May 2019 – Rambling in B-flat

Summer around this part of the world is just about around the corner, and summer that means… summer shows! I’m thoroughly jovial about getting the sun, the delectable warm and brights nights and live music back in my life again. And although I might need to hang on for another few weeks still for the former to get here my concert summer begins already next week with two shows at Gröna Lund in Stockholm. I can’t even put into prose to describe exactly how pumped I’m for this!

Therefore, not surprisingly, the feature song of the week is by one of the artist I’m planning to see live this coming week. Non other than Romeo Blue himself; Mr. Lenny Kravitz.

Continue reading “Ch. #20 – “Summer shows ahead!”” →

I had a slow week this past week, in most sense sense of the expression. Not much exciting was happening and I had low level of energy and was generally uninspired to do stuff through the week. You know, I had a low key week as you do every once in a while.

The problem of course is I got to deliver a piece of writing to honor my pledge to myself and to this here blog. A not too uncommon spot for anyone who do creative based work, and in particularly those who do such work for a living. Sometimes you just have to power through that state somehow.

So I did that. Or sort of. The uninspired, dulled state I was in eventually became my muse as I recalled an old favorite tune of mine I had not thought of in a while which partly is about this very mental state; Sheryl Crow‘s 1994 breakout single “All I Wanna Do“.

Continue reading “Ch. #19 – “All I wanna do is have some fun”” →

In 1963 Betty Friedan published her book “The Feminine Mystique” which would go on to be a new spark in the grinding struggle for equality for women in the United States and in the rest of the Western world. In said book Betty Friedan lays out and discuss what she precised from her research and own experience the gloomy state of womanhood at the time, pointing the source of this state to what she now famously referred to as “the problem that has no name”.

Now some 50 years later I would argue that we have several names and suggestions to what to call Friedan’s elusive problem. Take “misogyny” for once.

Fast forward (or rewind I guess) to the early 1990s. The place is Chicago, where a girl in her early 20s called Liz Phair is struggling to make her voice heard in a male dominated local music scene that frowns at her for her efforts. A scene who her circle of friends jokingly once referred to as “Guyville” due to its homogeny and apprehended close mindedness.

This is a not a sob story however. On the contrary; this is a story of an outcast who became a firestarter.

Continue reading “Ch. #18 – “From outcast to firestarter”” →

Given my my choice of songs and artist so far on this blog I shouldn’t surprise you to read that I have a knack for the sound of a guitar. And I happily take my guitar sounds with some dirt and with some playing with a slide sprinkled on top.

Oh, yes. I’m so guilty as charged.

That said, twanging or fuzzed our guitar tone is hardly the only thing the tickles my fancy instrumentally speaking. A close second on my internal power ranking would be electric pianos and organs. Today I would like to put the spotlight to one particular kind of the former group and give it a short ode to why I like it so much. The instrument I’m thinking of is the iconic and venerable Wurlitzer Electric Piano.

Continue reading “Ch. #17 – “The Wurlitzer Electric Piano”” →