Daisy O'Connor

There are more artists with this name:
#1 Daisy, a band
#2 Daisy, a female DJ
#3 Daisy, swedish singer (known earlier as Starclub)
#4 Daisy, a norwegian band

(#1)
Daisy has been together in this form since 1999, when Matti Ikonen (keyboards) joined the group. As soon as he joined, after about 6 gigs, Thomas (vocals, guitar) left for England to study. This brought the band to a near standstill for three years.

What they could get together during the holidays was a new style of music for the band and a dozen tunes in their studio, of which one, Five Days, was picked for the playlist at Radio Mafia (former YleX), and these songs with their mix of the Beatles and Rolling Stones spiced with Bowie, Bolan, Stevie Wonder and 70's prog bands also landed them their recording contract with Warner in the summer of 2002...

Hutt Sound System
When Thomas returned to Finland for good, the band spent most of its time in their studio, Hutt Sound System (see photo), recording their debut A Girls Best Friend. This ordeal was rather slow but understandably so considering the band has recorded and mixed everything themselves and considering the bands twisted habit of tweaking studio equipment over and over again did not help at all.

Therefore gigs were at a minimum before the album was release, although Daisy's autumn 2002 mini-tour, where they opened up for The Crash, is worth mentioning. After the release of A Girl's Best Friend in August 2003 the band played a number of shows around Finland, including the opening for The Crash on their Melodrama tour. They also appeared on Bettina S. and Sessions programs on TV.

The band was in good spirits at the beginning of 2004. Although the record hadn't sold that well, the band was recording new songs. By the end of the summer Daisy had 6-7 songs nearly complete and a few more unfinished tunes. Heikki left for Stockholm as part of an exchange programme for half a year and that is when things started going wrong. As Heikki was leaving, the computer with which the band were recording blew up. Well, not literally, but the hard drives failed and it looked like all the material would be lost. Matti, being quite a computer freak, was able to salvage the songs somehow. Phew! Time to make some safety copies…

Being confident about their new songs, Daisy invited Warner A&R Chief Pekka Ruuska to listen to their new songs and to present to him a masterplan, a grandiose concept for the next album. It would be a visually and aurally tied story about… well I won't tell you yet! Anyway, he did not like the idea. Instead he fired the band.

Not hindered by the evident lack of enthusiasm on part of Warner, Daisy continued practising new songs as a four piece, Heikki coming in every now and then on holidays. Just as after being sacked by the label the worst ever incident occurred. Something nobody could have anticipated. The bands dear practice place at Piispanristi was succumbed by fire on the 29th of November 2004. Not only once, the place actually burned twice in two days! All their equipment, par a few guitars and mikes, and the studio were destroyed in the fire. And the safety copies? Yep, next to the computer in the studio. But the boys trodded on…

Still not understanding that there was somebody very, very powerful, who could not stand the cacophony known as Daisy. This time the message from above was clear and powerful but not once did they consider giving up their precious music. After a couple of months of fighting with the insurance (in-sewer-rants) they had the equipment to play with but still no practice space. The Crash were kind enough to let Daisy use their practice commune until they found their own place.

Finally, after a couple of months of hanging around at the Crash pad a suitable place was found. The band set up camp in a dressing room of an old meat-packing factory. The sewers were probably blocked with bits of tendon and the place reeked of putrification. At least they had their own place, albeit 5 times smaller than Piispanristi. By now, we are pretty close to present time. Daisy are still working on the follow up. All of the songs that were destroyed in the fire, par two, have been ditched and lots of new tunes have sprung up and are now being recorded. Quite a lot of time has elapsed since you last heard Daisy and quite a lot has happened too. I reckon you will be pretty surprised when you next hear of them!

(#2)
Daisy aka Mandragore is an industrial hardcore / industrial techno dj and producer and lives in France.

Daisy discovered electronic music at a french rave party in the nineties. She learned how to mix and spun live for the first time at rave parties in Paris, as YSIAD. Passionate about scientific research, she decided to study biology at Paris VI University.

She's connected to labels as The Third Movement, UHM Records, Epileptik Productions...

Links:
Daisy's website
Daisy on Partyflock

(#4)
Cabaret-pop-ensemble