Lordi - "Bite It Like A Bulldog"

Lordi's fourth studio album, entitled Deadache, will be released in the US on October 28th, 2008 and internationally in the same week.




The look of each character has been redesigned for this album. The new costumes will be revealed when Lordi headlines Popkomm in Berlin this October.


Listen the first single off the album, "Bite It Like A Bulldog"

Finland starts earlier the selection process for 2009

escfinland.eu reports:

Finnish broadcaster YLE has published the rules and dates of their selection process for 2009. The competition is again going to be between invited artists and songs selected in co-operation with their record companies. The biggest change from last year is that the whole process starts much earlier and the songs can be made public already on the 10th of December 2008, and even earlier on YLE's own channels.

There will be 12 artists competing in three semi-finals on the 9th, 16th and 23rd January. Already now the head of YLE Entertainment, Ms Tuire Lindström is making a point that they will concentrate extra hard on the selection process of the competing artists, who will range from male and female solo singers to bands. The full artist line-up will be announced already in September. Ms. Lindström also promises some surprises. "We are very happy with our Eurovision project this year with Teräsbetoni making it to the final in Belgrade, so we will use the same process to select out next entry", she concludes.

From every semi-final two artists get voted straight to the final, which will be broadcast on the 31 January. Just like last year, there will be a second chance vote to start off the final between the 6 artists who did not make it directly to the final taking the number of participants in the final to 8. The final will be again in two parts and the winner will be decided by a tele- and SMS-vote. There is also a mention of a compilation CD of all the entries planned for a January release.

The host city and the venue have not been announced yet. YLE TV entertainment and TV channel 2 hosting all the Eurovision shows reside in the city of Tampere, and the semi-finals have in the past few years been transmitted "as live" from the Tohloppi TV centre studios there. Also the hosts will be announced later. Jaana Pelkonen, YLE's host for Eurovision shows since 2005 and one of the hosts of the 2007 Helsinki final has previously been reported to be looking for a career in politics after finishing her university studies earlier this year and might thus not be available to host Eurovision shows anymore.

source

LORDI New album out in october

LORDI will realease a new album internationally on October 20, 2008.

The new, still unnamed album presents melodic hard rock wich had characterized Lordi's musical career throughout the years from Get Heavy to The Arockalypse.

The Arockalypse has sold 350 000 units and cerified gold in Sweden and Germany and triple platinum status in Finland.

"Dark Floors – The Lordi Motion Picture DVD” went gold in Finland before its official released date, Friday June 13th.

Meanwhile, the band announced the tour schedule for the next weeks:

05.07.2008: Bergum, The Netherlands -
12.07.2008: Lisalmi, Finland
25.07.2008: Benatska Festival, Czech Republic
26.07.2008: Lorka Rock, Madrid, Spain
02.08.2008: Wacken, Germany
16.08.2008: Witney, UK
23.08.2008: Imatra, Finland

source

Finland LIVE - First Semi Final - video

Teräsbetoni with "Missä miehet ratsastaa" has qualified for the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 Final.




Finland was drawn 8th in the Final.

First semi final results

The representatives of nineteen countries have presented their songs tonight in the First Semi-Final of the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest.

After all songs had been presented, televoting started in all the participating countries as well as in Spain and Germany, who are already qualified for the Final, but were drawn to vote in the First Semi-Final.

Nine of the qualifying countries were decided by televoting. Furthermore, the highest placed song in the result of the national backup juries which was not yet qualified through televoting got a place in the Final as well. However, the TV public will only find out which country it was after the Final of the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday.


The following countries have qualified for the Final of the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest (in order of announcement):

Greece - video
Romania - video
Bosnia and Herzegovina - video
Finland - video
Russia - video
Israel - video
Azerbaijan - video
Armenia - video
Poland - video
Norway - video

eurovision.tv has an exclusive video with the reactions af all semi finalists right after their performance in front of the Eurovision.tv camera crew.

Finland rehearsal and press conference

The Finnish rockers of Teräsbetoni rocked Beogradska Arena.

Vocally, they seemed to be in perfect shape from start to end and the whole act reminded a bit of Lordi's performance in Athens two years ago - not a bad sign for Teräsbetoni, as Lordi went on to win the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest altogether! Happy faces could be seen in the Finnish delegation after the group performed their song Missä Miehet Ratsastaa.







Press conference

During the press conference Teräsbetoni revealed that they were pretty happy about the way their first rehearsal went and that they thought the Belgrade stage was beautiful. Asked why they were singing in their native language Finnish instead of English, the group said that there would already be many Finnish hardrock bands singing in English and that they wanted to stand out.

sources:eurovision.tv; esckaz.com

Eurovision Christmas in Finland

esctoday.com reports:

YLE has prepared a treat for all Finnish Eurovision fans for Christmas as a special 1,5 hours long special on Christmas Day with the best of the Eurovision Song Contest 2007 in Helsinki will be broadcast on two different channels in two different sound systems.

The special will feature, besides backstage atmosphere and feelings, the songs from Spain, Switzerland, Denmark, Israel, Slovenia, Andorra, Hungary, Greece, Sweden, France, United Kingdom, Iceland, Germany, Georgia, Latvia, Belarus, Finland, Bulgaria, Turkey, Russia, Ukraine and Serbia.

Also the best of the interval and opening acts will be included with Lordi, Tsuumi and Apocalyptica.

YLE2 will broadcast the special Euroviisut 2007 – Thank you for the music in stereo and YLE Extra in 5.1 surround sound on December 25 at 15.30-17.00 local time.

Lordi Reveal "Dark Floors" Trailer

Dark Floors - The Lordi Motion Picture will be premiered in Finland February 8th 2008.

The Finnish Eurovision Song Contest winner Lordi will perform the theme song and star in new €4 million horror movie for Finnish producer Markus Selin of Solar Films .

credit

related:New Zealand's church protest Lordi perfomance

New Zealand's Church groups protest Lordi performance

Jenny Ling of Stuff.co.nz reports:

A crusade is looming as church groups prepare to take on heavy metal heavyweights poised to play in Wellington over Easter.

Wellington pentecostal church Lifepoint says the lineup of bands - including former bat-biter Ozzy Osbourne and Kiss - are "not appropriate" and will have "negative influences" on the city during the two-day Rock2Wgtn festival on March 22 and 23.

"It's not appropriate from our angle of things," said pastor Karen Crawshaw.

The condemnation follows confirmation that another hellish rock act, Finnish heavy metal band Lordi, has been booked to appear at the Wellington event.

The band, whose five members dress in elaborate costumes as monsters and demons, won the Eurovision song contest last year.

The winning song, Hard Rock Hallelujah, includes the lyrics "I got horns on my head, my fangs are sharp and my eyes are red" - and prompted Finland's religious leaders to warn that the band could inspire devil worship.

Read full article HERE

Finland wins the Eurovison Dance Contest

Katja Koukkula and Jussi Väänänen from Finland have won the first edition of the Eurovision Dance Contest.

The complete results:

Finland - 132 points (video)
Ukraine - 121 points
Ireland - 95 points
Poland - 84 points
Austria - 74 points
Portugal - 74 points
Russia - 72 points
Germany - 59 points
Denmark - 38 points
Spain - 38 points
Lithuania - 35 points
Netherlands - 34 points
Greece - 31 points
Sweden - 23 points
United Kingdom - 18 points
Switzerland - 0 points

Congratulations Finland!

YLE starts the quest for the 2008 entry

oikotimes.com reports:

YLE has released the rules of Finnish pre-selections for Eurovision Song Contest 2008.

Like in 2006 and 2007 YLE invites 12 artists to the competition, but this year they all will perform only one song.

The Finnish Final will take place in Saturday 1.3.2008.

You can read more on oikotimes.com

Lordi Goes From Zeroes to Heroes

Last year, Lordi, a Finnish group whose members costume themselves as literal monsters of rock, got exposure on a slew of cable-news channels after winning the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest — the de facto World Cup of tunesmithing, which has been around for more than half a century.

Not that all of the coverage was flattering. On MSNBC, for instance, Countdown host Keith Olbermann played the triumph as a joke during his defiantly daffy "Oddball" segment. Still, Olbermann did acknowledge that the "guy singing has got more talent in one rotting corpse finger than that Taylor what's-his-face has in his entire body."

The vocalist in question is Mr. Lordi, and he admits that the band's Eurovision odyssey was bizarre even by his standards. When the Lordi song "Hard Rock Hallelujah" (included on the Arockalypse CD) was chosen as Finland's official Eurovision entry, controversy erupted. Finnish leaders were asked to veto the selection, but according to Mr. Lordi, "They said there was nothing they could do [because] it's a fucking song contest!"

Read more ......

source:Denver Westword;photo:Solarfilms.inc

Lordi at Ozzfest

Saturday's Ozzfest at Hyundai Pavilion is likely to attract a big audience of metal fans who got free tickets over the Internet, but there will be fewer big name bands on stage.

The up-and-comers are ready to do whatever it takes to climb to the top of the metal heap. And none are more serious this year than Lordi.

The Finnish band has become hugely popular in Europe thanks to a bombastic stage show, elaborate monster makeup and, in no small part, an old-school metal that's accessible and hook-rich.

"We are not Satanists," said Amen, just a tinge of irritation in his voice. "People who do not understand horror movies, do not understand Kiss or Alice Cooper, won't understand us. What can I say about those kind of people? I don't even have words for them."

Read full article HERE

source and photo: The Press Enterprise

Finnish phenom Lordi brings monster look to Bay Area

FOR YEARS, Finnish film student Tomi Putaansuu had analyzed the way good gorefests work; how Sam Raimi, for example, conjured up the cadaverous scares in his "Evil Dead" trilogy.

Putaansuu went on to make his own bloody homages to the genre — which placed high in countless European competitions — before settling into a grisly position in horror-flick storyboards, makeup and prosthetics. And he had a theory he desperately wanted to test: that nothing shocks the public, not even monsters stalking city streets in broad daylight.

So when his Scorpions' retro-rock band Lordi was doing a photo shoot for its first album four years ago, he made a bet with the photographer — that the members, dressed in their outrageous alien-zombie stage get-ups, could stroll through town at afternoon rush hour without raising any sort of ruckus. "And guess who won?" chirps the gabby ghoul, who rechristened himself Mr. Lordi, the band ringleader/vocalist who sports onstage claws, 8-foot retractable demon wings and electric blood-spewing chains.

"At 4 in the afternoon on a Friday in Helsinki, we took subways to different stations and hung around where there were a lot of people coming out of work, and nobody stared, nobody said a thing. And it was at a time when no one even knew us," he says, "but thousands of Finns at rush hour just ignored huge monsters standing in their path. So this certainly tells you something about film."

Today, of course, the band would mobbed. Lordi has become the hottest homeland attraction since reindeer; Finnish President read more...

source:Inside Bay Area

Read also Lordi's horror dream becomes reality

Lordi - It Snows In Hell - Video

Lordi - It Snows In Hell

Changes to Finnish national selection for 2008

New team leads Finnish Eurovision Project

The completely new team is lead by the head of YLE Viihde (Entertainment) Ms Tuire Lindstöm.

The Finnish national final is lead by Mr Matti Grönberg from the same unit.

The pair promises some changes to the Finnish selection process, but will keep it as an invitation only -contest like in the last two years.

"We did not want to change the system, which seems to work well in practice. We wish to get record companies with us in an even wider scale than before to the project and create new success stories", says Ms. Lindström.

The rules for the contest will be published on the 17th of August. "Our team will research amongst other things, how many artists will be invited, how many songs each artist will perform in the finals and how the actual selection is made" says Mr Grönberg.

Both Lordi and Hanna Pakarinen were selected through four semifinals, where three artists each performed two songs. With this method all 12 invited artists got one of their songs to the final.

This method was though widely criticized by fans in 2007, as the artists were allowed to name their favourite of the two songs before the televoting began and invariably those songs also got selected, making mockery of the whole semifinal system.

It seems this new systems leaves the door open even for fewer artists to be invited with maybe more songs for each to perform, or more artists with just one song.

Ms. Lindström's latest credits include being the Executive producer of the third series of Idols for rival broadcaster MTV3 before moving to YLE. Mr. Grönberg has been with YLE longer and is responsible for directing and producing episodes of the long-running comedy series Kummeli and producing the quiz show Se on siinä.

As Hanna Pakarinen finished at 17th place in the Helsinki final, Finland will have to compete for a place in the Eurovision final in the semi-final in Belgrade, Serbia in May 2008.

source and photo:escfinland.eu

Thoughts on Eurovision, cancer and future

from esctoday.com

Riki Sorsa releases his last songs

Riki Sorsa (Finland 1981 with Reggae Ok) has won the fight against cancer at least for now. He was diagnosed with throat cancer in spring 2006 at the age of 54 and spent most of the year undergoing heavy treatment that left him voiceless and nearly deaf, but with his sense of humour intact. Besides his voice he lost 15 kilos.

He also made a brave move in opening a blog on his website where anyone interested was able to follow his fight with its ups and downs.

Unexpectedly, his blog was read by thousands daily and he gave a face to the illness that touches so many every day.

Riki was diagnosed with the illness when he was starting to record a new album but only two songs were ready before he had to stop and now those songs are finally available on an album Haltuus annan sydämein – 18 balladia that was released last month. It includes, as the title suggests, 18 ballads from his career creating this unique CD.

Riki Sorsa has participated in the Finnish Euroviisut four times performing five songs, all of which have reached the top-4. In 1981 he debuted as a solo singer in Finnish after being a lead singer in various bands singing in English. He won with Reggae ok. He only reached a typically Finnish 16th place in Dublin but the single charted later in various European countries. In 1985 was a runner up to Sonja Lumme with Haaveissa vainko oot mun (written by a new comer Kari Kuivalainen who would win in 1986) and scored a huge hit with it. He also sung Lapset maailman with Ami Aspelund reaching 4th place that year. In 1991 he performed Viimeinen tie and gained 3rd place and the year after Silmiisi sun that came 4th.

In his blog, Riki writes with enthusiasm about the Eurovision 2007 in Helsinki. He was very pleased YLE remembered and involved the old Finnish Eurovision singers, and says he felt like in a class reunion when meeting so may fellow competitors and fans from all over Europe who still remember him. He also says he is very proud of being one of those who has had the chance to sing in Eurovision and points an accusing finger against the Finnish media who used to slaughter each and every participant after the usual failure. Thankfully, things have changed now! These days he is slowly getting back to normal life and looking for a job. “I have sung my songs, can’t do it anymore. But there are many things I could do. I want to work. If nothing else, this experience has changed my life. I can now see what is really important in life, what matters” he concludes.

You can visit Riki's website here. (in Finnish)

Source:esctoday.com

ESC a good financial affair?

Eurovision Song Contest a good financial affair?

Well, hosting ESC 2007 gave at least Finnish national broadcaster YLE more than 35 million Swedish crowns or 3,716,879.94 €, newspaper Hufvudstadsbladet reports.

Before Hartwall Areena a lot of people in Finland thought that the event would cause a big black hole in the YLE budget but it all went opposite. All this thanks to the tickets sold over the week mid may this year.

When all charges and incomes/receipts was taking in consider it all ends with a + 3,7 million € for YLE. Not bad to say that you can earn money from such a big event as Eurovision Song Contest !!

source:oikotimes.com

YLE to select dancers on August 25

from oikotimes.com

Finland will select its participants for the inaugural Eurovision Dance Contest in a live, televised, show on August 25. The show will run much like ''Tanssii tähtien kanssa'', the Finnish version to 'Strictly Come Dancing', and will be aired on YLE two presented by Eurovision-hostess Jaana Pelkonen, and Simo Frangén.

Eight dancing pairs will take to the stage, all of whom have been approved by the Finnish Dancing Union, with the winner being decided by the public through telephone and SMS voting. A jury will be on-hand in the studio to pass comment on the dancing, outfits, and the performance- but they won't award any points. The participants will be made public on July 5, along with the jury, by broadcaster YLE.

Finland is leaving it late to select, with YLE stating that the winning couple will leave for London on August 29- just four days after the show.

Lordi at Cannes Film Festival

The world famous monster band was promoting the coming horror film at Cannes Film Festival.

On the beach

Over the street

The monsters in the heat

Waiting for Canal + live













On the Red Carpet of Cannes

Dark Floors

Synopsis
"Concerned for her autistic daughter’s health, the father sees a removal from the hospital by force as the only option. An elevator break-down prevents a smooth exit and renders them trapped with others. Yet the incident is only the beginning of a descent into nightmare. As the doors open the hospital appears mysteriously deserted. When mutilated bodies are found, creatures from a dark world start a frightening attack. It soon becomes clear that the survival of the group may rest solely on the little girl."

The feature film will be premiered in Finland February 8th 2008.

source and photos:Solarfilms.com