PROGRESSIVE MUSIC FROM FINLAND PRESENTS : --------------------------------FLYING GARDENIA------------------------------- Flying Gardenia is a unsigned Finnish rock band playing progressive rock with influences from very different music styles mainly from the oriental end from psychedelic music. "It is all in the music - the feelings we get, the things we see..." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BAND MEMBERS : Kim Blomberg - guitar, vocals Heikki Paananen - guitar Jan Blomberg - bass Jaakko Liimatainen - drums and percussions ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ SHORT BIOGRAPHY : The band started as a trio back in 1995 and it was first called Gardenia. The first demo '4 Songs' was recorded in 1997and we sold 300 copies of the tape. The tape was welcomed quite nicely and it was also played in Radiomafia, one of the national Finnish radio stations. In 1998 Gardenia entered a rock competition 'ROCK98' end went through to the final. Due to the success in the competition Gardenia was chosen to play one of the biggest rock festival in Finland called 'Provinssirock'. In 1998 Gardenia recorded their second demo 'Love', which was never 'published'. It was however also played on Radiomafia. 'Love' contained for instance a new version of 'Salem' and an early version of 'Love has disappeared'. After the tape some personal problems lead Markus (the drummer) to leave the band in 1999. Gardenia did however go on with a new drummer Jaakko, but decided to change the name to Flying Gardenia. Finally in year 2000 Flying Gardenia went to record new material. The CD is called 'On The Way' and Heikki joined the band later the same year to play guitar. FG is currently working with new material and looking forward for new challenges and gigs. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The demo CD included contains tracks from all earlier tapes : Flying Gardenia : On The Way (2000) 1) On The Way (2000) 2) Love Has Disappeared (2000) 3) Never-ending Road (2000) 4) Salem (1998) 5) Falling Down (1998) 6) Suddenly (1998) 7) Dead (1997) 8) Bubby (a dedication to the movie Bad Boy Bubby, 1997) 9) Can You Feel The Angel? (1997) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- REVIEWS : A strange band from Laukaa, but really a good one. It is amazing that some of these demo bands sound so ready. Could it be so that in a smelt town you have to work harder to sign a record-contract You have to practise end make a good demo tape to send to the record labels. In bigger cities the story goes as follows: a friend of yours have a record label. You go to him to have a beer end suggest: we have a project, let's make a record. Lets get back to Gardenia. This is guitar music of the 90's, but it cannot be categorised. JH lndiepunkrockzine Sue 2-3/.97 The music of Gardenia is breathing despite its heavy ground tone on '4 Songs'. The characteristics of the tape is brightness, clarity end rhythm. The lyrics are simple, but the music patterns are much richer. 1 can imagine that the music can playing live fulfil even a bigger music hall leaving the more sensible shades underneath the more heavier sounds. When listening to the tape with a walkman, you can hear these more delicate tones. In the first track 'Salem' a man is searching for himself. Salem, Salem, Salem repeats like a mantra. It is like the singer is trying to break a watt which is breaking the connection to himself. Salem is en Arabic word for well-being end peace. Also the guitar tones sound like coming from the eastern world. The lyrics 't can see nobody, but 1 can hear some voice' reminds me of the search of the musician, but instead of the light as his leader, he follows the voice. The restless end painful lead singer begs for peace as he is wandering in a state of fear. In the track 'Dead' the band is searching for the meaning of life. lt represents the heaviest part of the tape. 'Bubby' goes forward mindless. 1 can see it as a crazy music video, where the musicians are colliding end their is flying. The instruments howl end the singer is tearing his voice. 'Can You Feel The Angel?' sounds delicate. lt comforts like the touch of en angels wing. The tracks forms a totality, but not the whole story. There wilt be more. Minna Roisko: Gardenia - Clear end Bright in Laukaa-Konnevesi -lehti 18.6.1997 The characteristic are the shades of Balkan music, but there's also some elements of heavy/hard rock. The playing is reliable end got some drive in it. Clearly among the best third of the tapes. Soundi.-711997 I always gat exited when 1 hear of young men, whose way of thinking differs from the western way of handling music. Yes. There are other scales than the western in music. Gardenia uses bravely influences outside the traditional rock end that is positive. Quite often you have to ask for the originality in demo tapes. Gardenia might not play together as welt as they might, but they sure have ideas. And this is absolutely the better way. There are enough of bands in the world that play extremely welt, but then what. What do the listener first pay attention to in a band? Of course the singer end his voice. Therefore you can never practice that enough. The singer creates the image of the band end therefore you must be able to sing welt also playing live. You must also sound credible end be a good performer. That is something to think for this trio. Put in some more haziness end bizarre sounds end this band wilt be really great. The contrast between the sound end salem-department can be big, because it is this thing that delivers the surprises. The ground is good. Just go for it. Timo Lievemee: Syke/Keskisuomelainen 14.2.1998 Gardenia comes from Laukaa end strengthens the position of central Finland as the cradle of more progressive music (??1!). Although this band isn't one of the progressive band as the term suggest, but this is a subject which has created so much discussion, so I'll leave it be. It doesn't even matter. The tracks of G are short end pithy end the band uses en effective ethnic half scale. Especially at the start of the tape you can hear the influences of Kingston Watt, once again. You just have to admit that Walli (r.i.p) end the other guys had en huge influence on the development of the Finnish music scene. Gardenia has a lot of going on. They don't use long solos. The guitar concentrates on the interpretation end it works well. The guitar recycles the riffs naturally end the bass makes the tracks as wholes. Although the phaser now end then is tasteful, you could expect some more heavier sounds in the guitar here end there. The drummer has a great drive. The quite high tempos holds, except for a little busyness in 'Bubby'. 'Bubby' is the most interesting track. Also 'Can You Feel The Angel?' in its simple way is effective. Gardenia doesn't try to show off end so the band sounds natural. The lyrics are ok. You could pay attention to the pronouncing - although the exotic accent may be popular nowadays. It was quite a rally! -colossus 1198- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CONTACT INFORMATION: FG/Jan Blomberg Suuruspääntie 8 A 9 40520 Jyväskylä FINLAND Web site : http://flyingardenia.cjb.net (an English version coming soon) and http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/222/flying_gardenia.html E-mail : gardenia@iobox.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You can go to the Finnish Progressive Music Page by pasting the next URL : http://Progressive.homestead.com/FINLAND_GROUPS.html or by using the return button if you were there before.