour at five Platekompaniet record stores.

The concerts take place at Platekompaniet at Oslo City in Oslo on Monday January 12th at 17:00, Kristiansand on Tuesday the 13th at 17:00, Stavanger on Wednesday 14th at 17:00, Bergen on Thursday the 15th at 17:00 and Trondheim on Saturday the 17th at 14:00.

There will also be two normal concerts in-between these shows, at Østsiden in Kristiansand in the evening on Tuesday, and at Scena in Ålesund on Friday. These concerts will just feature Thomas and Alexander, while the Norwegian tour will feature the usual line-up of Thomas, Ilse and Karim.

January 12th 2004 - Deal with Trocadero Records
St. Thomas has agreed on a licensing deal with Trocadero Records for release of "Let's Grow Together - The Comeback Of St. Thomas" in Germany, Australia and Switzerland. Release date is unknown, but it will most likely be around the same time as the British release in April.

January 12th 2004 - Official St. Thomas page re-done
If my ramblings and random news on this page were not enough, the official St. Thomas page at stthomas.no has now been updated. The page now serves as St. Thomas' official home on the Internet, with frequent news messages and exclusive pictures posted by him, in addition to a forum (which should be ready soon) and the merchandise section which has occupied the page before.

I designed the page and did the code for it, so if anything looks wrong please be kind and send me an e-mail so I can fix it. Hope you like the page!

January 12th 2004 - New system for updating news
Due to the relatively small amount of news updates there have been on this page lately, caused mainly by a backwards way of manually updating the files, the news system has now been changed. For you as a visitor there will hopefully not be many visible changes apart from every news subject now being separated so that it will be easier to stay updated in the St. Thomas world.

Hopefully all of this new code will work alright, and hopefully it will also lead to more news being posted on a more regular basis. All the earlier news have been put onto separate pages, use the menu below to browse through the older news.

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