Jens Lekman is the most fucking Swedish thing I've ever seen (and I mean that in a good way)

Wow. It would be hard for me to imagine a Jens Lekman show that was more Jens Lekman than the one at The Paradise last night. The Swedish crooner arrived on stage wearing jeans and a crisp white cotton shirt with red appliquéd flower, flanked by a nearly all-girl 7 piece band whose average age appeared to be 16. Most of his bandmates sported tea length white cotton smock dresses, white stockings, and white flats, except the drummer who added to her attire bloomers and a cotton cap and the sole gent (DJ Viktor Sjöberg) who opted out for trousers. Together the octet proceeded to cruise through a remarkably lush hour plus set loaded with violins, trumpets, tape samples, and pithy, pithy romance.

Many songs, like the impossibly twee "The Opposite of Hallelujah" and ABBA-ish disco of "Sipping On the Sweet Water" came from Lekman's newest album "Night Falls Over Kortedala", the title of which is taken from Lekman's apartment, the 'Kortedala Beauty Center' (named after his former hairdresser's place), but it was older favorites like "Maple Leaves", "You Are The Light (see video clip above)" and "Black Cab" that brought squeals of delight from the rapt crowd. Throughout the set Lekman paused to tell humorous stories (including the genesis of "A Postcard to Nina" - about a lesbian friend who told Lekman on the way to visit her parents "Oh, by the way, I told them we're engaged") while the band engaged in goofy choreography, and at one point collectively put down their instruments to invade center stage and twirl in circles with their arms outstretched. Your average night of pop? Oh, I think not.

Encores included new single "Friday Night At The Drive-In Bingo", "A Sweet Summer's Night on Hammer Hill" - where the violin players danced at the side stage pounding their chests while chanting the "bompabumpabompabumpabompabumpabomp" refrain, and weirdly, an acoustic cover of Paul Simon's "You Can Call Me Al" with the choruses omitted. Eventually Lekman's silvered tones gave out, and his mic got unplugged, leaving him to thank the audience in his loudest voice possible while offering regrets he couldn't go on.

Fans left to the sound of Sjöberg closing out the night with a delightful set of overlooked pop nuggets like "It Never Rains in Southern California", as if those Swedes would know...

Thanks Pantera!

Went to see The Comedians of Comedy tour last night, an evening out which was so funny, halfway through I found myself praying it would end so I could breathe again.

Picked up this bit of info courtesy of Patton Oswalt's set. Apparently, if you are a guy out with other male friends at a metal show, and if by the end of the night you have not picked up any women, it does not mean you are gay if later you give one of them a blow job so long as you yell "Pantera!" during the act (which Oswalt calls a "Bro-job"). Well, you heard it here first.

Sasha Frere-Jones: Play That Funky Music White Boy

Excellent bit in the Weekly Dig this week about tiresomely verbose New Yorker music critic Sasha Frere-Jones, and a recent article in which he makes half-baked intellectual arguments about "How indie rock lost its soul", while admitting he was in a white funk band as a youth. Oh help me sweet baby Jesus.

The Hives - TD Banknorth Garden or my dream date with Howlin' Pelle Almqvist

So there I am in the gift shop of Boston's Museum of Fine Arts with my Mother. She's browsing postcards, I'm looking for a book on Gilbert and George when over the top of the bookshelf I spy strangely familiar looking noggin. Don't I know that guy? But how? Hey, is that Howlin' Pelle Almqvist, lead singer of fabulous Swedish garage rockers The Hives?

I stalk the gent around the bookshop for about 5 minutes wondering if I am mistaken, before seeing the clue that shows me I'm not - he's wearing white shoes. OK, it must be him. When approaching celebrities, it's always difficult to know exactly what to say. For instance, my friend Brad told me about how he once saw Robert Plant looking for a toothbrush in a duty free shop in Heathrow Airport. There was that moment of panic that precedes seeing someone whose music has changed your life, then the idea you have to go up to them and say something. But what? "I like the Oral B myself" - ? In the end he elected to say something to the effect of "Thank you for making music that changed my young life", a comment which Plant seemed very happy with, before buying some floss and departing. In this case though, I have something to say to Almqvist - so I approach.

ME: "Excuse me, aren't you in The Hives?"
PELLE: "Yes, I am"
ME: "Hi, I'm Erin, I'm a fan"
PELLE: (shakes my hand) "Nice to meet you"
ME: "I wanted to see your show while you were here. I tried to get tickets but they were sold out. You were here last night, right?"
PELLE: "Last night and tonight, but tonight it's just a half hour, we're opening for Maroon 5"
ME: "Oh right. So when are you going to be back here next?"
PELLE: "In February I think. You know, if you want, I can put you on the list tonight, just write down your name for me and I'll put you on."

Yes, you read that right.

A bit more talk about how great their new website looks (because it does) and when is set time and I'm left to return to my Mother and use a lot of hand signals to try and explain who that tall guy I was talking to was.

________________

4 Hours later, I'm surprised to find myself sitting in a free seat provided by Mr. Almvquist, surrounded by hoardes of plumpish blonde 15-20 year old girls (because that is the description of 80% of Maroon 5 fans). The price was right, but after being so up close and personal, the 800 feet or so I am from the stage harshes my enjoyment of the show. The sound is terrible, echoey and hollow but to be fair in their matching black outfits with white trim even from this distance the band look great. They lead with a song I can't identify - is it new? - with second being "A Little More for Little You" not exactly the strongest selections to lead a show that's only a half hour long. Still, each of these guys is such a consummate performer it's hard to deny the enormous effort they put into selling their set. Drumsticks are hurled upwards and are caught in time for the next downbeat, guitarist Nicholaus Arson perches on a monitor and salutes the crowd, but Almqvist is ever the star, prancing the stage like Mick Jagger, doing kick-splits in midair, waving the audience to applaud at the end of every number, and rattling off a wide array of comically egomaniacal comments as if we are his date for the evening, purring into the mic "Let us now love one another" before kicking into "Walk Idiot Walk." As a frontman, he's without parallel and the Maroon 5 girls eat up his arrogant Swedish charms. So by the time he hops down from the stage during new song "Try It Again" to wander through the audience (no mean feat in a giant venue like this) they grasp at his hands and touch his hair like they paid their $45 to see Hives and only Hives. The set ends with the best song of the night, a grinding little number which is the forthcoming single from the "Black and White Album" (out in November in the USA) "Tick Tick Boom". Download it here.

The red neon Hives logo floats above Almqvist's head one last time as the band say their goodbyes, "It's been a pleasure for the Hives to play for you tonight Boston, and I know it's a pleasure for you" he says. "Was it good for you?" is not in this guy's vocabulary, but not one person in this venue cares.

A day later I get a phone call from my Mother, "Listen to this!" she says before holding out the phone to her workdesk CD player. It's The Hives. "One of my coworkers brought these records in for me to hear", she says before getting down to her review. "The songs are awfully angry, not really my thing, but that boy you saw in the store, he's much more handsome in person than in this picture on the cover of Tyrannosaurus Hives..."

OK Mom, I'll let him know.

_________

Epilogue: As I leave I note the merch Maroon 5 are selling. Besides the usual T-shirts there are glowsticks that say Maroon 5 on them, shot glasses reading Maroon 5 and teddy bears wearing T-shirts which proclaim "I love Maroon 5". Teddy bears and shot glasses, well put that in your pipe and smoke it Mr. Freud.

Acrassicauda - Iraqi Iraquers Iraq Out.

Doing a bit of housecleaning I came across my notes on a film I meant to write about here previously “Heavy Metal in Baghdad”. I caught it last month at the Toronto International Film Festival and the film basically follows around Iraq’s only heavy metal band, Acrassicauda (means “The Black Scorpion”) as they do all the things your average Iraqi heavy metal band do.

Namely:
· Work very hard to hold a rock show in a sad looking community center where about 25 men (no ladies, please) come to bang their heads (by the way headbanging is not allowed in Iraq because the head bobbing gesture is considered “too much like Jews praying” ??);

· Have their practice space blown up by a scud missile;
and eventually...

· Flee to Syria before the government cracks down on their Metallica-loving ways.

If anything, this portrait of a band with a dream in the middle of a country with so little hope reminds westerners like myself how easy it is to take for granted the liberties we have. While today I lament tickets for the Van Halen reunion tour are sold out, Acrassicauda wonders if they will be put in jail for rocking out, and collectively dream of a day when they can grow their hair long (prohibited by Iraqi law) and love metal openly rather than behind closed doors.

When I saw the film, the filmmakers were there along with Acrassicauda’s former lead singer who was applauded by filmgoers seemingly to his own shame. The filmmakers made impassioned pleas to the audience to donate money to help the band get out of the middle east, explaining how the band have had to sell their instruments to continue living in Damascus where they were seeking asylum. The band would have come to the world premiere of their film, but Canada would not approve their visas. Additionally the filmmakers want to get Acrassicauda on Ozzfest. Never did heavy metal appear a floatation device so desperately grasped by four young men. For those about to rock, I salute you.

The Apple

Last night was the first time I became aware of the existence of "The Apple" a Rocky Horror-esque movie musical from 1980.

The premise is hard to articulate because the film itself is so poorly written. Lets just say that in the amazing future world of 1994 - a world where everyone wears reflective gold, silver, and holographic clothing and where nearly everybody is a gay stereotype - a drab boy-girl folk singing duo in appear at the Worldvision Song Festival and sing a song that despite being entirely unmemorable attracts the attention of the biggest music mogul in the world (Vladek Sheybal - "From Russia With Love"/"Red Dawn") who decides he must make the female half of the duet as his newest star (Catherine Mary Stewart just previous to appearing in "Night of The Comet"). To secure her he (naturally) tempts her with a giant drugged apple, an enormous dance sequence and a barely clad Jean Michel Jarre-type fellow (Alan Love, previous to being in the far superior "Gregory's Girl"), all of which results in her signing his nefarious recording contract. From there on in, it's the tired story of nearly all rock musicals with a lead female: the girl sells out (Breaking Glass) to become a big star (Ladies and Gentlemen The Fabulous Stains), but oh the sweet sweet life she leaves behind (Beyond the Valley of the Dolls) with a devoted yet flaccid and tiresome boyfriend (an incredibly tight-panted George Gilmour) that she decides she must recapture and run from celebrity. But HOW?

This movie is badly written, poorly acted, terribly directed, and appears to be mostly shot in an abandoned airport in West Germany (supposedly the offices of a record company, not fooling us) but weirdly, despite it's obtrusive dancing scenes, terrible songs and hokey costumes the film is so entirely absorbing I JUST COULDN'T STOP WATCHING. Although this film may be a failure in nearly every realm, there is something about it which is strangely hypnotic; like a bad Chinese meal that leaves you full, a bit nauseous and mysteriously still hungry. With that in mind, I while can't recommend really going out of your way to see The Apple, if it should be made available to you, say late at night, after an excessive night of mind-altering drinks, drugs, or rock should you say no? Oh definitely not.

For more girly rock movie reviews, visit my dear amiga Kellygirl here.