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Together with The Other Anders I am going to Trondheim this week to attend the MP gig! We’ll stay from Thursday to Sunday. Ever since becoming a MP fan in the Nineties I had nurtured the dream of making a pilgrimage to the band’s home-turf. I realize the best time for this kind of endeavour would have been the 30-years-anniversary celebrations with the dedicated Rockheim exhibition, the “Demon box”-shows and whatnot. But that was then and I am going now in the year 2023, 27 years into my journey as MP fan and that is fine. Better late than never. That said, I been to Norway once before, 20 years ago, in 2003, to see four Tussler gigs in Oslo. That was great and I still cherish those memories. But Trondheim is of course something else!
So my question concerns MP-related sites/places to see: What sites should I visit to get a taste of the MP-history, even if those might by only distant echoes from the past?
I am interested in places like venues, studios, student houses, rehearsal rooms, iconic sites, as well as sites where famous pictures were taken, music videos were shot, cover pictures were staged, band members lived, worked, studied or rehearsed, demo cassettes were dubbed, instore shows were played, legendary gigs took place or similiar things.
Is the bunker “Dora” still around and can I look at it from the outside?
What is left of Svartlamon and how can I grasp a tiny essence of it?
Does the Rockheim exhibition feature MP-releated items?
Does Samfundet still exist?They should really have a walking tour “MP’s Trondheim”, but I guess they don’t ;-)
I am grateful for any input locals might have.
Really looking forward to this trip and the gig
Of course we’ll also do the regular sights, but those are well covered.
Thanks!!!
A.Uffa, Samfundet (Knaus and Storsalen) still exist and is worth a visit. The famous bike ride around Svartlamon is more or less identical to this day.
Is Brygga studio present?
Everything is still there, including Brygga studio.
Bushman’s Revenge are playing at Bar Moskus (aka The Best Scene in Town) on Friday and absolutely mandatory.I was in Trondheim this summer, from the Netherlands – exited to be close to the MP history. Dora is massive and still around, how could it not be :) and Svartlamon just across the road. Not exactly a pilgrimage, but it felt warm at heart
They should really have a walking tour “MP’s Trondheim”, but I guess they don’t ;-)
I’m almost surprised nobody came up with that idea before. Trondheim is on my wishlist too. One of these years…
I know of a couple of houses where Snah and Geb used to live (not at Svartlamon), if that’s of interest?
I wouldn’t mind meeting up and showing you those, they’re in walking distance from the central part of town. Would be nice to meet you anyway, I’m sure you remember we used to email and trade cds and such quite a bit back in the day :)
Like others have said, you won’t be able to miss Svartlamon and Dora. Verkstedhallen is located at Svartlamon as well.
At Svartlamon there’s of course also Gregus gate 10, the house where Motorpsycho Management has always had their office. I assume they still do?
There’s also Cafe 3B. It’s probably years since I was there last, and it’s changed quite a bit from how it was in the 90s, but of interest is the fact that the very first Tussler gig was played there, if I’m not mistaken. It was a very nice place back in the day, I used to attend a weekly music quiz there, and for a while Bent attended it too.
And this? Google maps says it’s a tourist attraction, ha ha
@fillmore mail sent!
MOTORPSYCHO’S TRONDHEIM (September 2023)
+++ Photo gallery +++
In September 2023 I traveled from Berlin to Trondheim to meet an old friend and see Motorpsycho in concert, in the band’s hometown. While MP would also play in Berlin on this tour they had a different drummer and different repertoire for the Norwegian leg of the tour.
I had dreamt of going to Trondheim for over 25 years, ever since becoming a MP-fan in the Nineties. This pilgrimage to the origins of the band led us to sites where the band has worked and lived, rehearsed and performed during their early years.
And it all began with Svartlamon, a little anarchist enclave, like a smaller version of Copenhagen’s Christiana. It’s a a little unkempt area of the larger Lademoen neighbourhood in the East of the city center, basically just a triangle of three streets tucked away between the old harbour and the train tracks, where you can find wooden residential houses, two alternative pubs, the concert venue Verkstedhallen (where they played on this tour), some self-built huts, shacks and eco-houses, community gardens, a kindergarden, chickens, dogs, bicycles, murals, street art and graffitis. It was here in Svartlamon, that the band and their companions lived, worked and ran their business (their office supposedly still operates from here), embedded in this special enviroment, a product of this special milieu.
MP fans will of course know that Svartlamon was immortalized by the famous bike-ride in the music video “Wearing Yr Smell” (a song off of 1994’s masterpiece “Timothy Monster”), in which the band rode bicycles through their hood. Motorpsycho have also performed in Svartlamon through the years, the most notorious clip on YouTube being a 1995 version of “The One Who Went AWay”. The band has last performed the very same space in September 2023 during the annual Eat The Rich Festival and the stage schedule announcing their set for Saturday at 6 pm was still hanging in Gregus’ backyard when we visited.
What you can see in the videos, especially the iconic backyard of the red house, which they call “Gregus’ backyard, is still there, only the trees have grown and the trains run behind a wall now.
Just a stone’s throw from Svartlamon, across some defunct cargo train tracks, is Dora, a giant former Nazi submarine bunker where the band has rehearsed for the better part of the 1990s, taking advantage of three meter thick concrete bunker walls.
Also in the old harbour area, a short walk away, Rockheim can be found, the national museum of Rock music. Motorpsycho have a worthy display there, all virtual and digital, but though at first skeptical we indulged in music videos, immersive displays and pictures of various memorabilia and ultimately we could have spent much more time on checking out all sideprojects, related and local bands.
Scattered across the town we also looked for or came across many venues Motorpsycho have performed or recorded at through the decades, which we knew by heart from concert histories or bootleg lists. For the early days of the band UFFA was the most notorious one (the first EP was recorded here in 1990), Studenter Samfundet another one (they performed here from the mid 90s to the mid 00s) and Byscenen is the venue where the annual Christmas gig takes place, and there were also Café 3B, Ramp and Rosendal Teater.
This was a fantastic walking tour of Motorpsycho’s Trondheim and we washed down the impressions with a cold S.T.G. beer — whose name references one of the most performed Motorpsycho songs — at the cosy Antikvariatet Bar before heading to the sold out hometown show at Svartlamon’s Verkstadhallen by our heros — the one and only Motorpsycho from Trondheim.
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