On Saturday, the 12th we’re playing in Oslo to compete in 4SOUND demotape final, where we choose to front our song Heartbroken City. While it’s a sunny tune with feelgood vibes, it’s at the same time about hopeless dreaming and reminiscing over lost love.

While recording this in our studio, we felt the need to document the place where we have been making all the music, so we made this video. It’s not exactly pro, but we had a really fun time filming it. Now we’re looking forward to the competition on Saturday, and hope to see many of our friends there!

Update: And we were, of course, thrilled to win the competition and 60.000 kr + music equipment.

We recently played at electronic music happening, Straum, at Nordfjordeid, where we had a really good time and an fantastic audience! We hope to come back soon… Meanwhile, photographer Tim Øsleby took some pictures from the event. We included a few of them here, but you can check out the rest of them at his blog.

And as a special treat for you, the whole concert was filmed by Nils Ola Strand. Enjoy!

Although we are working like mad on tracks for our debut-EP, one needs some therapeutic relief sometimes. So we made a remix of FCL’s (San Soda & Red D) club hit “Let’s Go”. While keeping it simple, it’s got some interesting funky synergy and progressive energy which will fit in a club setting.

In other news, we got to the finals in the demotape-contest we entered. Thanks to everybody who voted! So on the 12th of January we’ll be playing in the final at Parkteateret, Oslo. Before this, there will be another online vote between the five finalists. You can check them all out and vote here.

Edit: As a result of getting to the finals, we were featured in Firda, and in the paper editions of Fjordabladet and BA. As well, thumbs up to the fine people behind Malakoff Rock Festival which gave us some promo on their facebook page!

We have entered a demo contest where it’s possible to win music equipment and cash valued 100.000 NOK. We have been promoting it over facebook for a while, and thought we would give a small “heads up” here as well. Our entry, “Heartbroken City”, is a song we’ve had great response to while playing live, and this is the first time you’ll get to listen to it online.

To vote and to listen to it, go here: https://www.demotape.no/artists/230612

1) Choose the “Gi din stemme”-button

2) Choose “Connect with facebook”, which will allow you to vote without becoming a member of the site. 

If you want to make our day special, you can go to the facebook-event and invite your friends to do the same. We appreciate all the help we get! If we are among the top 5 artists in terms of votes, we’ll go on to the final in Oslo, where a combination of jury and online votes will decide the winner. Although the number of votes is secret until Dec 01, when the voting ends, judging by the response so far, it’s looking good!

Next Friday, the 16th of November, we are occupying Tivoli at Kvarteret. But instead of protesting against globalization or the finance industry, we’re playing a concert!

The b0ka DJs Edit and The Famous Biting DJ are warming up the room first, before the band starts playing at 01:00. At this upcoming gig, we are hoping to recapture some of the spirit of the last time we played at Tivoli, which actually was our first concert ever as a band.

That concert was one of the most special memories ever for us. Obviously, that the first concert is precious is true for most bands. But it’s not really that it was the first concert that were special, but how it happened.

We had invited, begged and dragged our friends to come, and due to a small article in an online magazine, there were some other people as well. Most of them had only heard snippets of our music, if anything, and had no expectations at all.

The singing was a bit off key, and there were some small errors here and there. Despite this though, people enjoyed it overall, and slowly started dancing. First calmly, then gradually more wildly… Eventually some started jumping in euphoria, and not long after, the whole room was boiling. People were dancing like crazy, and during one of the last songs, most of the audience joined together in a gigant conga-line, like back in the days when we were kids.

Now, tell me; how often does that happen during a normal concert in Norway?

So get geared for something special, and join in and invite your friends for the facebook event here.

We already posted this one on our soundcloud profile two weeks ago, but we had the stark realization that you blog-o-maniacs out there might have missed it. The story behind this tune goes like this; One of the members of our little band had such an bad experience after a wet night on the town, that he was feeling the urge to write a song about it. The result is “When You Touch Me”, a funky snack pack that blends hip-hop, disco and pop music into a tasty tropical smoothie. As for the happy ending; hey, Obama won…

Close friend and talented musician, Jakob Eri Myhre (to the left) flew in from Oslo to join the b0ka-crew for this concert.

It’s gearing up for the first b0ka-concert since the summer, and instead of the usual chit-chat with the bandmembers, we here at b0ka.com decided to interview one of the groups biggest fans, Steve Tease. Steve is a Berlin resident, but landed in Bergen on Monday to, among other things, reach the b0ka-concert.

“Hi Steve, are you psyched for the concert?”

“Oh yes! Actually, I wasn’t able to attend the previous concert, since I was enduring the hangover of the century in Berlin, so my b0ka-abstinence-meter-levels haven’t been this high since the group started to play live in late 2010.”

“I actually interviewed you before, so I know you keep in touch with some of the b0ka band members. Did you manage to wriggle some information about this gig from them? They were pretty secretive when I asked them myself…”

“I know for a fact that they are going to play Techno Color for the first time. Hmmm… I probably shouldn’t say this, but when I was standing outside their practise room on Tuesday, they were practicing on a song where the chorus was something about “like it when you touch me” Or was it “didn’t like”? I’m not sure, because my head is a mess right now.  Anyway, I liked the song, so I hope they will play it on Friday. What’s more, I did hear some rumors about another new song, but I don’t know if this rumor has any truth to it.”

Wow, that’s great news. We can’t wait!

“Yeah, I’m like a heroin addicted kid myself, waiting for both heroin and presents on Christmas eve! Well, maybe that wasn’t the best comparison, but you know what I mean. I hope this Kosmo-club will be filled to the max, because my favorite band deserves nothing less.”

You can share Steve Tease’s exitement at the facebook event for the gig. See you there!

“Will Ray Reagan return?”

It’s been about six months since b0ka Radio abruptly ended, and so far for unknown reasons; Ray Reagan blamed his producer on air during this final episode, but we’ve been unable to confirm or reject anything. And, since things obviously took a bitter end, it took six months from the episode aired, to Ray finally uploading it to cyberspace for your b0katastic enjoyment. We at b0ka HQ really do hope that the show that featured guests such as Mathias Stubø and Elektrofant, continue in the future, online if not on the actual air.

The b0ka Radio host has later admited to deliberately breaking rules imposed on him by the broadcasting company, and that he took the opportunity of the falling out to give his listeners an all exclusive b0ka demo special, cutting down on advertisements. Ray sent an email to several b0ka producers, and shortly after had new material from The Famous Biting Guy, Etoh, Edit, Fjompenizer and InfinitEvol, among others at his disposal. Though Ray sounds sarcastic and crass at times, the show runs smoothly and unravels some great demo tapes. While we hope and pray to The Pink Donkey for more b0ka Radio, grab this episode to ease the wait.

b0ka’s remix outfit, b0ka’s Stickers, are not sitting idly by watching paint dry, (or television for that matter) instead they have been knitting up a neat little snack-pack for all dancing enthusiasts and disco-freaks!

Their newest effort, “Never too Far to Fall”, doesn’t fall too far from the tree of the 1983 original, and instead reworks this great George Benson song into a more dance-able edit for the nightclub setting. So the next time you wake up with an headache, you know who to blame… Enjoy!