Top tens for 2010: Ola Lindefelt (Fredrik/Argonaut)
Top 10 weird things people have said to me in 2010:
Berlin, February 2010
- I don't know man. The air is just so toxic.
Fredrik show, backstage at NBI, Berlin, hanging out with one of the David Bazan tour dudes. It was one of those conversations where you slowly drift away in your head and leave your organism nodding with a vague expression in your face. At the word "toxic" I snapped out of the bubble. I was just about to say something about Detroit urban farming when I realised this guy was actually talking about the atmosphere in Midlake's tour van.
NYC, March 2010
I hung out with a Japanese friend in New York and he took me down through a maze of walkways to a small Washoku place with a giant tree trunk for a bar. The weird and great thing wasn't something someone said, but the fact that they blasted Mono so loud nobody could speak, and that we managed to try a dozen or so mindblowing sakes using sign language.
Lund, April 2010
- FY FAN VILKEN JÄVLA MUSIK!
("GODDAMN THIS IS TERRIBLE MUSIC!")
After a harsh noise set with Argonaut at Galleri Bryder, Lund (part of a short tour with Skeppet and Luva). This 50-something woman literally exploded from the back of the room when the music stopped. I had to put it in upper case since it was nearly as loud as the music. It turned out she actually loved our stuff and meant it as a compliment. Then she hung out and told us all about Argentina in the 70s, life as a curator, politics and the rest.
Paris, September 2010
- Monsieur, monsieur - qu'est-ce que vous avez fait? Vous sentez de la vanille.
("Excuse me, what have you done? You smell of vanilla.")
Me casually walking over to a friend's house next to the Pere Lachaise cemetery (where Jim Morrison, for some unexplainable reason, decided to be buried) to make some music. A random woman in her early 30s stopped me in the street. I still have no idea what that was about. I really don't like vanilla.
Paris, October 2010
- Thanks, I really enjoyed that.
- Look, I'm not the garden gnome.
One Man Nation playing the Instants Chavirés mini-festival in Montreuil (Paris suburb). Apparently there had been a misprint in the program and OMN had spent most of his day being confounded with a Koala Lumpurian light installation.
Berlin, October 2010
-Excuse me sir. Are you Israeli?
This very normal-looking German man leaned over on the subway between Görlitzer Bahnhof and Kottbusser Tor. I was in a mood. I answered "Sure". The man nodded. I said "And Swedish." The subway stopped. "And Ethiopian." I got off. It rained.
Malmö, November 2010
- Men vad fasen har du gjort med ditt långa hår?!
- Whatever happened to your long hair?
There's a tradition in Scandinavia to go swimming in the ocean all year around. It's weird, but very relaxing. Imagine eucalyptus flavoured saunas in a turn-of-the-century type wooden building on giant poles in the water, full of naked people -- and almost no talk. As I was climbing out of the icy water, this elderly man pointed at me and made this comment, in a slightly offended kind of way. I haven't had long-ish hair since I was 12 and bought my first distortion pedal. Naked, I must have reminded him of someone else.
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Releases this year:
Fredrik, Trilogi CD ()
Fredrik, Trilogi 2xLP ()
Argonaut, Saltvatten MC ()
Fredrik, Origami 7" (, )
Upcoming:
Lindefelt, Chromatic Wildlife 10"/DVD - Feb 2011 (, )
Argonaut, TBA - Feb 2011 ()
Fredrik, TBA CD/LP - Mar 2011 (, )
http://www.lindefelt.org/