Glam rock is a genre with which I am not especially taken. Kiss was okay - in the eighties. In the late nineties, Marilyn Manson did a lot for the marketing of drug dealers. It was the Ark's In Lust We Trust that turned me on to them. The drama of that album, and the charisma of the lead singer Ola Salo, was hard to ignore in 2003.
One of the very touching Ola Salo stories I read was from a young lesbian groupie from Gothenburg who toured with the band. She wound up in Nyköping (or some other Swedish provincial town) and didn't have a hotel booked. On hearing that she didn't have a bed to sleep in, Ola gave up his hotel room for her and slept in a room with one of the other band members.
He is flamboyant, colorful and a 'showman' par excellence. I write the gender-specific showman in inverted commas because it can't go unremarked; Ola cuts a rather androgynous figure as he struts his stuff. He is probably best described as a closet heterosexual. He has a wife and two kids, but to descend to mere pigeonholing is to denigrate the central tenet of the Ark: that we are all special and beautiful no matter what others think about us.
It sounds like the usual ecstasy-riddled rock cook and bull, but if one kid out there found solace in their message and could turn their self-hate around, then it was all worthwhile - and in the last 15 years there's been a lot more than one - there's a generation of Swedes to whom this music means so much. In terms of impact on a national level one could think of Rammstein in Germany, or perhaps Oasis in the UK.
Perhaps I'm comparing apples with oranges, but the Ark is monumental, and their testament is not hindered by bowing out now with their heads held high. There's nothing more ludicrous and devaluing to a message born in rock than old rock stars, but Ola we will miss you.
The last word is from Ola and Ola is never short on words. This the last half of his prelude to a song played during the Ark's final performance at the Malmö festival last Friday night. [clumsy translation mine - original video here]
-Exactly thirteen years ago, to the day, I sat in a cramped little apartment on Sturegatan in Rörsjöstaden, not far from here. I thought about the times [we live in]. I sat and thought about how scared we are of each other, and how that fear suffocates us, and how that fear is expressed in so many different ways, like ironic and cynical jokes. One should understand, that this was the ironic and cynical era at the end of the nineties. It [the fear] is expressed in status and prestige and the fear of that which is different. And I felt that I was so incredibly tired of that fear. I was so tired of that fear that could be found everywhere. I was so tired of that fear which existed in me. And I felt that everybody was going around being scared about losing face in front of one another. And so I thought, if only one could get people to be a little bit less scared of losing face in front of each other, think what a wonderful world we would have. Because when we go around being scared about losing face in front of each other, then so many of the beautiful things about us disappear. So I thought, I'm going to fucking well write a song that declares war on that fear. A song that inspires myself and other people, to dare to be a little bit more ridiculous; to dare to lose face a little bit in front of each other; and that song wasn't just going to be a song, it was going to be a manifest. It would be a weapon that destroys the fear and the shame that makes our life boring from time-to-time. I am so proud that it was that song that was our breakthrough. Because that song that I wrote thirteen years ago on Sturegatan in Rörsjöstaden, it doesn't just sum up everything that we stood for then. It sums up everything we have stood for through all these years as a band. And it sums up everything that we will always stand for, regardless of whether we are here or not.
So if you feel like beautiful idiots tonight. If you are ready to escape the fear and shame, and let the beauty inside of you bloom, sing now with me. . . It takes a fool to remain sane.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Professor Frans Gregersen
Frans plays smart and wise because he is, but he is also humble and has the indelible gift of the teacher that constantly seeks to help and inspire, sometimes with only a few words. The other mark of the teacher is also his: he has the ability to make things that are complex appear simple and enticing, without them loosing the intricacy that they may or may not have. He also has a wicked wit, so, in short he takes all things seriously, but none too much.
I've just emerged from a five day course on linguistic research traditions (quite a Danish focus, and if one saw Per Stig Möller's field questions from an international press gallery in the wake of the Mohammed cartoons, one would know that Danes are formidable linguists). Frans speaks in the now. He maneuvers the debate, but there is always room for comments and new ideas. Frans isn't afraid of new ideas and it is possibly this fearlessness that qualifies him most as a professor.
At another occasion he lectured on Copenhagen, the city/country town and the transformations that ensued after the re-building of the citadel in the seventeenth century. It was riveting. Of course, there is the exhaustive publication list in top tier journals, the regular academic laudations and membership and leadership in the pertinent scientific and research bodies. Many others have acknowledged that Frans is a competent polymath and an encyclopaedic mind.
After a week with him, are there any negative character traits that I can point to, apart from Frans' occasional sporting of the socks and sandals: emphatic no. His article God og dårlig eklekticisme (good and bad eclecticism) has changed my life, forever.
I've just emerged from a five day course on linguistic research traditions (quite a Danish focus, and if one saw Per Stig Möller's field questions from an international press gallery in the wake of the Mohammed cartoons, one would know that Danes are formidable linguists). Frans speaks in the now. He maneuvers the debate, but there is always room for comments and new ideas. Frans isn't afraid of new ideas and it is possibly this fearlessness that qualifies him most as a professor.
At another occasion he lectured on Copenhagen, the city/country town and the transformations that ensued after the re-building of the citadel in the seventeenth century. It was riveting. Of course, there is the exhaustive publication list in top tier journals, the regular academic laudations and membership and leadership in the pertinent scientific and research bodies. Many others have acknowledged that Frans is a competent polymath and an encyclopaedic mind.
After a week with him, are there any negative character traits that I can point to, apart from Frans' occasional sporting of the socks and sandals: emphatic no. His article God og dårlig eklekticisme (good and bad eclecticism) has changed my life, forever.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Outrespective
It came to me first when I was in the backseat of Baz's car. Ben put Tarantulla on as an interlude to the tomfoolery. We were on a wildman weekend in Scotland. We climbed a 900 metro peak in Cairn Gorm national park, had a swim in Loch Ness in the raw, and drank deeply of the whisky flagon.
But it was in the backseat of the Ford Focus that I realized that Faithless' Outrespective was a classic, especially Tarantulla and We come one. My fist listening of these was in a living room in London. Before I moved to London I thought that dance music was for junkies and poofs. In London dance music emanates from every car and every open window. But this isn't dance music per se: there's something more destabilised about it. Like the photo on the front cover the album echoes the riots in Göteborg and the civil disobedience and terror of a new century.
These songs, like great dramatic opera, meld into biting and comings of one. Like the fado sung in Gerd Nygaardshaug's Mengeles Zoo, or any fado sung for that matter, a 'hyllning', that remarkable Swedish word that encompasses both tribute and glorifying song, to things that make you want to cry because for the few minutes that they last, you live.
Then I took over as navigator from Ben and found myself in the front seat and trying to steer the music choices on a wildman weekend towards Outrespective and these two songs. A navigators life is never easy.
But it was in the backseat of the Ford Focus that I realized that Faithless' Outrespective was a classic, especially Tarantulla and We come one. My fist listening of these was in a living room in London. Before I moved to London I thought that dance music was for junkies and poofs. In London dance music emanates from every car and every open window. But this isn't dance music per se: there's something more destabilised about it. Like the photo on the front cover the album echoes the riots in Göteborg and the civil disobedience and terror of a new century.
These songs, like great dramatic opera, meld into biting and comings of one. Like the fado sung in Gerd Nygaardshaug's Mengeles Zoo, or any fado sung for that matter, a 'hyllning', that remarkable Swedish word that encompasses both tribute and glorifying song, to things that make you want to cry because for the few minutes that they last, you live.
Then I took over as navigator from Ben and found myself in the front seat and trying to steer the music choices on a wildman weekend towards Outrespective and these two songs. A navigators life is never easy.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Meatballs in Tomata sauce a la Anna L (and Markus Aujalay)
On one of our many very long drives to work Anna L told me this recipe, well, more of a concept than a recipe. She had a hard time of frying meat, so Håkan and she would cook meatballs in a diced tomato sauce. It's fantastic, but don't be tempted to cook for too long. Only give them 10 minutes maximum in the boiling tomato stew.
Markus Aujalay provides a recipe similar to the one below in his book rigtig mat för familjen, [real food for the family], but there is really a lot of leeway when it comes to ingredients. I've put an asterisk beside the essentials.
meatballs:
500 grams minced meat*
2 eggs*
beef/mutton stock*
pressed garlic
thyme (half a teaspoon)
curry (same again)
saffran (same again)
salt and peppar
mix together and roll into balls to drop into the boiling tomato stew.
Tomato stew:
Garlic*
olive oil*
two cans of diced tomatos*
2 bay leaves
thyme
a glass of apple juice or white wine
sugar, salt and peppar
diced parsley*
Fry the garlic in a large casserole dish for a few minutes. Then add everything else. And great for lunches the day after as well!
Markus Aujalay provides a recipe similar to the one below in his book rigtig mat för familjen, [real food for the family], but there is really a lot of leeway when it comes to ingredients. I've put an asterisk beside the essentials.
meatballs:
500 grams minced meat*
2 eggs*
beef/mutton stock*
pressed garlic
thyme (half a teaspoon)
curry (same again)
saffran (same again)
salt and peppar
mix together and roll into balls to drop into the boiling tomato stew.
Tomato stew:
Garlic*
olive oil*
two cans of diced tomatos*
2 bay leaves
thyme
a glass of apple juice or white wine
sugar, salt and peppar
diced parsley*
Fry the garlic in a large casserole dish for a few minutes. Then add everything else. And great for lunches the day after as well!
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Liam Viney: a Lion pianist
If anyone needs some inspirational music go to Liam Viney's homepage and check out the musical offerings available. This celebrated pianist is worth listening to and you can check him out playing classical, North American and Australian repertoire (yes you Scando/Europhile motherfucka's; Australians do have their own music!). Liam has studied with Boris Berman and won the inaugural Lev Vlassenko piano competition.
I remember Liam at about 13 or 14 years of age. He was a few years younger than I was and already precociously talented. As younger boys are want to do, we often ended up punching each other, always harmlessly in the shoulder. Liam had an eminently punchable shoulder, and he was always cheeky enough to land a few of his own on the bigger blokes. In those days he talked really fast, the words exploding out of him.
Some of us were part of a composition circle that met at Stephen Leake's place on Saturday afternoons. Liam's musical ideas were fresh and he picked up on subtleties that most of us didn't.
Enough nostalgia - nostalgia isn't what it used to be. For any of you that might have doubted the power of instrumental music listen to the first part of Hallelujah Junction - a joyous and monumental truckstop.
Play it again Liam!
I remember Liam at about 13 or 14 years of age. He was a few years younger than I was and already precociously talented. As younger boys are want to do, we often ended up punching each other, always harmlessly in the shoulder. Liam had an eminently punchable shoulder, and he was always cheeky enough to land a few of his own on the bigger blokes. In those days he talked really fast, the words exploding out of him.
Some of us were part of a composition circle that met at Stephen Leake's place on Saturday afternoons. Liam's musical ideas were fresh and he picked up on subtleties that most of us didn't.
Enough nostalgia - nostalgia isn't what it used to be. For any of you that might have doubted the power of instrumental music listen to the first part of Hallelujah Junction - a joyous and monumental truckstop.
Play it again Liam!
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Ein Mann ohne Bauch ist ein Krüppel
[A man without a stomach is a cripple]. Classic, thank you Ulrike!
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Flaggermusmannen
This is the (I repeat THE) best book about Australia written by a foreigner. I first got to know the central character Harry Hole through 'Panserhjerte' and 'Frelseren'. These are wonderfully dark detective thrillers.
Although reading in the original Norwegian I am perpetually pole-axed by the depth of Nesbø's understanding of Australiana. He has obviously spent time in Sydney, Brisbane and Nimbin, and rubbed a wet towel all over these places and then wrung that towel out into Flaggermusmannen. For instance, when Harry meets the boxer Toowoomba just after he knocked out a hustler in a provincial boxing bout.
-absolutely magnificent, cobber - how are you yourself.
Ocker stride and even the syntax is Australian! There is even more poetry in the character of Andrew Kensington - Sydney cop, aboriginal, junkie, story-teller. My favourite passage is when Kensington tells the legend of Walla and Bubbur to Harry and the doey eyed, pale Birgitta at the Albury. Birgitta asks,
-and the moral is?
Kensington replies
-That love is a greater mystery than death, and be careful of snakes.
Another other good thing is that Nesbø doesn't compromise on the big picture to accomodate the details. This is fine (but Jo, p. 92 we drink 'flat whites' not 'white flats'; p. 117, it's the Bourbon and Beefsteak; p, 57, should be either Sydsvenskan or Skånska Dagbladet as there is no such paper as Sydsvenska Dagbladet; Robertson probably wouldn't have been keeping a Tasmanian devil in suburban Australia, though we can let this go under poetic licence)
If there is any downside to Flaggermusmannen, it is that those of us that have read further into Nesbø's opus know that Hole becomes more one-dimensional in later books. His relationships become more dysfunctional, the dialogue that is attributed to him becomes even more terse and the settings ever more bleak. In the cold dark Oslo winter it is heartening that Hole first emerged out of Sydney airport from a marmalade sky.
Although reading in the original Norwegian I am perpetually pole-axed by the depth of Nesbø's understanding of Australiana. He has obviously spent time in Sydney, Brisbane and Nimbin, and rubbed a wet towel all over these places and then wrung that towel out into Flaggermusmannen. For instance, when Harry meets the boxer Toowoomba just after he knocked out a hustler in a provincial boxing bout.
-absolutely magnificent, cobber - how are you yourself.
Ocker stride and even the syntax is Australian! There is even more poetry in the character of Andrew Kensington - Sydney cop, aboriginal, junkie, story-teller. My favourite passage is when Kensington tells the legend of Walla and Bubbur to Harry and the doey eyed, pale Birgitta at the Albury. Birgitta asks,
-and the moral is?
Kensington replies
-That love is a greater mystery than death, and be careful of snakes.
Another other good thing is that Nesbø doesn't compromise on the big picture to accomodate the details. This is fine (but Jo, p. 92 we drink 'flat whites' not 'white flats'; p. 117, it's the Bourbon and Beefsteak; p, 57, should be either Sydsvenskan or Skånska Dagbladet as there is no such paper as Sydsvenska Dagbladet; Robertson probably wouldn't have been keeping a Tasmanian devil in suburban Australia, though we can let this go under poetic licence)
If there is any downside to Flaggermusmannen, it is that those of us that have read further into Nesbø's opus know that Hole becomes more one-dimensional in later books. His relationships become more dysfunctional, the dialogue that is attributed to him becomes even more terse and the settings ever more bleak. In the cold dark Oslo winter it is heartening that Hole first emerged out of Sydney airport from a marmalade sky.
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