A Sweedish Miracle.. Dancing Barefoot..

Photo: Neil Krug

“The vibe we’re going for is that Polaroid, analog look,” explains 21-year-old Johanna Söderberg, who, along with her younger sister Klara, is one half of Swedish nu-folk duo First Aid Kit. “We love the feel of seventies art and photography. Just anything old looking.”

To fans of the pair’s full-length debut, 2010’s The Big Black & the Blue, this should come as no surprise. Filled with wistful acoustic ballads, it paints a picture of laid-back pastoral whimsy and has the two most important hallmarks of any jaunt into seventies-inspired folk: nimble finger-picking and watertight harmonies. Not to mention the kind of delivery that gives every lyric a Southern twang and trademark Joan Baez–vocal quiver.

However, for their sophomore record The Lion’s Roar, which will be released in January, the Söderbergs say they wanted to do something with a little more bite, if you’ll excuse the pun.

Certainly from the look of the title track’s video, unveiled last week, it’s clear they’re eyeing darker territory—instead of taking sun-kissed walks through barley fields in matching white dresses (as they did in “Ghost Town,” their last outing with director and fellow Swede Mats Udd) they can be seen traipsing through one of Sweden’s national forests in what looks like a Druid funeral procession.

“In terms of lyrics and instrumentation it’s probably one of the darkest songs we’ve ever written,” Johanna says from Los Angeles, the day before they were to leave to shoot another video in Joshua Tree National Park (although, for fear she’ll spoil the surprise, she refuses to reveal any more than that.)

“We recorded the last album at home in Johanna’s bedroom,” Klara continues, “so having a string quartet wasn’t really possible. Now we can build the wall of sound we were always looking for.”

As you’d imagine, the duo have never been afraid of citing their American influences (“We never listened to much Swedish folk music,” Johanna adds. “We preferred people like Buffy Sainte-Marie and Joni Mitchell”), but their homeland did offer some inspiration for this latest album, mostly fueling a newfascination with the dark and gloomy.

“Our parents used to read us stories about trolls when we were growing up,” Johanna explains. “We like that kind of spooky, unreal, magical feeling of Swedish folklore.”
From Vogue Mag April 2012 

WATCH: “Emyllou” by First Aid Kit

WATCH: “The Lion’s Roar” by First Aid Kit

Νίκος Βασταρδής (+18/3/2012)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joMeVc-tuNk

Νίκος Βασταρδής (+ 18/3/2012)..

Πέρυσι, στα γενέθλια του - γινόταν 87 χρόνων - στην δραματική του σχολή..

Bigger than life, Άνθρωπος της Τέχνης, της ευζωίας, της κοινωνιοκεντρικής Προσφοράς..

Αγέραστος, ένας ενενηντάρης εφηβικού παραστήματος και θηριώδους ψυχοπνευματικού εκτοπίσματος, παρηγορητικός τόπος και τρόπος για όσους τον έζησαν από κοντά..

Τον έβλεπα για  χρόνια, πολλά, να διασχίζει την Πατησίων, με τις "μοτοσυκλετίστικες" μπότες του, μέχρι τα γόνατα, πάνω από το παντελόνι, αγέρωχος, θηριώδης, μοναχικός ταξιδιώτης, σπουδαίου ταξιδιού..

Συνήθιζε να με χαιρετάει με ένα  ".. γεια σου σύντροφε, πως είσαι.."  όταν με συναντούσε, συνήθως απόβραδα, στην Πατησίων, στους καθημερινούς του τότε περιπάτους, με την γνωστή, επική, βροντώδη φωνή του,  κάτι μεταξύ Θάνου Κωτσιόπουλου και Νίκου Τζόγια και συνέχιζε με τον  γειωμένο - απογειωμένο, αυτοκρατορικό του βηματισμό, απορροφημένος από τις σκέψεις του και κοιτάζοντας ίσια και μπροστά, με εκείνο το Βλέμμα, σαν προβόλι ρυμουλκού..

Ο Θεός μαζί σου, εκεί που βρίσκεσαι τώρα, κάπου στον Παράδεισο, you, the Paradise strange bird..

The Face 1991 — a snapshot of pop culture

What can a man say about this Mag..!! I first saw it at the Municipal Library of Patras, 26 years ago, en it became an aesthetic obssession for me from these  years..

I’ve been deep in attic clearing over the past few days. There’s a ludicrous amount of rubbish up there, and I’ve managed to get rid of boxes of paperbacks & filled several binbags with broken toys. Muv tells me that the skip arrived yesterday and I am twitching to get back and start filling that puppy.

Fortunately for my sanity, there is some treasure amongst all the dross: there’s an as yet uninvestigated box of the NME, dating from the mid-late eighties, and I unearthed a pile of The Face from 1991. The magazine ran from 1980–2004, operating on the cutting edge of fashion & music, and I read it as a very young teenager in the 80s, even when I was too young to really understand what it was talking about.

Whilst some of the cover stars (The Farm & Dee-Lite) on the issues I unearthed have been superceded today, Johnny Depp and Kylie still reign supreme, although they were in quite different places back then. Kylie was a bit of a tongue in cheek joke, flailing around at the tail end of the Stock Aitken Waterman years, before she got hip, and became a national treasure.

And Johnny was still a nascent indie movie star, fresh off his hit TV show 21 Jump Street, with just five films under his belt. He was more famous for dating Winona Ryder. Although Edward Scissorhands would change all that.

Sherilyn Fenn — in the days when everyone was utterly obsessed with David Lynch and Twin Peaks.

When rap was something quite, quite different:

"Dharma Bums" of Jack Kerouac en the Giant Gary Snyder en the meaning of "Physis", of "Nature," of "Lovin", of "Livin", of "Leavin"..

A Poem from Gary Snyder (1930- )

from Myths and Texts

"I don't have to take this kind of shit,

Another twenty years
and I tell 'em to shove it"
(he was sixty-five then)

In 1934 they lived in shanties
At Hooverville, Sullivan's Gulch.
When the Portland-bound train came through
The trainmen tossed off coal.

"Thousands of boys shot and beat up

For wanting a good bed, good pay,
decent food, in the woods -- "
No one knew what it meant:
"Soldiers of Discontent."

© Gary Snyder. 

These days I am rereadin the Kerouac's book "Dharma Bums" .. I think, that that masterpiece brings The True Answers of  The Big Questions about Life, Love, Nature, en "Physis" the Greek word that Gary Snyder uses to translate the Whole meaning of Nature, as the Science..

After the belowmentioned  big scene of the aforementioned book :


"...and went to sleep the night in the sand far down the beach at the foot of a cliff, where cop's wouldn't see me ane drine me away.. I coked hotdogs on freshly cut over the coals of a big wood fire and heated a can of beans and a can of cheese macaroni in the redhot hollows and drunk my newly bought wine and exulted in one of the most pleasant nights of my life.... I waded in the water and dunked a little and stood looking up the splendorus night sky of dark en diamonds.. Happy. Just in my swim sorts, barefooted, wild haired, in the red fire dark, singing, swigging wine, spitting, jumping, running  - that's the way to life.. All alone and free in the soft sands  of the beach by the sigh of the sea out there.. I sat crosslegged in the sand and contemplated  my life..Wll there, and what difference did it make? Ah poor mind of man, and lonely man alone on the beach, and the God watching with intent smile I'd say..."..


we can read the first intoduction of  Japhy Ryder who is the Prince of Mother Nature, Gary Snyder..

".. and the second I met was the member one Dharma Bum of them all and in fact it was he Japhy Ryder, who coined the phrase.. J. Ryder was a kid from eastern Oregon brought up in a log cabin deep in the woods with his father and mother and sister from the beginning a woods boy, an axman, farmer, intersested in animals and indian lore so that when he finally got to college by hook or crook he was already well equipped for his early studies in anthropology and later in Indian myth.. Finally he learned Chinese en Japanese en become an oriental scholar and discovered the greatest Dharma Bums of them all, the Zen Lunatics of China en Japan.."..

".. He was wiry, suntanned, vigorous, open, all howdies, en glad talk and even yelling hello to bums on the street en when asked a question answered right off the bat from the top or bottom of his mind I don't know which en always in a sprightly sparkling way.."..

".. Where did you meet Ray Smith?' they asked him when we walked in to the Place, the favorite bar of the hapcats arround the Beach.. 
'Oh I always meet my Bodhisattvas in the street!' he yelled, and ordered beers.."..


".. Sometimes he'd quiet down and just stare sadly at the floor, like a man whittling. He was merry at times. He showed dreat sympathetic interest in me and in the story about the little Saint Teresa bum and the stories I told him about my own experiences hopping freights or hitchhiking or hiking in woods. He claimed at once that I was a great 'Bodhisattva', meaning 'great wise being' or 'great wise angel,'.."..

".. Japhy's buddy was the aforementioned booboo big old goodhearted Warren Coughlin a hundred and eighty pounds of poet meat, who was advertised by Japhy as being more than meets the eye. 
'Who is he?'
'He's my big best friend from up the Oregon..At first you thing he's slow en stupid but actually he's a shining diamond. You'll see. Don't let him cut you to ribons. He'll make the top of your head fly away, boy, with a choice chance word.' 


".. Take your clothes off en join in, Smith!' But on top of all that, the feelings about Princess, I'd also gone through an entire year of celibacy based on my feeling that lust was the direct cause of birth which was the direct cause of suffering and death and I had really no lie come to a point where I regarded lust as offensive and even cruel.."..


'Pretty girls make graves' was my saying, whenever I'd had to turn my head arround involuntarily to stare at the incomparable pretties of Indian Mexico.. And the absence of active lust in me had given me a new peaceful life that I was enjoying a great deal. But this was too much. I was still afraid to take my clothes off; also I never liked to do that in front of more than one person.. But Japhy didn't give a goddamn hoot and holler about any of this.."..


See more at link below.. Please put on BAREFOOTED ONLY..!!
http://www.angelfire.com/bc/villanelle/thedharmabums.html

G. Snyder's biography :  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Snyder

Koροβέσης Ήρως Περικλής, Σώτη Τριανταφύλλου, Epic Beard Man, σε νέες περιπετειώδεις περιπέτειες..

Μόλις πριν από λίγο βγαίνοντας από το Μolly's, όπου και όπως είναι παντελώς άγνωστο κ.κ. Παντελή Παντεπόπτη, είχα αυτομολήσει, για να αποφύγω όλους αυτούς τους γαμημένους ελληναράδες - σκατίνες - κατσικοκλέφτες - βρωμούσες, που λυμαίνονται σαν λιμνάζουσες κουράδες τα στάσιμα ύδατα των υπάτων αναρμόστων και όπου είχα προσευχηθεί να μας αναλάβουν υπό την αγαπητική Των κηδεμονία, Όλα τα άλλα τα αποδέλοιπα  έθνη ακόμα και ο οργανισμός ενωμένων επίπλων, ΜΟΝΟ ΓΙΑ ΕΜΠΟΡΟΥΣ, αφού μας δώσουν την  δόση μας, υποκατάστατο ηρωίνης, μεθαδόνη ή και ακόμη, ακόμη βάλιουμ των 500, κάτι με οδήγησε (μια κάποια ισχυρά Δύμαμις - Αδυναμία που τρέφω στα γλυκά, ιδίως τα σοροπιαστά, αυτά και στα άλλα της μανικής διαίτης) σε μια αποκάλυψη αποκαλυπτική..
Δύο (3) βιντεάκια (τι λέξη, άτε να χαθείς) καινούργια, μόλις ξεβρακωμένα από το σελοφάν, του Ήρωος και της Λαμπρής Σώτης..

Σε μια χώρα, όπου ως πολυθαυμαστής της Σώτης, βάνεις στο google του χωριού σου, "Σώτη" και βγαίνουν 90000000000000000 αποτελέσματα "Σώτης Βολάνης" και 1,5 "Σώτη Τριανταφύλλου", να πάτε να γαμηθείτε ελεινίτσες, γαμημένα ειπηρμένα κλεπτομανιακά δίποδα - μακάρι αυτή η δόση να είναι η τελευταία σας και η πιο θανατηφόρα..

Πατήστε επάνω ΜΟΝΟ ξυπόλυτοι, αφού βγάλετε αυτές τις απαίσιες σαγιονάρες που φοράτε συνέχεια και απολαύστε, πέντε κρίκοι ένα τάληρο, για περάστε παρακαλώ..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfuKTLubc4w&feature=plcp&context=C3e59c55UDOEgsToPDskLRm7AqQpL1BNDb-qE7O0Ih

To ως άνω του Κοροβέση το βρήκα από το blog "Ελευθεριάκος", "Eleftheriakos"..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU26VyC5lPE

To ως άνω της Σώτης, είναι από τον χρήστη "thalesandfriends", συνέντευξη της πολυαγαπημένης στην κα Έμμα Δοξιάδη @ ΝΥ..

Belomentioned, last but no least is my favorite Big Epic Beard, Tom Vietnam Vet from Chicago Illinois NEW 2012 from  Ghengisfritzmeister vid..!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4luUIUxCww&feature=related

The big cat strikes again.. Mouses continue their fuckin "life"..

Προσέξτε παρακαλώ την φωτογραφία:

Ένας αν μη τι άλλο ευλόγως εξαγριωμένος, ενεργός Πολίτης, εισβάλλει στο θεωρείο, της κατά τα 2/3 μουνουχισμένης βουλής, των ιδιοτελών τεράτων και φωνάζει ενάντια στα νεκρόφιλα λαοκτόνα μέτρα..

Από κάτω την ώρα που συλλαμβάνεται από μπράβους του βουλιμικού παρακράτους, κάποια (4) ποντίκια, όσα τουλάχιστον μπορούνε να ειδωθούνε από την φωτογραφία, κοιτάνε στο υπερπέραν, φωλιασμένοι από την εγωτική, εγωμανιακή, εγωπαθή, πρέζα του γαμημένου ΕΓΩ Τους..

Ο ένας μπορεί πολλά..

Φαντάσου όμως και τα μισά έστω από τα ποντίκια να καταλαβαίνανε το στοιχειώδες..

Ότι ο νεκρός ακόμα και αν κλινικά δεν έχει ακόμα πεθάνει, συνεχιζομένου του ματαίου αβίωτου βίου του, δεν έχει να χάσει τίποτα, παρά ΜΟΝΟΝ την ψυχή του..

Richard Hawley, Serious..

Thank God for songs like this...It makes even the darkest day a little brighter..! Just brilliant.. What a Voice (mix J. Cash en Elvis), drums, bass, vid all en all..!! God bless U all..

Lyrics to Serious :

When you are in love
Ah, you feel the stars above
There’s no devil in your eyes
There’s no darkness in disguise

But when you are in love
A kiss can turn your heart to stone
Hearts breaking in the night
There's a devil in her eyes

Oh it’s serious, so serious
A kiss that caught the wind made you delirious
Oh it’s serious, so serious
Take her in your arms don’t be afraid
Never be afraid

When you are in love
Ah, the stars burn bright above
There’s a kindness in your eyes
There’s no darkness in disguise

Oh but when you are in love
Oh your heart it turns to stone
Hearts breaking in the night

There's a devil in her eyes

Oh it’s serious, so serious

A kiss that caught the wind made you delirious
Oh it’s serious, so serious
Take her in your arms don’t be afraid
Never be afraid

Oh it’s serious, so serious
A kiss that caught the wind made you delirious
Oh it’s serious, so serious
So take her in your arms don’t be afraid
Never be afraid