It’s a new year, it’s a new beginning, it’s a new song called ‘New Day’.
Thanks to all the people we have worked with and met throughout 2008 – I hope to see I see you all again next year.
The plan for 2009 is, loosely, as follows: I will release my first solo album in Swedish this spring, and Embee will also be releasing solo material during that same period (rumors claim that he has two albums in the works (!) – one of them being the follow up to ‘Tellings From Solitaria’). During the summer Looptroop will start recording our new album, and release for that would realistically be early 2010. This means that Looptroop will not be touring in 09, except for some new areas (we have discussions with some people about tours in the US and in France for example – but more about that if it gets confirmed). I plan a solo tour in Sweden with my album though.
I know I said earlier that I would release an album in English on the net around this time, but I need to focus on the Swedish album. So a plan I have is to, somehow (I haven’t figured it out yet), release one song every month and then put it together as one album when all of them have been released. Whatever may happen to that plan, here’s at least the first of those songs: ‘New Day’. Spread the love!
Produced by Astma and Rocwell, released in co-operation with JuJu, DvsG and DLX. Artwork by Time Will Tell.
Fredrik sent us this photo of his wall at his home. Nice work! Judging from our t-shirts, the photos of us must have been taken during the 2006 leg of the Fort Europa tour.
tycker det är lite dåligt att ni inte kan skriva nånstans att det inte blir nånting på brewhouse? och hur blir det med biljetter osv? flyttas det till nåt annat datum och plats? Pz
vi tycker det är skittrist att det har blivit som det har blivit,
men vi har aldrig annonserat här på hemsidan att vi skulle spela på brewhouse – och jag känner lite att det är brewhoses eget ansvar att berätta för folk att det inte blir nåt gig… vi var aldrig bokade, så vi har inte ställt in. det var brewhouse som gick ut med att vi skulle spela medan de fortfarande förhandlade med vår bokare – och sen visade det sig att vi inte var lediga det datumet. jag uppmanar er att ligga på brewhouse om ni har köpt biljetter – för då ska de ersätta er!
Back in the 90’s, everybody except yours truly had a pager in my crew. Or as we called them, beepers. They turned obsolete pretty fast when the phones got smaller and cheaper (I didn’t get that either until really late – around ’03 or something) – but this one lives on in our memories. Embee’s beeper of course couldn’t just be a beeper, it had to have a name – Tha EmBeeper. He even made a business card for it, which i saved and found while i was checking through my blackbook the other day. (Try paging it to see if he still uses it.)
This week on ‘Machines from hell’ I’ve dug up two photos of two very diabolical machines. The first one comes from when i visited Västerås some weeks ago and was parking the car. The parking meter says: ‘Paid. Pay more.’ It’s nothing out of the ordinary that these machines want more, and more money from you – but it just made me laugh how bluntly the machine told me it wanted more money…
Today we went through Germany on our way from Århus, DK to Enschede in Holland – and we’ll be back next week to do some shows. At a gas station this evil device tried to stop me from going to the bathroom and release the pressure. Good thing it was as easy to jump as the old turn pikes in the Stockholm subway.
The year was 2000, we were going to do a show at the Roskilde festival in Denmark – and we had huge expectations. ‘Modern Day City Symphony’ had dropped in April that same year and we had been building a buzz on the scene since 96 really – and now we were ready to hit the big stages!
The crowd was ready too! There were a lot of people in the tent that night, and although there were other hiphop acts from Sweden and the US – I think Petter and I know MC Serch from 3rd Bass were there – I felt like most people were there to see us that night. If that’s true or not is of course hard to tell, but that was our honest feeling.
Anyway, there were a lot of delays on stage that night and since we were playing last we were getting a bit worried when everything was getting pushed further and further back. It’s classic that things get delayed on a hiphop night, and back then was nothing different. A Danish group I don’t want to remember the name of had problems with their dat player (!), and instead of letting them pay for their incompetence with their own stage time we – as the last act – were getting punished. Then Mc Serch had soooo many things to say to the crowd and the clock was ticking… and ticking…
Finally it was our friends Timbuk’s and Spotrunners’ turn to go on stage – and after them we were supposed to play. Most of the people had left because the hour was mad late. And then the stage manager dropped the bomb on us: we wouldn’t be allowed to do our set because they had a curfew and the police were very strict.
We lost it! Especially me and Embee who came this close to starting a fight with the stage manager (this was before we had Schumi as a tour manager to handle these kind of situations for us) – and we are definitely not the fighting kind! Apart from feeling like the whole crowd had been there to see us we had also been camping in the camping area of the festival for three days in mud and rain and shit and cold just to do this show! So we were absolutely furious…
Then Timbuk heard about it and brought us on stage towards the end of his set to let us do two or three songs. That’s when I got a spray can from someone in the crowd and wrote our opinion about the festival’s treatment of us on the front drop on stage (see pic below). So the guards rushed on stage and dragged me off, but I got back somehow and we at least did ‘Long Arm of the Law’ as I recall.
After that we left the whole circus mad as hell. This was the same year when people died at the big stage at the Pearl Jam show. So we vowed to never come back to this awful festival (note that I had been coming to Roskilde ever since 93 and I loved it), but I was back again in 2002. And since then I’ve been there every year. It’s a hate love kind of thing.
I went on a solo mission to Wroclaw in Poland last week to do a show at the One Love Sound Fest. Well, together with Dj Large, Schumi and Vladi of course. We did some new songs and a lot of old stuff. It’s always hard to do a solo show, but we had a good time like we always do in Poland. Peace to Kuba and the East West Rockers and the people at Hala Ludowa! And peace to www.looptrooprockers.pl for some of the pics.
Not the most fitting sponsor for a reggae festival I must say…
But I had my own, rootical, energy drink sponsor, so I was cool.
