November
24th 1984 Last Train got it's liquor license (against Krf's -the National
Anglo-Christian Party's vote), and has ever since been a popular place
for the drinking classes. It wasn’t meant to be a rock'n'roll bar
originally, but Kenneth and his fellow employees quickly made sure that
the muzak was to be replaced by loud, beautiful rock. It proved to be
a wise choice, as Last Train soon was crowded with up & coming artists,
rock stars, has-beens and regular drunks. Twenty years down the line -
it still is.
In march 1990 Tom, our bartender and Time Lodgers’ guitar player,
heard that Television Personalities were coming to town. Being his favorite
band, he set up an extra gig at Last Train with them and Blind Bats and
The Time lodgers as support acts. This, our first gig, was such a success
that he immediately took the title “booking manager”, and
went on to book more gigs for himself. Other bands were also invited,
and through the years most bands from Oslo (or Norway, if you like) worth
mentioning has blessed us with phenomenal gigs. This has made Last Train
an essential and important part of the Scandinavian rock scene. Numerous
bands were formed at Last Train, and just as many broke up there. Many
labels were established at Last Train and most went bankrupt because of
it, after releasing some quite memorable records.
20 years is a long time for a bar to survive in Oslo! It really is! 'How?',
you may ask. It's been simple, really. No struggle. Just a no-nonsense-no-concept
'concept' combined with an un-compromising love for QUALITY music; be
it rock, punk, jazz, pop, rap, reggae, metal or whatever obscure sub-genre
of the latter you may think of. Just keep it good, real good! That goes
for the bands you book as well as the records you play. And if the customers
don't approve… 'Fuck 'em'!… If they ask you to put on something
else… 'Fuck 'em'… REGARDLESS of how good a song they request.
The customer might BE right at times, but that doesn't necessarily mean
the customer HAVE any rights. Feel like playing Daniel Johnston midnight
on a packed Friday night? Do it! How about a little Slayer on Sunday at
noon? Well 'Show No Mercy' (Haw Haw)!
For our 20th anniversary in November 2004 we released a compilation CD
titled “No Music Requests” (link). We also invited infamous
rockdealer Egon Holstad to write a few words about Last Train. Which he
did. Here they are:
“I was born and raised in a one-horse town in Northern Norway called
Fauske, and since the age of 18 I've lived in Tromsø, which is
even further up in the sub-arctic North; so for my whole adult life I've
lived about two thousand kilometers from Last Train, and yet I call it
my third home. How the hell could such a thing come about? A little hole
in the wall in Universitetsgata in Oslo that doesn't serve food, has tiny
cramped bathrooms, and constantly blasts loud music doesn't sound much
like a home to anybody, but against all odds that's exactly what I call
Last Train - a home away from home.
These days, when chic German designers are being flown in to stamp Norwegian
bars with their boring so called minimalist makeovers, Last Train stands
out with its honest home-grown quirks. You won't find drinks in all the
colors of the rainbow, or lots of goofy forms of coffee with stupid French
names, or beer served in exclusive glasses specially designed for the
establishment. You won't find feng shui or a calculated ambiance.
Instead you'll find a place saturated with a genuine passion for the art
of running a good rock’n’roll-bar, along with a nearly bulletproof
guarantee against meaningless crap music.
And there are the concerts. I can't begin to count the incredible concerts
this tiny little pub has hosted. Over the last ten years, there aren't
many important (read: good) bands from Scandinavia that haven't played
here (both before and after their breakthroughs), and the list of those
who have almost looks like an overambitious wish-list to Santa of exactly
who you want to hear play in a club, written during a late-night whisky
bender. Turboneger, the Hives, Gluecifer, the Hellacopters, WE, Madrugada,
Danko Jones, and many more have played here before they were national
heroes and internationally recognized, and when you spice that list up
further with some impossibly great bands from the USA, you can understand
that there's no exaggeration when words like "glorious" and
"legendary" are used about this place.
Last Train is a fecund oasis in a desert of crappy coffee-bars, trendy
upholstery-obsessed snob lounges and pretentious hypermodern glass-and-metal
showcases for people with a pathological need to feel continental. Last
Train is rock'n'roll, and I'm already looking forward to the next 20 years.”
In the name of rock,
Egon Holstad, authorized rock’n’roll-dealer
Here
is some of the bands that have played at Last Train:
Abusers,
Action Jazz, American Suitcase, Amulet, Anal Babes, Astroburger, Backstreet
Girls, The Barbarellas, Beatroute, Beezewax, Bevis Frond, Big Bang, Big
Fish, BlackDebbath, Blood Tsunami, BMX Bandits, Bonk, Branded Women, Bronco
Busters, Brutal Kuk, Brut Boogaloo, Cadillac, Cadaver, Cadillac, Cato
Salsa Experience, Eugene Chadbourne, Chairs, Cinnamoon, Cosmic Dropouts,
Crabtackle, Coctail Slippers, Coffin Shakers, Country Faggots, The Cumshots,
Crash, Danko Jones, Datsun, Dharma, Dictators, DieDieDie, Dipsomaniacs,
The Dirty Callahans, The Dirties, Dipsomaniacs, Division of Laura Lee,
Dog Age, El Caco, El Corazon, Emily Lang, Ed Hall, Entombed, Euroboys,
Håkon Ellingsen, Ephemera, Fifi And The Mach III, Fairfuck, Femi
Gange, Fleshtones, Fuglene, Gaza Strippers, Gluecifer, Gramophones, Grinners,
Hederos & Hellberg, Heart of Darkness, Hellacopters, Helldorado, Hellride,
Hellsinki, House of Freaks, Hurra Torpedo, The Hives, Holly Golightly,
Indikation, International Noise Conspiracy, Kåre & The Cavemen,
Kåre Joâo, Kenneth Ishak, King Konkubine, King Midas, Kite,
Krace, Kung Fu Girls, Kwyet Kings, Lars Lillo Stenberg, L:ud, Last James,
The Launderettes, The Lazy Cowgirls, Loch Ness Mouse, Lorenzo Love Octopus,
Love Thugs, The Lust-o-Rama, Madrugada, The Maggots, Mammutschwanz, Mensen,
My Midnight Creeps, Thee Mono Sapiens, Mary Slim, MT Hammed, The Moods,
Mormones, Mercury, New Bomb Turks, Nihilists, Nomads, Number Seven Deli,
Nymphet Noodlers, Noxagt, Nullskattesnylterne, Noise of Reality, The O-men,
Orango, Oslo Athletico, Palace of Pleasure, Paul Collins, Pawnshop, Plantronics,
Parkinsons, Piledriver, Phantoms, Poor Rich Ones, Rebellettes, Rejects,
RunDogRun, RIFU, Ratataboo, Rodney Allen, Radionettes, Release Party,
Reidar Roses Orkester, Reilly Express, Retardos, Rezillos, Ricochets,
Royal Beat Conspiracy, Rubber City Rebels, Salvatore, Satirnine, Seid,
Shining, Seid, Snowcats, Speed of Sound, Skambankt, Silverbullit, Sister
Rain, St Thomas, Stone-o-Saurus, The Soundtrack Of Our Lives, Sparks of
Seven, Spyflies, Sonny Vincent, St. Thomas, Supervixen, Sweetness, Tables,
The Team Spirit, Thee Ultra Bimboos, Television Personalities, Tennesee
Beats, Thunderbolt, Thinkerbell, Thom Hell, Thulsa Doom, The Time Lodgers,
Tranceplants, Turboneger, Trashcan Darlings, Turtle Race, Two Niggers
And A Honky, Vikings, Weld, We, Weeds, Whopper, Wonderfools, Wrecks, Young
Neils, Yum-Yums, Zoom Club, 7 Zuma 7
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