Where The Action Is Rock Festival, Day 2
Category: Music
Second day of a rainy festival. This time I had the best of company: my wife joined me to hear Duffy.
Posted by Martin R at 12:01 AM • 2 Comments •
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Martin Rundkvist's blog. Archaeology, skepticism, Sweden. And books and music and stuff.
Dr. Martin Rundkvist is a Swedish archaeologist, journal editor, public speaker, skeptic, atheist, lefty liberal, bookworm, and father of two.
Category: Music
Second day of a rainy festival. This time I had the best of company: my wife joined me to hear Duffy.
Posted by Martin R at 12:01 AM • 2 Comments •
Category: Music
[More blog entries about wheretheactionis, rockfestival, Sweden, pixies, seasicksteve, missli, musik, rock, pop; musik, rock, pop, rockfestival, wheretheactionis, pixies, missli, seasicksteve.] I spent yesterday afternoon and evening at a rock festival out near the university. I arrived early through pouring...
Posted by Martin R at 5:28 AM • 3 Comments •
Category: Music
Here are some excellent albums I've been listening to lately on my trusty smartphone. If you're into power pop, alternative rock, US folk and psychedelia, then check them out!Brendan Benson. Alternative to Love. 2005. Grand Duchy. Petits Fours. 2009. It's...
Posted by Martin R at 5:17 AM • 0 Comments •
Category: Humour
From 1980, a television appearance by the brilliant Tom Lehrer, where he performs a song that never made it onto any of his records back in the day. (I hear it's on the CD re-issue, though.) Via David Nessle....
Posted by Martin R at 4:23 PM • 6 Comments •
Category: Music
Lately I've been listening a lot to Damn!'s fourth album, Let's Zoom In, that was released last year. Damn! is an unfortunately namned soul/funk octet from Malmö in southern Sweden, mostly known as a backing band for rapper Timbuktu....
Posted by Martin R at 5:58 AM • 4 Comments •
Category: Music
Spring's finally reached Stockholm! To celebrate, here's a song by one of the city's finest folk singers, Stefan Sundström, off of his 1992 album Happy Hour Viser, "Happy Hour Songs". I translate:Spring Samba By Stefan Sundström One morning when...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 6 Comments •
Category: Music
The Mama Mia movie has revitalised interest in Swedish 70s pop giants ABBA. The other day I heard 10-y-o Junior's school choir perform "As Good As New". 5-y-o Juniorette and her pals at daycare sing garbled versions of all...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 3 Comments •
Category: History
We're dealing both with historical reality and with historical fiction written a long time ago.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 20 Comments •
Category: Music
Back in 2006 I gave Silver, the then latest album from Philadelphia folk rockers Maggi, Pierce and E.J., a rave review. Since then the band has put out a collection of covers, a documentary DVD, a side-project duo album,...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 2 Comments •
Category: Music
Illicit copying is not a threat to artists. It is the new distribution system.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 4 Comments •
Category: Music
With thanks to Dear Reader Shelley, here's a 1969 French cover version of the Muppets' famed song: "Mais non, mais non", as written and sung by Henri Salvador....
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 1 Comments •
Category: Tech
My switch from the iPod of course led to a huge drop in the ease of use.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 6 Comments •
Category: Film
A few years ago my friend David the Psychonaut gave me an mp3 file with the greatest song, "Jan Pehechan-Ho" by Mohammed Rafi. And now another friend, Tanya the Cosmopolite, links to the song's over-the top Bollywood dance number,...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 9 Comments •
Category: Music
Driving home from our auto mechanic shop (notable not only for its brisk service, but also for being run entirely by first-generation immigrants, which is rare in that business) yesterday, I heard two new songs on the radio that...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 8 Comments •
Category: Music
Here's a brand new and particularly fine piece of world-weary goth rock from prolific Uppsala decadents Kurtz. Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you "Sex Cult 10". And don't miss the band's RSS feed!...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 1 Comments •
Category: Music
I've reached an age where some of my generation's brightest pop musicians are doing nostalgia tours. The Olivia Tremor Control reunited! But guys, couldn't you please write us some new songs as well?...
Posted by Martin R at 9:22 AM • 1 Comments •
Category: Music
Monday night me and Moomin went to an of Montreal gig at Medborgarplatsen in Stockholm. Amazing stuff. Seven musicians on stage, everybody swapping instruments all the time, three mimes prancing around in weird masks, psychedelic animated films on the...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 2 Comments •
Category: Music
Yes he is extremely lewd, yes he is psychedelic, yes he has a plastic synth sound...
Posted by Martin R at 8:33 AM • 3 Comments •
Category: Space
Two of my favourite song writers have revealed themselves as astronomy nerds in love songs. Frank Black in "Sir Rockaby" (1994):How many stars girl Can you both count And then classify? I'm standing here in this big swirl Singing this...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 5 Comments •
Category: Music
With thanks to Moomin, here's a fine clip with Max Raabe und das Palast Orchester performing "Amalie geht mit 'nem Gummikavalier ins Bad" from 1927. How low haven't the lyrics of the popular song sunk since that golden age...
Posted by Martin R at 7:33 AM • 6 Comments •
Category: Music
Sättuna excavation team member Peter Forrester is a big fan of Finnish folk metallers Finntroll. The other day he played me a funny untitled bonus track from the group's 2007 album Ur jordens djup ("Out of the depths of...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 7 Comments •
Category: Gaming
My son just played me a song he can't get out of his head, "Still Alive". It's the closing-credits music of the 2007 computer game Portal, sung by a heavily vocoded Ellen McLain. As it turns out, the song...
Posted by Martin R at 7:13 AM • 6 Comments •
Category: Gaming
With kudos to Mattias who sent me the link, here are Stephen Lynch & Mark Teich performing a fine song about being a 14-y-o D&D-playing young man. To those of our readers who currently fit that description, let me...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 4 Comments •
Category: Music
Lately I've been listening to the following albums:Apples in Stereo -- New Magnetic Wonder (2007) Delays -- Faded Seaside Glamour (2004) Funkadelic -- Funkadelic (1970) MGMT -- Oracular Spectacular (2007) Motorpsycho -- Let Them Eat Cake (2000) Sleep -- Jerusalem...
Posted by Martin R at 11:42 AM • 5 Comments •
Category: Archaeology
Today we dug and sieved our 33rd and last square-meter test pit at Djurhamn, and I took the gear back to the County Museum's stores. Unless a colleague with better early-modern pottery skillz than mine provides any surprises, it seems...
Posted by Martin R at 12:53 PM • 2 Comments •
Category: Music
Here's a set of pics from the Music Tuscany mini-festival near San' Giovanni d'Asso in Tuscany, Italy, last week....
Posted by Martin R at 3:55 AM • 1 Comments •
Category: Archaeology
An evening of live classical music, wine and food under the Tuscan sky.
Posted by Martin R at 6:07 AM • 1 Comments •
Category: Tech
The micro-SD flash memory chip that came with my new smartphone has some interesting issues with data integrity. I mostly use it to store sound files in the mp3 format, both pop songs of a few MB each and podcasts...
Posted by Martin R at 3:11 PM • 1 Comments •
Category: Humour
I've posted a fine example of Ansiktsburk song lyrics before: listen to a song in a language you don't understand, and try to imagine that it is actually sung in your own language though with a funny accent. Then...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 8 Comments •
Category: Music
More good and witty UK rapping, this time a year-old hit from Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip. Thanks to Paddy K for the tip-off....
Posted by Martin R at 3:27 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Humour
From UK rapper Elemental, an extremely witty song about tea with a funny video! Via Paddy K and Brass Goggles....
Posted by Martin R at 3:54 AM • 3 Comments •
Category: Music
Those questionable characters in productive Swedish goth band Kurtz have set up an RSS feed direct from their rehearsal room to your desktop. Coming up next: a song about a dorm mate of singer Pocke who was once in 1976...
Posted by Martin R at 4:11 PM • 0 Comments •
Category: Music
Last night's Hayseed Dixie gig rocked. This is the bluegrass band playing metal songs that I blogged about recently. Me and Paddy K went there after checking out some stand-up comedy with the ladies. We had been given the...
Posted by Martin R at 12:58 PM • 2 Comments •
Category: Music
It's a running joke around Sb that the single most popular blog entry on the whole site is one where a scibling calls Britney Spears the High Priestess of something not very flattering. In fact, as Spears's latest hit...
Posted by Martin R at 3:16 PM • 7 Comments •
Category: Music
Bluegrass music is rootsy acoustic proto-country. 70s heavy metal is bluesy electrified hard rock. Imagine what classic heavy metal songs would sound like if played by a bluegrass band -- banjo, fiddle, mandolin, bass... Imagine that. Imagine Hayseed Dixie!...
Posted by Martin R at 1:15 PM • 1 Comments •
Category: Music
Last night I had the pleasure of catching two of my home town's best live music acts, each playing in a basement venue a couple of hundred meters apart on Stockholm's southern island. The Crawfish Cook and the Skandalites...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 2 Comments •
Category: Music
After work today I had dinner with my friends Asko & Eva and then went to the Cirkus concert venue to hear the Mars Volta. For those of you who have missed them, they're a US psychedelic progressive rock...
Posted by Martin R at 6:02 PM • 3 Comments •
Category: Music
Trolls have set an ambush here / To test the mettle of the dwarves
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 25 Comments •
Category: Music
The past week I've twice heard Nirvana's 1993 song "Heart Shaped Box" on the radio. I realised that its lyrics have a number of remarkably powerful lines. Kurt Cobain was a talented man. Here are the song's two verses.She...
Posted by Martin R at 8:30 AM • 1 Comments •
Category: Archaeology
As chronicled here in many entries over the past months, computer consultant, New Age author and homeopath Bob G. Lind has carved out his own niche in Swedish amateur archaeology with controversial interpretations of Scanian archaeological sites Ales stenar...
Posted by Martin R at 8:56 AM • 4 Comments •
Category: Music
One evening last week in North Carolina, walking back from Chapel Hill to the Holiday Inn along road 54, I heard this brilliant send-up of everything Barry White ever recorded on the radio. Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you "Business...
Posted by Martin R at 4:25 PM • 2 Comments •
Category: Humour
Scandy readers will be very familiar with this. As we learned from "Hatten Är Din", "Ansiktsburk", "Fiskpinnar" and other Turk Hits back in 2000, you can get wonderfully absurd results if you listen to a song in a foreign language...
Posted by Martin R at 3:44 AM • 5 Comments •
Category: Music
An album I can really recommend is LA quartet OK Go's 2005 disc Oh No. It's catchy, glammy rock with swagger and brains and decadence, recorded in Sweden and beautifully produced by Tore Johansson and the mighty Lindgård/Mopeds brothers....
Posted by Martin R at 8:50 AM • 3 Comments •
Category: Music
Some of these angels have the face of Gods / Some of them the face of dogs
Posted by Martin R at 8:50 AM • 1 Comments •
Category: Music
Are you feeling safe and satisfied, my friend?
Posted by Martin R at 2:15 PM • 9 Comments •
Category: Music
Three good albums, listened to in the car when driving to & fro the Djurhamn dig.
Posted by Martin R at 2:34 PM • 3 Comments •
Category: Books
I'm thinking maybe it isn't worth the effort to keep the Good Books and Good Albums lists going in the left-hand column. Better to put that effort into writing more blog entries about books and albums? Dear Reader, if you're...
Posted by Martin R at 3:47 PM • 8 Comments •
Category: Music
Reedy kickass singer Tanja knows her glottal stops and is an archaeologist's daughter.
Posted by Martin R at 1:35 PM • 1 Comments •
Category: Music
The ladies are 29 and 25 here, raw power!
Posted by Martin R at 8:50 AM • 7 Comments •
Category: Music
What are they thinking? I really have no idea.
Posted by Martin R at 8:50 AM • 12 Comments •
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