Old news

June 29th - 2010 - Our website is under reconstruction, transcending from html to css encoding. Due to these changes several links from our old news are out of order. As we roll, these links will be updated or removed.

June 12th - 2010 - The band is getting ready for Isegranfestivalen in Fredrikstad, this coming Friday the 18th. Sebastian will be in Poland at the time, so we are lucky enough to present the great Sondre Meisfjord, standing in on the double bass. Also, we are proud to recieve great reviews for our album on the website Tromsø By.

June 2nd - 2010 - A little article of Earlybird, bluegrass, our release and our upcoming gigs this summer, was displayed in the national newspaper Dagbladet.

June 1st - 2010 - We've been lucky enough to recieve very good album reviews. Here are two from Oslo's student magazine Universitas and from the web-site Live City.

May 30th - 2010 - Olav Christer is going back to the U.S. for the second time this year with his folk music trio Geitungen, to play at the festival Nisswastämman in Minnesota. The band is also playing in Finland in July, and at the Celtic Connections festival in January 2011. Hans Martin recently completed recording and filming music along with Mattis Myrland, Håkon Rasmussen and Nils Christian Fossdal. The music was supervised by Wenche Losnegård, recorded with a large crew from Maipo productions for the movie Sykt Lykkelig directed by Anne Sewitsky. The movie is set to premiere in November 2010.

May 18th - 2010 - Earlybird Stringband was honored with second prize in EBMA's official contest of #1 European Bluegrass Band. We also met a whole bunch of nice people and pickers at the EWOB festival, and would like to thank everyone for making our stay in Holland an amazing experience. We're hoping to come back soon!

May 13th - 2010 - Less updates the last month, due to a very busy schedule. Olav Christer and Hans Martin made a trip to the U.S. Driving from New York to North Carolina, to visit the festival Merlefest. Along the way they stopped in Winchester, VA, and met alot of nice people and musicians. More on this trip will be posted later. The band is currently packing, and leaving for Holland this evening, as Earlybird Stringband is playing at the festival European World Of Bluegrass (EWOB 2010). We are very much looking forward to this trip, beeing our first trip abroad as a band.

April 10th - 2010 - Erlend was visitet this week by friend and old-time fiddler Ryan Drickey from the U.S. They held a workshop Wednesday in Oslo, and had a split-gig concert Friday with the Norwegian Folk/Crossover singers in Eplemøya Songlag.

April 6th - 2010 - We got a nice review in Trondheims student magazine Under Dusken.

April 3rd - 2010 - We've completed playing several concerts up against our album release. We'd like to thank everyone in the audiences, and a special thanks to Hegdehaugen Skoles Mandolaikaorkester. Photos from our release concert can be found in the Press section.

April 2nd - 2010 - Alot of good reviews and mentions in the papers the last two weeks. Here's a review in Bergens Tidene from our concert in Bergen

March 24th - 2010 - The band was show cased live, with a tune and an interview, on the national radio program Nitimen. They sent us the clip, click here to listen! (the file is rougly 8MB, so it will need a minute to load)

March 23rd - 2010 - Another uplifting album-review from the paper Fædrelandsvennen.

March 22nd - 2010 - Our first album is released! Years of hard, interesting and fun work has taken the form of a plastic disc in a green paper trey. The title: Earlybird Stringband.

 

March 21st - 2010 - We visited Kafe K in Porsgrunn Friday. A great evening with help from substitute bass-player Olav "Knerten" Kamfjord. Woke up Saturday to a great review of our upcoming album in the Norwegian paper Dagens Næringsliv. The album release is tomorrow!  

March 15th - 2010 - We kicked off this spring with a concert in Årnes, and got to see Audun's bungalow. Great fun. Check the Press page for some photos.  

March 6th - 2010 - Our banjo player, Hans Martin, has the honor of opening Spellemannsprisen (the norwegian grammy awards) tonight with a little banjo anthem you might have heard before. The show will be aired on the national broadcasting channel tv2.

Our upcoming album is available for preordering on the web. If you wish to purchase a copy, you can find it here: CDON-EU, Platekompaniet-Norway, CDON-Norway. The release date is the 22nd of March!  

March 1st - 2010 - You who are in need of nice musical garments, have no fear. We will be selling top quality T-shirts on our upcoming concerts.

February 22nd - 2010 - Earlybird Stringband will be aired and interviewed on the national radio program Nitimen at NRK P1 the 24th of March. The day before our release concert in Oslo. The show airs from 9 to 11 am every week day. Christian is very happy, beeing a longtime and trusty P1 fan.  

February 5th - 2010 - We've just completed signing a record deal with the label Voices of Wonder (VME). The release concert will be held the 25th of March at Gamla, in Oslo. The album will be in the stores the very same week! Seldomly has the word stupendous been more fitting! Hope to see you there!

February 4th - 2010 – We spent the weekend rehearsing in Langesund in the freezing cold at -20 degrees celcius. The kitchen tap froze during the final night - but this didn't affect our mood at all! We'd like to thank everyone in Langesund for a great weekend, especially Tormod and Bjørg!

January 24th - 2010 - Olav Christer's Norwegian folk-music trio called Geitungen recently released their second studio album called "Langt Ute", on the label Heilo. The album is mainly centered around folk music from the county Rogaland, in the south-west. The trio plays several instruments, including fiddle, hardangerfiddle, accordions, mandolin, mandola and guitar. Check out their website or myspace! Or buy the album at iTunes.

January 24th - 2010 - The band T8, where Hans Martin is the singer, just released an album called Big Shit on the label Schmell. T8 is a contemporary crazy jazz-octet with drums, bass, organ/piano, tuba, trombone, saxophone, trumpet and vocals. The record is available for purchase at iTunes.

January 22nd - 2010 - Enjoy this little jazz on the five string banjo-video, posted by Hans Martin. (And he's also sorry for using the five string for jazz, but couldn't resist the

January 17th - 2010 - We've posted some new press photos on the Press page.

January 17th - 2010 - We're exited to announce that the band has been chosen to play at the European World Of Bluegrass (EWOB) festival in The Netherlands 13th through 16th of May. Great news, as we will be travelling with our first album (due for release in march) in our luggage.

January 12th - 2010 - Earlybird Stringband would like to wish you all a happy new year. It's been a great 2009, and we are looking forward to be playing for you in 2010. Check the Concerts page for updates on upcoming events. We are expecting to be revealing details regarding our album release soon. Until then, have fun with a recent shot from the movie "Honey I shrunk the band, and turned them into paper"

December 19th - 2009 - Hans Martin will be doing another solo appearance at the Indie-Oslo Christmas Festival. Tonight 21:00 at the venue "Revolver".

December 14th - 2009 - We've added some photos from this weekend's Earlybird Special Christmas Workshop in the press area.

December 12th - 2009 - The Norwegian radio program "Folkemusikktimen" will be airing a concert with Erlend's Norwegian folk music duo with fellow fiddler Aslak Brimi. The whole ordeal was recorded last monday and will be aired at national radio, NRK P2, Sunday the 13th at 18:03 Norwegian time.
A link to the show can be found here. After this date, it will be possible to listen to the program on the internet

December 6th - 2009 - Hans Martin will be doing a solo warmup for Earlybird's previous guitarist's band called Sacred Harp. They are releasing their first EP @ Chateau Neuf - Wednesday 9th of December.Oldtime & Bluegrass Traditional
"Little Sadie" @ Kennel Connects

November 23rd - 2009 - Scheduling for 2010 has started and are updated on the Concerts page.

November 19th - 2009 - Heads Up! Our album is mastered     November 8th - 2009 - Updates in the Press section with some photos and a technical raider.

November 1st - 2009 If you are wondering why these guys look so enthusiastic, it's because they just found out that our upcoming album is getting mastered the 12th of November at Strype Audio. We'd like to thank the audience and people behind Kennel Connects for a great weekend!

October 30th - 2009 - Play Day! Check out the news article on the Kennel Connects Festival in the local paper Østkantavisa. (And by the way - We didn't make an album in 2002).

October 29th - 2009 - Preparation day. Rehearsing, alot of coffee, eating lunch. We're ready for Kennel Connects 2009

October 25th - 2009 - Rehearsal day. Our troops are meeting up at Erlend's place, Borgen, Oslo to fine tune our concert at Kennel Connects. We are also going to make a lot of decicions today regarding our album!

October 24th - 2009 - Hans Martin and Olav Christer's duo will be playing at the Norwegian Mandolin and Balalaika orchestra union's 30th aniversary in Oslo today. The whole ordeal will take place in Iladalen Kirke at 2pm.

October 23rd - 2009 - More Updates! Our fiddleplayer, Erlend, released a duo-album with fiddler Aslak Brimi this summer. The album titled "duo" has gotten great reviews and recieved critical acclaim, displaying Norwegian folk music from the middle parts of Norway. It is available for purchase at iTunes music store. And while we're at it, why not throw another recommendation your way? Some of us just attended a concert with the great swedish folk music group "Triakel". What a great band! Visit and listen to them them at their website.

October - 2009 - Back on track! We've started rehearsing for the Kennel Connects Festival. We will be playing some new material. Also, our album in the works is soon to be mastered!

September 2009 - The band has been hibernating for a month. But arriving at the end, we've started working again. Hans Martin has made, and written the lyrics for, over a dosen new tunes - and this means that we've got enough material to start planning our next album.

August 18th - 2009 - Earlybird Stringband was voted Audience Favourite amongst Norwegian Bands in a ballot vote at Risør Bluegrassfestival 2009. We didn't actually know that we were competing, but would like to thank everyone for a pat on the back. It was a great weekend! The announcement was made here.

August 2nd - 2009 - Our website has started to take form.

July Fifteenth through Ninetenth - 2009 - We rendevouzed in Sandefjord and did a gig, later proceeded to Langesund for another one before moving along to Risør for the annual bluegrass festival. The local paper in Sandefjord came to greet us when we did some promotional work in the town market. - You can read the article here.

June - 2009 - Our guitarplayer won the Open Class category in the National Competition for Norwegian folk music with a duo he plays in called Nina&Audun

June - 2009 - Hans Martin and Olav Christer have recieved a goverment grant to go the United States and study American Old Time music in 2010. They are now in the midst of planning the details of the trip!

June - 2009 - We completed mixing our album at Bjarne Stensli's studio - Harry's Gym.

February - 2009 - We completed recording our album, that will consist of 1 traditional instrumental, and the rest original tunes.