Per Gessle

Per Gessle in a documentary about Henry Diltz

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Henry Diltz‘s name surely rings a bell. He is a legendary rock photographer and has taken many famous photos of e.g. Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, etc. He even took photos for Roxette’s Tourism album and Per has some of his pics on display at Hotel Tylösand.

Now a documentary is in progress about Henry Diltz’s story and Per will also talk about him in it. As Janolof Fritze, director of the documentary informs:

A few days ago we got Per Gessle from Roxette in front of the camera. In the documentary “Rock Photographer Henry Diltz – famous among the famous” Per is talking about Henry as a good friend and a great photographer. Per Gessle is one of 30 iconic music artists featured in the 90 minutes documentary that we hope to release in the beginning of 2015.

There is already a trailer to the docu, in which you can see Mr G for 6 seconds! Click HERE or on the screenshot to watch it! Per appears at about 00:50. He says:

A good photographer like Henry, he knows what he is doing. I don’t, you know. I just take snapshots.

PG_in_the_Henry_Diltz_docu

 

As Per informed on Roxette Official, there was a Tres Hombres Art exhibition opening for Terry O’Neill‘s photos on 7th October at Hotel Diplomat. It seems that after the event they went on to Uppsala to meet Henry, since he has an exhibition of his photos during the Uppsala Guitar Festival. There they showed how to shoot a proper selfie of 4. 😉

 

PG_selfie
Henry Diltz, Terry O’Neill, Åsa Gessle, Per Gessle

 

Per Gessle at the Göteborg Book Fair – the videos

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PG_20140928If you have appr. 40-50 minutes between listening to The Per Gessle Archives and reading the books, you might want to check some videos from the book fair seminars. Unfortunately, there was no proper video recording of the complete seminars, so I thought I would put together the parts I recorded. Sorry for my sometimes shaking hands – mainly at the beginning of the Friday session, but I’m not a pro when it comes to taking videos. I left the rough cuts between the parts in, not to miss any milliseconds owing to transitions. 2-3 minutes of both videos I’ve already shared in the book fair review articles (chapter 1 and chapter 2), but now you’ll be able to watch 17m 32s (appr. 1/3) of the Friday seminar (pop quiz with Per Gessle, Sven Lindström and Nisse Hellberg) and 19m 57s (appr. 2/3) of the Sunday session where Jan Gradvall interviewed Per about songwriting. I hope your eyes won’t get hurt, but in the latter video the projected background is vibrating every now and then. Or was it Per’s aura? Either way, both seminars were very exciting and entertaining. Make sure you check the part where Per talks about the upcoming Roxette tour and thanks the fans for always being around, even in the seminar audience (Sunday seminar at about 18:35).

We are grateful to have all these guys following us everywhere. It’s awesome!

Friday seminar 26th September (in case the YouTube link doesn’t work for you because of the pop quiz songs’ copyrights, try to watch it HERE on Dailymotion):

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYYws6w5X_Q

 

Sunday seminar 28th September:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec6-15y-6vU

 

I felt so sorry that my camera missed the Flickorna på TV2 part of the conversation on Sunday, because it was so very funny, but fortunately, Chrissie Röhrs recorded that part, so you can watch how the double meaning of words kicked in this time (starts at 9:20). Turn someone on or switch the TV on à la PG!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ValjtwZ6980

The Per Gessle Archives and the books entered the charts

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The Per Gessle Archives beauty box entered the Swedish album charts at No. 7 and the Swedish Per Gessle book, Texter, Klotter & Funderingar. Den Svenska Delen entered Bokus’s charts in culture category at No. 14. The English book, Songs, Sketches & Reflections. The English Part is not yet on the charts, but let’s see what happens next week.

If you are still hesitating about buying any or all of these 3 gems, don’t think any further! They are so worth being bought! Check them out e.g. at Bengans, Ginza or CDON!

TPGA_No7_PG_book_swe_No14

Per’s opinion about the box’s position on the charts:

Great news. If you count the number of actual CDs sold last week the PG-Archives sold TEN TIMES MORE than the rest of the Top 10 combined. Unfortunately the CD box counts only as ONE CD…. /P.

Congrats!

Fru Nordin Vitt wine out in the stores today

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frunordin

Starting today, The Per Gessle Selection has a new wine in the collection: Fru Nordin white alcohol-free wine (0,5% alcohol). “One should be able to drink something tasty and good even if you have to drive or you don’t want to drink alcohol for any reason,” says Per Gessle in the press release. You may have heard this name before – “Fru Nordin” is a track in Per’s album “En händig man”.

The wine was done in cooperation with the wine maker José Maria da Fonseca (Portugal), who is also behind the known wines Periquita and Periquita Reserva. The wine is produced using a new technique called spinning cone column.

Fru Nordin will be available at Systembolaget (article number 1915, 55 SEK) but also at ICA Maxi Flygstaden and Högskolan (Halmstad). Initially, the wine was supposed to be called “Klunk” but the name was changed due to problems with the rights on the name. I think “Fru Nordin” is a nicer name anyway. Fru Nordin rosé and Skumpa are in the works. More info soon!

Per Gessle at the Göteborg Book Fair – Chapter 2

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The second day for Per at the book fair was yesterday. The seminar he took part in started at 1 pm, but fans were already waiting for him since 10 am. We were continuously filling the rows and listened to all the authors who came before Per. One of the writers was funny, he told he was the book fair support act for Mr G.

PG_IMG_9879Per arrived with Miss Dimberg and Anders Roos at about 1 pm. PG already got stopped by fans who asked him to give them autographs even before the seminar. When Per got to sit on the stage before the conversation, he was drumming on his legs and whistling. He refused to use the microphone which they could have fixed on his head, but used a standard microphone.

Many-many people were curious about Per, but the stage area was so small that a lot of people couldn’t sit down. The seminar ended appr. 10 minutes earlier than planned, probably because they saw the signing session would last longer for that many people.

Per’s interviewer was Jan Gradvall. They talked about songwriting, specific songs, as well as rhymes. He talked about his childhood room, what posters were on the walls (e.g. Hep Stars), there was a gramophone player and there were also some Barbie dolls. The family moved a lot and e.g. in 1968 they lived in Simlångsdalen. Per said his best friend was pop music. ”Tragical, but true.” Watch the short video of this part of the interview HERE.

They talked about how productive and busy Per is. He is doing many projects at a time, but when one ends, he feels like: ”Tack, nästa projekt.”, looking forward to the next project. The archives are just the summary of one chapter in his life.

After the seminar, there was a signing session next to the stage. There were so many people queueing with the Per Gessle books in their hands. Unfortunately, the last 5-6 people were asked to go to the other signing place, at the Roos & Tegnér stand, because they were running out of time and the signing at the stand had to start at 2.30 pm, but there Per really took his time and draw a great amount of Leifs in many books and boxes.

Ah, there was one new info during the interview: the Roxette rehearsals start this week. Bring on the tour!

Thanx for all your time and for the fabulous weekend, Mr G!

PG_JG_IMG_9864  PG_signing_IMG_9911  PG_signing_IMG_9958

Per with Jan Gradvall at the seminar; Per signing the books next to the stage at the seminar place; Per signing the books at the Roos & Tegnér stand

All pics in the article © Patrícia Peres

 

P.S.: Seeing this post of Per on Roxette Official after the happenings at the book fair, you could feel he had a bit of inspiration. Good luck with The Look 2! 😉

Feel like writing something like this today! /P.