Will Kimbrough & Brigitte DeMeyer @ Folk Å Rock, Malmö

I have continuously sung the praise of the Folk Å Rock record store in Malmö and yesterday gave me more reason to do so, cos they arranged a brilliant concert in the store in the evening.

When I lived in London, the big Oxford Street record stores would arrange in-store concerts with big artists like Usher and hundreds of young people would crowd the record store to see their favourite artist.

Folk Å Rock is nothing like that. The store itself is quite small, actually, so i don't think more than 50-60 people attended the gig yesterday. This meant that Kimbrough could communicate with the audience quite easily and he did so splendidly too. I would say the setting was intimate.

The record store is located at "Lilla Torg", one of the most fashionable and trendy places in Malmö when it comes to night-life, with loads of bars and coffee houses. This meant that a load of trendies passed by the store on their way to the bar. Most of them looked into the windows and I couldn't help feeling sorry for them. They would go on to get ridiculously drunk and listen to ridiculous pop music, while they had real music just a few doors down.

The one thing which bothered me about the gig, though, was the fact that it was too small for people to dance. I wasn't going to dance even if there was space to do so, cos, frankly speaking, the problem with me is that I've got no rythm. But the music played by DeMeyer and Kimbrough is folk music and if you play folk music, people should be able to dance. Folk music wasn't made for music nerds to sit and snap their fingers to, but for celebration, dancing and fun. In old times, when the local minstrel took out his fiddle or guitar, it was a time for joy and I think that the fact that this is lost on today's folk music fan base is tragic.

The gig itself was, despite DeMeyer's lost voice, nothing but brilliant. In a few years, they'll be superstars within the genré, of that I'm sure, cos the guitar handling was brilliant and the songs were ace too.

Kimbrough seems to be standing with one foot in traditional Americana and one foot in more modern singer-songwriting and does a good job at both, as well as combining them.

I really like the lyricism too. Kimbrough combined a sense of humour with more serious stuff. In some songs you get both, in one he described, in a brilliant play on words, a teenage prostitute as "the rottening apple of her daddy's eyes".

And the cover of Hank Williams Sr's I'm so lonesome I could cry was one of the best numbers they did, do their own material was far from bad too.
Kimbrough and DeMeyer completed each other brilliantly too. DeMeyer has a very good singing voice, despite her throat problem and was good at the guitarplaying too.

I had big expectations for this concert and though it wasn't as good as I thought it would be, it was still a good concert.

I'll be checking out the music of DeMeyer and Kimbrough and I think you should too. If you like this kind of music, you won't be able to avoid them in a couple of years time and they sure won't play for theese small crowds then neither.

As I'm fairly satisfied, I'll give this concert 82,3% in rate of satisfaction!

The Eslöv blues festival, day two

I didn't stay for all bands, because the last artist I saw, Slidin' Slim, was so good there was no reason for staying for the others. This gig, the Slidin' Slim gig was, in my book, the second best gig I've ever attended (for those who wonder, The Warriors in Oslo was the best). To stay to hear the headliners, whom the morning papers will all cover anyway, would simply be to be disapointed and bring down the total experience.

Slidin' Slim plays neotraditional blues on a steel guitar, which I'm always a sucker for. He's got the guitar sound, of course, but he has also got a bassy, deep voice perfect for singing the blues. Dunno whether he smokes or drinks, but his voice sounds like it has had a copule of shots of Bourrbon in his days.

The second band I saw today was Blue Mood, a geezer singing over a piano and a lad playing the guitar. This lad, however, is an old school pal of mine, whom I haven't seen in years, so we had a small chat before they entered the stage.

As the guitarist is a pal, it would be unfair to give them a review proper, as I can't be objective. I'll settle for describing their music.

Blue Mood plays, soft, laidback blues that pays as much homage to Muddy Waters, as it does, I think, to Nina Simone and, perhaps unintentionally, Sade. The guitarist also showed he's influenced by kids telly, cos he played the theme to Inspector Gadget in an ad-lib.

They were real crowd pleasers.

The first band I saw was a band called Cajun Peppar. As you might guess from their name, they are heavily influenced by cajun music, which I, as my faithful blog readers all know, like. Geez Louise, I thought I was the only Skånepåg who knew who Nathan Abshire and The Balfa Brothers were.

This band plays a form of cajun which is heavily influenced by blues. You really notice the African-American influence in their music and people often forgot that there is much African-American influences in cajun too. It ain't all celtic stuff.

Some tunes were all bluesy, but had a cajun accordion in it, which spiced their sound up and i didn't miss the fiddle at all, they were good, alright!

Cajun peppar mixes singing in English, Creol French and theirs and mine Skånska.

I really liked this band and I really liked the setting, Röstånga Mölla Café and the fact that there was no alcohol involved. Only bad thing I can say about them is the fact that they were a bit untight at times, but they were good enough to have this fact pardoned.

I really like the fact that there is a Skånskt cajun band and I will try to see them loads more times. Hopefully, people will dance then.

This was a great festival, the twelth in a row, unless I'm mistaken. Eslöv is a town in the deep Swedish south and not much happen here, so it's really cool that people bring blues to the town. For someone who likes American music, it's not easy to find gigs to attend, especially not in little Eslöv.

Two thumbs up for the crew!

Slidin' Slim gets 99,9% in level of satisfaction.
Cajun Peppar were also good and gets 81,3% in level of satisfaction.

The Eslöv blues festival, day one

I only saw the first two bands last night. I worked all week and got tired and went home from the festival 10.30 pm-ish. The two bands I saw, Vantamölla Bluesband and Bloosblasters were very much the business, though.

Vantamölla should have been the main attraction, but I'm glad they weren't cos in that case, I would have missed them. They were that good. They played traditional blues in English without attempting to sound like african americans, which was a good thing. It's better to be yourself and do your own thing.

After a few songs, the audience was dancing in front of the stage. There was no bad tunes, but the best tune was a song about the vocalist's son, who died a few years ago, it was very emotional and received massive applause at the end of it.

This is definitely a band I would like to see more times.

Bloosblasters played what is described as "gladbloos", that is blues with my accent, that is Skånska (the southernmost region in Sweden) and I was prepared for a bad version of Peps Persson, the artist most known from this genre, but theese geezers had their own style. Their lyrics were witty and contained anything from the vocalist's dog to sex and family troubles.

I'm sure some purists consider this band fake, cos they sing in Skånska and about not so serious things. But that would be to underestimate this band. As and old punk rock vocalist, I know that it's far more difficult to write witty lyrics than it is to write socially aware stuff. Any one can criticise the government, but not anyone can make his neighbour laugh. And besides, the band was really tight when it came to music. The vocalist picked up his guitar every now and then and made some really good riffs and he was a demon on the harmonica as well.

Vantamölla Blueband gets 98,3% in level of satisfaction, they were that good.
Bloosblasters were also good and gets 89,8% in level of satisfaction.

Going out tonight

Every year, my hometown Eslöv hosts a big blues festival. Lately, I've gotten into blues, so I am going to attend. Tickets have already been bought for today and tomorrow.

Maybe you'll read about it in my blog. Part of me wants to do a write-up on it to make more people read about my hometown, but then another part of me would like to just go out for the night, listen to good music and drink some soft drinks and just chill out, without contemplating what to write.

Besides, the venue will probably be loaded with old hippies and as everyone knows, hippies are the real enemy and I don't want no hippies to gain publicity.

Never mind, maybe I'll write something and then again maybe I won't. If I do so, this will be the place to read it!

Sorry, Steve Earle

I would have loved to see you live in Malmö, but the tickets to the Blues festival in Eslöv is all I can afford this month!

The blues festival in Eslöv, my hometown

My hometown, Eslöv, hosts one of the best blues festivals in this country and this year's festival will take place on October 28th-29th.

I am particulary looking forward to seeing and hearing Cajun Peppar, a band which mixes blues with cajun and country music.

More info in English here.