STOCKHOLM - While it will be some time before this summer’s Gyllene Tider tour is available on DVD, July 28th has been announced as the scheduled release date for the DVD version of the edited films from Återtåget 1996.

• Item on Ginza.se

STOCKHOLM (UPDATED) - Swedish Radio (SR) P3 program “Musikjournalen” will feature a special about Gyllene Tider tomorrow night. The program runs between 20:03 and 21:00 CET.


  Update July 12: The special will include an interview with Robert Thorselius and another fan called Annika, as well as interviews with Per Gessle, Anders Herrlin and Göran Fritzson.


  The reporter Anna Swantesson will also go through Gyllene Tider’s history and talk about why the band didn’t make it internationally when Roxette later managed to, how Per feels about his early solo albums and nostalgy - as many fans prefer GT’s old material.


  The program will also be available to listen to during a week at Musikjournalen’s website.

• Swedish Radio
• Musikjournalen

As you can see in the tabbed menu above, The Daily Roxette now has an additonal section called “Features.” It will have all the longer and more exclusive TDR articles separated in their own section. Currently it only has older stories, but stay tuned for something very special!

HALMSTAD (UPDATED) - A second exhibition celebrating Gyllene Tider’s 25th Anniversary has opened its doors to the public. This one is called “Gyllene Popkonst - en resa genom 25 år” (“Golden Pop Art - a journey through 25 years”) and it’s all about records: Per Gessle’s, Gyllene Tider’s and Roxette’s. All in all, over 500 records are exhibited.

  The entrance is free, although one can leave a voluntary contribution. If you do, you may win a ticket to the final concert in Halmstad, or the Gyllene Tider book written by Jan-Owe Wikström.

  The exhibit is a success so far, and the creators are very happy. “We had more visitors hanging on the ropes than the big exhibition at the museum the opening day,” says Jocke Andersson with a satisfied smile.

  Pop25 is open 11-17 CET Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, except for the concert week when it’s open every day.

  Update: The DVD “Join the Flumeride” is being sold at the exhibition as well.

• Pop25

HALMSTAD - It was the evening of March 19th. It was after four o’clock when the car rolled into a wet and black Halmstad. The rain had followed me all the way home from Vollsjö, Skåne, The Aerosol Grey Machine studio and Gyllene Tider’s recordings for “Finn 5 fel”.



  In just a few hours, the tickets to the extra concert at Örjans Vall would be released and just out of curiosity, I took my car by the Ticket Center to see if anyone had defied the weather gods.



  They had. Not one or ten. The full side of the building was lined with sleeping bags, umbrellas, raincoats and anything imaginable to protect against the rain.



  I rode in the diesel Mercedes that in the beginning of the 80s caused teen hysteria. I rode the Återtåget train in the 90s that caused welfare state nostalgia. But this! Grown up people – don’t for a second believe that this was just teenagers – risking their health and being late for work just for these hot tickets for the home arena concerts.



  Sure, I was a proponent for [having GT play] Örjans Vall back in 1996, but back then the idea was buried in the county’s massive red tape and all they gave were cheap excuses, even though Gyllene Tider themselves had offered to pay to have the grass covered. That’s why I believed in one sold out Örjans. One. Not two. And definitely not… three!

But a mass pop psychosis over the generational gap seems to have struck the country, a collective abstinence for “Sommartider”, clapping of hands, power pop refrains, oooh-oooh choruses, and Farfisa organs which apparently got aggravated with the intake of mazarins last year.



  Not even the eternal pop visionary Per Gessle, who once sent a letter to the editor at NME (in Swedish!) and got it published long before Gyllene Tider was known outside of Halmstad, could have known this was coming.



  While I was observing the guys during the recording sessions there were two things that hit me. First was the sound, whose chemical pop formula and enchantment would’ve been broken had any one of the five been missing. Next was the commitment – it has been a long while since all of them actively participated in the recording process. At the same time, I was wondering if they had realized what they had done. I mean, the star quality gauge isn’t really maxing out regarding the image and the rock attribute.



  But then something that the folklore researcher Åke Daun once said hit me. To reach popular appreciation in Sweden, you have to be happy and natural, simply ordinary. You can’t be too brilliant a star here… then the audience may get reserved – which derives its origin from our ideals as an agricultural society. In the U.S. and Great Britain however, it’s the more extravagant and elegant artists that reach real star status.


  As this is being written, the band has become an exhibit at the Halmstad Länsmuseum, and two Örjan concerts have become three. The 50,000 tickets to Ullevi sold out in a few hours and 400,000 will see the golden triumphal process through the country. I don’t know what remains after that. Everything is sort of done. It would in that case be that Gyllene Tider “does” a Rolling Stones; that they go back to their roots and make some really exclusive concerts at Bio Reflex in Getinge and in Figarosalen in Halmstad, where everything started. That would be something.

Translation by Thomas Evensson for TDR

HALMSTAD - Recording. From zero to fifteen songs in 29 recording days.
From “Snickarglädje” (“Ornate Decorative Carving”) to “Finn 5 fel!” (“Find 5 Errors!”).

  HP was, exclusively, there during the recording of Gyllene Tider’s first studio album in 21 years.

Here is the report from Christoffer Lundquist’s studio, The Aerosol Grey Machine, situated at the end of the road in the middle of the Skåne countryside.



  August 1979 – “This is where you will be boys!”

  Lasse Lindbom showed Per Gessle, Mats “MP” Persson, Micke “Keef” – that was his name back then – Andersson, Anders Herrlin and Göran Fritzon in through the door to the right after the entrance in the EMI-studio in Skärmarbrink, Stockholm.

  Inside the studio technician Björne Boström was checking some settings on the mixer table. Wow, Studer tape recorders and JBL speakers, the bunch established wide-eyed. They had been almost equally impressed six months before when Lindbom in red tracksuit pants and mauve sneakers came to a slushy Harplinge to, on Kjelle Andersson’s behalf, listen to the band.
But it wasn’t big, studio 2 the name was. This was the place the lesser bands used while the big studio, Number One, was reserved for the more established acts.

  This wasn’t anything that troubled five country boys. They were pleased with what was offered.

  “När ni faller faller ni hårt” was the first song that got finished. It was big. Almost a little magical. That night the boys were gathered around a small cassette player in one of the hotel rooms listening to a raw copy of the song. Cool, they asserted.
Six weeks later everything was finished. Thirteen songs. But it was another song that started getting airplay at Village, a discotheque on Körsbärsvägen in Stockholm where it became a local hit. A song Per only included on the cassette as a bonus to Kjelle Andersson to show how productive they were with the note “This really doesn’t fit in here but I thought you maybe wanted to hear it.” The predecessor was an old cassette that MP had had laying around, “Farlig terräng”. Now Per had written new lyrics:

  “Flickorna på TV2”.



  Read more…

HALMSTAD -

January 1959

Per Håkan Gessle is born Jan 12.



February 1959

Mats Arne Persson joins the world February 26.



March 1961

Micke “Syd” Andersson sees the light of day March 12.



September 1961

Anders Herrlin does the same on September 17.



April 1962

Göran Fritzon, the youngest of the golden herd, is born April 28.



March 1967

Per starts his first pop group in Furet – Pepcis – that lip-syncs to The Animals and Tages. Sticks and kitchen utensils form the “instruments.”



August 1969

MP starts playing the trumpet and joins the Youth Guard.



During 1972

Per writes his first lyrics and dyes his hair red like idol David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust. Göran joins a classmate and starts taking organ lessons at the Hagström music school. A few years later, he also takes lessons in classical music from Bert Möller who tells him about Anders and Micke’s group. Read more…

HALMSTAD - Anders Herrlin

Age: 43

Family: Jennie and Victor, 14.

Lives: In an apartment in Stockholm.

Car: No.

Hobbies: Yoga.





What is the most important album in history?

Gyllene Tider’s first album of course!



First album you bought?

“Razamanaz” by Nazareth.



What record purchase are you most ashamed about?

I don’t know, but there was an embarrassing incident once at a Statoil gas station. I had produced two songs on a Carola album and suddenly saw the cassette at the gas station. I didn’t have one myself – why I don’t know – but I got this preposterous idea to shoplift the cassette. Of course they caught me so I was thrown out and banned from the gas station. I’d call that an embarrassing record purchase.



What is your biggest concert experience?

Pink Floyd at Earl’s Court.



Which is the best party album before going out?

Bob Marley, “Chant Down Babylon”.



What’s the best day-after album?

To have my iPod set on shuffle so that it mixes all the songs, all the albums, all the artists.



Your best memory from Återtåget?

Stockholm Stadium… the gig was magical. And the closing concert in Halmstad of course.



What do you remember from the Gyllene Tider hysteria during the 80s?

Delight mixed with horror. Everything went so incredibly fast; we became super famous overnight. Personally, I didn’t like that time very much.



Which Gyllene Tider song do you refuse to play today?

Everything from “The Heartland Café” – probably the worst album on the planet.



What web sites would you want to promote?

I usually only visit real music technology nerd websites like www.sonicstate.com, so I don’t really have any recommendations.


Read more…

HALMSTAD - Göran Fritzon

Age: 42.

Family: Jenny; Emma, almost 14; Erik, 11; Victoria, 7; Oscar, three months.

Lives: Villa Tomtebo, Oskarström.

Car(s): ’97 Mercedes E420T, ’97 BMW S23, ’88 230 CE, ’66 MGB Tourer.

Hobbies: Food, movies and diaper changes, that’s all I have time for.





First album you bought?

One of the first was Sweet’s “Desolation Boulevard” (1974).



What record purchase are you most ashamed about?

It’s got to be a record by Michael Bolton…



What is your biggest concert experience?

Springsteen, May 1981, Johanneshov. “The River.”



Which is the best party album before going out?

“Finn 5 fel!”



What instrument would you like to learn how to play?

The piano.



Your best memory from Återtåget?

Many great memories, but one concert that beats most things was Stockholm Stadium.



Your worst memory from Återtåget?

When Per showed up in Lysekil. His back hurt so bad that he couldn’t even stand. We were three millimeters from canceling the show. The hours before that concert were probably the worst.



What’s the best song on “Finn 5 fel!”?

“Tuffa tider.”



What ring signal do you have on your cell phone?

Digirain… some standard signal.



What web sites would you want to promote?

www.gyllenetider.se and www.swemd.com.


Read more…

HALMSTAD - Mats MP Persson
Age: 45.
Family: Live-in girlfriend Åsa-Caroline and bonus dad to Mikaela.
Lives: A house in Halmstad.
Car/MC: One of each.
Hobbies: Car/MC.

What is the most important album in history?
John Holm’s “Sordin.”

First record you bought?
“Ett litet rött paket” by Sven-Ingvars.

What’s your biggest concert experience?
The opening act to Black Sabbath 1978 at Olympen in Lund: AC/DC.

Which is the best party album before going out?
No album, but a good day in the studio.

Your best memory from Återtåget?
Stockholm Stadium.

What do you remember from the Gyllene Tider hysteria during the 80s?
The open-air folk park tradition at its best.

What Gyllene Tider song do you refuse to play today?
“Upphetsad.”

What’s the best song off “Finn 5 fel!”?
“Tuffa tider.”

What ring signal do you have on your cell phone?
“Knaswobbel.”

What household chore can you manage?
Turning on the dishwasher and changing the dust bag in the Volta.

Read more…