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The story of The Soul Preachers
Part five: 1994 -
1995
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- After the guys agreed that it was impossible to
play with Uffe because he now lived in Lund. In the
fall of 1994 Jarmo and Pasi tried to continue as
before with a bass player called Raymond "Ramme" Andreasen from
Flen. He was a nice guy and everything but it wasn't
as fun as Uffe playing the bass. Ramme couldn't fill
the empty place after Uffe. They didn't play that
often together. The Soul Preachers with Ramme played
only two gigs, in Hälleforsnäs as a support
to Mary Beats Jane and at a indoor festival in Flen
with a dozen of other bands. Both of the gigs were
really awful.
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- They continued palying, though, and in 1995 they
asked another guitar player, Markus "Macke" Karlsson (now
the lead singer and guitar player of The Turpentines)
to join the band. Now it was more fun and - to the
band's surprise - suddenly they received some
interesting feedback from Stockholm, thanks to the
Bull's Eye CD. Over a year earlier, Pasi, Jarmo and
Macke had been drinking bier with Buzzcocks after their gig in
Stockholm. Pete Shelley,
the singer, offered to hand a copy of the CD to the
discjockey at Daily's Bar where they were sitting. Of
course the songs of Dirt and The Soul Preachers were
underlined on the sleeve. And of course the discjockey
played them. He liked The Soul Preachers' cover
version of Tainted Love.
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- He liked the song so much that when he later
started to work on Gino's, the best rock club in
Stockholm at the time, he took the record with him and
continued playing it. 1995 he started some sort of a
production company with some friend and the first band
they wanted in their stable was the Soul Preachers.
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- He contacted the band one Friday in March 1995. On
Monday called a guy who introduced himself as David
Maloney from EMA-Telstar,
the biggest booking agency in Sweden. They normally
promote bands like Rolling
Stones, Guns'n'Roses and stuff. "Sure
thing, yeah. I'd guess we're interested. Maybe", Jarmo
said on the phone. What the guy who called himself
David Maloney sounded pretty believeble but he didn't
want to make a fool of himself. It propably was some
guy he knew who was joking.
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- Was it the real McCoy? - We never know. He never
called anymore. Nothing happened.
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- And this version of The Soul Preachers didn't last
either. Macke, Ramme, Pasi and Jarmo rehearsed only a
few times together, it sounded pretty good but not
nearly as good it had been a year earlier. Thery
didn't find the magic that was needed and soon they
gave up. It wasn't worth it.
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- It was adifficult time for The Soul Preachers.
Jarmo and Pasi were eager to continue playing hard
rock'n'roll but they didn't find a suitable bass
player. They did one small gig in Katrineholm with
Fredric "Fredde" Larsson
on bass but that was a one-timer. It was hard for
anyone to replace a hard-hitting bass-maniac like
Uffe. Fredde couldn't do it either.
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- In the autumn of 1995 the situation was quite
unbearable. There was so many songs the guys loved and
it seemed impossible to continue without Uffe. They
decided to play one more gig together, Jarmo, Pasi and
Uffe, and then quit. They announced that the gig at
Hälleforsnäs Folkets hus would be their
last. Ever.
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- "The last gig." Pasi, Jarmo and Uffe
decided that there should be an end of the story of
The Soul Preachers and they played their far-well gig
in Hälleforsnäs August 19, 1995. Well, you
know that it really wasn't the end of the story. But
we thought it would be.
- Photo: Magnus Carlsson
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- The photo at the top of the page is
from the same gig. It was taken by Pasi
Pihlajamäki.
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- (to be continued)
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