A chilly and rainy night in Pori,Finland in 1999. A desperate rock-musician leans his trouble-laden head on the dashboard of his car and listens carefully to the final mix of a song just finished, called “Demons In Disguise”. “Sounds reasonable, but hardly will this be the final straw to break the back of the camel ?”, he thinks to himself . Two weeks later, however, he is reading a very positive feedback on a letter from the boss of the leading UK mod label, Detour Records, concerning the said recording … and this is where the story of the Electric Crayon Set takes off ….
The Electric Crayon Set is a psychedelic powerpop band with a raw but folky edge. It´s music leans heavily on the 60´s psychedelic/mod pop legacy of the Zombies, Small Faces and the Creation not forgetting the twisted pop geniuses of the 70´s, 80´s and 90´s of which XTC, Martin Newell and the Jam spring to mind in the first place. Electric Crayon Sets songs have ultra catchy choruses while the songs themselves are sometimes mystic, idiosyncratic and often even weird.
The creative talent behind these interesting pop ditties is Timo Pääkkö, a 43 year singer/guitarist/songwriter. A self-confessed anglophile and a huge rock and pop fan ( and, errmm … if possible. even bigger fan of English soccer ). A recording career spanning two decades has seen our versatile front man record finnish pop, aussie style 80´s indie guitar rock and even rockabilly.
Timo is helped along with the legendary Seppo Tyni on bass. This guy ´s a real musicians musician and is most known for his absolutely superb guitar skills. He ranks among the best in Finland and has recorded two solo albums on Rockadillo Records to date and is also famous for his work with prog god Pekka Pohjola. Seppo also helps Timo in arranging of the songs.
Pekka “Cantor” Tyni handles the keyboards and like his brother, he has also worked with Mr Pohjola and is a real keyboard wizard extraordinaire.
On drums and percussion the Crayons have Timo Lilja, a real powerhouse of a man, who was the driving force behind one of Finland´s premier songmakers, Jussi Hakulinen, in the 80´s.
The newest member of the band is guitarist Juha Kormano, who took on lead guitar spot early on 2006. He is a well – known character in Pori rock scene and is also the leader of his own group, Bina Band.
Thus the bands recording career took off with a Detour Records vinyl-45 “The Hardest Thing/Demons In Disquise” ( DINT-004 ) in 2000.Year 2001 saw the release of the groups debut album “One Man´s Trash” ( SoundHawk HORUS-001) on Timo´s own label SoundHawk Records.
At the moment our heroes are working on the mixing phase of a new album under the working title “What A Rotter Of A Day”. This is going to be the bands magnum opus to date, the quality of which you can probably measure on the time taken on the making of this Great Work .The sessions started in 2002 and while the process itself has not been an easy one, there is a deep consensus on the satisfactory nature of the results among the members. The album will be out and in the shops on the 1st September 2006.
As a taster of the things to come the Electric Crayon Set have just released a cd-single “Good Girl/These Nights Are Supernatural “ ( SoundHawk CDS-117).
The Electric Crayon Set will play two gigs on 25th and 26th May at this years International Pop Overthrow – festival in Liverpool. One of them will be at the Cavern Club, which was, of course, made famous by none others than the Beatles.
