Nordic Rox

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – January 2024

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Per Gessle and Sven Lindström wish you a happy new year with the January episode of Nordic Rox. PG is curious if Sven had a great New Year’s Eve. Sven thinks so and wants to know if Per had a great one. Mr. G says he can’t remember his NYE, but it was probably good. Haha. Obviously, they had recorded this show much before.

The guys chose to kick off Nordic Rox 2024 with a trip to their brothers in Denmark. Danish band The Raveonettes has it’s special this time. It’s one of Per’s personal favourite band, he thinks they are really cool. Sven thinks they had a base in the States for a couple of years and were produced by pop legend Richard Gottehrer. Per adds Richard produced so many amazing records over the years, e.g. The Go-Go’s debut album and also My Boyfriend’s Back by The Angels. [Here Per sings a line: My boyfriend’s back and you’re gonna be in trouble.] That’s a wonderful song, he thinks. Richard formed a record label Sire Records with Seymour Stein. He also produced I Want Candy by The Strangeloves. Sven says they are going to end up talking more about Richard Gottehrer than they speak about The Raveonettes and that’s an insult, so they are going to restrain themselves and get the show started.

The first track on the program is a brand new song, All Day Long from a Swedish band, The Royal Concept. The next one is Unseen Footage From A Forthcoming Funeral by Nicole Sabouné. A good and long song title it is, according to Per. It’s written by Nicole and Ola Salo from The Ark. A good track.

Then comes Fool by Roxette. Sven jokes that Per is sitting right beside him trying to remember this song. Mr. G laughs and says it’s from the Room Service album, which they recorded in 2000 at the old ABBA studio in Stockholm, the Polar Studios that doesn’t exist anymore. It was the last album they did before Marie got ill in 2002. Per remembers it fondly. It was a great album, a fun album to make. Still sounds good today, Sven adds. PG says they worked with an amazing engineer and a mixing guy called Ronny Lahti, who he has been working with so many times ever since. He is still around and he is just doing amazing work all the time. He made this album sound terrific, Per thinks.

Before The Raveonettes special is coming up, there comes a favourite track of Per. The guys play the Deportees who made a song together with Sarah Klang, who is one of PG’s favourite Swedish singers. This song, Lost You For A While is just amazing according to Mr. G. It’s fom the Deportees’ latest album People Are A Foreign Country. The band is from the north of Sweden, but they are… Sven finishes the sentence: „they are good anyway”. Per laughs: „You said that, I didn’t”. The guys are laughing.

The next song is Dead Of Night by the Dead Express from the album Brain Damage from 2019. It sounds amazing according to Mr. G. Garage rock always makes you get your vibes together, Sven says.

Now the guys get down to The Raveonettes. A great little band, according to PG, quite heavily influenced by The Jesus and Mary Chain. You hear that once in a while. Per thinks they are really cool and they have done some great songs. They kicked off in the early noughties. Sven and Per play one of the tracks from the first album called Whip It On, just to give a taste of what to expect. Attack Of The Ghost Riders.

The second Raveonettes song is Per’s favourite, She Owns The Streets. It’s from a later album called Observator, released in 2012. Mr. G shares the info if you don’t know it, The Raveonettes is a duo consisting of Sune Rose Wagner on vocals and guitar and Sharon Foo on vocals and guitar. One guy and one girl. Sven says they have an amazing background. They were recording stuff and then they heard about the Rolling Stone editor David Fricke that he was going to visit a Danish music festival and they decided to go there to play the festival in order for him to see them and possibly write about them, which he did. That sort of opened a few doors for them. They got Richard Gottehrer, the pop legend to produce them. Per thinks it’s a great band and he longs for listening to She Owns The Streets. Sven says it’s a slightly different area they are moving into, some hazy, wonderful pop dreamy stuff. Per loves that song. It sounds like a mix between the surf sound and Link Wray. They could be in any Quentin Tarantino movie. Sven agrees and says they could as well cover for The Everly Brothers if they got sick and somebody had to go on the road to replace them, especially in this upcoming song Here Comes Mary. It’s taken from their second full length album called Pretty In Black. It came out rather early in their career, in 2005. Per thinks it’s a great album produced by Richard Gottehrer. It’s amazingly Everly Brothers sound alike, the harmonies are sort of similar.

The last song from The Raveonettes is from an album Per can’t pronounce, Pe’ahi. That’s Hawaiian for you, Sven says. It’s a big surf break also called Jaws, the Jaws beach, Sven informs. He has been there, just looking, not surfing. He did surf on Hawaii 10 years ago or so, but that was absolute beginner’s surf. Per asks Sven if he was on the water. Sven says yes and laughs, because Per looks so impressed. PG laughs too and says he is stunned and shocked. PG thinks this last song, Endless Sleeper is a good example of what The Raveonettes is about. It’s sort of darkish, Doorsish combined with surf music. A very interesting and creative combination. The intro always makes Sven think of Break On Through by The Doors.

After The Raveonettes special Per sneaks in another song of his. It’s just because it was just released. This is the B side of a vinyl single that PG made a couple of weeks ago. It was an homage to a very big Swedish artist called Pugh Rogefeldt, who unfortunately died a couple of months ago. The B side is in English, so that’s why he thought it was cool to play it on Nordic Rox. It’s a song he always liked. Per recorded it the first time in 2006. It was released 2007 in Swedish, but then PG did an additional version a couple of years ago in English. The single is available on Spotify and everywhere, but Per’s intention was to make a vinyl single anyway. He likes vinyl singles. Sven says they are still having a market, but if you are going to buy a vinyl album today, you really have to fork it up. Per agrees, it’s very expensive, but it’s worth it. Mr. G belongs to that generation who really miss the album sleeves. The face of the music is the cover, don’t forget that. Sven says they are sitting in Per’s library and there are some vinyl albums here, but he doubts that it’s all of Per’s collection. PG says it’s most of his collection. He got rid of a couple of thousands albums a couple of years ago. Gifts from record labels and friends and stuff, records that didn’t really mean anything to him. So he kept only the stuff that he really likes, which is about 1500-2000 albums. Sven asks Per if they are going to follow him down into his grave. Per laughs and says most likely, he thinks so. Then, like in 3000 years, they are going to dig up the grave and find the vinyl albums and Per’s teeth. Sven says it’s an interesting thought. The guys are laughing. The song they play is If I Knew Then (What I Know Now).

The next song is Bang-A-Boomerang by ABBA, then comes Primitiv by Wilmer X, Nothing Out There by Alberta Cross and Shoreline, a great song by Broder Daniel from Gothenburg.

That wraps up Nordic Rox and the guys say goodbye. Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom closes the show, as usual.

Still is from a Sirius XM video recording a couple of years ago.

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – December 2023

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Per Gessle and Sven Lindström say hi in the December episode of Nordic Rox from Per’s garage. They are in garage rock mood. Sven says the difference between normal garage and rock garage is that here they are surrounded by Ferraris. Per laughs and asks Sven what kind of car he drives. Sven drives a more humble car, a Volkswagen. He doesn’t know if he can get paid for mentioning the brand name on radio, because this is a commercial free station. PG says Volkswagen is pretty good, his first car was a Volkswagen back in the ’70s. An orange Passat. Sven says he saw some pictures.

Getting back to the garage rock topic, Sven says they are celebrating the return of The Hives. Per thinks they are an excellent band. The guys will have a closer look at their new album, The Death Of Randy Fitzsimmons and play a few songs from that one. It’s the first album in 11 years so it’s a blast, but before that they play some other good looking music. They start off with Planet Earth Through A Stethoscope by Ebbot Lundberg from his new EP.

The next song is Joyride by Roxette and then comes Young, Handsome & Fast by Teddybears. After these songs, Sven and Per talk about the Roxette musical. Per says they just announced that there will be an opening of the Roxette musical called Joyride – The Musical in September 2024. Sven is curious if Per can say anything already now about what to expect. PG says it’s a musical based on a book written by an amazing English writer called Jane Fallon. The book is called Got You Back. It’s a feel-good sort of musical and Per is very proud to be part of it. It’s a great legacy of the Roxette songs. Mr. G feels very optimistic and positive about the whole thing. It’s been in the can for a couple of years actually, he says. Lots of people have approached them over the years to do musicals, but it always ended with they didn’t like the script. But this time around, since it’s based on this book and the book is really cool, it just fits the whole thing. PG: „I think. I hope. I wish.” He laughs. It premieres in September 2024 in Malmö, Sweden. Sven says there is gonna be a rush of Roxette fans entering Malmö. Per says it’s gonna be 74 shows in Malmö and after that they move to Stockholm probably and then of course they try to go international. Mamma Mia needs some competition, the guys are laughing.

The next track is Conquer Or Suffer by Nicole Sabouné from her Must Exist album. Let The Good Times In by The Royal Concept is next. Normal Bias by Love People is also played. A brand new, excellent track, Sven thinks.

The guys are ready to go deep down into the garage. To The Hives’ new album. But before playing anything from that album, they kick off with an older track to get you in the right mood. Sven asks Per if he remembers hearing The Hives for the first time. The first song PG heard from them was Hate To Say I Told You So. It was just amazing. Since Per is an MC5 fan, it can’t go wrong. What really sort of knocked you out is when you saw The Hives live, PG adds. Pelle Almqvist is just an amazing performer and the band looks really cool. They are one-of-a-kind. Still are. They took everything a bit further than anyone else you’ve seen or heard, Sven adds. As soon as they got strong material they got some hits and they got some really great records. And they made it basically everywhere in the world where anyone remotely is interested in rock’n’roll. They guys kick off with Walk, Idiot Walk from the Tyrannosaurus Hives album released in 2004.

Taking a look at the new album, The Death Of Randy Fitzsimmons, Sven is wondering who Randy Fitzsimmons is. Per doesn’t know, but if you check out the copyrights of The Hives records, he has written all the songs, so he must be someone. Or maybe it’s just fake. The guys are laughing. Sven says he is rumored as well according to The Hives mythology to have started the band. He is a mysterious, fantasy figure we could guess, but if we had a closer look at today’s songwriters of The Hives, Per realized that there were four Fitzsimmons, four persons with Fitzsimmons as the last name. It’s 11 years since the last album they made, so things change in a decade. It’s still a riddle surrounded by a mystery wrapped up in an enigma, this Randy Fitzsimmons, Sven says. Per thinks it’s a great album. Talking about the music, it’s very much The Hives. Raw, funny, direct and inventive as well. Trapdoor Solution is a one minute and three seconds long song. That makes you think of Ramones. Close to the edge. Per thinks it’s a fun track and it sums up The Hives in the modern age.

Before the guys continue with the second part of The Hives special, they take a short break with some mellow sounds from Gothenburg, Sweden. Midnight Prayer by Bad Cash Quartet is next, a track from 2003.

Digging deeper into the new album of The Hives, Per says his favourite song from the album comes now. It’s called Countdown To Shutdown. Great bass playing, a great song and a great attitude. The countdown to shutdown has begun, which means the guys keep quiet and listen to the song.

Per asks Sven if he is still alive. Sven says he is getting electrocuted by The Hives. A fantastic title is coming up, Rigor Mortis Radio. Per thinks it’s a very cool song from the new album. The Hives are actually touring South America and next summer they will be touring the States supporting Green Day and Foo Fighters. They are busier than ever. They are gonna play the big stadiums, so check them out if you can because they are one of the best bands ever on stage in Per’s opinion. Sven believes PG is right. They are really getting it together in the studio as well, but it is something else to see them live.

The next song is a giant step for Nordic Rox, a lesser step for the rest of humankind, Sven says. They give a Swedish lesson and play a song in Swedish by a great guy who is unfortunately not with us anymore, Magnus Lindberg. Magnus was a prominent figure in the late ’70s. He transferred himself to a new wave artist, like many others, but he was more of a singer-songwriter originally, with a little bit of a country touch. The song the guys play is from 1981. It’s the title track from the album called Röda läppar, which translates into Red Lips. That’s all the help you’re going to get for the Swedish lesson and from now on, you’ll be on your own with Magnus Lindberg, Sven says.

The next song is Belly Shots by Sarah Klang from her recent album Mercedes. Per finds it wonderful and thinks she is amazing. Sven thinks she is a very cool, great, rather new artist and Mercedes is a great album.

Now the guys go quite a distance from Sarah and play a song Ain’t Coming Home by The Sewergrooves from the album Revelation Time. It’s a really great, gross stumper, Sven thinks. Godspell by The Cardigans is next from the Super Extra Gravity album. With this the show ends and the guys say goodbye.

Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom closes the show, as usual.

Photo by Anders Roos (2019)

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – November 2023

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Per Gessle and Sven Lindström recorded this episode of Nordic Rox on a sunny day in Halmstad. Sven says it’s like an eternal summer, this summer refused to go anywhere. PG says it disappeared in July though. It was raining for 4 weeks. Sven forgot about it, but now they think the weather is great.

The guys decided to combine the good looking music thing with some Swedish lessons and dedicate this show to a band from Stockholm, Reeperbahn. They are from the late ’70s, early ’80s. A great, very influential band. They were singing in Swedish and they came out of the punk thing like everyone in the late ’70s more or less did. Then they added some pop stuff and a bit of harder rock as well. It was like a mix between the new wave thing and Talking Heads, Television, that American sort of wave style.

But before getting down to Reeperbahn, Sven wants to kick off Nordic Rox with one of his absolute favourite tunes by a band called Roxette. Per says Sven embarrasses him and he is curious why Sven likes this coming song. Sven thinks it’s a power pop masterpiece and his advice to Per is „don’t write anything else, just keep on writing this song over and over again”. They are talking about She Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. Per says it’s a pretty unusual track, because the guys who play on it are actually his old Swedish band. So it sounds a little bit more like Gyllene Tider than it sounds like Roxette. Sven agrees and says PG seemed to be on fire back then. He came back with Gyllene Tider in 1996. Mr. G shares the detail that the song starts off with his brand new Harley-Davidson engine getting started up.

Holiday Inn by Adiam Dymott is next. Then comes (I’m Gonna) Kick You Out by the Caesars from 1998. Sven thinks it’s really cool, some ’90s stuff there and a bit of garage rock from the ’60s. Per likes this band a lot too, they have some great songs. One of them is Jerk It Out, PG adds. You can go back in their catalogue and find one diamond after the other, Sven says.

Sven thinks it’s time to check out Lambretta. Per thinks that Bimbo by Lambretta is an amazing piece of pop music. It’s co-written by Max Martin before he became this huge LA producer and writer. He did a lot of cool stuff in Sweden and this is one of Per’s favourite tracks. Hardcore pop, Sven thinks.

Then comes I Waited For You by Daniel Norgren. A wonderful track according to Sven.

Here starts the Reeperbahn special. Per thinks it’s a very cool band from Stockholm. He remembers they made an EP in 1980, which was the same year when Gyllene Tider released their debut album. GT just got a recording deal with EMI Records and Per listened to this EP from Reeperbahn and it sounded so much better than GT did. The guys are laughing. The sound and the whole vibe of the record was just amazing, Per thinks. For a couple of years, PG thought they were really outstanding. Sven agrees. They had a rather short career and really made an impression when they came out. The guys start with one of Reeperbahn’s early tracks called Lycklig. Sven asks Per to translate the title. It’s pretty simple to translate that into „happy”. The first two albums the band made, the bass player and songwriter Dan Sundquist was still in the band. He wrote most of the songs together with lead singer and guitarist Olle Ljungström. When Dan left the group after two albums, it became a slightly different band. Dan went on to become a very successful producer in his own right. He still is very active and still he’s got a lot of Grammys and stuff like that in Sweden. The guys play Lycklig and Sven says, a still impressed Per Gessle is glued to the radio. They are laughing.

Sven and PG talk about the band name. It obviously comes from this famous notorious street in Hamburg, Germany. Where Sven spent his youth, Per says. Haha. Sven wishes he did, because The Beatles went there in August 1960. He can’t remember the exact date, but that was their first gig outside England. It was at The Star-Club. That was where legend was made. Sven thinks that without The Beatles, the band wouldn’t have named themselves Reeperbahn. Per thinks so too. The next song is from their second album, Venuspassagen. The track is called Kalla kriget, which translates to the Cold War. Sven says there is a slight improvement in sound. He remembers when this album came out, he thought it sounded fabulous. It does, Per agrees. Sven is not sure about it, but he thinks they produced themselves, Dan Sundquist probably already then being quite handy in the studio. PG says, this was a time in pop music in Sweden where you could really hear the difference if you compared Swedish recordings to English recordings, before the digital era, so to speak. Most of the stuff made in Sweden sounded shit, very dull. Not counting ABBA, because ABBA always sounded great, but they were in a different league. Some bands like Ebba Grön, they had this great album with the song 800°C on it and it sounded amazing. And this album, Venuspassagen, sounded truly amazing as well. These are exceptions from the rule. Sven likes the whole Venuspassagen album. It’s terrific and varied. The quirky new wave stuff combined with straight ahead power pop.

Per introduces the next song from 1980, which was the first song that he heard from Reeperbahn. It’s called Inget, which means „nothing”. Here you can hear the influence from The Clash, the London Calling album. It sounds great and it’s a great pop track.

The guys are approaching the end of this magic moment, because they got the final track here by Reeperbahn in today’s special. They picked only songs from the first era of the band, when Dan Sundquist was still a member. This is actually the final single while he was a part of the band. It’s from 1982. They made a collection of the singles, sort of a greatest hits album. Per says Dansar was the single to promote the compilation album. The title means „dancing”. Sven finds it interesting that Per came out on the scene with Gyllene Tider basically around the same time as Reeperbahn did. They were both part of the Swedish new wave. Sven is curious if Per remembers thinking of Reeperbahn as fierce competition. PG says GT were hillbillies, they came from a small town on the West Coast and Reeperbahn were from Stockholm, so they were much hipper than GT. Mr. G remembers they were on the same show on TV, but it was a different planet. Nevertheless, he liked them a lot. Sven says they were too cool for school. The guys play Dansar, the final track before Dan Sundquist left the band and they started slightly moving downhill. This was the peak, but then they made two more albums before disappearing from this stage.

The guys continue with some more Swedish stuff. Per says, here is a great guy called Magnus Lindberg with a song called Röda läppar, which translates into „red lips”.

Vulture Feet by Sahara Hotnights is next. Then it’s The Wannadies’ turn with Skin. The wrap-up track is Fare Thee Well, a beautiful song by Susanne Sundfør from Norway. She is an amazing artist, Per thinks. She started out as a singer-songwriter and has done so many different things, jazz stuff and working with Röyksopp, techno stuff as well. She has an amazing voice.

The guys thank you for listening. Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom closes the show, as usual.

Photo by Anders Roos (2019)

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – October 2023

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Per Gessle and Sven Lindström offer a Lisa Miskovsky special on the October episode of Nordic Rox. PG thinks she is a great singer with a wonderful voice and she is a wonderful artist. She released her first album in 2001. Still going strong. Sven adds she is a great songwriter too.

Before the special starts, the guys talk about The Cardigans, a Swedish band that wasn’t from Malmö, but they moved to Malmö. Love Fool was a big hit in the States, but now the guys play a song from the Life album called Carnival. Swedish indie from 1995.

Ooh I Like It! by The Creeps is the next song. It’s produced by Clarence Öfwerman, who produced Roxette. Sven says it sounds really good. The band is from Älmhult, the town that made IKEA famous. Marit Bergman is next with her beautiful This Is The Year from 2002.

The guys are moving in the direction of Per Gessle and play the latest single, Vandrar i ett regn. It’s to celebrate the Swedish legend, Pugh Rogefeldt. Sven mentions they did a Nordic Rox special with Pugh. Per says he passed away unfortunately in May this year. Per says he was part of a tribute concert, an homage to him, and he released a single with one of Pugh’s songs from 1975. Sven says it’s from a live album and he doesn’t think there was a studio version. It was only released live and it was sort of a ’50s pastiche. Per adds he always loved that song. He was actually there at the show where it was recorded when he was 16 years old. The double album became a big hit for Pugh. When Per recorded the song himself, he removed all these ’50s influences. He made it into a little bit more like his style instead. Sven thinks it’s a great move. It became something else, a wonderful pop track with Per’s guitarist Ola’s slide guitar there as well. Per is sure a lot of people of course don’t understand the song, because it’s in Swedish, but it’s got all those typical elements of Pugh’s wonderful lyrics. He had his own style. Sven says he is called the founding father of Swedish rock music, and not only because of the music, but also the lyrics. PG says he was the first one to do rock music in Swedish. In a credible way, Sven adds. Per is very happy to be able to participate and to pay some tribute to him.

Electric by the fabulous band Melody Club is next. They are from Sven’s hometown, Växjö. Great stuff coming out of that town, Sven says. The guys are laughing.

Sven and Per move on to the Lisa Miskovsky special. Per says she is a great singer and she is from the North. Her father was from the old Czechoslovakia and her mother was from Finland. She had made a debut album in 2001, which was an instant success. Sven adds she started writing songs at an early age, but she was super talented in many other ways. She was really close to become a member of the Swedish national team in snowboard. And she played hockey, Per adds. But the songwriting and the singing eventually got the upper hand. In 2001 she made her first single Driving One Of Your Cars. Mr. G says it’s very special. It sounds exactly like how pop music sounded in 2001. Sven agrees.

Cool track coming up next, Lady Stardust from Lisa’s second album Fallingwater. Sven doesn’t know how it did internationally. He is not really sure about Lisa’s international career actually. Per thinks it went so-so. This was a really big album in Sweden. She started working with Joakim Berg from the band Kent who co-wrote songs with her and also co-produced. That made a big difference style-wise. This is a really cool album and Lady Stardust was a big, big song on the radio. Sven remembers you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing it. Big radio track.

Sven says it’s starting to heat up now, because they are moving out to the international big hit scene. Per says, what was interesting was that Lisa Miskovsky had this song called Another Shape Of My Heart, which eventually turned out to be Shape Of My Heart by the Backstreet Boys. Sven explains that Lisa made a demo of this song and it got in the hands of Max Martin. PG says Max Martin was producing and writing for Backstreet Boys at the time. In the Cheiron Studios in Stockholm, Sven adds. Sven doesn’t know if you can say that he kept half of Lisa’s ideas. Per says he doesn’t know, he wasn’t there. Haha. Sven says he wasn’t there either. Max Martin added some magic to it and just to let you know what the difference is, the guys play Another Shape Of My Heart, the Lisa Miskovsky version, and then the Shape Of My Heart version by Backstreet Boys.

Sven asks Per if he has ever written something similar to a boy band tune. Per says not that he knows of. Sven is curious about how it is for Per as a songwriter what started in the boy band era that there were multiple songwriters working together. Sometimes you can see up to 5 or even 10 songwriters. PG says it’s a different thing, he comes from a different generation. He is used to working alone or with one partner. But nowadays you do everything on the computer and you send your files to each other and people add things all the time. So it’s a different ball game. New times, new methods.

One more track is played by Lisa Miskovsky, also from the Fallingwater album. It was Lisa’s second album. A Brand New Day is Per’s favorite Lisa Miskovsky track. He thinks she sings beautifully on this one. It’s co-written by Lisa herself and Joakim Berg from Kent. A wonderful track from 2003. This wraps up the Lisa Miskovsky special. The guys mention once again that she is a great songwriter, performer, singer, hockey player and snowboarder.

The guys have an ace up their sleeves in the shape of Bob Hund. A wonderful band, according to Per. They play Tralala lilla molntuss. PG can’t translate it. Sven says if you think it’s a bit difficult to understand Thomas Öberg, the singer’s lyrics, don’t feel too depressed, because he is coming from Helsingborg in the South of Sweden, and a lot of Swedes have actually a bit trouble hearing what he says.

Mando Diao’s The Band is next and Toys And Flavors by The Hellacopters is the last song, from the album High Visibility released in 2000.

Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom closes the show, as usual.

Still is from the Bag of Trix comment videos recorded by Anders Roos.

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – September 2023

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Per Gessle and Sven Lindström recorded the next episode of Nordic Rox in Halmstad. They are featuring one of Per’s favourite bands from the ’60s, a Stockholm based band called Ola & The Janglers. Sven says here comes the 10,000 dollar question: what does jangler mean? PG hasn’t got a clue, but he thinks it sounds cool. Sven agrees. He says they know the „jingle jangle morning” that Dylan had in his lyric and he also thinks he saw some definition that the jangler was some person who was useless in doing something. Sven: „You know, he’s been jangling with this forever.” PG: „Like you.” Sven: „Haha. Exactly. Another version pointed out a guy like you, and that was the dark web version that a jangler was someone who kicked another guy in the balls.” PG: „Alright. Thank you very much.” Sven says that since they are from Sweden, they don’t actually have a clue, they just accept that the band is called Ola & The Janglers.

The guys start off with one of their favourite artists who is on repeat playing on Nordic Rox. It’s Adiam Dymott and the track is from her self-titled album from 2009 and it’s called Pizza.

Swedish ’90s pop, Fishtank by This Perfect Day comes next. It’s a great song, Per thinks, taken from their album C-60 from 1997. Sven asks Per what C-60 makes him think of. PG replies cassettes, of course.

The latest and greatest single from First Aid Kit called Turning Onto You is next. It’s taken from their latest album Palomino.

Before the guys sink their teeth into Ola & The Janglers, they take a look at Gyllene Tider and play Sunday Driver, Yea. The English lyrics to a song that Per wrote for his Swedish band. PG explains that the album is in Swedish, but one song was originally in English, so he decided to make an English version as well. Waking up the power pop monster that’s been dormant for a couple of years, Sven says. As they mentioned on the last show, the band has been on a successful tour around Sweden for 6-7 weeks, winding up doing some festivals in Finland and a big show in Norway as well.

Chris Craft No 9 by The Shanes comes next. The Shanes is a ’60s band from the northern part of Sweden. Sven thinks that this is one of the best original Swedish pop songs that came out in the ’60s. Mr. G thinks it still sounds good. Sven says no wonder, because it was recorded at the Abbey Road Studios. Per thinks it’s cool.

Endeavor by Timo Räisänen, a great indie track from the mid noughties is played next.

Speaking about cool bands, Ola & The Janglers from Stockholm, Sweden are today’s featured artist. The guys play 4 tracks from them that sort of paint a picture of what they were all about. Per says he liked this band a lot when he was a kid and he actually had their first album, Surprise Surprise. It was based on this old Rolling Stones song called Surprise Surprise. It was Ola & The Janglers’ first hit record in Sweden. It brought them into the Tio i topp show (Top10 show). That made them instant pop stars in Sweden in 1965. They were a great live band as well and had a very distinctive sound, because they had this Hammond organ, which was great. Johannes Olsson was an amazing player and they sounded really good. Most of the stuff they did was original material, but at the same time, many of their hits were cover versions. But they had a really, really gifted songwriter in the guitarist Claes af Geijerstam. He eventually became the front of house guy for ABBA. When ABBA did their world tours in the late ’70s, he was the front of house guy. And to add even more credentials, he won the Eurovision Song Contest in Sweden with another guy called Göran Fristorp in 1973. Sven says Per didn’t ask for that kind of information, but he got it anyway. Per says we could have lived without that. Haha. Here they play Surprise Surprise.

The second Ola & The Janglers song was written by Claes af Geijerstam. It’s a 1966 track called Bird’s Eye View Of You. Sven asks Per if he can remember listening to his transistor radio when this came on the air. PG can remember it, he definitely heard this song on the radio when he was young. This is from an album called Limelight and he had that album and loved it. It’s a really cool one, he thinks. Sven says the singer, Ola Håkansson was really original. He could sound a bit punky in the rocker numbers, but also being rather sweet in the ballads. He had this Mick Jagger style, Per adds. You could tell that he was influenced by Jagger. He went on to be the lead guy of the band called Secret Service in the ’80s. Eventually he became a record executive in charge of the TEN record label, which hosts, for instance, Sara Larsson these days. He worked a lot with Robyn as well. He never lost his magic hit touch, he is one of the big guys in the Swedish music industry.

The guys stick to 1966 when Ola & The Janglers were fresh out of school. Sven says Per claims 1966 is the best pop year ever. PG confirms and adds 1971 as well. Sven says he is not totally convinced. He claims 1965 is a contender, but they don’t go into that debate right now. Haha.

Ola & The Janglers made two albums in 1966. The second album was Patterns. It’s a great album too, Per thinks. They did a magnificent version of a Jackie DeShannon song. They actually did a couple of Jackie DeShannon songs, but this is Per’s favourite, Come And Stay With Me. A great track. You just get reminded what an amazing songwriter and artist Jackie DeShannon was. Per adds that when you hear this band, it’s a great little pop band. Johannes Olsson who played the Hammond organ made this great sound. It reminds you a little bit of The Zombies. Speaking of The Zombies, Ola & The Janglers did a version of She’s Not There very early on. They were heavily inspired by them. Sven likes the guitar sound here. By late 1965, the guitarist and songwriter Claes af Geijerstam had entered the band. He replaced the original guitarist. Sven thinks he does a really great guitar solo on this track. Per agrees. The ’60s guitar style is all over the place as well, so it just became a really, really good pop band.

Sven says 1966 was a great year for pop music and a very young Per Gessle who was glued to the transistor radio. Haha. The guys wind up the Ola & The Janglers tribute with a song from their first album written by guitar player Claes af Geijerstam. This one was a big hit, the first number one single they had in Sweden. Love Was On Your Mind is a beautiful little pop tune, Sven thinks. Per mentions that the band had an American hit in 1969. They did a cover version of Let’s Dance by Chris Montez and it peaked at No. 92 on the Billboard chart. One of the first Swedish artists entering the Billboard Hot 100.

Garage rock explosion delivered by The Peepshows in the shape of Cheap Thrills comes next. Then it’s Power Man And Astro Girl by Kristjan Eastman. Snack by Sydkraft from Halmstad, Sweden is played next. A short lived new wave band active in the late ’70s. The song title translates to something between hot air and pure bullshit.

Slowing things down a little bit, the guys play a beautiful cover of Broder Daniel’s Shoreline by Anna Ternheim. The Cat by True Lies, a band from Malmö is next and that wraps up this episode of Nordic Rox.

Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom closes the show, as usual.

Still is from the Bag of Trix comment videos recorded by Anders Roos.

Thanks for your support, Sven!