Geeeeeetars!!

Was in Göteborg at the annual FUZZ Guitar Show last weekend. Nice! Should've brought a big bag of money! As I'm endoresed by ESP and Hughes & Kettner I checked out their booth and found a new series of cheapy guitars. Vintage was the brand, most parts were Wilkinson and the single coil on their Strat sounded great! The guitar felt really solid, easy played and great! Need one of those I guess. Also checked out Mattias Ia Eklundh at his seminar and he was just as crazy as usual. He's the kinda guy that, when he spots you, he makes sure everyone knows you're there. This time is was me, Anders Johansson and Jonas Hellborg that became his target. He's hilarious, though, and such an amazing guitar player! Also ran into Christian Alsing who gave me his CD "The Last Robot" - a great piece of music indeed, released in 2005 already. Met a lot of nice people and saw a lot of nice guitars!

New recommendable pieces of music:
Ben Granfelt Band - The Sum Of Memories
Caroline's Spine - Captured
Opeth - Watershed

This weekend...

We had an Overdrive band pow wow. We signed a load of CDs, decided on a set list for some shows this summer and we had a photo session with photographer Thomas Tjäder. Think we got some good shots there! Also kicked off the work on a new Overdrive website, which is loooong overdue (maybe we should change the name to that...).
Also received a new review from Stormbringer who gave "Let the metal do the talking" 4/5. Thaaank you!
Have a whole pile of stuff to review (Paul Gilbert, Whitesnake, King's X, Aggressive Chill, Disturbed, George Bellas, Tri State Corner, Alberto Rigoni, Marco Sfogli, Eric Gales) and some features to write (Michael Schenker, Robin Trower...). So much to do, so little time! Still... it's fun! The sun is finally here, meaning the garden got its fair share of attention this weekend. Planning on getting a lot of strawberries this summer :-)

I'm amazed!

In 1984 we released the last official studio album with OVERDRIVE. We reunited in 2003, and have just released the first new album in... let's see... 24 years!! Releasing a new album after so many years is not easy. You have to satisfy the old fans and not stray away from the original sound too much, and at the same time the album has to sound fresh and not dated. I admit, at first I did not want to do this. They however tricked me, with the cunningness of a woman (straight blokes as they are), they lured me into writing and recording a new album. I shall howeber admit that the writing part was hower not the problem I anticipated. Half the material was songs we'd written, but never released, back in the 80s. We just went from these, and lo and behold, it worked! However the media can be cruel, so their verdict was still to be seen...

Here it is... and I'm really humbly amazed of the great response!! Just some grades we've received from various magazines and webzines:
Brave Words - 8/10
Bright Eyes - 13/13
Burrn! - 83/100
Sweden Rock Magazine - 8/10
Peacedogman - 4/5
Zware Metalen - 78/100
FFM Rock - 5/5
Neckbreaker - 9/10
Danger Dog - 4,5/5
Metal Observer - 8/10
Metal Temple - 4/5
Metal Glory - 8/10
Heavy Metal Resource - 7,5/10
Rock United - 8/10
IMHOTEP - 5/6
Disintegration - 7/10
Classic Rock Newswire - 4/5
Rockreport - 4,5/6
Streets Webzine - 7/10
Lords Of Metal - 85/100

THANK YOU for taking time to really listen to our album, and to grasp our philosophy behind it. Thanks for not letting the cheesy title (a pun on Joe Perry's solo album "Let The Music Do The Talking", from a song we wrote back in 1982) become an obstacle in your listening. Thanks for giving us a chance to proove ourselves once again... after 24 years!

New Locomotive Breath song

Tonight it's mixing time! Through an initiative from Johannes Lindström at Sweden Rock, we decided to record a new song for a compilation that will be available only to those who buy 3-days tickets for Sweden Rock Festival. All the songs actually have the same title: "Fill Your Head With Rock". This is a pure metal anthem stomper. The line-up (which, as you might have noticed always changes) on this one is: Mattias Osbäck: vocals, myself: guitar/bass and TumPeter Svensson: drums. We're also reinforced by the Double Trouble choire boys Mikael Loorentz and Håkan Windahl. Other bands/artists that will appear on the compilation are: Kim Mitchell, Sabaton, Axewitch, Ken Hensley etc.

Back from New York!

So, back in Sweden after two eventful weeks in the big apple! The home trip was quite eventful, too, I should add...

Shooooopping!
With the current state of the US currency, we did a lot of great shopping. Manage to do some great deals at Manny's where I bought a Keehley Compressor, a Boss Octaver and a Edirol US25 interface, plus lots od strings! Also found some great CDs and vinyls at Bleecker Street Records. I can also recommend B&H Electronics where we got some cameras, iPods and a good deal on a Shure SM57. Needless to say we also found a great pile of nice clothes!

Friends
Besides meeting up and jamming with John Garner and also bass player Rick Mullen, which was great, we also spent some time with our friends Dino Dave and Amy, plus met up with Dinosuar Guitar mate Jeb. Also a great dude! We jammed and recorded some stuff that will probably end up on YouTube - "I Am The Killjoy" - a classic to be :-)

The journey home
The flight home was supposed to leave at 6.15 PM, but was delayed until 7.30...
and we boarded at 8... but didn't get clearance to take off until 9.45 because of technical matters! Fortunately we had a 5,5 hour wait in Brussels, which was now only 1,5 hours. This flight was also delayed 20 min for technical reasons... We finally arrived in Copenhagen and just made it on the train home! (I should mention that we had to buy two suitcases and one bag extra for all the stuff we bought!) We were 5 people with two suitcases and one hand luggage EACH!
When we arrived in Malmö, they told us we had to switch train because of...
tadaaa... technical problems! So, this time without any carriage, we had to run back and forth with all our luggage and switch trains!
We finally arrived home yesterday evening 5.30 PM, with our entire luggage intact!

Take heed New York, we will definitely be back!

Second week in New York

So, this is how fast a week goes in New York. Man... So, what have we done? Well, I've rehearsed with John Garner for the upcoming Sir Lord Baltimore shows. Tomorrow we'll rehearse with a bass player, Rick Mullen, which will be great.
With the current dollar rate shopping is great! Bought a nice Keehler Compressor, a Edirol UA25 sound interface, tried the awesome Orange Tiny Terror amp which totally blew me away!! I want I want I want!!! Met up with our friends Amy and Dino Dave for some serious... eating (great Indian restaurant yesterday), plus I've found a shitload of good CDs on Bleecker Street. The weather has been really good (although it's raining today). Will go see and interview Robin Trower this evening, which will be great.
What more to say but... New York rulez!!!

Soloing

First of all, last week we decided to change our name. There was a Swedish pop band in the 80s called Salt. They have now decided to re-unite, so to avoid confusion we have now changed our name to BALLS. It's actually the initials of the members' surnames - Björk - Andersson - Lodin - Lundkvist - Stark.
I started working on the solos for the Balls-album this weekend. Have to finish it all before we go to New York in two weeks. Shouldn't be any problem.
Tomorrow I'll be on Swedish televison as a representative for Sweden Rock and hard rockers in general. The show is recorded in the afternoon and broadcast 11.25 PM on TV2. I can't wear any t-shirt with a logo on!! I mean what is hard rock without a big phat band logo?! Hmm... Need a plan to sneak it in somehow ;-)