Booka Shade, pals of Stakka Bo?

Cool name, Booka Shade, a German house/techno duo. Their albums are interesting, but too often their music kind of stands still. However, their remixes are great, definitely worth a listen. The name Booka Shade is funny, makes me think of director Johan Rencks pop star name Stakka Bo (an acronym for Bo from Stockholm).

Papa's Got A Brand New Album

Al Green's got a new album out that you honestly can do without. Of course you know that Al is a pastor in The Full Gospel Tabernacle in Memphis, Tennessee, preaching every sunday, singin' gospels & stuff? If Al sang in my local church every sunday, oh lordy, would I take it to church! Meanwhile, to get a taste of what his ceremonies probably are like, check out this performance from Glastonbury '99.

Give up the Euro-Shmeuro-Hoopla

Every year it's the same, Sweden is hyping up their contestant in the Eurovision Song Contest and all the (Swedish) experts are pretty sure we will most likely win. But since there are more Eastern block countries than western, the west don't stand a chance. Unless a gimmick band like horror-rockers Lordi from Finland participates, of course. But when Lordi won, the eastern block probably thought Finland was one of them since the act was on par.
Well, who cares, the music competing is maximized in banality to have most mass appeal for the buck, and hit the smallest common denominator. Who won 2008? Some Russian Enrique Iglesias-clone.

Another Great Little Gnarly Duo Rock Band

Hey, did you miss The Black Keys as well? A duo like The White Stripes, DFA 1979 and The Kills, and they're great too. From Akron, Ohio, same as DEVO. Supposed to be one of the dullest, most industrialised cities in USA. Check out this video, where the singer is clean shaved for once, otherwise he sports a big fat beard:

Why the next AC/DC album won't be really really great

So AC/DC is probably the best hard rock band ever. When other great bands have 2-5 good songs, real classics, AC/DC have more than 10. Most of them were made with their first singer, Bon Scott, who died 1980. Their problem is quite simple. Brian Johnson, the "new" singer since 28 years, is too old to sing in the high-pitched way he has to, fronting AC/DC. He simply wheezes the lyrics nowadays, sounding more like Donald Duck, than anything else. What they should do is retire Brian, with honours, of course, he sang on Back in Black (One of the most selling albums ever, over 50 million copies!) and did it real well too. With a young singer who can live up to the AC/DC myth, they could make great new music. With Brian, they will only sound like a parody of themselves.

AC/DC Set To Release New Album This Year

The waiting is almost over! AC/DC fans can expect the band's next album of new material sometime later this year. The band are currently recording in Vancouver with producer Brendan O'Brien and long time audio engineer Mike Fraser. This will be the band's first collection of new material since the release of Stiff Upper Lip in 2000.

Flobots - Great name, good rap.

Hi, Back from working 7 days and nights for two big dragons.
Here's an interesting white rap group worth a listen, The Flobots. A bit like Eminem, but with a bit more education, a bit less misogynistic, and with a political agenda! (White rappers being political, are they sure they're not Swedish? Actually, from Denver!?!)
Here's a video
and here is their home page

Hours of fun (?)

Vice has their Do's and Don'ts online. This is nasty, but very funny stuff, if you're okay with a little bit of politically incorrect snapshots from reality: http://www.viceland.com/

Heavy Metal in Baghdad

These guys really live on the edge... Talk about welcome to the Jungle...

http://www.heavymetalinbaghdad.com/home.html

TV-Surf's up in Sweden

Finally Swedish TV (SVT) airs "John from Cincinnati" starting this sunday. The show is great and intriguing up to episodes 5-6, when it gets washed out (hep!) and starts treading water (hep!). It is cool to see 80's icon Rebecca de Mornay play surf mom, as well as 90's icon from TV:s "Married with Children" Ed O'Neill back and doing allright as a "serious" actor.
The cali-surf-life pictured is alluring, and having been there, and tried it a little, makes you want to go back for more.

RIP Rauschenberg

Bob Rauschenberg died yesterday, 82 years old. Met him circa 1989 when me and the then aspiring journalist Bo Madestrand slipped into Heland Wetterling Gallery in Stockholm, the day after him opening an exhibition. He was in the gallery, and we had a little chat, and he gave us two exhib posters that he signed BIG with fat marker pens. He seemed genuinely thrilled that we, two hip young 80's dudes where familiar with his work.
Of course we know Bob!
His work has always been good, I like his earlier stuff best such as his combines. In the end his work became a bit washed out, usually collages with mixed in classic buildings and statues with everyday objects, sellable, but it always looked good!

Socc it to 'em!

Was considering not watching Sweden playing the European Championship in soccer this summer, but since 36 year old Henrik Larsson is making a comeback, I think I might have to reconsider!

Moss grows

Kate Moss' new boyfriend is the dude in The Kills...

...The Killers...The Kills!

I was never that impressed with the much hyped "The Killers" from Vegas. Recently there was another band being hyped called "The Kills", and I never checked them out, kind of cofusing them with "The Killers". But hey, "The Kills" is something entirely different. They are a duo, a guy and a gurl, like The White Stripes, but the gurl sings most of the time. The guy is no youngster, while the gurl looks like his daughter, kind of. They are like a more sinister White Stripes, sounds great!
A check on wikipedia tells med they are former punk rockers, she ("VV") from Florida, and he ("Hotel") from London. They use a drum machine, and both play the guitar, mostly "Hotel". If The White Stripes are more bluesy/Hendrixy, The Kills are more clubby/groovy, but still very garage, of course.
Here's a video:

Lyle The Intern - Letterman comes alive

Pretty funny, Letterman is back to life, this new guy on Letterman called "Lyle The Intern", appears as an intern getting his break in showbiz being totally obnoxious, saying the weirdest, coolest off-the-bat stuff, sucking up to Dave. Anyways, a search tells that he is an actor named Jimmi Simpson. A guess is that he does a New Yorkish parody of the LA-gay-dude Ross The Intern on Jay Leno. Check it out:

And:

And:

Oh-Baaam-A-Lam

Okay, the whole world is hoping for the Democrats to win the US election, except the oil- and military industries, and a couple of zillions of undereducated easily-led christians in the US heartland. Okay, I guess Hillary would be allright, she seems sensible, and women are not as aggressive as guys running off starting wars, dropping bombs and stuff. My guess is the world would be a better place with more female leaders, but back to the topic.
Anyway, now it seems that Obama is starting to rise over Hillary in the polls. Is that good? He is young, cool, extremely smart, and actually listens to, and understands rap music. I can say one thing about him that is very interesting and hopeful; He is basically not funded by the multinational companies in the same way as the Bushes or the Clintons are. Basically he gets his campaign money from smaller contributors, more grass-roots people, companies and so on. This could be good news, and mean that finally, USA won't be run by major corporations sponsoring some suit, like GWB.

Working for two newspapers

The last coupla days I've been working for two different newspapers, one serious, one more rock'n'roll. The rock'n'roll one, I haven't worked on their staff since 12 years ago. Gotta say their crew has gotten rejuvenated a whole bunch. And hipper!

Escape from LA

Didn't see this 1995 kitsch-fest until now, when it suddenly pops up on TV. Amazingly bad movie, in a fun way. with quite a cast of Tarantino-favoured actors, such as: Steve Buscemi, Kurt Russel and Pam Grier. One scene, where Kurt goes surfing on a Tsunami-wave with Peter Fonda is just too campy. Peter Fonda says: "It's gonna be bitchin'!" Worth watching if you are into pop culture:

GTA4 - Belive da hype

My kids are playing GTA4 like there's no tomorrow, and I have to pry them away from the console. Apparently the game is super. I hope it won't turn them into little Russian thugs?