P, C & C and their rox-prom nights (II): Latvia and more Roxette

Roxette’s Per Gessle and noted Swedish music journalist Sven Lindström celebrate the summer season with a countdown of the 50 greatest Scandinavian summer songs of all time on The Spectrum’s Nordic Rox, SIRIUS XM’s Scandinavian music show, July 12. Listeners will hear songs by Peter Bjorn and John, Eagle-Eye Cherry, ABBA, Roxette and more. See the list in the comments of this article.

Roxette performed live at Jurmala, Latvia and the New Wave festival last July 28. It seems Roxette will play the same five songs as on the Night of the Proms; "Wish I Could Fly," "The Look," "Joyride," "It Must Have Been Love" and "Listen to Your Heart." And just to be clear; since this was a TV-show Roxette did not perform live, but lipsync. The band included Marie, Per, Clarence Öfwerman, Jonas Isaacson, Pelle Alsing and Christoffer Lundquist.

According to Per Gessle the seven new Roxette remasters (2009 versions) will be released September 28. All physical albums will have no more than three bonus tracks each, except for "Tourism" which only gets two. Per explains on Roxette's own site - roxette.se - that it was neither EMI's nor Roxette's intentions to put out collector's items, but new versions of older catalogue titles and that demos and such will be taken care of otherwise.

Meanwhile, the band from Stokholm [ingenting] has released the first single, HALLELUJA!, off their third album, "Tomhet, idel tomhet" (to be released on September 9, 2009; Labrador Records). The album was recorded and mixed by Christoffer Lundquist at AGM Studios, Vallarum, and produced by Jari Haapalainen. The members of the band are Niklas Lundell (percussion), Christopher Sander (guitar, vocals), Mattias Bergqvist (drums), Sebastian Ross (bass), Tobias Måård (guitar) and Andreas Jeppsson (keyboards).

This is not the last 2009 CL's project as producer. Between 25th August and 11th September, he will be recording new songs for Brandur Enni's upcoming album.

LJdM

For Latvia, we are bringing C&C - Christoffer and Clarence on bass and keyboards respectively, Pelle Alsing on drums and Jonas Isacsson on guitar. I recorded 2 new demos while visiting the ‘Aerosol Grey Machine-palace’ in July. Both are played on banjo. And both are primarily for Roxette for sure. Clarence and Christoffer are currently working on the Night Of The Proms strings arrangies. Songs sounds great. I never knew I had written epic symphonic music!!!

This is my Twitter-Radio of June and July:

• July 14: Ruby, don’t take your love to town. Kenny Rogers. Great beard.
• July 13: Evil hearted Ada. The Flamin’ Groovies. Used to play this a lot with the GT-lads late 70’s.
• July 12: Fleet Foxes are quite good. Sunday treat: Found my old Paperback writer/Rain 7″-single!!! (Info to all you young people: It’s by The Beatles!). My God, it sounds good!
• July 11: Cars. Gary Numan.
• July 10: It Never Rains in Southern California – Albert Hammond
• July 9: Outstanding song of the day: Urge for going. Joni Mitchell. Telstar. The Tornados.
• July 7: Forever young. Dylan. Live at David Letterman 1993. It’s on YouTube. http://bit.ly/rq4CX
• July 6: Red balloon. Tim Hardin.
• July 5: Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood. Did you ever.
• July 4: Have you seen her. The Chi-Lites. Magnificent.
• July 3: Can’t make up my mind between L’important c’est la rose/Gilbert Becaud & Making plans for Nigel/XTC. Can you?
• July 2: Waiting on a friend. The Rolling Stones. Made for the shade.
• July 1: Somebody to love. Brad Newman. There’s a Swedish version as well. Någon att hålla i hand. Sven-Ingvars. Almost as good.
• June 30: Sweet Tuesday song of the day: Steve Miller Band: Fly like an eagle. Sounds old. And young.
• June 29: I don’t like Mondays. Boomtown Rats. Never liked that one. Manic Monday. Bangles. There you go.
• June 28: Sunday Ditty of the Day: Sally Simpson by the Who. It’s on Tommy.
• June 27: Duncan. Paul Simon. A masterpiece, never liked the flutes, though….
• June 26: Billie Jean. MJ. Outstanding. Unbelievably good.
• June 25: Hard to handle. Patti Drew. They don’t do ‘em like this anymore!
• June 24: Invisible to her. Brainpool. -”And all the boys are goin’ aaaah!”. Brilliant!
• June 23: A man without love. Engelbert Humperdinck. You need music like this once in a while.
• June 22: Donovan. Hey Gyp (Dig the Slowness). AC/DC last nite. Excellent popcorn!
• June 21: Fresh strawberries and Bend me, Shape me (American Breed). Flavours of the day.
• June 20: Anything by Erik Satie…
• June 19: Neanderthal man. Hotlegs. Cheers.
• June 18: She’s so high. Tal Bachman. Hated it on the radio a couple of years ago. Love it now. Is there a lesson to be learned from this?
• June 17: Watched quite terrible David Bowie-DVD “Plastic soul review” last nite. However, song of the day must be his Young Americans. Superb!
• June 16: Rebel yell. Billy Idol. Purrfect. Followed by All the way to Reno. REM. When they’re good they’re outstanding.

Per Gessle

I never listened to The Beatles in mono. When I was kid I was listened to it in stereo. So I don’t care about the mono, even for the albums that are supposed to be mono. I like the band there (points at the right ear) and the voice there (points at the left ear), because that’s what I heard when I was 10 years old, that’s right for me. I am actually so nerdy that…there’s a Japanese guy who got old Beatles records and transferred them to digital without touching them, straight into the computer and sold that as a bootleg. I got those, so I can listen to them .. He turned them into MP3, but good quality MP3, but it sounds more like you’re used to. I prefer that. I bought a couple of the Beatles stereo records and being a total nerd I have listened to them. Clarence Öfwerman and I listened to them in the dressing room and we both reacted the same way: “It’s changed! It’s not the same”. I am really big on that. You should never change a record, you shouldn’t try to improve them. You can’t improve something that is already done. When it’s done it’s done. It’s like you add a new color to Mona Lisa. They haven’t remixed the songs or anything like that. I think they want back generations in the masters, which changes the sound a lot and you sort of hear details that you never heard before. And the levels changed like the piano isn’t that loud.. Roxette remasters are most subtly done I think. Less change… Yes, there is a difference, but it’s not that big. But it’s bad when artists remix their old records or improve them or update them. Don’t change them. They should be as they always were. No new Beatles remastering for me.

All these stuff they put on records for copy protection, that’s bullshit of course, you can’t do that to people. And it’s the same when you buy stuff on the internet. Before you could have a file only on a couple of computers and so on. I mean, come on – you buy it and it’s yours. Like they do with movies – all the region stuff is idiotic, that’s bad and that’s how they are ruining their own life, because people download it illegally then. I think it’s just off the track. There must be a connection between the people who get it and the people who made it, who should get something for it. That’s the only important thing. And downloading is fine, when it’s not 90%. But Spotify is sort of difficult, too. It’s a great great concept and so much fun, but you get something played 4 million times and then you get 1000 Euro for it. I mean, no one can survive. And about the whole downloading discussion. You mentioned people first download and then buy when they like it, that’s true, but the people who suffer the most aren’t the big ones. That people always say: “Oh, we steal from Madonna, who cares , Michael Jackson, Roxette, they have so much money”. But smaller artists just disappear. They earned just enough to be able to make a new record and now they don’t anymore. So you get no new music. That’s really sad. It’s more about the small ones for me.

Christoffer Lundquist

The first session in Aerosol Grey Machine Studios was for one week in March. The producer Christoffer Lundquist had to go on a tour with Per Gessle, so we waited 6 months and I returned to his legendary studio on a warm summer day - August 25th. In July - Jana & Tony recorded a video for Sometimes Truth Needs a Lie, in a deserted mental hospital in Sundvall. The place was very creepy...but it was perfect for the video. you can watch it here:

During the summer I had a few concerts in Stockholm and one in the Faroe Islands as well as being opening-act for some big outdoor concerts in Stockholm, Gränna, Borås, Liseberg - Göteborg , for Sanna Nilssen, Shirly Clamp, Sonja Aldén and Charlotte Perrelli. In August before returning to the studio. I went on an Inter-rail trip together with three friends of mine, down through France, Germany, Schweitz and Italy. I had to keep my voice fit beacuse I was going to the studio directly after the trip. My friend Jonas Molinder and I played on the streets in pretty much every town we visited...we met so many wonderful people out there. When we played in Venice a french beat boxer came to join us, and he was fantastic...everybody gathered around us and we went on for a great while... The pleasure in seeing people stop just to listen felt amazing, 'cause they don't know who you are, they don't even care - they just listen to what they hear and stop if they really like it....no pressure - just some honest music-lovers ;)

Brandur Enni