non traditional interviews and please follow this chick on Twitter @kikajonsson

No rest for the wicked! Summer looks very promising, as I will be realizing a mostly-life long dream of attending Roskilde Festival in Denmark. This combines all that I love: music, journalism, and Danish people. Read my interview with spokesperson Christina Bilde, some interesting bits on festival history. 

I also finally finished the interview with Out in the North founders, who I had the pleasure to meet in Arhus at the SPOT festival when we both could not get into the Broken Twin show! This project take Scandinavian/Nordic musicians out into natural settings to play acoustic versions of songs, it's thoroughly original. Read about the ideas and inspirations and occasional mishaps behind this project.

 Coming up soon: I was able to interview Canadian former-quartet-now-trio Braids on Thursday. Will get that up as soon as possible, they were incredibly nice, well-spoken and gregarious. They played as one of three bands for the Introducing in June, part of the Intro series. They played songs off their new album (out in August) Flourish//Perish, which is different then debut album Native Speaker.
Rock Ton Paintball avec Braids (Épisode 8) from Scène 1425 on Vimeo.

Out, damn'd spot! out, I say! SPOT Festival May 2-4

I hope you liked that Macbeth quote. Guess who's little writing hobby, someone's small side project, someone's little fun-thing-on-the-weekend, yeah I'll do this sure why not casual music writing thingie (which is now taking almost as much time as my real job) has earned them a place as a delegate at Denmark's own version of SXSW, the SPOT Festival? Me! 
I am so excited, Rob Helbig, founder and giant creative brain behind Nothingbuthopeandpassion, asked me to come along. Launch day is this Thursday, when we board a bus with a bunch of other German media people to take a nine-hour ride to 

Århus. Read the blurb we wrote here, I'm very proud of my "use other buzzwords" sentence and the cigarette analogy.  Rob and the nice people over at Nordic by Nature came up with a Top 21 Hottest Acts of SPOT 2013.  Memorable acts that have gotten started here are Sigur Rós, The Raveonettes and  Spleen United.  Tune in to NBHAP for updates and shenanigans.

In honor of my third trip to Denmark in less than a year, I want to share this picture of the Redflesh (Danish hardcore) 7" I purchased at Spillestedet Stengade during the Distortion Festival.  I did it  because M- told me to. I didn't even have a record player. At 4 a.m. we saw someone set a bike on fire. At 6 a. m. we were still walking around Copenhagen talking about Phillip Roth. Nørrebro kærlighed. Since then, a whole perfect series of events have led me back, and the Waldo and Marsha interview I did in Århus in December was my ticket into Nothingbuthopeandpassion. See, dreams do come true. At least indie in Denmark dreams.

Distortion Festival 2012

you know what you need to do? 

you need to write a review of the distortion festival almost two months after you went.  

okay.

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Niels Bohr kicks it in Copenhagen

30 May to 3 June, 2012, Copenhagen, Denmark, Europe, the world 

In 5 days, the “celebration of Copenhagen’s nightlife” aka the South by Southwest of Europe, aka a roving street party that systematically destroys and enlivens successive neighborhoods in this modest Scandinavian city, you can hear bands, you can hear DJs, you can get really drunk, you can get really high, and you can hear the sounds of tomorrow. I heard of it when reading about Iceage, who broke big at the Dogmeat Showcase during Distortion 2011.

action then lights

Chosen night is Thursday, May 31 in Norrebro, Spillestedet Stengade, with the subheading NOISE. Hosted by Posh Isolation, this show featured Helm, Dig og Mig, Age Coin, Forza Albino, Lust for Youth, Puce Mary, Vanity Productions and Euroboys. 11:30 pm arrival and I ask the tall, blonde (nooo, here?) next to me where we are in the lineup, we are watching Helm, sitting before a mixer, lit by Christmas lights, drone away. Find a nice review of his album here.  So standing, drink in hand, watching Luke Younger manipulate and obfuscate the aural landscape, Danish guy introduces himself thus “I’m M____....yeah I’m on ecstasy right now.”  And this is just in the first 15 minutes. Other tidbits of wisdom, reactions to my first time in Scandinavia, are “It’s your first time in Scandinavia? You know what you should do... you should get really drunk.”

Lust for Youth followed Helm, which is more my taste when it comes to the spacey, go-where-your-mind-takes-you sonic release that noise should be.  Tending more toward dark wave/post punk, they played tracks from the album Solar Flare.  From Sweden, it’s a boy-girl duo that are the soundtrack to your walk around a melancholy dark city at night, wearing lots of black and not expecting to see the sun.

final party