My father releases a single

The first musical release from my family was made back in the early 80′s during the peoples marches against nuclear power. It had the name “Dueplagen – Verdens Største Hær”. And it was released by my father and his orchestra “Ram&Sjang” – a beautiful 7inch held with a blue/white stencil on it featuring the title song and a B-side devoted to my mother by the name “Fanme Nej!”

I could write pages on end about my father and his musical influences on me, my music and my life. I consider myself to be a well lucky kid to have been brought up in a home with so much love towards music and culture as such. And often with direct or indirect political agendas on top of it – such as I had with Decorate Decorate and has with 30′s.

Now my father has made a song to support Kirkeasyl. The song is called Med Angst Ombord. A CD can be bought at Kirkeasyls homepage and all profits go to their work. And if you are poor but still want to listen to the song you can do so here where you will also find 3 beautiful folk songs he wrote that me and my brothers and sisters helped him record last year. These songs were printed on a CD that you can get a hold on by contacting me.

In the near future I will devoted a long feature on my fathers musical career on this blog. It will take days and ages to make so bare with me. It will include tracks from throughout his career.

Interior decorations done

Well, 3 years of playing with Martin, Viggo, Jan, Christian, Mikkel and a bit of Mixen has now come to a definitive ending. We decided to part a bit more than a month ago and thus cancelled the few shows we had planned following Instructions. This means that we actually just managed to play to “secret” shows after releasing our first full length record on the june 1st. I find this to be a bit of a shame since I really enjoyed playing a lot of the new songs in our “new” band. I will miss screaming the hell out of Mont Martre, going quiet on Away and drag the listeners eyes down, down, down on Brothel. Never the less it is for the best and I am really happy that this chapter of my life is over.

Decorate Decorate was the foundation of my rendevouz with playing music and through the band I had loads of nice experiences; rediscovering my urge to write songs, playing Ungdomshuset before it got smashed to the ground and getting some of my words out there. It is strange to find that this platform for that kind of lyrics now is gone. Where should I write this sort of material now? Well, maybe in 2045 we will reform and make an extensive world tour making us millionaires. It is a bit unlikely but…

The making of Instructions was a hard one for everyone in the band. We continuously found ourselfs lacking the urge to discuss, write, rehears and perform. It was so sad to the the joy of making music slowly leave the band. One of the most depressing things to witness ever. And some things can’t be undone. So eventhough we agreed to give it a shot after releasing Instructions it quickly became clear to us that there was no way to regain the joy. Actually I find that our best meeting and most joyful meeting in two years was when we had made the choice and met to sort out the remains of the condemned building that we once imagined.

I think that the guys in Decorate Decorate are brilliant musicians – really really!!! I sincerely hope that Viggo, Christian and Martin will continue on either a common path of in separate. Maybe we got a new band named Separate Separate coming up. I will be sleeping outside the record shop to get hold of such a release for sure. The guys are keeping the rehearsal room and hopefully something beautiful will be made in there.

I found that after the official split up of the band I have regained every single piece of joy that I find in music. I write far more than I have done in the past 2 years and I find my material to be bettter. I am filled up with ideas that I am either writing or persuving as we speak. I look so much forward to getting The 30′s and Sowjets Im Himmel on the go - we are close as fuck! And I love writing material for the coming act plus Soviets In The Sky With Diamonds. It will be good fun.

To the blokes who liked Decorate Decorate and are sad that we are no more I say: Sorry. But never again shall the musical foundation of anything I do be built on anything but sheer joy and pleasure. And that had died in Decorate Decorate. We made songs and had concerts that I am really proud of. And we made friendships that I hope will continue now.

Thanks Martin, Viggo, Jan, Mikkel, Christian, Mixen, Thomas, Bjarke and Michael of Target, Mads and Anders of A:Larm and all other contributors. We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in hell! Take care…

Repay the favour to Pavement

Oh sweet coincidence has yet again opened my eyes to a forgotten path which I once considered taking: A few weeks ago I had my annual revival of Pavement. Dusting off my cd racks (yes I do dust off stuff every now and then though leaning more to the then part) I found what in my humble opinion is the best Pavement release ever. I have never meet anyone who share my opinion on that matter. But for me Wowee Zowee is the album of Pavement and among my Top 10 of the 1990.

Actually it is one of the first truly alternative things I heard. Back then I played 1. division and 2. division pool in Aarhus and my mentor Kim Møller was into all these strange things. Amongst other records he generously lend me Surfer Rosa by Pixies, Green Mind by Dinosaur Jr. and Wowee Zowee by Pavement.  It was not that popular amongst my friends, and me eager to fit in had a little secret place in my room where I hid my inner urge to listen to these fuckers. I still remember my cousin laughing in my face when he read the inlay of Wowee Zowee: “Dick sucking fool at pussy licking school“. How could I defend listening to this music instead of Genesis, David Bowie, Mike Oldfield and such? I didn’t defend it. I hid it. But now the box is open!

Two years ago I had the idea to make a tribute to Pavement. To repay their favour of sticking on to me eventhough it was comme il faut in my friends reign of terror. I wanted to make a re-recording of the entire Wowee Zowee album. Thus I contacted I Am Bones to hear if they’d like to partake as my backing band. I caught Clubhouse (the bass player) over the phone while they rehearsed and I clearly remember Gammelby (the singer and guitar player) shouting “Ja, da for fanden, det skal VI da!” (babelfish this if you are from outside Denmark, which you are not, which makes my choice of language for this blog quite strange, huh!). I had the idea to record the entire album and have different singers for the different tracks. And to make a single out of the song Grave Architecture. A “We Are The World” version of this song that is. Well, none of this happened. I got lazy and made some Decorate Decorate stuff instead. Which was nice aswell. But the idea still taunted me for the years to come.

And now! A week after my revival it was out that Pavement were to reform for a few live shows in New York. And the day after they told that they would make a festival tour of Europe too. My heart exploded! And the idea came back. Thus in coalition with the wonderful Johannes Gammelby I will record a version of Grave Architecture plus a video. We are doing it “We Are The World”-style. And it is bound to change the music scene as we know it.

I am still to invite singers to this thing but I have heard around and made a list and everyone I asked is up for it. It will be splendid. And I have an idea of who will release it but it is still a secret. It will be a new and utterly amazing label.

So grab ya old Pavement records, get a steady groove on and wait a few months for the release of the first danish tribute single to Pavement. It will blow ya mind and fondle your soul.