Reason to love Sweden #83

During Melodifestivalen, at all Statoil petrol stations, drivers can fill their tank with soemthing called a schlager mix...

Each petrol pump will be equiped with a magic button called the schlagerbutton. Press the button, and the sounds of schlager can be enjoyed while refilling.

How amazing. Get me a car and a Sveriges road map, and I'm there. No pyrotechnics allowed, mind.

Deutsch schlager

Today, I made a gift CD of German pop and schlager. What a gift! Here's are two songs - from the very same year.

Joy Flemming gives it some welly at Eurovision 1975. I'm in awe of the dress, her punching the air, the soaring chorus, and the wonderfully rousing brassy sound. It's brilliant. Also loving the composer doing a leap between verses, and Joy's cheeky line of English at the end of the song.

And German favourite Marianne Rosenberg in another fabulous frock sings the gay disco classic Er gehört zu mir, trying out to represent Germany in Eurovision - but Frau Fleming beat her to it!

Tokyo musicians, Swedish pastoral, Romanian river

This week, I saw three exhibitions:

• Marco Bohr's photographs of Tokyo riverside musicians at Mummery & Schnell
• Sigrid Holmwood's paintings of Swedish peasant life at Annely Juda
• Serban Savu's paintings of contemporary Romanian life at FA Projects

Marco Bohr's photographs of Tokyo show musicians on the banks of the Tamagawa river. The open spaces are the opposite of the modern, neon image of Tokyo. With usual Japanese respect, the musicians practise their music on the river banks, rather than disturb their neighbours who are so close due to Tokyo's density.


Sigrid Holwood's paintings shine with colour: neon yellows, fluorescent oranges and greens. The colour seems at odds with the subject: Swedish rural landscapes and scenes of peasant life. The paintings are alluring - my favourites were the landscapes. I saw them glowing with atmosphere. The colours express the joys of being in the landscape.

The paintings of humans, however, play with reality - many of them were painted in folk museums, so their inauthentic colours match the inauthentic nature of the scenes.

Most of Serban Savu's work saddened me: painted from a distance, and with dull, oppressive colours. They show people on the banks of a river in Romania. The painting above seems to sum this up: the scene looks very jolly, a family or group enjoying a day by the river, a holiday. But the colours have no fun. Perhaps this is to suggest that social life in Romania oppresse, but I found this to be sombre, sad, depressing.

Maps with borders, by Katharina and Jaan

My project to collect a map of every European country drawn by a citizen of that country is ongoing.

I recently asked Katharina from Denmark & Jann from Estonia to draw their countries.

Both their efforts are interesting, as they differ from what comes before.

Whereas other maps have shown just the country in question, Katharina and Jann's place their countries in context. Thus, Katharina's map shows Germany and Jann's shows Finland, Latvia, Lithuania.

All countries are placed in their bordered contexts, but Jann & Katharina's inclusion of these highlights how those before them had not done this.

Japan,

I asked Tomohiro to draw Japan. He had recently moved from Japan to rural Ireland, and had previously lived in California.

Japan, in his map, is smaller than I expected it to be.

Geometrique France, by Hervé

Hervé has drawn France for me. Hervé has mapped France a l'Hexagone.

Stuff I liked yesterday

• The line Respectfully, I say to thee I'm aware that you're cheating / But no one makes me feel like you do from Ms Diana Ross' Upside Down
  
  
• Any DJ that sees fit to play Kylie's Your Disco Needs You
  
  
• The inimitable campy queeniness of someone who is cabin crew
  
  
• The weird and wonderful experience of meeting a fox on a drunken ramble home, especially if the street is empty and it's only you and the fox.

Discoveries #3

• The phrase creakingly posh.



• The Wet Look Jersey Maxi Dress by Kate Moss for Topshop. I can't wait to see it on the drunken streets of London. It would be amazing to strut in.
  
  
• I've been reminded of the immense gloriousness of Sia's Breath Me.



• Eurovision 2008 has a stage, with a great big phallic pole up the centre, and tentacles.




• Eurovision 2008 has a logo. It is intriguing. I'm quite excited to speculate what the purple shape is - a plum? a pepper? a wind-based clay instrument? Your suggestions please!

Discoveries #2

• The Norwegian church in London hold a traditional Norwegian Constitution Day Parade in London every year.
  


• Camden Arts Centre's new website is ever so nice.
  
  
• Finland and Estonia's national anthems share the same melody, but different words.
  
  
• Port Cities documents the seaward life of the UK's cities. London's Chinatown was once in Limehouse.
  


• Bhutan's stamps are amazing - 3D, metal, colour, bonkers. Great!

Web 2.0 x 5,000

Web 2.0: it's the buzz word on every net-person's lips. This video is a whirling, trip-like flick through the logos of 5,000 Web 2.0 sites, applications, or companies. Bonkers. It's baffling to think that there are 5,000 out there, and probably many more on the way.

Roads & Rodez

This news story caught my eye last week. Three Norwegian tourists ended up in the small French city of Rodez, having bought a flight which they thought was for Rhodes in Greece.

Sadly the trio (Bente, Marit and Knut - 3 ace Norwegian names) did not stay in Rodez. I would have thought it would be something of an adventure, a journey into the unknown as it were.

Journeying and wandering for their own sake are fun (Norwegians take note!). I love wandering city streets with no particular aim in mind, taking photographs and soaking it all up. The two images here come from two such wanderings: a wander from Broadgate to Bank and a wander along East London's Christian Street.

Sounds Sveriges

I went to see Swedish rock-poppers The Sounds play Hoxton Bar & Grill on Tuesday night.

They came on stage about 40 minutes late. When popstars are late on stage, I naturally assume they're preening their hair. So when Maja came on stage with a right dodgy mop, I wasn't overly impressed.

Maja is fierce, and I don't mean in an fabulous way. Woman is scary. She marched across the stage, ducking and diving, spitting and snarling. Her voice is more shouty and harsh than floaty and high. She's a woman among men, but has definitely a touch of the masculine.

Still, she was wearing a nice headband. And has amazing legs.

Crucial fashion error: double denim. Maja teamed a light blue denim jacket with dark charcoal denim high-waisted buttoned-up hot pants. Double denim is never a good look. The whole effect, avec headband, was very 80s European rock.

As it happens, this image works for the band, whose songs are best when they're Europe-style anthems. Living in America, Painted by Numbers, Ego and Hurt You were sing-a-long, arms-in-the-air highlights.

Check: The Sounds site // The Sounds myspace

Discoveries

I'm in a blogging quandary. Part of me wants to just stop. A bigger part of me wants to go on, boldly going forth and exclaiming, "ace!" I'm not sure what a blog is for any more, as everyone blogs now, in one way or another, thanks to Facebook.

Acediscovery will change - it was always to be somewhere I'd write about things I've found that I think are cool. This became hijacked with Eurovision and pop music, and that's great... I just miss the other stuff, that's all. (Thanks, Robyn.)

So.

These two articles about Ireland are very interesting.

• Irish lap up cappuccino culture and put tea up the spout

Tea drinking in Ireland is on the decline. Buzzing Ireland now drinks coffee, coffee to stay awake, coffee to keep up, coffee to drink on the go. All this coffee being sold is instant coffee.

• For whom the bell tolls . . . line goes dead for phone boxes

Ireland's main telephone provider are removing over 20% of their phone boxes, because of under use. Mobile phones, Blackberries, PDAs have taken over. Ireland's commuter culture has no time to stop at a phone box, it just calls from the mobile, on the go.

Swedish pop @ G-A-Y

I went to G-A-Y on Saturday night to see BWO, Alcazar and Army of Lovers.

• Army of Lovers were just plain bizarre. Alexander Bard had a black blow up (female) sex doll with him.
• Alcazar were with new girl Lina, and all synchronised head turns and pointing.
• No handclaps! No strutting!
• Tess was dressed for wind machine success with a big flowy number.
• The wind machine was set to Carola strength for Tess, but a mere Sonja Alden trickle for Lina. Maybe there's a wind machine pecking order?
• Andreas was sharp with his shaved head and tight, tight trousers. He knew his market.
• They were all coy about Alcazar reforming, meaning 'no'.
• BWO were good too. Martin took his shirt off.
• They performed Temple of Love to a hugely bemused audience who had no idea of its Melodifestivalen brilliance.

Girls Aloud! Sexy! Yes Yes Yes!

The new Girls Aloud single: Sexy! No No No.

OMFG.

Amazing.

It makes me want to be a teenager again.

• It's all swooshy, drivey, whirly and amazing.
  
• It starts all Cheryl-in-vocoder, and reminds me of Eiffel65. This is no bad thing.
• Then it thumps in, and there's a 'dialogue' between Cheryl and 'the girls' about whether she did this, that or the other to some bloke she' met.
• Her replies are: No no no, No no no, No no no, Hell no, No No No, No no no, No no, no, Hell YEAH.
• Then there's more No No No bits and a verse.
• Nadine sings "d...d...dirty mind" recalling Grafitti My Soul.
• I'm sure some Popjustice types will decry some of the girls' absence, but Nicola can be clearly heard grunting "Uh Uh Uh" at one point.
• Then there are Woo Woo bits.
• It's all about singing in duplicate and triplicate. Amazing.
• It's very Sex and the City gone hyperdance whacked up and crazy. Girls Aloud - the logical mid-00s UK successors to Carrie Bradshaw et al?

Hurrah for Girls Aloud. They bring sunshine into even the wettest of summer days.

Here it is, via youtube and some random dance video:

Don't Rain on My Parade

London Pride was something of a washout. It was wet. Still, at least the float blaring out "It's Raining Men!" made sense.

I didn't even get a shot of a buff man bouncing around wearing a mankini. Forshame.

It turned out that there was a Eurovision connection.

Amnesty International used the idea of Eurovision voting to highlight the poor experiences of gays in Eastern Europe where a lot of Pride marches are banned. Thus, nul points for Moldova, Poland, Russia, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia and others.

Read all about it here.

And to make it even better, the Amnesty float was blasting out I Love You, Mi Vida. Oh, if only buff Ony (Antonio to his mum) from D'Nash had turned up with his lovely arms and chest...

Lots of great photographs of the day here.

Eurovision Gay Pride Disco!

This weekend's London Pride will be all kinds of fun. Sadly, unlike Norway, Sweden or Finland, London's Pride doesn't involve any Eurovision shenanigans. Seriously, you'd think Brotherhood of Man would need the gig. And Katrina (sans the Waves) could surely be coaxed onto the Woman's Stage to Shine Her Light.

Not to mention Gina G. There'd be a stampede.

Even if there was something EuroVissi, what would we dance to? Good winners as Lordi and Marija were, they hardly set the dancefloors alight.

There's not been a chance to shake our disco tits since Elena Paparizou.

Never fear! Here are remixes of Hard Rock Hallelujah and Molitva, gay disco-ed up, just perfect for homo-hands in the air, arms-a-waving and plenty of shimmy.

Download Frodo United - Hard Rock Hallelujah mp3

Download Marija Serivofic - Molitva dance remix mp3

Raymond och Maria

I went to see wistful Swedish poppets Raymond & Maria last night. They're playing a whistlestop tour of gigs in London and Glasgow this week, and I highly recommend.

Reasons why Raymond & Maria are great:

• There are 5 people in Raymond & Maria, only one of whom is called Maria. Raymond & Maria was the name of a notorious swinging club in Stockholm in the '60s. Amazing.
• Raymond & Maria play floaty, wistful pop music that sounds very happy and jaunty but in fact is rather depressing.
• Many of their songs have hand-claps and 'la la la' bits. One song in particular was hand-claps-a-go-go.
• Tambourines!
• Raymond & Maria are very polite and unassuming. They said 'please' and 'thank you' and 'takk!' a lot.
• One song includes the line 'Will someone tell me why the boring ones are loudest in the bar?'
• One song abbreviates 'television' to 'televish'.
• Raymond & Maria have been Number 1 in Sweden with Ingen vill veta var du köpt din tröja. The English version of this is called No One Notices Your Brand New T-shirt, but in Swedish it means "No one wants to know where you bought your sweater".

The English version can be heard on Raymond och Maria's myspace, and download the Swedish version here:

Download Raymond och Maria: Ingen vill veta var du köpt din tröja mp3

GipsyCZ

This man is Gipsy.CZ.

He took part in the Czech Republic's Eurovision pre-selection this year, and came second. He also played a gig in London yesterday as part of the Central & Eastern Europe Pulse music festival. I went to see him. He was very good.

• He plays a racuous mixture of gypsy folk music and hip-hop. It mixes accordions, fiddles, cellos and phat vocals.
  
• Despite having a powerful, masculine rap voice, Mr GipsyCZ has a sweet, cute speaking voice. He said, "hell-low, I am from Prack".
  
• His best song is Romano Hip Hop. Listen to a little bit of it here.
  
• He bounces around stage a lot, striking poses. Why did the Czech Republic not send him to Eurovision?!
  
• His little white shirt was nicely fitted, not like these ill-fitting American rap t-shirts.
  
• If you're going to Glastonbury, go see Mr Gipsy.CZ. He'll be there too. More info: on Gipsy.Cz's website and Myspace.
  
• The gig had fantastic energy and the crowd were loving it, dancing and 'hands-in-the-air'-ing.
  
• Interesting geography fact! The gig really showed the demographics of recent migration from Eastern Europe: lots of funky cool young people. Also: lots of really beautifully cheekboned buff handsome men. Hurrah for them.

Lost, in London

I'm not sure what to write now. With no eurovision to distract me, I'm practically lost.

My new job is keeping me very busy, so I don't find the time to keep up with the cool pop blogs and haven't listened to new music in yonks (suggestions on a blog comment, please!).

What I have been doing is wandering around strange parts of London taking photos. London: The Way We See It is a cool site that picks a London street at random each week and the masses go out to photograph it in their own unique style. Below is Change Alley, in the City.

I thought Change Alley would be one of London's delightful hidden alleys. Instead it's a dumping ground.Following an odd cross-shaped path, it wasn't particularly winding, medieval or mysterious. It turned out to be where restaurants kept their wheelie bins, where the rubbish was and where the pipes where hidden. Running between two 'main' streets and arteries, it was where the stuff that couldn't be out front was deposited. This photograph is the stuff deposited between two surfaces.

Fun, no? More photos like that either in my FlickR or on London: The Way We See It.