Merry Christmas

I hope everyone will be able to enjoy a peacefull and warm Christmas with their loved ones.

It's early morning here in a cold helsinki with a LOT of snow! I'm going to clean the house and quickly slip out to the grouceristore before everything closes down. Then I'll start to relax and wind down.

Enjoy and relax, I'll be writting an end ot the year rap next week with some news...so stay tuned!

Ben

Cancelled gigs!

Sorry folks about last weeks cancelled Bastardos gigs! Twist Twist hurt his foot really badly and we're hoping he will be alright asap.
Unfortunately the weekends gigs at Birdland Jazz Club have been cancelled as well, not due to us but Birdland made a double booking and there is no room for us on the bill.
The gigs the 5-6.11 at Birdland are on + we might get some more gigs there so check out the gigs page.

Music business is risky business... but what can you do?! I'm just a guitar player :-)

Cheers,

Ben

Stuff...

Well, it's been awhile...
Bastardos have 2 more gigs this year and then we'll be focusing on finishing the new album. It will have some good old hard rock'n'roll stuff on it. We just need to go thru all Don Osmos song ideas and choose the right ones, I might add one or 2 and Bryn has some ideas too.

I've rehearsed with Miri and Lauri Porra and while it sounds great I seriously don't know which direction I should take for the next BG album.... I'm lost :-) We're jaming again later this week.

Bryn and I have a few projects coming up and it's always fun, we need to rehearse more songs for our upcoming gigs at the Birdland Jazz Club. More groove/soul/blues oriented stuff and it'll be nice with a change.

It's nice to give guitar lessons as well and sorry that I can't take everyone. There are some guys who I seriously wonder why they come to me ;-) .... they're already really great players!

Well' that's about it for now, Cheers everybody.

Ben

Guitar lessons anyone!?

I've decided to give guitar lessons again. Sorry! No beginners!
I want to help developing your own style and your own sound, give advice on gear related questions etc.

If you're interested email me at ben@bengranfelt.com
NOTE! I live in Helsinki and have a good rehearsal room here where the lessons will be kept.

Cheers,

Ben

Los Bastardos, BGB etc.

So after 4 gigs with the mighty Los bastardos and a session with Don Osmo in his studio going thru songs and ideas for the next LB album I've decided to join the band full time. It's good to be playing rock'n'roll with an attitude again :-) , the guys are great and the crew is dedicated, everything works! We're already playing 3 new songs in the set + on friday we're adding 2 older ones as well. Don Osmo is a very good band leader and I'm again after 6 years just doing what I do best, play! What a pleasure!

I've put BGB and the halfready album on hold completly! Don't know for how long but at least for a year or 2.
I will however do some gigs as a trio with Miri and a bass player (an old friend of ours, I'll post the name soon) later this year to see how that feels. It will be a little more free and jamming than BGB.... more experimental if you like... to satisfy my need to play the Stratocaster :-)
I've got some trio songs written + we'll do some stuff from previous albums that haven't been played live for at least 3-5 years and some covers from way back to the -90's. Wouldn't mind doing a live album either :-)

Granfelt/Nikku Group will do a few gigs in the autumn and we'll record an album live in the
studio with some originals and some covers as well.

It's funny how music divides my playing style and guitars... in LB it's Les Pauls and loud amps (ENGL and Naylor + big rack in stereo) and with the trio it's Strats and combos (Tube Thomsen and ENGL + small pedalboard). GNG is Les Pauls and an SG with an ENGL combo, wah and leslie pedal.
I would say that my favourite guitar is still a Strat but I can't live without a Les Paul :-)

Take it easy and check the gig page for all the bands.

Ben

El Gringo

Well, when you close one door (for awhile!!) another one opens!
Just when I'd cancelled all the BGB gigs for the rest of the year Bryn Jones calls me up and asks if I want to join Los Bastardos Finlandeses ( www.losbastardos.fi ) !!??
It is very strange how things happen to me and this was probably just the right thing for now!
It's rock! It's loud! and it's a holiday from all stress! I can relax and just play and enjoy myself!
+ it's got Twist Twist Erkinharju on drums :-)
Check out the gigs for live info.

Rock Summer here I come!

Ben ( El Gringo )

Lots of things...

Firs of all sorry for the long absence... and thanks for all the birthday wishes thru facebook and emails, 47 isn't that much now is it :-)

Now to the sad part. Due to the fact that I'm going thru a difficult part of my life once again... my second divorce for those who didn't know it already (thanks again for all the suportive and positive emails etc.).
I've made 2 hard desicions;
1. The new album is on hold, I can't find the energy/inspiration to finish it now. BUT I'm not giving up! I'm hoping to have it recorded during this year and mixed early next year. I am going to use guest players on the album so it will be more like a BG solo album I guess.
2. I will put BGB on hold as well after the gig in Imatra the 5.7. This means no more gigs this year in Finland or Germany, sorry but I think I need some distance from BGB to be able to continue.

I will do gigs with Granfelt/Nikku Group and duo gigs with Bryn or Igi. Also guest with Bryn Jones Huliganes here and there.
I will announce some other news next week hopefully, just give me some time.

All the best and enjoy the summer!
I will rest and spend some quality time with my kids :-)

Cheers,

Ben

Corrcted the link! And Important NEWS!

Ups, clumsy me got the link to the ENGL demo wrong! Now it is correct so scroll down and check it out.

Unfortunately the new album will be put on hold untill 2011 due to my personal situation which forces me to focus on my family more at the moment. I'm also a bit lost with my musical direction and need to wtrie 3-4 more songs so that we can deliver the best possible album to you.

WE WILL do gigs in Finland and a German tour in the autumn so you can catch us live for sure!

All the best,

Ben

ENGL video and album update

Hi Guys & Gals,

Here's a link to an ENGL gigmaster demo from the Frankfurt Music Messe.
The song I'm playing is called New Seven and it will be on the new album.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Byq-edKvDpY
Re. the album, we're in the middle of mixing at the moment.
I'll post more when I have more titles etc for you.

Had some really good duo gigs with Bryn last weekend at VilliWäinö!
We're playing the Aussie bar on thursday the 29.4. Should be fun again.

All the best,

Ben

Studio message

Today we finnished 3 vocal tracks which means that we got 3 instrumentals and 3 vocal tracks ready for mixing with 3 more vocal tracks to done next week when we'll also start mixing hopefully.
We've been working in Sonic Kitchen with good results and it'll be interesting to hear how the first mixes will sound.
As it looks now the album will be called "Turning Point" and the first track on the album is that track" Turning Point". We played it live 4 times now and everybody seems to like it alot.
Good old blues based rock always goes down well.
One of the instrumentals is called "Because we still can"... well, it's in the same style as "Because we can" from Kaleidoscope.
Another one is called "BG63Strat" and in one way it's my favourite because I've sort of found my love for Strats again and I used my -63 Strat on it.
More about the other tracks later.

Next week we have one gig as well (Tampere Henrys Pub) and it'll be nice to get out to play again.

Ben

Loooong post...

It's been awhile, sorry for that.
Where do I begin...
We've been in the studio in Hanko for 4 days end of february and we got 9 tracks of drums, bass and keys done. A few guitar tracks were recorded but I'm redoing all the guitars in Sonic Kitchen Studios next week because I had a bit of a flu and couldn't hear the highend properly.
Miri was the true master of ceremony handling most of the recording and he draged along his old FX Custom mixingdesk and from there we went straight in to his computer ( I think he's using Cubbase or something... or protools... I know I'm using Fender or Gibson and that's about as technical as I get!). Miri also did his tracks in 1-3 takes... yeah! that's a studio pro!
We're going to record 1 or 2 more tracks at our rehearsal room + all the vocals and percussions.
Miris room is next to mine so it'll be easy since he has his complete studio up and running there.

We've also done some gigs and It's been great playing live again, good audiences and good gigs.
I think we've played about 4-5 of the new songs just to see how they go down and the respons has been very positive for sure!
I hope to have the whole album finnished mixed and mastered in early june and released (by someone !??) in september when the gigs start again.

Wishbone Ash played Helsinki on the Rocks a few weeks ago and Miri and I provided them with backline since they just flew in to do the gig. I also played 4 songs with them and I honestly think that it was abit of Finnish Rock'n'roll history when 2 Finnish guitar players are on stage with Wishbone Ash IN FINLAND :-) It was great to meet Andy & Co again, they played really well everyone enjoyed the gig.

Tomorrow I'm flying out to Frankfurt for the Musik Messe... I'll be at the ENGL stand playing 3-4 times a day from wednesday till friday evening.
looking forward to meet old friends again... and to check out some good players... + I heard that there should be a vintage guitars show as well, must leave my creditcards at home ha, ha!

That's all for now, take care and C U on the road,

Ben

This blog has moved

  This blog is now located at http://bengranfelt.blogspot.com/.
  You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds, or you may click here.

For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to
  http://bengranfelt.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default.

Gigs update!

Made some changes on the gig page! Make sure you check dates as they seem to change a bit.

Cheers,

Ben

New blog...

I just got word that this blogging system will change so this will be the last blog until the new system is up and running.

Nothing special new to report... a few new gigs on the gigs page ( Grolsch Blues Festival in Germany !).
Rehearsals start next week again with the band and I've got lyrics ready for a few songs so we'll probably try them out in Forssa and Kuopio.

Be well and check back soon for the new blog.

Cheers,

Ben

The stress of writing...

Yeah, we've been recording all the practise sessions we've had lately and I've got about 8 songs 3 instrumentals and 5 ready for Bryn and me to finnish with lyrics. I get the feeling sometimes that I'll never be ready because I always ge tthe feeling that NO this is not good enough, this needs to be changed etc.

But I had a session with Bryn last night and we worked on an old song idea I've had for ages and he completly made it work when I'd already had almost thrown the the whole song in the trash bin.
He also had an old lyric that fit like a glove... this is the way it should work :-)

Since Miri is in Switzerland for a month playing we're going to have more sessions like this with Bryn and it makes me feel more secure with the new stuff. Definitely cooking now :-)

Made some updates to the gigs page as well, check it out!

Cheers,

Ben