The Sweet Serenades

When it rains, it pours. At least that’s what it says on the side of the salt shaker, and lately I’ve found it to be pretty true. I won’t bore you with the details of my personal life, but I will say that in a matter of months I have gone from having not much to do to being busier a pimp on payday. Between freelance work, label work, and trying to rebuild my house, I figure I’ve been averaging about four hours of sleep a night. I haven’t seen my friends in months, much less gone out to do anything fun. And my inbox. Jesus Effin Christ. My inbox is like a rouge wave threatening to pull me into the deep.

Sadly, that’s what happens when you run a music site that is basically a labor of love. When people offer you money to do other things - or when a lot of people offer you a little money to do a lot of other things all at the same time - your priorities shift. This blog lies neglected while I get sent out to write stories about lesbian sex wrestling and how neck size affects sleep quality (I’ll tell you about it later). And meanwhile the records just keep coming.

I try to be systematic about it, but when I have 279 unopened music submissions from the last month alone, I basically just have to start from the edges and work my way in. Sometimes I’ll go to the end of the queue and sometimes I’ll start from the beginning. It’s rare that I will say this, but in this case it’s a good thing that so much of what I get is crap. It allows me to separate the wheat from the chaff that much more quickly.

Anyway, there is finally a light at the end of the tunnel as things start to wind down toward the end of the year. I’m still crazy busy, but at least I’ve had a moment to catch my breath, get a flu shot and dig through my email. I was picking through the pile yesterday, and I came upon yet another gem of a Swedish rock band.

Seriously Sweden, WTF? Are you guys trying to steal Brooklyn’s mojo or something? It seems like every rock band, singer or DJ you send our way is fucking golden. It’s making me rethink everything I ever thought about your country - which, to be honest, wasn’t much. But now I’m thinking about getting on an airplane and checking you out. We all know you’ve got hot girls and good vodka, and now it appears that you are a musical force to be reckoned with as well. All you have to do is wait for this global warming thing to pan out and you, Sweden, might beat out Brazil for the top spot on my vacation list.

Assuming I make it over there, the first band I’m going to check out is The Sweet Serenades. This band does indie pop rock as well as, if not better than anybody from Willaimsburg or Silver Lake. Phoenix would be a pretty accurate comparison, but The Sweet Serenades are a little more gritty and lo-fi in a way that makes them more likeable. Their new album Balcony Cigarettes is full of jangling guitars, crisp 1970s drum lines and a panoply of hand claps, keyboard riffs, and Cheap Trick-esque vocal melodies.

Again, I don’t know what life is like in Sweden these days, but judging from the music they’re putting out, Swedish youth are just now living through the coolest part of 1979. I think it’s safe to say that Brooklyn better watch its back. Same goes for Portland, LA, Austin and Seattle. Stockholm is coming up fast behind you. Their bands are as good as yours and their beards are just as scraggly. If I didn’t know better I would say they are just one pair of skinny jeans away from usurping your indie rock throne.

In fact, I’m so far behind, this might have happened already. If that’s the case, would somebody please let me know? Send me an email - I’ll get to it in a couple of months.

MP3: ‘On My Way’


Sweden, indie rock, pop | 5.10.2009 12:27 | No Comments

Ram Di Dam

There is no doubt that we live in a global society. A lot of people think that recent technology has bridged the international divide, but really we were mixing cultures long before the internet and cable television. Thanks to a long history of immigration, political strife, and spice merchants gone astray, the human population has been shifting around the globe for hundreds of years. Inevitably this lead to the vibrant cross-pollination of cultures that now manifests itself in the form of Weng Weng, the pint-sized Filipino special agent or Speak, the Hungarian rapper with a heart of gold and a tenuous understanding of the English language.

Just like Speak and Weng Weng, the result of this cultural exchange is often a strange and distorted amalgamation of the original source material. Take, for example, St. Patrick’s Day. Ostensibly this holiday exists as a way to celebrate the culture and heritage of this country’s Irish immigrants. However, St. Patty’s was long ago appropriated by liquor companies and enthusiastic members of the collegiate fraternity system. What started as a day of soda bread and Irish proverbs is now known around the country as the day to get hammered drunk on whiskey and pinch anybody who’s not wearing green clothing. Try explaining this phenomenon to a real live Irish person. They’ll look at you like you just pissed in their Guinness.

This is why translating novels or poetry or even film dialogue is such an art. You can’t just exchange the nouns and verbs for their foreign counterparts; you have to make sure that you get the complete meaning and cultural nuance of the idea behind the words. Oddly enough, one of the people who seems to understand this is the guy who first imported Swedish Fish to the US. We know the candy as a sickly sweet confection that’s a dark rouge color and tastes like a combination of cherries and red Gator-Aid. In Sweden however, the Swedish Fish (btw, over there they just call them “fish”) are black and come in “salted herring” flavor. As a genuine red-blooded, apple pie loving American, let me be the first to say, “Ewww, gross!” Please keep the salty fish flavor as far away from my candy as possible.

I’m not trying to diss Swedish culture. I’m just saying that the Swedes seem to be pretty smart about what they keep to themselves and what they decide to send our way. At the moment, my favorite Swedish export is pop rock band Ram Di Dam - although I can’t say for sure which way the current flows on this one. Either these guys took American rock acts like the Strokes and Interpol and cleaned them up with a little Swedish pop magic, or they are part of the new tradition of Scandinavian rock bands that have mastered the art and style of the American pop song.

In either case, the result of this particular cultural melting pot is delish. The guitars jangle, the drums strut, and somehow the singer ends up sounding like he spent the last 10 years of his life smoking cigarettes on the Lower East Side. Moreover, they’re better than green beer and way less strange than watching the inmates of a foreign prison perform Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” on YouTube.

MP3: ‘Flashbacks’


Sweden, indie rock, pop | 19.12.2008 15:48 | No Comments