This is our Friday Five

1. Homecoming. Mike Downey and The Firebird Band at the Empty Bottle on Wednesday September 6, 2006. I am so jazzed about this I can't even explain. More details on all of the positive vibes surrounding this night as the date nears.

2. Working. I'm back in the stock footage business via a paid internship. I'm calling it a foot in the door with a very cool company. I'm nervous every time I send a work-related email that I've written in Swedish, even if I've spellchecked it and read it through 10x. This will change.

3. Listening. I didn't crap myself over albums like Kid A and The Bends like some others did. I just didn't. But, thanks to a tip from Justin, Thom Yorke's 'The Eraser' is doing it for me in all of the right ways. Highly recommended. I really dig the artwork as well.

4. Drunk riding. If it turns out that Floyd Landis didn't take steroids but only had irregularly high testosterone, the guy really does deserve a high five, or a yellow jersey (I guess that's important in the spandex circle). Not only is he in the wings for a hip replacement, but he had the guts to slug down Jack Daniels the night before the final stage of Tour De France. (Read it) I really hope further tests come back and clear him of the allegations. Then, the glories that are alcohol and bicycles can finally live in accepted harmony.

5. Timekeeping. Today I walked into a watch store for the first time in a really long time and decided that I was going to start wearing a watch again.

Wave culture

I unplugged for a whole seven days and really enjoyed the (eventhough some won't believe it) lack of technology-getaway to the Swedish island of Gotland. We were situated on the east coast of the island in the town of Ljugarn and it was everything I had hoped it would be: relaxing, quaint and quiet. I agreed to not take my computer with in my attempt to just chill out dig the country life. I did happen to however lug with me my bicycle that had no business being out in the country at all: a fixed gear with road tires. But so be it. I'm guessing that my prolonged trackstand overlooking the Baltic Sea from Ljugarns Hamn was a first and it was worth it. Remember the woobie from Mr. Mom? My bike and my computer are, without a doubt, my woobies. To leave them both behind would've been drastic. I'm a material girl and this is a material world.

More pics from the last week can be seen in this Flickr set.

They put the dog in the wedding

At this point in my illustrious career of performing, my very first and most recent shows have two very specific things in common: smoke machines. That's right, in 1993 my high school band (we were called Plain Jane, so there) was engulfed in evaporated fog juice at Homewood's Off the Alley very similar to how I was last night. I can't say this is a bad thing.



Mike Downey - "Families" Live at Klubb Ace, Stockholm - mpeg4

An overcaffeinated drone

I think it was the night before I left America when a good friend of the family was over at my parents' house; we got to talking. She asked if I liked, what she referred to as, "Swedish coffee". I had been to the country before a few times and obviously drank my share of coffee but besides noticing it tasting, on average, stronger than your usual American cup of coffee it wasn't anything that incredibly different. So I had to ask, "What's Swedish coffee?" She replied, "It's when you drop an eggwhite into the coffee." I think I barfed in my mouth a little at that point and hoped to god that the country I had decided to relocate to wasn't awaiting me with a warm smile and a cracked, runny egg ready to slippery slide its way into my beverage of choice. Me: huge fan of coffee; not a big fan of eggs being dropped into a beverage. I asked m'sweet about this "Swedish coffee" and she'd never heard of it. Interesting, she's Swedish so shouldn't she be fully educated on such a thing?

Turns out that the eggwhite isn't dropped into the coffee, but into the coffee grounds. Turns out that no one in Sweden takes there coffee this way or has even heard of this method. From what I just spent too much time reading about, (yes, there are forums for this sort of thing) this sort of coffee was really popularized by Swedes that had emigrated to the States back in the day as a way to clarify the coffee of excess grounds. They started using a piece of fish skin, then moved onto eggwhites. Gross! Now, it's become tradition to those Americans with Swedish heritage to talk all this jazz about "Swedish coffee" when in reality it's just a gross-sounding offshoot of American coffee. Bottoms up.

All this talk about coffee, why? Oh, just because this is my little place in this big world and I can do what I want. And, because coffee is just such a social part of life here. You could walk into anyone's house at any given time of the day and the question of, "Vill du ha kaffe?" (Do you want coffee?) will 9 times out of 10 be asked. And that's just fine for a kid like me. But this whole Swedish coffee stuff had been on my mind and I wanted to expound upon such a mystery! If you've read this far, go get yourself a cup, you deserve it.

When I got here there was a little present awaiting me. It was a Pyrex French Press. I used this little guy 2x everyday for 8 months. During a wash the glass cracked but it didn't leak. Later, a slightly large piece of glass chipped off up top where the coffee runs over while pouring...still used it, safe! Even later, I accidentally set it on a hot burner and melted its plastic bottom molding into a bumpy mess but that had nothing to do with the quality of coffee that it was supplying me with. But then, just when the little Pyrex that could didn't look like it could take it any longer, another wonderful gift from m'sweet appeared: A real, just like in America (like in the movies!) coffeemaker, the kind that uses electricity and everything. I'm back in modern times. I'm in need of a coffee grinder now and then I'll be back to my old brewing procedures.

Braid - Do You Love Coffee? - mp3

Album update and stuff of the sort

Another two days spent alone in the apartment working on music. It's not exactly the recommended way of spending your first Swedish summer, but it was definitely necessary to take advantage of some free time. As it stands right now there are 9 completed songs for the next record. I've recorded probably 20 but have really upped my own quality control as of late. I think I work too fast sometimes and end up turning half-assed bits into complete songs. I'll save the outtakes for the 4-disc life-spanning boxset. I'm shooting for minimum of 10 songs on the album and to have it all completed by the end of the summer. No title yet and it looks like it won't be on Recordhead seeing as how Jason Pierce (my main dude) left the label, relocated and will be starting up his own in the near future. I'll keep you posted on how the transition goes.

In the meantime I'm not too concerned about playing live at the moment, although I am working hard to secure a show or two in Chicago during my 2-weeks there in early September. There is one definite show in Sweden coming up pretty soon: Saturday, July 15 at Klubb Ace / Mango. I'll be supporting a super fun group called Irene, who I just did a remix for. That's coming out in August, at least that's what they tell me. More details on everything coming here, soon.

I've done some interviews/feature story type things lately here and there. Stay up to date on me, me, me!

Erasing Clouds

Youth Culture

Nollarton (in Swedish)

Wish TV Indianapolis

Space C(h)amp

There's no reason why I shouldn't be making a physical list of things I want to do before I eat it (die). One of them is to see, live in person, a shuttle blast off. Imagine that, a mission to space before your eyes.

One day we, or our children or their children, might visit space. S P A C E... isn't that so vast and massive that you can't even imagine it? You're super small and S P A C E is the exact opposite! Are you in the mood to even deal with it all? Isn't it all too much!

Ride the great space coaster:
International Space University I Space Camp I NASA