STOCKHOLM - Capitol Records announced today that Gyllene Tider’s first single off the forthcoming “Finn fem fel” album will be released to radio stations on May 17th.


  Although TDR was told at the release party for “GT25 - Samtliga Hits!” that the first single would be “En sten vid en sjö i en skog,” the band members will meet again next week to make a final decision on which one of the 15 songs featured on the new album will be chosen as the first single.

  The single is expected to show up in stores in early June.

YSTAD - Christoffer Lundquist’s band Brainpool is finally getting their rock opera “Junk” on stage. The band members tell Ystads Allehanda that the opera criticizes our modern consumer society. As the band members describe it, “the society produces junk, talks crap and stinks like trash.”

  Brainpool will perform the opera with the Malmö Symphony Orchestra during the Malmö Music Festival on August 19. The opera will also be released on CD on August 25.

  The opera was first mentioned in The Daily Roxette in June 2000. Since then, Christoffer has worked with both Roxette and Per Gessle. Another Brainpool member, Jens Jansson, played with Per’s band on the “Mazarin” album and the tour last year.

• Ystads Allehanda article (in Swedish)

STOCKHOLM - After being out from the official Swedish radio chart for ten weeks, Per’s summer hit “Här kommer alla känslorna” came back at #49 this week. It’s the 48th week on the list for this song which spent 13 weeks at #1 this past summer.

  Also, another single release by Per, “Tycker om när du tar på mej” re-enters the Top Ten, climbing this week from #11 to #9.

STOCKHOLM (UPDATED) - Marie Fredriksson and her husband Micke Bolyos are participating in a cookbook together with 16 other Swedish artists. The book, titled “Kockrock” (“Rock Chefs”), will be available in stores in May.
The book is a compilation of recipes from artists who have, over the past three years, been guest chefs at Solsidan, a restaurant in Torekov, located on the west coast of Skåne (Sweden’s southernmost province).

  Marie and her husband were the first to participate in what became a popular series known as “Kockrock.”

  “It was a magical night. Marie and Micke are ultra-food-freaks and they were very enthusiastic in the kitchen,” says Robert Nilsson who runs Solsidan together with his brother Rikard.

  Since then, many other artists have been guest cooks in the Solsidan kitchen.

  Marie and Micke’s contribution to the book is “Asiatiska oxfilérullader” (Asian beef filet rolls).

  Late last year, Per Gessle had a recipe for bread in “Our Daily Bread…”, a recipe book published by the Swedish Salvation Army.

EDITOR’S NOTE: We’ve updated this article to more accurately reflect that this book is a collection of recipes from “guest rock chef” events that have been going on for almost three years now. — LEO

• Solsidan
• Metro (see page 3 of Stockholm edition)

HALMSTAD - Fans who make the pilgrimage to Sweden this summer will have an additional “must see” destination to add to their list. The Länsmuséet in Halmstad, as previously reported, is mounting a major Gyllene Tider retrospective – Återblickar – that will depict the band’s career from their start in 1979 right up until today. The show opens on June 6th.

  “Gyllene Tider is a phenomenon in Sweden,” says Bo Ericson, the retrospective’s curator. “They’ve had a tremendous impact, not only on the music industry, but on popular culture here as well.”

  The Daily Roxette has been in contact recently with both Ericson and Håkan Kvist, who serves as the exhibit’s lead designer.

  “A few of my colleagues are terrified – really scared – about the stampede of visitors to come this summer,” says Ericson. “Even I’m kind of sweaty,” he admits. The museum is expecting 100,000 people will want to pass through the retrospective’s galleries, with extremely long lines expected on July 14th and 15th, the dates of the two GT25 concerts in Halmstad.

  The items on display will showcase not only the band’s own memories, but also those of their fans. The curators were able to locate two “girls,” now middle-aged women, who were huge Gyllene Tider fans at the beginning of the ’80s. From them, the museum has borrowed a lot of vintage material, like posters and photos from different magazines, newspaper articles, and other memorobilia. All of this will be assembled to show what a typical “teen girl’s room” might have looked like in the early ’80s when a lot of Swedish girls were “in love” with their adorable boy band and covered their rooms with Gyllene Tider posters and pictures.


  “For us, this is a whole new way of mounting an exhibition,” says Ericson. “It’s very modern.”

  The exhibition will have a kind of “media” room where one can not only experience the music of Gyllene Tider, but also be bombarded with moving images and pictures of all the records that Gyllene Tider has ever released. This video wall will be put together with about five large monitors and Kvist hopes it will give the whole room a really cool and overwhelming feeling.

  The exhibition will also give guests the possibility to see instruments, photos, never-before-seen film clips and – of course – records. So far, the museum has been able to obtain no less than five of Gyllene Tider’s guitars including a bass from Anders Herrlin and a Fender Telecaster from Per Gessle. Also on display will be a big (and rather heavy) Farfisa organ from Göran Fritzon.

  While museum exhibitions are usually serious, Ericson tells TDR that Återblickar will incorporate “a bit of a sense of humor.” The whole idea for the museum project was hatched, after all, while Ericson was drinking ouzo and beer with Mats “MP” Persson. The two have been friends and neighbors for years, and were vacationing together in Greece. Ericson, perhaps inspired by a successful ABBA exhibit that ran for a year at the Nordiska Museet in Stockholm, asked if there wasn’t a Gyllene Tider anniversary coming up. Once home, Ericson wrote up his proposal for a museum exhibition and MP presented it to the rest of the group.

  “We never asked the band as a group, or as individuals, for any help with the budget,” explains Ericson. The exhibit costs are attached to the museum’s annual budget, with some underwriting from local sponsors.

  Museum visitors will be able to purchase a commemorative exhibition poster, measuring 70x100 cm. Currently in production, the poster will be sold for 60 kronor (about €6.50). The entrance fee to the museum itself is 40 kronor (about €4.50).

  Working with the old private film clips and home movies the museum has collected, a prototype DVD has been produced. Copies of this proposed DVD are currently being reviewed by band members and the group’s management. If the necessary permissions are granted, this too will be available for sale at the museum’s gift shop.

  The retrospective is scheduled to remain open until the end of October.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Per-Axel Månsson, TDR’s lead reporter for this story, has also contributed to the exhibition by lending his Gyllene Tider record collection to be photographed for use on the video wall. Photos on right courtesy of the Museum of Halmstad. Additional reporting by Lars-Erik Olson.

• Museum of Halmstad (additional ’sneak preview’ photos, including larger versions of those shown here)

HALMSTAD - The Roxette and Gyllene Tider spoof documentary from 1998 about Swedish bands “Gula Tidningen” and “Pincette” will be released on DVD this summer. Producers Roger Gunnarsson, Anders Celin and Tobias Pettersson have just finished filming extra material to be included on the DVD. Gula Tidningen is Pierre Gaffel, vocals; Lars LP Pettersson, guitar; Mycket Syd, drums; Anders Hermelin, bass guitar; and Pommes Frittesson, keyboards. Pincette consists of Pierre Gaffel and Marit Fredmansson.

  The thought is that the DVD will be shown at the Gyllene Tider exhibit this summer. If everything goes as planned, it will include the film, a behind-the-scenes documentary and a newly recorded follow-up about what has happened since “Flumeride” was originally recorded. Included in this extra footage is a video for Pierre Gaffel’s (Per Gessle’s alter ego) hit single “Detta gäller samtliga (alla och EN var) [“This Goes for Everyone (Each and All)]”, taken from Pierre Gaffel’s solo album “Margarin” [“Margarine”].

• Anders Celin’s website

STOCKHOLM - “GT25 - Samtliga Hits!” takes a small step forward - to the #1 position! After only three weeks it has gone from #3 to #2 to #1. This is also interesting since there is absolutely no new material on this album, it’s basically the same album as “Halmstads pärlor” released in 1995, which sold 592,000 copies before being withdrawn.

  And as a bonus effect “Mazarin” shoots up to #12 from #30. It seems Gessle and his companions are unstoppable this time too…

• The Album Charts in Aftonbladet

COLOGNE - German TV-channel RTL will broadcast a show about the most successful musical duos ever on Thursday, April 15th. Along with Roxette, some of the other acts to be mentioned include Sonny & Cher, the Pet Shop Boys, Modern Talking, and Andrea Bocelli with Sarah Brightman.

  Advertisements for the show have included a photo of Roxette.

• RTL Chart Show (In German)

STOCKHOLM - EMI Capitol revealed the tracklist for “Finn fem fel” (“Find Five Mistakes”) today, the new Gyllene Tider album scheduled for release on June 9th. The catalog number is 5710922.

  As we earlier reported, the working title for the first single was “En sten vid en sjö i en skog,” and Gyllene Tider has decided to keep that as the final song title. Here are the other song titles…

STOCKHOLM - Gyllene Tider’s latest greatest hits album, “GT 25!,” climbs to #2 this week. The top spot is held by Anastacia’s new album.

  Meanwhile, “Mazarin” falls to #30.

STOCKHOLM - Micke “Syd” Andersson, Gyllene Tider’s drummer, was interviewed on the show “Kalas” broadcast on Swedish Radio’s P3 channel last Friday. During the interview, Micke revealed that in addition to “Återtaget,” the legendary “Parkliv” filmed by Lasse Hallström in 1980 and released in 1981 will be also released on DVD.


  Micke also told the reporter that they will surely record “a third Parkliv” – a documentary of the coming summer tour in order to have recorded concerts from three decades.


  “Kalas” asked Micke to write a tour diary and he answered he would start writing on the tour premiere, even though he has “never written a diary,” but he will have some months to practice before the show.


Jicko, Anna Hedqvist and Daniel Alvedahl contributed to this article.

• Interview at “Kalas” - SR P3 (In Swedish, file available until April 9th)

STOCKHOLM - Gyllene Tider’s new compilation album “GT25 - Samtliga Hits!” enters the Swedish official album chart at #3 this week, behind Marit Bergman’s and E-Type’s new albums, which enter the chart at #1 and #2.

  On the other hand, Per Gessle’s “Mazarin” leaves the Top 20 for the first time since its release in June 2003 and falls to #25.

  AnimalKingdom contributed to this article.

• HitListan.se (In Swedish)

NEW YORK - As Aftonbladet mentioned today, Per is currently visiting New York City. TDR is now able to reveal the real purpose of his visit. He is meeting Capitol Records’ management to prepare the record deal that Gyllene Tider will sign as early as next week. If everything goes as planned, this will mean that the new Gyllene Tider album, “Finn Fem Fel,” will be released in the major USA cities at the same time as it is in Sweden, on June 2nd.

  “The people here were enthusiastic about their new material,” says our anonymous source who is close to Capitol management and has followed Per’s career since the early 80s. “It’s a pity that their previous attempt to conquer the U.S. failed, but this time we feel we have a real winner on our hands.”

  The plan is to release a special “US edition” of the album with some, but not all, of the songs translated into English. “There’s a growing interest in foreign languages in the States, and we think the album will get even more attention because the songs are in a strange Scandinavian language.”

  There are also preliminary plans to continue the tour in the fall with club concerts in New York, Minneapolis and Chicago. All three are cities with a large Scandinavian population.

  Update: This article, of course, was our April Fool’s joke. Gotcha!

• Aftonbladet article (in Swedish)