I lived in a circus wagon in the countryside 5 kilometers from Germany, I biked through the wind and rain in Amsterdam and printed my thesis without my name on it, I rented a car and drove west listening to Whitest Boy Alive, I drove the same car east with Lykke Li in the cd player, and I held flowers in a graduation ceremony and had cool white wine and met someone who knew my name from seeing my picture on facebook, and I biked through rain again, and walked in the wind and picked someone up at a train-station and left someone at a train-station and I listen to Stars - Your-Ex Lover Is Dead while biking. I ate Turkish food so late that almost everyone else had left. There was no time and all of the time at the same time. Now its Sunday and yeah, it is Sunday and today there will be less movement.
Peter Bjorn And John are in Amsterdam. Playing for a now sold out Melkweg. The Airportline serves up some pre-drinks and cow petting before the gig in his luxurious apartment. Some music will be played and some drinks will be drunk. Or we will be drunk and the drinks empty. Here are some songs that will be combined with this occasion:
Phoenix - 1901 Peter Bjorn And John - Nothing To Worry About, Lay It Down, Teen Love, Objects Of My Affection, Young Folks, Amsterdam, The Chills Sebastien Telliér - Kilometer Yeasayer - Tightrope Jenny Wilson - Clattering Hoves Lykke Li - Complain Department Lil Wayne - Let The Beat Build
No, you can not suggest music I should play. Basta. That's Italian. And it does not mean pasta.
Maybe you thought that Peter Bjorn And John were a one hit whistling wonder. Well, I forgive you for thinking so, but you were always wrong. The Swedish three pieced orchestra is getting ready to hit back after their monumental album Writers Block, and they're doing it sounding like Lykke Li's Breaking It Up (Bjorn produced her debut album Youth Novels, so you should not be that surprised) mashed up with Teddybears Stockholm. The two first tastes from their forthcoming album shows that they've clearly lost their mind, in the same good way as M.I.A.s clothing always did. The videos for Nothing To Worry About (above, containing Japanese Rockabilly gangsters in black doing choreographed dancing) and Lay It Down (containing ironic dancing with face masks in basement party) shows that the band still have a killer sense for what is contemporary (funny videos on youtube) and still know how to put together a pop song, with Nothing To Worry About being especially impressive with it's big beat and fuck you attitude, not so common in Sweden (excluding big mouthed The Hives).
On the 26th of March they grace Amsterdam and Melkweg with a visit, I've got tickets, you should come too. Last time I saw them here, fall of 2006 in Paradiso's small hall the base player seemed stoned and talked about Skellefteå AIK, a Swedish hockey team, in Swedish.
Later in the week I will write about Brussels and yell at corporate leaders and their lack of communication understanding. It will be great.
So I’m going to Rotterdam, where the boats are bigger and the houses taller than in old school Amsterdam. Some people don’t like it, others do. I’m going for tennis, for Rafael Nadal against Dimtrov and for the French basketball player look alike Tsonga against Tursunov. The ABN AMRO tennis tournament is going on this week and since my flatmate is something of a tennis freak (even though I beat him in a nerve wrecking tennis match on the hard asphalt courts of Westerpark this fall) we decided to go. So we are getting on a train to head south, where the concrete has more rust, and where the tennis balls fly a little faster. A Thursday adventure into the ATP tour in tennis, I’ll bring my camera to take some poorly focused pictures of balls flying around, and other tennis related activities, come back tomorrow and you’ll see the results. If your not going to a tennis tournament, I suggest you go here and download the Friendly Fires remix of the Lykke Li song I'm Goon I'm Gone. It's pretty amazing.
