Posted by jackie | Under Music
Friday Aug 13, 2010
Yesterday’s euphoria and massive downpour are gone but not forgotten. The weather is clearing up just as the festival area opens its gates. Discussions about yesterday’s pregame night
are ubiquitous (”After we saw Harlem, we tried to go Port du Soleil but couldn’t get a cab in the rain so we just dropped in at some jazz bar where the owner allowed smoking indoors”) but the focus quickly shifts to the real deal: Way Out West – the proper, daylight version.
After the legendary hip hop-act Wu Tang Clan made 10,000 people wave their hands in one synchronized motion, the festival really felt officially alive and the lines to the beer tents exceeded 5 kilometers.
The general impression is that the visitors mainly come from all over Sweden. The downtown central station has been flooded with travelers on their way towards the festivities and now there are enough people at the area to make you think you’re in Tokyo. A lot of foreign visitors mixed with the native crowd; including them Hollywood stars such as Kirsten Dunst. Your correspondents took a stroll around the area, got our feet muddy and spoke to some people.
Erik, Manager/Hustler
What’s the single best part of Way Out West, in your mind?
The concerts, hopefully. There are a lot of different stuff going on, but I feel the clubs and parties have to be secondary.
Posted by jackie | Under Interview, Music
Tuesday Apr 13, 2010
Some of Sweden’s finest have been heading west to play some serious gigs… in kitchens. Yes, kitchens. Meet ‘In My Kitchen’, which was created with the idea of asking musicians to strip down their songs and then perform them in their kitchen, with the help of various utensils and anything else that comes to hand. The Casiokids recently performed and even cooked an omelet while at it! We were able to sit down with the Ryan and Tim from “In My Kitchen” to talk about inspiration, how this got started, and their future plans.
Who are you guys? How long have you lived in West Sweden?
Hi there, we are two English gents exiled in Gothenburg for various classified reasons, if we were to tell you we’d ave ta kill ya! However, we are allowed to divulge that Ryan is from Kettering, the underage pregnancy capital of Europe, and Tim is a current world record holder, and that’s the truth!
We’ve collectively lived in Sweden got five years and eleven months.
How did this whole concept come about? Whose apartment is it?
As we both had a background working with music, bands and club nights in England we wanted to do something to help promote the local music scene but were too lazy to leave the apartment during the Swedish winter. So we hit upon the idea of rather listening to CD’s over dinner, why not get bands to play live and, while they’re at it, cook for us. Really it’s the perfect crime! The kitchen belongs to two beloved friends, Johanna and Hjörtur whose apartment Ryan squatted in for three months in 2009. They run an online magazine (www.monthly.se) that Ryan also writes for.
Why the kitchen?
Ryan: Well to quote Tim: ’the kitchen is the heart of the home’, thus the best place for creativity.
Who was the first band? and how did you approach them?
The first band we got in touch with was Casiokids who are from Bergen in Norway. They were touring, we were big fans of their music, when we contacted them they were more than up for it and so the legend was born.
Which band has been the most innovative? how?
Well, there have been several innovative moments; Casiokids used a whisk on a cheese grater plus a large casserole dish for percussion, Love & Happiness used two glasses of water as a make do drum kit, but maybe we would have to say The Isolation would win the InMyKitchen Innovation Award with their home made amps and human mic stand (soon to be available to buy on our site).
Do you plan on parlaying this into anything more than just bands in your kitchen?
Well there was talk of trying to do our own version of Live Aid, but that’s still in the early planning stages, we’re just waiting for Bono to get back to us. We are hopefully going to be doing some stuff around a few festivals in Europe this summer, there has also been talk of making a car into a mobile oven, kind of like InMyKitchen on wheels, not unlike the Batmobile!? As well as a few more things that we are working on at the moment, I’m afraid we’re going to have to keep them under wraps for now though!
Which band has been your favorite? (we won’t tell, okay yes we will.)
We’re going to have to use the old cliché and say that they have all been really good, otherwise we wouldn’t have got in touch and asked them to play. Casiokids, our first step on the path to enlightenment, were really good and great guys, everyone should go and see them live! They popped our cherry so, as everyone knows, your first time is always the most memorable.
Winter is brutal. Which is why we focus on the positive, like the warmth of Summer, the unbelievable sunshine and the fast approaching Way Out West Festival this year! Yes, we realize August seems very far away; however, Way out West just announced some of their headliners and the show is bound to be epic. The headliners include Local Natives, an L.A. based band that has been making some serious waves. We absolutely love their single “Airplanes” a sweet love song about pining after love lost.
Also on the bill is the always high energy Brit pop star, La Roux, we recommend her song “Bulletproof” which feels like a ‘ just broke up with my significant other and I am fine’ anthem. The big players include LCD Soundsystem and indie veterans Pavement. Though the band we really, really, really CANNOT wait to see has to be The XX, the Lo-Fi pop four set took New York City by storm, playing to full houses of hipsters nationwide.We say early bird gets the worm, or the tickets, er? Either way, we’ll see you there.
The Details
When: Friday 13th and Saturday 14th August, with club performances from the evening of Thursday 12th until Saturday 14th Where: Slottsskogen city park in central Gothenburg.
Tickets: 1,390 Swedish crowns (£115) for a full two day festival pass including club performances. Ticket sales at Eventim: Telephone +46 771651000.
Next on the list of interviewees is Singer/Songwriter/Guitarist/All-around Musical Genius, Kristoffer Ragnstam, a native of Gothenburg but a rocker of the world. “Ragnstam specializes in an exuberant type of rock, with strains of everything he’s ever heard – musical and otherwise — found like footnotes in his songs…” declaims his website, and come to think of it, declaims his music as well. The eclecticism and yet simple appeal of his music draws listeners like moths to the flame – which of course is a perfect segue into the topic of the interview: his new music video for Who Set the City on Fire.
Explore West Sweden: Your newest music video, Who Set the City on Fire, was a single continuous shot. What was it like filming for it? Were there any nerves about not making any mistakes? Or did you just shoot and go with it?
Kristoffer Ragnstam: The whole idea behind my new EP is: one take, be proud of who you are, and have fun with it. That idea left us pretty open to options how to make the video. But the Director “Markus KoKoKaKa” had an idea of trying to get the live vibe out of the song and with a homemade touch of it. He nailed it!
The third and last day of the beloved Way Out West Festival has come to an end. The sun took a vacation and left us with downpours and muddy shoes, but that however was no cause for concern. At least not if you ask the rock veteran Olle Ljungström. Luckily for both artist and fans, he performed under a tented stage, and we were able to enjoy the concert in shelter from the rain. Olle is quite a legend in Sweden, famous for subtly balancing misery and joy and his performance today took us back to the time when it was still okay to live on the punk side of life.
Nas also put on a great concert despite the rainy weather – with thousands of arms waving to his rapped beats and feeding his already substantial ego the attention and energy he thrives on.
Nas and the thousand-arm wave
Another cocky performer who put on a fantastic show, was our incredibly popular lady from London: Lily Allen. She was one of the strongest attractions at this year’s festival, drawing huge crowds and a devoted audience. For having only had a relatively short career, it is impressive how faithful her fans are – Slottskogen was dancing, sweating, singing and swearing right along. Fuck You is probably the best way to start a party.
The evening continued, of course, at the club scenes. The choices were many and varied. Harmonic folk/acoustic at the Annedal church, hard rock at Sticky Fingers or dark, decadent country at Pustervik. Way Out West certainly has something for every musical taste and provided a great showing of local and international superstars to satisfy even the most discerning audience!
Pushing boundaries was the theme of the day at Way Out West, starting with the age boundaries. Beirut began the day by reminding us that lacking years doesn’t necessarily mean lacking talent. Zach Condon (Beirut’s non-stage name) is a inspiringly talented 23-year old from New Mexico, whose music sounds like a retro cabaret movie, or a piece of heaven, however you want to put it!
Moving on to push not only the age boundary but the that of gender roles as well, the next Robyn took the stage. One of the most internationally popular musicians from Sweden. She started her career when she was only sixteen years old, asking every radio channel, 2o times a day: Do You Really Want Me. Fourteen years later the answer is quite simple: Yes we want you, Robyn. We want you, and we owe you – the Swedish music scene would be an empty place without Robyn’s dulcet vocal stylings. Her break onto the scene was a kick in the pants to a music industry that was dominated by men and men and yup, you guessed it, more men.
Another gender role boundary-pusing musican is Anthony Hegarty (Anthony and the Johnssons) who also performed this evening. His mystical voice was only further intensified by the musicians of the Gothenburg symphony orchestra who accompanied him- a collaboration that not only was a great success but also a symbol of the festival as a whole: international meets with local in beautiful harmony.
The evening ended with Fever Ray, Sweden’s electronic guru – the epitome of modernism in musical form!
The tradition of pregaming is deeply rooted in Swedish culture, not only because it’s a cheaper way to begin the evening, but also because of the fun being “in” before the action starts.
Hence is not a surprise that Way Out West begins in the club scene, it’s the party before The Party. Swedes love that, it whets the collective Swedish appetite.
Appetite, from the French, appetit, meaning a desire/craving, normally for gustatory delectables, but in modern usage often used to refer to desires for other things outside of the culinary sphere, like…say…music! The first day of Way Out West has most certainly whetted our appetite, our craving, for music, in the same way that pregaming only revs us up for the intense partying to come.
This weekend, Gothenburg will turn into Sweden’s Woodstock, playing host to the Way Out West – a music festival filled with rock, indie and alternative music from around the world. The celebrations start on the night of Thursday the 13th in clubs and music venues throughout the entire city with DJ’s and live music performances. On the 14th and 15th, two outdoor stages and one indoor stage will be set up in Slottskogen, a park in the center of Gothenburg, for performances all day long.
Although only in its third year, Way Out West attracts some big names from around the world including; the national beloved Swede Timo Räisänen and the internationally renowned Swede Robyn, UK’s Arctic Monkeys as well as Lily Allen, and Vampire Weekend and Nas from the US. Of course these are just a few of the many dozens of performers over the course of the festival. The full schedule and list of artists is here
This being a Swedish run festival, of course they’ve also taken into account the ecological ramifications of the celebrations, and have received an environmental certification and will be serving organic and delectable food for noshing between the moshing.
Way Out West takes place during the middle of the Culture Festival in Gothenburg, celebrating city’s best of culture, cuisine, and life along with the music that will be pouring out of Slottskogen Park. Starting August 11th, take the opportunity to explore all of what West Sweden has to offer – and if you’re quick about it you might even be able to get Volvo to send you there for free, to enjoy the festivities!
A summer celebration of classical jazz styles in Gothenburg
It’s not all that often that one associates jazz, a music born in 20th C. America amongst African Americans, with Sweden, a country born not in the 20th C. and not from a community of African Americans. But in a culture that values creativity and artistry, jazz is a welcome confluence of musical styles and inspirations that resonantes with the Swedes.
In late July and early August, two jazz festivals will take place in West Sweden drawing musicians from all over Sweden and the rest of the globe. From July 31st to August 2nd the Kungshamn/Smögen tradjazzfest will celebrate their 23rd year of traditional jazz, nestled in two picturesque fishing villages in West Sweden. The concerts will be interspersed with parades as well as jazz cruises throughout the island archipelego. The festival ebraces traditional jazz styles and brings groups of all sizes from England, Denmark and cities throughout Sweden.
