If you find me too cynical, you're not looking at your own world hard enough.
It doesn't mean I hate everything, it means I know what I like, and I like it all the more because it has earned my respect. Just because the things I don't like are what you like, doesn't make me a grumpy bastard. It just means you're not thinking well enough, and you don't consider things, generally, with measured thought.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Hard Rain, Annandale Hotel 2/1/11 cont.
P.S.
Just found out, Adam had been living in Melbourne, Australia for six months before Work was released, to explain why he likes Oz so much.
They've had some time off. A six month break to regroup, see other things, places and people. Work on a tan, work on love and life. Bebban did so in Los Angeles and Adam in Melbourne. Carl, Ted and Eric remained in Stockholm. And when they got together again they knew that this is what they do, and that this is what they will continue to do. You don't know what you've got til it's in Melbourne sort of thing…
Adam wrote many songs down there, in a tiny room, with a little synthesizer, an acoustic guitar and garageband on his laptop. He passed them on to the others who listened closely from their corners of the world, questioning and challenging him – like a good band should – until the songs that make up Work had all passed the test, made the cut and lived to tell the story...
The song Walls came first and then the rest, one by one, brick by brick if you will, whilst the Australian trams passed by outside. It's interesting though, how the last album (Our Ill Wills) was all about travel – from the song titles down to the flags that braced the cover. This one may be written in Melbourne, recorded in Seattle, and for the first time with a non-Swede in the producer seat, but this is the coming home one. The one where they decide to keep it simple, lose the percussionist. To sack the string quartet, trust the songs. Or as Adam Olenius (singer) puts it in one of those songs: "Throwing stones, they´re rolling home". It happened just like that. All pieces found their natural place.
"Victoria, knew I would end up in Victoria" - Walls
Just found out, Adam had been living in Melbourne, Australia for six months before Work was released, to explain why he likes Oz so much.
They've had some time off. A six month break to regroup, see other things, places and people. Work on a tan, work on love and life. Bebban did so in Los Angeles and Adam in Melbourne. Carl, Ted and Eric remained in Stockholm. And when they got together again they knew that this is what they do, and that this is what they will continue to do. You don't know what you've got til it's in Melbourne sort of thing…
Adam wrote many songs down there, in a tiny room, with a little synthesizer, an acoustic guitar and garageband on his laptop. He passed them on to the others who listened closely from their corners of the world, questioning and challenging him – like a good band should – until the songs that make up Work had all passed the test, made the cut and lived to tell the story...
The song Walls came first and then the rest, one by one, brick by brick if you will, whilst the Australian trams passed by outside. It's interesting though, how the last album (Our Ill Wills) was all about travel – from the song titles down to the flags that braced the cover. This one may be written in Melbourne, recorded in Seattle, and for the first time with a non-Swede in the producer seat, but this is the coming home one. The one where they decide to keep it simple, lose the percussionist. To sack the string quartet, trust the songs. Or as Adam Olenius (singer) puts it in one of those songs: "Throwing stones, they´re rolling home". It happened just like that. All pieces found their natural place.
"Victoria, knew I would end up in Victoria" - Walls
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Understanding
I wish often that there was a way to understand someone's story, to understand the essence of them and where they came from, their culture, their memories, their views.
Like a file you could just upload for each new person, and then you'd understand.
I find that frustrating, that you can never understand personally exactly what people mean, because they have a completely different life.
It's like how someone can explain something to you, but you can never know exactly what they mean until you do it yourself. But you can never completely understand what they mean. You need to live their life. I want to find the step beyond empathy!
Like a file you could just upload for each new person, and then you'd understand.
I find that frustrating, that you can never understand personally exactly what people mean, because they have a completely different life.
It's like how someone can explain something to you, but you can never know exactly what they mean until you do it yourself. But you can never completely understand what they mean. You need to live their life. I want to find the step beyond empathy!
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Shout Out Louds, Annandale 2/1/11
My photos were shit. But, Hard Rain!
I managed to snaffle two picks and gave one to Libby.
She was embarrassed to be at the front but I think she realised the benefit at the end. Adam also talked to her in a song break which I thought was nice.
The band were jovial and seemed really happy to be in Australia. I've never checked, but I'm pretty sure they have a more than amicable relationship with Australia for some reason. Adam danced down into the crowd in the "Give love, give love, give love" section of Tonight I Have To Leave It and was always smiling, perhaps at how happy we all were to be there. There's something to be said for small acts in small venues. Everybody that is there REALLY wants to be there, and they all get a chance to be so close to the act. It's like a two way thing, too, because the band see that, and it's personal.
Adam seems a much more masculine guy than I'd imagined. I mean that in that he is physically and emotionally powerful. I just thought he'd be a guy who wrote music to express the things he couldn't say out loud and was really a quiet, sensitive guy who wrote pop music (if that seems a bridge too far to extrapolate that from music, you'll have to excuse me). It doesn't seem that way in person though, he's very forceful in his emotions and was throwing stuff around. Maybe that's just the way he is when he's on stage. I don't know. Maybe it's just the fact he has a beard now.
Furthermore, there were genuine Swedes in the crowd, who yelled out things in their tongue to the band, another German guy who had only arrived in Australia that day and was jetlagged badly but had put in the effort to come see them, a guy giving Adam requests for Blue Headlights on a scrap piece of paper, and another guy during Impossible holding up a sign saying "THIS IS THE PUBLIC LIBRARY" - add this all to the really intimate Annandale and the fact their songs are so very much about relationships and youth, and time passing, I thought it was perhaps the most touching show I've been to. It'll make me smile in times to come, just like their music has done for years now. Oh, and Hard Rain is the greatest pop song of all time.
I managed to snaffle two picks and gave one to Libby.
She was embarrassed to be at the front but I think she realised the benefit at the end. Adam also talked to her in a song break which I thought was nice.
The band were jovial and seemed really happy to be in Australia. I've never checked, but I'm pretty sure they have a more than amicable relationship with Australia for some reason. Adam danced down into the crowd in the "Give love, give love, give love" section of Tonight I Have To Leave It and was always smiling, perhaps at how happy we all were to be there. There's something to be said for small acts in small venues. Everybody that is there REALLY wants to be there, and they all get a chance to be so close to the act. It's like a two way thing, too, because the band see that, and it's personal.
Adam seems a much more masculine guy than I'd imagined. I mean that in that he is physically and emotionally powerful. I just thought he'd be a guy who wrote music to express the things he couldn't say out loud and was really a quiet, sensitive guy who wrote pop music (if that seems a bridge too far to extrapolate that from music, you'll have to excuse me). It doesn't seem that way in person though, he's very forceful in his emotions and was throwing stuff around. Maybe that's just the way he is when he's on stage. I don't know. Maybe it's just the fact he has a beard now.
Furthermore, there were genuine Swedes in the crowd, who yelled out things in their tongue to the band, another German guy who had only arrived in Australia that day and was jetlagged badly but had put in the effort to come see them, a guy giving Adam requests for Blue Headlights on a scrap piece of paper, and another guy during Impossible holding up a sign saying "THIS IS THE PUBLIC LIBRARY" - add this all to the really intimate Annandale and the fact their songs are so very much about relationships and youth, and time passing, I thought it was perhaps the most touching show I've been to. It'll make me smile in times to come, just like their music has done for years now. Oh, and Hard Rain is the greatest pop song of all time.
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