Monthly Archives: July 2009

First cover done!

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Tonight I finished the first cover, or first bunch of covers.
What is he going on about you ask…
Well, as you know, if you’ve read the post above and clicked around this site, I’m giving away an album of mine (‘The Anger’) to the first person from any country who e-mails me. I’ve also stated that each of these albums will come with a unique, handmade, cover.

The picture below shows the first cover, or group of covers, made. It will be divided into 6 12cm x 12cm covers and then shipped all over the world (never to be joined again?).

Every cut cover will also come with a little something written on the back.

The pic is a link, click it and see it full size (the flare of the flash sets the colours off a bit but it looked even worse without flash):

cover_1_small

New glass. New shirt. Black beer.

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Avid readers of this blog know I’m Arsenal supporter.
They also know I once and in a while have a bees to the games on Saturdays.

I used to have a Arsenal pint glass to drink out of. That glass was broken. I now have a new one, I got it today, along with my new Arsenal shirt. Tried the new glass with a nice black-beer!

beerglass

Two questions can arise from this picture:
One – Why the away-kit?
Well, I though it would be fun, and they play half of their matches away so…
Two (and this one is for the more observant and also readers of my Twitter-feed) – Hey! The sun is shining, you say it rains all the time where you are, whats up with that?
So, calm down. The weather here is so unstable we occasionally get the odd second of sunshine. Don’t think it hasn’t been raining today!

Today; a day of full!

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Yes today has been a rather eventful day. Done a lot and a lot of that a lot didn’t go as planned…

Yesterday I reserved a book at the library. Today I went to pick it up. I had reserved the wrong book. The one I wanted, they did not have. Had to buy it. Good thing though: the book at the book store said one price but when I went to pay it turns out they had a campaign on it, or something, got it cheaper.

As a vegetarian it is pretty hard to find good sneakers. (Anyone out there has a tip please tell me!) Today I found a pair (or so I thought). I tried them on. They were really nice and they were on sale! Sure they had suede and leather and everything on them. But! The suede and leather and everything was recycled… so then it’s ok (according to me). Before I went all in I decided I wanted to read the fine print. The suede and leather and stuff looked too new, too little used. It wasn’t recycled, not at all. The shoes was made from material, new material, to originally be thrown away but now used for this instead… not ok (again according to me). So, no shoes.

I went over to Macforum. The local Mac store. Wanting to buy two things. Civ 4 and Logic 9… they were out of both.

Yeah. That’s pretty much how the whole day went down. At the optician, at the post office…

Good day!

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A good day for my little campaign of giving away albums (read about it all over this site; above; below and under the pager 1:st!) to the first person from any country to e-mail me. Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Northern Ireland, Romania, Sweden and U.S.A. are all covered! Just keep em coming and I’ll keep sending!

Belgium and Romania claimed!

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Last night I started a campaign to give away my album ‘The Anger’ for free to the first person from any country to e-mail me and ask for it. (You can read all about it in the post below, the post above or the page called 1:st!)

Right of the bat I got an e-mail from Belgium. A couple hours later Romania dropped in. And this is mental. The record have been nowhere near those countries!

I really thought that the Nordic countries would be first to go; seeing as how there is where the youtube-clips are most popular, the nelly.com commercial is running and where my album is released. But no. All Nordic countries are still up for grabs!

So if you want my album; mail me! (Don’t forget to include name and shipping address.)

First from your country? Here!

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Ok.
First off:
I know it’s been a while since I released my album ‘The Anger’.
And I know that I’ve got a few e-mails from all of you wondering if you could get hold of it, and getting a negative answer.

Well. All that is about to change.
First some background:

A while back I got an e-mail from Matt in Australia. He told me he was a non-Nordic resident and wondered where he could get hold of my music. Baffled at the sheer fact that someone in Australia had heard my music I told him I could send him a copy. Yesterday I got another e-mail from Matt telling me that the record now had arrived, he also attached a picture of him holding the record.

This got me thinking.

So here it is: I will give away an album to the first person from a unique country to e-mail me and ask. The thing I ask in return is a picture, which I can post on this site. The album will have unique artwork and will be in CD-R/.wav-format.

Citizens of every country in the world, excluding Australia, are eligible. (Even you in the Nordic Countries.)
So come on: Mail me. Don’t forget to include your name and address!

Vital information.

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Not much going on today. A study-day turned shopping day. That was not supposed to happen. But it did. Blame the rain. Yes, the rain. I had to have a new shell-jacket and pants, also water resistant boots. Now I do. So come on rain! Give me all you’ve got. I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you dead.

The good thing with studying practical philosophy is that you don’t really have to sit by your desk when you study. There is so much thinking going on. So much to solve. That, the solving, can be done anywhere, like out shopping. And I did. I have had some problem with a piece of my bachelors thesis. The thing I am studying on. That problem is solved now. I did it on the tram into town.

Other stuff shopped, if of any interest at all, were: A belt, four glasses, coffee, tea, a deodorant and socks… (Print this page and keep it in a safe place. The kind of vital information that this page contains should be kept such.)

The band and I play all day long.

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A full day of rehearsals today. Up at 0700h. Met up with Martin and KG at Martins place at 0845h and at around 0910h we were at KG’s place (The Studio/Rehearsal Space etc.).

We had 10 songs to run through. Or 10 songs we could run through. There was no pressure to do all 10, and we did not, we did 9. 8 of the 10 songs feel like keepers, the other 2 I have to think about for a bit. I think that I think that they don’t fit… with the others… sort of.

It sounded great! I was really surprised. 1-3 rehearsals more and we’ll be ready for the studio.
Clarification: Not surprised that it sounded great, at all. Surprised that it sounded so great already, after only 2 rehearsals and a month since the last one.

There.

So, on to the pics.

First one: Kg and myself engaged in deep conversation about shredds, sweeps, melodies in harmony, power chords and the ever ongoing battle of Yngwieeeeeee vs. Vaaaiii…

rep_1

Second one: Martin playing air bass.

air_bass

Third one: A lot of air-instrumenting going on.

drums

Fourth one: I only managed to get two decent clicks of Brandt. So here’s him hiding behind a car upon our arrival.

hiding

Happy Birthday Tullan!

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Yepp, today it’s happy birthday to Tullan, my sister. Love you!

Here she is enjoying a cab ride to one of the Strand-bookstores in New York. During the lethally hot heat wave of June ’08. “Lethally hot” is not my words, they are the words of the weatherman on the eve of our arrival.

tullan

And again: HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

The vacuum and haze of a letter.

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I got a letter today that left me in a bit of a vacuum. I’ll leave it at that. The info for you all is there; today has been a bit of a haze. Also, it’s been raining asses here in GBG. That means that it has been raining asses here in GBG, which is a lot.

Before the letter came I got a little studying doing. Not all I wanted. After the letter came I drank two cups of coffee and had Butter Bunnies. A pastery that Camilla makes.

Tomorrow I’ll try to get back on track. I’ll also try to get out of bed early, around 0800h. On Sunday I have to work. Up at 0500h. I’ll try to ease into it, the up-going that is.One never eases into work. That would be mad.

The media flu and treasure of culture.

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Been feeling a bit ill today. Nauseous and dizzy. That’s gone now, sort of… “Such a strange thing to say; sort of, it’s more of a filler, doesn’t really mean anything. Sometimes sort of means everything. Like after: I love you… sort of, or: you’re going to live…” - Demetri Martin, In a direct quote… sort of.

Maybe I have the Swine Flu… or the Bird Flu… or have eaten Akrylamid… or any other media hype… Maybe I have Sven-Göran Eriksson to Notts County!

Forgot to mention this the other day (when it happened) but Spotify now have a large chunk of The Silence Records catalogue. An institute of culture. Check it out.

Office out, iWork in, thesis, music, and football.

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Today I did it.
I threw out Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac and replaced it with iWork’09. I’ve had such hassle with Word so I was driven to it. Sorry Microsoft. Word might be the best word-processor out there but it does not work. Mine froze or hung when I used (according to the program, and I guess) too many footnotes, around 20 in a document of 9 pages, around 3000 words. Absolutely ludicrous.

As you might have guessed, If you’ve been reading this blog at all for the passed six month, I’ve been fiddling with my bachelors thesis again today. As most weekdays. It’s coming along nicely.

Music news! What!? Yeah!
Got a mail, or a text I mean, from Rob today. We’re going to have a meeting of sorts to plan the recording of the next album. and on Saturday the boys and I are going to rehears. 10 songs; the songs for the new album. Nice.

Thoughts go out to Arsenals Nasri who got one of his fibulas fractured today in pre-season training.

Three things from the days passed.

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The Visit to Nässjö:

On Saturday morning Camilla, the Boo and I got into the car and drove the 200 odd kilometers to Nässjö. In Nässjö our friends Andy and Jenna live. The reason for the visit was two-fold; we hadn’t seen them for a while and since the last time we saw them they had gotten a, their first, baby: Tilde.

It was a nice two day event with dinners, walks and just sitting around talking.

Here’s a nice sign from Nässjö.

nassjo_1

It stod not far from this road:

nassjo_2

The Arsenal stuff:

On Saturday the footballing seasson got underway, sort of. Arsenal played there first match, a draw of 2-2, against Barnet, as it has become a tradition to. Nice to get stuff going.
They also got rid of Adebayor, sold him to Man City, and in the word pun bonanza that is the silly seasson of English Football all I really have to say on the matter is: Ade(good)bayor! Never liked the player. Sure, he scored a couple of decent and vital goals but still…

The Internet in Australia:

Got a mail the other day (now I could write fan mail but I am reluctant to do so 1. because I really do not know what a fan mail is and 2. because I do not know if this was one… could have been… if it wasn’t, I do not know what is…), it was from a guy in Australia wanting to get hold of my music. He had, found it, through his friend on the Internet and now he wanted to get his hands on all of it. All of my music; The Anger, that is.
The Internet, man. I mean, man. Australia!? So, cool!
So a shout out to my number one (and only) fan in Australia: Matt!

Death for life and vice versa.

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Saw a documentary of sorts yesterday.
It was about health care, or health care related stuff anyway.
It got me thinking.

Conspiracies aside, the health care industry’s number one goal is to make people feel better; to make them well; healthy.
A consequence of that, the health care industry hopes, is people getting better, less people will die from disease and so on.
Moving on from that we than, maybe, have a ever increasing number of healthy individuals.
I do not know if one can say that the underlying reasons for the health care industry to keep people healthy (apart from making money) is for the earth to have as many, healthy, individuals as possible. Everyone is going to be healthy, no one is going to die from curable disease and forward, there is to be no disease.

But the health industry won’t go away.

Still, one wonders how it will tackle the issue when the number one reason fore poor health is that there are too many of us. (One would think that there is where we are heading, if we can pass a few bumps such as global warming, wars and managed to be oblivion to what we are doing to the world and its inhabitants, over a longer period of time.)

What I am trying to get across is the posible future paradox of death for life and vice versa.

Nice day, car spotting and no sound.

Posted on by Tomas Halberstad
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I love the days when you have a lot of stuff to do, not too much, just enough to keep doing stuff the whole day, at a convenient pace, and actually do them. Today has been such a day, and I am hoping that tomorrow will as well.

I got up early, went for a walk, then home for some breakfast, then out with the Boo, a shower, studies, lunch, more studies, another dog walk, getting the laundry started, dinner, laundry and then half an hour on the exercise-bike. Now I am here, by the computer. Soon I am going to eat something then shower, again, and then relax for an hour or so in-front of the TV. Nice.

The fact that the weather is just perfect does not make things harder. Not too warm, not too cold and the sun shining all the time.

Funny thing. I saw the Google Maps car today, here on my little street. The Google map car is a going around taking pictures and stuff. It has a, or several, big camera/cameras on its roof. This one was a red Opel Astra.

Hoping for a nice day tomorrow.

I’m sorry that there isn’t much, or any, music news. Can’t really do anything about it at the moment. The only music related stuff I have planned is a rehearsal with the new band in a couple of weeks time. It is really hard to get us, the group of cool, together. Everyone’s busy, busy, busy.

I’ll see what I’ll can do.

Ta’.