(TV) Iha/ESC/Johnston

[leif joley <leifjoley@hotmail.com>]

Since I had to order some records from England anyway, I thought I would take
a chance on James Iha's solo record, which feature Tom Verlaine on two tracks.
"Till Next Tuesday" is a nice, easy pop song, "Appetite"'s the little bit more
experimental one. Verlaine is heard soloing, although briefly, in an
improvisatory manner, on both. One may think that if you pay Tom Verlaine to
show up in a studio, then perhaps it would be a good idea to rearrange your
tunes a bit so that you'd get value from your investment. I have not got very
deep into the record as a whole so I can't say if it's worth the money spent.
Perhaps for completists, and perhaps for music lovers with a fetisch for
Sweden: numerous Swedes helped Iha with this effort, which was co-produced by
Nathan Larson, husband of the Cardigans singer Nina Persson.

Speaking about Sweden: My little hometown (pop: 310,000) was picked as this
year's place for the big Eurovision Song Contest, that came to an end
yesterday evening. Americans on this list may have a vague idea about what ESC
is, but most Europeans and certainly the Australians know exactly what I'm
writing about. Sweden won this Euro trash spectacle last year, and Malmv
hosted this year's event, much to the Stockholmer's chagrin, and added
approximately 100,000 people to its population during the week, since ESC
fanatics, many of them gay people, from all over the world came here. It has
been a week of singing and dancing in the streets, more or less literally. I
got free tickets to the first semifinale, and my wife, stepson, daughter,
sister and brother-in-law were close to tears of gratefulness. Bjvrn and Benny
from ABBA wrote a welcome choir anthem which Swedish star DJ Avicii arranged.
Denmark won this year. UK sent Bonnie Tyler. Ireland got only a few points and
ended on a humiliating last place. Considering that Sweden and Ireland may be
the most ESC crazed countries in western Europe, and Ireland's got a proud
history with seven wins, it may be that the Irish are traumatised today after
this defeat. And yet they had mobilised topless, tattooed male drummers behind
the singer.

Another guest to town this week was Daniel Johnston. Given his mental
condition it may regarded as a miracle that he's touring at all. But he do,
although just with his guitar or a guitar player as company on stage. On his
current tour, though, he has made the effort to spend a day of rehearsal with
every local support act, which are then backing him the same evening. Again:
given his condition, this is a very brave thing to do, I'd say. Here it was
half-acoustic Malmv group Adam Evald who got this assignment. So it was a
Fender-Rhodes, a stand-up bass, a violin, a cello and a snare drum played at
with whiskers and a seemingly nervous Johnston sitting in an armchair. And it
was fantastic. Every night's performance will be different, of course, but go
see him if he comes close to you. This is what it looked like in Malmv:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6tR_gGR604

Leif J, Sweden
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