Thepunkguy

So the band, De Lyckliga Kompisarna, is a famous old school hcore Swedish punk band. Below is a music video from their song, Hockeyfrilla, loosely translate to Hockey Hair or Mullet. Check out the band, if you’re into old school punk, pop punk or skate punk..

Anyway, they just reunited in Stockholm and my friend Mattias saw them and loved it. check out a live track from 97 below and then the music video below:

De Lyckliga Kompisarna - Troll och häxor (live cafe 44)

good luck finding much of this band, anywhere…

I haven’t been putting this off. At least, that is what I keep telling myself. I went to Sweden for 10 days, 3 of those days, my friend Mark was there and 6 of those days, Chris Milk was there. While we were there, Milk received only one call from Kanye West. That’s it.!

This post will mostly be about my trip, music and at least, two mentions of hot dog related things.

Below is a picture, Chris took of me and my friend Anna at like 5am while he got ready to pack to go home. This is what I call a cool photo of me looking like hell…

(I’m the tattooed drunk one.)

Like usual, a quick list of some things about Stockholm, (also check out HERE, if you missed the first post from STOCKHOLM):

A. it’s a long flight. you fly over Iceland. Iceland. You can see lil Bjorks running around below you, screaming in Icelandic wearing Swan dresses. it’s a long flight.

B. the H and M’s in Stockholm kick ass. they have shit they’d never have in the US ones.

C. You can buy real Viking killing masks in Stockholm and if you are born with real Viking genes, the mask will fit you and only you, like pulling Excalibur out of the stone. (see below.)

D. There is no reason to prove that you can drink by saying, “Yeah, I can drink anything. Bring on the snakebite, it can’t be that bad.” Wait, it’s vodka and what? Pepper sauce? (see below)

E. If I was in Black Sabbath circa 1972, which I often believe I am, I would have suggested this be our next LP cover, (think of all the groupies you can sacrifice to the Metal gods on this hill!):

F. I was in Stockholm for ten days. I’d say out of those ten days, I had 2 meals that were considered Swedish. Below is an upclose picture of one of those meals. This particular appetizer, includes, eel, an egg, cavier, toast and onions. It was, surprisingly good.

G. If you take one thing away from you from this POST, please whatever you do, don’t buy this late night treat, ever!

H. Stockholm is in short supply of great rock n’ roll bars that are open late, if anyone would like to invest in one with me, please contact me. We would make a fortune.

I. The Swedish love hot dogs. Ok maybe they don’t but they love when Americans get drunk and scream ONE KORV!

J. Sweden has a lot of lovely people and places. Below are a few of those people and places.

K. a few Swedish Songs? Why not.

Konie - Are you OK?

Isolation Years - Landslide

Last Days of April - Whos on the Phone

Jose Gonzalez - Crosses (live)

Feel free to COMMENT below.

BUY THESE RELEASES HERE. CHECK OUT MORE MUSIC FROM THESE ARTISTS HERE. BACK TO HOMEPAGE HERE.

A few things you need to know about Stockholm (please excuse all the sweeping generalizations):

A. People ask foreigners ALL the time, ‘why have they come to Stockholm?’ Like they are amazed that you have come to their tiny little town in the middle of nowhere.

B. There aren’t many ugly people in this city. And maybe even less Asian and Black people.

C. No matter what language you speak, there is always one kid at every party who gets super drunk and starts acting inappropriately. Thankfully, it was not me. This time.

D. I am beginning to think that there are no constants in Stockholm. You can ask someone a simple question here like “How much does a taxi cost to go to the airport?” And you could really get up to like 10 different answers to this question. EXAMPLE: “Hey my Swedish friend Anna, how old do you have to be to drink in Stockholm.” She looks perplexed, not cause her English is bad or cause I misspoke, but only cause there are only answers like this… “Well, you can drink at 16 but bars make up their own rules like, guys can be 25 and girls 21 sometimes, depending on what bar you go to.” Wha? Huh?

ANOTHER EXAMPLE “Hey what time do bars close in Stockholm?” … Another confused look… “Well, some bars close at 1 and then some go to like 5am and some are in between.” What? HUH? Aren’t there any rules to this city besides looking pretty and being super overly hospitable?

This city is filled with paradoxes (paradoxi?) I am more and more convinced that no one knows anything for sure here. Don’t come looking for answers in Sweden, all you’ll get are more questions.

E. The Swedish will put shrimp in absolutely anything. I swear to your Jesus, that my friend Chris, had a wrap that had A HOT DOG, MASHED POTATOES and SHRIMP SALAD IN IT! All at once. No joke.

F. One of these two statements are true. 1. It is 70 degrees in Stockholm 2. The sky ran out of rain for New York City.

G. I can currently see into 5 apartments from this balcony. These are not shy people.

H. This city is expensive. And I’m not talking ‘New York’ expensive, I am talking like ‘Dubai’ expensive. Like you can’t find beers here for like less than 8 dollars.

I. After writing these, I have realized that I have done almost nothing Swedish since I have been here. Wait, does drinking Swedish beer count as doing something cultural?

J. Buying Viking memorabilia is comparable to buying a I LOVE NY shirt. What sort of society scoffs at tourists buying swords? Tell me, what sort of society?

K. Just thought of another example of questions that can’t be answered, also strangely enough involving alcohol. “Hey, Is this the only place in the city where you can buy alcohol?” Hmmm, “well, you can only buy from this type of grocery store unless you buy it at a bodega unless you want beer with more than 2.5 alcohol then you have to buy from this store only between 10 and 2pm on most weekdays unless you buy it somewhere else.” I quit.

L. What’s the chances of going to a party in Stockholm, thrown by a friend and there being about 30 people total in the place and out of the 10 girls being there, 2 of them were from Texas. Really, what’s the chances??

M. I have only heard Peter Bjorn and John once. Strangely enough it’s was not playing in the streets when I arrived.

Well, this has been fun, let’s do it again, in let’s say, three days. See you then? Ill have pictures too.