> 2001: Everyday's a birthday!
> 2000: Learning to swim, the Herring way
> 1999: Cassettes, concrete and concerthalls
> 1998 An Embryotic Art Circle

2001: Everyday's a birthday!
By 2001, Safe as Milk was more well organized, yet still a very progressive association. We were invited on collaboration projects of all kinds and recieved economical support from The Norwegian council of Cultural Affairs and different funds and associations. For the first time Safe as Milk had the opportunity to make a more smooth and professional festival. The festival of 2001 was without doubt a milestone in Safe as Milk history. It was an undisputable success socially, culturally, economically and practically! 2001's festivalprogramme was more focused and to the point than earlier. From this festival on, we really felt that we were on the right track. Not long after this festival, the cultural authorites in Haugesund finally started showing some interest. This led to an almost unheard of guarantee of support in the coming years. A good start for the festival of 2002!

In 2001, the Elektrodiesel camp was boiling. Elektrodiesel released a LP on Synestetic Records and main elektrodieselist, Espen Jensen, set up a CDR sublabel to Safe as Milk named Spilt Milk. His intention is to run a label that would cater for absolutely anything, with an emphasis on sound-art, bizarre-noise and general musical weirdness.

In contrast to a rather quiet year in Safe as Milk Record's history, the pulse exploded back to normal by the end of the year. The experimental and electronic part of Safe as Milk records established itself as an autonome sublabel called Melektronikk.The sublabel stated itself as a extremely elegant and experimental outlet with the pre-release of the upcoming two first 7".

At the same time Safe as Milk records were exploring new territory and released Årabrot's debut 7". The single became an instant hit and sold unexpectedly fast. In just weeks it was the most selling Safe as Milk release ever, including the long time bestseller Mono Blue.

2001 was a year when good looks entered Safe as Milk. From now on, noise- and designwiz Lasse Marhaug do all of the Melektronikk graphics. Safe as Milk Records teamed up with the brilliant designgangsters Grand People. What a relief to finally look as good as we sound!

In January this year both Safe as Milk records and it's fresh sublabel, Melektronikk, started fumbling for distribution outside Norway, and is now nursing new won fans, contacts and friends in Europe, Japan, Canada and USA.

2000: Learning to swim, the Herring way
By 2000, most of the active participants in Safe as Milk had moved from Haugesund. The Safe as Milkers found new homes and continued their work in Hull, Bergen, Stavanger, Copenhagen, Malmoe and Oslo. The discussions flourished, though, on the internet and per telephone, and plans were made for the future.
Even if Haugesund since 2000 hasn't been the daily home city of any of us, Safe as Milk continued to wiggle and waltz the Haugesundian art scene in weekends and holidays.

Safe as Milk records followed of the low budget cassette with a maybe inappropriately expensive vinyl production, the Mono Blue 10", in January 2000. The record was extremely well produced, -we were happy and broke! The ambitions and qualities of Safe as Milk Records was unquestionable. With this record Safe as Milk really started evolving, sometimes far beyond any control! People were talking about us and bands started sending promotapes for the festival and the record label. We felt priviliged.

The first release was followed up by two, if possible, even more ambitious 12" releases later in 2000. Intiz' brilliant impro and düplo's burnt electronics and wailing melancholy proved a bit hard to sell, but GOD! we were, and still are proud of these records.
They made it absolutely clear that Safe as Milk Records was something more than yet another charming pop/rock indie label.

The festival in 2000 matched the vinyl releases in ambition: the festival lasted for four full days on four locations in Haugesund, encompassing dance, performance, litterature, filmscreenings, artexhibitons and loads of concerts. Among the artists that visited the festival in 2000 were Team Doyobi (Skam/UK), Triple Helix (UK), Noxagt (later released as a livetrack on Synesthetic/ Sandnes Records), Läsk and Pieter Maas (NL)/ Thorolf Thuestad.

After the festival, we did an aftershow in Oslo. This is definitly the festival in Safe as Milk's history that was closest to total disaster. We like living on the edge, allright, but this festival was just a little bit to far over the edge of the edge. The most memorable/ hardest to forget moments includes:

-Realising the day before the festival that we didn't have a PA...
-Our english guests driving from Haugesund to Oslo in uncomfortable, worn out cars. All in all using 13 hours on a 6 hour trip. The experience was later described by Alex Peverett (Team Doyobi) as an exhausting mixture of Apocalypse Now! and The Straight Story...
-A slightly disturbed guy who started undressing during the poetry readings...
-The brilliant performance artist James R. Gordon bringing with him a borrowed kebab machine all the way from the UK. Addicted or what...?

Anyways, during the festival in 2000 the press in Norway finally got their eye on Safe as Milk. Both the festival, the concerts in Oslo afterwards and the label releases gained growing media attention. Suddenly, Safe as Milk was a topic in art and music circles in Norway.

As you see, 2000 was the year when a lot of good and bad things happened in Safe as Milk. In additon to the abovementioned, the label was rushing out releases. Most important was the release of This is Music inc's debut 10". This is Music inc is a band gluttoning in obscure mythology and blistering stories. With This is Music inc, Safe as Milk became a small, but considerable cult phenomenon in the Norway's music underground.

1999: Cassettes, concrete and concerthalls
The first Safe as Milk festival 1999 was a rather bizarre, but very inspiring event. The festival quickly became one of the main elements of the Safe as Milk concept. Since 1999 we've actually arranged three annual festivals, and are currently working on the fourth (1999 seems like yesterday!). The first festival took place in two very different venues; the local concerthouse and in two stages in an underground cement parkinghouse.The program featured Safe as Milk artists, friends and associates; playing music, dancing, painting, performing and screenings selfmade films.

On the occasion of the first festival, the first audioproduction of Safe as Milk saw the light of day. This was a compilation cassette with artist related to Safe as Milk and the festival. The now legendary first release contained tracks by future Safe as Milk bands like This is Music inc., Mono Blue and duplo. This cassette was the beginning of Safe as Milk Records.

1998 An Embryotic Art Circle
Safe as Milk was started in 1998 as a loose organization of young art interested friends in Haugesund, on the westcoast of Norway. Often operating more as a collective than an organization, Safe as Milk's early years mostly centered around promoting music, but quickly evolved into a much wider range of activities.

Among the early contributors were Laila Evensen, Vidar Evensen, Ynvil Thomassen, Ole Øvstedal, Espen Jensen (& Elektrodiesel), Shaun Curtis, Thomas Mortveit, Odd Eirik Faerevaag, Gaute Sortland, Eirik Meland and Ruth Hege Hallstensen. In addition to these, Kristen Roennevik, Jon Øvstedal, Kristian Kallevik andAndreas Meland went on and developed Safe as Milk into a more controlled and settled organization.

In the early chaotic days, Safe as Milk produced a short film on Super 8 format (Kallevik, Curtis, Fossmark and Meland), released an anthology of both poetry and prose (Meland and Faerevaag) and worked with filmscreenings (Roennevik and Hallstensen), artexhibitions (Roennevik, Hallstensen, Thomassen, both of the Evensens and Jensen) and finally the first Safe as Milk festival.