FOLLOW me on my popular Twitter feed. Just click this photo! @hbbtruth - David - Common sense on #Politics #PublicPolicy #Sports #PopCulture in USA, Great Britain, Sweden and France, via my life in #Texas #Memphis #Miami #IU #Chicago #DC #FL 🛫🌍📺📽️🏈. Photo is of Elvis and Joan Blackman in 'Blue Hawaii'
Beautiful Stockholm at night, looking west towards Gamla Stan
Author of new book in Stieg Larsson "Millennium"/"Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" series, David Lagercrantz, talks to Radio Sweden in his first-ever English-language interview this week. Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist will return, along with new characters for the worldwide crime fiction sensation set in Sweden
My last blog post on this subject of so much interest around the world was exactly a year ago, December 20, 2012, titled, Today, Stockholm is T minus 21 days -and yes I'm counting!; Some Swedish homework of mine to make my trip go well includes reviewing grammar and re-watching the original films in Swedish based on Stieg Larsson's Millennium crime fiction trilogy, starring Noomi Rapace & Michael Nyqvist http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/today-stockholm-is-t-minus-21-days-and.html
I thought I'd have plenty of time to take the Milennium tour when I was in Stockholm in mid-January, but I didn't. :(
CBS News YouTube Chanel video: CBS News Sunday Morning correspondent Erin Moriarty travels to Stockholm, Sweden to discover the story and the truth behind the success of the late Swedish author Stieg Larsson, whose Millennium crime fiction trilogy has swept the world of book publishing: Stieg Larsson: Behind "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" Uploaded October 10, 2010. http://youtu.be/X-WJ6BlLw2s I thought I'd have plenty of time to take this tour when I was in Stockholm in January, but I didn't. :(
You can be quite sure that the Miami Herald's online presence and effort won't be one-tenth of this if the Miami Heat win the NBA title in two weeks.
More pithy observations later today on last night's impressive 5-1 win over Switzerland for the World Championship from Globen Arena in Stockholm, the perfect ending, which I listened to via Sveriges Radio. *Sunday's Switzerland-Sweden hockey match for the IIHF/World Championship will be televised tonight -Monday- in the U.S. on NBC Sports Network, DirecTV Channel 220 at 10:30 p.m.
Cecilia Nilsson YouTube Channel video: 50 seconds of Cecilia Nilsson singing her first single, "In My Room." Uploaded May 10, 2013. http://youtu.be/0SjBQnl1FNU Written by Cecilia Nilsson & Andreas Mattsson Sunday brought some very positive and interesting news from Sweden concerning a Friend of the Blog, Andreas Jismark, So good, in fact, that he also shared the news via his Twitter feed, shown below.
The good news concerns a very talented young female singer from Gävle who's part of his talented music stable, and whose first single will officially be released on Wednesday.
To prime the public interest in her, Andreas has teased us, Sweden and the larger world with a clip featuring some of the first single. Not too much, lest we get a sugar rush or brain freeze, but just enough to give us a taste and keep us interested in seeing how the story ends on onsdag, Wednesday. Mañana! Andreas wrote...
This bit of news follows closely on the heels of the blog post that Andreas had written back on April 29th titled, quite cleverly, Goodbye, See See, Hello Cecilia Nilsson, which detailed some of the very hard work over the past two years that she's put in to make this moment possible. http://andreasjismark.se/goodbye-see-see-hello-cecilia-nilsson/ Last Fall, some months before I traveled to Stockholm in January and met with Andreas and another great music talent whom he manages, the amazing Anni Bernhard, i.e Full of Keys, whom you'll be hearing more about in the coming days here at the blog, I'd watched this video of Cecilia quitea number of times, since by now you all know how much I love context. I was looking for clues and hints of things to come. As it happens, the video is in Swedish, but I still think you'll enjoy it as she speaks about herself and her music interests and desire to write songs that are honest and that will connect with people. It was recorded mostly at her home in Gävle, a very middle-class Swedish city in the best possible sense of the word, and one that I've written about a few times here in the past, which has not always had the easiest go of things. Just like growing-up or living in Baltimore or Pittsburgh or Indianapolis makes you a little more in-touch with the rest of the country than would be true in Santa Monica or Bethesda or Brookline, her town is a much-more accurate barometer of daily life in Sweden than many of the sweet upscale neighborhoods in Stockholm that I spent a lot of time in back in January. Places where money and some degree of influence often helps keep some social problems at bay a little bit longer than it does in Gävle, where you take life as it is. To me, at least, that means that any songs Cecilia writes and sings will be much more in-tune with the average listener's personal experiences than if she'd been born or raised in Södermalm, and had parents who pushed her around in one of those amazing $800-plus German prams they sell atNordiska Kompaniet, which I spent some time eye-balling on my last day in Stockholm. That came after I'd spent time walking at night from my hotel, The Omena in Norrmalm, down to the Royal Palace and then headed back to the hotel via the Kungsträdgården ice skating rink one last time and then the central downtown business district. NK has an entire area of the store on the 4th Floor not just dedicated to upscale Kids, but to what seemed to be designer baby strollers, complete with a video showing German soccer Moms putting them thru their paces in Frankfurt.
(And do the well-educated Moms ever love to show those prams and their babies off at their nearby coffee shops! Or even the "Social Media" McDonalds I was at. That is a whole 'nother blog post entirely -upscale Swedish soccer Moms! They were everywhere! Not that I was complaining. )
And, now that it occurs to me, this film was recorded back when Cecilia's hair was much-longer than it currently is, which I know causes her some small distress, something I know about and recognize from having grown-up with two attractive younger sisters with beautiful long hair.
Andreas Jismark YouTube Channel video: See See (Presentation). Uploaded September 5, 2012. http://youtu.be/0syxcoAblN8
Some of Cecilia's hard work and preparation came just a few weeks ago when she spent some time over in Gotland, where Andreas lives, where she rehearsed and even performed at Hammersmith Odeon Visby, which you'll recall is also where Anni/Full of Keys performed, as I mentioned here on the blog at the time.
There was a nice article on Cecilia that appeared in one of the local Gotland papers at the time of her trip and it includes a nice photo of her and the band rehearsing, including Andreas on guitar, which Cecilia also plays. Stjärnskott i Visby i helgen (Shooting stars in Visby this weekend) http://www.helagotland.se/nyheter/artikel.aspx?articleid=8210085 One of the quotes I love is where Andreas, a music veteran in all sorts of important ways -as a performer, teacher, promoter, producer and manager- says the following:
– Jag har aldrig stött på en elev som ens är 30-40 procent så bra som Cissi, säger han.
Miriam, from Göthenberg, had a gig on Friday in Tranås at Babar, as did another young singing dynamo from Gävle I've been keeping close tabs on by the name of See See -a.k.a. Cissi Nilsson- pictured below, whom I'll be writing about in more detail soon.So much sheer musical talent in Sweden, it's hard to believe sometimes!
Andreas was actually able to record one of the songs Cecilia performed in Tranås at Babar before Miriam came onstage to perform later, and it's a tune some of you might recognize:
Andreas Jismark YouTube Channel video: Cecilia Nilsson "Never Let You Go" -LIVE at Babar in Tranås, Sweden. April 5, 2013. Uploaded April 6, 2013. http://youtu.be/xVmsUZCpJqI
Here's a nice newspaper article on Cecilia that ran on Friday in her local newspaper, Arbetarbladet, which has done quite a number of stories on her over the past few years as she's sung and performed at many events all over the area, and developed quite a great reputation with a killer voice: Hur känns det att släppa en singel? (How do you feel about your first single coming out?) http://arbetarbladet.se/noje/musik/1.5861796-hur-kanns-det-att-slappa-en-singel- Friday, Fredag, Friday, Fredag... For those of you reading this in Sweden -or elsewhere, but who want to check her out via the Internet- Cecilia will be performing two songs LIVE on Sveriges Radio, specifically, Radio P4 Gavleborg, on Friday at 15:30 Swedish Time, which is 9:30 a.m. Eastern U.S./Canada.
But if you miss her, you WILL be able to listen to Cecilia here on the blog at some point soon, because one of the very best things about Sveriges Radio is that they make almost everything they air available online, and best of all, with embeddable code for blogs and websites.
(You longtime readers of the blog will recall that I've posted lots of SR audio material here in the past for Timoteij, Full of Keys, First Aid Kit and other singing artists, as well as various pieces they've done on Melodisfestivalen.) So, even if you miss her, I'll have her right here where you can take a listen just as soon as it's humanly possible, more than likely, this weekend.
Wednesday morning update:
Cecilia Nilsson - In My Room (Complete Song)
Cecilia Nilsson YouTube Channel: Cecilia Nilsson -In My Room. This is Cecilia's debut single. Uploaded May 13, 2013. http://youtu.be/r3MUHpMTAao
Cissi's new single is available on both iTunes and Spotify.
To me, the very troubling American foreign policy story unfolding in Moscow, described so well and with so much nuance by John O'Sullivan in a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed and Kathy Lally's article in Thursday's Washington Post, is also one of the most confounding of the year. Confounding because it manages to connect what I believe is a very misguided change in U.S. public policy and the perplexed public perceptions of millions of average Russians, who can't understand why we as a nation are seemingly helping Vladmir Putin, the architect of the frightening nightmare of a reality show they wake up to everyday under his misguided leadership. Under Putin's manic and oversize ego, every week seems to bring fresh news and all-too obvious evidence of his callously using the instrument of the Russian government as a giant club to vent and exercise his personal pique -and reveal his loss of bearings. SeeSpotlight on Russia blog by Vladimir Kara-Murza Standing Up to Russia's 'Herod's Law'
troubling developments is in large part shaped by my own past experience.
Unlike 99% of you who are reading this blog post now, I used to listen to (and depend upon) my high-quality Radio Shack shortwave radio for many HOURS a day.
I listened everyday to foreign news services, as well as the Voice of America and some of its foreign services, when I was in college at IU in those precious pre-Internet days of the early 1980's, and then later when I lived in Evanston and Wilmette, just a few blocks from the shores of Lake Michigan.
Radio Tirana, Sveriges Radio Int'l., Swiss Radio International, Radio Deutsche-Welle, BBC World Service, Radio Moscow, Radio Canada, Radio Nederland...
I knew those broadcaster's musical intros as well as I knew the names of the people who lived on my dorm floor or on my apt. floor.
Actually, usually better...
humanracer28 YouTube Channel video: Sveriges Radio/Radio Sweden jingle and ident. Uploaded March 18, 2010. http://youtu.be/_QhzQYKFOlU
While I've been following it in bits and pieces over the past few months, mostly on blogs and in The Post, for reasons known only to themselves, most other Mainstream Media outlets have consciously chosen to ignore this story, like it's the spoiled mayonnaise left out on the picnic table at the huge Fourth of July get-together that the last person using it forgot to put back in the cooler when they were finished with it.
But they could find space for the Justin Bieber kidnapping & castration case that never happened. LA Times - Justin Bieber murder plot: Tie, pruning shears, unrequited feelings
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/gossip/la-et-mg-just-bieber-murder-castration-plot-20121213,0,6636059.story It goes without saying that this story has been completely ignored by the South Florida press, even though once upon a time, it would have been on the front page of what used to be the Miami Herald's halfway decent Sunday Op-Ed section in the 1970's and ''80's, but which as I have described here in some detail in many posts is now a four-page running joke.
And no, not just because they NEVER EVER include something compelling about some aspect of Broward County public policy in it, even though it's roughly 40% of this ADI.
The things is, as bad as the decisions and the policies described below have been, and they have been both counter-intuitive and terrible, it actually only seems to get worse and worse by the week from the point-of-view of responsible Americans who want to see the U.S. continue to shine a beam of relative honesty about the news into Russia -and falling-thru-the-cracks Belarus and Ukraine.
It highlights the dangerous minefields that can emerge when public policy intersects both the news media and pop culture and the people making the decision forget what is most important -the customer, not managements and the consultant's tastes.
But then there always someone in radio who wants to reinvent the "Morning Zoo," isn't there?
The Washington Post
Radio Liberty loses its license in Moscow, and Russians raise voices in dismay
By Kathy Lally
Published: January 3, 2012
MOSCOW — American-financed Radio Liberty, which penetrated the Iron Curtain with news of the outside world during the Cold War, has been trying to join today’s information revolution — and the static crackling around its efforts has been loud enough to reach Washington.
The radio station, funded by Congress but independent of it, has embraced a digital future, dismissing 37 journalists as it downsized just before it lost its only local broadcasting license here in November, when a 2011 law preventing foreign ownership came into effect.
The mass firing of Radio Liberty journalists prompted a protest by human-rights activists in Moscow.
By JOHN O'SULLIVAN
December 30, 2012, 7:43 p.m. ET
A few years ago Peter Pomeranzev, an Anglo-Russian journalist, found himself in a Moscow taxi where the radio was playing Radio Liberty, the U.S.-financed station that transmits uncensored broadcasts in Russian. As a boy Mr. Pomeranzev had been taken to hear his father, a Russian poet in London, deliver regular broadcasts to a closed Soviet Union. But that was another era. Why, in 2009, would a Moscow taxi driver listen to Radio Liberty?
C83S87 video: Coldplay LIVE in Stockholm - Intro. Back to the Future, Mylo Xyloto, Hurts Like Heaven, Xylobands [HD] Concert held on and video uploaded on August 30, 2012. http://youtu.be/fAP_wRo27Ao
Last week's Coldplay serendipity with YouTube videos, Sveriges Radio and Coldplay's LIVE concert at Stockholm Stadium just hours before
I was sort of restless last Friday night because I'd been busy all day and spent more time outside than usual most of the day, hot and humid as usual, so when I woke-up early Saturday morning, I couldn't fall back asleep right away. I was literally too tired to fall asleep, and all that earlier Hazelnut coffee at Panera Bread around dinner time didn't help.
I flipped the TV on but seeing nothing interesting on TV that either amused or informed me, and not really wanting to watch ESPN's Sports Center for a third time and know how they'd describe the various highlights before they even said it, I turned the TV back off and walked over to my computer and let my fingers and keyboard do the walking.
In no time at all I was on YouTube looking at what was waiting for me in my inbox, then I minimized that screen for a second and went six hours in the future and began listening to "Godmorgon Stockholm" with Peder Gustafsson on Sveriges Radio,SR. Then I minimized that window, turned up the volume and maximized the YouTube window again to look at what I'd been sent from all parts of the world. What are the odds that within one minute, I'd hear Coldplay's "Clocks" played on SR about 1:13 a.m. here in Miami -7:13 a.m. in Stockholm- just moments after seeing some really great videos of yet another one of their amazing concerts that'd taken place just hours before at the old Olympic Stadium, i.e. Stockholm Stadion, in the Östermalm area ofStockholm? Astronomic! Even more so when you know that I'm not a big Coldplay fan, per se, which is to say that I'm never really EVER thinking of them -that's what makes it super-serendipitous. Among the videos I saw then were these videos at the top and below, all shot so well at the concert by C83S87 athttp://www.youtube.com/user/C83S87/feedand Marcelinho88 athttp://www.youtube.com/user/Marcelinho88/feed Go to their respective YouTube Channels to see more of the concert than what I've posted here!
Here is Sveriges Radio's P3 LIVE coverage of the Coldplay concert and the audio quality is fabulous!
C83S87 video: Coldplay LIVE 2012 in Stockholm - Viva La Vida/Charlie Brown/Paradise [HD]. Uploaded August 30, 2012 http://youtu.be/mj5sg9kUdy0
Marcelinho88 video: Coldplay's Chris Martin taping their segment for the "Stand Up To Cancer" TV program in the U.S. that aired nationally Friday night, performing Paradise LIVE in Stockholm. Uploaded August 30 2012 http://youtu.be/5Sf7KrUAxF4
First Aid Kit's Klara and Johanna Söderberg went to the Stockholm studios of P1 atSveriges Radio on Sunday afternoon and over 90 minutes, discussed many things, including their experiences in the U.S., having recorded their newest album, The Lion's Roar, in Omaha and toured extensively to rapturous crowds. They also play D.J. and feature some of the songs they've been influenced by and which they like. The audiotape of them near the beginning as very young kids is quite amusing! Related information and their music play list at
Because it's in Swedish, you might not understand everything you hear, but trust me, the music speaks for itself. Back on June 22nd the sisters met BBC Radio 6'sLauren Laverne and did a LIVE session and it became a must-listen, with sweet harmonies soon flowing, including Blue and Emmylou. Last week Johanna and Klara were in Paris and were recorded singing The Lion's Roar while walking around before performing later that night at The Olympia.
My first blog post about the ridiculously-talented Söderberg sisters and their amazing sound was right before Thanksgiving, in a November 19, 2011 post titled, What's that beautiful sound coming from the woods? Sweet harmony! First Aid Kit - "The Lion's Roar"; Wow!
Make sure you watch this on a full screen for maximum effect.
En somrig hit? (A summer hit?)
Yes!
It will probably come as no surprise to those among you reading this blog who have an interest in this subject that I've been reading and hearing a lot about the new Timoteij single being released for awhile now.
But the first time I actually heard "Het" for myself -sans video and the rap opening that both jolts you and catches your attention- came last weekend, a few days after it was featured on May 12th P4 homepage for Sveriges Radio'sDaniel Kjellander and Jenny Lindeborg, who host a four-hour morning show.
Obviously, I don't listen to SR all the time, probably more like a couple of times a month out of curiosity, and the truth here is that I simply got a tip from someone I trust and followed it up -and took a listen myself. You may well remember that I previously mentioned here that I'd been having some computer problems and all last week, esp. with my speakers?
In any case, it's just as well that I didn't post about that SR link, because I didn't have access last weekend to thistres charmantvideo and THAT's what really makes this particular song POP and sets it apart!
And didn't Johanna (Pettersson) tell us only on Wednesday, on their blog, how truly sick -"cruel"- it would be when we all saw it for ourselves?
Yes, she did, saying "Den är grym! Såå bra! Hurra!?"
First off, there's a whole lot more going-on in this sweet and catchy -and ingenious- video than seems readily apparent at first viewing -a whole lot more, which is why you have to watch it a number of times on full screen to catch some of the clever touches.
To me at least, parts of both the song and the video have an almost Nashville-centered feel to it, like certain very popular female Country Western acts you and I can both think of.
Giving a video a real sense of place and reality is very, very smart, actually.
I dare you not to be hooked by the second time you play it, and actually know what to expect with the whole switch in tone at the beginning from the typical rap 'intro' and the appearance of the long white stretch limousine
and paparazzi at the ready, to the looks of, first, dismay
"That's NOT schlager, that's hip-hop!"
and then quickly, delight on the faces of the little girls and boys wearing those popular pink and blue Timoteijskull caps when the band cruise in,
"Here they come!"
emerging from their sweet cherry red Skoda -embossed with their name in script on the hood and a silhouette of them on the sides.
(Johanna didn't have her license yet when they got the sponsorship deal.)
And in case you were wondering, yes, those pink and blue Timoteij-embossed skull caps ARE ridiculously popular, as even a cursory look at many of the photos or video of their touring the past year has made abundantly clear, where you see them everywhere, and NOT just on kids.
I almost bought one of them last year for my youngest niece, aged ten, up in Maryland, and while not naming names, I have some friends in Sweden who bought a lot of them for stocking stuffers and such, even giving some blue ones to their more hard-edged heavy metal male friends and work colleagues as a joke. (But they had to wear them out in public, of course.)
The slower, quieter part of the song that kicks in at 2:30 or so, starting with a shot of Elina (Thorsell), is a great change of pace and really brings the attention back to the quartet's sweet harmonies that these four do so consistently, seemingly, effortlessly.
Here's a video they recorded of their behind-the-scenes preparation for the "Het" music video, and yes, that is Taylor Swift playing in the background; they love Taylor Swift!
This is the quartet's first video on their "official" YouTube Channel. More on that in a minute.
Speaking of summer, or as one person I know who has spent many, many winters in Sweden puts it, the first time you have seven days in a row when it's NOT freezing, here's a short vid from Expressen TVlast August, showing how willing the girls are to indulge the media to get some attention for their self-evident talent -singing while swimming in a pool.
One of the other things I've sort of been waiting to mention here on the blog for a bit, thinking the new single was the time to mention it, was that there is -FINALLY- an official YouTube Channel for Timoteij, even though their fans have been pretty good the past year at uploading videos they shoot of them on tour around the country or even their TV appearances -perNyhetsmorgon, Lotta på Liseberg, Sommarkrysset and Allsång på Skansen.
As it turns out, your faithful blogger and friend Dave was their second subscriber.
For what it's worth, I have actually mentioned to them via an email that I thought that their very amusing videos on their official -not fake- Facebookpage, located at
http://www.facebook.com/timoteij.officialwere full of personality and often hysterical, especially the ones where they were traveling and Elina was acting as cinematographer from the back seat -82 videos as of a few days ago athttp://www.facebook.com/video/?id=286938310265&s=0- and really needed to be shared with more people via an official YouTube Channel they controlled.
Whether or not they will start putting those sort of funny videos up at this new channel, I can't say for sure, but this first one is certainly a good sign and when I hear something, I will share the news with you here.
