Music to write guestlists to

Translation of the conversation me, Erik and Simon had with the bouncer outside of Berns last night: (note: there were no pre-show sales for this, so we weren't trying to weasel into a sold-out show by any means).

Bouncer: Hey
Us: We would like to see the show tonight
Bouncer: Are you on a list?
Us: No
Bouncer: Oh, ok...um...
Us: ??
Bouncer: Oh but it's ok. You guys look like you fit in. Welcome.

We then entered the club without paying the enterance fee. Lucky us, but what the fuck. We fit some sort of profile, eventhough we were just 3 lanky guys in jeans and hoodies. Wonder if one of us would've had on the wrong jeans and hoodie? I hate this sort of club culture. It's common here in Stockholm. Certain people get into certain clubs and others don't depending on how you look and who you're with. On the website advertising the show we were at last night it stated that the show costed 100 Swedish kronor and that you had to be 23 years old (ha!) to get in. Nothing about a list of course. It's unfortunate that when international DJs and electronic musicians that I enjoy come to Stockholm they end up playing these sorts of places. Next time someone comes that I want to see I honestly don't know if I'll get through the door.


Justus Köhncke live at Berns, Stockholm - mp4 video

However, this show was essential for me as a musician. I watched the lines of producer, DJ and live musician blur the fuck out.

Justus Köhncke on Myspace.

Boom, Brazil v. Ghana

So last night I finally got around to seeing some live football in Sweden. This is something I've been wanting to do since my arrival; the planets just never aligned. While out last week my pal Oskar, out of the blue, asked if I was interested in football. He seemed like the sort of guy that would run far away from any sporting event. Not true. He informed me on the upcoming friendly match in Stockholm between Brazil and Ghana, bought the tickets and arranged the necessaries.

Felt good to sit and enjoy a game again. I've only seen professional football one time prior (not including a large number of Chicago Sting and Chicago Power indoor games in my younger days). I saw Ajax and Bayern München play in Chicago before the 1994 World Cup when FIFA was doing its best to get Americans interested in international football.

So as you might imagine, Swedes are pretty laid back folks, polite. There is a bit of hooligan culture here especially when Stockholm's well known teams Hammarby and AIK play each other. I doubt its on the scale of the misdoings in the UK though. Only two explosives were cast onto the field by onlookers. And with the first unexpected BANG I was formally introduced to the European football way.

The crowd last night was made up of a large number of immigrants from other parts of the world. I went to Swedish language class with a guy from Ghana, and there were a hanful of Ghana supporters at the match last night. Brazil had its share of supporters also, but those weren't necessarily Brazilians. Anyone who is into football could be a Brazil supporter. They're one of those classic teams with overly talented players that make kicking a ball around a green patch of grass look so easy (it's not).

Brazil won 1-0 with a first half goal. The overall vibe was pleasant. I'm glad I went. Oskar and I made some tentative plans to catch a Hammarby (a team from Stockholm which I was politely forced to support upon arrival) game this summer. I'll probably leave my explosive devices at home and not wear any colors matching either of the teams on the field. People take this sport seriously here, as I expected they would.

if it's too loud, you're too old

Hey gang. How's stuff? I wanted to throw out an update on the situation with my completed album Total Hearts that I talked about a while back. Have you ever heard of that Guns N' Roses album Chinese Democracy? Well, you might be able to file my album and theirs together, as in: talked about, but not released. Unfortunately my plans to release it fell through due to lack of funds by the new label that was going to launch and put it out. The good thing is that I was able to take the bad news in stride and not get too bummed out. The deal is that my pal Jason Pierce (formerly of Recordhead Records / Mr. Whiggs) has decided against starting up the label. I can't blame him. I've always wondered how little labels made ends meet. The financial burden of it all seems, and is, staggering. This is the first time me or any band I've been involved in have been without a label since like 1997 or something. I've properly released exactly everything I've ever wanted to and I'm really thankful for all of those opportunities. So I can't complain with this bump in the road.

I've luckily found a sort of inner peace in regards to the music industry. Sure, the frustration is there, but it has not driven me to throw down my MIDI controller and call it quits. The excitement of making music is still there for me. However the idea of standing on a stage and worrying how many people have paid to get in the door or wondering how many copies have sold as opposed to how many copies are still sitting in boxes is steadily going away. I didn't get into this game to win a popularity contest, although once I was already immersed in the game it was easy to tell that it in fact was a popularity contest. I guess I just needed to get a little older to get a step closer to figuring it out for myself.

We'll see what happens with the album. I haven't given up on it. I spent over a year recording it and to let it get shelved would be sad. When I got the news about the lack of a label a couple weeks ago I told myself that I'd take a month off from recording and just chill and figure out my options. I am not good at chilling. I've started work on a new batch of songs. And so it goes...

But here's what is going to be released in the coming months:

+ My remix of Juvelen's "Hanna" will be available as a free download over on the Hybris website "soon". I guess it's supposed to accompany Juvelen's new video for the song and some other remixes. Sounds like fun.

+ I contributed vocals to a song called "Comforter" by two swell guys in Austin called Best Fwends. The song will be on their debut full length on Moshi Moshi in May.

+ Sometime this spring Resplendent (aka Michael Lenzi of Number One Cup, The Fire Show, etc...) and I are teaming up for an mp3 release via his website. The deal is that I am going to remix/edit 3 unreleased Resplendent songs. I absolutely love the songs I get to work with and am so excited about this project.

So that's pretty much it for the moment. Check back for updates on all of this stuff.

Losing battles but winning wars,

Mike

It's a downhill van

The wonderful thing that is Soulseek has recently reacquainted me with a handful of my favorite albums from the past that I had lost along the way. Most of the stuff I've recently been DLing were tapes and cds I bought at places like Tinley Record Swap and Parasol (the house, not the mail order) in Urbana. Getting back to some of these albums is like sitting down with old friends after years of not crossing paths for no real reason.

My latest find was Pond's The Practice of Joy Before Death. This album always sat in the background of their discography for me, possibly for the reason that it was their "experimental" album and wasn't chalkfull of immediately catchy songs like their first and last efforts. Listening to it over the past day reminded me of the beauty of Pond's songwriting, especially the jagged but complimenting writing styles of Chris Brady and Charlie Campbell. Pond isn't a band I'd ever forgotten about, in fact I posted a 7" gem of theirs a while back. I had sort of forgotten about this album though and haven't spent time with it in probably 7 or 8 years.

The song that does it for me on this album is called "Van." It's a short song with weird lyrics. But for me it somehow captures that relationship a band can have with their van. I owned and maintained the Wolfie van for a good number of years. It was a 1987 Chevy. Beyond emptying mine and the band's pockets numerous times for repairs it drove us to many amazing shows and through a lot of weird parts of cities and foggy East Coast hills.

Pond - Van - mp3

it's a downhill van with lots of room and standard air
smokes an awful lot but so does our drummer plus he swears
it won't be cheap to grind valve seats in the silver bow in our van's hair

A Tribute to Bo Lundin

Last night I was out with one of my good friends Oskar. When I was completely new in Sweden Oskar was one of the first people to speak with me in Swedish and not switch to English even though I was obviously struggling. He helped me fight the good fight. Tough love you could call it. Last night as we stood at the bar waiting for Juvelen to take the stage we shot the shit, as usual, 100% in Swedish. A night like that only builds my confidence.

But before I moved here I was taking a Swedish class in Chicago as preparation. Once a week for 4 months we learned the complete basics of the language. The book we used in the class followed the lives of the families living in an apartment building in Lund, Sweden. They lived on Storgatan (that translates to "big street"). My favorite resident was a rough around the edges and in that classic "finding yourself" part of life student named Bo Lundin. So before I had Oskar to chat with I had Bo Lundin to walk me through what a day in the life as a Swedish 20-something was all about. Here's my tribute to Bo, the guy that taught me to speak Swedish.


Translation: Bo Lundin is a student. He doesn't have a job except studying English at Lund's University. He doesn't earn any money except his student loan.


Translation: Bo is 23 years old and unmarried. He's a student.


Here's Bo in his room. Notice the poster on the wall that reads "Black Festival." He's a very culturally diverse guy! In the book it made note that Bo enjoyed listening to both classical and modern music.


Bo spisar lite jazz. (no translation, I'm just showing off here.)


Bo enjoyed inviting his lady friend over to discuss literature and drink wine.


Bo wasn't the most punctual guy. Here he is missing his bus. Too much wine last night Bo!


What really let our relationship bloom was the fact that as I was studying Swedish he was studying English. This common trait of being thrown into a new language really helped us bond. Bros for life.


A great mind at work. Bo always found time for his studies. Not many 23 year olds can pull off smoking a pipe. I doubt there's tobacco in that pipe, maybe something a bit more mind expanding.

Bo Lundin, a true renaissance man.

Strawberry sandwich

One thing I don't want this blog to be is one that constantly talks about the differences between Sweden and the States. Whether I like it or not it will be read as "an American in Sweden" blog by some but I'm doing my best to space out and consciously limit my posts stating obvious or, most likely previously unknown to you, differences. It was on my agenda in my early months here, but no longer. But after reading the daily news I felt that it was time again to beat the horse: US v. Sweden. This is actually something that's been weighing on my mind since last summer. (this may apply to a larger part of the continent and the world because the company I'm going to talk about a multi-national giant.)


GB Glace is owned by a company called Unilever. For simplicity's sake I won't go into all of the well-known companies they own, but they own a ton. So, GB Glace makes ice cream. Nearly every corner store, tobacco or convenience store type place has one of these out front. They seem to have a monopoly on the ice cream market here. Note: there is a competitor called SIA, but they definitely seem like the small guys in this game. So when the warm weather hits and Swedes start to get their taste back for ice cream (not sure if this taste ever really goes away, ice cream bars are pretty popular here) a big story is the new ice cream bar creations that GB Glace has whipped up and released.

In the States Good Humor is pretty popular in the ice cream bar market. But for other companies to jump in and try to compete wouldn't be seen as a big deal at all. People would buy lesser-know brands. They might here as well, if the choice was given. I guess there is a comfortability factor involved with this monopoly though. You always know what is going to be available and therefore know exaclty what you are going to get and how much it's going to cost. The popular flavors stick around for many years while the ones that don't sell don't come back. See, I can't complain about the lack of choices because their ice cream is so fucking good. I might have to go buy some today now that I think about it.

One of the first things I noticed when I moved here was the lack of choices in grocery stores. Every store seemed to carry basically the same brands and products. A small country, and more importantly, different govermental beliefs answer the question on why this is. Moving a few steps away from capitalism wasn't easy at first, but of course I'm learning and managing.

Then on the other hand, to completely contradict myself, you can buy a brand of non-dairy vegan ice cream at pretty much every common grocery store here. And I'm back to square one in my understanding of the differences between here and there.

Now I'm faced with the decision on which new GB Glace treat to sample. The choices are: Top Hat, Sandwich Jordgubb, Pepe, Simpsons, Magnum Colombia arom, Girlie, Solero smoothie blackberry & banana and Magnum Equador.

According to your journeys

So I'm about to head off to a friend's place for some food, brew and beatmatching (yeah, that's how I do it). I haven't been there before so I figured I'd load up a map courtesy of sl.se, which is Stockholm's public transportation authority. This map is supposed to show me the route in which the bus/tram combo I need to take will take me. Here's a screen capture of what was given to me:


As you can see, it's suggested that I throw my bus/train card into the trash, forget that any of the fine bridges connecting Stockholm's islands even exist and break out my swimsuit, or kayak a little earlier than expected.

Bright relays

It seems as if my little blog has lost its intended balance over the past month or so. And this balance I speak of is strategically speaking on both my on-going music stuff as well as my life in general. I realize it's been heavy on the music side lately. But I have been insanely inspired as of late with my recent remix projects, and that's why.

Btw (didn't I just say I wasn't going to do this?), I'm working on everything from "commissioned" remixes to complete bootleg remixes and edits that won't be officially released, but will most likely end up on some DJ mixes I currently have in the works. If anyone out there is interested in sending me files or would like to remix anything I've released under my own name just get in contact. I'd love to talk more about your ideas.

Life here in Stockholm has been pretty much what I expected it to be. I've been a lot more socially active based on the fact that I'm now simply closer to a lot of my friends here. It's been a blast seeing all of the Svenskamusikklubben kids on a regular basis. Having the time to sit and chat about what makes our worlds go around, and not just shows and cds but the the everyday stuff has been something that I had been lacking and am now immersed in. Don Simon is possibly the most interesting DJ in Stockholm right now. He's also fun to talk to while he's DJing. The guy can multi-task.

I'm pretty much out of work at the moment and going through the whole selling myself bit on a daily basis. Not a place anyone wants to be in, but we all find ourselves here at times. I've been finding Mondays the hardest in waking up and getting motivated about a week without many plans. Back when I still lived in Chicago I blogged quite a bit about knowing that finding work here would not be easy. I was right. Something will come my way though; it always does.

As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, I finished my next album. That was a huge weight lifted. About a month before I finished I sent a dramatic and in-need of help email to Michael Lenzi saying that I didn't know how to finish the record, or if I even could. Michael has always been a musical influence of mine and has now thankfully become someone I can go to with ideas and lack of ideas. I couldn't stand to listen to my own songs anymore. I wasn't getting those pats on the back as often as I thought I should be. I didn't know where my place musically here in Sweden was (still don't) and just needed some sort of outside input. I just wanted to publicly thank Michael for all of his encouraging words he's given me. He's admitted to having gone through a lot of the same stuff that I was and sort of gave me that last little boost of inspiration I needed. Thanks Michael.

The weather broke. I ran some errands today on my bike, which is something I haven't done in 2 months. I felt the sun. It's the same sun everyone feels. I'm finding comfort in all of the connections and relays of emotion everywhere, wherever we all are.