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Tag Archives: Music
Such a common bird (Ane Brun duet with Wendy McNeill)
Such a common bird (Written by Wendy McNeill)
I am a lone wolf
a beauty and a beast
both hunter and hunted
soft tounge and sharp teeth
I´m toned from my travels
yet raw from this road
as I drink from storm puddles
and the stories I´m told
Help me figure this out
help me figure you in
you´re a shadow to me
that I echo when I sing
Help me figure this out
help me figure you in
To this simple little melody
I have seen angels
they were sleeping in gutters
they were standing in bank lines
they were jumping from towers
they were calling like seagulls
but nobody heard
such a beautiful message
from such a common bird
We want freedom for ourselves
but we can´t give it to each other
We want peace between nations
yet we battle with our lovers
we´re blinded by billboards
and trying to get ahead
choking on ambition
and the words left unsaid
I am a lone wolf
a beauty and a beast
both hunter and hunted
soft tounge and sharp teeth
I´m toned from my travels
yet raw from this road
as I drink from storm puddles
and the stories I´m told
Help me figure this out
help me figure you in
you´re a shadow to me
that I echo when I sing
help me figure this out
help me figure you in
Adventurous
I have more or less recovered from the flu now. Only small remnants that will eventually go away.
In total I was home from work Thursday and Friday, working a few hours every day. All in all, it wasn’t too bad.
It was some time ago since I last spent four days in a row in my apartment almost without going out. Working Thursday and Friday was rather easy, and by saturday I was feeling quite relaxed, both physically and mentally. When you are sick you are always a bit restless but during saturday I felt a surge of energy come back and I used it to clean the apartment.
I had plans for saturday to go to a concert arranged by Amnesty but thought it was wise to turn it down, allthough I wasn’t feeling too bad. I’m glad I did.
At around eight or nine, I started feeling very good, and I sat down in the chair in the doorway to the balcony and watched the rain falling outside.
Suddenly I felt so relaxed, I had some mellow and nice music on and a strange kind of happiness appeared. With it came the desire to write.
When I woke up Sunday, I had no real plans for the day. I still felt it would be wise to stay inside for most of the day so I continues what had started the night before. Some really nice mellow music (Peter Broderick (the youtube link I sent you) and Efterklang (a danish electronica band).
The music played, I was reading “on the road” by Jack Kerouac and just mooching around the apartment. Candles were lit, some incense was burning.
The hours went by. No rush, just me and everything.
I connected this feeling I had with something I was very familiar with when I was younger, around 16-17 or so. Spending day after day during summer holiday just mooching around, doing whatever I wanted. It was a wonderful feeling. I opened a bottle of wine and had a glass. Somehow everything seemed to be more real. More beautiful. I was dancing around in the living room. The wine tasted more. Every little detail around me was brought to attention. I am alive and in love with life.
Sunday night I went over to Ulrica and watched a few episodes of the TV-series True Blood.
Monday I went back to work, afterwards I went to the rock choir I have joined for the third time and afterwards another episode of True Blood with Ulrica.
Tonight I came home, made some food and now I have already gone to bed, writing, finishing that bottle of wine I opened on Sunday and listening to some music. It is like a great feeling of being alive, adventurous. Enjoying the most simple things in life. Tonight I thought about it, and realized that it is about a week since I finalized my temporary leave with my boss. Maybe it is because of this, finally dropping work and starting to live that brings this feeling about. Or maybe it’s just because that I got to spend quite a few days just on my own.
I remember when I was 18 years old and my mom said that I should get myself a job to make some extra money and I told her, that I value my freedom more than money. I don’t think she will ever understand me when I say something like that, but the happiest times in my life I can remember, are those when I could just waste my time completely, with no goals or a need for results. Me and my mother grew up and live completely different lives in many ways. So does my dad.
I love them both, very much.
A not so cold one in the grass
Yesterday I went for a beer (or a few beers) with some of my collegues at Medis.
Jonathan
Sussie
Linda and Marie
Afterwards I met up with Erik and went to a mini festival in Vinterviken called “En ljummen i grästet” (a not so cold one, in the grass). We missed the first guy performing but we did get to see Cocoanut Groove, a guy with some nice tunes and also, later in the night Hajen. A woman who turned out to have one of the best voices I have heard! Her songs was so good it was almost magical. I had never heard any of these guys before so it was a nice surprise to find something this good. Don’t think she has released an album yet, but you can listen to some of her stuff on her myspace page.
I tried out the video mode on my iPhone when Cocoanut Groove was playing, and I must say it was really good. You can listen to some of his really nice songs on his myspace page with better sound than on my video. http://www.myspace.com/cocoanutgroove
Hultsfred 2009
I haven’t written too much lately, don’t really know why. It’s kind of like summer has me staying outside instead and also for some reason, vacation time in Sweden has a tendency to change my habits and routines.
The drive down to Hultsfred was very rainy, but when we got there the sun peeked out and the evening turned out to be quite nice. It was nice just to walk around the festival area and after sitting in the camping area, drinking some beer and wine and talking we headed for the concerts. I managed to see most of Sahara Hotnights, which was nice.
I can’t say I’m much of a big fan of them, but they are easy listening and their singer Maria has in my opinion got that something in her voice that resonates with me.
After Sahara Hotnights we saw Lars Winnerbäck, my old-time favourite and the main reason we went down there. He did a good concert allthough it was not one of his best. However, I don’t think he can ever do something that could be said to be bad. Here is a live version by himself of his song Elegi:
When we got down there I soon realized that these two great concerts would be easily beaten by the end act that started some time after midnight. Thåström.
Thåström is a veteran among Swedish artists and in my opinion he gets better for every year. I can’t say I was ever hooked by his old punk band Ebba Grön in the late 60′s and early 70′s but he has produced some amazingly great songs over the years. This dark and suggestive concert in the middle of a Swedish summer night turned out to be one of the best concerts I have ever seen.
So, all in all, it was a great trip down south!
Going to Hultsfred
Today at lunch, Marie who is working during summer said they are planning to go to the Hultsfred Festival tomorrow and I suggested we should go there on saturday to see one of the best Swedish artists Lars Winnerbäck. There are quite a few people here at work who likes him so they thought it sounded like a good idea but a little bit too crazy to do something like that only a few days in advance.
20 minutes later we have booked the company car, arranged for a place to stay in my team member Helene’s friends house who just happen to live next to the festival area and booked our tickets. We’re going.
Five years ago I would have needed months in planning to do something like this without writing it off like a cool but unrealistic idea. Something that other people did.
Bias in the Pirate Bay trial
As I have been following the Pirate Bay trial so far, I thought I’ll keep on doing it.
The Judge Tomas Norström has in this high profile trial been found to be a member of several copyright organisations, for educational reasons according to himself, but still a good reason to suspect bias. When this was found out, media questioned his decision to stay as judge on the trial. According to himself though, he had thought about it for a while and decided that he was not biased in anyones favour, and therefore accepted the case.
If I have learned nothing else in this life, then it is that when it comes to deciding for yourself if you are biased or not is tricky business. The mind is like a kid that plays all kinds of tricks on you without you noticing it, and when you find him with the hand in the cookie jar he runs away before you can catch him. And in the face of getting caught again he finds ever more cunning and subtler tricks to stay away.
I have found myself in situations like this so many times that I know to always stay on the sceptic side of things. Tomas Norström on the other hand, is either not aware of this, or he is much more clever than me in that he can himself decide if he is biased or not.
Now it is up to the higher court, Hovrätten, to decide if he was biased or not. You would think that the one to decide this would therefore be clearly unrelated to this whole issue, but after only a few days, this new Judge had to step down after media found out that she was also a member of a similar organisation.
So, a second name comes up, and according to one of the accused, Peter Sunde, it took him about 10-15 minutes to google this guys name and find out that he also is a member of a copyright organisation.
This is almost turning into a joke. It’s like they want to mess things up.
Isn’t it strange that in a trial like this with a media coverage I have never heard of in Sweden before, no one takes a step back and decides to do it properly. Or are there no Judges in this country who is not members of various copyright organisations?
When it comes to bias, in this on-going debate about filesharing and integrity, both sides show proof of a lot of confirmation bias.
Confirmation bias is a psychology term for when you only read or listen to arguments and reports that confirms your belief in something, and discard everything else.
Filesharers likes to point to a few surveys that says that artists actually benefit from filesharing and that it is a win-win situation for everyone and the entertainment industry likes to argue that if filesharing is not stopped completely no one will ever want to make music anymore.
I don’t know who is right about this, but I know there are more than me who would like to see at least some shades of grey in this black and white debate.
Better taste in music
Today I had a talk with one of my team members. And on the question how I as her manager could improve, she first couldn’t come up with anything, and then said:
You could have better taste in music!
That is so funny! 
My weekend
This last weekend, I had made no plans at all, except for the fact that I was going to stay in Stockholm and not go somewhere. Friday was looking like a slow relaxing evening and saturday there where faint ideas that I might meet up with some friends, but nothing was decided.
I have given my two team mates an assignment for their up-coming personal meeting with me. A few questions to answer, giving them two hours off from work to reflect upon them, in any way they wanted.
They decided to leave early on friday and go down to Medis (Medborgarplatsen or ”Citizens square”) for some beer and talk about the assignment.
Since I hadn’t made any plans, they asked me if I wanted to come two hours later when they had finished the assignment, if I wanted to, which I decided to do.
When I got there, more friends of them had showed up, so we were around eight of us. We sat there on the square drinking beer for a few hours, and then later on we left for a bar when it started to get chilly.
At this bar they had karaoke, and a girl signed me up without me knowing it. So when they called up my name I got all nervous, but then got up and sang with all my heart ”Bed of roses” by Bon Jovi, and really good song for karaoke. It was really fun to stand there on stage with about a hundred people listening and it seemed like they liked it 
.
Saturday I had borrowed U’s car while she was in the UK (Stoke-on-Trent), so my mission was to go to Ikea and also get some other stuff, like fake grass to put on my concrete balcony. I managed to go through the entire store at Ikea without finding anything I actually wanted. I think this is unheard of.
At night I did go to a friends place for some wine and we later on ended up at a bar called Strand on Södermalm for two free concerts. We missed the first one (2 White horses) but managed to see a finnish band called Shogun Kunitoki. A pretty strange organ/percussion instrumental kind of music, but that sounded really good live. You can hear them at myspace, although it is not as good as it is live.
Sunday I was tired, but managed to crawl out of bed by eleven to go down the stairs and help all my neighbours with the spring cleaning. When I first showed up, they looked at me like they never though anyone would actually show up and I started wondering if I should just excuse myself and crawl back up again, but when we started with some gardening and cleaning they lightened up and became quite social.
When we were done, we had a small hot dog barbeque and then I went grocery shopping.
So, this unplanned weekend turned out to fill itself with all sorts of activities, and despite there being quite a lot of it, there was absolutely no rush and no real ”musts”, and even though I am tired, I really enjoyed this weekend of mine.
