Best of 2008

Halfway through 2008, there have been some really good cds coming out this year.
These are my favs of this year.

Top 5 (in no particular ordeer)



Fuck Buttons - Street Horrsing
marvelous indie/noise/postrock, very distinct
in all it's droneness. Tribal shouts!



Bon Iver - For Emma Forever ago. Subtle and slightly
psychedelic folk, but very minimalistic. Lovely voices.



Cat Power goes against common artistic progress and
after more than 10 years in the biz she makes her two
best and most interesting albums, this year's Jukebox
and last year's The Greatest



Fleet Foxes - s/t. Like a meeting between My Morning Jacket
and Akron/Family. I couldn't imagine any finer describtion of
a band.



Justus Köhncke - Safe and Sound
Slick and warm disco from Germany. The guitars
in Feuerland are just perfect.


Just outside...



My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges



The Kills - Midnight Boom


Blast from the past - newly discovered



2006's solo outing for Jason Molina, the album
Let me go, let me go, let me go is such a great album.
Would've made it into my top10-list if I just bought
it in time.


Honorable Mentions
...and some friends who made really nice albums this
year.



Charlee Porter - s/t



Björn Kleinhenz - Quietly Happy and Deep Inside



Bobby and Blumm - Everybody Loves

A chat with Firstnighter

I've had the pleasure of sharing a show with Sofie Larsson of Firstnighter a couple of times, a delicate pop/folk-act from Linköping, Sweden. Most recently, three weeks ago. After the show I asked her some questions:


- Sofie, you really have remarkable melodies in your songs, and your voice is kind of a very personal blend between Jason Molina and Joni Mitchell. What has been influential for your music? What was your favorite cd of 2007?

First of all; thank you very much for the compliments! Well, I’ve never heard that I sound like a mixture between Jason Molina and Joni Mitchell before, but that’s nice. 2007 was acctually the year I started listening more to Joni Mitchell and perhaps it’s already starting to show in my own music. I’m influenced by a lot of things: movies, poetry, things I hear people talk about on the bus or on the radio. My friend’s lives are also a big source of inspiration but I try my best not to reveal too many details about them in my songs.

- Thanks for the EP I got from you. I really like that one, when was it from and do you have plans for recording something new soon?

You’re welcome Thomas. The EP you got is from 2007. Right now I am recording my new songs and hope to finish a new EP by the end of this summer.


- Our first show together was in an old chapel, the next one in a dance venue from the 70's, what to expect next?

Haha! Maybe at Harrys in Linköping? Oh no, let’s hope not.


- You've studied music for a year now, seems like a dream. Sometimes though, I feel like that I never get in the mood for writing when having time for it. All of a sudden when you're working or don't have time or a pen, stuff starts to happen. How was your experience about productivity during the year, was it good for your music?

Worries about creativity trouble me as well, but this past year I’ve been forced to develop a new way of looking at my creativity. Almost every week we’ve been given new tasks in school. We’ve been told to write different types of music, pop/rock/classical/jazz or folk or we’ve been asked to put a melody to a poem or write a song that would suite on of our classmates etc. Sometimes we’ve had 20 minutes to finish the task, sometimes a week. While doing this I’ve had to learn not to be too serious about things, and I’ve tried to write music without judging myself during the process. I think I’ve become a braver songwriter but I’m still not brave enough.


- Finally, what song do you wish you had written yourself?

Oh, there are so many songs I wish I had written. One is Hjärta av Guld, written by Eva Dahlgren. I love it, especially when Nina Ramsby sings and Martin Hederos plays the piano.

Various Activities

>>Various Activities pre-summer 2008
April-May 2008





LIVE @ Linköpings Kulturdagar 31 MAY
Photo: Richard Gustafsson





HANGING OUT IN THE STUDIO with Helena Arlock and
Gustav Haggren recording guest appearances on their
both upcoming cds

Teenage Kicks - Oh No Miriam

I recently stumbled upon the music of the Swedish indie/lofi-act Oh No Miriam, and I really liked to see that on her myspace-page she listed France Gall as her influences and revealed that "Sometimes when I listen to music I like I imagine in my head that it is my music". I kind of do the same thing myself so it was no big surprise that I liked this minimalistic acoustic lofi-pop. I e-mailed some questions to her:


I've just discovered your music, how long have you been active with "oh no Miriam" and who are you? What intstruments do you play?

Not for so long at all. For one and a half year, or maybe more like two. My sister (Rebecka Ingrid Simone) has played and I guess I got inspired by her. I don’t know how to describe who I am. Ehh I am seventeen years old and I live in Stockholm. I like vulgarity, and criticism. I can’t really play anything, but I hit on the piano and blow in the harmonica and sometimes I hit things in the table in a rythm. That's kind of it, but if there is anything in my recordings I have forgotten that's also me, I have done everything in my recordings, except that my sister sometimes sings in the background and I have also done a duet with Mitchell Rathberger.


I did some research about you (checking google) where I found an article about you over at Swedesplease. net where the writer compares you and your music to the movie Juno and the music of Kimya Dawson's. What would you say are your most important influences? How would you describe your music? I really like it, it kind of reminds me of Daniel Johnston and Bobby Baby. Have you heard them?

I haven’t heard Daniel Johnston, but I have listened to Bobby Baby quite a lot before. Once she wrote something nice about my music to me at myspace and I was so happy and told my friends. My influences are teenage movies and everything in my life. Actually everything that has to do with teenagers. Sometimes I also get inspired by things I hear in stores or on the bus, songs that goes sort of like ”Sexy, sexy, sexy” or ”Shake my hips yeah yeah” of some reason. I guess it’s because I like shaking my hips and I like when people are sexy, but I like when they aren’t to. I have no idea how to describe my music. It’s kind of like my diary, very honest. Parts of it is probably to honest.


So... are you planning to do an album? Do you think it's important to release cds these days?

I think it’s important that people do albums. I love to buy cd’s and almost never download. But I don’t know if I want to do an album. If someone offers to help me I wouldn’t say no, but it’s not one of my highest priorities.


My blog is really a blog about my friends, but you're the first I've done this kind of micro interview that I don't know at all. Do you think I should change the name of the blog? If yes, to what? thomas-using-his-big-ego-for-
an-excuse-to-stalk-people-who- do-music-he-rather-
would-do-if-he-could. com?

I don’t think I could give a better proposition than that. I like the name vanbloggen and I could concider to accept being called one of your friends, that..s okej:)

Slow - new 3"cd by ONDO

As I mentioned in my article about CJ Larsgården here he as been releasing new material, primary with his solo project ONDO, in a furious pace since Paradigms released his debut album in January. The newest is a very limited 3" CD released on Tuguska entitled SLOW. Very dark indeed. I can also reveal that more will come during the year, hopefully also our second album timber and modern ways of our duo A Perfect Friend. We had a label on the hook that unfortunately was forced to turn us down. We've got another offer now that we hope will turn out well.

An interview with Charlee Porter

Just laid my hands on the debut album of the Stockholmian songbird Charlee Porter whom I done a couple of shows with and mosten often hang out with whenever I visit the Swedish capital city. We first met at a jazz concert last summer and recently played together in an urban church in Stockholm. I was very pleased to see that the album was released (on Seagull Songs) and I'm also quite thrilled to be mentioned in the thank you-list. The music is clearly influenced by country and bluegrass and really nice; check it out at: http://www.myspace.com/charleeporter now.



Me and Charlee on stage


Charlee, you're one of the funniest persons I know and we've come to the conclusion that we're very much alike, right? But which one of us is really most like you?

Well, dear Thomas, I have my moments when I sort of shine through your great personality, and that gets you in the shadow, and then you shine through mine.. So you know it's such a thin line, I can't really seperate us. I'm you, you're me. It's just the way it is. Live with it.

Sometimes it's hard. Like when you call me.. wooo, that's me talking...How is that possible? Is this real. No? Am I totally lost. Who's talking. Which one of us is thinking. Who are you. Me?
And that's when I put whipped cream on my nose and say Mjao.



Charlee Porter - s/t (seagull songs 2008)

You've just released your debut album. What are your thoughts about that? How would you describe it? What influence your music? Why doesn't it have a title?

Yes, finally an album!

All the fun, and struggles, I've had writing, giving birth, recording and singing these songs over and over, finally they've come together as one. I can leave them behind me, though I'm out playing and singing these songs. Now it's time for new songs to arise!

This record is a mix of pop, country and taditional folkmusic. What influences me is all the music I've ever heard and all that I've experienced in my life. A cliché! Well, music I'm listening to right now is Fleetwood Mac, Jewel, Allison Krauss, Kasey Chambers, Gillian Welch, M.Ward.. And I'm really into Flight of the concords!! And also...maybe what influenses me the most- my imagination!

When I pick up my guitar and start singing, I'll go anywhere I want. Like in so many fairytales, there is always a portal into an other world.. I see myself as a fictional person with this superpower to travel different worlds!

Thomas, I don't feel like the record needs a title. It's my first, and Charlee Porter says it all!


I know you made a musical trip to Nashville some year ago, how was that? I heard a story about Jewel?

I had a great time in Nashville. I've met awesome people and listened to a looot of music. It was such an inspiration for me to get on a plane away from the cold winter in Stockholm, and to get off in a warm and sunny Nashville. I wrote the song "My great grandma" on the plane. I also wrote an article about my trip, sort of a diary, for a Swedish music paper called "Studio". So I was kinda reporter/writer on my trip! I've got a good look into the music scene in Nashville, and made contact with a publisher company, Bluewater music.

I met Nicolette Fontaine, an artist manager and music promoter, who's about to promote my music in Nashville. And about Jewel.. Well, I spend some time with a swedish bass player called
Victor Brodén, and he knew about this place called "Fuel" and that Jewel was going to make a secret guestperformance there. She was great and at one point she needed an extra Capo.. so I lend her mine, which I always carry in my purse. That's it. Not a big story. But now I'll never go to sleep without it. Don't tell Jewel.


You have taken some pictures of me (not naughty but VERY silly), what do I have to do to make sure you don't spread them?

Not naughty? Well I believe we have different definitions of what's naughty
then.. Nooo, we would never do the naughty ones!! Hmm, I'll have to think about that..


Finally, if you would make a cover version of a song what would that be and if you would have a dream-date for making a duet (living or dead person) who would that be?

Oh, you so want me to pick one of you songs now, right? No no no, I'm the one who's got the silly pictures you know! The song would be "Brand new key" with Melanie. I love that song. She's so
funny. The melody is wild. Hmm, duet. Ok, Dolly. I would love to meet her. Don't know about the dating part though.. And if I would pick a dead one, it would be Johnny Cash.

Home from England

>>UK TOUR 2008
May 3-11 2008

Some memories from last UK Tour



Thomas & Helena Sundström @ What's Cooking, London


Live @ Ruby Lounge, Manchester




Thomas @ The Chattery, Swansea


Bonding with Richard Neuberg of Viarosa in Hampstead Heath


Hmmmm...ysbyryswydd