What we’ve been up to lately:

1. We played at Arenan in Karlstad. I thought it was the worst show I’ve ever performed. The band, the audience, and the papers luckily felt otherwise.
Also: We got to meet one of Sweden’s finest voices: Montt Mardie and I found out he’s not actually hooking up with girls together with his uncle Barry, but with Huckleberry, in the song that I’ve been humming on for weeks.Jens thought about buying a nice pair of shoes but never bought them.

2. After that, we celebrated Långfredag at Smedjan in Köping. The crowd was small but excellent. The very nice people of Smedjan fed us so much we could hardly play.
Also: we watched two Asterix movies: Asterix och bautastenssmällen and Asterix och Cleopatra.

3. The day after that, we joined up with Firefox AK in Örebro and probably played the most fun show of all year at Klubb Smart.
Also: We all bought second-hand clothes and created a new look for the evening. Jens and Andreas looked like brats on a boat, Maia looked like a hot housewife, Fredrik looked like a Stroke and I sported my new I-work-at-a-diner-please-tip-me-look.

4. This Friday, we once again got to hang out with our FFAK-friends at Tivoli in Helsingborg. Everything was good at Tivoli, we salute you people who work there and everyone who came to see the show.
Also: the day after, we went to Tropikariet and looked at some tiny monkeys and huge spiders. We all wanted to steal a monkey and keep him as a tour bus pet, but there’s unfortunately some lack of leaves and cool trees to hang out at in our bus.

5. And this Saturday was the weirdest night of our lives: we went to Skövde and played at Mycel, everything was broken and finally we had to play an acoustic gig at 1.30 am. We improvised along the way and the entire audience kept dead silent throughout the gig. It was magical.
Also: Fredrik was happy that when we asked for requests, the audience wanted San Francisco. “What if they had asked for the old Boston song More than a feeling“?

PS, part 1. Tomorrow, Maia and me are going to Paris to play at Centre Culturel Suédois.
PS, part 2. Maia is going back to Stockholm on April 26 to compete in the Come Out And Play - Roland/SAMI awards. It’s a contest for unsigned acts and you need to go there and support her.
PS, part 3. On April 27, Maia and me are going to Oslo to play at Blå.
PS, part 4. We feel very cosmopolitan this week.

* Classic quote from NKOTB’s groundbreaking hit song Tonight.

Im February, I wrote three new songs for us to play live. (The Quiz, 2006, and The best night of your life). The band arranged them together, and judging from YOU, pretty audience of ours, you seem to have enjoyed them as well. So we dediced to record them ultra-fast for an EP due on June 14. Andreas Söderlund produced it.
We also recorded an old song of mine called Last bitter song, and decided to throw in Leaving you behind, one of my favorite HS songs that never made the cut for Introducing…

June 14, kids. There you have it.

After yet another weekend spent in a van, I shocked my body by suggesting we’d exercise. Because the indie aerobics I thought of last summer never happened, I have now decided to start running. I dragged my weak body parts around Stockholm and am now unable to move.

Good things:
+ Running past people and giving them the pitiful “Perhaps you, too, should start exercising – and why did you take that last gin&tonic last night” eye
+ Thinking about writing a song about Florence Griffith-Joyner (after today, we’re basically the same person) (except for the steroids, and the nails)

Bad things:
- Running past a mirror – in my head, I basically was Flo-Jo. The mirror, however, suggested more similarities to a lobster with the posture of an ostkrok

I was accompanied by my faithful friend, I-Pod.

Flo-Jo & I-Pods top 7 songs to run to

Ugly, just like me - Smudge
Tankar, försvinn! – Autisterna
Five – Southside Stalkers
Je pense a lui – Francoise Hardy
Song for the songs – the Concretes
This Train – Girls At Our Best
No Love – Let’s Be Honeys

1 top song to stretch to
XVI-II - Samarbetssvårigheter

Worst song to run, or stretch, to
Let’s trade skins – Great Lake Swimmers
(Don’t get me wrong, I love the Great Lake Swimmers, but that song makes me want to give up the exercising and eat pie instead)

Marcus’ girlfriend Malin felt down one evening, so Marcus did his best to cheer her up. This is the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen - sweeter than a teddybear on heroin.

Again, thank you to everyone who came and listened to us playing. I’m quite overwhelmed over how many nice people Sweden can hold. A special thanks to the girls in Vänersborg who claimed they’d walk all the way to Trollhättan just to afford my record.

I’ve started collecting penpal stories from real life (after “Long lost penpal”, people have started coming up to me and telling me about their old penpals). I’m considering putting together a book, or something. If you’ve got a penpal story you’d like to share - e-mail me (under contact).

In Vänersborg, we went second hand shopping crazy. The craving for the second hand goods went slightly overboard. I’m currently sitting here with a balalaika, a painting of a deer, and five copies of girl magazine Starlet from 1976 (One is featuring a pretty cool picture of Thin Lizzy.). Not sure what to do with any of it.

PS. I cut my hair. I look like the missing link between Andreas Söderlund, Martin Rolinski, and Marita Ulvskog, depending on how I comb it.