Last weekend we did a couple of concerts in England, something which turned out to be more of a challenge than expected, for various reasons. First off, performing in the UK post Brexit is not quite as easy as you might think. Doing concerts in, say, Germany or Sweden, you basically head off, arrive at the venue, set up your gear, do the sound check and then the concert. If you're in luck perhaps a bit of afterparty, the glamourous rock star life, you know. However, the UK is a different story these days. You can't enter on a normal EU passport but need a so-called ETA. As a musician you also typically need a letter of invitation from an organiser or contracts to prove you are actual musicians doing concerts. You have to enter the UK under something called Permitted Paid Engagement and you need to seek leave to enter the country under the so-called Portable Musical Instruments Exemption in order to bring in your instruments. Now, you might think 'Portable Musical Instruments' sounds like something of a grey area and it is. It would seem a full drumkit and to some extent mixers classify as Portable Instruments while, for instance, PA equipment does not. And you cannot bring rigging or light equipment under the Portable Musical Instruments Exemption - which we found out the day before heading off, so no lasers. Serious bummer. We were fortunate in that organiser James Knights had prepared correct letter of invitation while Catrine Christensen of Danish synthpop band SoftWave guided us, very last minute, in the direction of Ian Smith, formerly of The British Musicians Union, who was able to tell us exactly what to do given our situation. I am most grateful!
During our trip our sole driver and co-musician, Alex Anarki, fell ill. She suffered headaches and stomach pains plus of course the general strain of driving many hours daily. In London she had a bit of a breakdown which of course was hard for both Kaos Korrosion and myself, after all Anarki and I are in a relationship and seeing someone you love in pain is a terrible thing. And then the most curious thing happened. As Anarki was in the car at the parking lot, crying her eyes out, a black bird flew in through the open window and sat on her shoulder. Believing it to be a young raven (it might have been a young rook, perhaps), we named it Edgar, of course. Edgar turned out to be a most peculiar and tender bird who did not leave Anarki and managed to do what we couldn't at the time - it broke through her wall and dragged her out of the shadows.
Thanks to the crowd at Aces And Eights in London, mostly new faces but also a couple of dear old UK friends. And thanks to James and Jules who also performed that evening. After the concert we brought Edgar with us, fed him and gave him water and so he joined us as impromptu tour manager going with us to Winchester the following day where he was a hit among the guests at The Railway Inn where we performed, everybody wanting to pet him. We considered bringing him on stage but thought maybe loud music wouldn't really be good for him. Again, thanks to the people who showed up, including, again, old UK friends. Thanks also to the other acts performing; Jayetal, Flaxen Hill and Lyla Skyrim.
We would have loved to bring Edgar with us back home to Denmark but we knew in order to get him through borders we'd need vet stamps and documents which we had no time to obtain. We feared Border Control would put him down on risk of diseases and we really couldn't bear that thought. So we found a nice hill with some trees a few minutes before reaching the EuroTunnel and left Edgar there to new adventures, though it was a hard farewell. We drove back through France, Belgium, Holland and Germany to Denmark in time to get everything ready for next Klub Golem June 13. We hope to see you there.
A week ago today we lost Claus Christiansen who had been our Klub Golem sound engineer right from the very beginning and until the end of 2025. Often he would also handle stage lights. Furthermore, he regularly did sound on concerts of mine outside Klub Golem territory as well - I believe he did the sound for more than fifty of my concerts. I am happy we were able to be with him at the hospital as the end drew near, talking, drinking coffee and tea and, of course, listening to music.
When we originally had the idea of establishing Klub Golem the venue appointed Ronny Rode Eliasen as combined stage manager and jack of all trades and Claus Christiansen as sound engineer, a friend of Ronny's. Ronny's background was in the Odense punk scene of the eighties, so here was a guy who actually knew what we were on about when talking goth, synth, postpunk, industrial and so on, and Claus was an ex-homeless diehard synthesizer nerd who didn't only know about the machines but also knew how to fix them if they broke. We felt very lucky.
There was never anything like a real, grown-up contract - Claus just became a natural part of the club, part of its DNA, handling the sound and light for every Klub Golem, never missing a single event until cancer prevented him from doing the job earlier this year. He was very much an autodidact; he handled sound and light, he fixed instruments and broken machines - and he was also a skilled musician who played in various bands, projects and settings. At venue Kulturmaskinen which is our Klub Golem homeground, there is a black upright piano in the corner of the stage - often after a successful Klub Golem event somewhere in the middle of the night he and I would sit down and play the keys, from improvised faux baroque to acoustic renditions of classic synth hits by Jean Michel Jarre, Kraftwerk, Depeche Mode, et. al. Every now and then musicians or DJs who had been performing earlier in the night would join in, sing along. If a few keys turned out to be slightly out of tune Claus would return some days later and tune the piano - this he was capable of too.
Claus and I certainly had our differences - his tempo was not mine, his approach more relaxed, mine more intense. We were perfectly capable of yelling at each other during sound checks although it happened only rarely. And then we'd be able to laugh about it ten minutes later. After all, despite the differences we also had many things in common; a shared passion for music and sound, a sense of humour, a certain nerdy fascination with synthesizers and the Commodore 64 and a mutual understanding that the Klub Golem project was something important, not only to ourselves but also to other people. I am certain Claus felt genuinely good about being part of a project that meant and means something to a lot of people.
These past days and nights I have been working to put together a live video of my song Postludium, taken from our Klub Golem Halloween concert last year - this became the last concert of mine where Claus handled sound and stage lights. The song is part of my HCA Suite, about the death of Hans Christian Andersen, giving voice to the fairy tale creatures who are left behind when the authoer must die, as so many ghosts - this seemed like a fitting choice. The video can be found in the Video Section of this site and also on YouTube right here. If you knew Claus one way or the other, send him a happy thought as you watch the video - or, if you're a true goth, a sad one.
Copyright: Ras Bolding 2026