In 2006, there were 4 Finnish bands at MusExpo. My friend was invited to come see Bloodpit perform by their manager and she brought me along. And it was fantastic… Matthau Mikojan was in his “Jack Sparrow” phase and ripped the stage with his high energy performance and eye bending high kicks with his long legs. Apologies but I can’t find the great photo that used to be on MusExpo’s site of Matthau in mid kick. Have a picture of him in the spa instead… dressed!

We were sorry to realize that we’d missed out on seeing Kwan who’d been the first band on stage because we are big fans! After Bloodpit, we went next door to the Rainbow as is our custom and Kwan ended up sitting at the table next to us on the patio. Between their gang and their friends, they were too many for a little table of four so some of the friends moved to our table. Which is how we met The Winyls, yet another Finnish band there to play a showcase. But to our mututal dismay, they’d already played the night before so no chance for us to see them on stage. They’d come out that night in support of Kwan and because The Rainbow is the Finnish Rock Mecca. While I can’t speak for their onstage performance, I can tell you that Leady, James James, and HC are a bunch of great guys and look forward to meeting them again one day.

Redrama was also there but I didn’t see them at all. Poking around the MusExpo site I found a video clip of highlights from 2006 that shows a few seconds of performances by Bloodpit & Kwan as well as several interview soundbites with Matthau, Mariko & Tidjan (Kwan). Redrama appears at the end and all there is of the Winyls is a fragment of “Let’s Sing” in the video’s fade out.

Fast forward to 2007, three more bands jetted over from Finland. However, this time around, we only saw Deep Insight. I don’t know why Finnish people consider themselves the rudest and unfriendliest people cause they’re nothing but the opposite when they come here! Jukka, Johannes & Ville Boy were a pleasure to get to know. In the showcase, Johannes, Jore and Ville boy really rocked it and I got to see how Jukka uses his moodiness on stage. Have a couple pictures from MusExpo.net for now and later I will post my own photos from that night.

We also met their manager, Asko Kallonen, co-founder of HMC (Helsinki Music Company), Deep Insight’s music label (and HIM’s). It wasn’t til later that we realized that we’d just met with Finland’s version of Simon Cowell! Asko is the “ruthless” judge on Idols, the Finnish version of Simon Cowell’s show. He was nice enough in person but I enjoyed talking with Sami Peura of SamAgency (label for Bloodpit, The Winyls & Poets of the Fall) more.

MusExpo returns for 2008! It’s a music expo put on by A & R Worldwide which gathers industry members in Hollywood for a meeting of the minds. It includes a nightly showcase spread among several Sunset Strip clubs of musicians and bands from around the world. It’s a great opportunity for international bands to try and get signed by other labels outside of their countries as well as a chance for bragging rights to say they played such and such famous spot on Sunset Strip.

Collectively, FinnishRock.com staff members have been twice previously to showcase performances by Finnish bands. More on that later, but it gave us a chance to meet Sami Peura, of Sam Agency.

This year, Sami’s coming back and bringing another band with him: Poets Of The Fall! This year, they will be the only Finnish representation as it is the year of THE UK! I’m sure Poets will do a great job. I’m hoping they play The Ultimate Fling from the new album as I’m really digging that song right now.

Stay tuned next week for our first exclusive FinnishRock.com interview… with Poets Of The Fall!