The facts about food and cooking can be learned and understood by anyone with good sense

As with most of my vacations, food has been a big part of this trip. I've done my best to avoid Western cuisine, since a friend who lived in Malaysia informed me that they can't really cook that here. He was right.

What has been good, other than the stuff already documented here, has been local food. Or rather, Asian food of various sorts. Fresh, lots of taste, cheap. Good combination.

The breakfast buffet at the hotel is also good. Cooks in hats and aprons so white it hurts your teeth that make your eggs just the way you want them. And pancakes and waffles, for that matter. Excellent service at the table, almost too frequent, and a fantastic table of fresh fruits.

However, I have been longing for a more authentic Malaysia. Jalan Bukit Bintang, the street my hotel and several of the shopping malls are on, could be the Strip in Vegas, if you threw some dilapitated buildings in the mix and had a bunch of mopeds and piece of shit taxis driving down the street. I've wanted dirty back streets with hole in the wall restaurants, and admittedly I haven't really looked for it.

Today when I walked out of Plaza Low Yat I ended up on just such a street. Throngs of locals and tourists drinking beer or eating noodles, while a band played Smokie's "Living Next Door to Alice", standing on the sidewalk, amps and all. It was like something out of an Asian Twin Peaks, including the midget who was wearing red but didn't talk backwards. That I heard.

I'm going back there tomorrow night, to take pictures, eat and socialize with the locals.

Maybe it was because you were too busy eating twice your bodyweight in chocolate

Last night I walked a bit further from the hotel, in a sort of loop out and over towards Petronas Towers. Insane traffic was braved (how come there are so few crosswalks here?), pictures of skyscrapers snapped, Swedish hardcore (as in hardcore punk, not porn) discussed.

I had two beers and a sandwich in Rum Jungle, where sharks swam in a tank above the bar, the staff practised their Cocktail bottle flipping skills and what sounded like a 45 rpm recording of a DJ talking being played at 78 rpm (yes, children, that is a vinyl record reference) over various 60s and 70s hits. Hell, the guy even sang along to most of it, through the mic. So weird. Also, the staff were wearing six pieces of flair each. They just weren't expressing themselves enough.

Kept walking and passed a karaoke place. Nothing to get you smiling like drunk sarari men belting out a truly horrific version of The Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations". The security guard at the door stopped me from taking pictures, pointing to a no photos sign. Oh well.

By the way. The Wikipedia entry for sarari man links, amongst other things (ege. Your word is amongst. Amongst), to here. Sad and interesting at the same time. Did you know that Japanese rail companies will charge the families of those who commit suicide in front of a train a fee depending on the severity of disrupted traffic?

Right now I'm in MOF, a Japanese café. I ordered a milkshake and a small pastry. My order unleashed a flurry of activity behind the counter. One guy did the shake, with the kind of meticulous attention to detail that characterizes most things Japanese. The result was not so much a milkshake as the idea of what a milkshake should look like. In the 50s, in an American Diner. Say, Jack Rabbit Slims.


The work that went into the shake was nothing compared to the pastry, though. When I ordered it I thought they only had the one, since there was only one in the glass top counter. I should have noticed that there was only one of every single pastry. So two guys in crisp white uniforms made my pastry. From scratch. It was sort of a waffle thingie, with chocolate filling. Mmm...filling...

The café is in Pavilion, a fairly upscale shopping mall. I managed to score a couple of sneakers for 200 kronor and some gifts for various people. I walked around and gawked in a very touristy fashion at ridiculously expensive art and furniture and home decor. You know, in the kind of store where the staff ignore you unless you walk in wearing a Saville Row suit, waving a big wad of cash around.

Interestingly enough, one of the most swanky art stores was playing Richard Cheese over their speakers. I wonder if it was ironic or if they really didn't have a clue.

Photography is the recording of strangeness and beauty with beguiling precision

Go mopeds go!

Larry thought being out of focus was a pain in the ass

Average snack counter in Kuala Lumpur

No one was going to miss Daniel's cook colleague. Slice and dice

Blog owner photographed by Japanese geek.
Who looked at blog owner's camera with disdain

Optimus was outnumbered two to one

Dylan was pleased with how the Lego house took shape

Two quick things.

1. Skyscrapers rule
2. I sat down and spoke with some skateboarders today, after snapping some pictures of them. Turned out one of them was a huge fan of Refused, Millencolin and Breach. Good man. He wasn't on FaceBook though, so a pox on him.

I'm easy like Sunday morning

I'm so easy. A few big riffs, a good voice and above all vocal harmonies get me every single time. And so it is, that we come to Burning Libra. Acquintances, a few of them, and my oh my how I've fallen for their song "Of the Essence". If I had to make a comparison, I would point to Onesidezero's "Is This Room Getting Smaller?".

And don't they look the part too?

Gulliver had a new career as a photographer

The sway of alcohol strikes back

Continued from Saturday, or rather, brought back on track to “good party nights” from “good nights, period”.

My 25th birthday (the music one, not the one where my “friends” got me horribly drunk). This was when I still lived in Karlskoga. I went to an acquaintance of mine who had a restaurant/night club, and asked if we could rent that place. He said if I could get fifty people there, and paid for the bands myself (cause you gotta have bands on your 25th) we could have the place. With fifty guests he would make enough money at the bar to make it a worthwhile night for him.

So we sold 98 tickets, including the 25 or so friends who sat down at six o'clock in the restaurant before the party and ate. Then we went upstairs to the club, and hit the beer and drinks. The first band went on, my friend Posti's stoner band Dog Will Hunt. Then a friend of mine came up to me and said “There's a line outside...” And there was. All in all, over 200 people showed up that night. People I'd never met came up to me, all smiles and hugs, and wished me a happy birthday. It was like some weird dream, where everything just seems warm and fuzzy and pleasant.

Two more bands played that night. Local act Ed Myer, who began something of a tradition at my birthdays by giving me a present in the form of a cover, that time Deftones' “Korea”. Then my friend B-Jet's band H.A.L. played, fronted by another friend, Det Finns Bara En Av Oss, who was part of that band very briefly. Tito Beltran (pre-rape conviction) came up and stood watching in the doorway to the club, surrounded by various hangers-on, gaping as Det Finns belted out scream after scream. It was surreal.

After drinking literally every bottle of beer the place had, we all left at two, a bunch of us retiring to Posti's home for an afterparty of epic proportions. We left at 0700, riding the crest of a wave created by music, a perfect blood alcohol level and excellent, excellent friends.

Easily the best birthday party I've ever had, though my 30th comes extremely close.

I had three 30th birthday parties, because why settle for one? The first was with colleagues at work. Food and then a bar where we were the only patrons, and got the full attention of bar staff more than happy to help celebrate me. A good start. Then I had a party back in Karlskoga, this after having moved to Stockholm, with all my closest friends from back home. We started at the local Stadshotell (which is a very Swedish small town thing, where the often only hotel in town has a night club), with food and a set from friends Lingua, where they first played some of their own songs and then a set of covers. That was their gift to me, a cover set that I got to choose all on my own.

We fled the hotel quickly after that, cause the owner is an asshole and we didn't want to be tormented by what they normally play there. We went to Looks Like Jöback's place, which was right behind the hotel. Problem was, his supply of alcohol was very limited. So Mistlur and I got our asses into a taxi and went to the all-night gas station and bought a couple of crates of beer, and Makes Kick-ass Chili walked home to see what supplies he could find there.

On our way back we passed Makes Kick-ass Chili on his way back, with a big bag slung over one shoulder. Turns out he emptied his liquor cabinet. Again, this was a night of good friends, laughter and music.

The third 30th party was in Stockholm, at Tanto-gården. An acquaintance had a club there, and we made a deal where I could have my party on her club night if I could book a band, Fingerspitzengefühl (best band name ever), she had been trying to book for a while. They're friends of friends, so I did, and three bands played that night too. The band then known as Smut, now known as A Swarm of the Sun started, then Lingua did a set of their own songs, and then Fingerspitzen. Then Lingua finished with yet another cover set, with lots of guests. The highlight was Deftones' “Passenger”, with a guest vocalist doing Chino's parts and Lingua's vocalist handling the Maynard parts. Not as mind-blowing as the real thing, but close.

As an added bonus. For my 30th, Mah Girl made a cake with the bearded smiley that I sign with on top in chocolate, and got me this:

Somebody stuck his blades in all his
major organs in alphabetical order
T-Bird, "The Crow"

There have been other great birthday moments too, such as when Det Finns Bara En Av Oss's then band Headplate opened for Machine Head in Stockholm and got the 800 people or so there to chant “Hurra hurra hurra!” for me since the gig was on my 26th birthday. Too bad I was just pulling into the parking lot since we had gotten ourselves thoroughly lost on the way there...

So much for birthday parties. Another time, other parties.

The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature

I'm not really a party guy, in the sense that I go out partying a lot. I like home. I like my couch. I like hanging out with Mah Girl. Without any alcohol involved. When I do want to party I prefer someone's home to going out, unless there are very specific circumstances. I'm picky. An entire evening out can be ruined by the wrong music. Yes, that's how shallow I am.

What really matters is what you like, not what you ARE like. Books, records, films, these things matter. Call me shallow, it’s the fucking truth.
John Cusack, “High Fidelity”

I don't go dancing. I don't like music that is typically danced to. Techno, trance, house, ebm, etc. I do like drum n bass, on occasion, but again. Picky. And not for dancing. For headphones, on rainy days.

Nemo enim fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit

So when I do go out, it's either to a place that plays specific music, usually live, or with a group of friends. And while there are some places I really like to hang out (Lilla Hotellbaren, ftw!), the best parties tend to be at someone's apartment, house, hovel, hole in the ground and other words that begin with h.

The best revels I've been to start out sort of mellow and then build towards a crescendo, fueled by excellent people, the right amount of alcohol, good music and something intangible, a quality that can't really be defined, which permeates the party from the beginning or is simply created at some critical mass of partyness.

Over the years, there are a few parties, a few nights of excellence, that really stand out.

April 3rd, 1999. Started out at Quick Like A Snake's place, together with Erik XIV and Looks Like Jöback, with drinks and music. Quick's apartment was one of the focal points of my life from maybe 19 until 25 or so. A place of friends, laughter, music and endless games.

After a few drinks, Erik (whose name isn't really Erik, but he looks like Erik XIV according to some people) decided he and I should go out, for a reason that wasn't apparent then but became so later. We walked up to the horror that is Wickan. If you live in my old hometown, you know this horror. If you don't, count yourself lucky.

We went in, walked around a bit, he played some blackjack and lost, then moved on. I was confused at this point. Then we walked to Gabbe's, one of the sunkigaste sunkhak in Karlskoga at any given time. There we hooked up with his then girlfriend, Idaho, and her redhead friend.

The friend wore a Slayer tee and a TOOL long-sleeve, had a killer smile and only frowned a little at the fact that I was drinking an alcopop. We ended up kissing that night, and I skip-jumped home with Erik and Idaho when she had to take the bus. Almost ten and a half years later, I'm watching her type away at her own laptop across the room now. She still has a killer smile and wears TOOL tees on occasion.

And with this I realize that anything I write about other nights of significance would pretty much pale and fade to nothing. More on that some other time. I have to go hug Mah Girl now.

Critics? How do they happen?

It was a fluke that got me into writing about music. Back in 1995, a friend and I walked into the local paper in Karlskoga and said “we want to review movies”. They looked at us, these journalists that had slaved away at a minor paper for twenty years, and said “Eh...you can't. The culture section does that”.

We did however get an offer to write for the youth section. It is a true sign of a great newspaper that they let just anyone walk in and start writing.

So we wrote reviews of ice cream and board games and books and the occasional text on pretty much whatever. Then, in what alcoholics refer to as “a moment of clarity”, I emailed a record company and asked for CDs for reviews. And they sent them! So I started reviewing CDs. I still have some of those first reviews, in my clippings folder, and they're horrible. Unspeakably horrible.

Then I moved to Sundsvall to go to college. I went to a Peace, Love and Pitbulls gig with some friends, and being music geeks, we stood there and had opinions on pretty much everything. A woman behind me asked if I knew the titles of the last few songs and I told her, in that condescending “my taste in music is better than you” way that I had back then (and still have, to some degree). That condescension gave me a job reviewing CDs for Sundsvall Tidning, which is a considerably bigger newspaper than Karlskoga's local rag.

After that I wrote for a couple of fanzines (this was back in the day when fanzines were still paper, made using a Xerox machine) and yet another paper in a city I went to college in. Then along came Supersatan, in maybe 1998 or 1999.

Yet another treasure from the depths of my closet

And here's a question for Hans. How did I come to write for Supersatan? I can't remember.

Supersatan was a metal site, where I wrote reviews and did interviews and such. I think I interviewed earthtone9 there, as well as P3 Rocks Håkan Persson. Writing there was a lot of fun, and we got a lot of attention and readers. Then one of Sweden's premier rock journalists wrote a column in Close-Up Magazine praising our site as Sweden's best metal site in Swedish, and specifically mentioned me as a writer with pretty much the same taste in music as he has.

About a month later I got an email from the editor of Close-Up asking if I wanted to write there. Which is an offer you don't refuse if you write about metal in Sweden. Mostly I did reviews of CDs, but I also wrote a couple of columns and did some interviews. I got to fly to London to see the first European gig Linkin Park ever did, where they played for a bunch of journalists, some record company bigwigs and a handful of fans. Business class there and back and one night in a fancy London hotel on the record company's dime, and all they got was half a page where the band answered The Basic Questions. Hardly a fair trade, but I didn't complain.

In 2002 I stopped writing for Close-Up because I had sort of a nervous breakdown (more on that some other time), and once I was back on my feet I started writing for Slavestate, which back then was an actual magazine. All of a sudden I could pretty much pick and choose which bands I wanted to do interviews with, and I got a lot more printed than in Close-Up. I've done interviews with Slipknot, Machine Head, Isis, Ministry, Cult of Luna, Type O Negative, Prong, Devin Townsend, 36 Crazyfists, Poison the Well, Burst, Pelican, etc (yes, namedropping galore, but that's what you should expect from me).

I'm still writing for Slavestate, though not as often as I did back in the day and not as often as I would like. Time is something that has been in shorter and shorter supply over the last couple of years. But I'm happy I'm still writing, because expressing my opinions about music is one of my favorite pastimes.

If you saw a heat wave, would you wave back?

The heat really only got to me a couple of days here and there in June and July. During one week we had to run the AC in the living room a few times, so we didn't melt. Here in the Land Of No Air Conditioning I had to buy a portable one, that we move from room to room whenever the heat gets to us.

Which it does now. The devil we call the sun is casting it's baleful gaze down upon us unsuspecting mortals yet again, and while others may smile at the thought of such a thing and then frolic about in parks and on beaches and anywhere really, I just want to close the blind, crank up the AC to ten and watch TV/play games/read/write/hug the girl.

Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and...
Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?
Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.
Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?
Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty DiBergi: I don't know.
Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.
Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.
Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to eleven.

Oh yeah. And listen to music. At eleven.

Now I'm going to go out on the balcony, which you can't even open the door to between two and eight without succumbing to spontaneous combustion, and give the sun the finger. And maybe find me a spider I can kill.

Cuz I'm praying for rain and I'm praying for tidal waves
I wanna see the ground give way
I wanna watch it all go down
Mom please flush it all away
I wanna watch it go right in and down
I wanna watch it go right in
Watch you flush it all away
Time to bring it down again
Don't just call me pessimist
Try and read between the lines
I can't imagine why you wouldn't Welcome any change, my friend
I wanna see it all come down
Suck it down
Flush it down

MCMXCIV part II - Spotify Strikes Back

As Magnus pointed out, 1994 deserves to be celebrated with a playlist too.

So, for those of you with Spotify, here's a homage to 1994 containing most, if not all, of the releases mentioned in the previous post.

MCMXCIV

There are several years that I can wax nostalgic about when it comes to music (is that correct, Americans? “wax nostalgic”? My good friend the Internet seems to think so). 1992, when I discovered Good Music. 1995, when the Best Album Ever was released. But when it comes to Best Music Year Ever, there's only one contender, really.

1994. Seriously. What the hell happened that year? There are so many outstanding records that came that year. Some I still listen to. Some I listened to a lot back then. Some I discovered on the way from then to now, and then left on the side of the road, others are still on my CD shelf. Whatever the case, it was a spectacular year in music.

How spectacular, you ask? Here's a list of good stuff that came out that year, interspersed with some videos.

Alice In Chains - Jar of Flies
Tori Amos - Under the Pink
Beastie Boys - Ill Communication



Biohazard - State of the World Adress
Jeff Buckley - Grace
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Let Love In
Dinosaur Jr - Without a Sound
Drown - Hold on to the Hollow
Failure - Magnified
Front Line Assembly - Millennium
Helmet - Betty
House of Pain - Same As It Ever Was
Korn - S/t



Kyuss - Welcome to Sky Valley
Killing Joke - Pandemonium
Live - Throwing Copper
Machine Head - Burn My Eyes



Marilyn Manson - Portrait of an American Family
Mary Beats Jane - S/t
Massive Attack - Protection
Misery Loves Co – S/t
Nailbomb - Point Blank
Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral



Pantera - Far Beyond Driven
Peace, Love and Pitbulls - Red Sonic Underwear



Pop Will Eat Itself - Dos Dedos Mis Amigos
Portishead - Dummy



The Prodigy - Music for the Jilted Generation
Prong - Cleaning
Soundgarden - Superunknown



Stone Temple Pilots - Purple
Therapy? - Troublegum

Then again, 1994 gave us “The Sign” by Ace of Base and Cradle of Filth released their debut album...

What do you think? Any other records released in 94 that should be on this list? Or some other year that tops this? And oh yeah. Thåström should always, always sound like that.

There is only one better thing than music - live music

The last couple of weeks have been all about intense musical experiences, from two festivals and a fantastic live gig in between. Turns out I'm going to yet another festival.

Sonisphere is a traveling festival making the rounds in Europe, and on Saturday its Sweden's turn. Through some bizarre turn of events I managed to win tickets yesterday. Metallica is headlining, and while I'm not a fan, they're a killer live band. I will also get to see Mastodon, Lamb of God, Meshuggah and Machine Head, among others. Yay!

I need to find some way to avoid hearing even the slightest hint of Cradle of Filth, though....

And if I don't get to hear this song, I'll be sad.

The presence unfound comes to me now

This is Neurosis, performing "Through Silver In Blood" and "Times of Grace" at the Roadburn Festival in the Netherlands, in April of this year. Fantastic.

Oh. And Steve von Till has a pretty cool beard.

Isn't it interesting... religious behavior is so close to being crazy that we can't tell them apart

I've had two religious experiences over the last few days. As in “brushes with religion”, not actual religious experiences. I only have those at live gigs.

The first was a few days back, as I was getting on the bus. Further back, at the middle door, what appeared to be an old imam got on. He had a great white beard, a shaved upper lip, a knitted white cap and a walker. I walked by him as he was settling in, and as I passed him be looked up. Nodded slowly. Sagely. Like a mentor to his student. Like Obi-Wan to Luke. I nodded back. Slowly. Sat down. Smiled.

So the guy thought I was Muslim. If I shaved my upper lip too, which I've done before, I would probably get a very interesting experience the next time I try to go to the US. When I went the last two times I made sure to braid my beard, to avoid being mistaken for a Taliban. Plastic gloves and lubricant ain't my idea of a good time.

The second one was on the train this morning. Picture this. Me sitting on the train, wearing a black Neurosis tee and baggy gray cargo pants, reading Cormac McCarthy's “Blood Meridian”, headphones on, probably leaking some Neurosis noise (yes, I'm currently seriously in love with that band. Again). A woman sits down next to me. Sits still for a while, maybe one station, and I feel her looking at me.

Then she taps my shoulder, I remove my headphones and she says, and I'm so not kidding, “Have you accepted Jesus as your savior?”. What. The. Hell.

Religion and I aren't friends. We're barely on speaking terms. And this is why. Nut cases on the train that want to “save me”.

My response then? “Eh...no”. Eloquent, eh? It was 07:15 in the morning. Give me a break. My brain wasn't up to warp speed yet. Then she goes off on this rant how Satan is in music, in books, in movies. I guess the word “Blood” on the cover was a dead giveaway. Me and Cormac, worshiping the Great Old Ones together. Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!!

There were two things I could do.
1. Explode and rant back at the misguided fool. I was tired from a weekend of uneven sleep patterns, and cranky. A recipe for disaster, but oh so rewarding.
2. Get up and walk away.

Wisely, I chose number 2. I am The Bigger Man. When she got off at the Central Station she looked over at me with a look like “I pity you that you cannot see the way to avoid burning in hell, you poor man”. Again, the temptation was great to back up and go with item number 1 above. Instead, I took a few deep breaths and went back to the book. Don't let the fuckers get you down.

But then there's a moment like tonight, a profound and transcendent experience

Second weekend in a row at a festival. I had planned to work in between, but was instead out cold with the Stomach Virus From Hell that managed to take down five out of the seven people that shared our house at the Peace & Love festival. Surely this was a weapons test of some kind. A military jet passed over the lake one day, when we were sitting on the porch, enjoying or trying to avoid the summer sun (that last bit would apply to me and Mah Girl). It must have dosed us with something.

And of course Faith No More was awesome. Phenomenal. Other bands watching Mike Patton lead his troops should just cease to exist out of sheer embarressment that they can't measure up. Might be the best front man ever. They worked their way through all their albums, and managed to play almost every single song that was at the top of my wish list. Telepathy was somehow involved. Me and Mister Patton communicating on some unknown mental frequency.

On Wednesday I got to see the mighty Neurosis annihilate a club in Stockholm once again. Not quite as intense as the last time I saw them, except the final song, "Through Silver In Blood", which is one of my favorites and which felt like an element of a ritual performed by urban shamans in the depths of some concrete jungle. Awe-inspiring.

Now we're at the Arvika festival, or to be precise in the cabin we're renting, about 14 kilometers from Arvika. Just hanging out for now, watching Mah Girl drink a couple of cold ones and now dozing on the couch. So far, we've seen Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode, both of which were excellent, as well as some minor bands. Tonight, a few more, and then home tomorrow.

So three of my favorite bands, Faith No More, Neurosis and Nine Inch Nails, in six days. How the hell did that happen?

Looking at me, some might believe that the best part about this weekend isn't the music, but the fact that I'm the designated driver and get to drive my colleague Stefan's kick-ass car, an Audi S3 that feels like it has a jet engine in the back when you hit the gas. And they wouldn't be far wrong. Such a fun car to drive, and not only cause it has plenty of horsepower, but also because it handles really well. If I ever feel like spending 300 000 kronor on a car, I may just buy me one of those.

There is a profound lack of insanity in your country

Our first day at Peace & Love turned out to be a disappointment. We had a problem with the rental car (the trunk was the size of a paperback, even though they had said it was much bigger, and we had four people in the car with festival luggage + beer to pack), which was solved by renting a larger, more expensive car. Believe me when I say angry emails will be written.

I have that from my father, who in turn has it from his father, who, I assume, got it from some angry god in the depths of Dalarna's lush forests. That ability to never relent in the face of promises broken, expectations not met and service not given is something that defines the Larsson family, much to the chagrin of my mother, who comes from a line of quiet and calm people, who express more with a shrug of the shoulders than words. Not saying my mother isn't eloquent, its just that if you go way up north in Sweden, people tend to face adversity the way a rock faces a river. They let it part around them to move on to piss off someone else. Me? I fight the river. Tooth and nail. May be meaningsless, but it has to be done. Tilting at windmills, and all that.

Case in point. My father used Eniro's map service to plot a course from their house in Karlskoga to our place in Stockholm. The direction function started on the wrong street, the one next to theirs. Now, it's not that my father is an idiot and doesn't know how to drive to Stockholm from his home, oh no. It's the principle that Things Should Be Correct. I'm the exact same way.

So what does he do? He emails them. And gets a polite response that, when read between the lines, is saying "we don't have the time to correct this problem because you live in NoWheresVille Sweden". Sooo not the thing to say.

He emails them again. And again. And again. Always the same sort of response. So he tries the competitor's website, Hitta. Lo and behold, their direction service works perfectly. So he takes a screen dump of Hitta's results and emails it to Eniro. Hey presto, problem solved in a matter of days.

So yeah. Angry emails will be written.

Someone else will also be getting an email. Why stop at one when there are other injustices, big and small, that need to be corrected? Or at least pointed out in angry, digital form?

The Peace & Love festival has grown to become the biggest music festival in Sweden this year, with 36 000 or 39 000 tickets sold, depending on who you ask or how you do your math. It seems they have grown too fast.

On Thursday we tried to find the place where you exchange tickets for festival passes. We walked and walked and walked. Got directions from various people, attached to the festival or not. It was chaos. Not a single sign to point us anywhere, or to even indicate the existence of an entrance to the festival grounds. All we found were gates that said "NO ENTRY! ARTISTS ONLY!" in a way that not only said we couldn't go in there, but that no entry would be found anywhere for anyone besides artists.

We finally found the place, and caught the middle part of Monster Magnet's set, which was painful to watch. A review will be up some time soon at Slavestate. Then we went back to the house and enjoyed the fact that we've rented what may well be the best festival accomodations I've ever seen or even heard about, and for a ridiculously low sum of money. Sometimes the gods are good.

Yesterday we watched a man whose level of anger makes mine seem a slightly glowing coal next to a mushroom cloud. Henry Rollins, former singer of Black Flag, later on in The Rollins Band, and now a world class spoken word artist. He entertained us for an hour, and had some very interesting things to say, wrapped in layers of sarcasm and insane stories. He expressed a fascination with Sweden, mostly expressed in the fact that we have "green forests, blue skies and water you can drink and that can sustain life". Not sure I agree with everything he said, such as the headline of this post. Both the rental place and the festival itself has proven that is not the case. However, so far his show has been the highlight of the festival, though we haven't seen much else.

Tonight Faith No More beckons. We're all excited.

Reunited, and it feels so good

Faith No More, live at Brixton Academy four days ago. The big question is what he does to the poor security guard about four minutes in...

The countdown has begun. Less than two weeks left.

Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried

They tell me tonight is an important night for Europe. They tell me how we cast our votes decides the future of Europe. This time, there may actually be some truth in that statement. Unfortunately, once again people prove they are morons.

My ambition when casting my vote has always to know where the parties stand on a few key issues, issues that are important to me. There have been times when I have considered myself fairly informed, and other times when I haven't known squat. This time, it was far more important who I didn't vote for than who I voted for.

There are forces at work today in Europe, forces that on many levels are the same as those that cast their shadow across the world in the 1930's and 40's. Right-wing extremism is an issue that makes file sharing look so insignificant it's almost ridiculous. Yes, I agree that there are privacy issues at stake, as well as the perceived freedom of the Internet, but making sure those swastika-toting, bottom-of-the-gene-pool-swimming motherfuckers don't get seats in the EU parliament is far more important.

Sweden seems to have understood that, though the jury is still out. Voters in other countries seem to have left their brains at home, though, when they went a-votin'. Denmark. The Netherlands. Have you learned nothing from history?

Economic difficulties and disenfranchised youth has been the breeding ground for violent fascist groups for a long time, and this time it appears it's no different. I for one despair if the Europe we're a part of will have political extremists and racists influencing our way forward. I can't see how anyone with half a brain would think otherwise.

Of course, I have to say something about them boys with parrots on their shoulders, eye patches and yo ho ho and a bottle of rum, me mateys. They're not my mateys, that's for sure. I agree with them on some issues, but as anyone that has had the time to discuss file sharing with me knows, I think illegal file sharing is a plague that needs to eradicated.

Now I'm watching preliminary results, and the Pirate Party has 7.4 percent. I fully believe that a lot of people voting for them know about the issues they stand for and can argue very well for them, but at the same time I believe a lot of people have voted for them just because they're too cheap to pay for music, movies, books. Thinking those things should be free for everyone and thinking the same amount and quality of said music, movies, books, would still exist, is extremely naïve to me.

Whatever. I've cast my vote and done my part for democracy. If I had some say in the matter, there would have been a lot more info more readily available on where the parties stood on the issues. And oh yeah, politicians wouldn't be two-faced liars either. Not holding my breath for that one.

Is this love? That I'm feeling?

In a few weeks we'll be going to a couple of kick-ass music festivals. Two weekends in a row, with two separate groups of friends. So tonight we were looking over the expenses for the accommodations, since there's no way in any kind of hell that I'm sleeping in a tent surrounded by thousands of sixteen year olds drunk off their asses. It's not an age thing. Really, it's not. I felt the same way when I was sixteen.

Anyway. So we were looking over expenses, and Mah Girl marveled at how cheap the cottage we're renting for one of the festivals is.

“I mean”, she said, “it's that cheap per person and there's only three of us.” I looked over at her, and said “We're going with Stefan and Nils”.

She frowned and said: “I wonder who I wasn't counting?” Pause. Small smile. “It was probably you”.

Makes the heart all warm and cozy, don't it?

This must've been someone who came to work covered in children's blood every morning

2009 may be the most spectacular year I've ever experienced, entertainment-wise. At least if we're talking live entertainment. So far this year, we've seen Wintersleep and Wovenhand live, both of which were spectacular. This summer I get to see three of my fave bands (Nine Inch Nails, Faith No More and Neurosis) in seven days. I may just overload on near religious musical experiences.

And on Monday we get to see Dylan Moran. A bitter, chain smoking, wine drinking Irishman, who is one of our favorite standup comics. Oh the joy!

Driven by need for transcendence

I realized today just how much I miss this band. This is “Tat Twam Asi”, off earthtone9's third and final full-length, “arc'tan'gent”.



I had the privilege of watching et9 live twice, when they opened in Stockholm for both Pitchshifter and Fear Factory. They were a tragically overlooked band that deserved a lot more attention than they got. That's the way it often goes.