STOCKHOLM (UPDATED) - Swedish musician Freddie Wadling (The Flesh Quartet, among others) will release a new album March 30. The album is called “Jag är monstret” (“I Am the Monster”), and contains songs written by other artists, like for instance Jocke Berg (Kent), Mauro Scocco and Per Gessle.

  Per’s little contribution is “Måla mitt minne” (“Paint My Memory”), a mid-tempo song written for the “Mazarin” album in November 2002, but was never fully recorded. Some of the melody is borrowed from Per’s own instrumental “View From a Bridge”, written for the opening of the Öresund bridge a few years ago.

  Titiyo sings with Freddie on this song.

HELSINKI - The song “Everything But Still Nothing,” co-written by Mats “MP” Persson and performed by Christian Forss, didn’t quite make it to the international semifinals in the Eurovision Song Contest 2005. The song got to the second round of the Finnish finals as the sixth and the last song. The second round went better and the song was able to climb, but it ended up at fifth position.

  The winner was Geir Rönning with the song “Why.” Geir is originally from Norway where he has also taken part in the local leg of the Eurovision Song Contest. This is his first time in the international contest. His song is written by Mika Toivanen who also wrote the song that represented Finland in the last year’s contest with less than satisfactory results.

• Geir Rönning: Why

JYVÄSKYLÄ - The song “Everything But Still Nothing,” co-written by Gyllene Tider guitarist Mats “MP” Persson and performed by Christian Forss, won the latest semifinal in the Finnish selection of Eurovision Song Contest 2005 on Friday night. The song got 26% of the given votes, and was especially liked in the Western Finland where 45% voted for the song.

  The other writer of “Everything But Still Nothing,” Patrick Linman, had also another song in an earlier Finnish semifinal. That song, titled “Kissed By A Fool,” was performed by his own band Place-2-Go. The song came fifth and didn’t make it to the final.

  The Finnish selection will continue with two other semifinals and the final in Tampere on February 19. Because of the poor results in previous Song Contests, the Finnish candidate must take part in an international semifinal in Kiev, Ukraine on May 19. The Eurovision Song Contest final will be in Kiev two days later on May 21. Read more…

STOCKHOLM - Aftonbladet’s award Rockbjörnen (The Rock Bear) finalists have been selected. Among them are Marie Fredriksson (Best Female), Gyllene Tider (Best Album, Best Group and Best Song [Tuffa tider]) and Per Gessle (Best Male).

  Aftonbladet’s Per Bjurman reveals his favorites and tips in a column: Gyllene Tider should receive all three awards, while Lena Philipsson should get Best Female. Bjurman thinks that Magnus Uggla will get Best Male as Per hasn’t done anything solo this year (except those “three minutes at every concert”.)

  Rockbjörnen 2004 is the 26th Rockbjörn ever. Marie Fredriksson has received five awards during the years, Per Gessle three, Gyllene Tider two and Roxette six.

• Rockbjörnen site (In Swedish)

STOCKHOLM - The Gessle-penned song “Varmt igen” – released for the first time on Peter Jöback’s album “Jag kommer hem igen till jul” in 2002, and later included on Per’s “Mazarin” album – is featured on Jöback’s new live DVD “Jag kommer hem igen till jul - live från Cirkus.” His performance was recorded last December at the Cirkus theatre in Stockholm.


  Besides “Varmt igen”, the DVD – which is out now – features various tracks from Jöback’s album, such as the duet with Eva Dahlgren “Jag tror på dig”, and classic Christmas songs like “Ave Maria” and “O Helga Natt” (“O Holy Night”); as well as a “Disney Medley.”

• Peter Jöback’s official website
• Eva Dahlgren website

HELSINKI - Mats “MP” Persson, the guitarist of Gyllene Tider and a music producer, has once again managed to get one of his songs into the Finnish leg of the Eurovision song contest, as reported before. The song is written together with a Finnish songwriter, Patrick Linman, just like the song the year before.

  This year’s song, titled “Everything But Still Nothing,” will be performed by 23-year old Christian Forss. Forss became popular as a result of having been on TV’s “Idol” contest, in which he came in fourth.

  In the same contest, another male contestant, Antti Tuisku, performed “Spending My Time” which was later released on a CD. Forss rendered Bon Jovi’s “Living On A Prayer.”

  Mari contributed to this article.

• Introduction to the song (in Finnish)

HALMSTAD - Mats MP Persson, guitarist, song-co-writer and studio guru of Gyllene Tider, has once again gotten one of his songs into the Finnish leg of the Eurovision song contest! Last year’s contribution was called “Can’t Stop Loving You” and ended up as #6. It was co-written by “a fella from Vaasa” named Patrick Linman, and so is this year’s piece - “Everything But Still Nothing”, a traditional pop song. “We almost forgot that we had entered it,” MP says in Aftonbladet.


  MP feels it’s a small, but yet possible, chance that he gets to compete against his friend Per Gessle in Kiev. “Theoretically that’s possible,” MP states, “It would be fun, but I haven’t thought that far ahead. I’m surprised our contribution got through to the Finnish contest.” The song will be performed by Patrick, a troubador and a former member of the Finnish popduo Place2go. “I myself will be in the audience or in the green room,” MP laughs.

  He won’t judge their chances this year. “Last year we ended up at number six, with a really catchy tune. It’s hard to say if this song is stronger…”


Mari contributed to this article.

• Aftonbladet’s article (In Swedish)

HALMSTAD - Göran Fritzon and Mats “MP” Persson have together with Henrik Johansson, Staffan Karlsson and Martin Franzén started the company SweMD.com which will sell downloadable books in mp3-format.

  Many famous authors are represented on SweMD.com, for instance Eva Dahlgren, Liza Marklund and Henning Mankell. The prices will be about 50% less than what you pay buying the audio CD.

  If things start off well, SweMD.com will start offering downloadable music as well. Initially SweMD.com will be availaible in Sweden, but before long it will be available also in other parts of the world.

• SweMD (In Swedish)
• Eva Dahlgren
• Liza Marklund
• Expressen’s article (In Swedish)

STOCKHOLM - Swedish director Jonas Åkerlund will release a DVD next year, under the prestigious name “Director’s Label”, where directors like Spike Jonze and Chris Cunningham have been released before.

  Jonas Åkerlund has directed several videos for Roxette and Per Gessle, but it’s not at this point known if those videos will be included or not. In 2003 there was a specially made DVD named “Jonas Åkerlund” released for electronics company LG’s sales meet in Stockholm, which included all the commercials and most of the videos Jonas had made so far. This is to this date the only place Per Gessle’s solo videos have been released.

  The DVD, made in 600 copies, was never commercially available.

• DVDForum.nu (In Swedish)
• Director’s Label

LOS ANGELES - Johnny Ramone, the guitarist of the influencial 70’s punk band The Ramones, died Wednesday afternoon at the age of 55. His wife and Red Hot Chilli Pepper’s John Fuschiante were at his bedside when he died.

  Ramone (whose real name was John Cummings) had suffered from prostate cancer for five years. He is the third founding member of the band to pass away. Singer Joey Ramone died in 2001 of lymphatic cancer and bassist Dee Dee Ramone died of a drug overdose the following year.

  A fan of the Ramones, critics raved when Per Gessle released a cover version of the Ramones’s hit “I Want To Be Your Boyfriend” a couple of years ago. Other members of Gyllene Tider also admire their music, with drummer Micke “Syd” Andersson wearing a “Gabba Gabba Hey” t-shirt during the GT25 tour this summer.