People who know me will agree that while I might not be a shaker I am definitely a mover. So once again I've relocated to a new residence where I'll hopefully be able to stay for a while. That means a lot of stuff has been going on lately (and also some non-moving related stuff). But instead of doing a major recap let's just say that I now live somewhere else and all my crap is still in boxes, so things are fairly disorganized right now. I've also put Frekvens on a little break because I need to get my gear in order and what time better to take a break than now when not a damn thing is going on in the world of music.

So instead of perusing the details of my life I'd rather just mention a couple of things which I have enjoyed lately. First off is the solo album from Evan Dando called "Baby I'm Bored" (you can actually listen to the entire album at his website). Hopefully, you know Dando as the former singer from The Lemonheads and if you don't I have a list of records you need to buy right now. Dando recorded the album a couple of years ago, but I didn't get around to picking it up until recently. The album was recorded with the help of superb producer Jon Brion and he gets songwriting assistant from Tom Morgan (who wrote the brilliant The Outdoor Type for The Lemonheads) and Ben Lee and the whole album is very low key. Most people will probably find this record boring and terribly depressing, which obviously is why I like it so much, but when you start listening to the little things I think you'll find that it has a lot of beauty. Like Jon Brion's George Harrison-like vocals on Repeat or the bit just before the first chorus in Waking Up. But my favourite track is probably It Looks Like You, which sounds like it could've easily been on "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" record.

Once again Brion's background vocals lift up the track and the chorus (Honey, it looks like you got some explaining to do) is just great. Another cracker is The Same Thing You Thought Hard About Is The Same Part I Can't Live Without, which also appeared on the "Live at the Brattle Theatre" record. I especially like the line "A broken heart and two black eyes/But you should see the other guy", which to me is vintage Dando. Obviously, the Gram Parsons influence is obvious throughout the record even on the Ben Lee penned All My Life, which makes me wonder why I haven't picked up "Hey You. Yes You." especially since I have all his other records, which aren't anywhere near as good as "Breathing Tornados". For some reason the last songs on the album are among the best. Stop My Head which again is written with genius Jon Brion is fantastic and if you buy the Japanese version you get Shots is Fired with Liv Tyler on vocals and Tongue Tied as bonus tracks, which is definitely worth an extra buck. Apparently, Dando is on tour with DKT/MC5 right now, so with a little luck he might show up in Denmark in September, but more on that later.

After seeing a slew of mediocre movies I was pleasantly surprised by The Butterfly Effect, Runaway Jury, Identity (I'll watch John Cusack in anything. Hell, I stuck around just to see him debate Tucker Carlson on Larry King Live this morning), and especially You Can Count on Me in the last week or so. For some reason I thought You Can Count on Me was a really sappy tearjerker of a movie, which is weird when you look at the director/screenwriter's credits. Anyway, it's a lot better than it looks on paper and once again Laura Linney is amazing and Mark Ruffalo, who I didn't recognize from anything was very funny. And it was cool seeing the third Culkin brother give a great performance (especially one where he didn't just play a younger version of Mac or Rory), so I guess that means I have to go rent Signs now.

You know the expression "Any place I hang my hat is home"? Well, if that place doesn't have a couch it'll never be home to me. Being hungover, eating Pringles, drinking coke, and watching tv just isn't the same when you have to do it in a chair. So after a disasterous Sunday I decided the first purchase I needed to make for my new home was a bigass couch, which will be delivered Monday morning. I need to buy a lot of other stuff as well, but I think once the couch is in place I'll be able to settle in a bit more.

For some reason I didn't take a lot of pictures at Roskilde, but thankfully Jan was there to document everything. So if you go through his Roskilde Gallery you should be able to find a few shots of my and my compadres. The one I've added to this entry is the best one of me I think. On my left is Jonas, who was the cameraman on all the interviews and did a lot of the technical stuff. The picture was taken Tuesday afternoon while we were checking out a set from DJ Noize, who played a lot of 80s hip hop tracks. So you'd think I'd look a lot more excited and/or happy. But unfortunately that frown is what I wear most of the time no matter what's going on, so I'm afraid it's a fairly accurate portrayal of what I usually look like.

I've been listening to Delays and Snow Patrol quite a bit lately and after originally having been slightly underwhelmed I'm now fairly hooked. I especially like the song Hey Girl by Delays, but the rest is pretty good as well. Also, I've been listening to the new Fiona Apple single quite a bit. It's called Extraordinary Machine and was supposed to work as a teaser for the forthcoming album with the same name. But already in March Jon Brion complained that the album had been finished for ages and I still haven't been able to find a release date, so that sucks. The single is great so how's about releasing the damn record already? It also made me think that maybe I should get around to listening to that Nellie McKay.

Speaking of music (and honestly when am I not?) I've been listening to the first Violent Femmes record as well and for the first time I realized that Blister in the Sun isn't about an Indian girl named Big Hands. Allow me to explain: I thought the songs made a reference to the old anti-pollution ad with the crying Indian and the tin can on the road or whatever it was. The reason I thought that was because I heard "My girlfriend/She's Indian/She is starting to cry" instead of "My girlfriend/She's at the end/She is starting to cry" and since he sings "Big Hands/I know your the one" I figured that was her Indian name. So once again I realize that even though I love music more than anything in the world I still don't pay enough attention to lyrics.

The Tour de France is on now and after not paying attention to the Tour for a few years because of all the EPO hoopla I got into it again last year. So this year I've been watching it a bit again and although everyone knows the first stages before the mountains are boring as hell I've still watched them anyway. And one of the main reasons is that they've made a switch on the commentary staff this year. For years it has been the same two guys commenting on the stages, but for some reason one of them got fired and now they've brought in a new guy and I actually like him a lot better than the old one. He could really drive you nuts with all his mixed metaphors and weird names for the riders. If you live here you'll know what I talk about and if you don't you probably could care less. But the funny thing is that people reacted like people probably would react in Britain if Terry Wogan got fired from the Eurovision Song Contests or Americans would react if Dick Clark got fired from the New Year's Eve show. There was a lot of controversy at first, but now thankfully people have moved on with their lives.

But even if you don't live here you might actually know the other guy who still does the commentary. His name is Jørgen Leth and his latest project was a movie with Lars von Trier called The Five Obstructions. He's quite a character and made a lot of intellectual movies about sports, authors, America, and a lot of other topics. He's probably not the first guy you'd think of if you were looking to hire someone for a show on ESPN, but for an event as slowly paced as the Tour he fits in quite well.

And speaking of movies I finally got around to watching Intermission today. If you haven't seen it it's sort of an Irish version of Short Cuts. It's definitely funny and it has its moments. But the things that got me the most was the soundtrack which featured Ron Sexsmith and The Magnetic Fields and the fact that parts of it was shot in a neighbourhood not unlike the one I usually stay in when I'm in Dublin. My uncle has a house outside Dublin where I been on holiday a few times, so the scenes shot in the woman and Sam's (the bald guy) neighbourhood and the scenes with the bus really reminded me of my trips to Ireland. I wish I could afford going back sometime soon, because it's been a while since I was last over there and Dublin is a fantastic city. But that'll just have to wait until one of you guys gets me a wellpaid job.

I got home from Roskilde Monday morning and it isn't until now I'm getting back to normal. We went over there Tuesday morning last week and every day while we were there we went to bed after 3AM and were up again by 9, so not only did we work (and drink) hard for six days straight we also got way too little sleep. But we had a lot of fun, got to meet famous people, see a lot of shows, and got to hang out with all our friends, who were also working at the festival. So all in all it was a huge success.

I'd put together a group of friends and new friends and our job at Roskilde was to write reviews, do interviews, and some general reporting for the TDC website and it's all collected now in the Roskilde archives. Highlights include my interviews with The Hives, The Shins, Zero 7, I Am Kloot, and Kristian's interview with The Hells. These are all in English, but the reviews are in Danish. And the clip we put together about the shitty weather and the opening of the gates to the festival area is pretty cool, too.

Personally, it was exciting for me to meet The Shins as their two records have been my favourite records the last couple of years. But although the interview was fun it didn't quite go as well as I'd hoped. There was a 'disruptive element' in the group, who apparently didn't find my well prepared questions all that fascinating and just went a little nuts at times. I'm not saying alcohol had anything to do with it, but after we had packed our gear away I found him and legendary producer Phil Ek drawing obscene comments on a Slipknot poster, so you do the math.
The interview with I Am Kloot went rather well, though. I was afraid I'd pissed off John Bramwell a couple of times during the interview, though. But afterwards he hung out for a bit, complimented me on the interview, and asked me to send him a copy, so that was cool. We got off on the right foot right away, when before the interview I said I'd enjoyed their show and then on camera said that they'd been 'gracious' enough to pop in for a chat. They rather liked that. We talked for a really long time and they were really good guys, so that was my best interviewing experience at this year's Roskilde.

I saw quite a few shows, so I won't mention them all. But among the best were Pixies, Franz Ferdinand, Muse, The Shins, and The Hives. The Pixies show was so good and especially the last half was just incredible. I've seen Frank Black before and he did a whole bunch of Pixies tracks, but hearing Kim Deal sing backup and all of them playing together was just incredible. So that was the big show for me this year. I also got to meet Jacob Rasmus and Jesper, two bloggers who were also working at the festival, and a lot of friends, who were working in catering, for labels, in bands, or some other function. To be honest, the only person I know who was at the festival, who didn't have backstage access was my sister, which was a little weird. Maybe it's because people my age have gotten too comfortable to go to festivals if they can't sleep in a decent area and take showers every day.

So, now life has to get back to normal for a bit and then I have to move and then life will probably get weird for a bit. And then we'll just have to see what happens I guess. I have another DJ gig coming up and some other stuff as well, but I think I'll have to spend a lot of time the next couple of weeks getting ready to move. Right now I have piles upon piles of junk everywhere and I'm pretty sure the people who'll get drafted for my moving crew will appreciate it if that junk has at some point been distributed into boxes. Also, people have to be informed of my relocation and lots of other boring crap, so that needs to be taken care of. Other than that I think I'll just chill for a bit and enjoy that I'm still unemployed.