2008, what a year it’s been for CHOO CHOO!

We released our debut album in Switzerland, were DRS 3 Swiss Top Band in March, played 34 gigs in Switzerland, Austria, Germany, France, Italy and Spain, including shows at Gurtenfestival and Funk am See! We shared an awful lot of great moments and got to know so many great new people!

With that said, we’d like to share our personal top 10 moments of 2008 with you. Enjoy:

Dan

1. Releasing our debut album in Switzerland
2. Record Release Bash at ISC, Bern
3. Playing Gurten Festival and Funk am See. After our gig at Funk am See we headed straight on to Winterthur, where we played a late night show for dancing hippies at Bambole
4. Show at Le Volume in Nice, France. Imagine 150 teenagers going wild. Nice, we love you!
5. Photo Shooting with Nick, Mark and Beat
6. Show at Beat-Club Hamburg. Called the Beat-Club Boss the evening before and asked if we can play. He said, sure, you guys can play. So we did. We had a blast!
7. Writing the song “Running in Circles” - a future CHOO CHOO Classic
8. Playing “La nuit du rock chic” at Merkker, Baden together with Rodeo Massacre. What a party it was!
9. Playing a little festival north of Barcelona. When we were walking down the stage we immediately got to know that we will be playing legendary Beat Festival Purple Weekend in Spain. And what a Killer Weekend Purple Weekend has been! Spain is killer! Love Spain!
10. Getting invited to play a showcase at SXSW in 2009!

Sam

1. Text from friends while getting ready for a show: “your on the radio!”
2. Enjoying the rockstar-moments after the show in Leon, Spain
3. Walking through German cities trying to organise the tonight’s gig
4. Rock the open-air stage in Luzern, then drive on to the second show somewhere out in the bushes
5. Listening to Swiss Radio DRS 3 playing our live show at Gurten Festival while we are driving back from a show we just played at another dirty open-air, where the bus got stuck in the mud
6. Finding that sweet gum next to me as I wake up under a table of an Austrian club
7. The crowd in Nice (avarage age around 17) going crazy with every move we make
8. One of Jim Diamonds fishes smiling at me and Jim saying: “tape’s rolling”
9. Bored at the university when Dan’s message comes: “we play the Gurten Festival”
10. Lili screaming out of the bus as we are leaving town for a show: “mir gö iz!” (Yes, we are going now)

Lili

1. Interview at Swiss Radio/TV Station DRS 3 (Swiss Top Band in March 2008)
2. Album Release bash in ISC, Berne
3. Supporting Björn Dixgard (Mando Diao) in Fri-Son, Fribourg
4. Gig at Gurtenfestival 2008, Berne
5. Gig at Funk am See 2008, Lucerne
6. Gig at Beatclub, Hamburg
7. Gig at White Trash, Berlin
8. Gig at Merkker, Baden
9. Gig at Purple Weekend in Leon, Spain
10. Confirmation to play at SXSW 2009 in Austin, Texas

Yan

1. Holding our fresh pressed CD in my hands
2. Being swiss top act in March
3. Playing Gurten Festival
4. Afterparty at Merkkerm where we played with Rodeo Massacre
5. Playing two great private shows: Provitreff in Zürich and Atelier Punkt in Bern
6. Unplugged performance at Radio Virus
7. 100 000 views on kyte.tv
8. Finding an article on CHOO CHOO in spanish Newspaper “La Cronica”
9. Photoshooting with Mark, Nick and Beat (see Dan’s list above)
10. Invitation to play SXSW in 09!

And there is a lot of exciting stuff in the making for 2009! Keep you posted on that.

On November 30th L.A. based 272 records will release volume 3 of its Powerpop compilation The Powerpop Overthrow. The compilations features 21 Powerpop, Pop and Rock songs by bands from all over the world.
The Powerpop Overthrow will be available at Amazon as well as at Amoeba record stores in L.A. and San Francisco. Furthermore the compilations is being sent to the biggest US college radios, where the first two volumes got regular airplay.

CHOO CHOO will be featured on the sampler with A little wiser now, the opening track of their debut album.
„272 records got in touch with us on MySpace. We checked out the work they did with The Powerpop Overthrow Vol. 1 & 2 and decided to give it a go. The compilation comes at a good time for CHOO CHOO. We just got invited for a showcase at SXSW in Austin, TX and being in the process of organizing things for our first US appearance, we already found it very useful to have a US release we can refer to. And of course we hope that the US College Radio DJ’s fall in love with our tune“ says Dan, CHOO CHOO’s singer and guitar player.

CHOO CHOO will play at this year’s Purple Weekend in Leon, Spain. Purple Weekend is Spain’s biggest Beat, Pop and Mod Festival. 18 fantastic bands bands from all over the world will get Leon movin’ for three days. Beside liveshows by Los Negativos (ES), the Fuzztones (US) or Mark and The Spies (NL) among many others, there will be Soul Allnighters, Scooter Runs and Beat/Mod Expositions. A fantastic weeekend not to miss!

Watch out Texas, there’s a CHOO CHOO train a comin’!

CHOO CHOO has been invited for a showcase at SXSW in Austin, TX in March 09. More infos on dates and time slots for the official festival showcase as well as other planned private party gigs and appearances will be published here soon.

Wow, we headed north to our Berlin Gig at White Trash with just one show confirmed - and we ended up playing four. What an amazing trip it was! Check out some pics from our trip:

Guerrilla Show at Black Forest Hostel in Freiburg
At Mataharipalooza in Nürnberg
At Beat-Club in Hamburg
At White Trash in Berlin

Hallo Freunde

Am 4. Oktober spielen CHOO CHOO im White Trash in Berlin.
Um nicht für einen Gig alleine nach Berlin raufzudüsen, wollen wir den one-off gig in Berlin wenn möglich noch mit ein paar Spontan-Gigs ergänzen. Der Masterplan heisst Guerrilla-Tour!

Wir haben sämtliches Equipment sowie ein P.A. dabei, können also in jeder Bar/Studentenbude/Wohnzimmer/Plattenladen/Cafe/YouNameIt spielen.

Wie werden wohl nach dem untenstehenden Fahrplan von Bern nach Berlin fahren (wir sind natürlich flexibel). Unterwegs sind wir für jede Schandtat zu haben. Also, wenn du willst, dass wir in deiner Stadt oder deinem Wohnzimmer spielen, dann schreib uns.

Dienstag 30.9. Freiburg - Your Place
Mittwoch 1.10. Karlsruhe - Your Place
Donnerstag 2.10. Nürnberg - Your Place
Freitag 3.10. Leipzig - Your Place
Samstag 4.10. Berlin - White Trash

Cheers
CHOO CHOO

Hey Folks

CHOO CHOO will play a one-off show at White Trash in Berlin, on October 4th, 2008.

Now, driving all the way up to Berlin for one show is fine, but it would definitely be more fun when we could play some more shows along the way.
Right, so here’s our masterplan: We wanna turn this into a Guerrilla Tour. We leave Bern on Tuesday 30.9. and drive north. We will have all our equipment including a P.A. with us. That means we can stop and play everywhere. The only thing we need is a power plug-in.

So, if you have/know a Bar/Studentenbude/Livingroom/Record Store/Cafe/or any other kind of place etc. or have friends, who know a place, where we could rock out, drop us a line.
This is our schedule (of course we are flexible). Get in touch with us, if you want us to play your town!

Dienstag 30.9. Freiburg - Your Place
Mittwoch 1.10. Karlsruhe - Your Place
Donnerstag 2.10. Nürnberg - Your Place
Freitag 3.10. Leipzig - Your Place
Samstag 4.10. Berlin - White Trash

Cheers
CHOO CHOO

Make sure you head on over to the CHOO CHOO flickr page. There’s plenty of great new photos. All waiting to be commented.

New Live Shots

New Promo Shots

It took a while, but now CHOO CHOO’s debut Album is availabe in all iTunes Stores.

Hit the button below or in the left hand sidebar to go directly to our page on iTunes

Cheers
CHOO CHOO

Chek out some first nice photos from CHOO CHOO’s show at Gurtenfestival last night.

Go to our flickr page to view the full set.