When I got my press card… (yes, I am a sort of journalist, and this is a paper. A cyberpaper, though, where the english column are separated, most of what I write is in swedish under the swedish name of the scandinavian spy. Started back in 1996 and unreguar in it´s publishing. Because I am the very lazy boss of this paper.
..when I got the presscard I promised myself not to missuse it. Not only to use it to get into concerts for free and forget about the reviews.
But I have not kept my promise very well.
Until tonight, when I will do four reviews in one !
More than a kinderegg, what a treat for a reader !
All this has to do with England, of course. Missing my english friends and the new friend I got, who I like very much, only by some letters till now. But I am good at reading between lines, so I am exited about it.
But not all England. Well, almost, as I saw Lucinda Williams, the american artist in Manchester in the cityhall. She came to my ears and mind in the same place as another one I will review, Richard Thompson.
From the same source. Which brings us to a english person who means a lot to me, David Jones, The Brewer of Jemtland Brewery, up in the wilderness of mid-Sweden. (In the picture receiving an award for his beer by the county of Jemtland, Östersund, Sweden, where he lives now, the Londoner)
Not only an exellent artist with his brewing and taste for beer, but also a finesmecker in music with a vast collection of music and a great knowledge.
He is one of the few people I have met who really enjoy music, who has this sacret space in his busy, busy life where he sits down and drink music like someone who enjoys his single malt.
And not only that, he can tell what kind of music people want to hear, and choose right music for different moods people are in. He does that for friend who is granted into his music room in his big house in the forest.
A kind of music therapeut, maybe, with a big heart and a listener.
Now I am a lousy beerdrinker and could not tell a lager from a lager if I where tortured. But from knowing this man, I can tell that he makes good beer and some of his beers I really enjoy. Otherwise I am a boring light beer drinker.
His growing collection of medals and honours for his different brews, can prove me that I am right !
You understand know that it is also suddenly become a review on beer from Jemtlands Brewery, but mostly to honour the artist behind it.
If you like beer, you must try it. The brewery site is in Swedish, I am sorry. But here is the link where you can order whereever you live. From the Swedish Wine and Liquer Monopoly. Unfortunately sold out to a french megacompany by the no good Swedish gouverment, who is selling out everything they can think of for the praises of the global marked.
That last site got an english button to press and you can get the information you want about ordering. If you by chance have a scandinavian talking friend, you can order directly from that site ! Or if you want a lot, contact the brewery directly.
Enough about beer.
We now must go to a little cabin in the forest where David Jones used to live before he got a big house and moved there with his life companion, now with a little adoring daughter about 4 years, now, I think, running around.
At a periode of some time, years ago, I went to visit him in this cabin and was given music I never had heard before. A superb stereo equipment, a beer and with a person you respect and like very much, I was of course a easy target.
Maybe for anything, but of course David had to play music that hit me right in my spot of my current mood.
In that cabin I must say I have had my some of my greatest music revelations.
Moments of truth I will call it.
Moments when music is what it should be, reaching out almost directly from the artist. Touching the very nerve of your beeing.
So music is not only music for me, it is the setting, who you hear it with and the place and the time. Some times it was impossible for me to listen to that music on my own afterwards, exept for a few exeptions.
Lucinda Willams is one, I played her a lot on my own and always enjoy her voice, her lyrics and exeptional studio musicians.
So the concert in Manchester was something no artist can live up to, of course. A fan with those settings for his first lessons is a hard customer.
And it was a tired band on the last night coming up from London. The musicans seemed a bit anxious for her and it was tame. But what did it for me, was here notestand for her lyrics and a stagemanager who came to turn the pages betweeen each song ??!! I have heard later that it is something she always do and fans all over have accepted it. But as a songwriter and artist myself, it is absoloutely nothing I want to be a witness of !
I took pictures and one of them was half decent.
If I would bother to find it, I would put it out here, but I can´t.
So that´s the review of Lucinda Williams concert in Manchester, december 2006.
The same periode of time, under my same visit to Manchester, another of my heroes from way back when I was young, also had a concert.
John Mayall was my blues hero and tought me everything I know about blues.
I went off his music eventually, like growin out of a friendship, and stopped listening to him in the eightees.
But when he know came so close I just had to go to his concert.
When I was fifteen and went to a boarding school, John Mayall had a concert in Bergen, Norway, not far away from where I went to this school. I wanted to elope to go there, but I had not enough money. In desperation I called him on his hotelroom the night of the concert and got him on the phone as well !! It was a brief, stumbling conversation I don´t remember much of.
Now I was there at his concert.
It was a long jawn for me, it was like a smooth machine, so clever and so full of rutine and him, qickmouthed and entertaining like it was a bingonight. The big, fat Texas lead guitaris was just exellent and the bassplayer as well as the drummer, but without any nerve.
To his excuse I must say that it was in a rather posh theather, with chairs and no room to move about. I hate to listen to music and not be able to move, dance or dig into it.
I felt sorry for him and for me, but then again. Who can satisfy a customer like myself, with those emotions and claims.
I was impressed by him though, because he was in the lobby afterwards, selling cd´s and because he had brought a clarinett player from his young days, to sit in with the band ! He always impressed me by his change and eye for new, talented musicans.
And now for his good memory of where it all started.
Because he is from Manchester, and everything started.
Go Manchester, I love you a lot !!
The pictures I took from that concert was nothing to have, my little portable camera was a toy and I am never gonna be a photographer.
Now to the last review of a concert with Richard Thompson:
Who`s concert I attended only for my memories from that cabin somewhere in Sweden and to honour David for giving me Richard Thompson´s music when I needed it.
But I never have played Richard Thompsons music for myself, or bought any of his records. Except for playing the track Crawl under my stone, which I played often and louds for myself many a night in a periode after a fallout with my dearest friends.
So there I was again, with an artist who had given me more comfort and memorable moments than any artist can live up to.
This time I was sceptical, I was here in Trondheim in my hometown and with my own music going not so well as Thompsons, so it was made for conflict !
And Richard, on his own with the guitar, was exellent, fantastic on the guitar, fantasic sound and just the right amount of enertaining chitchat, which I did´nt hear sitting far back, but a friend told me. “He was really nice “
And everyhing was nice and right.
Too fuckin nice and good and fantastic for me.
Too clever, if you understand what I mean. I never was much for guitarheroes as trubadeurs and I am totally fed out by most guitar solos.
The place where packed with men from thirty and up, mostly middleaged, who was there for Richard Thompsons guitarplaying.
It is something with guitars and men, arn´nt there…
So I am sorry, Richard and David, but you know you have allready given me so much of what is Richard Thompson, that I don´t need anymore who can top it.
This was my reviews and I can go on with a clear consience, and maybe I use my presscard again, knowing that I will eventually write something.
And I would rather call these ones all good reviews, a reversed praise to arists who has ment a lot to me.
And I trust them to go on meaning a lot to new and more lojal listeners out there !
What comes to David, it will be difficult for anyone that is not close to me, to meet this man and understand what I just have explained, but his beer is there for a long time and you should try it.
For my new friend in England, I look forward to taking her to the deep Swedish forest some day and in some way move her mind 
