UngdomSkulen (pronounced ‘ONGDOMSKU:LN) (Frode Kvinge Flatland, Kristian
Stockhaus, Øyvind Solheim) is a Norwegian rock band hailing from Bergen.
Their sound is founded on bass, drums and guitar.
The guys met in `98 when they all went to school together. In 2003 they
decided to rock together on a regular and serious basis, and so they
did.
Ungdomskulen has since they started released six 7`singles, two albums
(Cry Baby; 07, Bisexual; 09) and done 250 shows in 17 countries.
Ungdomskulen has had a song on FIFA 09 by EA games and the video for the
song Modern Drummer (Cry Baby) was selected as the 5th best indie video
in 08 by MTV2.
September the 7th in 2008 UngdomSkulen had a big set back. Their fish
house studio burned down to the ground. Apparently there was an italian
guy, who forgot a pizza in the oven, that caused the fire. UngdomSkulen
has now built a new studio with a more carribean approach, but still
keeping some of the vibe from their old 1500 century fish house studio.
If you wonder what UngdomSkulen means:
ungdom - youth
skulen - school
In norway UngdomSkulen is where you spend your days the turbulent teenage years between 13 - 16.
heyz!
as most of you guys know we have released ten one-minute tracks accomponied by ten videos (made by blank blank) as the micro-lp project GIMME TEN.
see more at ungdomskulen.com
kai arne soot and his team directed another video for GIMME TEN-track "number one" and we are loving the result.
have a look yourself!
Ungdomskulen - Number One from Kai Arne Soot on Vimeo.
friends!
we just got back from a little tour/adventure and i thought we´d run through it with you guys!
so, we started off in oslo, playing mono café.
it was some mad tropical heat that day so the sweat poured down our handsome faces like it was no tomorrow. it was a fun gig and alot of our friends came out to see us.
life-coach/wildman erlando bastardo was cracking jokes backstage to pump us up.
that night we slept 2 hours before we left for london.
london means carrying suitcases up and down the stairs in the underground, eating shish-kebabs and sleep in stinky hotels, and we did all that and more...
when we arrived we went straight to some warehouse to do a photoshoot for IDOL Magazine, we got our faces all dolled up with powder and man-make-up and got dressed up and styled with fine clothing and so the shoot was done in the street.
afterwards we did the interview, man it took like 5 hours.
here´s frode from the future and back.
our tired asses went straight to the venue after that.
that night we played with a really cool band called civil civic, and the show was really rocking and ace!
the london-crowd is always a little awaiting, but at the end we had them all by the ponytails. the chicken-on-the-floor crew came out, as did our lovely friend andy and our pr-genious-queen sarah(the prude-free) and her friend madeleine, as well as jonny from peter and the pirates.
our penguin-dressed, partner in crime andy came out and so we borrowed alittle money from him.
after the concert-room shut down we snuck in and plugged my ipod into the mixingtable, and we ended up with a little dancefloor with about 10-15 peoples doing the most inventing dancemoves known to shoes.
an hour later we stumbled sweaty and happy out into the night and grabbed a piece of something edible before we shut eyes in our petite hotel-room/zoo dungeon.
next day we flew straight to berlin, and ended up eating pizza in kreutzberg and looking at a bunch of colorful rockabilly-types.
weather was nice and spirits were sky high.
while staying in berlin we crashed on silje and petris livingroom-floor, that´s how we like to travel, and we cannot thank them enough for their kind hospitality.
floor-owners silje and petri
that night we did´nt have a concert so we hooked up with carlos who directed the GIMME TEN-videos and some of he´s crew.
we went to this warehouseparty way out of the town, but we left soon as they were playing minimal-techno.
ungdomskulen with the GIMME TEN directors Carlos and Petri polaroid: eirik lande
next day we walked around town looking to shop, but we did´nt buy anything.
but it was nice to just stroll around and feel the concrete under our fairly hairy toes.
some of the videos were shot at a local bar called ek kneipe, and that night we had a screening of all the videos in a directors cut-styled montage at the bar. the turn-up was good and it was amazing to see all the actors and the bar the videos were shot in.
we rushed to the venue afterwards, that night we were playing a club called Magnet, the night was curated by karrera klub, which is a group of very nice and friendly people, they had alot of food and drinks and snacks and this + that lined up for us.
the gig was great and after we´d sold some merch, we brought are friends and hung out backstage.
there was no stereo there, but in the corner there was a sega megadrive tv-game so our background music was the eminent and fitting sonic the hedgehog-theme.
we left for an afterparty at silje and petris, ordered some pizza and bought some beers, and we ended up dancing til 8 clock in the morning, and literally danced into the cab taking us to the airport.
party
we must´ve looked like a bunch of hobos as we all fell asleep 2 min after the cabman hit the paddle, good thing he wasnt a serial killer cause we would be chanceless had he decided to drive us to the woods and cut us up like little pieces of sushi.
the rest of the day was sleeping, sleeping, sleeping with smirks big as rainbows stretched across our faces for a long time to come.
what a great time we had, thank you all!
polaroid: eirik lande ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/eirikl/ )
As alot of you peeps already know, Ungdomskulen are releasing 10 one-minute tracks/videos over the next five weeks.
Here´s the soundcloud-file that lets you stream and download the songs, hell you can even share them on your own blog.
Every Monday and Friday til June 3rd another little song will be added. Do enjoy!
GIMME TEN by UNGDOMSKULEN
little ones...
its been so long, but you know, blog-posts are like gnomes, they come and go.
so, heres a little update on what is going down in the land of the u to the s.
we are recording our third LP at the moment, and making some remixes, adjustments and refurbishing.its gonna be so thrilling to put this new dash of dish on the tables around the furious planet that is earth.
life is good, and we are content.
but we miss playing for you peeps, its been too long since we rocked your bar, and it is time for some a-changing.
we have some new tricks hidden up our sleeve, some new thoughts to plant in your heads, and some new secrets to whisper in your ears.
2011 is gonna be a good year for us and you, we gonna show you alittle bit of our world and vise versa.
we have decorated our studio/rehearsal-space into a tiki lounge, and soon we will take you there like a lazy breeze is taking a styrofoam-cup on a tour around the park.
keep calm, cause it will not be long til your ears will be filled with bewilderness, until then listen to the old records....
hah!
laters,
us
hey again.
since last time we played oslo and trondheim, thats norwegian cities peeps.
at oslo we played at internasjonalen which is a pretty new and exciting venue, it was part of a thing called øya open,
which is an outbranch of øyafestival and in a week or so we are gonna play for øya in new york.
the night was really nice but nice isnt worth writing about.
then we did trondheim, we played at a venue with a mafia theme called familien, norwegian for the family, i hate the mafia,
i think its nothing glamorous about them,i can see why people dig into the aestetics but the truth is,
these people will eat your heart out in an eyeblink, anywho...
so we did this concert, and afterwards we decided to do another one in the basement with datarcok,
it was a back to back event, where all the songs blended into eachother, it was alot of fun and we have it on tape so we will post it on youtube on of these days.
that was last week so this almost the present.
check it out...
we played berlin the other night, and that was wicked, it was raining all night, so we found shelter in rock and roll.
we met up with some old friends, and nothing spectacular happend.
øyvind accidently almost ruined the power circut when he was taking down the backdrop and a beer that another band left onstage,
tipped over and beer plus electricity equals shwawwwwwcz.
then we played prague, which was really nice, again alot of norwegians came out so we invited them to dance on stage,
and boy did they dance.
earlier that day we hoped to find a classy restaurant that was really cheap, but we found a dungeon that was cheap-looking and
totally cheap-tasting, oh well...
that night we stayed in a real fancy hotel, it had crystal crown-lamps in every room, real small bathtubs and
alot of miniature bottles of different soaps and creams.
its nothing like crashing in a nice hotel room after a day of rain, dungeons and tourist traps and wet shoes.
tonight we are in brussels, we just had some snitzel and are warm and content.
in belgium they either speak french or dutch, we learned something in dutch, its probably not the right spelling but
it goes like this "schwaffel en kut mutten sammen sitten".
perfectomundo.
the show went really well, and brussels is a nice town, to those who are nice to brussels.
tomorrow we have a 9 hour drive ahead of us, so dang if theres a trafficjam.
yours truly.
u.s
So here´s a short summary of the last days of the uk idunno tour.enjoy.
Friday we smooshed Oxford silly and hooked up with our friends dear friends in the Young Knives ensamble, the show went really smoothly and
afterwards we threw a birthday party for Øyvind at Toms and Nikki´s place, there was a proffesional balloon-figure setup taking its rounds,
it was beatles rockband rocking in the livingroom, and improv theatre sessions in the kitchen, we ended the night laying on our stomachs
drawing a big-ass painting that is going to be worth something some day, jolly good times!
Saturday we played the dance magic dance concept at bardens boudoir we had one helluva nice time
and we got to share the stage with Invasion a really good soul-metal band (!) (check em out) and the japanese outfit
screaming tea party.
We stayed at the promoters place mirah,( i might misspell it) and slept on madrasses on her and marks livingroom floor, the next day we met up with the
peeps from last night and went for a big ass breakfast, mmm-hmmm.
Sunday we played this church that they´d turned into a club in Colchester, really good acoustics and a punk-chilli-stew big enough to
feed a 100 hungry soldiers set the tone.Its a funny thing it took our own rock-show to get us into a church, halleprogjha!
Monday we played Manchester and that was nice enough, got to meet our uk number one fans debbie and claire( if only briefly) and we also hooked
up with y.k´s old crew Martin and Ben.
Tuesday and last playing-day of the tour we are in York,the place New York got it´s name from apparently.
We are waiting to soundcheck now, had some italian earlier,Lunch-special for a good price, Sugar FreeQ-Andy went for an Chinese Buffeet and lost a tooth,
no kidding.
i bought some records as well,mike oldfield tubular bells first print, rick wakemen king arthur something and a the nice record called autumn 67 spring 68, we also bought calvin klein bootleg undies at the market, they´ll probably fall off in when we need them the most.
The show in York was extremely hot and alot of fun
A bunch of norwegian students came out, and they all bought are tees, very generous.
In addition a guy called Vojta who saw us in Trutnov almost 2 years ago, came over with a setlist that he had gotten his hands on, and wanted us to sign it,
so we did, and took his picture.
So this is it, smell you later till the next time and thanks to everyone coming out, doing lights and sound and keeping things nice and perky.
Wednesday going home.
So we are 5 days into the tour, and it´s been hard posting anything because its been hard getting our claws on the good ol´ internet.
So we played 3 dates so far, Bath, Coventry and yesterday we had the single-release for Idunno at hoxton bar and kitchen,
it went really well and we had a fun night.
We went shopping for tights at the Camden-market earlier that day so we premiered them at the single-launch, i must admit that
it feels really good with those stretchy sex-fiends wrapped around the pale old sticks and i suppose it´s a feeling you come back to.
Again and again, and again once more.
So the weather has been really nice and we´ve met alot of friendly peeps.
We were supposed to go to the zoo but we did´nt manage to get up in the morning so we had to let the tigers down.
We went to the movies on our night off instead, we brought a bottle of red wine each and smuggled it into the really expensive Leicstersquare theatre
and enjoyed the hell out of ourselves while watching Inglorious Basterds, after that we went dancing at various establishments in Old Street.
We learned that Londoners are really afraid of letting their guards down, and dancing the night the way is the best thing in the world,
but we allready knew that.
Pure magic.
here we are now in the underworld...
Tour is a-happening, and we just finished a gig in Bath.
It was a Jane Austin festival in town with alot of people dressed up as ladies and gentlemen from
the old times, man i´m glad i did´nt live in those times.
So the sun is up and so is our spirit, give it a week and we´d be like wolves fighting for a sunday turkey.
After the show at Moles(the venue) we were handed a poem by a guy, but i think he was delivering it from a shy girl,
it seemed like a spontanious thing, and we were really touched and happy to receive it, and for your pleasure we are gonna post it on our B:L:O:G!
Stay saturated for new Adventures.
allright everyone of you!
we´re back, its a weird thing having a blog it´s almost like a friend that
you really like to hang out with for a while, and then like a fading trend you just
throw that glowstick away, untill you pick up where you left it and think it´ll glow forever.
anyways,
so camp ungdomskulen is doing well, we are located in a new practice-space/studio
after the nasty fire, and we have slowly started to work on new songs.
or a song.
we have a 7"-single coming out in europe this fall, its a single for idunno with a previoulsy unreleased gem for the b-side, we´ll tell you more about that as things are ready and steady.
the cover-photo is mindbending, you´ll see.
its really one for the collectors.
so,last weekend we played a festival located in the longest fjord in the world or something, at least its the deepest, anywho,.. the festival is located in the most amazing sorroundings, and the festival well it was called fresn.
its an old friend and sometimes stage-saxomofonist for u.s that runs it, and while going there we also got to see a live reindeer and a waterfall that´s on the unesco herritage list, its like the 600 wonders of the world or something, we drank water coming from the mountains like goats and were free-spirited and loose.
let us show you...
being a band with no restrictions as far as playing-ground goes, ungdomskulen performed their most leftfield gig to date, at a wedding.
we didnt play covers mind you, we let the groom pick from our hardhitting back catalogue of prog-punk jams.
it wasnt any wedding though, it was a really nice, sweet wedding, with hints of greek passion and poetic grandeur of past times.
we where a little nervous at our arrival(we were afraid that we´d ruin the whole wedding and everyone would hate us) but when we left we had been part of
limbo-dancing, dancer-in-the-ring and a bona fide moshpit(some wedding).
we were all alittle touched,tired, in love with life and red-cheeked, all according to protocol.
here we are now with the beautiful bride and groom, oda and leiv otto
hey folks
we are featured in this weeks "quit your day-job" column on stereogum,
its a good fun interview,an mp3 and a mix that i made, so its really worth a look.
so go check it out!
i recommend it HIGHLY!
stereogum.com
heres u.s doing an acoustic version of modern drummer for norwegian tv-show called lydverket.
håvard eliassen is playing saxomophone and two of our tent-neighbours joined in on percussion.
good people!
do we have some news for you!
ungdomskulen are working on our sophmore record, and it is going really well.
we have 4 tracks as good as down, and we started just 2 weeks ago.
there will be a slow song on this record, maybe we can be so bold to even call it a ballad, but apart from telling you that, we are very secretive about it, our little gem, $ in the hat.
we are planning to release it in febuary 2009.
so be patient for chrissake!
we don´t have a working title for it, but if anyone has any ideas just hit us with it.
either here or there.
in the meantime...
here´s a picture of us taking a break from rocking out!
------------>arm-pit steve, smelly feet and stinky pants
kids say the darndest things!
i guess we have alot of work to do, cause judging by this video
new york kids doesnt have alot a love for ungdomskulen.
we have some love for them though for being so frank and child-like in their harsh critisism.
here´s what they had to say about our video "modern drummer".
check it out!
when we were in los angeles,usa we did what everybody who goes to hollywood tries so hard to do.
we got on tv.
not only that we make our first tv-apperance ever,we got to do it on nobel peace prize winner al gore´s channel "current tv".
so this is what happened.
we came in good time to the studio and was escorted into a nice waiting room with a kick-ass leathercouch.
there was contemporary art on the walls and a big shiny black table filling the room, decorated with all sorts of exotic fruits and the most delicious italian sandwiches we´ve ever put our scandinavian eyes on.
and so we decided to check the fridge, and to our big amazement it was filled with imported beers, of which we instantly got our hands on.
so it was 13.00 and we were doing our first tv-apparance and we are getting good and tipsy.
can it get any better?
mmm-hmmm!
it was time to get some tv-makeup on.
there were two lovely ladies who painted our faces, and we requested to get whiskers and eyeshadow, and black noses.
they couldnt believe it,-you are going on tv, and you wanna look like cat drag-prostitues, they asked us.
well, it took some convincing but that was what we wanted.
so they did a marvelous job on us and we got three different eye-shadow colors.
just like t.m.n.t or kiss even, you know having your own color and all.
we felt sooooo good!
then we went and represented.
spending half of your precious day in a crammy van, there´s nothing much to do but to sleep or look out the window.