The un-Godly and netherworldly trio of Loop Girl (Maria Timm), Hank Robot (Kim Kix of PowerSolo and Cinders fame) and Frank Ziaynak (Death to him, btw) are going on tour together. DJ Lars Løbner will back with wiolent wax. If these cats roll by you: hit the deck - they don't shoot blanks. Get on out there. 

y 

 Oh yes young 'uns. We are fastly approaching the event of the year! Our very own happy birthday! As you have undoubtedly been readin in these e-pages, it is going to be quite the feast.

TICKETS are limited and cost 115 kroner + handling fee. And here's a hot tip for ya. If you buy advance tickets at Vibrashop.com then you just pay the handling fee once regadless of how many tickets you buy. If you buy at the door it'll be 15 kr handling fee for each ticket. On top of that we might sell out all the tickets in advance, and then you'll stand there like a s.u.c.k.e.r all dressed up and nowhere to go but... home. 

PS: After thursday sept. 3rd at 6pm the pre-sale tickets will not be sent to you. We will in stead email you and tell you where to pick them up at the door at the party! Apart from that we will also sell tickets for hard cash at the door on saturday!

THE LOCATION is UNDER VAND. This venue is fairly new and unknown to many. Maybe because it is truely an underground venue. As the danish name suggests it is indeed UNDER WATER. Conveniently located a brisk 15 second walk from the Ørestad Metrostation (on the oppositie side of the shopping mall Fields) you'll find some water reservoirs. It is below these that it is all going down on saturday 5th!

TRANSPORTATION is fairly obvious. It is a 15 second walk away from the Metro station kids! It takes just 12 minutes from Nørreport station, and the Metro runs aaaaall nite long, yo! Coming from Copenhagen you need to take the Metro towards Vestamager. Not the "Lufthavnen" line!

WHAT TO BRING? Your ticket might be a pretty good idea!. Apart from that you'll just need a lot of spending cash. Not that the bar is going to be expensive! At the warm-up session beers and hotdogs will be just 15 kroner. Later beers and cider will be 25 kroner (from Ølfabrikken) and drinks (G&Ts + Rum&Cokes) will be 30. Water and soda for 20. The good people from Dyrehaven will make pastrami deli sandwiches and gourmet sauseges all night long, so all your basic needs are going to be covered. Music, food, beer... and... Oh yeah- that's right: you also need to bring a bag! We are going to put up a nice Crunchy merchandise booth with prices that you just won't believe. That's how crazy expensive it's gonna be - NOT! We'll practically - and for some items literally - be giving stuff away!!!

There will be a wardrobe to put your jacket and bag for the duration of the party of course! We will also have 1 credit card station, so if you want to avoid long lines in front of that machine just stuff loads of crisp 100's and get ahead!

 FREE STUFF will be plentiful. Not only will we give our new release "SALUTING THE CRUNCHY FROG-A-LOGUE" out to the first 100 guests - we'll also draw lots for t-shirts, jackets and other goodies. Your lottery ticket will be your numbered admission ticket, so save it Goddammit!

THE PROGRAM for this party is nothing less than astounding!!! We will present to you in live action the very best that Scandinavia can offer. As we have said before: you cannot aford to miss any one of these fine bands' performances, so you need to arrive in time - and in style og course! The live shows will start at 19.30 - but before that:

17:00 WARM UP SESSION + RELEASE PARTY 

To celebrate the release of our 2CD compilation "SALUTING THE CRUNCHY FROG-A-LOGUE" about which you can read extensively in this weblog we gather as many of the performing non-Crunchy artists to listen to the full album in high fidelity stereo while congratulating eachother on a job mighty well done. Everybody can of course participate. We will also have sneak peak listens to forthcoming Crunchy Frog albums from Heavy Trash and Lars & The Hands of Light. Man, that is going to be something. We know - cause we know! By the way: the give-away of the first 100 copies of the 2CD set begins at 5pm - so get with the program asap! As written before: beers and dogs are just 15 kroner et the warm-up.

19:00 LIVE CONCERTS 

Each band will perform a set of about 35 minutes - PowerCinders a little longer, as they are 2 bands playing against each other. We have kept the running order a secret, and if the bomb strikes just before the parrty we will take it to our graves! Don't bet on the chance that your favourite band is not the first one! And just think what you'll miss (in total random order):

THE DEBUT FIRST-EST MOST-EST EVER SHOW of Lars and The Hands of Light. If you haven't heard the debut single - right now roaming the Danish airwaves - check the link immeddiately. It's a classic!

THE VERY SINGLE LAST-EST SHOW FOREVER AND EVER from the legendary epo-555. The band have been in hiatus and semi-brokien up for a year or so, but right now they are rehearsing like never before to give a poignant farewell. 

THE USUAL RED SMOKY INFERNO of The Tremolo Beer Gut. You know you want it. And only 35 minutes of TBG is a very short time to get your bottle up - and will leavy you aching for more. 

THE UNUSUAL BUT MAGIC PRESENCE of Mr. Asbjørn Auring Grimm of Decorate Decorate and Ms. Marie Højlund of Marybell Katastrophy as front man/woman for Beta Satan. Were you growing a bit tired of that asshole Kåre? Well, join the fuggin club. Nice to see some real singers in front for a change while Kåre is hopefully having a strong beautiful baby back home in Århus. Congratz in advance!

THE UNUSUAL BUT NOT UNPRECEDENTED PRESENCE of Mrs. Jenny Wilson as part of First Floor Power. Jenny of course used to be in the band, and this is a rare opportunity to hear a few of the hits that she fronted and that FFP haven't played for years. MAN!

THE AMAZING AND BULLITPROOF SOUND of Snake and Jet's Amazing Bullit Band, just returned from China and in total Kung Fu top form. They will chop chop you up and eat you like the dawg you are.

THE BRAND NEW TUNES FROM THE NEXT ALBUM from 18th Dye. Yessiree, the giants of rock are working hard on the next album, and emerge from Camp Dye with a handful of new songs + a few oldies!

THE BATTLE OF THE BROTHERS! Well we all knew that Kim Kix is a schizoid bastard, but now his freakbrother Bo has joined the madness... they both play in both PowerSolo and Kim and The Cinders of course... but tonight these bands will play against each other. Wazza? Well, we just have to wait and see what that is all about!

01.30 DJs, DRINKS, DANCING  

Jenny Wilson, Kim LAS and the Crunchy Crew will spin their fave records 'til dawn. There is no curfew! The trains run all night long. Get down! Ouwww! If space admits we'll sell late comer tickets for 60 kroner from midnite! But please: don't come late. If we're full you'll spend the night window-shopping at Fields. And that is just too sad innit? 

What is left to say? See you on saturday the 5th. We are pretty darned excited about this. It will be the stuff of legends, people! Come and celebrate the Frog's coming of age!

y 

As mentioned earlier on this very blog, we had Snake & Jet's Amazing Bullit Band travelling all the way to China to play at the InMusic Festival and the Mao Livehouse. We've been pretty anxious to hear about the tour and now we got this pretty decent tour diary with pictures and all. Sounds like a big cultural experience for Thomas and Thor. Read along...

We set off to China to play two shows – and with the desire to get ripped of. All the stories abouthow the Chinese people do amazing scamson stupid tourists really fascinated us. We dreamt about all kinds of scams –the tea scam, the language class scam, getting scammed on stage, maybe in ourhotel, at least in the streets or in a cab? But later we discovered that getting scammed in Beijing, wasn't easy at all – at least not for the Bullit Band.

Our first evening in Beijing was spent hanging out at a place called the Guitar Bar. Great place with a guitar menu card to make requests from. Two guitarists was playing instrumental evergreens on acoustic guitars, with a criminal dose of chorus. A young local guitarist who played that evening told us with great passion about his favourite guitartracks – like Hotel California.. Thor refused an invitation to jam with the guys – he had to save his magic for our own show the next day. 

Our first show in China was at a place called Mao Livehouse, close to our hotel. We started the day out with a delicious Hong Kong style lunch (spicy Chinese food) with our Canadian friend Jon, who was working for the InMusic Festival. Later we dragged our equipment through the extreme warm and muggy heat, through the grey smog and the smell from the small street kitchens, to Mao Livehouse which is a fine place that resembles any European rock club with black walls and warm beers. We played a fine show – loud and chaotic and just fine. Some familiar Danish faces in the crowd spoiled the exotic vibe of being thousands of kilometres from home, but showed to be great drinking companions later on.

Next morning we discovered the sensation of ice-tea-coffe-milk. A weird beverage from the local convenience store – a mix of Snake & Jet's favourite drink, coffee, and theChinese national drink tea – and then some milk. The taste can't be explained with words. Try it. Then we got in a bus with Jon and some famous Chinese band.This was the day we were playing at the enormous InMusic Festival – the reason we had travelled to the other side of the planet. The drive was meant to be twohours, but showed to be five. The people arranging the festival thought it might scare somebands of, so they said two instead of five. Very clever...
 

After passing five nuclearpower plants, a great wall, nomad gypsies with camels, various sandy mountainsand strange fields, we reached the festival grounds. A wide stretched plain, peopled with Mad Max motorists and military police all racing towards the GIGANTIC flat screen of the main stage. Our cunning driver chose the fast but bumpy straight route, delivering the slightly shaken artists to the chaos to come.

To the tones of atheatrical post rock band, we were greeted by numerous volunteers who made just as many plans of how to get us to our stage. Once we were there, in style, we got food and water. Next were more planning with more people. A local band with 9 members was down and out with diarrhea, and suddenly we were on stage.

The stage was very, very, very big, and the distance from the stage to the crowd was slightly bigger. Sowe played intensive and violently, just to realize that "TWISTEDMACHINE" on the stage next- yes, right next to us, opened their power rockballad - emo – metal – screamo - scratch show. I think they won the shoot outwith the Bullit Band, ‘cause after 30 minutes of mixed noise, Twisted Machineplayed on for an hour more or so. Enough to become soundtrack to our autographsession with Chinese kids, a great multiple television interview, some web TVstuff and a cup of water.

We think, in our best lovefull nihilistic way, that driving home to Beijing at night and getting pissed in local liquor, were the most sensible thing to do, other than maybe just run randomly around the Mad Max plains of southern Mongolia. Stopping for snacks and beer on Chinese motorways is FUUUUUN. Drinking for the power plant employees -yeah come oooooooooooooooon!!!! Great buzz, five hours later we rolled into thelobby of our hotel, demanding more drinks, the receptionist picked up a phone –and a voice on the end of a line said sorry - no.

Not so rowdy, next morning we hit some sweet and greasy Shanghai breakfast. Some family at thetable next to us got some roots with crystals, and another table got served some blue alive sea flower creature from thedeep sea surprise. Pretty cool, and strange. Doggy bags allowed...

Hunting for the last touristtrophies, we walked around and took pictures of literary everything. Streetwelders, ping pong champions, uniformed kids, laundry, pretty signs. Onlystopping to drink funny (yes, to us..) soft drinks and hot yoghurt.

Last treat for the band, with an even longer name in Chinese, were euro-drinking with Danish friends,that happened to be around. Fun but lame to write about.

To sum things up, It was a blast. Now we're home, and miss the smell, noise and colourfulness of Beijing.We miss the many nice and helpful people of Mao’s Livehouse, the InMusicFestival and friends in Beijing. We miss the state of 20 million people livingin a cloud of smog. We miss the sweet fear of getting scammed (we never gotscammed..). We miss the pretty girls on electric scooters, and the checkerplaying men. The pumpkins on the rooftops and the vanilla aircon. Too many impressions to cover with words, and for sure with music.

Sounds pretty nice in our ears here at the new HQ! We're also diggin this neat little video about the Peace Boat game a lot! 

Snake and Jet will be going back for more Kinøjser action to play another big festival in October of this year. Hope to have more interesting stories then! 

Yup! Today we move all our scheisse from our old haunt in Studiestræde to our new place in the pictoresque Vesterbro. The corner of Halmtorvet and Skelbækgade will henceforth be known as the Crunchy corner. People might joke that -"the corner" has just gained a couple of more whores... but at least we are expensive.

Today is going to be a major drag... we have soooo much stuff - and that's YOUR fault! Why oh why didn't you buy more records? Now we have to haul them across town. 

Well, anyhoo: we'll take some pictures and make some sort of account in these very e-pages.

PS: Our server will be down for a day or so... so see you on the other side....

y 

Avid readers of this blog and all our other propaganda have heard about our 15 year anniversary compilation. It is now sent to production, so we can make a full revelation of the project! ! Here is the coverart by Carl Johan Sennels. Read more below 

The following list of amazing artists appear on the record covering Crunchy Frog songs from the first 15 years: 

As in RebekkaMaria • Baby Woodrose • Choir of Young Believers • Death to Frank Ziyanak • Decorate Decorate vs Cody • Diefenbach • Figurines • I Am Bones • Maria Timm • Marybell Katastrophy • Money Your Love • Murder • Nikolaj Nørlund • Robert Johnson and Punchdrunks • Slaraffenland • The Asteroid Galaxy Tour • The Blue Van • The Broken Beats • The Fashion • The Kissaway Trail • The Wong Boys • Thee Attacks •  Thaae/Ramdas w/Dorthe Gerlach • When Saints Go  Machine •  Who Made Who 

There is so much to say about this totally awesome record, but actually I just wrote the liner notes, so why not just quote myself:

15 YEARS OF CRUNCH...

To people who are not familiar with the Crunchy Frog label there are a few key things to know about us: we are and always have been totally independent, we are and always have been a small homebrew label, we are and always have been a bunch of picky motherfuckers. 

We started out as a band called THAU releasing our own records and slowly evolved into a full service label making 50/50 deals with bands that we think the world population need to hear. As we have no dark lords or stockholders hovering over us demanding huge profits we have had the luxury of only signing bands that we really love and respect. Bands that we think are original, special and worth the risk of loosing our hard earned cash. 

Over the last 15 years we have made 75 releases all of which we are very proud. Some of the bands and albums have been ahead of their time, some was probably released on the wrong planet and others have hit some special vibe that resonated with the zeitgeist and have made it fairly big. As any Frog mum we love all our 75 tadpoles just the same, and when we sat down and discussed how to celebrate our 15th anniversary the idea came up that we celebrate our artists and their songs rather than ourselves. After all: the Crunchy Frog name and legacy would be nothing without them. 

To make this project even more of a feel good experience we decided to give away the profits to Danish Red Cross. We sat down and made lists of all the excellent Danish (and a few Swedish) bands that we dig, know, secretly 

worship and would like to participate in this celebration. We ended up with 70 artists that we (totally indie, 

homebrew, picky motherfuckers) did not hate for some reason or other – which actually is a fine testament to the high quality of the current music scene. We took a vote and contacted the 30 top names, and the response was amazing. Almost all the artists immediately signed on and we were off and running. A lot of fine artists were never asked as we wanted to limit this to a 2 CD set – so to all the bands not included: you still rule and we love you.

The song selection process involved a whole lot of emailing back and forth as we didn’t want the same song covered twice and didn’t want more than 3 songs from the same original recording artist. Also some of the participating artists started out working on one song and then switched. In the end not all the Crunchy Frog artists were covered, but most were actually selected to begin with. In general it has been a great joy to see that many of our artists have been an inspiration to other bands on the scene and also to hear new versions of Crunchy Classics. Some versions are true to the originals and some are definitely not – but all have been really fun to receive. 

What an eclectic and wonderful bunch of tunes.  

Much praise is due to all the songwriters and bands – both the salutors and the salutees. A note on the track sequence: as fun as it has been communicating, recording and listening to the artists as much hell has it been trying to sequence these CDs. The standard is really high and there are no fillers. Should we keep the quiet tracks together or go for thematic organization? In the end we ended up just making 2 CDs that we think are well mixed with no other object than to give a nice and varied listening experience. To emphasize that we value all the tracks equally we have written the bands alphabetically on the back and opted for an orange and blue CD – there is no #1 and #2. In the booklet the bands are listed last song first and first song last. This is not done to annoy and irritate the hell out of you, dear consumer, although it is a nice bonus. 

For those sad, poor souls that are not familiar with the original Crunchy Frog releases you can find them printed elsewhere in this very booklet. They are available for purchase in physical form on Vibrashop.com and as zeroes and ones – maybe even a few twos - on the world wide web.

A big Crunchy Frog thank you to:

All the bands that made the deadlines and also the ones that didn’t. Thanks to all managers, labels and publishers that helped out and gave permission. Thanks to the studios that donated their time. Special thanks to Tine Birger Christensen & Mikael Kristiansen at Edition Wilhelm Hansen and Connie Skovvart for clearing the Kattejammerrock lyrics in next to no time and Søren Krogh Thompson and Playground Distribution for cutting their fee on this release in order to raise more money for the Red Cross. Thank you Betofon. Thank you Merge Records.

Thanks to all the Crunchy Frog artists and songwriters that we have had the honour and privilege to push to the unsuspecting world population. Big thanks to all the people everywhere – too numerous to count or list here - who have worked with us and supported us in these 15 years – you know who you are. Also a small thanks to the evildoers that gave us hell and toughened us up without pulling us entirely over to the dark side - we know who you are. Praise goes to the wonderful Crunchy staff and interns at CF HQ through the years and also Jan & Co and Shelley holding it down at Crunchy Frog Germany and Crunchy Frog US. It seems we together have succeeded in carving out a small corner in this sordid business where work is fun and the music matters more than the bullshit. 

And thank you Monty Python.

CRUNCHY FROG

The 2CD set is going to be released on september 5th. Regular CD price. The releaseparty will be from 5-7pm at UNDER VAND - coincidentally we are having our big party that same place that same day right after... check this. The first 100 guests at the Show will also get "SALUTING THE CRUNCHY FROG-A-LOGUE" for absolutely free!