No Sleep ´til Hammersmith

Went and saw Motörhead... again! And it was definitely one of the better times I have seen them, which is pretty insane considering that Lemmy turns 63 in two weeks. They opened with Iron Fist and then straight into Stay Clean and not a lot of openings get a lot better than that. They had a pretty big production for being Motörhead, lots of lights, smoke and fire, oh yeah, lots of fire. The highpoint was probably a brilliant version of Metropolis and a absolutely insane Overkill with six minutes of only strobes and fire. Love it!

Anna also left for the states this weekend, so I am alone for a week, which usually means that I watch way to many movies and eat badly. But I am not sure I actually have time for that this week, got a lot of stuff to do, presents to buy and bags to pack. And then on saturday I will board a plane for Minneapolis. I am really looking forward to going there again, and to have some time off.

Anyway, time to do some dishes.

Fine Art In Silver

Hmm, took me quite a while to write again. But I have a great excuse, well a pretty good one at least. Tons of stuff has happened in a really short time and Anna and I have been pretty busy. But where to start?
Somewhere in the middle I guess.
Anna and I have started this tradition where we invite our friends every year for a big thanksgiving dinner. We cook for two days and then people come over drink a lot of beer and wine and finish all the food in a couple of hours. It is always really fun and even though we almost kill ourselves with the cooking it is obviously enough fun that we keep doing it. The tough part in Sweden is getting a big enough turkey, turkeys over here are pretty small (with american standards) and pretty damn frozen. The turkey this year took two days to thaw, which was a little big too long since I did not really start the process until 24 hours before the guests were coming. But everything went really well and people enjoyed the food and the drinks.
About that time, Anna got laid off. The financial crisis hit Sweden a little bit later and the small company that Anna works for were forced to cut down on personel. So Anna and four others were laid off. Annas last day will be january 8th. This means that we have to do some serious cuttings in our budget, but it should not be too bad. Anna is a member of the union and will get unemployment pay and I got a raise the same day she got the boot (how is that for irony).
What else? Hmm, maybe that was it.
Anyway, over and out.

Motörhead is in 5 days.

B A U H A U S

It seems like I totally forgot that in the beginning of this year Bauhaus released a pretty damn good album. And it also seems like totally forgot to put it on my list.

And it definitely needs to be on the Top10, maybe even top5. I need to think about this and revise the list. Crap!

Well, here goes again.

1. A Place To Bury Strangers - A Place To Bury Strangers
2. Ossler - Ett Brus
3. Firewater - The Golden Hour
4. Division Of Laura Lee - Violence Is Timeless
5. Bauhaus - Go Away White
6. Atmosphere - When Life Gives You Lemons You Paint That Shit Gold
7. Portishead - Third
8. Twelve - Houston We Have No Problem (I and II)
9. Mogwai - The Hawk Is Howling
10. Mercury Rev - Snowflake Midnight
11. The Black Angels - Directions To See A Ghost
12. Spiritualized - Songs In A & E
13. Tv On The Radio - Dear Science
14. Disfear - Live The Storm
15. Melvins - Nude With Boots
16. Montys Loco - Farewell Mr Happy
17. The Dandy Warhols - Earth To The Dandy Warhols
18. The Soundtrack Of our Lives - Communion
19. The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age Of Understatement
20. Bloc Party - Intimacy

BEST OF 2008

It is that time of year again.
Time to make lists, time to struggle and time to compile.
It was not easy doing this years best albums, especially considering how many albums that I was dissapointed by (Primal Scream (so lame, so lame), Brian Jonestown Massacre (half of it brilliant, half of it complete crap!), The Breeders (booooring), The Cure ( so incredible uneven), The Fall (very unfocused)).
The top 5 I was 100% certain of, and I could move them around in the top until I die, the 6-10 not as certain, and the rest could have ended up anywhere.
So enough talk, here it is. 2008 top 20, right this second:

1. A Place To Bury Strangers - A Place To Bury Strangers
2. Ossler - Ett Brus
3. Firewater - The Golden Hour
4. Division Of Laura Lee - Violence Is Timeless
5. Atmosphere - When Life Gives You Lemons You Paint That Shit Gold
6. Portishead - Third
7. Twelve - Houston We Have No Problem (I and II)
8. Mogwai - The Hawk Is Howling
9. Mercury Rev - Snowflake Midnight
10. The Black Angels - Directions To See A Ghost
11. Spiritualized - Songs In A & E
12. Tv On The Radio - Dear Science
13. Disfear - Live The Storm
14. Melvins - Nude With Boots
15. Montys Loco - Farewell Mr Happy
16. The Dandy Warhols - Earth To The Dandy Warhols
17. The Soundtrack Of our Lives - Communion
18. The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age Of Understatement
19. Meshuggah - ObZen
20. Bloc Party - Intimacy

Chinese Democracy

Ok, quick review.
First of all it was not bad at all. That said, it was not good either, it was more like "shrugs". The main thing that hit me is that it is waaay too produced, waaay to arranged, and I get the impression that Axl should have worked on the songs instead of the production. There is constantly too much going on (5 guitars at the same time of which two are playing solos), Axl screaming over it, while Axl (yes again) is sing back-up vocals and we have a full string-section and keyboards. And sometimes you really get a "cut and paste" feel, like they could not decide on all the cool parts they had written so they put them all togheter in one song, wich gives a very schizofrenic impression.
So over all, there probably is a good album under there somewhere, but it is hard to find it.
What I want Axl to do, is pick out a semi-sloppy trio, no keyboards, no samples, ONE guitar and go out with this material and play some theaters. Play some good old sleezy rock, I think it is there. Somewhere.

Whatever's Cool With Me

Anna has been in Denmark for a week and I have gotten hooked on True Blood. Been watching the whole week. Great show, good locations and great accents. Oh, and there are vampires. Always good.
Watched Hellboy II last night. I really liked it. The villian was not as good as in number 1 but still a good action movie and great characters.
Today I am going to interview Franz Ferdinand and then Anna is coming home and we are going to go and see them. Went to the recordcompany yesterday to listen to the new album. Some parts really different and some parts the same. But it sounded good, I will need a couple of more listens to really know what I think. But the first listen was positive. The fist songe was called Ullyses and had a pretty fat keyboard going through it, really cool song.

No song of the day today. A whole album instead.
sianSPHERIC - The Sound of the Colour of the Sun

Gargoyle Waiting.

Not much to report right now. I could bore you to tears with what is going on in Västertorp right now (reading, watching tv, listening to music, doing dishes, eating, reading, listening to music, etc) but I won't. So instead here is some really good stuff. Ride, one of my favorite bands, saw them in Sweden in 1991 and it was absolutely fantastic. One of the bands I really regret never seeing again.
Anyway, it starts with a short interview, and then Taste.

Enjoy!

Kill your television.

What a week. For a while there I thought I would never be able to sleep again. Is that by the way a sign that I am getting older, the constant talking about sleep? I hope not.
Anyway. 5 shows in 7 days and I got up at 4.45 everyday, except tuesday when I got up at 4.00. So to continue this trend of talking about my lack of sleep. I slept in general 4 hours per night this week, and if me and Anna had not found a free sofa during Spiritualized I am not sure I would have made it through. Which brings me to the next subject. Spiritualized. Great, great show, but very badly paced setlist. Great opening, first 4 songs was just incredible, then after that 1 hour of slow songs and ballads, all individualy amazing, but all in row a bit much. After that 4 rock songs again, and the show is over. And when the show is over I discover that my phone is no longer in my pocket. It has fallen out and landed behind the sofa and the wall. Now the sofa goes along the whole wall of the venue so I can not move it, and my arm is too short to actually reach the phone. So we went home, and I went back the next day, fished it up with some help from a electrician working there.

Song of the day will be by my old heroes. Brilliant song, brilliant video. Turn it up and enjpy!

Obama!

Wow! The last 24 hours have been crazy.
No sleep, tons of good music and on top of that Obama.
Last night we went and saw The Twilight Sad and MOGWAI. Great, great show and even though Mogwai might not have played my dream setlist they were as powerful as always and really goddamn good. The Twilight Sad was good too, but it is hard being the opening act and play to a less than half full venue to people who have no idea who you are, and do not really care either. Still a good gig.
And then home by midnight, quickly to bed and up at 4.00am for a breakfast with the american ambassador och several other important people at a hotel in town and waiting for the first voting results to come in. By the time we got there at 5.00am Obama was leading big and had soon won. From there is off to work. Now I am sitting home, I am watching BBC and sucking up everything about the election before I run of to go and see Spiritualized.

What a amazing election. I still think that Obama has some very tough years a head of him, the Bush administration has run the country to shreds and it will take a lot of time and effort to get back on track again. But this is not the time to be negative. I am very happy.

Maybe I can sleep next week.

The song of the day will of course be Mogwai. Don't forget to watch the video too, really good.

Space Dementia

Saw Division Of Laura Lee last night, great show. Good mix of old and new songs. As usual though the Stockholm audience were way too cool to actually face the stage and applaude between songs. The people in front of us stood pretty much the whole show with their backs to the stage talking. Sometimes I think it is only worth seeing bands in small towns, were the audience does not have to be cool, but only wants to have fun and see some good music. I have talked to a lot of bands that have said that the best shows are never in New York or London, but more like Freiburg, Norrköping, Ulan Bator or Baltimore.
Which explains why the show me and Tony saw with Deftones in Shitville New Jersey was so damn good. It still is the worst pizza I have ever eaten, though. And then to top that with a cabdriver that told us how much he used to beat his wife was a little bit more than scary. Still great show, great band.

This will be a busy week for me. I saw Division last night, in an hour I will leave for Love Is A Burning Thing, and then on tuesday Mogwai, wednesday Spiritualized and friday Monster Magnet. And I have tickets for all. Somewhere in there I will have time to sleep, I hope.

Now cross your fingers for Obama.