STOCKHOLM (UPDATED) - October 31 the second Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards will be held. This time it will be in the Annex of Globen, in Stockholm. Gyllene Tider has been nominated as Best Swedish Popgroup. Per Gessle was awarded Best Nordic Artist last year.

  Little more is known at this point, but the gala will be televised on Nickelodeon, and in November also on Swedish TV4. Last year’s show was considered by many to be more or less a ratings flop.

• Nickelodeon.se (In Swedish)

STOCKHOLM - New sites have been announced, earlier sonofaplumber.com and sonofaplumber.se have been revealed. But also gessle.com will be opened shortly. Shortly in this context means about mid-October.

  The sites are constructed by Transmit/Receive from Söderhamn, Sweden.

• Son Of A Plumber
• Official Gessle
• Transmit/Receive

UTRECHT - Last week, D.H.T.’s “Listen To Your Heart” (Unplugged version featuring Edmee), was selected as superclip for Holland’s biggest music television station TMF. Besides this version, the original D.H.T. remix is now being played as well.

  On the Billboard Hot 100 the song is still falling, but slowly; last week “Listen To Your Heart” was at #16. This week it’s at #17, after 18 weeks on the chart. Faithful readers may remember its peak position of #8.

• Billboard Hot 100

STOCKHOLM - “Sommartider” has been voted Best Swedish Pop Classic through all times by the Swedish people. The results were shown in the TV-show Folktoppen (People’s Top), where “Sommartider” also was performed by gay comedian Jonas Gardell in a semi-gospel version.

1. Gyllene Tider - Sommartider

2. Ulf Lundell - Öppna landskap

3. ABBA - Waterloo

4. Ted Gärdestad - Sol, vind och vatten

5. ABBA - Ring Ring

6. Tomas Ledin - I natt är jag din

7. Lisa Nilsson - Himlen runt hörnet

8. Eva Dahlgren - Vem tänder stjärnorna?

9. Freestyle - Vill ha dej

10. Magnus Uggla - Varning på stan

• The performance of “Sommartider”

SAINT TROPEZ (UPDATED) - “Son Of A Plumber… are you nuts?” I say to Per over the phone. “Ha ha,” he says, “yes it feels like it.” Per is in Saint Tropez to finalize the mixing of his new album, and another tradition he has is to finish off in Saint Tropez. “But it’s been raining until ten minutes ago,” he reports.

  The album title will indeed be “Son Of A Plumber” and will initially be released in Sweden only. If the record is well received, it may be delivered “worldwide” in January, with a European/Swedish club tour to follow.

  Per & Company have recorded no less than 26 songs, and when this reporter asks for a double album Per seems intrigued, especially if there’s a vinyl edition. “Vinyl? Great idea! A double vinyl album? Son Of A Plumber’s white album! Ha ha!”

  The album sounds very diversified; country, pop, ballads, instrumentals et cetera. “We’ve recorded three, four 50-second instrumentals that we want to include,” Per divulges. “Sort of like soundtracks to movies. We have pan flutes as well!”

  There will be a single off the album out in the middle or end of October, but the single has yet to be decided. Per decides to share some info about some tracks:

• Substitute (For the Real Deal)
• I Have a Party in My Head (I Hope it Never Ends)
• Keep the Radio On (This is the Perfect Song) - “A newly recorded version taken from The Lonely Boys’ album.” Although it started out as an unreleased Gyllene Tider-song.
• Making Love Or Expecting Rain - “It is
  a line from a Bob Dylan song, no need to speculate guys!”
• Hey Mr DJ (Won’t You Play Another Love Song) - “A country duet with Helena.”
• A nine-minute medley including a falsetto blues and “Are You An Old Hippie, Sir?”
• I Never Quite Got Over the Fact that the Beatles Broke Up - “This one makes you happy, possibly an album closer, we have a few.”
• Drowning in Wonderful Thoughts About Her - “Probably the first track of the album”.

  “My thoughts regarding this project was to sort of start a one man band, like Badly Drawn Boy. And also, we recorded no demos for this project. I played the songs for Christoffer and Clarence, and they were like the evil jury in [American] Idol. They then said if they liked the songs or not. If they didn’t - we didn’t record it.” Per tells TDR. He also mentions that they had somewhat strange recording techniques making this album. They would tell Helena to sing something and if she asked how or what, they would say “improvise.” This has given some strange, but great results, with lots of “la la la la la” but also other interesting effects.

  Regarding the sleeve, Anton Corbijn took the pictures this time around, just like he did with Per’s previous solo album, “Mazarin.” Most of the pictures are taken in Christoffer’s garden and some in London, while the sleeve pic itself is taken in London.

  The only thing Per didn’t tell us was how the guitars really were tuned after all…

  Update Sept. 30: The album has been delayed one week due to technical issues. The new date is November 23.

STOCKHOLM (UPDATED) - In just two months, there is a new Per album coming! The Daily Roxette has just received the press release stating that the album indeed will be in English as predicted, and a “debut”…

  On the album musicans as Clarence Öfwerman, Christoffer Lundquist, Helena Josefsson and Jens Jansson partake. “Without Clarence and Christoffer none of this would’ve existed. I could never have done this on my own.” The project is called “Son Of A Plumber.” The album will keep “Per’s full musical heritage,” according to the press statement.

  “Gessle” and “debut” are two words very seldomly paired, what happened, Per Gessle? “Wow, I don’t know what has happened! Somehow it’s taken me 46 years to dare to make this album. And to be ABLE to make this album. Son Of A Plumber has become some sort of a musical purification bath for me. The album contains all of my musical heritage. I don’t know why that happened, maybe it’s because I bought my first mp3-player this winter.” Per tells us. He continues: “I’ve spent half this year transfering my old records to the computer and rediscovered so much great music I love but had forgotten. It’s been a journey back to Furet and Simlångsdalen where I grew up, into the 70s, stuff we listened to in Gyllene’s first rehearsal studio.”

  Yesterday evening EMI Svenska held a presentation for their partners. They showed a video greeting in which Per spoke briefly about releasing a new album and told it will be out in November. He also showed a piece of paper saying “Son of a Plumber” to the camera, but didn’t tell more about its meaning. “I discovered that if I work under a different name, I don’t have to ’follow up’ Roxette, ’Mazarin’ or Gyllene Tider. Incredibly nice! Here’s something new; Son Of A Plumber! My dad was a plumber. I have become a debutant,” Per says.

  Originally, “Son Of A Plumber” (or Son.Of.A.Plumber) is a studio in Stockholm where some of the demos for, for instance, the “Have A Nice Day” album were recorded.

  “I’ve gotten great self confidence and a lovely boost from the last years’ huge response from the audience. I suddenly dare to trust myself and my capacity in a totally different way than before. Therefore it feels like a ’debut’!” concludes Per.

STOCKHOLM - Per was appointed “Artist of the Decade” at Metro’s “Concert of the Decade” in Globen last night. “It is a fantastic distinction, but I have had a great successful decade with Roxette, “Mazarin” and Gyllene Tider, so it’s actually right,” he says laughingly to Metro’s reporter Axel Björklund.


  Eva Dahlgren opened the show with her new single “När jag längtar” and the well-known “Ängeln i rummet” and was followed by Per and his band, who performed “Gå & fiska!” and “Juni, juli, augusti,” and joined the stage again at the end of the show with “Här kommer alla känslorna” and “Det hjärta som brinner.”

  As reported earlier by The Daily Roxette, Per has been recording various things in the past year, and he is not sure what his new project will be, he claims. It might be a “three-chord pop” album, in English, Swedish or even French, or a soundtrack “it’s one of my dreams to do a full soundtrack to a film, it could maybe be in Swedish, I don’t know,” he explains. It isn’t sure if it will be on a national or international level, or both. “I am 46 and don’t
feel so much like repeating what we did in 1989-91, when we flew 260 days a year. I’m not ready to give that much up for a new international career.”

  Whatever the new release will be, he says he’s not planning to tour in 2006, “but when you look at U2 at Ullevi, it’s all coming back to me. When one has been there, one wants to go back.”

  Yesterday’s concert featured both new and older/established artists, of which Per is more familiar with the latter. “I bump into Håkan [Hellström], The Cardigans and The Ark professionally, like this concert, Grammisgalan or Rockbjörnen. Since we do the same thing, I consider us sort of colleagues. I only know Eva [Dahlgren] privately. I have never met Darin, for instance… Maybe you meet them in the hallway and shout ’great album woohoo’ or something.”



Additional photos by Tobbe Joneby.

• Metro
• Eva Dahlgren

BERGEN - On Saturday September 3, as previously reported, Per Gessle and band performed an exclusive concert for the staff at Hydro in the Grieg Hall in Norwegian town Bergen. It was a special invitation gig only, with an audience of about 1,500 happy Norwegians.

  Mazarinerna consisted this time of MP Persson, guitar; Jens Jansson, drums; Clarence Öfwerman, keyboards, Helena Josefsson, backup vocals; Magnus Börjesson, bass guitar and Christoffer Lundquist, guitar. Per comments the gig: “Bergen was a gas! Very heavy! This band composition is the most fun I’ve ever played with…”

  The Daily Roxette has gotten its hands on the setlist:

1. En sten vid en sjö i en skog

2. Juni, juli, augusti

3. Gungar

4. Det hjärta som brinner

5. (Hon vill ha) Puls

b a n d p r e s e n t a t i o n

6. Här kommer alla känslorna…

7. Segla på ett moln

8. Kung av sand

9. Födelsedag

10. Ljudet av ett annat hjärta

11. Gå & fiska!



Extras



12. Tycker om när du tar på mej

13. Det är över nu

14. Sommartider

  “’Sommartider’ was a huge hit in Norway as well, one could tell…” Per says happily.




All photos courtesy of Per Gessle, photographer unknown.

NEW YORK - D.H.T. is back at #1 with “Listen to Your Heart,” although this time it’s the Top 40 Mainstream chart. Evan Lamberg, EMI Music Publishing New York, comments: “It’s the #1 most played song in the US at Top 40 radio this week…” The single has been on this particular chart for 13 weeks.

  On the Billboard Hot 100 it’s still a top 10 hit, at #10 for the second week in a row. “Listen to Your Heart” has been on the Hot 100 for 15 weeks now.