Commercial music

Playing semi pro

Most of the playing I did in my younger years was what I would call commercial music. Not Rock, but more the hits of the day; music for dancing, listening; some light jazz and classical pieces.

Soon after I settled in the city of Bergen, Norway, I started my own band under the name 004 (Zero, Zero, Four). Most bands at the time had either Norwegian or English names. The idea of using numbers was that they can be pronounced in any language and at the time the James Bond (agent 007) movies were very popular, so the name was easy to remember and we were a quartet, hence the "4".

The instrumentation was usually: keyboard or organ, guitar, bass and drums. All doubling as vocalists and some additional instruments, like: accordion, flute, timbales etc.

From a gig in 1978. From left to right: Svein Evensen †, bassgtr., Geir Scholz †, drums, Slavko Skorjanc †, organ, hidden behind Tonnie on gtr.

Playing As Professional

Before settling in Norway, I played in the Netherlands of course, but also in Norway (1964-1965) and in Germany, France and Switzerland. The very best band was the Atlanta Sextet (See picture below) 1965-1966.

The Atlantic Sextet, with it's leader Fred Schmidt behind the rest of the group. Tonnie played bass guitar and guitar and is number 2 from the left.