That's not exactly what the job description said

It looked promising up to a certain point. The vinyl got ready just on the day I had to leave, after things seemed to not work out at all just ten days prior. Gigs went down nicely, merch could have been better, but still kinda OK. Good vibes peaking with the Perpignan show I had the pleasure to share with Boucan. Playing some of the album tracks together felt like flying. Bliss. Utter bliss.

Followed by a sunny morning after weeks of drizzling rain. Just as if all would finally be fine, take an enjoyable twist. As if the spell was broken. That being the sunny morning of Friday, 11 October 2024, when loading in and hugging the Boucan boys a last time before setting out for the Teruel concert. Before the fragile flower of optimism crumbled, fell to pieces, disintegrated on the hard shoulder of a Catalan motorway, a few miles south of Macanet. The second hold-up in my touring history.

Diary Travelog, Mäkkelä's BlogMartti Mäkkelä16 October 2024blog mäkkelä, tour diary, tour blog, travelogComment

Gentbrugge

So gegen 20.00 Uhr stehe ich wieder vor dem “Bombardon” und sehe jemanden drin putzen. Hoffnung. Es wird auch nicht direkt wärmer draußen. Auf mein Klopfen an der nach wie vor geschlossenen Tür macht dieser Jemand tatsächlich auf. Was ich denn hier wolle, die Bar öffnet erst um 21.00 Uhr. Weil ich ja weiß, oder zumindest davon ausgehe, das ich erwartet werde, bekommt der Mann mein freundlichstes Mittwochslächeln. Is klar, kein Problem, aber ich bin der Musiker der heute abend spielt. Mäkkelä, nice to meet you.

Sehr zu meinem Bedauern kommt nicht die Antwort die ich mir gewünscht hätte. "Oh. Right. Totally forgot you."

2022. Halftime.

If you haven't done it yourself, touring for a couple of months or longer on your own, you probably can't imagine how this feels. Changing places on a daily basis, losing ground both literally and metaphorically. It can feel, or rather it does feel, marvellous. Being free to do what you always wanted to do. On your own, walking across the sunny main square of Maribor, having a coffee in one of those unique, renown Kaffeehauses of Vienna, meeting wonderful, interesting people. Sounds great? Oh it is, but there are those other moments or times, the dark ones. When you realize being on your own is not always a walk in the park, when you realize it's just a nicer expression for solitude.

FEAR AND TOURING 2022 (in German and English)

I can't estimate whether or if so how important it is what I'm doing, but to give up something that made life worth living for you or me - maybe just for an evening, maybe more often - I simply just can't do. If us on stage don't muster the courage to be there for you, in front of it, it'll be irrevocably, finally over.

Touring & travelingMartti Mäkkelä7 March 2022travelog, Tourblog, alt. folk, Mäkkelä, Poland, war, European Tour, folk noirComment

About some of the good things 2021

Into the wee hours, they tried to convince me of songs. Czech songs, all in a way or another connected with the history of this theatre collective out here somewhere near Melnik. That'd be a corker, they said, if you'd be playing one of them some day.

"Schlaftrunk?", Martin asks. "Schlaftrunk!", I do reply, not the first time during this last evening. And then we're listening to that song about the man, that artist, waking up in the bed of a lady in Olomouc... At least that's what I understand from Mirka's explanations.