1.
Written at the end of September -98 by Esa L.
And I dropped lotsa stuff out, you foreign people
wouldn't want to read it anyway.
Time Flies-photo by Roy Haapakoski
--September
1990
Time
Flies was a punkpop group, which was formed in 1990 from the ashes of
two metal bands - Claymore and Pathetic. Lineup was: Olli
Linna (voc, g), Esa Linna (voc, b), Tomi Korhonen (g,
voc) and Kim Kannussaari (dr). 
At first the name was Mindtrip, but Subhumans LP and song title "Time
flies...but aeroplanes crash" inspired us to change name. Red Hot Chili
Peppers and Nomeansno were in high rotation in our record players, and
you could hear it in our music at the time.
--Depressing cover art
Spring
'91 we went to studio to record our first 7" EP with guidance of Juha
Linna, oldest brother of Linna bros. Hilu, national
radio station RadioMafia's Ilmestyskirja - "Apocalypse" - punk/hardcore-programme
broadcaster said that it was "cock rock" and then biggest rockmagazines Rumba
and Soundi reviewed the record "promising". First-mentioned criticised
the cover art by saying it "depressing"(!). Cover was a combination of
very fat lady's upper body and Sean Connery's eyes.
It didn't took long before we heard Bad Religion's melodies and multi-part
harmonies (actually we were of the first one's in Finland. I think Nowhere and Amazing Tails were the first.)
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2.
--Bon appetit
In
turn of the year 92-93 it was time to record second seven-incher Bon
Appetit, with J.Linna again. Now there were influences from punk and
pop, though there was also one grunge-influenced track. A-side was glad
side and B-side was sad side, on the basis of moods. 
Maximum Rock'n'Roll (US "punk bible") told that we played "fairly
good bubblegum punk". It had an effect, because few US radiostations and
indiemusiczines wanted the record for rotation and review. There went
also records for sale in Germany, with the help of MRR review.
--Bubblegumpunk
Summer
'93 we were playing in Woodrock, Pietarsaari and most popular finnish
punk rock bands, Klamydia's vocalist Vesku saw us and happened
to like what he heard. Later in Elefanttirock, Kokkola he told us that
their label Kråklund wanted to make record deal with us.
Fall of '93 we were in the studio with recording/mixing engineer& producer J.Linna.
Kråklund put our mini-CD Bubblegum Punk out in spring '94. MRR told
that it was "like a really pop Bad Religion with its tight riffing", but
the reviewer did'nt like vocals, because it reminded him from "dork of
Oingo Boingo". Probably he listened the last song, punkasfuck/ska-track
"Life of my own" where Olli had opened his voice with help of strong drinks.
When the mini-CD came out, we were happy and lucky to get supporting gig
for ALL, which was truly immemorial. 
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3.
--Cockgrunge and gracious
melodies
(don't even try to
understand the title)
There
went about 8 months before we got to record our full-length CD for Kråklund.
Record was born with help and co-operation with Vocational College
of Western Lapland, Department of Arts and Media in Tornio which actually
is located in the western side of Lapland. Obscure place to record sunny
poppunk. We recorded 18 basic tracks in one day and then added vocals,
more guitars, tambourines, banjo, keyboards and something else between
January-April 1995. 
15 songs was chosen for very good record Happy Smile. Somehow marketing
wasn't that good and record went basically nowhere, but track 4, "Space
Aliens" was in pretty good rotation in RadioMafia. Multinational record
label K-Tel chose it to compilation called Punk+,
and the record went to whole Scandinavia. We recorded few songs also live
in rockclub Jesperi, and couple of tracks was published in Let Me Drive-comp.CD
which contained bands from our hometown Ylivieska.
Happy Smile was our last record but we recorded songs for full-length
CD (working title was Pumporganbank) which was never published because
we broke up. This happened in fall of 1996. It was - no doubt - our best
effort, Olli was main song writer at the time and besides fast punkpop
there was also type approved power pop. There was most important information,
I don't have interest to write about gigs since there was easily over
100 of them.
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4.
--Time flies...
We
decided to split up in spring 1997. Kim and Esa lived in Jyväskylä, Olli
and Tomi in Ylivieska. No fun to drive few hundred kilometres for rehearsals,
and Kim had become a father and Esa was going to be. Something else to
think about.
Later we all contributed in the genre of powerpop: Olli played bass
and sang backing vocals in Cartoon Tree, Kim and Esa had a heavier powerpopband 86
Yourself in Jyväskylä and Tomppa made promoCD and one gig with Ethel
Suspense before he went to study in one of the universities of London.

After TF split up, it took about 1 1/2 year before we did one surprise
gig - we didn't have a single rehearsal but it went well and left us a
good feeling. Nice and instructive seven years, you might say!
Update: just received the password to these pages after 8 years. A lot of happened: Olli died in 2002. The release of Pumporganbank has been in talks.

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