Dear Friends! Check this out.

This photo was taken at Helsinki’s Viiskulma (Five Corners), right outside POPPARIENKELI (Pop Angel) record store on 23 April 2000. Twelve years ago today.

Popparienkeli was one of the first local record stores to carry our debut album, Support de Microphones – back when we didn’t have a label, and would just handle distribution ourselves, on foot, straight out of our backpacks. And back when, mysteriously, posters and yellow striped stickers like these would repeatedly pop up on the city streets to promote the ambitious little album by a band nobody had ever heard of.

And Popparienkeli didn’t just pick up a few copies of our non-label album – they played it repeatedly inside the store and gave it a prime spot on the window shelf, for everyone passing by to see. These things meant the world to us as a young, up-and-coming band. They still do. And we are forever in debt to Popparienkeli and its wonderful owner, Mr Timo Saarikivi for all the support.

The times they are a-changin’, and this week Popparienkeli is closing its doors for good. On Friday 27 April, after more than 19 years of dedicated service. If you’re in Helsinki, go and drop in before it’s too late. All the remaining albums are marked with a 70 percent discount. All of them. And there’s still plenty of good music left!

On behalf of the whole band: THANK YOU, POPPARI. Thank you, Timo & Pauli. Records are forever. ♥