Tag: oslo

  • 5 years of oslo.town

    5 years of oslo.town

    As we find ourselves in the midst of November, it’s a poignant reminder that it’s been 5 years since I had the privilege of creating oslo.town – a Mastodon server for the people of Oslo’s capital and the first Norwegian-based Mastodon server to exist.

    Mastodon is a social network that can be compared to Twitter, but with a lot better ethics around how it works. Instead of being one big network owned by one monopolistic company, it’s made up of many smaller sites that talk to each other to create one big network. And oslo.town is one of those sites!

    You can join the 2,305 members of oslo.town to follow and post to the the millions of people who have chosen to join one of the other servers around the globe.

    The community is alive and well thanks to its amazing members! While some people come and go, we have around 240 dedicated oslo.town folk who keep coming back month after month.

    I’m really lucky that some of our members are so generous and help to keep oslo.town running. They donate their own money through Patreon, Ko-Fi, PayPal or Vipps so that I don’t have to pay for everything myself. Thanks to them, we can keep the site running with minimal costs.

    Tusen-tusen-tusen takk! Thank you!

    That thanks should be extended to @hugo@masto.pt at masto.host who set us up with the server and has been doing a fine job of maintaining that ever since, ensuring we are always running the latest version of Mastodon.

    And a shout out to @angristan@mstdn.io who hosted the first ever Mastodon server that I joined back in 2017 and inspired me to start my own, and to @Gargron@mastodon.social for, you know, creating Mastodon.

    Five years has flown by!
    Let’s check back in for our ten-year anniversary.

    ✌️

  • Little Simz performing live in Oslo

    Little Simz performing live in Oslo

    Back when I lived in the UK, I went to a lot of concerts. Between knowing the assistant to the director of SJM Concerts and taking photographs for NME-rival magazine Artrocker, I would see myself guest listed for several concerts each week. Most of these were in Manchester, but quite often in Leeds, sometimes in Liverpool or other cities in the North West of England.

    Over the years, I’ve been lucky enough to see some of my most favourite bands play live (Blur, David Bowie, Los Campesinos!, Green Day, Tellison), often for free. And also to watch others that weren’t quite my go-to when I pick up a record, but have been great shows (The Darkness, Paramore, Limp Bizkit, Kanye West, Harry Styles). Shows that were just a bit odd, therefore brilliant maybe? (Daniel Johnston, Lord Mongo, Salty Lips) Or to be able to discover new, smaller artists before they get popular or disappear altogether (Jamie T, Tom Vek, Bromheads Jacket, The Old Romantic Killer Band, Cage the Elephant, Kings of Leon).

    There are too many to mention or properly categorise.


    Now that I’m old(er), live in Oslo and have a family to look after, I don’t really go out to as many live shows. This entire year, I only made it to 3 concerts and 1 festival; The Wombats, Harry Styles, Day 2 of Øyafestivalen and Little Simz.

    I guess that’s okay, but I think in 2023 my intention will be to go to more.

    Seeing artists play live can be a great experience. Some concerts are great to go to on your own, others with friends. My music taste is quite broad and it’s sometimes hard to find someone to go and so I don’t mind going on my own. That’s what I did for the Little Simz show.

    I’d been in Manchester the entire week and only flown back earlier in the day, but made my way out into a cold and snowy Oslo, queuing alone outside the venue, Rockefeller Music Hall.

    The spare ticket? I gave it away for free to two people looking to buy their way into the sold out show. My friend Ben described this as “the most Coxy thing I have heard this week”.


    Since I wasn’t feeling super fresh and was quite tired after a 6am start to catch a plane – evident by the fact I got into the venue, bought a beer, but walked away from the bar before they served it – I decided to go up onto the balcony at the venue, where things are a little more sensible and reserved.

    This meant that I was prone to grabbing my phone and taking photos + video of what was going on. I don’t usually do this but often see others doing it. I’ve become one of them. But now you get to witness some of what I witnessed:


    Little Simz, in my opinion, put on a great show. I like her music anyway but wasn’t sure what to expect from a live performance. And she delivered.

    From the music, to crowd banter and audience participation, the slow songs, the hard hitters, to bringing her cousin up on stage to give him credit for his part in all this, to the heartfelt thank yous to the tour crew – who were also handing out water to the crowd to keep the fans hydrated.

    There was no faulting it.

    Not too long before the show rolled around in the calendar, Little Simz dropped a new album called NO THANK YOU. On stage, she acknowledged that the tour was not for the new album, so there would be no new songs played tonight.

    That said, after the official set had ended, the lights stayed down and NO THANK YOU started playing. Little Simz and her co-pilot for the evening came back out on stage and just started dancing as people were leaving the venue – with the remaining crowd just vibing for the next 10 minutes.

    It was a proper party atmosphere. Nice.


    Little Simz · 18.12.2022
    Rockefeller Music Hall (Oslo, Norway)

  • New British Artists Oslo

    New British Artists Oslo

    My good friend Tim, also known as the King of Frames, recently held an exhibition at his workshop in Oslo for his new venture – NBA Oslo.

    NBA Oslo (or New British Artists) is a collaboration between Timothy Raison, with the assistance of Selena Støback, and various British-based upcoming artists. The goal is to bring British art to Norwegian walls.

    The exhibition took place at the King of Frames workshop on the 27th August 2022 at Josefines gate 2, in the Bislett area of Oslo.

    With art on display / available to purchase from artists such as Lewis Hazelwood-Horner, Liubov Edwards, Paul Doherty, David Horgan, Placcyheadface and more – British snacks were served and British art was sold.

    The event was a success!

    The sale of art is ongoing and if you want to browse the latest pieces up for sale, check out @nbaoslo on Instagram.

    If you don’t have Instagram, maybe try dropping by the King of Frames workshop in Bislett and asking about NBA Oslo.

  • Stickers

    Stickers

    A few weeks back I ordered some oslo.town stickers from moo.com and as soon as they came, started applying those tacky little dots to various parts of Oslo.

    It didn’t take long before all 200 were stuck up and my pockets were empty.

    Hopefully, come the new year, I’ll order a lot more and continue to subtly advertise my little social network for Oslo.

    The site has very few daily active users, but that’s fine by me. Especially since the site is connected to the fediverse, which already contains millions of users.

    🦣

  • We bought an apartment 🏡

    We bought an apartment 🏡

    Today, my wife and I officially took the jump on to the housing market and agreed a deal with the existing owners of a nice little space in Rodeløkka, in central Oslo.

    I’m so excited about the purchase and proud to have saved up the money for the apartment myself. Now it’s a case of counting down the days until the Vestengen-Cox family move in to our new 2-bedroom 100m2 home.