Biography for Nils-Olav Johansen
Born in 1966 in a little village called Bjugn. There he discover the power of ABBA ,Beatles (and dads hawaian music) and form a pantomime-band playing on trees, pillows and other nearby lookalike instruments. He also made a good figure in his sisters leatherpants in a rockcontest in Trondheim; singing his own songs :
Idiot that drinks(no explanation here), Robot City( about the cold urban people in Trondheim) and finally the song "Let them have a chance" ( about the children of Africa). The songs very popular in Bjugn, didn't break in Trondheim or in the European Song Contest .
NilsO then in age of 15 decide going into general studies of music and took his guitar and his Portastudio (for making sad lovesongs and songs about why people drink) to Trondheim where he ends up in the conservatory studying jazz(1986-88)writing advanced fusionmusic inspired by Allan Holdsworth, Weather Report, John Coltrane and Hawaii-music for the group Big Bambus. (only documented by talking about it in the back of the bandbus of Farmers Market, I think..)
NilsO left Trondheim for (1989-90) for turning into a french but only learned to appreciate red wine , grass on carpet/carpet on grass and Ligeti. (All of this gets him still the "gooseskin(?..)")
Coming back to Trondheim he joins several bands: TRANSJOIK, FARMERS MARKET, TINGELING, BLIXBAND (Sigurd) KØHN/JOHANSEN(me) 6-tet and some ..and even form a group with two lookalikes :STORYTELLERS.
He has recorded albums with these bands and also found time to record with Jon Balke,Bergmund Skaslien, The CORE, Trondheim Jazz Orchestra, SPLINT among many..
For one year he also worked as a guest professor at a rhytmical study in Aarhus/Denmark because of a jam with Django Bates(now professor in Copenhagen..) where Nilso in his head sounded like Stevie Wonder and Django sounded like well.. Django.. but both managing flirt with music as well with the girls.
Driven beetween balkan music, joik, northen jazz, Stevie Wonder and HAWAIIMUSIC NilsO this year 2007 released some of his favorite hateobject Jazzstandardtunes in versions different from eachother for trying to find an musical explanation of what the fuck is the reason for being a part of this madness called making MUSIC.
Next project coming up is a nondefined concept, don't know when(,where..) called ZUKUNFT, based on some abstract visions late at night.
"My Deal" indicates the NilsOlav way of playing/arranging classical jazz evergreens.
NOJ plays in other bands like :
Farmers Market
Transjoik
Tingeling
Trondheim Jazz Orchestra
Splint
and some more,,
