Interview by Simon Armitage, as published today, is found here.

edit, having read it: oh, why the nationalistic pap…why? Idiocy.

Lady Gaga, Morrissey and Justin Tranter.

No, I am not trying to find something that isn’t there. Hence, I’m trying to venture into the calm and self-curing through music.

Currently playing, in order:

1. Tindersticks – “Piano Music”
2. Morrissey – “I Have Forgiven Jesus”
3. The Jesus & Mary Chain – “April Skies”
4. Brian Eno – “1/1”
5. The Kills – “At The Back Of The Shell”

I feel like I’m Atreyu floating on top of Falcor in that calm way, even though Falcor smiled and closed his eyes while flying through the clouds in the night, following all that string music and the startling images of the Nothing moving further, of G’mork in the cave. That’s how I’m left after hearing the track by Brian Eno.

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• Please, please, please, let me get the memoirs I want (guardian.co.uk)
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And…I shouldn’t be posting this due to the stupidity of it all but it weirdly, very weirdly, puts me back on track. A Sphynx that is evil. And a brief word from a Chinese Crested. And there’s a slew of people from Saturday Night Live/30 Rock in there.

Ulrika, Mia’s mom, came by to hang out. And the place was packed. People everywhere! We came at 20:00 and stood by ourselves next to a table where we had some food; friends started trickling in; Ida and her sister, Maylin and Criz and Daniel, Johan and his girlfriend (a.k.a. Gamla Stan), Dagny and Tobit, Anna B. and her boyfriend Mats, Kalle, a screaming Zak followed by Greven – and then went to work.

Here there be pictures from the ordeal:

I played quite the mixed bag of tracks, and the sheer number of people combined with the rush of setting the makeshift dancefloor on fire made my blood boil from the rush of adrenaline, through my cortex into my brain and heart! I can’t tell you how watching people dance to what I was playing made me feel! Their kind words were so special. Magic. It always makes me wonder why I didn’t take up DJ’ing professionally – until I remember the late nights and drunken people flopping a pint of beer over my records and that one time when I was threatened, kidnapped and received no pay; but that most definitely is not the case when DJ’ing at Nada.

While playing, I mixed The Smiths (“The Boy With The Thorn In His Side“) with Justice’s “DVNO“, Eurythmics with Lady GaGa; I like Stuart Price’s remix of “Paparazzi“. Furacão 3000. Diplo’s mix of The Beatles cover of “Twist and Shout” created lost minds, as did Kelis‘ “Milkshake“, Kriss Kross‘ “Jump“, Broder Daniel’s “Underground“, some Kraftwerk, Holy Fuck’s remix of M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes“, The Jam, SebastiAn’s remix of Rage Against The Machine’s “Killing In The Name“, The Bar-Kays’ “Holy Ghost“, Hanson’s “Mmmbop“, The Commodore’s “Easy” mixed with The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven“, Masters At Work’s “Runaway” not to mention all what Mia was playing, e.g. tracks by Ladyhawke, Love Is All and TV On The Radio. And we ended by playing together, picking great tracks like ABBA’s “Does Your Mother Know?”¹, Håkan Hellström’s “Kom igen Lena” and Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’“, The Libertines’ “Can’t Stand Me Now“, Franz Ferdinand’s “Take Me Out”², tracks from Bonde Do Rolê, Ace of Base and Hyper Crush and ended everything through Bran Van 3000’s brilliant “Drinking in L.A.“.

It was great seeing my friends again. A lot of my friends toniiight.

See also

• The latest DJing at Nada (niklasblog.com)
• Mega mixup: M.I.A. – “Paper Planes (Holy Fuck remix)” + snow in Liljeholmen, Morrissey, Tre vs the Nokia N900 (niklasblog.com)
• ‘Paper Planes’ Cat & Dog Remix (buzzfeed.com)
• Artist of the 00s (guardian.co.uk)
• The best music of 2009 (niklasblog.com)

1. Extra funny considering Ulrika’s presence, of course.
2. The Erol Alkan remix is one of the best remixes ever. Full stop.

Download audio file (paperplanesholyfuck.mp3)

Bonus pic!

Bonus video (in no way related to the track): I was in Liljeholmen this fine evening, surrounded by snow while watching a lake with ducks in it, nearly getting hit by a bicyclist. I wouldn’t dare bicycle in this weather, snow tires or not, and I’m very happy about sitting at home right now, just typing away instead.

Retraction of the day:

The Official Morrissey Webstore wishes to apologize to Morrissey store mailing list members who may have seen the mass e-mail advertisement that was sent out after Thanksgiving which mentioned eating turkey. Morrissey is a strict vegetarian and abhors the killing of defenseless animals for food. This ad was not endorsed in any way by Morrissey.

I’m quite sure somebody’s having his skull…you know.

N900 geekery and materialism in the extreme:

Today I got word that Tre were to release the Nokia N900 for pre-bookings. Wee! So I waited. Nothing at midnight. Little wonder. In the morning: nothing. A little later I twittered Tre, who said I could call customer service to book my N900. YES! I did, spoke with somebody who told me I had a copy secured. I extended my phone subscription for 24 months following this.

At lunch-time I got a bad feeling. I called Tre’s customer service who confirmed what my gut told me: no phone was booked and no subscription had been extended. Holy damn. I asked for somebody’s boss. They said they’d bell me within 48 hours.

Three minutes later Tre tweeted something about there being no need to book a N900 since they’d receive “big volumes” of the phone come the third week of January; it’ll be a perfect b-day present for me.

I called their customer service again, booked the phone and extended my subscription; I then tweeted Tre who couldn’t help me – naturally – but called customer service to double-check, and they confirmed that my phone will be delivered in the third week of January. Wee!

Well, I’m a sucker for Morrissey as you might know, and as such I know that he yesterday visited Kirsty Young at the jolly BBC’s “Desert Island Discs” to play outtakes from what eight discs he would bring to a desert island. No real surprises there, but a mix of varied tracks with a strong foot in the 1970s, notable exception being Robert Schumann’s “Der Nussbaum” from 1840.

I’ve created this almost-complete Spotify playlist from the tracks that Morrissey chose.

If you want to listen to the podcast in its entirety – bar complete musical selections due to copyright reasons – you will at the time of my writing this find it here.

Here’s the song list:

1. New York Dolls – “(There’s Gonna Be Be A) Showdown”
2. Marianne Faithfull -”Come And Stay With Me”
3. Ramones – “Loudmouth”
4. Velvet Underground – “The Black Angel’s Death Song”
5. Klaus Nomi – “Der Nussbaum”
6. Nico – “I’m Not Sayin’”
7. Iggy and The Stooges – “Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell”
8. Mott The Hoople – “Sea Diver”

Annotations by yours truly:

First, there’s currently nothing recorded by Klaus Nomi available on Spotify, which is why I’ve selected a recital of “Der Nussbaum” as performed by Victoria de Los Ángeles, late world-renowned soprano. Here’s Klaus Nomi’s version:

Nico’s cover of Gordon Lightfoot’s “I’m Not Sayin’” is pretty interesting. Sadly her version is not available on Spotify, but Lightfoot’s original is, so I’ve incorporated that instead. Here’s Nico’s version:

Actually, that’s Jimmy Page on 12-stringed guitar in there, working as session musician back in the day.

It’s so nice to hear Ramones included with “Loudmouth”. Such a great diss track.

Well, you’re a loudmouth baby/You better shut it up/I’m gonna beat you up/You’re a loudmouth, baby

Mott The Hoople ends it all with a track very reminiscent of all things Marc Bolan, hailing from the same age. It’s quite unexpected to me, despite being very T. Rex/Bowie. When the strings start in the tears flow. Drama.

Apart from the discs, Morrissey had to choose a book, which turned out to be “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde”. As luxury item, he chose a bed after having dwelled on to pick that or sleeping pills.

.

From NPR:

In January 2010, NPR will launch a year-long exploration of 50 great voices in recorded history. The series isn’t an attempt to catalog the so-called “greatest” singers. Instead, we hope to discover and re-discover awe-inspiring vocalists from around the world and across time.

This list has been whittled down a small cast of 50 to include some of my favourite singers, including Morrissey, Maria Callas and Elvis Presley. There are soundbites available for every singer on the list (just click ‘em to hear). The list is pretty American yet quite interesting from a pop perspective, in a way. I’m glad to see people like Benjamino Gigli and Notorious B.I.G., but where’s Jussi Björling and Rakim? Of course there will always be scrutiny when a list like this is published, and I won’t yak further about my gripes. Instead I’ll look into the voices I haven’t heard much from, e.g. Celia Cruz and Milton Nascimento.

The picture at the top of this post includes my five faves of the bunch. So, tell me your truth: which are your five faves?

Check out the list and cast your vote here. I’m really looking forward to this series to start broadcasting.

Listening to Lightning Bolt requires a certain mindset for me. Like Morrissey once said, “the music that they constantly play/it says nothing to me about my life”. Well, Lightning Bolt does say a lot to me even though I can’t hear most of what Brian Chippendale is singing¹!

Normally I would laud a band simply for breaking boundaries and norms, but the music that these two guys play is so good that I can’t imagine living without it. Granted, I don’t like much of what they’ve done before their fourth album, “Hypermagic Mountain“, but they’ve earned an integral bit of my heart for creating very dense, extremely drum-filled and drone-melodic songs. The distorted singing and their unique stage-approach warms me up even more. Their music primitively pin-points and hits some sort of “hard-core feel”, as Ari Up would put it.

Their new album, “Earthly Delights“, is released 2009-10-13, which means it’s time to pre-order it from Load Records!

Here’s a nicely shot and edited little video that features bits of old songs but also part of “Sound Guardians“, the track I’d first recommend off their new LP – which is at the time of writing available for a listen here.

Here’s a nice little video thing where Lightning Bolt is compared with Sun Ra Arkestra, a more jazzy but equally experimental and searching sort of band.

The third track off their coming album is called “Colossus” and appears here courtesy of Load Records. It’s a notably slow track, for being Lightning Bolt:

Download audio file (03-Colossus.mp3)

1. Which is very similar to my relationship with Einstürzende Neubauten, the difference being that I don’t understand German.

Death In Vegas

There’s not much to say about this relatively short Spotify collaborative playlist; 47,7 minutes of glee.

Apart from the first, growing, monumental track. I saw MONO last year at All Tomorrow’s Parties, where three boys stood thrusting themselves back and forth while playing guitars wearing all-white clothes that flowed. They looked funny, but the album where this song’s from is really good and produced by Steve Albini which should amount for something.

Death In Vegas is a weird sort of collabo-band for me. They’ve worked with people like Iggy Pop, the Primals and other notables, but there’s something about this track where Paul Weller’s guest vocalist. Twanging Austin Powers-type pop but still not. I think it’s the guitar that sounds like a sitar in combination with the strings that does it for me.

Speech Debelle won this year’s Mercury Prize. Even though I usually don’t like her style – and I definitely don’t like her award-winning album – there’s something in here that attracts me. Could be the Stereo MC’s similies, or just her voice working it out. Anybody rapping about Facebook should be banned but then again there’s something about this that I like; just like the last song I mentioned. Hm.

I was tipped about this track by The Skids, but I’ve got to admit that beyond the quite badly produced music there’s a voice that is kind of a mix of Joey Ramone and Pete Shelley. It’s released in 1979. Intoooo the vaaalleeeeey.

Giorgio Moroder’s song “The Chase” is featured in the film “Midnight Express“. When I was quite little I saw this film and became intensely scared of Turkey. Back then, I had quite a few friends who were from Turkey and I remember asking a few of them if things were as grim as they seemed and they told me Turkey was all beaches and sun and that the film was “propaganda shit” without having seen them. I wonder if that way of reasoning differs at all from the Turkish government of today…

Jeane
There’s ice on the sink where we bathe
So how can you call this a home
When you know it’s a grave?

And there’s nothing more to say.

Lady Gaga as shot by Annika Berglund¹

She did rule. But first, I want to start from before the beginning.

Mia and I left for Djurgården by walking through sunny Östermalm. It was sweet. Once at Gröna Lund, I was struck with how many people were there already; a couple of hours before the gig and there were hundreds of people – of which I’d say most were under 18 years old – in front of the stage, waiting.

The sun was shining. By the time the first support act – Paola Lobos – came on, we’d waited for a while. Lucky us… Her voice was mostly in tune, which is about the nicest thing I can say about her. The two dancers were about as in-sync as Michael J. Fox’s hands; the singer seemed to be thinking about her laundry and frankly I couldn’t wait for her to get off the stage.

Then things turned around.

A rig consisting of a synth and a Mac with a painted-on cover in bright neon green and shocking pink screamed “HYPER CRUSH” at us, with a big-ass logo to boot below. I didn’t know what to believe, when on-stage jumped a guy with Ray-Bans, a cigarette hanging out the side of his mouth while he was wearing neon clothes and a keytar. A keytar. Where should I begin?

Then in came a sprightly guy with a Mercedes necklace, making me think of Mike D; he was followed by a girl in purple and black and they kicked off their first track, “Robo Tech“. When you combine a total 80s look with sexist lyrics like this, I’m all yours:

two step with a faster break so I can see your ass…

shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake,
shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake,

i can see your ass…

shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake,
shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake,

I can see your ass shake

robotic technotronic, robotic technotronic
robotic technotronic, robotic technotronic
robotic technotronic, robotic technotronic
robotic technotronic, robotic technotronic

Then between two songs they announced a special item they’d brought all the way for us from L.A., from where they’re spawned, a silver metal briefcase containing…a Nintendo Power Glove. Whoa. For those of you who know not what it looks like, it’s this:

I basically wanted one for the first 32 years of my life, so… And to top things off they pulled out a Nintendo gun, the kind that you used to shoot 8-bit ducks with. I loved it.

But despite the retro this band wouldn’t be anywhere without decent tracks, and when they also carried stage presence to boot, it kicked. They rolled, and I must say it’s always refreshing to see grown-ups dressed like teenagers who are singing about sex and drugs to tweeners.

Then things changed up big-time. A huge screen was erected and displayed a picture of Lady Gaga for a while, until a film started playing, courtesy of HAUS OF GAGA. Warhol-esque, reminded me of Bruce LaBruce in some way. Idiots all around started shouting names of the possible first track because they’ve searched for track lists on the Internet, but the music just took over. The music.

First of all, she stood covered by her dancers who held up shields sporting mirror shards. Gaga herself popped out from the top, mouth open, her mirror mask plastered across her face, blonde hair with pink, tasteful high-lights and a dress possibly designed by Christian Siriano.

Just the way her appearance affected me, was a sure sign that things would be great. After all, I’ve seen her live once before, but I was really quite blown away this time.

Her dancers: wonderful. Improvisation, sporting light 80s black combat gear (including berets) and acting made just one – albeit an important – part of the evening. Gaga interacted seemingly effortlessly with them, as she was in complete control of the audience. Seeing her talking to an audience, or even playing music and dancing to one, is like listening to Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds“; you think things should be that way, and that it virtually required no effort to create but really is quite the opposite. The Fame Ball Tour is a really well-balanced show.

From films to costume changes and pillow talk with the audience, stuff still wouldn’t be the same without great tracks, of which Gaga has many. I really like her debut album, and it’s nice to see she’s tweeting about how she’s composing new music. And even though she was hung-over on Jameson’s on Sunday morning, her hoarse voice performed well on tracks, ad-libbing and moving along very well.

She opened with “Paparazzi“, which you will see in its entirety in my video below, for which Gaga rocked a black customised keytar as well. Supreme. Keytar. I love that word. And I also loved the backing band – the keyboard player was almost constantly smiling, the Jack White-lookalike guitar player did his bit with the band in a metal way just after said opening song, and the drummer was actually Swedish. Nationalism. Ism. Speaking of which, Gaga said “money” is a dirty word. Well, right you are. I feel her sentiments about money are similar to what I interpret her way towards sexy is; while wearing a skin-coloured bodysuit there was no way on the planet that I’d deem what she was doing sexy, not in a tits-and-ass sexist sort of “sexy” anyway.

Among some tidbits were the fact that she got kids singing about “Bloody, bloody Stockholm”, money, fame, getting wasted in clubs…yet again, hearing a sea of 15-year-olds attest to their fantasy debauchery was sheer fun.

She turned “Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)” into a backbeat track towards the end, and later brought in a see-through piano, filled with bubbles, with matching bubble-laden suit to boot; Mia pointed out the suit is very reminiscent of this suit that Kristeen Young wore onstage for a while. I’m sure she got some of that from Elton John’s wardrobe.

Then, a supreme version of “Poker Face“, of course done with just the piano to help her along. I loved the dark tones brought forth during the breaks in the track. I also love how she brings pop music to the public. She’s 22 years old. I can’t get that through my head; it’s as if her pop sensibility spans decades. Just like Bill Hicks turned comedy and politics on their head by combining humor, love and intelligence, Gaga manages to inspire through improvisation – on the subject of which the pop landscape is desolate today – crowd participation, great melodies and pop songs, fashion tastes that lift in what she likes and lets other people bring to the table and real fun…in short, she makes every other contemporary pop artist pale in comparison, without trying to do so. I think of Morrissey:

More lock-jawed pop stars
Thicker than pig shit
with nothing to convey
So scared to show intelligence
It might smear their lovely career

Gaga is the opposite of this.

“Cuz I’ll fucking love you forever, I will.”

Her rendition of “Poker Face” was heart-breaking, as anybody who was there will attest – providing a heart was in place. Ten minutes long, and not a second too much. It’s as if acrobatics, a marvelous recovery recovery from Jameson’s hangover, heart, beautiful improvisation and a glittering night where roller-coasters and spun sugar all merged as one; where a collective love was felt. The epitome of pop music in a sense, bringing us a seldom provided taste.

I’m reminded of the scene in the documentary “The Importance Of Being Morrissey“, where the man plays Diana Dors on a tiny record-player; instead of reminiscing as he did, it’s as though longing for what’s really great about music suddenly came true on Sunday evening at Gröna Lund. I hope she got the love vibe back.

Here’s 31 minutes and 33 seconds of the combined mixture of that love. Included are bits or whole renditions of the songs “Paparazzi“, “The Fame“, “Just Dance“, “Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)“, “Brown Eyes” and “Poker Face“.

1. The above pictures are gathered from this gallery at Rockfoto, all exquisitely shot by Annika Berglund.