Mick Jaggers letter to Andy Warhol in ‘69. Love it. (via Joakim Jansson)

I then took the query to YouTube to see if I could find a live performance of the acoustic version. I didn’t find it, but I found this:

Which is also good, but… maybe a bit stale? Kind of lacks any notion of energy. Or joy for that matter.

Then under the title ‘Related Videos’ I found this:

What a change! I was so pleasantly surprised to see a drummer in a robotic manner spending most of his performance trying to beat a hole in the snare drum! Love it. What a legend.

I did a bit of research, and it turns out that my new found hero is called Thomas Hedlund and is from the north of Sweden. Umeå to be more precise. He also plays in The Perishers, Cult Of Luna, Deportees and Khoma. If i’m not mistaken, an acquaintance whom I played with while living in Skellefteå, Peter Melender, is also the drummer of Khoma.

It’s a small world. And it seems like the north part of it rocks it harder than the south ;)

Great. Wonderful. Remarkable. Really nice. Really well. Really nice. Really easy. Better and better and better. Smarter and smarter and smarter. Better and better and better. Really nice. Really great. Easier. Great. Great. Great. Awesome. Really nice. Really wonderful. Really fast. It’s wonderful. Really cool. Really nice. Very nice. Amazingly. Awesome. Great. Really outstanding. Jeff. Really easy. Really easy. Really easy. It’s that easy. It’s that easy. Really easy. Easily. It’s really easy. Just as easy. Really great. Fantastic. Amazing. Priceless. So beautiful. Really nice. Thanks Jeff. Phil. Absolutely incredible. Incredible. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Incredible. Beautiful. Great. Remarkable. Amazing. Great. Beautiful. Great. Amazing. Amazing. Great. Beautiful. Incredible. Great. Incredible. Great. Great. Just incredible. Great. Great. Great. Great. Really cool. Great. Great. Great. Great. Really cool. Great. Great. Great. Beautiful. Incredible. It’s amazing. Incredible. Incredible. Absolutely incredible . Amazing. Amazing. Just amazing. Really great. Amazing. Incredible. Just incredible. Amazing. Great. Great. Unbelievable. Amazing. Incredible. Incredible. Incredible. Amazing. Incredible. Incredible. Amazing. Incredible. Aright, next. Amazing. Great. Easy. Easy. Easy. Useful. Absolutely gorgeous. Back to Steve. So. Incredible. Incredible. Great. Amazing. Incredible. Great. Great. Great. Great. Beautiful. Awesome. Beautiful. Stunning. Great. Cool. Great. Incredible. Great.

That’s what we have for you today.
Thanks for coming, and we’ll see you soon.

Last weekend we had the pleasure of getting a visit from Matthew, Ali and Daisy Grey. I got introduced to Matthew (aka Tig) via Simon Waterfall 5 years ago as they were starting up their fashion label Social Suicide; lovely suits done by lovely people. The Greys came over with a campervan with the intention of driving around Scandinavia for 2 weeks.

The same weekend as they were here we bought a new car. A red Fiat Bravo 1.9 JTD from ‘07. So when we sat down looking at where Tig, Ali and Daisy were to go next, we kind of got coerced into following along.

Unfortunately Willow already had other engagements, and I was planing to fly down to Italy the following weekend. But as the days passed I just felt so reluctant to once again take the buss to the airport and once again fly (would be something like the 15th flight in the last couple of months), so, as the weekend grew closer, we decided to throw the tent and sleeping bag in the back of the car and catch up with the Grey family in Norway! We left Thursday at 7pm and passed the border before midnight the same day.

Above is a screen grab of the route we ended up driving. see map here, or here: http://bit.ly/16O74u.

The car was a pleasure to drive, so we covered the first stint with ease and met up with the Greys in Åndalsnes already for lunch on Friday. Besides the Greys, I also ran into a few distant relatives to me, Mr and Mrs Troll.

The day after, we drove Trollstigen together. Trollstigen is not far of being a car version of the Milford Sound Track in New Zealand.

After Trollstigen Willow and I left the Greys to continue south while we headed north to do the Atlantic Road before dropping on our way to meet up with our friend Maria Berge in Trondheim.

All in all. Lovely to meet up with the Tig, Ali and Daisy. I loved to drive the new car. We enjoyed being after the late season, and we will definitely visit Norway again very soon to do some walking.

And, next time the Greys are here on a visit, we decided to spend a few days kayaking around the Stockholm archipelago.

Willow was in charge of the camera, so befriend her on flickr to be notified of when more photos are available.

So, for now, the outdoor furniture has moved in with us, too.

Mark & Wendy

Mark and Wendy are Willow’s childhood friends. I had never meet them before the wedding, and Willow hadn’t seen them for 7 years. The story goes that Mark, Wendy and Willow used to hang out all the time. And, eventually a sparkle sparked between Mark and Wendy and the rest is history! Their wedding was in a castle in Otterburn south of Edinburgh, UK.

Adam & Jen

Adam is Willow’s older brother. He lives in San Francisco and his father (not same as Willow) lives on Maui Hawaii. So this wedding was held in a -12 hours timezone and required 3 flights going and 3 flights coming back. But it was worth it. I think the only thing missing to tick all boxes on this wedding was to add slow motion to the waves hitting the stones behind them as they were getting married.

Marcus & Elin

A unique location on a peninsula in a nature reserve in the north of Sweden. The wedding followed a eco theme where everything could be recycled. Dinner tables on the beach with sand between your toes followed by dancing under a clear sky and full moon. No. It wasn’t a movie.

Tobias & Åsa

Tobias is one of my oldest friends. He has always had the ability to put me in positions where I’m outside of my comfort zone. His wedding was no different. They asked me to sing Today by Joshua Radin for them in church. Like most times, it went well and I’m glad he asked and that I forced myself to do it. And it was a perfect ending to the 09′ wedding-athon.

Work wise I’ve also been busy. The work over summer resulted into new business for the company and with me in a parallel lead role (both pretty much required full time attention) for 2-3 weeks. I also managed to squeeze in two 10-15 days freelance projects.

Yeah… try to fit all that in within 4-5 months. Even a year would be difficult. To be honest — I don’t know how it’s been possible. I’m sure there have been occasions during these last couple of months when I haven’t been my normal me me and I. If you have been affected. I’m sorry.

I’m now one and a half weeks into a much needed 2 weeks holiday. And for my own health I’m now sitting here with my laptop in my lap, glass of red wine in my hand, reflecting on the past hysterical couple of months and writing a summary. For you and for me.

A good friend of mine, Daniel Norberg, phoned me a few days before the Metallica concert and asked if I had any plans since he had a spare place left in the VIP room.

My imitate thoughts where, “Child on the way? No. Wedding? No. Funeral? No.”, my answer to Daniel was an badly imitating James Hetfield, “yeeeeaaaah!!” (as in, no, I don’t have anything planned).

But. First time around, Mr Hetfield managed to be sick; had eaten some Asian food and got food poisoning. We only got to see the warm-up acts, drink 2 beers and then head back home. Extreeeeeeeeeemely disappointed.

All of us were very gutted. But as we left the VIP room we quickly put everything in context and realise how lucky we were. Most people there had actually paid for their tickets and traveled from far away. I almost ended up saying sorry to teens as I walked out.

Second time around. Everything went as planed. As a gift to everyone Metallica had printed special t-shirts that they gave away for free. It was a extremely ugly black t-shirt with neon print showing Mr Hetfield being sick.

Na, the big gift wasn’t the t-shirt. It was the amazing show.
They were absolutely great.

I am a huge fan of Mr Hetfield presence on stage. I had never experienced it live, but I have during my own music career tried to re-invent his presence and make it my own. I like to think that when I play live I’m a mixture of James Hetfield, Chuck Berry, Angus Young and Dave Grohl. Don’t think I pull it off, but know people appreciate me trying.

They played a collection of old and new. As always, you wished it was more old and less new. But the new songs do work really well with the mix.

The latest member, bass player Robert Trujillo, fitted in nicely and definitely added to the show. Hetfield lived up to his expectations, Kirk Hammett was anonymous as usual and I think we all wished Lars Ulrich would accept the fact that he plays the drums…

I brought my camera to the concert and have some photos on my flickr page. All photos in this post, and more, can be viewed here

In April this year I flew over to London to see AC/DC. I didn’t manage to get tickets for the Stockholm gig so I decided a trip to London could be justified by combining the concert with picking up stuff in the London flat and visiting some friends.

I have seen AC/DC twice before (Stiff Upper Lip tour) and am a huge fan. They are living legends. Even if you don’t like it, you should almost appreciate it. So, yes, any AC/DC review by me is biased.

But. They do have an achilles heel.
The school uniform of Angus Young.

They are getting old. Brian Johnson, born 1947, being the oldest and Angus Young, born 1955, being the youngest. This doesn’t mean that they still don’t put on a show like no one else — they do — almost just makes it more remarkable.

But unlike Brian, though, who seems to be like a fine wine and just gets better and better with the years, Angus, is facing an uphill battle jumping around in a school uniform at the age of 55.

You might hate me for saying this, but I would almost prefer it if for the next tour they made an active decision and amended the show so that Angus doesn’t have to jump around like a crazy old man rocking at 120mph 3 hours straight. This could hopefully give them a longer shelf life and prevent them from stopping touring when Angus’s ageing catches up with him.

Yeah, we should let Angus grow old.

I’d rather have a less energetic AC/DC than no AC/DC.
But, whatever the case. Whatever they do.

I salute you.

In Bb 2.0 is a collaborative music and spoken word project conceived by Darren Solomon from Science for Girls, and developed with contributions from users.

The idea is nice, but by no means unique. I know 3-4 people who all have had similar ideas and i’m sure thousands of people (slightly more productive and creative than my friends ;)) have made their own YouTube collaborations and/or aggregation.

But. This is really good.

I believe what makes this a bit special is that it adds another dimension with the spoken words piece, titled Information and written by Daniel Donahoo.

Visit the site www.inbflat.net to have a play. Below I’ve embedded the spoken word piece with the lyrics.

She closes the lid, and unplugs a device no bigger than her thumb from the computer. “My life’s work”, she says. But it isn’t her life’s work. “You see, we store information like an Escher painting. It shouldn’t all fit in there, but it does. And every day we manage to fit more and more into smaller and smaller spaces, until one day, she says, we’ll be able to fit all the information the world has, everything that everyone knows, and believes and dreams into nothing. It will all be there, stored and filed, tagged with any keyword you might imagine. Our hard drives will be thin air, they’ll make nanobots look like elephants. And elephants will be in there too, tagged, accessible with search terms like ‘grey’, ‘ivory’ and ‘the largest land-dwelling mammal’.

We’ll process away at nothing, and understand everything. We’ll think of a word, and the information will slip in, not through our ears or eyes, but straight through our skin. Information will breath in and out of us, permeate our skin, and knowing will be as deep as it is wide.

You see, our work here is to learn so much, To be so full of knowing, that all there is left to do is unlearn. Humanity must get to a point where we let go. We leave the useless ideas and the spent idealogies in the recycle bin, like an adolescent brain shedding neurons, like a snake slithering from its old skin, like an old man who’s come to understand so well, the point where reality meets the intangible, that he is able to decide which breath will be his last. And he will enjoy that breath more than any he’s taken in his entire life.”

And her life’s work is more than a 4Mb flash drive.

“My life’s work,” she says, “is the impact this has.”
“This is not about what I produce. This is all about what others receive.”