The Airportline: Observations

A few months ago I was encouraged to answer various questions concerning the 30 most listened to artists on my last.fm profile. During a feverish June evening I wrote more or less thoughtful answers to these questions which I amid to publish on Facebook at some point. That point never came, since I never do what I intend on doing. So, now I will make a new plan (which I most likely will fail to adhere to as well) and publish some of these short texts on airportline instead. With videos. Here is the fourth post in this new series.

What is your favorite song by 15 (The Whitest Boy Alive)?
Don't Give Up, just because I love it when Erlend Öye sings 'give me a reason to stay constantly ignored' over those careful drums and sparse guitar strokes. It's the most heartbreaking thing I’ve heard since finding out that Burger King does not exist in Brussels. You'll know what I mean when you listen to it. I listen more often to Golden Cage though, because its funkier. But Don't Give Up is pure beauty. Some Germans and a Norwegian. Who knew that kind of combination would lead to this kind of music?!

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.

One of the musical heroes in my world comes from Norway and has curly red hair. He made his name with another, less curly and red haired Norwegian, as the duo Kings Of Convenience in 2001. Erlend Öye now resides in Berlin, where he sometimes plays hipster funk with some Germans under the name The Whitest Boy Alive. They are amazing. But, it will always be for Kings Of Convenience that he will get his acclaim, and rightly so. After two amazing albums of hazy summery, Simon and Garfunkel sounding dreamy singer/songwriter pop the two Norwegians are lining up another album in October. One of the songs from that is called Mrs Cold, and it sounds just like you want it to sound. Like a summer setting on a warm evening the duo tip toe with their guitars over sand castles, lovers kissing and a few careful string swing by as well. Fantastic.

I made a list. A few weeks ago maybe. Inspired by a Stockholm list in Dagens Nyheter. I made an Amsterdam remix. Why? I do not remember at this point. But, it would be a shame to leave it collecting dust on my laptop. So, with confusion and some black coffee I present,

The Amsterdam List

Favorite drink and in what Amsterdam bar? Zatte at Brouwrij et IJ
Best microwave food: oat meal porridge
Best staadsdel in Amsterdam: Jordaan
Like to go for a coffee at: Latei, Crea (see picture), Cafe Stevens, Westerpark
Best lunch place: Crea's home made soup with bread
Best coffee: Coffee Company
Best concert hall: Paradiso
Best bar: Nieuwe Anita (fresh fruit overdrive)
Here I take my parents to dinner: Last time Bazar, but that was too loud.
Latest Amsterdam find: East of Oosterpark around Dappermarkt
Last seen exhibit: Richard Avedon at FOAM (pretty damn good photography!) and The World Press Photo Exhibit.
A good go away present: Home made mix-cd made with love and care.
Favorite luxury article: My Dolce & Gabbana perfume my sister gave me for Christmas
Reading right now: Sensemaking in Organizations, two week old New Yorker Magazine, I Trygghetsnarkomanernas land, The Prague Revue issue 8.
Most like to read: Bodil Malmstens blog, International Herald Tribune, Dagens Nyheter at OBA, The Economist, Miranda July.
Favorite color: red
Favorite brand: Woody Allen
Favorite shoes: My sailor shoes I bought from a fat lady in the Austrian Alps. Comfort, style and ocean reference combined.
Spend on clothes monthly: 20 Euros
Fashion role model: Every Oxford professor that wears tweed.
Exercise: Floorball, jogging, biking, yoga
The most expensive thing I bought: My education.
Favorite product in the pharmacy: nose spray for colds / nose spray for allergies
Best drunk food: Whopper Meal at Burger King / Southwest Smothered Burrito at The Taco Shop
Listens to: Better, more educated, interesting, new, glamorous, existential music than you do.
Best pre-party music: Depends on the people, but lately souly hip hop and rap.
Latest songs I hummed: El Perro Del Mar – You Gotta Give To Get
Latest bought album: Whitest Boy Alive - Rules
Most likely to dance to: funk, electro pop, hip hop, swing, jazz, balkan
Latest impulse buy: airline ticket to Copenhagen
Latest great deal: airline ticket to Copenhagen
Latest second hand buy: two shirts for 16 Euro's in some boutique in Berlin.
Practical thing: water boiler in combination with coffee filter, bike, Internet.
Fashion I never want to see again: Stockholm filled with black trench coats.
Supports: Chelsea, love, Whitest Boy Alive t-shirts, Yellow Bird Project, intimacy (not the Bloc Party album though, that really sucks), views, concerts, biking, newspapers and probably a bunch of other things which I do not have the energy to list here.

El Perro Del Mar's I Gotta Get Smart (which you can download here) from her brand new mini album Love Is Not Pop is flowing between my ears with its summery feeling. Tonight my sister arrives in the city which is experiencing its warmest April in 107 years if you do not count 2007 (when I also lived here). All according to my weather maverick of a room mate. And I've gotten my new Whitest Boy Alive t-shirt and my thesis is slowly moving along. Words are being put down, interviews are being scheduled, headlines are being formed, its slow, but moving. And right now El Perro Del Mar sings go on go on go over guitars that sounds like a colorful drink on the beach. Maybe its the dream of summer that caused this strong statement of eskapism from Göteborg natives Sara Assbring (El Perro Del Mar) and Rasmus Hägg (The producer, from Studio) and outside my window the sun it painting the leaves with bright colors, and we are here, in between the weather and life, in between winter and summer, in the middle. I gotta get stronger, she sings as the song reaches its end, but maybe this is the time to accept who we are.

the whitest boy alive 1517 street concert ic berlin


The hours of life keeps walking by, framed by sunshine, here in Amsterdam. And I've written emails to people which I depend on for my degree, and I biked through the city with my bike that is now equipped with a 'I love my bike' bell. I never ring it. Instead I let the sun move the people on the sidewalks, I don't want to destroy their leisurely pleasure. I'll let them dream on, for a little longer, soon another Amsterdammer will inevitably use their own shiny bell and crack the world of sunshine and carelessness that consume them. And I looked for a belt at H&M but I couldn't find one, so I went out, in the sun, with the Whitest Boy Alive album and it's funky components. I made my way home, with the wind drawing it's fingers through my hair, to my bed, to my computer. The sun is still up. The Whitest Boy Alive are still playing, like in this video from Berlin