To fully disclose, my airfare and hotel room was paid for by the By:Larm folk. Andy Samburg might have been on a boat, but I was in Oslo, Norway, mother f*ckers. I got to take in By:Larm this past Feb. 18-21, and it was an amazing adventure.

10. Norway isn’t THAT cold. The people who say it’s so cold here must have thin skin. My hoodie/Dickies jacket/T-shirt combo held up well enough for the 5-10 block jaunts to venues. Sure, I did put on a heavier jacket when exploring Oslo (the opera house was amazing), but it’s not like you’d die here without a down jacket.

9. Matt Mason (above, in my horrible photo) used to run a pirate radio station, which makes him 23,424 times cooler than any music blogger in the room. He spoke of The Pirates Dilemma. The point about BAPE copping Nike’s style, then Nike upping their design skillz made sense. If someone is pirating your stuff, it shows demand, so embrace the demand. Do it better than pirates.

8. Ian Gittens has more music writing credentials than all us music bloggers put together. His talk on The Future of Writing in the Digital Age was solid; when there are thousands of writers willing to write for cheap, how is a cash-strapped publication expected to pay for great writers? Plenty of NME trashing.

7. Kent Nichols and Douglas Sarine are smart, funny and making money. The guys behind AskANinja spoke of Being a Ninja in The Age Of Piracy: Monetizing Art in New Media. They give away their videos (40 a year) for free and still find ways to make money. I spoke with Douglas Sarine afterwards, on our way to see Stefan Sagmeister, and he spoke briefly of some label folk not really liking their ideas of “give away, build a brand, profit.” Gee, can’t imagine that!

6. Stefan Sagmeister is kind of a big deal. I humbly admit I didn’t know who Stefan Sagmeister was. He’s only “one of the world’s foremost graphic designers.” His talk, Thing I Have Learned in My Life So Far was inspiring, and dealt with more areas of life than just design, content or music. He spoke of non-remarkable bands he heard at By:Larm, not worrying about imitators of his art, and always being truthful.

5. Vinyl will never die. Hearing Jon Poneman (founder of SubPop), Laurence Bell (founder of Domino), Mark Jowett (of Nettwerk), and Steven Van Zandt (E Street Band, The Sorpranos) and Jean Beauvoir (both of Wicked Cool Records) was amazing. In a cold and cramped Mono Club, these folks (moderated by Olaf Furniss) spoke of being a (mostly) indie label in these troubled times in the music industry. Jon had some funny quips, Laurence said CDs will disappear and vinyl won’t, and Wicked Cool said they signed an all-teenage girl rock band. Yea.

4. Remain calm, things will work out. I was notified that I had been smoking in my room and would be charged about $200 for it. The problem (for them) is that I don’t smoke. After a few phone calls the truth came out – they mixed up the room. I got a fruit tray for the trouble.

3. I like noisy stuff. Revolver! (in the photo at the top of this post) was a very noisy and disjointed band that I loved. Their drummer, Fredrik Kirkevold, was amazing. Along with guitarist Kim Johannesen, the two created complete improvisational mayhem — and I grinned ear to ear the whole time.

2. Loud rock still works. Another band I liked was Merlin. They’re a spastic, chunky, space/surf rock band with killer melodies and enough energy to slay giants and large mammals.

1. The By:Larm folk put together a solid event. They put out a newspaper each day, covering the previous nights events, with amazing photos and content. Every bit of printed material was a joy to read and hold. The staff was helpful and always smiling (at least in my experience). Am I kissing up for 2010? Yea, maybe. But serious — this was an amazing experience. Thanks, By:Larm!

What other folks are saying:

To give you a reference, think of a charming and modest SXSW with a chance of snow flurries and REALLY expensive beer.

- My Old Kentucky Blog

I collected my first beer and then asked the bartender the very, very gauche question of whether it’s appropriate to tip in Norway. I suspected it was “yes,” but being a cheap prick, hoped it was “no.” It’s “yes,” so I left him a krone for the beer.

- Chart Attack

Some photos by Morten Skogly and NRK P3.

A few folks adopting the Twitter thing (I met Dave Evans from My Old Kentucky Blog here via Twitter) .

6 Responses to “Ten Things I Learned at By:Larm”

1. On 02/23/09 11:10 AM, Jay DiNitto said:

   

   What’s up with the thing’s name?

2. On 02/23/09 11:17 AM, questiony said:

   

   how about an explanation of what the hell you’re talking about?

3. On 02/23/09 12:25 PM, Jay DiNitto said:

   

   About by:larm

4. On 02/23/09 12:28 PM, Jay DiNitto said:

   

   Also, Sagmeister’s site totally just raped my browser window and my eyes.

5. On 02/23/09 12:39 PM, Sean Cannon said:

   

   yeah, i’m not a big fan of his site. i remember the first time i saw it. thought i was going to have a seizure.

6. On 02/23/09 1:42 PM, Lukas said:

   

   I enjoyed by:Larm as well and was also deeply impressed by Sagmeister’s presentation.

   My musical highlight was First Aid Kit. Did you manage to see them, too?

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