Yesterday Zak and I went to Tantogården, a little place a little south of Stockholm where an old school-mate of his played with his band, The Boozegunks. They started playing at 17:00 so that's when we turned up! They played as a part of a little festival where all bands had one thing in common (as the genres were quite all over the place): at least one member is a student of a music academy of sorts. Anyway, the Boozegunks are very into Ramones and...well, that's a good starting-point, isn't it? It's their reference anyway, as you can see in the following films, where drum-sticks are dropped all over the place, a guitar string breaks off and the lead guitarist returns with a guitar that's not very in-tune. They did, however, carry a fast tempo, a singer who had a kind of Elvis/Ramone-complex and a bass-player who looked like Tom Waits.

I filmed them a little (while Zak took appx. 75 photos) so you can see a bit of their glory here [MP4 video, 850KB], here [840KB], here [4,5MB] and here [2,4MB].

The singer actually had a good sense of humor. Their gig was one sandwiched in-between many, so the drum-kit wasn't actually theirs. Between two songs, a guy came up to the singer, who spoke back through the mic. "What? Is this the last song we'll play?", "Oh, they just want me to tell our drummer not to play so hard as their snare drum might not take it." and later "OK, we've just been told we can only play one more song...so we'll play two as they're really fast." Kewl. They did some covers, like Ramones' "53rd and 3rd" and Sex Pistols' "Seventeen". The rhythm guitarist and bassist actually have quite good backing vocals in store, so I hope for the best for the Boozegunks anyway even though they have to come up with more material of their own for the live shows, methinks.

After them, a crappy, no-good band played folk songs. I've seen this kind of line-up before: a female "sensitive" singer who displays her utter emotions by holding her palms to the skies (arms not out-stretched, mind you) and closing her eyes. How majestic! The rest of the band: violin, drums (played with the fluffy balls at one end, this always breaks me up), electric bass and semi-acoustic guitar. The bassist thought he was the new Les Claypool and sucked at that and at his horrific bass solo. The acoustic guy sucked. The singer sucked. Well, I believe you can guess the rest. They sucked! They sounded like the Coors or whatever that incestuous union spawned in the most wretched of country in Ireland were called, as you can hear and see in this little video clip [MP4, 250KB]. I can't, and I never will, understand bands where the members strive to act like they're beyond their years in every way. After that gig I was sick of the entire get-up, even sick of heckling them all with Zak and his friend, so when the next group came to load their gear on-stage, I caught hold of the drummer and asked him what kind of music they would play. "Agent-music", he replied. "Instrumental agent-music." Hm. "Oh! Something like 'Our Man Flint' and John Barry?", I asked. "I don't know." he said. Argh.

They took the stage and here's the line-up: electric bass, electric guitar, drums, keyboards and saw. Yes, saw. This drummer also used fluffy-balled sticks. They sucked, too. They did sometimes sound like bob hund, a great Swedish band, in their best moments, but mostly reminded me of Tortoise and altogether we left four songs into their set, which I don't count as a good grade. Check a little of them out in this film [840KB].

Zak and I then went to try and sate his insatible lust for food so we ended up at a grill where they actually spelled "pljeskavica" correctly on the menu, which led me to think the owners (or, at least the person who wrote said menu) were from former Yugoslavia. There was a team of emergency ambulance drivers at the spot, too, just for the food though. The lady who took orders and grilled the food was NOT at all pleased with there being customers at her place, so she treated one and all with the utmost discontempt, which we all laughed hearty at. When I picked up my order, I asked for a cup of water. At first, she eyed me in a "wanna-die-now-or-I-just-poison-your-drink" way, paused, and said "Yes, and it WILL take some time!". I looked at the ambulance crew and Zak and just laughed under my breath, imagining her looking extra for the rat poison canister. I got my water 5 (!) minutes later, we finished and left for the absolute center of Stockholm, where Zak's girlfriend and some of her friends were partying, at Grill, which turned out to be something wanting to be a water-hole for the bratty 30-somethings of Stockholm. Some of the walls were actually covered with a very tacky leopard wallpaper, with butterflies made out of stockings and thin metal wire hanging about. This was infinitely tacky. Anyway, I had suffered from a splitting head-ache during the night (which at this time was appx. 21:30), most probably from having endured said shit folk band, so I left Zak to his devices (i.e. to get plastered as usual, my old friend!) and went home. I listened to Gruff Rhys' debut solo album, "Yr Atal Genhedlaeth", which is very good, yet short. I think that's a pretty fair cop. It's not long and boring at all. He plays almost all the instruments himself, has written all the songs and is, of course, as he always shows when fronting Super Furry Animals, a very good singer. I like his album.

On the way home I read this very interesting article from The Guardian, on how Finland managed, in less than 30 years, to turn the country from being one of the unhealthiest nations in the world, to one of the most fit. Read it!

When I came home I ate bit of a casserole that Mikaela made. The picture looks like I ate crap or spiced-up brains, but if you know food, it actually looked a lot better and tasted even more than I can describe, and than that shit picture makes justice of. I really have to get myself a better digital camera, the flash of my current just makes everything look shell-shocked. That picture is here, with some others, among them my breakfast for the past two days: cheeses and crackers. Yay health! We've walked over 50 minutes a day for two days in a row now, though. It's so nice to walk in the week-ends, we feel rejuvenated and it's actually a great way to kickstart the day. I hate myself for that past sentence. I feel I'm suddenly 60 years older. What next? "Oh, I've decided to make a tea-cosy so here's a lovely little picture!". Kill meeeeey.

Soon we're off to an action with Patrik and Staffan. They're not being auctioned off, but I've never actually been to one, and as they seem to find all their lovely furniture and peculiar objects of desire at auctions, I'm hoping for tips.