Another year passed and Mr. G became 20454 days old today. Wishing a splendido birthday to Per! The past year was again full of fun, joy and treats in many forms and most importantly, we got some more gorgeous & cool music from him. Cheers to another busy year!
Do you have any plans about how to celebrate Per’s birthday? You can choose more than 1 from the list below. If you choose ”Other”, we would be glad to read about your plans in a comment.
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As we already informed you about it in an earlier article, Per could be heard on Swedish Radio P4 today.
During the first half an hour of the program Kajs spellista, Kaj Kindvall played some songs from the past he thinks still sound good today. Then came the interviews with several listeners, artists and colleagues. The interviews were done by Micke Cederberg who met Per for recording his thoughts on 6th December.
In the 2-minute-long interview with PG (starting at 1:05:19 at THIS link) he talked about his memories related to Kaj Kindvall and his programs and mentioned Kaj always had a significant role in his life as a radio host. At the time Per became an artist, Kaj was the host of Poporama (1974-1984), a radio program that was very important in Gyllene Tider’s history. Per talks about the story we could read I think in Att vara Per Gessle and could also hear it in older interviews that they, the guys from Gyllene Tider and their friends sent a lot of postcards to Kaj to ask him to play Flickorna på TV2 on the show. The only “mistake” they made was that all the postcards were sent from Halmstad, what Kaj saw and mentioned it on the radio, too. But they succeeded with that action after all. There is even a short cut of a call from those times when Kaj talks to Per on the phone about the song. Funny.
Per says Kaj’s other program, Tracks (1984-2011) also meant a lot to him as a solo artist, but also to Gyllene Tider and Roxette. Mr G mentions that Kaj has a really good radio voice that one can recognize immediately and he is a great host and one couldn’t miss any of his programs. Per wished him a nice life after retiring and not to forget to clean the dust off the gramophone every now and then.
When we first got to see the 2014 editions of Per’s guitar picks on the producer’s Instagram account (pic 1, pic 2), we got very excited. They all look so hot ’n’ cool! Then the tour started and besides being extremely happy about seeing our most beloved band live again, we expected to see the new picks live, too. During the Russian leg of the tour fans were posting pictures of plectrums they could catch at the concerts and we could see that besides some new ones, most of the picks they could obtain were from 2012. We could think the amount produced of the new plecs was so few vs. Per’s pick-throwing habits that he ran out of those 2014 picks very fast. But it wasn’t the case.
You probably remember Per’s post on Roxette’s Facebook page some days ago. He shared the PLECtionary again, with this text:
A nice collection. But where are the pix from 2014????? /P.
Haha… Yeah… We’d been also wondering, because we saw a lot of 2014 picks appearing e.g. on Tradera, already before the tour started and we were quite sad about the fact that they ended up in traders’ hands, while we couldn’t see too many of them on Per’s mic stand on tour and he played even less of them.
The producer shared the info after we asked them and they saw the PLECtionary that the picks are quite exclusive, not too many of them were produced. That was also confirmed by Mr G and Micke N-S. 100 pieces were made of each 2014 picks, except for the Rox-Jet plec, of which 400 exist. Per already mentioned it in the guitar pick interview that they should slow down a bit and produce less picks for a tour. Now it seems they sticked to that idea of keeping the picks more exclusive.
There was another thing Per mentioned in the plectrum interview and this is how the actual update of the PLECtionary is possible. When talking about Sandra’s collection, he said:
She deserves the best. The best and the complete. I consider it a mission to help her find Plectrum-Nirvana.
And how awesome the way is how he is helping her! He sent the missing 2014 guitar picks to Sandra in a mail not much after he posted about the PLECtionary. Wow! I mean W.O.W.!
Santa Per or Gessle Claus, call him as you wish, he is the most fantastic and most fan-friendly artist in the whole wide world! And he really knows how to make the fans the happiest people in the universe. I can only confirm it.
I don’t even have to mention how Sandra was jumping of joy when she saw Per’s mail in her mailbox. She also wants to thank Mr G for the awesome gift, so here is a message from Sandra to Per:
A truly unexpected and special Xmas present!! What a treat!! Not only that I finally can add a set of these beauties to my collection, but also I’ve got lots of Xmas presents for my Rox-friends now. A big thanks to the generous and kind donator! Hallelujah! You rock, Per!
He ROX, indeed! And Sandra, too! Thanx a million for all your efforts and work with the updates again! We’re extremely happy for you and glad to see your collection is growing.
Since Per sent more picks to Sandra and let her share them with her Rox-friends, she also thought about giving a chance to a wider group of Roxers to get these rare picks. Huge thanx for offering them for a contest, Sandra!
Besides adding the 2014 picks (No. 86-91), the PLECtionary has also been updated with some info regarding quantities produced of picks where it is known and since the latest update, the misspelled, rare Woddy plec (No. 10) could also be added to Sandra’s collection.
Read the trivia from Sandra at the new picks to get to know why Per doesn’t really use those plectrums on tour! What will we see on the mic stand in 2015? Will there be a new production with the same designs or will there be some completely new layouts? Are there still so many 2012 picks left that Per will use them until he runs out of them? The answers are not known at this point. Let’s see what happens next year!
CONTEST!!! Here is your great chance to get hold of a ROX-JET / PER AIR HAIR – CAPTAIN GESSLE guitar pick (No. 91)! In order to participate, answer the following questions (correct answers are added next to the Qs on 3rd January):
Send an e-mail with your name, address (so we can send the guitar pick in case you win) and the answers to the questions to rxbcontests@gmail.com until 23:59 CET on 2nd January 2015. The 10 lucky winners will be announced a few days later.
Good luck!
Contest terms and conditions:
– In order to participate, you have to send an e-mail to rxbcontests@gmail.com with your name, address and the answers to the 3 questions. We will consider all e-mails we receive until 23:59 CET on 2nd January 2015 with complete information.
– 10 winners will be picked randomly among those who have participated and sent the correct answers.
– You can only participate once, any attempt to participate twice will lead to your disqualification.
– Prizes won’t be paid out in cash. Prizes will be sent by standard mail only once (so basically, if the envelope gets lost, we won’t be able to send a replacement).
– Winners will be announced on this website, on our Facebook page and will also be notified per e-mail. You’ll be required to reply to the e-mail confirming your address.
– Roxetteblog.com will not enter into any correspondence regarding the result of the contest and is not liable for any damages, loss or expenses that may result in connection to the prize.
– All submitted data will only be used for the purpose of the contest and in case you are one of the lucky winners, to send you the prize.
Update on 3rd January:
The 10 lucky winners are:
Rosina Marmion – Uruguay
Agata Giunta – Italy
Gaby Hildebrandt – Germany
Jorge Diaz – Argentina
Nikolett Zentai – Hungary
Ilya Volkov – Germany
Kersti Liivamäe – Estonia
Helen Franklin – England
Mariana Gumuzio – Spain
Remco Verhaaf – The Netherlands
The winners have been informed via e-mail and were announced on our Facebook page, too.
In June this year Per announced on Facebook that The Per Gessle Selection would grow by three bottles of champagne. The bottles were supposed to hit the stores (or Systembolaget) in November. We have been looking forward to this “release” and finally the champagnes are here including very cool stickers.
The Pleaser – a blend of grape varieties 40% pinot noir and 60% chardonnay – is available at Systembolaget for 308 SEK.
The Convincer – a rosé blend of 50% pinot noir and 50% chardonnay – is available at Systembolaget for 325 SEK.
The Improver is a cuvée produced in partnership with Blanc de Blancs producer Pierre Peters from Le Mesnil-sur-Oger in Cotes du Blancs and consists of 15 different vintages – even back to 1988. Only a few hundred bottles (the initial information was 500) have been produced. The champagne will be sold at Hotel Tylösand – no further information regarding how to buy it otherwise though.
Besides these three champagnes, Kurt & Lisa 2011 is available at Systembolaget since early December as well. Rumour has it that it’s the best so far (so just watch out when you buy it, some stores still have the 2010 and want to sell that one before putting the new one on the shelves. I was even told at one of the stores early December that the year doesn’t matter, that I should get the 2010 because they are the same……no comment). The sticker has been updated with a new colour too.
And last but not least, I finally had the opportunity to drink Fru Nordin white and I must say – well done! The non-alcoholic wines I had tasted so far were rather dry and acid. This one is milder, but it tastes more like wine and fruty. Very yummie. The WineAgency has also published a recipe for a white wine glögg – without alcohol, that is. Check it out! You may get inspired.
So if you live in Sweden (or happen to be there) head to Systembolaget and grab some of the Per Gessle Selection bottles for the upcoming Christmas and New Year’s Eve parties! Welcoming 2015 with one of these champagnes will surely be special (seems I was in Sweden too early this month).
Skål!
Kaj Kindvall is a Swedish radio host since 1970. He hosted music programs (Tio i toppen, Poporama and Tracks among others) that played an important role in Swedish music history. In 2003 he got a Swedish Grammy, the jury’s honorary award for his work at the radio and spreading pop music.
His last program after working for more than 40 years at Swedish Radio is on 27th December, at 18:30 CET on P4. It will be a summary of the past 40-45 years and besides his colleagues and listeners, artists will also talk about what “Tracks” and Kindvall himself meant to them over the years. Per Gessle will also talk about his thoughts and memories related to Kaj and his programs. The part with Per was probably recorded last Saturday, when he visited the radio’s studio.
So tune in on 27th December to listen to him!