I can’t believe it’s been nearly 20 years I entered my first raves at the warehouse area of my old hometown. It was 1994 and Tampere was a dark and cold city. The rave culture was evolving and offered youngsters like me an escapism we were hoping for: enough fun, enough rebellion, something the authorities wouldn’t understand, something with a taste of forbidden. The local promoters took everything out of it and organized loads of illegal raves – and got caught. Mindwarp, Plast, Home, Colors For Nothing were something none of us will ever want to forget.

Tampere 1994-2001

In 1995, Eliot Ness took over Tullikamari and brought a world-class raves to Tampere. Planet of Love introduced Jaydee, Choci, Kevin Saunderson, Mighty Rubber Boots and many more to about 2000 people with a 60 FIM (~10EUR) ticket. While some youngsters adored Bon Jovi, we endlessly rewound the fascinating cassette tapes of Underworld, The Prodigy, Altern8 and Laurent Garnier – and felt something had totally changed.

During the golden years of 1996-1999, we saw techno events in Koskikeskus, Näsinneula, Tampere-talo and Viikinsaari (where not only the music but a big amount of mosquitoes kept the ravers moving). Tullikamari became the haven of vast events – Jussi Tuukkanen and Ossi Riita from DFG organized Turbulence, Volume, Frequency, Resonance (video) and many similar events, which attracted the crowds and started their short but exciting career as one of the most booked electronic music live acts in Finland.

In ’97-’98 Jussi’s enthusiasm, record collection and love to music inspired me to try out Djing and him and Antti K encouraging me long enough, I had my spectacular debute DJ gig – at a school party ;) After months of practicing and stressing, I entered the world of playing records with a very eclectic set – I started with Adam Beyer & Lenk’s Drumcode No.1 Remix EP and ended it one hour later with Mike Koglin’s The Silence. Not having enough money to buy two turntables, I had an interesting setup of one Technics SL1200 and one computer which ran one of the very, very first DJing softwares with a pitch bend on it.

The end of the millennium, 1998-1999, was definitely the golden era of Tampere-scene. We saw up to 2-4 events every week: FuFu organized MIR club at I-klubi and introduced monotrax to the clubbers. Events were allowed to run until 08:00 or 09:00 and the techno hungry youngsters enjoyed their early morning hours. Meanwhile, DJ Coma and 3.14Sami started running legendary Thursday club Tunnel bi-weekly at Doris. With an entrance fee of 10 FIM (1,5e) and opening hours from 23:00 until 03:00, queues stretched along the street and Tunnel brought the big wave of trance to a small town.

Northern Finland 2001-2006

I moved off from Tampere and got the first impressions of Rovaniemi in early 2001. Rovaniemi was behind with the club music trends for some years, but it didn’t lack any excitement. Marko Kantola, Tapani Tolpanniemi and Flow Possé did a great job bringing electronic music to the town. The events were relatively rare compared to the active scene in Southern Finland, but the similar genuine excitement was about the same. (Rovaniemi flyers)

After a couple of rather successful small one-offs I organized three Destination events during the years 2001-2004 which attracted hundreds of people to SaNu and Tivoli, the second being one of the first electronic music one-off events organized only for adults in the area. There was a lot of misbelief about its success, but DJ Orkidea’s first appearance in Rovaniemi attracted enough crowds to push for upcoming events. Destination 3 brought Proteus (video), KimiK (video), Benn (video), Fuse, Kaasi and B.Miles to Rovaniemi – and ended up being a sold out event. Buses were fully loaded with people from Oulu, Kemi and Raahe – the atmosphere was high. The hype about the techno capital of the north was on.

The new bar Taso tried to bring stylish, high quality cafeteria/club concept to Rovaniemi and failed. The amazing interiors attracted youngsters nevertheless and various club nights were organized. I worked with booking the local artists to the nights, one of my very first experiences of DJ booking business. I enjoyed it a lot and felt it would be a job which could be done even more seriously one day, not having an idea that it really could happen. Taso closed and the club concept moved to ZoomIt. Antero designed nice graphics for the Drop club, twice-a-week all-night-long lounge sets inspired youngsters and Drop lasted for nearly two years.

After the second annual Destination event, I wanted to try something more regular and started rather oddly named No:Status as a monthly Thursday club at Doris in 2002. The first season brought in the Northern Finland talents: Kaasi, Peak, Ken-Guru and Magi. The second season was stronger after the successful third Destination event with a line-up that included Orkidea, KimiK, Eliot Ness and Erkko. Despite the amount of clubbers and successful nights, Doris refused to run the club on weekends and the eyes turned to a new venue.

Maxim’s nightclub, the original home of early DJ TT’s White House club was closing. I participated organizing a couple of short term club nights and Aalto and Redrum appeared during the last days of Maxim’s and the first days of a fresh new club venue NiteTrain. NiteTrain seemed to be everything Rovaniemi needed: very intimate, good looking and club events friendly. Together with Joni and Maija leading it, Rovaniemi saw some of the most exciting years in its club history.

Meanwhile, we tried our wings with the first minitour of Northern Finland. ElekTour toured Northern Finland for two months trying out new venues, some of which later became the main clubs in the area. Nights were held in Dyyni, Kalajoki; Club96, Kajaani; 45Special, Oulu and freshly opened NiteTrain in Rovaniemi. Other Helsinki-based tours like NightFlight and A Place Called Happiness landed in Rovaniemi and were hosted at Doris and Tivoli (see video).

After relatively short negotiations, I sealed a deal with a one-off night with Helsinki-based club concept, Jack in NiteTrain. With Mr.A and Dallas Superstars headlining, the night was good enough to make it a regular event and to bring in all the Jack residents/regular guests one at a time. During the next 2.5 years, the always sold-out NiteTrain saw Jay Mellin, Milla Lehto, Lil’Tony, Orkidea, Tomi K, Uke and KimiK performing and Jack became a very strong club brand in the north.

After the years in Doris, Rovaniemi’s first regular monthly club night, No:Status returned in 2005 to say good-byes. NiteTrain sold out, Kalle Miettinen rocked the crowd and No:Status left the house. Meanwhile, the stories heard from Kemi’s brand new venue,Nemo, encouraged me to start the negotiations of bringing in a fresh club concept. Red Bull joined the idea and delivered clubbers to and from the events and with two buses. Free Vodka+Red Bull was served during the travel and the clubbers arrived to Kemi not caring about tomorrow. Despite being one of the coolest venues North Finland has ever seen, Kemi was not ready for Nemo and the club closed shortly after the last event.

In early 2006 I completed the first university degree research about techno flyers. The research was written at the Faculty of Education and – according the the professors – needed some explanation what it had to do with education ;) The paper – which in the end got good grades – included interviews from several promoters and designers in the scene, some history of flyers and statistics about the importance of flyers in the techno scene. The research work produced nearly 1500 flyer collection scanned and posted to the Internet. Several promoters contributed their flyers in digital form and the collection is still growing.

Helsinki, Finland 2006-2008

In 2006, Rovaniemi had given everything and I answered the call of our capital (see video). On the first week in Helsinki, Oded Peled from Misc. Management came to chat at a Danceteria event and during the following weeks, I joined Finland’s oldest DJ booking management. The different process and ways of working caused small clashes, which ended up improving the results and quality. The craziness was on.

After the years at Kerma, Jack started in Helsinki’s Kuudes Linja in 2007. Orkidea asked me to join the production side after I had been running Jack club in the north for a couple of years. Jack became the home not only for electronic house music but also for electronic art, VJs and visual artists (see video and video). The old skool Renaissance hero, Ian Ossia, visited the four year birthday event.

Misc. Management and Orkidea joined forces and produced Orkidea’s Metaverse Album Release Tour, which travelled nine cities and became the most successful domestic electronic music tour of its time. We compiled eleven videos from the tour happenings and events, which altogether attracted more than 11,000 clubbers. The tour saw Rovaniemi, Vuokatti, Helsinki, Turku, Tampere, Joensuu, Sheffield, Kuopio, Lahti, Seinäjoki and closing gig at Laserpoint, Helsinki.

In late 2007, a phone call from Leena Lehtinen changed lots of plans and priorities and in early 2008 I joined Tiistain Tanssi-ilta at YleX/Finnish National Radio as a new host. In addition to Leena, my most grateful shouts go to both Orkidea & my co-host OlliS, who had originally recommended me to the position. During the next two years Tiistain Tanssi-ilta was a biweekly duty – my personal highlights being Hybrid & Tom Middleton Retrospectives, nearly 45 min phone conversation with BT (which was later cut to 20min interview), interview with Tiësto and Trance Chronology 1994-2003.

Helsinki & Tampere 2008-2009

I was more than happy to return back to Tampere in 2008 and have the first DJ residency in the town where I had started 14 years earlier. Flight & Uzu were planning a new club concept to an old venue, Tanssitalo and asked me to join the fun. Despite a rather busy clubbing autumn in Tampere, One had very successful nights with Solarstone (video), Jaytech (video), Niklas Harding, Super8&Tab (video), Orkidea (video) + several local heroes like Joonas Hahmo, Poliisi & Flight (video) and became the leading progressive/trance club in the area. (One photos)

Meeting Solarstone in person for the first time at December 2008 One event resulted (with the highly appreciated recommendations from Orkidea) my first record deal with Solaris Recordings. After the first autumn One event I had collaborated for the first time with my brother in a “very hifi” livingroom laptop studio and the end result was a chill-out track called “One Sunday”. We got a bunch of super talented Finnish producers to remix the tune (thanks Beetseekers, Sami Saari, Syna, Cid Inc & Ville Lope!) and I was more than happy seeing Solaris taking it under its wings.

In April 2009, ten years after I had attended Labyrinth event in Kaapelitehdas, Helsinki, I performed at the same venue at the main stage of Laserpoint, the biggest annual electronic music event in Finland, together with DJ Flight. (Photos from Laserpoint 2009)

With Flight’s studio partner Jontey, we had made a bootleg of Coldplay’s Viva La Vida, which had a bumpy production road with hard drive crashes and loads of other difficulties. The final version was finished only three days before the event, but during the upcoming months ATB played it exclusively basically on all his gigs.

In 2009 Misc. Management and Unity joined hands in Helsinki with the freshly opened The Circus and introduced Love. It was by far the the most ambitious project for me and very, very exhausting but also super rewarding with the incredibly talented and creative people of Unity, Misc & Circus. The opening event brought in Pete Tong and the following was the official afterparty of Madonna’s first concert in Finland with Paul Oakenfold headlining the event.

On the same year, Jack left Kuudes Linja and found a new home at Redrum, soon becoming the busiest night of the venue. Nick Warren, Matthew Dekay (at Jean Michel Jarre concert afterparty), Gavyn Mytchel, Dave Seaman and Jody
Wisternoff were invited and 2009 became the best year for Jack we had seen so far. (Jack photos & flyers from Redrum)

I started a collaboration project with Russian-based progressive house artist Mango and we released “Raining In Osaka”, the first danceable prog tune after the chill-out releases. Legendary trance label Lost Language signed my brother J.Shore and my second tune, “Brotherhood”, the package including another set of Finnish top-class remixers (thanks Ayleon, Flight & Jontey, Taucher & Anton Sonin).

Misc. Management was kept busy by Extremely Miscbehaving events with Andy Moor, Redanka, Ian Ossia and Solarstone headlining. We also hosted and organized the Finnish launch for Activision’s DJ Hero game – and miscbehaved, as usual. (Photos)

Helsinki & Tampere 2009-2010

2010 started with bad news as YleX narrowed the amount of electronic music in its schedule leaving us only one hour per week. Luckily, I was meanwhile offered a possibility to start a monthly show on Radio NRJ Finland which kept the things pretty well balanced.

In March 2010 after Tanssitalo was closed, One in Tampere found a new home at restaurant Pellava, which in its stylish underground look became a good haven to host the Tampere-fiilis of the new decade. In spring 2011 we held two successful events at Pellava plus one of the biggest after parties of the recent years in Tampere (One Reunited video). Oldtimers like Cosmicman, Jussi Soro, drS, Coma & KimiK grabbed the decks and Something Good had their Tampere debut. Joni Ylistö delivered some crazy cool videos and flyers for both events (Joni, you are greatly missed).

Gigwise the spring 2010 was super busy, but highlights were definitely the possibility to play at Pacifique main stage (photos) and two months later joining hands for our last back-to-back session with DJ Flight at Laserpoint 2010 main stage (photos).

After travelling the whole June 2010, I came back to enjoy one of the best deejaying summers I’ve had so far. Not only was it super hot summer but I also had a priviledge to travel all around Finland playing about 11 gigs in one month including “Kilke” – the biggest scout camp in Finland with over 10000 attendees and Assembly – demoscene and gaming event of over 5000 attendees. Here’s a video which summarizes the summer vibes pretty well.

In autumn my brother J.Shore and me got to the studio after a long while and made a remix of Slusnik Luna’s classic track Sun. It ended up on a Anjunabeats release and was probably our most successful release so far. Listen the remix of Sun on Youtube or Soundcloud. Our first EP, “Goodbye Earth” was also released later that year. The EP was our first shot to record live instruments for our tracks and the result sounded so fine we ended up using the same method later when working on our full album.

Later that year decided to quit doing more One events so I felt more than ready when Super8&Tab turned to me and suggested I would plan and execute their Empire Album Release Event’s web marketing. The party was a success with Super8&Tab, Orkidea and me headlining. (Photos)

2011-2012 – Berlin Calling

2011 started with new winds on YleX. I no longer continued on Radio NRJ, the YleX Monday night show was brought down and I started a new show on Friday night, hosting it weekly at 22:00-00:00. During the next months it got more listeners than Radio NRJ’s “At The Club” which was aired at the same time and by the end of the year 2011 YleX’s Friday night (including “Parasta Ennen” and my show) had become the most listened Friday night radio shows in Finland.

J.Shore and me got booked to open Labyrinth // Laserpoint // Whiteout’s 15 Year Anniversary event at Cable Factory to do our first live PA (See some video footage and photos). To have enough material for the performance, we started making new tracks in early 2011 and before the event in April we realized we had a ready album in our hands.

Despite having the album tracks ready in April it still took nearly 8 months to get our “Brotherhood” debut album released. But it definitely was worth waiting: after long and patient work of the guys at Silk label (Thanks Gorm, Jacob & Max), we got all our bootleg remixes licensed (versions of London Elektricity’s Just One Second and Ralphie B’s Massive) and included to the album.

In early summer 2011 I left Finland behind and moved to Berlin. Thanks to the open-mindedness of the people at YleX, we were able to organize a co-operation with Deutschland Radio Kultur and continue doing live shows on Friday nights, now broadcasted live from Germany. To my surprise, the connection was made using long-lost, ancient ISDN technology, but according to the experiences so far, it still seems to work. Despite the science behind that kind of broadcasting is not that complicated, I still feel weird talking to the microphone in Berlin and knowing the voice will come out from radios all over Finland.

After all which has happened, it has turned out that all the work at Misc. Management, radio hosting plus occasional promoter and DJ duties are all about making things possible for other people, benefiting them and giving opportunities to get as much experience as possible. This was what it is always been about: Sharing, contributing, being open-hearted and open-minded and keeping the culture alive, together.

– DJ Orion / Juska Wendland 2012

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