Archive for the Uncategorized Category

All You Can Eat – Steel Panther

Posted in CDs, Uncategorized on April 2, 2014 by Sara Hammerzmith

Today was the release of Steel Panther’s new record “All You Can Eat”. I’ve really longed for this one to come out, because as you know, Steel Panther in my heart forever. So I was really thrilled (unlike Dynazty, haha haha) when my boss got it in and passed it on.

You may remember that my friends and I set up a pre-listening party in honor of the record in order to listen to it and we had a bit of a discussion about it that I found interesting.

At first listen, I must confess I wasn’t very impressed. It resembled “Balls Out” a lot, which is my least favorite Steel Panther album as of now, so I was a bit quick to judge. But after listening to it a couple of times, to really feel it and hear what they actually sing, the record has grown. A whole lot.

Instead of having like, three songs I like, I now dare to say that I enjoy most of them. The lyrics are hilarious, “She’s on the Rag”, I mean what. The worst part is, I ain’t even surprised they got a song like that. If it was any band to do it, it should be them. The song has come to be one of my favorites, alongside “Burden”.

I have this weird thing where I like certain parts of songs. I’m not overly crazy about “Glory Hole”, but there is a segment in it that makes it worth listening to the whole song. The segment starts at 2:45 in the song. God. I don’t know why, But I just love it.

But, that wasn’t even what we discussed. We discussed this that neither one of us are absolutley CRAZY about a Steel Panther album. I looked through the songlists of “Feel The Steel” and “Balls Out” as I was writing my review, and I noticed that I’ve kind gone into Lordi mode – that sure, I don’t particularly like that song, but I’ve gotten so used to it by now that it’s good.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I do love their music. But it’s more that I REALLY LOVE like 3/4 of their songs, and really DON’T like the rest. Or something like that.

We came to the conclusion when we discussed, that a big part of why we love this band is because of their show and their stagepersonas. That it’s absolutely plausible that we wouldn’t be as into this band as we are, if it wasn’t for their stageshow. And when you think about it, isn’t it a little… scary. How important a good stage show can be, in order to get or keep fans.

I never really thought about it that much before. Steel Panther and Lordi are both very theatrical bands, so they’ve always put on quite a show and when seeing bands with less theatrics I never thought about it too much. Hm. Interesting.

Well. The album is indeed getting better after each listening, so if you don’t like it on the first try, give it another one or two. It’ll grow on you.

// Sara
(And don’t you love how it turns out sometimes. I wasn’t excited at all for Dynazty, yet they blew me away. Here, I was excited. And well, yeah.)

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Rockefeller, Oslo, 2012

 

Renatus – Dynazty

Posted in CDs, Uncategorized on April 1, 2014 by Sara Hammerzmith

Dynazty’s new record “Renatus” came out the other day, and I was lucky enough to receive it for reviewing. I got it together with the new H.E.A.T CD, which I requested, and I wasn’t all too excited when Dynazty was thrown in, mostly because at times, I get a little uncomfortable going outside my comfort zone. I’ve been moderately interested in Dynazty over the years, so they aren’t exactly in my “comfortzone”, but you know. It’s always good to go out of your comfort zone, so I didn’t complain.

We were requested to wait with the review until close to the release date, so I simply let it be for a while. I was also in the middle of Frozen preparations when I got it (yes, that early!). But you know, time passed and I finally sat down, or, laid down to listen to it and all.

At first, I choked on my tea. See, I expected Dynazty to be the band they were when they were in Melodifestivalen, with “Land of Broken Dreams”, but it wasn’t. I guess most of you have heard “Renatus” by now, and you know as well as I that the album is nothing like the old Dynazty we know.

And surprisingly, for me, I liked it. No.

I didn’t like it.

I loved it.

I loved every single bit of it. I’m normally not a fan of bands changing their sound too much, I think you all remember how shocked I was when I came across Lordi’s new last year. But this… damn. Every second of every song blew me away.  And I think a big part of that is because of keyboards. I’m weak as fuck for keyboards in songs, be it rock, metal or schlager. I just think they add that little extra thing. That little extra sparkle. And to add on to that, these are some wickedly talented musicians and songwriters. I can’t tell you enough how much I love this.

And since I said I love keyboards, I guess all of you who’ve heard “Renatus” can guess what song is my favorite. That’s Right. “The Northern End”. I love the verses. I love when it builds up to the choruses, you know, “you are now in the company of brothers….”, and I love how it all just loses it after the guitarsolo. It’s pure perfection. In my ears.

I also love the verses in “Run Amok”. You know, when the keys are coming in and the verse gets… playful. I don’t know how to describe it better, but it’s at 0:35 in the first verse. When the keys come in. Right there. Perfection.

“Salvation”. I…. I don’t even have words. I remember I looked at the length of the song and got worried, generally speaking, I tend to not be a too big of a fan of long songs. But when hearing this, I can’t understand it’s 7 minutes. It feels a lot less. And regardless of length, it’s still…. fantastic.

I do, from the bottom of my heart, recommend everyone to buy this album, if you are a metal fan. I rarely do this, especially not on my blog. But I do. I recommend you all to get up, and go get yourself a copy of “Renatus” by Dynazty. Here’s a Spotify link if you want to hear it on beforehand. It’s worth listening to.

And I can tell you one thing.

I’m never, EVER, EVER again going to be “not too excited” about a record just because it’s out of my comfortzone. Ever. Dynazty proved me wrong so hard I’m gonna curl up in a corner and cry a little. And listen to their music some more.

// Sara

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Skogsröjet 2011

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Posted in Uncategorized on March 30, 2014 by Sara Hammerzmith

Okay. This week has been absurd. First of all, on Tuesday my girls and I had a pre-listening party of Steel Panthers new album over Skype. It was like, 2% listening and 98% hilariousness. On Wednesday I got an email about a job, which I started on Thursday working 11 hours shift for three days in a row. It’s been insane.

Finally today I had some time off at last. I figured I’d take the opportunity to go and, once and for all see “Saving Mr Banks”. I had planned to see it for a long time, but I never got the time to do. Until today. It was all very cool, we were only two people in the whole salon, making it calm and all. I don’t know, I think I have a thing for being alone in the salons.

What can I say about the movie. I loved it. It was a cryfest deluxe, I flipped between crying and laughing at the same time. I don’t even know what more to say about it. But I sure know it was relaxing and much needed. This escape from reality. I love it. I think I might have to make it a thing, to go to the movies like every Sunday or something in order to restore myself mentally.

Who knows. My Elsa cup and I are now gonna go upstairs for some more relaxing and reading. Good old times.

// Sara

Vuelie

Posted in Uncategorized on March 24, 2014 by Sara Hammerzmith

IT’S HERE! IT’S HERE!

THE NEW STEEL PANTHER ALBUM!

Oh god. I waited for my boss to send it to me, and FINALLY he did. I have yet to listen to it, I’ll do it tomorrow and I’ll let you know what I think. All I can say for now, is that I had a good laugh putting in the titles of thesongs. “Gangbang at the old folks home”… Hahaha these guys. Seriously. I have spent all day doing so much schoolwork that it felt REALLY GOOD to get some good news now at the end of the day.

Oh. Right. This also came today!

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THE NOTESHEET BOOK! FOR FROZEN!

AHHHHHHH!!!!

I haven’t actually looked in it yet. I’ve decided that I need to catch up on school first, for many reasons. Mainly because I flip flopin need to, but also, it feels good to you know, know that you’re done and then I can sit there and just watch the notes and let my fingers flow over the piano. This is my third book in the collection, having “Hunchback of Notre Dame” and “Phineas & Ferb” previously. Next on my list to get is Hercules and Beauty and The Beast. I hope I can get them soon enough!

But for now. Schoolwork. Right.

// Sara

Starlight

Posted in Uncategorized on March 24, 2014 by Sara Hammerzmith

Over the last few weeks, I’ve noticed my “ear” for hearing what to be played without a notesheet has gotten better. I’ve never had that before, I’ve never been able to listen to a song and then sit down and play it. But lately, that is exactly what I’ve done.

It all started when I was messing around with Forte and accidently played the line “For The First Time in Forver” (yes that line) and I was like WHOA. What was that. After that it continued. I figured out half the chorus of “Ég a Líf” from Eurovision Song Contest, and the other day, I played the line “The past is in the past” from “Let it Go”.

But what I’m most proud of, is “Vuelie”. I literally just sat down and started playing it. I can’t even explain it to you. It just came to me.

And it’s with mixed feelings I know that I might be recieving my Frozen notesheet book very soon. At that point, it’ll be up to me to see if I got it right, or if it just sounds right. I can barely wait for it. Ihihihihi.

// Sara

Survey for my Englishclass

Posted in Uncategorized on March 22, 2014 by Sara Hammerzmith

Hello all loving people. I need only five more answers for my survey for my Englishclass, would anyone be so kind and help me out?

The survey is about ticket-sales experiences, and it focuses on Swedish sites such as Tickster, Live Nation, Ticnet and Eventim. I do know though, that most of these are active in other countries so if you have ANY experience with either one of these companies, PLEASE be so kind and answer my survey as soon as possible!

Here are the links:
Del 1:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/DY6MX6X
Del 2:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/DJJWY2Z

It’s also VERY important that you answer both links, else the answers will be incomplete 😦

Thank you!

// Sara

Hot Boy & Hot Girl

Posted in Uncategorized on March 20, 2014 by Sara Hammerzmith

Sorry for the inactiveness these last couple of days. But they have a reason.

MY DEAREST SWEETEST LITTLE PAULA WAS HERE TO VISIT!!!

She lives in another country as of now, and it’s been like a year or so since I met her the last time. It’s INSANE how long time it is, and it’s also pretty insane how quick time passes by. I kinda realized that when I sat down to think the other day. God damn it.

Anyway. We had such a blast when she was here. A LOT of talking and A LOT of Top Model. No joke, we almost finished all of Season 17, and only reason we didn’t was because we snatched in a few Season 19 in the middle. And most importantly.

Boda Borg.

It was time for us to finally visit the place again. It’s one of my favorite places on Earth, I’m not fucking joking. I love it. We went there together with Michelle, and we had so much fun. It started off pretty good. Or not. In one of the first quests we did I did the fatal mistake of going down a slide on my knees instead of my butt and that resulted in me smashing my wrists against the wall in order to prevent myself from you know, kissing the wall with my face.

The 2nd thing I manage to do is to fall flat down in “Toughest”, just as I’ve done before, making my ankles sore. And to make that better, I let go of the pole in “Playground” too early, just you know, to feed the soreness even more in my ankles. DAMN IT. I need to slow down a bit and not be so… excited and competitive. Did it end here? Of course not.

The next thing I do, which is probably the biggest, was when I took a leap and jumped off the log in “The Jungle” and managed to get one of the branches of the tree next to the rope RIGHT into my side, right beneath my rib. Seriously. The pain. I climbed up the tree in order to allow Michelle and Paula to come through, and up there I just sat and gasped for air. And then I rose to go the next room, which I failed. Not because of the injury, but because I was exceptionally clumsy today, apparently.

Paula injured her hand / fingers pretty badly in “Maya”, but apart from that, I think both her and Michelle walked away pretty fine. Lucky girls.

Anyway. Since last we were there, they’d opened two new quests, The Warehouse and Playground. And seriously… I think Playground may be my new favorite quest. It was the perfect amount of fun, the perfect amount of difficulty and perfect amount of physical difficulty. And we felt like queens all of us once we nailed it. With risk for sounding a bit egoistic, it’s something that really got to me.

We asked one of the crew there how sensitive the quest was for movements, because you had to lie flat down and get over a pretty unsafe bridge, lying down. And he said “Well, just let your quickest go first”. And it ended up being me, despite us not even nailing the room before this. And once I got on the bridge, I just… it FELT like I just floated over it. Just like that. Swiftly, too. And I don’t know. It kinda got to me. To know that for the first time in forever when it comes to athletic things, I’m actually flip floppin’ good at something.

Either way. Out of 26 quests, we nailed 23. We aimed for 25, but “The Warehouse” nor “Tivoli” wanted to co-operate with us. And on top of that, we had four hours LESS than we usually do, and to almost take down ALL 25 in ‘just’ 6 hours is a new record for us. We’re just getting better.

Afterwards, we went home, ordered a salad each (pretty fed up with pizza after having a nice taco buffé) and watching… Top Model. Of course.

Thanks to BOTH OF you girls! Michelle and Paula, you made the day the BEST EVER!

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1 hour in and we got our 4th stamp. Thats an average of 1 stamp/15 minutes. That’s a new record for us. Taken in the “Haunted Mansion”.

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Taking a little ‘nap’ after losing and realizing what Playground was all about. I owned this room just a little bit later.

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Thanks Girls. Seriously. But next time, we’ll take 26/27 AT LEAST, yes?

// Sara

Supermonstars

Posted in Uncategorized on March 16, 2014 by Sara Hammerzmith

Okay, so that must have been like 711891283912 time I use that title. Regardless, as you know, I’ve been preparing as hell for a friend of mine to come by, and in the midst of it, I made sure to update my Lordi wall. It’s far from done, it’s missing a few pictures of me and Lordi, and it’s also missing signed pictures of Hella and Mana. But I like it so far you know.

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Say Hi to Perry and Dana & Mark on the same time if you like!

// Sara

Horses sometimes.

Posted in Uncategorized on March 15, 2014 by Sara Hammerzmith

So, I had a shift in the stable again for the first time in forever today. And let me tell you, it was quite an interesting day. It all really began with Cantino and Caligo. After releasing them in their pasture, they start goofing around. Of course they do, they are silly horses!

Anyway, what happens is that Caligo gets up on his hind legs and so does Cantino, and they sort of “face” each other. This ends up with Caligo getting his shoe stuck in the front of Cantinos blanket.

Oh. My. God.

First, the panic. How the FUCK do we solve this? How THE FUCK do you manage to let the hoof go, with both horses being spooked?

Gladly, a few moments after, we heard strings being teared and the front of the blanket, where he was stuck, was torn apart and Caligo was free. However, now came the next problem. Cantino is running around with a broken blanket trying to kick it off. Again, how the fuck do we stop a spooked horse?

Gladly, again, he managed to kick it off without any injuries. And without breaking anything else on the blanket too. We had to be pretty quick going into pasture and take away the broken blanket, as they started to play with it.

Again. Silly horses. Silly, silly horses.

The day ended with Boy jumping the fence and running loose. Apparently that’s a thing he do.

Silly horses.

// Sara

Lite att jobba på

Posted in Uncategorized on March 13, 2014 by Sara Hammerzmith

Haven’t done a whole lot today. We were out of town for a special occasion at first, so it feels like my whole day has gone to that. Else from that, I’m still preparing for my friend to come. Which means, planning a lot, but also, decorating a lot! Today I finally sat down and framed the ESC-tickets from last year. They’ve been sitting around with all the other tickets for SO LONG and it was time I got rid of that pile,but also the empty frame. So all is good. And all is tucked away. Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know.

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I also FINALLY got an idea about what to do (for now) with the festival-bracelet I’m for different reasons not wearing at the moment. Why I’m not wearing them has many reasons. Either they have this BIG black thing you know that takes up shitloads of space on your poor little arm, or I’ve worn them for so long they were at risk of falling off if I didn’t cut it off myself. And I rather cut it off myself than lose it.

So they’ve just been laying around really, until I figured I’d pin them to my Melodifestivalen keyband, kind of you know like the best of both worlds. Eurovision and Melodifestivalen represented in the band,and the bracelets representing the metal community. I like it.

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However. The sky is asleep. So should go asleep too.

Good night folks, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

// Sara