HA! You thought you were finally rid of Tothe International. Maybe you heard that Matt moved back to Hamburg, and maybe you even know about Miko leaving the band.
Well, both things are quite true, but this is NOT the end of Tothe.

Matt has in fact moved back to Hamburg in order to finish his finnish(!) studies at the University. He left the fair city of Copenhagen before summer, but has been back twice to record more songs from the forthcoming Tothe album (and get drunk at the Roskilde Festival, and play at VibraCrunch). He is right now working his ass of writing his thesis, but in between he has found the time to book a couple of German dates for Tothe. The band will play Hamburg (Bar Do Sul on friday the 29th) and Berlin (TBA on sturday 30th) in the last weekend of October and also do the very last recording for the album.

Miko has left Tothe International. Sad but true. This whacky person has been the central person of the band for many years although he doesn’t write songs, can’t play a musical instrument or even sing to save his life. Somehow it has always been a cool thing about the band that they had this guy hanging around on stage only adding a few shouts or noises to the music. Through the years Miko’s position has gained power, though. He has grown into a really great tambourine player, and as his arsenal of toy instruments and noise makers grew, his small ”pieces” became more and more important to the actual music. So it is truly
sad that Miko has decided he wants to hang out somewhere else, but as he puts it himself: ”I’m not a musician. I’m not interested in making music.
I just like being on stage and getting drunk.” ”Well, Miko”, one might reply, ”Getting drunk on stage IS what being a musician is all about!”
Of course the band totally respects his decision, and the rest of the guys are now working out a new live format, that will enable them to still have a superfluous guy on stage. This might involve more sequenced drums, samplers or maybe 1 or more new members, but that is for the future.

	”Ladies and Gentlemen! Is that tie in bad taste, or what?” Miko and Show during Miko’s farewell gig at VibraCrunch during the Malmö Festival ’99.
Here’s Miko working his toy magic during ”Media International”.

Right now Tothe is focusing all their brainergy on the new album. They have recorded 9 new songs and are in the process of mixing them. In the fall they will complete 2 or 3 more songs thus compiling a wonderful new album. To gain absolute freedom and control over the production, the band and producer/technician/live-mixer Ueffeuno ”Knubi” Lauesen decided to invest in hard disc recording equipment which will enable them to fuck up the recordings real good. The use of the computer also provides an almost unlimited number of tracks supplying Tothe with the opportunity to use even more strange and unusual instruments.

The last benefit is that the mad scientists can write music they don’t have to worry about being able to play.

The recordings have been made primarily in the rehearsal room, but also in the living rooms of Nalna and Uffe.
The new album will feature instruments such as vacuum cleaners, the old whiskey bottle (known from Steak), double bass, Farfisa Organ, the mighty Banjoe, steel guitar, water splashes, 5-double theremin-solo and the whole standard Tothey bag of tricks administered by Miko, who IS indeed appearing on the record delivering both outstanding tambourine performances and letting
his beautiful voice be heard on several tracks.

There are two problems, however!

The first problem left is: What is the record going to be called? Some of the suggested working titles are: ”Yes, Steak....”, ”Bring on the swear jar”, ”mælk!”, ”We can’t afford Steak”, ”Glued Down Rubber Bar”, ”Ernst Madsen”, ”Kondi” etc.

The second problem is: what the hell is the band going to be called? As you surely know Tothe released their debut ”Candy’s Speech” under the name of Death Tothe, then came ”Steak” by Tothe International, and now it would of course be the easy way out to call the band International Death, but nobody said it was supposed to be easy. The band need a new name - preferably containing the word ”Tothe” (for SOME kind of continuity)

Can you help? Got any suggestions? E-mail the band through their band-page here at the Crunchy Frog web site or just write them at:

tothe@crunchy.dk

The winner(s) will get some kinda junk present.... whatever the band can come up with... old posters, used drums skins, broken stuff.... and maybe even a record.

Here at Crunchy Frog we have always regarded the Vibrafon label with the utmost respect. These are the guys that release Eggstone, The Mopeds, Dipper and many other great swedish bands. We got to know them personally when THAU for the first time went to Tambourine Studios to record their album ”Swish”. During the following years a mutual fondness and friendship (and drukenness during the famous Tambourine Parties) between the two labels has grown, and in many small ways we have been able to help each other out or we have asked each other for valuable advise. A lot of personal and musical friendships
between the danish and the swedish bands has developed as bands (via the KUBI booking agency) has teamed up for touring in Denmark - for instance: Tothe International + Dipper and Three Blind Mice + Learning From Las Vegas.

All this goodwill had to amount to something big - other than Vibrafon kindly adding the whole Crunchy catalogue to their Vibrashop e-mail-order webshop. And it surely did.


One fine summer day during the Malmö
Festival ’99 the two soul mate record labels Crunchy Frog and Vibrafon Records collaborated on a one day Grunge feast (haha, yes! Grunge is back, kids...) featuring bands from both labels. Here is how it went seen through the lenses of Rune Mielonen (bass player of Las Vegas) and Jessica Tolf Vulpius (from KUBI).


After a few semi-acoustic Malmö-acts, Learning From Las Vegas had the tough job of being the first real Grunge band to enter the stage in broad daylight. Against all these threatening odds they performed a truely beautiful show. Everybody laid back in the grass and enjoyed the weather and the high strung power-death-core punk of Las Vegas. 



Superheroes brought their own fans from Denmark and gained even more during their sunny and jolly koncert. Once again the 35cm tall and only 12 year old singer Thomas, delivered a great performance of ”Jeg kan høre med mit øre” in a special Grunge-version that took everybody by surprise. Yes, the weather was fine, the music was sweet and the youth got drunk and it was SO New Wave the whole thing.



Lead singer Henrik from the Umeå Grunge-rock outfit Ray Wonder is a hard core south paw and plays his left handed guitar better than most would. Unfortunately the otherwise superb Wonder-gig was stopped for 5 minutes as he broke a string, and they didn’t have a back up spazz guitar for Henrik. So they played some bossa and everything was fine... ’cause everybody loves bossa.



All during the day our two labels tried to sell all our beloved merchandise
to the public. In this picture it seems like it is The Grunchy Booth - serviced by Per from Vegas - that has the most attention. Probably because of Per’s winning personality and great looks (no offense to Lina from Vibrafon servicing the other booth). In the front left we see the Vibrafon main man Martin Theander - also a very handsome man and a snappy dresser, too.



At dusk the insane boys from Düreforsög entered the stage. As usual they were dressed in bizare outfits that left nothing to the imagination - unless you’re Jean-Paul Gaultier. Their special brand of Grunge hit the primarily swedish audience like a sledge hammer. The rain started to fall, but everybody stayed. This picture shows old man Boriz gasping for air (get in shape, boy!), Nis B equally struggling with his guitar chords and his own hair do (get a freaking hair cut - and another roadie, too). In the background Andreas is as always dead calm under pressure.



First Floor Power hasn’t got a label yet, but they sure are great! They got it all: good songs, beautiful girls and a singer with a big moustache. Who could ask for more? Oh, yeah - a Grunge trombone, maybe, but they of course
thought of that already....



As night began to fall, the rain fell even harder. As Tothe International entered the stage the sky was clear, the crowd was nicely drunk and everything was juuuust fine. Then Harri ”Grunge” Kolari of Dipper joined the band (small photo) to do the finnish rap in ”Theme From Token Negro”. This was highly emblematic for the danish/swedish brotherhood but it somehow disturbed some kinda weather god, and soon it was pouring down. The larger photo is dedicated to THA Miko who played his last show with Tothe. Here he is playing a peculiar plastic toy making a weird plastic noise. We’ll miss that about you Miko. You always knew how to play something silly and make it sound even sillier (if that’s even a word...)




No! Although this is absolutely a Grunge picture, Dipper did not play any Mudhoney covers. As alwyas Dipper played the best koncert they ever played and singer Joachim fucked himself even more thoroughly up than ever before.  During ”Rattlesnakes” he jumped out from the stage and into a big pool of mud in front of the stage. During the rest of the show he was - as Per Sunding would say - ”All gahvered in shit!”



And the crowd loved it!!!

 

 

 

 
As the icing on the cake - and as an excellent symbol of the love and understanding of the swedes and the danes the danish/swedish garrage surf band The Tremolo Beer Gut played as the last band. In this band you find Per Sunding (from Eggstone) who is co-owner of Vibrafon and Jesper Reginal (THAU & Tothe) who is co-owner of Crunchy. Tremolo delivered a truly inebriated show before a pretty wet audience. The show featured two outstanding guest performances from Ander Reuss (from Naked) playing his Theremin and Patrick Bartosch (from Eggstone) playing the organ. A fantastic end to a fantastic day. We gotta do this again.