Some weeks ago I got an email from a German journalist about Flowers in the dustbin and L.E.G.O. He asked me to post something on this blog, or give him some answers by mail. I've desided to post something here, since there's probably some more out there who could be interested.

 

Flowers in the dustbin. Beautiful name, btw. Of course picked up from the use of the term in the punk movement. I don't know if it was something we had from what John Lydon said (his been given the quote "we're the flowers in the dustbin") , or if he said it refering to underground punk compilations that was named flowers from the dustbin. But it doesn't matter. It is a very telling and good way to describe somthing. To us the band was a silly project øystein and I was a part of together with some friends from Ski. It was short lived, but very fun. If I recall it correctly we had only one performance, and that was it. As a matter of fact I think the reason for us to establish the project in the first place, was that particular concert.

 

It was in other words probably not the most magnificent contribution to the music history we made, but it was in accordance with the most core tradition of punk; straight forward and honest.

 

If someone wonder why, it is a very simple answer for that and that is that we thought it was a fun idea. But I doubt that we would've done it if it hadn't been for our interest for punk. I for myself loved punk, and still do. My favorite punk band is probably Exploited, but there's so many good bands and songs from "the glory days of punk" that it is difficult to tell what dominated the record player at the time.

 

I guess punk inspired metal bands all over the world, even though many of us didn't choose the genre for our own expressions.

 

Then it is L.E.G.O. Now that was a different and much more serious project. Also this was Øystein and I. As you've probably have got to understand in my postings, we did listen to a lot of experimental music (still do). And we loved the way some master minds in music?s managed to create soundscapes of noise and harmony to a nearly unheard of perfection. The sound is everything in some genres, and it was inspirering to listen to the masters of that universe.

 

In Mayhem we could follow this up within the project?s limits. But we wanted to explore this more freely and had all sorts of strange and fun ideas on what to do and in what context. 

 

One evening we were having a fun talk at Jørns place, discussing an experimental classical work. The creative idea began to take form, and we decided to go for it, but we needed a name for the project. Since this was experimental, loosely built on classical tradition, we tasted on the name ?Langhus Experimental Chamber Orchestra? Langhus being the place we lived in and since it was only the two of us it had to be a chamber orchestra. After a few rounds on it, it didn?t taste that well until one of us came up with the given ?grave chamber?. Alas the name was Langhus Experimental Grave chamber Orchestra L.E.G.O.

 

Next in line we needed to give the concept we were talking about a name, and having had a few drinks, Metallion (from Slayer Mag.) had a moment of clearness when listening to our strange talk. Like an almost dead person suddenly springing into life he opened his eyes, put his finger up in the air and declared ?A fly?s death?! We immediately loved the idea, and decided to arrange the piece according to a fly?s life from birth to death.  I do think Metallion almost immediately went back to sleep, but we stayed up building the concept.

 

One day we held the concert and it is on video tape. Probably it is out there in the internet cloud. I remember playing the violin for the first time in my life that evening. It was a wonderful way of showing the agony a fly must feel when it is reaching its time of death :-)

While Flowers in the dustbin was a musical one night stand, L.E.G.O. was not. We had a few more concerts and did experiment with different instruments and sounds. The latest concept we were thinking of was to arrange triangle concerts at remote places around the globe, leaving a specially designed piece of Lego. We never managed to realize it.

 

That was a short trivia on these two side projects. Both build on the fun of it, but L.E.G.O. was both fun and serious.