The Afterword

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Stockholm – 2018 update?

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Morning all I’m off to Stockholm for the weekend a week on Friday, with my mate Phil, seeing our beloved Hooters on the Saturday night in Uppsala. (Well, it makes a change from Germany.) We had some great tips for activities and bars/restaurants from a thread in 2018, I was wondering if anything has changed much since? We’ll almost certianly go to the Vasa museum, possibly Sunday, but any hot tips for eats/drinks for the 2 nights (Friday/Sunday) we’ll have there? (Return flight is a sobering 07.15 from ARN on Monday) Any top bars to recommend (in either place)? We’re both ageing rockers and beer drinkers, does Stockholm have any good “rock” and/or “craft beer” type bars? (We went to HopDog in Munich last year before the gig, which ticked both boxes at once!) Are any of the “free” guided walking tours especially good/worthwhile? (I’m not a great fan of aimless wandering…) Etc etc. Thanks in advance.

A slice of Pop Perfection. FAO fans of Robyn et al

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The new single from Swedish pop sensation Tove Lo has just been released & I cannot get enough.

It instantly feels like a classic to me & like something I will be listening to in 10 years time, much the same as I felt when hearing Dancing On My Own, Shake It Off, Can’t Get You Out Of My Head etc.

Here it is for your enjoyment

Disclaimer, this sort of pop is not for everyone

Album Discoveries That Changed Your Musical Direction.

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In 1998 or thereabouts, I first heard Norwegian guitarist Eivind Aarset. From this and investigations of the other musicians around him I heard trumpeter Nils-Petter Molvær and keyboard player Bugge Wesseltoft. Scandi-jazz, as it soon become known, intrigued me. From there it was an easy hop into the ECM catalogue and all it’s treasures and the German ACT label. But “Electronique Noir” was the starting point.

What were your starting points?

Karin Park: a “bloody Swede” in Norway

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Ms Park has been mentioned in dispatches a couple of times but nobody seemed to know exactly which country she is from. For those of us living in Scandoland, these things are important. There is enormous rivalry between Norway, Sweden and Denmark and a lot of differences between them.

She was born in Djura in Dalarna, the very heart of Sweden, but she now lives in rainy Bergen on Norway’s west coast. What’s most surprising though is that she wrote Norway’s 2013 Eurovision entry: I feed you my love. Which is very good. I can’t imagine her Swedish counterparts, The Knife, going near ESC with a bargepole.

Many from Sweden go to work in Norway and earn a lot of money, particularly in healthcare. Young Swedes take all the crap jobs that the Norwegians don’t want and then live a wild party life. They are not popular with the Norwegians.

A recently released film, Svenskjävel, (literally translated bloody Swede) looks at this relationship.

The outspoken protagonist, Dino. a young Swede working as an au pair in Oslo, doesn’t beat around the bush when it comes to describing the relationship between the two countries.

“Swedes like Norway. We think of » Continue Reading.