heroes - company man

Thompson: “So tell me, how do you feel about paper?”
Mr. Bennet: “Wildly enthusiastic.”

I was totally blown away by this episode. Right now, a few minutes after I've finished watching it, I think it's the best episode so far of Heroes. That ought to say a lot. It's hard to say anything more about it because there were so many things that happened and were explained (at least to some extent). Almost any comment about the story would be a major spoiler. I loved to see Eric Roberts in a small but very important part as Thompson, Mr Bennets boss. He was great! So were George Takei as Hiros father. The frequent flashbacks in this episode made his part much more interesting and mysterious (maybe even sinister) than before. They also gave us important clues about the background of Mr Bennet - the company man. It felt like this episode really started a new phase of the story. It will be very interesting to see how the story will evolve from here on. I'm really looking forward to it.

labrador 100

I just wan't to say that this is one of the best compilations that I've ever listened to. Buy it! It's great. No, it's brilliant! Almost all of the 100 songs are sunny pop hits or rare little gems. There are some exceptions but who cares. That's life. You can't like everything. I really understand why these artist are invited to TV shows in South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. And these 100 great songs are from just one of Swedens many independent labels. Okay, they have collected songs from a period of ten years. But I think it's impressive anyway. Support Labrador and the Swedish independent scene. And if you're one of my old friends from Uppsala then you have a great chance to support our old friend Pelle Carlberg too. He's well represented on this compilation, both as a solo artist and with Edson.

Here are two songs from Labrador 100.

tribeca - the sun always shines on tv

The song is recorded from MTV Taiwan.

the radio dept - pulling our weight

The Radio Dept rules!

east side vs emmis

Times are changing in Fiskis. There's no East Side anymore. Instead we have Emmis. Emmis? What is that? I liked East Side. That name at least sounded pretty cool. But we'll see. They open on wednesday. Maybe it will be an okay place to grab a beer in once in a while.

gray day

Arrrrggghhhhh booooorrrriiiinnnngggg!!!!! I hate boring gray days. But I got some time to watch all the episodes of Heroes, Lost and Life on Mars that I've missed lately. Now I've seen all the latest episodes and they were all pretty damn good eventhough I start to become a bit annoyed at what is happening in Life on Mars - or more like what's not happening. Sam doesn't seem to change a bit. It's still like he's just arrived in 1973 and I think it's annoying that the script writers keep on letting him blab on about the future with everyone he meets back then. Why would he do that? Is he stupid? Otherwise it's a good show. Eventhough I like both Heroes, Rome and Lost better right now.

boy in static - where it ends

I totally enjoyed the shoegazer scene in the late 80's and early 90's and I still listen to bands like My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive. Alex Chens one man project Boy In Static seems to be inspired by these bands and the newer glitch scene. It's the same kind of beautiful noise. I really like Where It Ends and Tear Down from his second album Violet. It will be released 29 May this year. Something to look forward to.

shy child - drop the phone

The sound sucks but it doesn't really matter. Drop the Pone is still a great song. If you're a sensitive sound nerd then try Shy Child at MySpace instead. The sound sucks a little less there. Let's rock!

jan, caligula & management by fear

Swedens Minister for Schools, Jan "Caligula" Björklund, dreams about the good old days when the Swedish students were godfearing, silent and obedient. He has suggested that Swedish schools should have separate classes for boys and girls and that they should teach more Swedish language, history and religion. Grades should also be reinstated - even for very young students. It's important to meassure all kids and put them in the right boxes. Will they become masters or servants? Jan Björklund and his grades - or maybe the subjective and random views of thousands of Swedish school teachers - will decide that from now on. No one will ever have to be in doubt where they belong when the fuzzy weed smoking hippies in the education system have been sacked! Thank Jan Björklund and God for that. Maybe some of you wonder why Jan Björklund wants Swedish school kids to learn more about religion? I know I do. Does he want them to broaden their minds and become more open to other faiths and cultures? Or is religion the same thing as christianity in his mind? Doesn't the kids learn enough about religion today? And what about history? I love history. But what does Jan Björklund want to do with that subject? More heroic Swedish warrior kings? Or more focus on the history of ideas, science, society and economy? History can be a whole lot of things - it can be a mind opening humanistic subject and it can be a propagandistic nationalist subject. Which way does Jan Björklund want to go? Unfortunatelly I'm not really sure and that frightens me. There are reasons why we abandoned the old school system. But our right wing government seems to have forgotten that. They ought to watch Alf Sjöbergs and Ingmar Bergmans Hets/Torment again. That was yesterdays school. Maybe todays school is a bit "fuzzy" but what's so wrong with that? The corporal punishment was leagal in Swedish schools until 1958. The school back then was about fear, diciplin, bullying, marginalization and memorizing instead of reasoning and critical thinking. That changed during the seventies. Todays school is by no means perfect - but the school of the forties and fifties was even worse. I had a tough time in school during the seventies and the eighties. Not that I'm stupid - but I just find it more or less impossible to memorize things if I'm forced to do it. I need a joyful and inspiring study environment to be able to learn anything. Especially if I have to learn things that I'm not really interested in. Otherwise I lose interest right away. I would have been a total disaster in the old school system. I think that todays school would have been much more suitable for someone like me. Todays "fuzzy" school at least acknowledge and tries to look at the individual needs of each student instead of forcing them to conform to some kind of norm. It's strange that it's a minister from the Liberal party who wants to force students to conform to a norm. It would be much better if our minister of schools looked towards the future instead of dreaming about a glorious past that never existed. It would also be welcome if our "liberal" right wing government started to discuss whos responsibility it is to raise the kids here in Sweden. Is it the school and the teachers or is it the parents? If the teachers didn't have to waste most of their time learning the kids basic social skills that their parents ought to have tought them then many of the schools problems would solve themselves.

the cure - 10.15 saturday night

10.15
Saturday night
And the tap drips
Under the strip light
And I'm sitting
In the kitchen sink
And the tap drips
Drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip

Waiting
For the telephone to ring
And I'm wondering
Where she's been
And I'm crying
For yesterday
And the tap drips
Drip drip drip drip drip drip drip drip

It's always the same

I love this song. It's from the 1979 line up of The Cure - Robert Smith, Lol Tolhurst and Michael Dempsey. They actually looked pretty cool back then.

the fiskis base station

All your base are belong to us!

waiting for the train

Waiting for the train at Medborgarplatsens subway station...

micke & peter

I'm not really sure when I last met Micke - it was probably more than 10 years ago. But Snottys is the place if you want to meet friends from a distant hazy past.

daniel & simon

It's kind of disturbing when you get drunk and annoyed after just two beers. But I blame that on the capitalist system - all work and no play! It just makes me pissed off! Luckily Daniel aka Vinlusen and Simon seemed to be quite forgiving. Our brilliant imagination managed to take us to - SURPRISE!!!! - Snottys... I complained a lot about all the supersticious Swedish peasants who seems to hate every ounce of wilderness that happens to show itself outside their houses. They seems to prefer to have some kind of combined shooting range and golf course outside their houses instead of real nature. Why can't they stop whining and move to a city instead? That would make my Friday evenings so much more harmonious and relaxed. Or maybe I just need some sleep and vacation. Who knows. What was I talking about? Is that a bed?

funtime with dinah shore!

david bowie - stay


He has some great moves there David. This is a performance from the Dinah Shore Show back in 1975. Stay is a great song from his "plastic soul" era and it was later released on his sadly forgotten 1976 album Station to Station.

iggy pop & david bowie - funtime


Funtime! Iggy Pop and David Bowie at the Dinah Shore Show in 1976. I wonder what Dinah and the audience thought about Iggys and Davids performance - whatever they thought - David totally ruled between 1976 and 1977.

Unfortunately, mostly for themselves, the Media & Music Nazis have choosen to make this video unavailable for YouTube and for us.

friday night

Friday night, pay day and I'm on my way to the commuter. It's time for some fun.

sink sank sunk

Did anyone feel sorry for the fishermen onboard the Japanese whaling ship Nisshin Maru? Or did you just wish that the burning ship wouldn't pollute the Antarctic? How come the Japanese and the Chinese have to hunt and eat every endangered animal on earth? Can't they just buy viagra to get their small dicks up? And what about Iceland and Norway? Is whaling the only thing that give them national pride? Seems a bit sad doesn't it? Those countries must really suck big time if that's the case. I think it's time to become much tougher towards countries who try to solve unemployment or silence loud lobbyists or just trying to fool the local opinion with nationalist bullshit through whaling and overfishing the seas. The seas are getting emptier and emptier day by day. The difference between today and fifty years ago is enormous and very scary. Ask anyone who lives by the sea and who's not a fisherman. Fortunately we have groups like Greenpeace and the Sea Shepherd. On the picture above you can see the Nisshin Maru trying to ram a Greenpeace vessel. But the Sea Shepherd is more like Greenconfrontation than Greenpeace - as you also can see in the picture above. They claim to have actually sunk 10 whaling ships since 1979. If they would try to do the same with the huge industrial fishing ships then things might change in the seas. The Sea Shepherd is doing for the seas what the U.S. is doing for democracy... (did that sound right?)

freezing my ass off part II

Almost home and it's still cold as hell.

the jurassic man

Today I was The Jurassic Man and took my class out to the Jura (Judarn) Forest outside Stockholm and arranged a Dinosaur hunt. It was very cold and pretty cool. The kids loved it eventhough their noses almost fell off because of the severe cold. But this is the only way to make them hard and ready for life. ; )

massive attack - be thankful

This is one of my favourite Massive Attack tunes - Be Thankful for What You've Got from their debute album Blue Lines. It's a cover of an old William DeVaughn song from 1974. Since he's a Jehovah's Witness I very much doubt that he enjoys Massive Attacks video for the song. But back in 1991 I think both me and most of my friends thought it was a pretty cool video.

The Media Nazis have removed this video too. Getting free promotion doesn't seem to be good enough for them.
Support the pirates in their fight against the Media Nazis evil rule.

simpsons on my phone

Wasting time on the commuter has become a lot more fun since I bought my new phone. It's a music player. It has a web browser. It's a game console. And it's also a small video player. I'm watching The Simpsons on it. Season 18 have actually been pretty good so far. Watched episodes 3 and 4 on the train today. Can life in the suburbs get any better than this?

freezing my ass off part I

Winter is back big time. Had to wear my ultra heavy thermo clothing this morning so I wouldn't freeze to death on my way to the commuter train.

c'était un rendez-vous

C'était un rendez-vous is one of my favourite short movies. It was made in 1976 by Claude Lelouch. I've been writing about it before - but one more time can't do any harm. It's a very fast, beautiful and charming movie about a man in a big hurry to meet his love. What can I say - it's brilliant in its simplicity.

jackass - the role models of the future

Went to the park today and the kids played "Jackass". The kids nowadays really know how to choose interesting role models.

cyann & ben

cyann & ben - words


cyann & ben - a moment nowhere


Cyann & Ben is a french band based in Paris. They have a dark dreamlike sound with some nice prog influenses. Their songs are perfect if you want to get a bit melancholic in a stylish and romantic way. As far as I know they've made three albums so far - the third album is called Sweet Beliefs and it was recorded in the legendary Vogue Studios in Paris. Not bad. Visit their MySpace page if you want to know more and listen to a couple of more songs.

mogul

Not sure if I've posted this pic before. It's another great Mogul stencil from Rålambshovsparken.

stkhlm bird line

Some gulls are chillin on a lamp post while they're waitng for some expensive clothing to pass near by so they can take a stylish dump...

valentine's day 2007

For all of you who are or want to be under the influence of love - here's Aretha Franklin with I Say a Little Prayer.

loveninjas - i wanna be like johnny c

Hurrah! The swedish record label Labrador celebrates its 10th birthday. I join in with this Loveninjas video. I think the title of this song really ought to be I Wanna Be Like Jarvis C. But maybe that's too obvious. The Pulp is dead! Long live the new Pulp!

lundsjön winter stylee

I continue my rerun theme. Here's Lundsjön.

tree

Yeah, another boring picture of a tree. I don't care. I like trees!

dr muren & mr persbrandt part IV

When I'm close to concrete and wild nature I can feel the Persbrandt inside me. He wants to get out and kick someone in the face. Or at least spit shout really loud in a very theatrical way.

concrete jungle

I love these strange concrete walls that you can find in the forest that surrounds Fiskis. Will they be the next thing after crop circles?

wild side of fibban

It was Sunday and perfect winter weather so I took a walk on the wild side. We have lots of wild trees and plants here but it would be pretty damn cool to have more wild animals too. Some elks would be nice. Maybe some foxes too.

matt and kim - yea yeah

I love Matt & Kim! They make brilliant party music. You can download them for free at freeindie.com. You should also download the excellent mash up of their song Verbs Before Nouns called Verbs Before Nouns, Mothafucka here! It's one hell of a party song featuring Lil'Kim. Food fight!!!

jamie t - salvador

This is one of my favourite tracks from Jamie T's new album Panic Prevention. Unfortunately the album is very uneven. But there are a few really good songs on it. Like this one. Pretty nice low budget video too. Seems like they've been watching Billy Elliot. It makes me remember what a huge black man once asked me in Paris: "I like dancing. Do you like dancing?"

The Media Nazis have removed this video too. Getting free promotion doesn't seem to be good enough for them.
Support the pirates in their fight against the Media Nazis evil rule.

brick

I watched the movie Brick yesterday. Don't know why I haven't watched it before since it was made in 2005. Maybe I'm getting slow. Don't know. Anyway. It's a great movie. Kind of a film noir detective story set in a suburban high school. An interesting idea that actually works. It's not that hard to translate the characters in those old detective movies to a high school environment. The outsider, the femme fatale, the thug, the dealer, the brain etc. It's kind of a dark teenage version of Bugsy Malone but no one is singing and dancing. Not that I mind. It's a great little movie that I really recommend. The photo is excellent eventhough it's low budget and the dialogue is totally on the spot.

Brendan: You got a cigarette?
Tugger: I don't smoke.
Brendan: I've seen you smoke.
Tugger: I don't smoke cigarettes.

Fortunately it's been released on DVD in Sweden.

au revoir simone - fallen snow

Let's continue the winter sports theme. This is Au Revoir Simone and they play Fallen Snow from their brand new The Bird of Music album. Strangely enough there's no snow at all in the video. But what could possibly be wrong with three girls who play electronic music and enjoys both nature and sunshine? I think I will build my own raft down at Holmen this summer. It looks like a lot of fun.

floating

Sometimes you got this weird feeling that you were floating. It was hard to tell what was up and what was down. Kind of the same feeling as you can get when you're diving. There were just sunshine and snow. Pretty damn nice.

at the top

The sun tried to get through the snow smoke at the top of the slope. I'm surprised that I didn't have any bigger problems getting down. It went pretty well. No falls. And my turns looked pretty good. Not perfect. But okay.

smoke

There was a lot of snow smoke drifting around the slopes. The snow canons made my beard look pretty damn impressive.

ski lift

This was the first time I've used a ski lift since 1985. At least I think so. I managed quite well.

20 below zero

The whole school went away to the Nybro mountain ski slope in Borlänge for the annual Winter Sports Day. The buss left Stockholm at seven in the morning and we arrived at the ski slope just before ten. It was a beautiful and very cold day as you can see.

public service part II

How could I miss this one!? It's absolutely brilliant! It's the very same Kate Bush BBC1 Christmas special from 1979 (Kate Bush was just 21 years old!!!) but this time Kate Bush & Peter Gabriel sings Roy Harpers "Another Day". This is a classic. It's one of the most beautiful duets I've ever heard. Why didn't anyone release this song as a single? It totally blew my mind. Doesn't it sound a little bit like This Mortal Coils version of Tim Buckleys "Song to the Siren"?

simple minds - chelsea girl

Have you ever wondered why Simple Minds became famous? I mean since they totally suck and have been doing so for as long as most people can remember. Here's the reason. They haven't always been pompous boring arena rockers. This video is from BBC's The Old Grey Whistle Test back in 1979. The song Chelsea Girl is from their first album - Life In A Day. It's actually a great song and for the next three years they managed to make a couple of really good songs. After that, unfortunately, came over two decades of total mediocracy.

Damn media corporations! They've removed the song Factory from YouTube so I changed to this instead. Hope you like it!

micro car crash

A very small car crash in central Fiskis.

pike

Found this old portrait of me made by Pike/Jonas Dahlström maybe ten years ago. He was a lot into "automatic drawing" back then (that is not looking at the paper while making the drawing). I like it a lot. You can see more of his work here.

maya deren - at land

This is an excerpt from Maya Derens short movie At Land (made in 1944). As you can hear it's obviously not the original music - the movie is a silent movie. I don't really know anything about the music more than that it's performed by a band called Ombanda and that the song is called Deja Esta Ilusión. But it's a beautiful movie anyway. You can find more of Maya Derens movies at YouTube.

espresso overdose

Started this late morning with a serious espresso overdose. I'm still feeling a bit strange. Trying to sit still in my sofa while I'm listening to Thyne Eyes, Steed Lord and The Work. I desperately needed something new to listen to and these groups seems to work just fine.

full moon over fiskis

The fool moon shines over Fiskis.

who's tired?

Not Robin... he's just resting a bit...

why change?

I had another great friday night at Snottys. Great music as always. Lots of friends there. And good beer too!

friday night favourites

felix - it will make me crazy


This is one of my favourite old skool dance tunes. It was released in 1992 and I played it a lot when I worked as a DJ back then. Still makes me wanna dance.

roxy music - out of the blue


This is Roxy Music anno 1974 with Eddie Jobson on keyboards and violin and John Wetton on bass. Can't get much better than this. A perfect marriage between progressive music and art/glam rock. The song is from the album Country Life which became notorious for its cover art. I remember listening to this album in the public library in Falun in the mid and late seventies and getting harrassed by the librarians because of the album cover. It made me a bit embarressed but I loved the music and I still do. Roxy Music is one of the greatest bands ever.

friday at freddes

Started my friday night at Freddes place. We drank some wine, listened to a lot of music and played with his budgie. Here we're waiting for the train on our way to Snottys.

public service

kate bush - babooshka


I love Kate Bush. Totally pretentious and arty but at the same time very cool, playful and sexy. You have to respect her for getting away with it. Few others would. The "Kate the Barbarian" dress is fantastic!!

peter gabriel - here comes the flood


This comes from a 1979 Christmas special. Just look at the presentation! Kate Bush and two weird old hippies singing about Peter Gabriel. No commercials, no product placements and no silly juries or phone votes. Just a lot of talent. I miss noncommercial public service broadcasting. No one dares to do stuff like this anymore. Maybe HBO and Showtime ought to make quality music entertainment too - not just excellent drama series. Here in Sweden it would be interesting if Spader Knekt made a christmas special for TV with the Knife or maybe the Weeping Willows as hosts - depending on how arty and weird you want to make it. Then they could have guests like Radio Dept, Peter Bjorn & John, the Concretes, Frida Hyvönen, Fläskkvartetten and Anna Ternheim. Wouldn't that be something.

boring weather

Another day with boring gray weather... rain... snow... rain... snow... Give me some sunshine - NOW!