FJAERE  1993-95

Fjaere (fee-er-a) Nilson, Norwegian - American singer songwriter, based in Edinburgh. Steve met her and her boyfriend/manager Frankie Mooney at one of their regular monday night stints in Nicky Tams in Edinburgh's Bow Street. Their set was full of Fjaere's own compositions, she playing acoustic and Frankie playing keys and a mean sax.

They were putting together a full band and Steve's SG fit in quite the thing. The line-up was completed with Keith Burns on drums (not the same Keith Burns from Political Asylum, just a weird moment of synchronicity!) and Mike McMann on bass. These guys had played in The Libertines and Keith was with The Proclaimers during their heyday (check 500 Miles video on MTV - there's Keithy).

We recorded a few songs in Dave Grey's Sound Cafe in Penicuik, played King Tuts in Glasgow a couple of times, then, unknown to the lads in the band, we'd qualified into the semi-finals of a Yamaha sponsored worldwide battle of the bands. Fjaere had sent in our demo thinking nothing would come of it, next thing, we're treking down to Bedford to do a video. Now, Keith and Mike couldn't be bothered with this, and i had been in a similar situation with SEEING RED, so the thought of taking time out from my regular income gigs with WONDERLAND to do a video didn't really appeal to me. But, thanks to a good lecture from Mikey Wiseman in Banff, off i went. Apologies to Alison for the missed gigs.

Even with stand-in bassist and drummer we qualified through to the British final. Fjaere and 3 other bands were flown to London for a couple of nights to play a short set of songs in the White Room (studio 2) in Abbey Road, with George Martin and some A&R people judging, alongside Whispering Bob Harris as chairman. Obviously, Mike and Keith were back on board for some of this. After the show it was back to the Hilton for the results - and blow me, did we not win! This meant we were the UK entry for the world final in Japan in October 1994.

Ah, Whispering Bob.

Outside Abbey Road Studios

Tsumagoi is a Yamaha-owned upmarket  holiday camp. This was where we were based for a week, alongside 26 other bands from around the globe. You can imagine the mayhem, christ, you could buy a tin of double whiskey and coke from street vending machines! I hit it off with the Australians, an excellent metal band called WHO'S GUILTY, total Faith No More.

The event was being staged in the 3000 capacity theatre on the Tsumagoi site, and was being broadcast live on MTV Asia, a few million viewers there then! The organisation was impressive, every day we would have these orientation meetings where i's were dotted and t's were crossed. All this for each band to play ONE song  - oh and come together at the end in a Band Aid stylee for a rendition of "Get Back".

We blew ourselves away again by coming second in the competition (America won). What a celebration that night, hot Saki and champagne slammers. On our return back to Scotland i bought myself a lovely Fender Strat Plus with my share of the winnings.

The following January Fjaere were playing a show as part of the Celtic Connections Festival in Glasgow, and one of the judges that saw us in London and Japan came to the gig to check us out in a normal performance situation. John Leckie is a legendary producer. He's worked with Pink Floyd, Stone Roses, Radiohead and, recently, Muse. The guy is midas. Well, we must have sucked that night cos i never heard any more about him, and the band split soon after.

What a waste.