What's in the cd-player?

Howard Shore - A History of Violence

Slippery and inspiring...

King's X - Ogre Tones

The best album in years from the American trio! Go buy!

Howard Shore - The Return of the King (DVD + CD)

I am repeating myself, I know, but Howard Shore is one of our greatest contemporary composers and the sound track for The Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King is no exception. (The DVD's tiptop too).

The Miles Davis Story (DVD)

Haven't seen it? Do!

24 - Any season (DVD)

Jack Bauer is our leader and king! Beyond entertainment, 24 rules. (I know, I know, all the torturing, the obvious bad guys from Middle-East, logic out the window, e t c, but I don't care. The series keep me on the edge of my living room sofa over a groovy glass of wine and that's all I ask for. Jack Bauer IS our leader and king, at least every now and then. Tony is cool too. And Palmer. (Why don't they sell those "Palmer for President" T-shirts at the 24 fan club anymore? I want one. Already got the mouse pad).

Pt. Nikhil Banerjee - Immortal Series

More balm for the soul. Timeless.

Terry Bozzio & Metropole Orkestra - Chamber Works

A tremendous success, fusing Terry Bozzio's energetic playing on gigantic drum kit with the passionate Metropole Orkestra. I've been chopping wood to this one like crazy!

Howard Shore - Spider

Howard has done it again, this time with the Kronos Quartet.

Hellborg, Lane, Selvaganesh - Good People in Times of Evil

Proud to play these songs together with the stunning Jonas Hellborg. "Aga of the Ladies" is one of my all-time favorite-tunes. Shawn Lane in fine form (to say the least). A must have.

John McLaughlin - Extrapolation

Early McLaughlin album. Tiptop songs, raw and played with serious attitude. I love it!

Kopps (DVD)

Hilarious, not to say wonderfully stupid, Swedish movie about small town cops.

Howard Shore - The Cell

Another Howard Shore masterpiece. Great atmospheric music with the ingenious combination of The London Philharmonic and the Master Musicians of Jajouka, Morocco. Check out more fantastic Shore music here.

Miles Davis - Live Evil

Miles Davis really was far ahead of his time. Along with Kind of Blue and Porgy and Bess, Live Evil is one of my favorite Davis albums. Musicians like John McLaughlin, Keith Jarret, Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter also helps.

Frank Zappa - Civilization Phaze III

Not so easy listening at times, yet wonderful and very rewarding once you get it in. This was all I listened to a bunch of years back. You can find endless of details and groundbreaking stuff throughout. From the fairly accessible opening track Put a Motor in Yourself to the lovely Amnerika, this is as good as it gets. Even found myself humming, dancing and snapping my fingers to the insane rhythms and tonality of They Made Me Eat It after a while. As with Miles Davis, Frank Zappa was so ahead the rest of the planet.

Steely Dan - 2 against nature (DVD)

I suffer from a serious crush on Donald Fagen and Walter Brecker's Steely Dan these days. When you get back from the road, after banging your head, bending strings at ridiculous volume and coughing blood from a sore heavy metal throat Steely Dan is the music to put on (accompanied by an occasional glass of red wine). Real "feel-good" factor here.

This live DVD (with fun backstage material thrown in between songs) is just excellent from start to finish. A must have if you thought that expensive hi-fi, surround equipment sounded swell before...

Robert Johnson - The Complete Recordings

I remember the day when I first heard Robert Johnson. Had to turn it off since it affected me in such a strange way. Got real moody from the first strumming chords, I really wasn't prepared at all.Now I can't live without it.

Steely Dan - Aja (DVD)

This DVD is so entertaining and groovy to watch I am must have seen it thirty times in a few months time (watched it a lot when making the fifth Freak Kitchen album Move to get inspiration).

Fagen and Brecker, together with musicians, producer Gary Katz and engineers who worked on the classic Steely Dan record Aja talk about the recording, the various line-ups, go through the old masters channel by channel (the section with the "dissection" of the incredible, almost cluster-like, harmonies on Peg, sung by Michael McDonald is worth the bucks alone) and perform a number of the great songs.

If all music DVDs were half this good...

Jan Johansson - Folkvisor

A Swedish jazz classic with late master of the piano Jan Johansson.

Fletch

Don't know how many times I have watched Chevy Chase in this fabulous, fabulous movie. Got tons of different versions (only in cover, not the film itself, which makes this even more wacky) lying around the basement. There are so many devasting, hilarious one-liners in Fletch it's almost hard to take sometimes. Great Harold Faltermeyer soundtrack.

Read the Gregory McDonald books about Fletch and his son Skylar. Super as well.

The Tubes -What to you want from live

The best live album ever alongside with Kiss' Alive! and Motörhead's No Sleep ´til Hammersmith.

I think The Tubes are one of the most underestimated groups in rock history. I bumped into this album by accident when I went to my local record store at the age of eight (took some money from Dad's wallet and went shopping. Bad boy...). My life as a little kid was mostly occupied by Kiss. When I opened the folded double album Alive II in 1977 and saw the stage show from hell I almost fainted. This was my kind of group!

So for some unknown reason I stood there with The Tubes live (also double folded) and had another eureka-experience when my innocent eyes was introduced to their bizarre show; chainsaws, barbed wire, smoke and explosions, falling Marshall stacks, giant cigarettes, serious nudity and way higher boots than Kiss! Dammit, could this be true?

So I bought the album, went home and put in on and... what?!? The music was nothing like Kiss, Alice Cooper or other stuff I liked. It was more like... jazz rock/pop and at first I got really confused. Was this really the same band?

After the first disappointment I actually started to like it and I´m eternally grateful for that influence now, some eons of time later. An important record.

(Read when I finally got to see The Tubes for the first time live in 2001: Fee Way Bill's Ripped Pants)

Woody Allen - Bananas

It doesn't get any more weird and far out than this. I am a Woody Allen buff - Allen's creativity and the incredible high standard of his films constantly amazes me. His clever dialogues are the best on the planet.

Other favorites are Zelig (outrageous), Annie Hall (of course), Husbands and Wifes, Another Woman, Hannah and her sisters (Max Von Sydow's ultra cool gimme-five-response when introduced to pseudo-art-interested yuppie Daniel Stern can crack me up time after time) and many more.

The Tubes - The Tubes World Tour

Two great new songs + new live versions of Tubes classics as She's a Beauty, White Punks on Dope, Tip of my Tongue and more.

Tom Waits - Mule Variations

Hard core. For real. There's no one like Tom Waits.

Kalle Sändare - På sååå sätt!

Swedish veteran comedian completely out of his mind. A master of improvisation Kalle Sändare leads his phone conversations nowhere you possibly could expect. Kalle is king!

Un Chien Andalou (The Analusian Dog)

Bunuel and Dali in their most surrealistic mood. Scary and strange...

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers Into the great wide open

Always gets me in a good mood. Splendid songwriting.

Front Page

Feauturing monsters Dennis Chambers on drums, Bireli Lagrene on guitar and bass player Dominique Piazza this is wonderful, dirty jazz with superb songs, musical skill beyond belief. The interaction between the trio is truly amazing. Maestro John McLaughlin makes a guest appearance on the last tune as well. Very, very groovy. Highly recommended!

Bullworth

Impressive, funny and thought-provoking by Warren Beatty.

Los Lobos - This Time

The very second I put this cd on I loved it, and it rarely happens. I usually go to my local record outlet, pick up a pile of cds and listen to them briefly while there.

When the extremely lo-fi drumbeat opens the title track together with the soulful vocals together with cheesy background noises I´m down and out. The groove and guitar sound of Viking makes me freak out, big time. I don´t have a clue why I like this record so much, I just do. Los Lobos kick ass!

Django Reinhardt - various

Django Reinhard is the king of guitar playing and always will be. You can practise your chops ´til you die, you still won´t come close to the man. He´s got such a mean attitude and it´s gypsy jazz for God´s sake! Reinhardt makes me stunned... (not to say in a good mood). The dogs love him too.

Howard Shore - eXistenZ (soundtrack)

Howard has done it again! The collaboration between Canadian director David Cronenberg and composer Howard Shore is continuing to be inspiring, always seeking new paths. This time Shore has used the pretty unusual Theremin (as he did in the soundtrack of Ed Wood, another great cd) together with orchestra to create an original score which is both beautiful and scary. Howard rules!

Steve Martin -Let´s get small/A wild and crazy guy/Comedy is not pretty

I find this hilarious and I´ve been a fan of Steve Martin since I was a kid. Steve is also a fabulous banjo-player. He has a really cool, natural timing (check out track 4, Drop Thumb Medley, on Comedy is not Pretty Let´s get small-album for the first time (which actually was sent to me on cassette by Joakim from L.A when I lived in Copenhagen. Thanks Jocko). The major part of these cd´s are his stand-up comedy act though, recorded in the 70´s but still very, very funny.

Hemma hos Janne & Kjell (1 & 2)

Another "comedy"-album with Swedish radio/tv personalities Janne Forsell and Kjell Alinge. Now this is seriously stupid, and I love it. This cd is another of those childhood things (my sister Mulle used to listen to it and when I found it on cd a couple of years ago I bought immediately). Great stuff.

Messiaen -Turangalila-symphonie

If you´re a true heavy metal kid and you hate all those boring old classical composers your parents told you was "good music" when all you ever wanted to do was to put on an Iron Maiden or Motörhead record and bang your head bloody, then think again.

I am that stubborn kid and I never found Mozart, Bach or those guys interesting, it´s all too "main-stream" for my taste. (I know it´s very hedonistic to say say things like that and one day I´ll probably will be punished by a group of furious violinists spanking me heavily with their bows, hmm...).

Anyway, I enjoy various 20:th century stuff. I really dig Bela Bartok, Stravinskij, Debussy, e t c, and the late French composer Olivier Messiaen is a splendid, to me, new acquaintance. His Turangalila-symphonie is true hard-core. The use of the instrument Ondes Martenot makes it almost sci-fi, in a weird sense (the instrument has a similiar sound to the Theremin, see eXistenZ). Maybe not your average party-album but once you get through it, it has a lot to offer. (Thanks to Niklas Ottosson for the introduction).

The Adventures of Tintin -Det hemliga vapnet/The Secret Weapon

Well, Tintin probably doesn´t need any introduction. I listen to this stuff when I'm on the road and the Swedish actors, Tomas Bolme as Tintin, Åke Linström as Captain Haddock, e t c, are the characters to me. I almost get offended when I hear a Danish or Norwegian version of Herge's thrilling stories! Read the story Tintin (or why I dragged my parents to some park in Brussels when I was a kid) for further info about my Tintin passion.