18.10 Kajaani Balls Cancelled !!

Unfortunately the promoter of the club Balls has "gone missing" with the result that the gig the 18.10 in Kajaani is now cancelled.
This is a shame since I haven't played ther for a long time. I apologize to some of you who already emailed me about this gig.

We're entering the studio again tomorrow for the next 4 songs... we've rehearsed and are eager to hear the results!

C U

Ben

Acoustic gigs with Bryn Jones

We're doing a few gigs with Bryn again (check the dates on the gigs page).
We just did the first of four at Fanny goes to Hollywood...playing from 20.00 untill 23.00 nonstop!! well, I had to take 2 piss breaks...
Bryn knows so many songs and it's always a blast playing with him, please come and enjoy an acoustic evening with a glass of wine or a few beers, you won't regret it :-)

Cheers,

Ben

Radio Rock

This week I'm the guesting DJ at Radio Rock here in Helsinki and every day at 15.15 and 17.40 they will play my comments + a song I've chosen.

Ben

We're back...

Thanks to Mickes magic the Blog works again!
We rehearsed 3 new songs yesterday and I'm very happy with the band at the moment. Can't wait to record them and hear what you think of the new stuff when the new album comes out next year!

Here's a link to something pretty cool!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma2UrUfEFQU
3 young guys doing instrumental rock and they play E.G.O !
The guitar player Arne is only 12 years old!!!

Well, I need to start writting more lyrics...

C U Guys later,

Ben

Meatloaf etc.

Now it's 100% sure that Guitar Slingers is the warmup band the 11.8 at the Hartwall Arena here in Helsinki. The headliner is of course Meatloaf... it's also Petri Auers birthday so we'll have some extra fun I'm sure.Don't miss it since who knows when and if Meatloaf will tour again...

The gig at Kotkan Meripäivät was nice even though it was sunday. Good practise for the 11th.

I've updated the gigs page with more BGB gigs + we have been invited to perform at the Abu Dhabi International Jazz Festival in November...now that's an honour! It's the same organiser who did the Dubai Jazz Fest. So I guess we did well there :-)

Alright... that's it for now C U!

Ben

Back in business

After a very rare and wonderful vacation I'm back again. Batterys recharged and ready to ROCK!
Yesterday I had an as always funny,cool gig with Bryn Jones in Hanko.
Playing with Bryn is a real joy! He knows so many songs and where as I might not know them it leaves a lot of room for me to add things that I think might suit the song. We should definitely do more gigs together!

This weekend I have 2 gigs, the first one is with Niklas Roström cover band MILK at Apollo nightclub in Helsinki. Their guitarist couldn't make it so they gave me a call. I've never been there before and I have NEVER played a lot of the songs we're going to do...it'll be intresting and fun to help them out.

The other one is at On the Rocks on sunday. We're billed as Ben Granfelt & Friends but it's basically BGB + Tipe Johnson and Jarmo Nikku. We're going to do 4 new songs and some BGB stuff +a nice bunch of good old stuff with Tipe and Jarmo. Come along for some good classic Rock!

In August I'll finnish the last to songs that need vocals and then we'll mix them before we start with the next bunch of songs... can't hardly wait!
I thought the new album would be more blues rock but i'm in such a good mood and happy at the moment that the newer songs are reflecting that and not exactly blues :-)

Well, gotta go C U out there...

Ben

Summertime!

It was great again to do a couple of shows with Kasper in the band!
Tampere and especially Aulanko Blues were really good. Jamming IS SO much fun!
We just finnished another 2 days in the studio as well and now have 5 songs ( + 1 long introduction) ready for the new album.

Fightsport Magazine in Finland has an interview in their latest issue.
Fuzz Magazine from Sweden has a gig rig page with my gear and I'll do an interview later.

Did an update on the gig page check it out! We had to cancel the Granfelt / Nillu gig but I'll do the same date (20.7) with BGB playing 5-7 own songs (3-4 new ones!!) and then Tipe and Jarmo will come up and we'll do a bunch of cool covers...it's party time!!!

Ah... my vacation starts on thursday!! I'll be gone for 2 1/2 weeks.

C U later alligator,

Ben

Good Afternoon...

After a dissapointing Formula 1 race in Monaco I've decided to do a few updates...

I'm doing 3 ENGL clincs for DLX Music in HElsinki, Kuopio and Tampere next week. I'll mainly be demoing the Invader 100 amp but also playing with backing tracks 4-5 songs. Come along!

Guitar Slingers will most surely support Meatloaf at Jäähalli in Helsinki the 11.8. Meatloafs management has approved it and we're just working out technical details but that'll be a fun gig.

That's it...

Ben

myspace

Just a quick note to say tat www.myspace.com/theguitarslingers is up and running thanks to Jukka Oja. Check it out1

Ben

Good Morning

Guitar Slingers, I forgot how good this band can sound :-) Everyone had a smile on their face when we rehearsed yesterday. We've included a couple of songs never played by this lineup before and it will be great to do some gigs again.
IMPORTANT NOTE! The Guitar Slingers Kotkan Meripäivät gig has been rescheduled to sunday the 27.7 at 14.00!! Bring your family along it'll be a great day in the sun...hopefully we'll have some sunshine!?

I'm going back to bed to catch a little sleep before I head out to back my gear for the gigs...

ZZZZ,

Ben

Life!

Life is great ! My wife Jonna gave birth to our daughter april 30th. 4310gr and 52 cm. All is well in the family...Jim is confused but that was expected.

We've been in the studio and have 2 songs completly ready + 1 missing vocals.

I'm taking a little break from BGB to be with the family and then do few Guitar Slingers gigs.

BGB start work again in June with a couple of gigs and more studio sessions.

Be well, I am!

Ben

Yes!!!

Well, the first whole gig with Kasper went really good! He's in for sure! can't wait for more gigs but first more rehearsals, new songs and studio.

By the way, here's a link to a review of Sum of Memories http://grooveyardrecords.com/bengranfeltband.html
Can't really ask for anything more in a review, can you?

New photos from Germany up as well later today, check them out!

Ben

Howdy,

The GTR tour is done... I almost wish it would go on since we had a great time. I'd like to thank Jartse, Pepe, Pekka, Juuso, Anssi and Miri + of course Riku our soundguy... Well done! I know I got some new friends 'cos I sold out all my cds :-)

This upcoming saturday BGB will play the first gig with Kasper Mårtenson as a full band member! We're rehearsing new stuff and for those who come down to the Texas Bar&Grill we'll play at least 4 songs that haven't been played live before!
After the weekend we'll be in Miri's studio recording the first 2-3 new songs.

Why a keyboard player in BGB you might ask? ...well, I want more textures and also I don't want to have to fill up every little space with guitar sounds. All the new songs I've written will have keyboards and Kasper is an obvious choise since he has played with us on various jams before + he's a very relaxed nice guy.

Last sunday I saw Tommy Emanuel here in Helsinki.... what a player! Unbelivable chops but he knows when to use them and when not. He played a lot of beautiful originals and ended the concert with a fantastic version of Imagine...I was in tears! Honestly! If you like great music check him out.

That's it for now...I have to learn new lyrics for the rehearsals tomorrow.

C U

Ben

Good Morning,

It's 7.40 in the morning and I've just dressed Jim and sent him and Jonna off to daycare / work.
Very rock'n'roll indeed :-)
Yesterday I did a recording for a TV show called Guitar Club.It is hosted by the very talented Marsi Nyman, 45 mins of only guitars and equipment + a 1 take live performance of my version of Cocaine with Anssi Nykänen on drums and Harri Rantanen on bass (we couldn't do another take because on union rules with lunch breaks etc.). The show with about 20 chapters will start in the autumn on the MTV MAX channel here in Finland. Before me they did a chapter with Varre Vartianen on guitar...incidently the house band and Marsi are members in Varres Husband band ... they we're so good I almost went home :-) seriously!!

Later today we rehearse with the GTR Tour band in Tampere and the first show is on saturday in Kokkola. I'm sure it'll be a cool tour!

Ok, gotta run to the train...

C U out there,

Ben

Home sweet home...

Dubai was great! Got the flu but that's alright, it was worth it :-)
It looks like we'll go back later this year...more about that asap.
John and Anssi were great! Good Laughs!
Getting ready for the GTR gigs,

C U

Ben

Hello from Dubai

Life is grand sometimes :-) Things are good in Dubai... we had a great gig yesterday and the audience really dug us. at first I was afraid they would walk away because of the stage volume (which wasnt loud at all!) but NO! a great succes indeed!
Anssi Nykanen on drums... well, he is a bit crazy in a positive way and what a drummer! He took the house down with his drum solo.
We also had a little 30 min jam with Lori from Canada who played before us, what a great singer! Thank God I only had to play guitar.
People are very friendly here and try to do the best they can to make us feel good.
We met a lot of Finns after the gig who wanted to show us around and they knew everywater hole in the town.
Next gig on sunday, cant wait :-)

C U

Ben

Thanks...

We had a great time in Germany and the 3 last gigs were really good with very good crowds. This week Dubai and then hopefully in to the studio to record the first 3-4 new songs.
Here are a couple of links to pictures from the tour.
http://i2pm.zenfolio.com/p451107949/
http://www.accu-becher.de/Ben/

Cheers and Danke schön!

Ben, Miri and John (Mr. Mummelman)

Guten Tag...

We're back in Wetter after two days on the road (Hereford and Reinheim). It was great to get out and play live again, the new songs are getting familiar to us and they have gotten great comments from the fans.

Colin from the UK came over to Hereford and brought us some cds to listen to in the van, thanks.
Christian Tolle came by earlier during reheasals and played some of his new stuff for us...what a killer player! He also gave us a copy of the new Steve Lukather cd which sounded very good too. DON'T WORRY! I'M BUYING A LEGAL CD AS SOON AS IT'S OUT :-)

I've only got working titles for the new songs we play live, and they are Julie (heavy early -70s stuff), Suck it up! (Heavy funk) and Mr.Johnson (an instrumental tribute to Eric Johnson).The rest of the new ones we'll be working on in Helsinki in march. A lot of the new one's will have keyboards because they feel like they need them...to get a -70's vibe you know he,he

I'm looking forward to tonights gig because we rehearsed here and the crew here is so nice so we'll try to play our best... better hide that Jaegermaester bottle Miri and John :-)

I've got some news about Guitar Slingers that I'll post when I get home next week.

Rock on!

Ben

Ben

Greetings from Germany!

Here we are in Wetter and our third day of rehearsals for new songs. So far we've recorded ruogh demos of 9 songs. Some are not more than jams and some we will play live already tomorrow!
We are rehearsing at Live Earth Music Hall here in Wetter and we couldn't hope for better hospitality. Gunther and his team are taking very good care of us indeed :-)
We will actually play here on friday so it'll be nice to play some of the stuff we've been torturing them with "for real".
Gunther is putting his final touch to his new studio and it looks really good with very nice equipment and good rooms etc.

The gig in Haltern last friday was a very nice suprise also. Good stage, good PA, nice big crowd and of course Frank and his band Punk Floyd did a very good jobb as support and had done a great jobb with promotion ...many old Wishbone fans in the audience too!

Well, my ears have rested enough ...back to rehearsals :-)

C U

Ben

On the road again...

Tomorrow we leave for Hamburg where we're staying for 1 night before the first gig. We'll probably visit Down Town Blues Club for dinner and some drinks :-)
We've rehearsed only once due to everyones busy schedules but the feeling is there and hopefully the almighty muscle memory will take care of the rest he,he...

C U out there...

Ben

Welcome!

Hope you like the new design! Micke has done a great jobb as usual. There is still a lot of info to come but the basics are here, surf around and enjoy.The equipment page is coming along again...check it out!

2008 started with 3 Granfelt / Nikku Gigs. I or, I must say we were SO positively suprised by the turn out on the gigs!! Thanks a lot for coming! There will be more gigs during the summer and in the autumn for sure.

I've had plenty of time to spend with my family and Jim (now 1 year and 9 months) witnessed his first soundcheck last week wednesday. He had his own Ukulele in bag with him and created quite a show when he strapped it on and played(!?) along when we checked the levels etc. Way to go Jimi boy!

I've also had time to train more BJJ and beyond any of my expectations I was awarded the brown belt by our Brazilian master Alexandre Paiva in December. Today writting this I'm sitting here with a pulled muscle in my back... I'm getting old ha,ha...

It'll be a pleasure to go on the road with Miri and Johnny again in February, we'll have some time to rehearse new songs and hopefully some new old stuff as well.

That's about it for now, cheers!

Ben

PS. Thanks for all the nice comments, sms and emails about the TV Documentary :-)

End of the year!

Thanks for a great year everyone! We had about 73 gigs this year and we ended at On the Rocks with a great gig! Thanks to Kasper, Bryn and Igi for helping out. We were really ON, + we had a great crowd!

Some news;

I was recently awarded the Golden Emma Guitarist of the year Award by the Sounds Society.
It was a great honour to receive it an I'm very proud of it!

The TV Documentary will be aired on the 2.1.08 at 20.25 on FST5 and then again the 6.1.08 at 13.15 if I remember correctly.

We will close the webpage execpt for the BLOG for the rest of the year since we are redesigning it. Sorry for that but it will hopefully be much better :-) We're hoping to have it back up and running during the first week of january.

I'd like to thank Miri and John for the best gigs I've done! This is truly a great band! Next year will be spent writting and recording a new studio album. We will do some dates in Germany but mainly take it easy and consentrate on the recordings.

The Granfelt/Nikku Guitar Fest. will do some gigs in january, the 12th at Texas Outback Bar&Grill (formerly known as Eats!) and the 23rd at Herys pub Helsinki. We will have new songs in the set and even some new originals !

Oh, and little Jim will have a little sister in may :-) I'm the happiest man alive!

Merry X-mas and Happy 2008 to all!

Ben

more news...

Issue 4 of the Finnish GuitarFan magazine has an interview + gear special with me. Altogether 8 pages !

Ben

Hello again,

Well, it's been awhile since my last blog...sorry!
I caught the flu staight after the tour and still had tons of things to do...

Anyway, the tour went well and I'd like to thank Miri, John, Mattes, Ralf, Britta and Saxon for making it easy and smooth.The last show at Charly's was recorded and I thought it was a really good show so we'll probably release some of it in some form sooner or later.

On a very sad note I would like to send my condolenses to Rosi Papes family and friends.
Rosi was supposed to do the merch on this tour but on the same day we started she was taken to hospital and when we got home I got the sad news that she had passed away after a long fight with cancer. Rosi was a kind , funny and always smiling person who has helped BGB out in many ways. Rest in Peace Rosi! You will be missed!

We do have some good news too. BGB will be back in Germany in early february and then at the end of February we'll go to Dubai for the Dubai Jazz festival theme week! That'll be great!

I will also be part of the GTR Tour 2008 in Finland (march-april). This tour features 3 guitar players with a house band. This year it's Jartse Tuominen (also the organiser), Pepe Ahlqvist and me.

Things to do ;
All BGB and GTR dates will be up on the gig page asap.
The TV documentary will be aired on TV2 FST early january, I should get the exact date soon.
I have tons of pictures that I need to put up once I figure out how to do it :-)

We've got 5 gigs in Finland before we take a short break AND we have some T-shirts left. Tour shirts, Ringer shirts and Girlie shirts ONLY 15 euros!.
On the Rocks the 7th of december will once again feature Kasper Mårtenson on keyboards and possibly 1 or 2 guest singers.

Take care and all the best,

Ben

Greetings from Saltzburg!

Great show last night and a very nice venue too! The last time I was here was 10 years ago with the Guitar Slingers :-) ... memories, memories ha,ha
We've had some very nice shows but unforunately also some bad luck with a couple of shows...snowy wheater and the no smoking ban seem to affect some clubs very hard with loosing half their clientel. I guess it will take some time to ge the people back in to the clubs, I just hope they don' t have to close before that... it's a tough business!
On www.youtube.com you can find some new live clips taken by our good friend Reinhard.

John is fitting in (on?) like a tight glove and we're having a great time.
being on the road is great but sometimes the journeys really take their toll (1800 km in the last 3 days!!).

Random stuff that's happening ....,

John was in high spirits when he found out that one of the venues (Village in Habach) was the set for a legendery German XXX movie that he's got on VHS.... he's now looking for the dvd version with bonus material :-)

We have a chance to record the last show on this tour for (yet) another live album. I think that unless we're dead tired we'll do it for historys sake.

I've had a bit of time in the hotel rooms and can happily say that I have 8 song ideas ready for the next album... It's great when inspiration flows ha,ha!

Still many dates left , come and join us!

all the best,

Ben

Tour going well!

4 gigs on the German tour behind and we're on a roll! Execpt for Neustadt the nubers have been very good with Föhr being one hell of a party! check out this link for pictures http://www.flickr.com/photos/photomanufactury/sets/72157602439150265/

I'm at home writing this while Miri and John are enjoying the 3 off days in Hamburg.
Tomorrow I'm flying out to continue with 10 dates in row, see ya all out there!

Cheers,

Ben

Gringos Locos

Well, ahemm.... check this out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OfOAMQWiAA
Judge for your self bu it was fun to see:-) Tht's me with the black guitar and Miri behind the drums.

Ben

Great gigs!

We had some really good gigs last weekend! Kokkola and Seinäjoki were especially good! The band is ON!
I realize I posted the wrong date for the Liberte´gig here below earlier.It is the 27.9 and due to Miris prior commitments we'll start 21.30! Spread the word and get your pals up and out from that couch! Fot those who goes to work the next day, you'll be in bed by 23.30 latest so come on out!

Cheers,

Ben

My Space

Forgot to say that www.myspace.com/bengranfeltband has a couple of soundclips from the new album and I'll try to update the blog there as well...now that I remember the pass word.

Ben

Yahoooo....

The gigs so far have been great! John is fitting in very well and I couldn't be happier :-) Many new faces in the audience! Thanks for coming!
Please note that Club Liberte´ (gig the 26.9) has done what a lot of clubs should do!!! Showtime 21.00 !!!!

Also the 17.10 has a new venue, it's is called Painthouse in Dortmund.

We're rocking!

Ben

PS. It seems to be incredible hard to get any media interest in BGB so if anyone knows someone in the press please help out! Or use the internet by posting on music forums etc. contact radio stations to request BGB songs, interviews .