Henry Rollins in February 2010 … YES!

2 years ago (well almost) I went to see Henry Rollins, and even blogged about it.

He is and has been since the 80′s  a true source of inspiration for me. Many times I’ve sung his songs in my head or screamed them out load just to ‘recover’ myself. I can’t say I agree to everything he says. Far from it, but his energy and commitment. Wow.  If you’re in Gothenburg or somewhere else and have a chance to see Henry. GO SEE HIM!! … think he’s got more muscles on one of his arms than I have in total.

There are of course other people that have meant a lot to me. Tom Petty, Will Oldham, Richard Dawkins, Suicidal Tendencies to name but a few … more on that some fine day.

Blind faith is good

Contrary to what most people seem to believe about me, I think that Blind Faith actually is a good thing. Time has shown that the results stands out. This is true if we look at the band with the name Blind Faith. I can really recommend Blind Faith’s first (and self titled) album. For more information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_faith

Swedish journalist Daniel Levin about illegal file sharing

Daniel Levin talks about illegal filesharing in the Swedish newspaper GP (Swedish).

Daniel thinks we will see an end to the “piracy” and gives rather good arguments to support that. He ends the article with a little note on the new services, web based services, where you (the user) subscribe or by some other means pay for the content, which is good. .. until you do some more thinking.

Those services, again, put the control of the media in the hands of the middle man. Not in the hands of the “creator” or the user. When I buy music (yes, I do buy music!!!) I want to be in control. I want to be able to listen to the music I paid for in my portable ogg player, without being connected to the internet. Furthermore, using services where you use clients under a proprietary license you’re not only lacking control of the content but you’re also not in control of the software itself. What does the software do, apart from playing music? Does it spy on you? Does it send information about what you’re listening to to some central place somewhere?

…. I can see one good solution to this. One that benefits the artists and the users. If the artists themselves release their music under a free license in a free format and let people pay if they want. … and go out and play live in front of an audience.

Naming computers, two more names

I’ve been using composers to name computers for a while. So far:

Allan Pettersson – allan

Bela Bartok – bela, bartok  (Yes, he named two)

Dimitri Shostakovich – dimitri

Johan Sebastin Bach – bach

and now two new ones:

Alfred Schnittke – schnittke

Luciano Berio – berio

Top 5 heavy albums

A friend of mine just invited me to come over to to a dinner where we all will present our favorite top 5 metal albums of all time. Great, it’ll be easy…. or?

First thought was to have the first 5 Black Sabbath albums. Hmm, I also need to add the three first Rainbow albums and Slayer‘s Seasons in the abyss. AC/DC, Led Zeppelin …. can I add Jimi Hendrix? Motörhead, Judas Priest…. Saxon, Maiden, Thin Lizzy, Kiss, ….

Great, but it’s not going to be easy

Bonnie Billy / Will Oldham in Kungälv (Sweden)

Magical night.

Seeing the band live was amazing.

I can’t find words for Will’s music. Will Oldham belongs among these: Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Jeff Tweedy.

Esjbjörn Svensson dead ….

I was shocked to read that the great Swedish Jazz musician/composer Esbjörn Svensson was found dead yesterday (Saturday 14 June 2008). I am not a big Jazz fan, but EST‘s  and especially Esbjörn way of hitting the piano keys is truly magic. One of Sweden’s greatest musicians is not with us anymore.

This is indeed a tragedy.

New playlist 'generator'

I can’t say I am tired of listening to Les Claypool (Primus, Sausage …). But 3 hours in a row made want something else. But how to prevent the same story all over again, bit with another artist. Random mode. Hmmm…. too easy solution.

In amarok I used
the search field and entered whatever poped in to my mind. I don’t know why shaking cam up, but it did. So now I am listening to music with the letters ‘shakin’ (no ‘g’) in it. Came up with:

• Shaking the tree – Peter Gabriel
• Shaking and trembling – Steve Reich
• A final shaking – Steve Reich
• Shaking hell – Sonic youth
• Shaking all over – The who

Perhaps a random word generator plugin to amarok…. or getting back to work

Henry Rollins, 21 years later

I went to see Henry Rollins show at Lorensbergsteatern (Gothenburg, Sweden) yesterday.
During the show, which was really great (not everyone thought so* though) I started to think about the last time I saw him live. It was here in Gothenburg as well. 22 years ago. I was 15 years old (old?) and he was 25.

Henry told some great stories about Van Halen, Ozzy and the The Ruts (check ‘em out!) and also some stories from his travels. I miss the rawer energy from the show in 1986, where he talked about the conflict he was in when seeing Bono while walking with his (Henry’s) girlfriend. The fact that he liked his girlfriend and the promise he’d made to his band about what to do when seeing Bono put him in a conflict I wish I could hear him speak about again. During yesterday’s show Henry ranted about Bush, which is always funny. Especially the story about the Mandelas.
*) GP (se), DN (se)

Bush and Mandelas: Bush trodde Mandela var död: “Pinsamt” (se)