Per Gessle will perform Son of a Plumber material at 100-årsfesten (The 100th Anniversary Party) in Oslo on November 26. The 100-årsfest is a Norwegian celebration of being free of the union with Sweden that ended in 1905. Lots of Swedish and Norwegian artists will perform, and the Norwegian Royal family will attend the party.

  Ticket price is a mere 25 NOK (3.20 Euros).

  Last year it was rumored that Roxette would perform in Norway’s centennial celebrations in June 2005. However, Roxette never took the stage.

• 100-årsfesten (In Norwegian)

STOCKHOLM - According to TDR’s sources, the new Son of a Plumber single can already be found online. Both songs are easily available in full, however, with periods of silence inserted. Most probably someone has ripped a prelistening CD.

  Per comments to TDR that “this is something you probably have to live with.”

STOCKHOLM - Per Gessle was voted Sweden’s 10th biggest star ever in the Swedish TV (SVT) program “Folktoppen” Saturday Nov. 5. Over 59,000 viewers phoned and gave their vote for their favorite and Gessle received 2,177 of those votes.



This is the top-ten list:

1. Ingemar Stenmark (former olympic skier) 18,357 votes

2. Carolina Klüft (athlete) 6,700

3. Carola Häggkvist (singer) 5,512

4. Zlatan Ibrahimovic (soccer player) 5,264

5. Victoria Bernadotte (crown princess) 5.152

6. Mikael Persbrandt (actor) 4,261

7. Peter Forsberg (hockey player) 3,946

8. Agnetha Fältskog (former ABBA member) 3,888

9. Robert Gustafsson (comedian) 3,832

10. Per Gessle 2,177

• SVT (In Swedish)

STOCKHOLM - With excitement building amongst the fans of Per Gessle for the release of his new album, The Daily Roxette is able to reveal the sleeve and the final CD-tracklist of Son Of A Plumber (the vinyl tracklist is slightly different):



CD 1:

1. Drowning in Wonderful Thoughts About Her
2. Jo-Anna Says
3. I Have a Party in My Head (I Hope It Never Ends)
4. C’mon
5. Week with Four Thursdays
6. Hey Mr DJ (Won’t You Play Another Love Song)
7. Late, Later On
8. Ronnie Lane




The Junior Suite:

9. Are You an Old Hippie, Sir?
10. Double-Headed Elvis
11. Something in the System
12. Speed Boat to Cuba
13. Come Back Tomorrow (And We Do it Again)

CD 2:

1. Kurt – The Fastest Plumber in the West
2. I Never Quite Got Over the Fact That The Beatles Broke Up
3. Substitute (For the Real Deal)
4. Waltz for Woody
5. Carousel
6. I Like it Like That
7. Something Happened Today
8. Brilliant Career
9. Burned Out Heart
10. Drowning in Wonderful Thoughts About Her [reprise]
11. Making Love or Expecting Rain

  “The Junior Suite” is a 9-minute-long medley consisting of the last five songs on CD1.

  The album is, like previously announced, to be released as a limited edition vinyl record – also double – with an extra bonus track not available on the CD!

RIO DE JANEIRO - Have you heard the Roxette song “Black Snake”? How about “Bath of Kisses”? No?!? Well, how about “Olodum Ologbom” or “Love is Infinite”?

  All of these songs, and more, are included on a Roxette double-CD album entitled “Meus Momentos” (My Moments) that EMI Brazil is including in its online discography of material released in Brazil – a country where Roxette has enjoyed tremendous success and continues to have immense name recognition.

  However, far from being a rare gem for collectors to snatch up, this is instead simply a rather obvious mistake. The first clue is that the cover art looks strangely similar to that of Don’t Bore Us, Get to the Chorus.

  But it’s the tracklist for Disc Two where things get even more absurd, as all the tracks seem to be representative of music from a region of Brazil named Bahia, where many slaves were brought from Africa. Instead of Roxette, TDR has discovered that many of the songs belong to a group called Olodum.

Additional reporting by Lars-Erik Olson

• EMI Brazil’s Roxette Discography (Mostly in Portuguese)

Read more…

STOCKHOLM - According to the business and finance newspaper Dagens Industri (Industry Today), Per Gessle’s Elevator Entertainment was the third most profitable company in Sweden in 2004 with a profit margin of 61 percent.

 They write that Per Gessle has become Sweden’s most successful artist at the beginning of this century (mentioning his success with “Mazarin” and the relaunch of Gyllene Tider). The company posted a profit of 38 Million SEK and has assets of 109 million SEK. According to the article, Elevator Entertainment also gets credited with the profits from Tylösands Havsbad (the resort/conference hotel) and one of Per’s other music companies.

  Two asset management companies hold the first two positions on the list, while other list toppers include the state casino monopoly and two pharmaceutical companies.

• Article on Per and other selected top companies (In Swedish)
• List of most profitable companies (In Swedish)

STOCKHOLM - The Daily Roxette presents the sleeve of Son of a Plumber’s new single, along with a message.

Imagine the power of an iPod. During last winter, spring and summer a man transfered his favorite songs to his mp3-player. At the same time he rediscovered a lot of great pop he had forgotten. Soft pop, hard pop, weird pop, cute pop, tough pop - in short a whole lot of pop. He looked into the mirror and said “Son of a Plumber.” Then he took his guitar and started writing. “C’mon”/”Jo-Anna Says” is the first single from the double-album “Son of a Plumber.”

  “C’mon” is Per Gessle in a way you’ve never heard him before. Prince meets Sweet in a distant studio on the Skåne prarie. “Jo-Anna Says” is a classical song that sticks like an unwanted guest: Scaffold meets Mouth & McNeal in Top of the Pops. Son of a Plumber says “I’ve only tried following something that feels right. It’s been as clear to me to do this album as it was when I did “Mazarin.”

  A splendid time is guaranteed for all! Enjoy.

  TDR would also like to point out that “Keep the Radio On (This Is the Perfect Song)” will be added to the vinyl edition of “Son of a Plumber” as a bonus track and won’t be available on the CD edition.

Update November 1: Now you can listen to snippets of “Jo-Anna Says” and “C’mon” on Son Of A Plumber official website.

• Son Of A Plumber

Tonight on SVT2 at 21.30 CET there’s a show called Musikbyrån (The Music Bureau.)

  Today Musikbyrån will visit Per Gessle, Clarence Öfwerman and Christopher Lundquist in the Grey Aerosol Machine studio and we’ll get a first preview of the new Son of a Plumber album.

Henric Wahlberg contributed to this article.

• Musikbyrån (Link to video stream)

STOCKHOLM - It’s a sunny day here as we arrive in Sweden’s perhaps most beautiful city, and we go directly to Doktor Glas’ gallery to check out Marie Fredriksson’s art exhibit. It’s at the very beginning of the lunch hour, and the place is empty. But the girls behind the counter explain that there’ve been lots of visitors. Among them all, two German girls and a Spanish guy. They also share that a critic came in and praised the drawings without knowing who had done them.

  More drawings arrive as The Daily Roxette is there. All drawings in the exhibition have been sold, and the catalog book is selling very well. Marie Dimberg, Fredriksson’s manager, tells TDR that the book will be sold via musicshop.se and maybe a few other sites. The price will be the same, plus postage. Possibly they will print more copies.

  TDR, along with such other newspapers as Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet and Göteborg’s Posten had been invited this afternoon to the “inner sanctum” of d&d in Stockholm to conduct exclusive interviews with Marie Fredriksson. When this reporter walks through the office door, we’re greeted by manager Marie Dimberg (suffering from a bad back) and a radiant Marie Fredriksson.

  Dimberg asks us if we want anything to drink so Marie asks for some tea and I get a glass of water. Marie is dressed in black with a nice leopard shirt. She looks just like the popstar we all know. Dimberg serves Fredriksson a lovely cup of green tea flavored with vanilla. “Yummy,” Fredriksson smiles.

  I start by telling Marie that the first time we met was after a Gyllene Tider concert in Avesta (1984) where we discussed her being very nervous about releasing “Ännu doftar kärlek.”

Don’t you think this is a bit the same?

  Marie laughs, “Gosh, that’s a long time ago. But you’re right, that’s very clever!” Marie continues “I’m so excited about all this. Very proud about my first exhibit.”

How did this exhibit come about?

  A few years back I started drawing in charcoal, and I felt this was special, this was it, so to speak. And I felt I just had to let go. I drew tons of pictures!”

  Marie continues by telling TDR that charcoal is a great material to draw with. “It’s so… raw and black… and yet… soft, you know?” We talk a little about her drawing “Trött” (“Tired”), and Marie laughs and says “Yes this one is a man, and he’s so damned tired with his wife, because she nags and nags and nags. He’s so tired!”

No plans to start dabbling in water colors?

  “Yikes no!” she laughs.

  All through the interview Marie laughs now and then. You can tell that this is truly a happy person right now.

So, is your new title “artist” or “popstar”?

  “Both,” she smiles slyly, and adds “maybe a popartist?”

Like Warhol?

  “Hmmm, no that doesn’t work… of course.”

Why did you start drawing?

  “One day I felt the urge to go out and shop for pencils and large pieces of paper. Large! But now when I see the drawings [points to a corner of the office] I think ’Huh? I thought they were bigger?’ I wish I’d made them even bigger!” she laughs. “I just love that big format!”

• Purchase “After The Change” (The book incl. postage to Europe costs 54 Euro)

Read more…

STOCKHOLM - It’s been 15 years since the movie “Pretty Woman” entered the scene, and with that, the now classic song “It Must Have Been Love.” Of course, in Sweden the song was released in 1987 already, as “It Must Have Been Love (Christmas for the Broken Hearted),” - Roxette’s Christmas single. BMI, one of two organizations like STIM in the US, has now announced that “It Must Have Been Love” has now been played more than four million times on US radio. Per Gessle will therefore get another award from BMI for this. Per comments “It’s of course unbelievable.”

  Four million times is about 36 years non-stop playing…

  But that’s not all, Per Gessle and MP Persson will also receive an award from BMI for “Dance Song of the Year” regarding “Listen to Your Heart,” as these two gentlemen are the writers of the hit. The song has passed the limit for platinum with more than 352,000 downloads.

  In Europe “Listen to Your Heart” by D.H.T. is on the top 10 in Holland and in France.

  The awards will be presented in London, November 29.

• BMI