the return of gustav

came in the door yesterday afternoon and gave me a hug. been almost a week which is pretty long for people used to living together.

his arrival immediately ment some work... we were both up early this morning, this cos of having to attend a tv-show for an interview and performance. which was nice, might i ad.

now we're sitting here in our kitchen going thru some material before heading into the studio.

studio words...

at the moment joel is next to me singing like hell. since we're working in our apartment instead of in some remote studio i must wonder if we're both gonna get killed by our neighbours. but no worries now.. work to be done.
which sounds good btw.
the camp (although without olle this week) is in working spirit.
lyrics and music composing is fun when exercised the wright way.
also the feeling of that what you're working on is one of "the better ones" is fanatically fine, poor others though.

good night (both versions intended)

nice creative hours have passed. time for bed now though.
last few days has been similar too, wonder why... maybe cos i know a mr. certain singer will arrive from stockholm tomorrow.
we gotta have some material to work with, otherwise not much is happen you know.

welli welli, we wish gustav a pleasant flight, and me some deep sleep to be able to clean up this mess a little before his return :)

good night.

germany, oh sweet germany. pt 2

are they f*****g kidding me?

they could apparently not find my ENORMOUS guitar case. furthermore no one was willing to take a stroll over to the site with me. no chance they said. i find this a bit too german for my taste but i still kept pretty calm, at least i have no gig to attend to. if so then i’d definitely been more unwilling to oblige to this stupidity.
now though.. i can at least be happy that i won’t have to carry that heavy case all the way home. they’ll supposedly deliver it to my door step within days.
lastly i can tell that i just missed the big comfortable trains into the city. now i’m writing this sitting on the never ending s-bahn trains of hell.

germany, oh sweet germany. pt. 1

sitting outside berlin’s schönefeld airport. just arrived with my flight from stockholm.
it suddenly strikes me very strong that i’m back in germany the following events took place.

i was waiting in vain for my luggage, which basically contains of my guitar in its case.
after all others luggage had arrived on the track-thingy i tried to look if they were still gonna load any more on. peeked through the opening only to see that there was no more loading going on.
just as i was about to pull my head back out i spot my guitar case laying off the track. apparently gotten stuck and fallen off.
i try to reach for it but just as i’m about to get a good grip the door closes on me. the door for the luggage track opening that is. since the door scares me a bit i pull myself out.. who knows if that thing has any sensors for stopping upon contact?.. i pull my head out just in time... think of the ending of that show set at the fort bayard on the french riviera.
the door was now shut. i laugh about it with some german guys and then goes to ask the closest airport personnel in sight. the customs lady that very harshly briefs me that she can't allow anyone to open the door for me to get the guitar, but that i instead have to walk to another hall to the lost and found luggage disk.
crap i though... leaving the arrivals area. tried to talk 2 other employees of the airport to see if it could be fixed a simpler way... but NOOOO .. it couldn't
upon arrival at the lost and found they first told me that i had to wait for a while. i said that my case could very easily get sorted if i just got help immediately.
help came on its way. i explained the situation and the guy made a phone call.. told me i have to wait for another 30 min while they are gonna try and find my “missing” luggage that i gave an exact address to.
now in this very moment i’m sitting outside writing this to calm down a bit.. my gosh.. it actually works very well.. now the half n hour is gone and i should go there again.

to be continued...

you suck, or do i?

i’ve now been enlightened with the fact that we actually played three songs at marc’s wedding.. even four counting the special performance at the ceremony.
all i remember is me complaining about olle playing so poorly. but the aftermath all indicates that one should not be too fast in making judgements in whom is the crappier performer.

post-wedding thoughts.

just woke up out of a alcoholic sleep.

yesterday's event was really fun for me. it's was my first one which made it maybe even a tiny bit more special.
the weather was nice with only a very few rain drops falling for about 10 sec.

location was on årsta holmar, two small islands in the middle of two bridges in the south-centre of the city. the ceremony, which olle and i played a very minor part in, was nice too. our part consisted of playing something for 30 seconds as background music to a transition between something. that was basically the explanation given to us, so when it was presented to the crowd that olle and i, representing the band, was welcomed on stage to play the new piece of music written for the couple we (understandably) started to sweat a little.
but, everything was totally fine.
later in the eve we, upon request, performed a few two (or was it three?, actually i had a bit too much to drink to remember) songs to the screaming crowd. fun fun.

food and drinks was good. all in all this was a delightful first wedding experience.

best wishes to the couple.

in-flight blogging. budapest-sthlm

sad to have budapest already. the town has won a rightful place in my geographical heart chamber.
sitting on the plane to stockholm. the guys are all there and i'm looking forward to meeting them all tomorrow at marc's wedding.

it'll be a short visit though, 4 days. 1 for the wedding and the rest for family and friends. i must wonder how this it's gonna feel to be back on familiar soil again.
well i guess i'll see that soon, pilot says only 20 min remain now. cool.

seatbelt sign just came on. time to go.

budapesting

while the others went back to stockholm i decided to stick around in beautiful budapest for another 2 days. it's almost too warm for my cold swedish flesh, but i manage by drinking tons of water.

the sziget festival was cool. it's like nothing else, so big and with so many people but still in the middle of the city.
the gig in itself was also cool. a steady influx of people thoughout the concert and everybody (us included) had a great time.
sziget definitely has to be visited by this band again.

now time for some more budapesting

In Sweden

After some great days at Sziget in Hungary we are now back In Sweden a few days.

And wow, when you come home you suddenly realize that there are a lot of things that are pretty nice around here. Stockholm is a wonderful city, especially during the summer months.

The first thing on the schedule is to boost the wardrobe with Swedish clothing. And our manager is getting married on Saturday, so now I have a perfect excuse for buying a smart dress.

pt. 1 of sziget rehearsals done

today and yesterday has been devoted to rehearsing with daniel at noisy rooms here in berlin.
it's been fun, real fun. lot's of future memories created.

now we're back home at or apartment preparing for the trip down to budapest. taxi due in less than 4 hours so no sleep is likely to be the only option this night.

the reason for the title of this blog entry is that we're now done with our rehearsals. that is, the berlin "crew" part of them. now i need to cut up the recording, of how willowtree sounds with daniel managing the sticks, for sending them over to sthlm where johan is eager to hear what we sound like.
it's a very different but still thrilling way of preparing for gigs.

now time to get things under way.
see you in the other side of sziget.

Annika Norlin "Säkert!"

Once every sixth month I feel that I have to write something in Swedish.

If I do, then I post it on my private blog

http://joelvonekelof.blogspot.com/2007/08/gldjeddaren.html

hectic weekend ahead

as i just wrote we working on some demos right now.
we’re in quite a hurry though, daniel is arriving on friday and from the moment he lands till when we leave for budapest 06.00 monday morning we will be fully taken up by easily the toughest (and funniest) times of our history. the reason for this is the sziget festival where we got a slot tuesday night.

it’s a festival gig meaning we have to play longer that usual. daniel (drummer of film on four) will fill in for adde at the gig. daniel has played with us once before, in osnabrück, about a year ago. that went well. but then we didn’t have to play for as long as now. hence, a hectic weekend for the gang of us.

shit.. it just came to me that i haven’t booked the rehearsal room we usually use here in berlin. it’s called noisy, as it pretty much is.

later. gotta get that booked immediately.

the seven

joel and olle is in front of me, working on drums for another demo. we’ve set our goal to record seven songs this evening. good thought, but even for us that might be too much. we’re starting the sixth now but there’s still a long way to go. if we’ll get

just a short notice to let you know that we’re working hard.