Huge article!

[haennric]

Hi fans of Essex Green, Ladybug Transistor and Sixth Green Lake!

I just wanted to say that there is a full page article about the Brooklyn bunch in one of Swedens biggest and most respected newspapers, Dagens Nyheter (=Daily News). And it was not just about E.G., L.T. and S.G.L., there was plenty of attention for the solo projects as well. The journalist was full of praise for all of the bands!

Well, call me easy to please, but that sort of made my day!

Check out the electronic version of the article at

http://www.dn.se/DNet/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=1058&a=185806&previousRenderType=6

[typewriters]

awesome! it'd be nice if i could read it though

[Duster]

The Scandanavians seem to have an affinity for the E.G, L.T., 6GL. triumvirate. Being the home of Lee Hazlewood, I'm not suprised.

New Finishing School, soon-to-be new Ladybug and Sixth Great lake....a glut of music!

Hey Haennric!! Any chance of getting a rough translation of the article?

[haennric]

Ok, I'll give it a go at the translation... I'll be back asap.

[Track & Field]

hey haennric!

when we were at emmaboda, swedish tv interviewed sasha, jeff and christopher. apparently it was shown a few weeks ago on a new music programme, but i don't know anyone who saw it. did you see it?

incidentally, we're just setting up swedish dates for the essex green / ladybug for january. i'll let you know when it's all confirmed.

-steven

T&F - London

[haennric]

Phew! Quite a piece... I sure hope someone has the time read it all now! It might not be a perfect translation, but it's my best for now...

Pop collective full of free will

Three pop groups are the family of Sasha Bell and Chris Ziter. Essex Green, Ladybug Transistor and the Sitxth Great Lake in part share the same members and live close to each other. The band family has become a creative concept.

Essex Green’s record “The long goodbye� was one of this summers most praised pop records, with a sound like wind making the windows of an old countryside wooden house clap where classic American folk music heroes haunts the attic. A discreet success from the people that in one way or another are part of the band circle from Brooklyn, which also consists of The Ladybug Transistor and The Sixth Great Lake. And on top of that, now the solo projects are beginning to pop up like sprouts around the group.

And if “The long goodbye�, named after Raymond Chandlers book, was the first sign of this band constellation finding it’s absolute form, now comes the rest of the evidence. Whoever has heard the Ladybug Transistor before but has rejected their work as too cute wimp-pop will now have to revise their opinion once their new album comes out (later this fall in the US and probably around Christmas in Sweden). When this is written I’ve just heard it a couple of times, and it sounds like a masterpiece from one of the most interesting indie-bands right now.

But no matter how many bands these musicians are involved in they are not enough for taking care of all the songs. Hence solo projects like Sasha Bell’s new “The finishing school�, a record of songs kept well together where she treats her break-up from Jeff Baron. It’s recorded in Stockholm, with old analogue equipment and more room than usual for her very special voice: like all the best female folk singers in history lives in the back of her head, although she doesn’t care. Whatever the record her voice puts a distinctive character on it.

Sasha enjoyed the different feeling of experiencing total independence from the collective, but the fact that it turned out a solo album had nothing to do with her feeling an urge to prove it. It was just that the songs were too personal for anyone else to sing. It was also at that point, she says, when there were no one present that she knew very well, that she relaxed and started to enjoy her voice, which she had been so critical of in the past.

- I actually don’t know of anything that compares to how these three bands, this group of people, produces and interacts. It’s something very unique we’ve got in this family. Even if it might seem a little weird if one looks upon our history, says Sasha and laughs, referring to the private relations in the same family.

Who has been/are currently seeing each other is left aside. That’s something for the one that one day writes a biography of Sasha, Jeff, Chris, Gary and Julia to devote many chapters to.

- I think it’s easy for a band family like this to emerge when you’re in a band that has several different songwriters. You only get three or four songs on each record, that’s nothing! she continues.

The many composers are probably also a reason why they never get stuck, always heading for a new angle towards pop music.

- You’re writing and you sit there with your surplus work and think it’s so good that you just have to do something out of it, says Chris Ziter, who’s doing a “countryish solo record�.

Every band has it’s core members – The Ladybug Transistor is in many ways Gary Olsens band and his ideas about a soundscape – but at the same time it’s often the ones that are available at a recording session that joins the band, the ones having to work or go on tour does so. It’s no big deal. But when it was time for the new Ladybug record to be recorded the band chose to go away. Down to Tucson, Arizona, away from the ordinary studio in Brooklyn. The thought was to do something different, more ambitious and darker than before.

Chris, Sasha and Jeff met at the university in Vermont in the mid 90’s. They formed the band Guppyboy, wrote tons of songs, but one month after the first record was finished they moved to New York and scrapped the band. Ladybug Transistor was already awakening, and they had much more to do in Brooklyn than in the country.

Now they are a part of a New York scene that has very little to do with what has been called “New York’s new rock scene� the last few years. While one garage and punk band after the other make their debut at the Manhattan rock clubs they have stayed on the other side of the Brooklyn Bridge devoting their time to writing even more love songs and attending their friends’ shows.

One should not be seduced into thinking that this is the story about a far-out fuzzy musician collective just starting bands for the fun of it.

Order is maintained by what controls everything: money. There’s a better chance of paying the rent – or getting a big breaktrough – if you buy five lottery tickets instead of one.

- I think we have so many bands because it’s so hopeless to engage in music on our level. You don’t believe in putting all the eggs in one basket, Chris notices.

- It’s a really strange time to be making music right now. But the obstacles also keep you going.

- Before one of the bands reaches there the demands are much higher, so we will keep on existing, recording and touring this way.

Sasha continues:

- Just take a thing like you having the public service radio over here, it’s incredible! Where they play whole songs and not just bits and pieces between the commercial breaks.

- The only place where we can be heard in USA is college radio, and they have such an odd frequency that you have to hold the antenna in your ear and squeeze the radio to the window. Just like it was when I grew up, in the middle of the woods in a town with 2000 inhabitants. You were lucky to get a classic rock channel there. I had to find music through my friends instead.

- While people growing up in the city talks about “Oh, I went to Joy Division-concerts when I was five…�.

- For me that was just impossible until I got to college, Chris continues. I grew up in the middle of nowhere. But once you discover all that and you’re a little older, it’s like a resurrection. I felt pretty aggressive, damn I’ll compensate for everything I’ve missed all my life. That’s probably what I’m doing still.

[Apples and Oranges]

Wow! That's a great piece. Good work for the translation.

Did anyone else from the UK see 'Teachers' earlier in the week? 'Chartiers' from 'the Long Goodbye' was featured on that.

[haennric]

Steven!
It was actually aired just a week or two ago. The show is called Musikbyrån (the Music Bureau) and it's aired at around 10.30 pm every Wednesday. It's a pretty cool show and quite popular. Unfortunately I was working real late that night so I missed it, but my girlfriend saw it.

She says that the Essex Green material was part of a story about the big hits of next year. They did the same thing last year and it turned out very well for all the bands they picked, so let's hope they still got the touch...

On the show there was a little chat with the band about how nice it is at Emmaboda and there also was a bit of Our Lady In Havana. Overall the piece was very positive and the band got a lot of praise!

And hey, I didn't make it to Emmaboda this year so any Essex Green/Ladybug Transistor shows here in the near future sure is good news!

[Track & Field]

thanks, haennric...

someone else just mailed me and said they might have a video copy of the programme so maybe we'll get to see it.

if you're interested there are a few pictures on our website from the emmaboda trip... plus stockholm... and sunbathing!... go to the gigs page and click on 'tour pics'...

the good news for you in lund is the eg/lbt tour should make it to malmo. this is all very provisional at the moment but a malmo show is pencilled in for saturday 17th january. i'll let you know when the tour is confirmed.

-steven

[rickard]

yeah!
Essex Green and Ladybug to Malmö! I sure hope it will happen...

[haennric]

GrossDaddy57, thanks a lot for the kind words! Nice that you enjoyed the article, I think it's a good piece, both for being so positive towards the bands and also for the perspective with the network in focus. And it's always good to hear the latest news from the different projects...

The message from it all seems to be that there doesn't have to be a clash of interests between the individual and the collective when making music. I hope more people pick up on this way of doing music; that could be the beginning of a revitalization of the entire music industry! More power to the bands! As it is now the e6 thing seems far too unique...

Anyway, hopefully the bands will get a bunch of new fans with attention like this, too bad that this article is just published in tiny Sweden…

And Steven from T&F! January 17th is now officially set aside in my calendar for the possible appearance of EG/LBT in the vicinity! And yeah, I liked the photos from this summer's tour, really made me wish I would have gone to Emmaboda this year as well!