About me      

Since the turn of the millenium I have been busy writing music for a wide variety of clients. Highlights include being included with two tracks on the live “Various Artists” rhythm and blues CD “I Daumanns Fotspor” with the band “Same Ol’ Blues”, and I was also employed as a sound designer by the company “Soundonweb” for the better part of 2000.

In 2001 I wrote, performed and later recorded “Canal Street Suite” for the opening of the Canal Street Jazz And Blues festival in Arendal, where I had the pleasure of collaborating with one of Norway’s finest interpretors of traditional folk music: Kirsten Bråten Berg.

In 2002 I wrote all music for the ballet “Olav Liljekrans”, again collaborating with Kirsten Bråten Berg and a great band of local musicians.

Later that year I wrote and recorded all music for a multimedia show, designed for the closing arrangement of the “Sørlandet i 100” jubilee. It was performed live in an outdoors setting on Dec. 21, in a freezing minus 10C....

I participated as a composer and guitarist on the CD “spor.sørland” which was well received by the press (a ‘5’ on the dice in “Dagbladet”).

I have produced music for commercials and jingles, and recently finished writing and producing music for a six-episode TV documentary, “Kripos”, which will be aired on national TV (NRK1) in 2004.

Getting more and more obsessed with the purity and beauty of acoustic and electric lap steels, I can see exciting times ahead.

For future updates and some additional thoughts from me about this and that,
click here.

Meanwhile, you may want to join me on a trip back to.........

The beginning........
My first introduction to life as a musician came when I bought an old alto saxophone for the sum of 15 ‘kroner’ (aprox US $2..) in ’69. Soon after that I began playing in the schools marching band.

After I realized that the saxophone was not the best instrument for performing Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple tunes, my attention shifted to the electric guitar. And the summer of ’72 my fate was sealed,- I got my first ‘Framus’ electric guitar.

My first real band experience was as a bassist in a local cover band, playing places where I, as a 15 year old kid, would have been denied entrance.

From then on I played guitar and bass in various local bands, got myself a sitar through a friend travelling in India, lived in the south of Spain for half a year and was terribly dissapointed when I realized I wasn’t going to experience flamenco guitarists on every street corner, but instead I picked up lots of Arabian/North African music on the radio. A major influence that’s stuck with me to this day.

The 1980’s
The eighties started with my LP debut as a composer/guitarist on the poetry and music album “Stemmeband”, released in 1981.By a weird twist of fate I ended up playing a duet with jazz saxophonist Bob Mintzer, who happened to be in town for a gig, on that album.
The composing was split 50/50 between me and Rolf Løvland, who later went on to write two international “European Song Contest” winners for Norway and form the band “Secret Garden”, one of Norway’s best selling international acts.

Me? I went on to form the blues trio “Flip Flop And Fly” which released a cassette and later evolved into the Hendrix inspired power-trio “Little Wing”........

During the eighties I got more involved in session work, mostly local, but also a few major releases, and lots of studio work for national radio in addition to writing and recording music for a show on national TV.

In ’86 I got my first drum machine and 4-track cassette recorder, turning me on to home recording, and I also started the band “She Said” with singer Greta Aagre. We recorded an EP in 1987 which was well recieved by the press but sold poorly (the usual story), and I left the band in ’88.

The 1990’s
In 1990 I moved to Kristiansand, a city with an active and competitive music environment at the time, working as a session player.

Bought my first ‘Atari’ computer and Cubase sequencer in ’91, which soon turned into an addiction for the freedom of having my own project studio.

Over the next four years I played with anybody who offered the right amount of money, periodically gigging as often as 4-5 nights a week. I also did studio sessions, among those were Knut Skippervold’s CD “Lyse Tider” and Dag Ringstad’s “Mørkt Fastland” which I also co-produced. Some work for TV and an award winning video production (“En Annen Virkelighet” – awarded as best educational video in ’94) are also among the ‘highlights’ from those years.

The life as an ‘me play if you pay’ musician eventually threatened to destroy the very reasons why I started playing in the first place, and I moved back to Arendal in the beginning of ’95. There I launched my own studio and guitar school, producing demos and CD’s for local artists and teaching three nights a week.

More session work in other studios followed, Mats Aronsen & Amerikalinjen’s “Lys Pike” and Torstein Thommesen’s “Wilderness Road” are two releases worth mentioning.

In ’99 I bought my first electric lap steel guitar after having played bottleneck slide since the mid-seventies, and a new chapter of my musical life began...........