Flight of the Conchords at Circus, Stockholm, 24th May 2010

June 5th 2010

Photo by Jesper Frisk grabbed off Rockfoto.nu

The first time I heard Flight of the Conchords was a few years back while driving up to Newcastle. It was a recoding of their BBC radio series. As I remember it, it was about the band trying to make it in London.

Since then they have moved on quite a bit. Regarding success. TV series, world tours and feature in movies. The concept of the show, humour, characters and topics have remained rather similar.

I went with Henrik Engdahl. We probably had the best seats at the venue. Row 7 in the middle. Unfortunately we had a girl sitting right behind us who obviously had a big crush on the guys on stage, and was constantly trying to catch their attention by laughing hysterically even when they weren’t making jokes. Rather annoying. But what can one do? You can’t ask someone to laugh less on a comedy show… not matter how warranted it is.

The warm-up act was Arj Barker and he went down well. He’s coming back to Stockholm later this year to do a performance at Söder Teatern. If I’m in town, I’m going.

The Flight of the Conchords were good. At times they leave you wondering how much of the performance is a routine and how much of it is just them sitting on stage improvising. Are they a band with funny talk between songs or are they a comedy act doing songs? Don’t think there is (or need of) an answer to that, but it makes you wonder.

Over the course of the evening they have a few less funny passages of rambling, but, whenever they had a low, they picked it up and made the low a thing of the past.

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Hello Sweden

September 27th 2008

Willow (girlfriend), Imola (cat), Bibi (Fiat 500) and I left London for Stockholm on the 4th of August and it isn’t until today, the 25th 27th, that I find time energy and the will to write anything.

In short, this is what has gone down.

The Drive

BiBi at Fredrickshavn Ferry Port

The drive over from London to Stockholm went very well. Bibi and Imola were superstars on the road. What I would change, if i’m driving BiBi (or any other Fiat 500) for a longer stint (which I think is very likely) is;

  1. not to drive more than 500km per day
  2. have less stuff in the car
  3. do what ever it takes to stay off horrible motorways

We did stay off the motorway as much as possible, but our schedule didn’t allow us to experiment to the extent I would have wanted.

Me and BiBi having a break next to the lake Vättern, Sweden.

My favorite part of the drive was probably everything after Bremen, Belgium, to Fredrikshavn, Denmark.

But generally, driving Bibi is so extremely fun. It totally puts the joy of driving in another dimension.

The House

For the first three weeks in Sweden, Willow and I stayed at my very good friend, Vinh Kha’s, flat (who’s currently in New York). In the beginning of September, we moved into a lovely little house in Saltsjö-Boo, Nacka.

It’s a huge contrast from our flat in London. Maybe not the space that much (they are both very nice), but the surroundings and the peacefulness. Time rolls slower in Saltsjö-Boo compared to Hackney.

Imola is absolutely loving it. She’s outside most of the time and brings in all sorts of things from the surroundings. Twice (so far) i’ve needed to save small animals from Imola’s playful paws.

The Job

It’s way to early to tell how well I will adapt to the working life in Sweden. I’m still crossing hurdles as I go and ironing out and accepting the differences. I’m also still a bit undecided what I would like to focus on and what part I would like to develop and change / not change from my working life in London. Generally the roles and responsibilities in Sweden seem much more divided. So being a bit of a hybrid makes the work situation a bit more tricky. One company I met up with even had a problem to work out what sister company to place me in… let alone department or title. They had divided production, strategy, interactive design into different companies.

I’m currently working on a project at a company called Doberman. Doberman got nominated as the best workplace in Sweden 2007 by Alecta and have for the last five years been selected as one of the top three interactive agencies in Sweden by the industry magazine Resumé. So, without a doubt, it’s a good place to be. I also have plenty of good friends working here, among two old POKE’rs — Henrik Engdahl and Patrik Berg and some other really good and nice people. So don’t get me wrong — I’m enjoying it at the moment. It’s just that i don’t run smooth on all cylinders, yet.


Collage of photos from the Doberman office. Photos captured by Daniel Källbom

In the beginning of December Willow and I will be flying out to New Zealand to celebrate Christmas and New Years with Willows parents. My parents will also join us. Beside holiday celebrations, Willow and I are doing two longer walks.

I have told myself that after that break I will make a more active decision and commitment when it comes to my job situation in Stockholm.

If you want to see some photos of the trip, the house etc, head over to Willow’s flickr photostream.

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Seasick Steve at Astoria, London, 24th January 2008

February 5th 2008

seasick-steve.jpg Photograph captured by Pix Gremlin

It’s not very often that I attend a concert where an artist and her/his/their work is basically undiscovered or unanalysed by my ears in advance. At least main acts; quite often the warm-up act is a new experience.

Willow bought the tickets for the Seasick Steve concert after a recommendation from a friend of her’s. If it wasn’t for the recommendation or for the fact that Willow bought the tickets, I would most probably never have attended this Seastick Steve concert. Seasick Steve is not something I would enjoy through the medium of a pair of headphones in an office environment (sadly, that’s the way I consume 90% of my music nowadays), and therefor most probably I wouldn’t have gone through the effort of buying a ticket.

But life works in mysteries ways.
I really enjoyed this concert.

It wasn’t down to the fact that his music sounded any better live than on recordings — i’m still no fan — but his charisma and stage presence lit up the whole of Astoria (which was completely rammed with people). Most of the set he was alone, just one old man, but from time to time he got accompanied on stage by his hippy friend or younger son behind the drums and for two of the songs KT Tunstall did a guest appearance.

Hats of to Seasick Steve.

The warm-up act was a Swedish band called Billie the Vision & the Dancers. Both Willow and I agreed that the lead singer must be long lost brother of our good friend Henrik Engdahl. Besides the fact that they are both ginger, they look incredibly similar and have a similar body-language. I’m even convinced that if Henrik took a few song lessons he would sound similar. The songs and lyrics are also something I can imagine Henrik writing. Yeah, if you know Henrik, have a look at a few movies on YouTube (heres a good start) and feel free to correct me if you think i’m wrong.

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Thailand in short

January 17th 2007

you could call it paradise but it’s like the perfect beach with a Coke machine in the middle of it all.

/ Isak Wiström (.i.) on www.mananabanana.com (Isak’s and Henrik Engdahl’s travel blog)

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5 things most of you probably don’t know about me

January 11th 2007

My intention was to start this years blogging with a review of 2006… but then this ‘I Tagged You’ thing came along, which also seems like a good start (and I haven’t even started to reflect over 2006, never the less start writing a review post) – so here we go.

The ‘I Tagged You’ thing is basically a blog-chain letter; you write 5 things about yourself and then pass it on to five mates (with blogs), who then do the same. Tom Hostler was the first one to tag me, and then Iain Tait.

  1. I have extremely small ears

    Yeah, they are the size of a 3-4 year old. I think it’s a defect caused by the fact that i was born blue; had my umbilical cord around my neck strangling me… that’s probably also why I can’t eat fish and find it hard to spell (good to have something to blame all these things on).

  2. I regularly shave my balls

    I am a hairy man – legs, head, beard, ass, arms, thankfully not back!. Like everything you have a lot of – you wished you had less of it.

    I once took this ‘anti-hair’ a bit to far. Being tired of always have to shave my head I once tried to wax the hair of it, thinking; this way I don’t need to do it that often. After 2 hours (and 1/3 of my head) we (myself and my waxing assistants) came to the conclusion that it wasn’t working that well. That the wax just isn’t strong enough to deal with hair on the head. Two hours was enough. The result was that I needed to shave my head with a razor every morning for about 8 month.

    So, if you have any plans on waxing your head – don’t. If you even thought about shaving your balls – please do. It makes you feel special.

  3. Just like Adam Duritz, the singer in Counting Crows, I have a Mr Jones

    When I’m on-stage with a guitar resting on my shoulder, I take on a different personality. Some people say I just behave retarded, other say that I’m a Rock God.

  4. I have a huge tattoo.

    … or I have two – one large and one huge.

  5. Belly Button Fuff

    I seem to be able to extract (or even produce) enormous amounts of belly button fluff.

So, now I will pass it on to:

  1. Joakim Jansson, (who just moved from 2006)
  2. Willow Tyrer
  3. Jonaz Vaneryd
  4. Henrik Engdahl and Isak Wikstrom on mananabanana
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0044

August 19th 2006

Exactly three years ago, I wake up at my ex girlfriend parents / formally our old summer cabin outside Skelleftehamn. The night before this morning some of my friends had held a farewell party for me there – waving me goodbye as I was about to leave for my 7 month long internship in London.

That was three years ago.

So I arrived on Tuesday the 19th of August 2003. Karl Tyselius meet me at Edgware Road tube station and told me the latest gossip of the flat and London as he walked me home to the flat at Frampton Street.

My first evening in London was spend with really nice friends in a Italian restaurant on Edgware Road. I had carbonara, a glass of red and it cost me £7.

Below is a piece of text I wrote for my then current website a few months after I arrived… or more exactly 890 days ago. I quite like it, and I do believe it belongs in this post.

If you are about to call someone in this country, and you not happen to be in it yourself – the story begins, like this one, with 0044.

In this weird 0044 country, were people still insist on driving on the left side of the road, I will stay (not until they realize that driving on the right side can be quite a good idea, nor until they start to use the metric system I, or others by the way, can understand and find useful, but…) for a while.

The hard truth is that you will not find me back in my beautiful home country, country 0046 (normal traffic, metric system), for the next -890 days.

Until then – take care, and don’t hesitate to begin the 0044 story sometimes to drop a “hello” or a “how are you feeling today my good old friend?”, because I may need it from time to time (It’s not because I believe I will miss 0046, my friends and family that much – I’ll survive, it’s more…) to make sure that everything is still fine outside the protecting walls of the land where people like Blair, Tracy Lords, Liam and Noel pay their taxes, the land of James Bond and Roger Moore, the land with the number zero zero four four.

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iWear

August 10th 2006

When I bought my current glasses about 2 years ago (or so) I had a very simple brief – big black square plastic glasses. Sounds easy. I wasn’t exactly looking for a pair of glasses made out of wood or a pair of glasses made out of 4 layers of old LP records. But the fashion at that time – tiny glasses with invisible frames – turned my big black square plastic glasses into a hard nut to crack. Eventually I gave up the “normal” section and headed over to the sunglasses where I found my Celebrity1 by Dior.

Celebrity1 by Dior

That’s me on the left, on the right is a photo found on Google of the Celebrity1 shades.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with them – it’s just that I’m getting a bit bored with them, and that I’m a bit worried they might break any day soon (due to old age). So instead of waiting til the day they get a heart-attack – fall of my nose and die, and put me in a situation when I desperately need to find a new pair; I’ve done some research. And I have found:

The Little Dog by WESC
The Little Dog by WESC and, also by WESC:

The Mongolian Gazelle by WESC
The Mongolian Gazelle

The Little Dog looks quit similar to my current glasses, while The Mongolian Gazelle have a rounder shape. I like them both.

I haven’t found them anywhere in London yet, so I haven’t been able to try them on and decide which one (if any). The photos above is all I have at the moment…

But my good friend, Henrik Engdahl a.k.a Ginga Ninja, found them in Stockholm and said they look nice. So I bought them both, and they are in a few hours on the way over to London with Simon Kallgard.

So in a few days or so I might just have a new pair, or even two new pair of glasses… or… I guess… either way, tomorrow I will at least have two new pair of sunglasses.

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THE NINJAS!!!

August 8th 2006

I am very very honored to have been the inspiration to the birth of the second Ninja in Willows line of ninja soft toys! They are AMAZING (and soooo cute!), and there are more to come!

So let me present!
ginganinja.jpg
Ginga Ninja!!!!! (based on Henrik Engdahl)

and
nunzchucka.jpg
Nunzchucka!!!! (based on me).

Midsummer 2006

June 30th 2006

sweden.gifAs I said last week – I been to Skelleftea. Im now sitting in my sofa watching a recording of the Canadian grand prix, waiting for my parents to call from the airport saying; we are here now. Ferrari and Michael Schumacher are currently quickest… but as we all know – he didn’t win this past weekend.

Midsummer was good. It’s just so nice going back and meet all my lovely old friends. They all are truly an amazing bounce of people.

We (Willow, Mr Tall, Henrik and I), rented a car in Stockholm and drove up during Thursday night. I love driving. Especially during the night. And especially Swedish summer nights. It was a pure pleasure.

First thing on Friday morning was a lunch involving fish. I had fish. I just can’t eat it. I did my best. Thanks to the lovely company it went down alright. Then we were of to give my sister a warm hug before finally going to where we the last 4 years have celebrated the midsummer weekend – Olov Nilzens cabin in Boviken. HUGE amount of love and cred to Olov and Carina for putting up with everyone every year.
One of the highlights was definitely when Anders Norberg sang ‘far jag kan inte fÃ¥ upp min kokosnöt’ at the end of a long karaoke session.

On Sunday, we (Willow, Mr Tall, Henrik and I), drove to Burea to play Football Golf with my half brother other brother – Marcus Vaneryd, at Myggvalla (translates to Mosquito Valley).
Football Golf was very very fun. I definitely can suggest that to anyone in any age and any sex.
It is/was a lot more fun then Frisbee Golf, which we played on Monday evening before once again hitting the road to drive down to Stockholm again.

In Stockholm I had a tight schedule. During the day I had plans to visiting Vinh Kha, Simon Kallgard, Isak Wikstrom, Staffan Lamm, Karl Thyselius, Karl Ringman and my brother – Jonaz Vaneryd… turned out to be a bit to tight of a schedule (woke up way to late after the long drive down), so I never manage to get to Karl Thyselius and Karl Ringman =(.

Overall it was a very nice weekend.
And I’m looking forward to next year.

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I’m writing this with you, with butterflies in my fingertips

June 22nd 2006

Tomorrow I’m off to my hometown Skelleftea in the north of Sweden to celebrate midsummer. This has kind of grown to be a standing tradition – that I every year go back for this event. Since my parents have moved from Skelleftea and lives in Italy, I don’t go home for christmas. So you could almost say that midsummer is my christmas (Im saying that I’m going home. It’s weird. Since it’s not where my parents live. It’s not where I live. It’s where I was born, raised and grow up… is there a name for that kind of “home”? is it hometown or more like growing-up town?).

Normally it’s loads of fun. Meeting a lot of old friend. My sister (who still lives there). Playing silly games. Having barbecue. Singing songs. Playing volleyball. Drinking beer (Norrlands Guld). I’m really looking forward to it, and a full report on this event will be posted on this blog once I’m back.

This year, two ‘non-northern friends’ are coming with me (and Willow of cause, but it’s not her first time); Henrik Engdahl and Johan Enstrom (a.k.a Mr Tall).
So this year we’re also taking the opportunity to do a little road tip by hiring a car in Stockholm and drive up. I love driving. And since I live in a country where they drive on the left side of the road – driving have come to be something I don’t do very much. – which is kind of sad.

What makes the north of Sweden special during this time of year is the midnight sun. And that, my friends – is amazing! First time I really realised how amazing it is, was the first summer I wasn’t there; my first summer down in Karlskrona (where I went to university at Hyper Island). That year, for some reason, I decided not to go back up north… then I started longing for the midnight sun and jumped on a plane and went back.
When living there, in the north, the midnight sun wasn’t something I regarded as that special. It felt more like my human right after the long and cold winter (yeah, the winters are quite the opposite). But… it is very special and I can suggest the experience to everyone at anytime.

I also have a sad – and happy – announcement to make; My lovely PowerBook, named Alecia (after the artist Pink) and I have separated. After over three wonderful years together, we decided it’s time for her to go in pension. So tomorrow she’s taking a flight over to Stockholm with Mr Tall to go and live her last years with my brother Jonaz.
This means as well that in about 3 weeks I will adopt a new girl. This time around it’s probably gonna be a MacBook Pro.

Here’s some links related to this post:

and here are some random links I have found interesting in the last few days:

  • listography
    your life in lists create. share. read.
  • La Coupe du Monde 2006 de Football en un coup d’oeil
    Every single goal so far in the World Cup. Click on the match score, then click the spinning ball next to the player’s name.
  • CSS for Designers
    If you don’t learn, or get more understanding for CSS through this – just give it up.
  • Apple – Trailers – Why We Fight – Trailer
    This seem to be a very interesting documentary. Probably a scary one as well.
  • Beggr – Scrounging 2.0
    He he, Im afraid he makes a very very good point
  • MacNN | 50 Cent turns to Apple for Mac deal
    What caught my attention is the “I never got into it for the music. I got into it for the business.” part. I don’t think Mr 50 is the only one we can blame for all shit music that is floating around – but he sure as hell feeds the beast. After have seen Foo Fighters twice within a week and all… just wished more people did it for the same reason as FF, and with the same respect towards music as an art from. About the Apple deal… if it follows through I will be very disappointed with Apple and Mr Jobs.
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