I’m happy to announce that my song “Got you where he wanted” has been hand-picked by the influential British music magainze The WORD and is featured on their free, 15-track CD featuring “the best new music of right now”. This CD accompanies the June issue of the magazine and is out now in the U.K. (It’s worth buying solely for finding out what John Lennon wore at the beach!).
So big thanks to THE WORD for picking my song – and a big welcome to the supposed hordes of readers who stumbled in to my web page after having heard my song or seen the video. Please feel free to browse through and enjoy old blog posts and also to follow me (and say “hi”) on Facebook or Twitter. And find out how to get your copy of Soundshine here!
Thanks also to my European label Lojinx who made my album available in the U.K. Read about the signing here. I’m fully aware that selling pop music to Great Britain is somewhat like selling sand to the Arabs. But I must say I feel that there’s a lack of current melodic guitar based pop out there – especially of the happy, uplifting kind. So my album Soundshine is my way of trying to contribute to the genre. Some, like for instance Real Gone, hints I might have succeeded; “Soundshine does exactly what it claims – twelve pieces of great sounding pop which mostly act as a welcome ray of sunshine”. Also, Americana-UK reports “doctors in Sweden prescribe this CD as a cure for seasonal affective disorder” which I talked about in my previous blog post.
It’s so fine, it’s sunshine, it’s THE WORD – love!
On June 2nd I will be performing solo acoustic live at the legendary venue Mosebacke in Stockholm. The evening will be filled with music with the main act being “the greatest band you never heard of”: The Mommyheads.
Here’s a picture of me and Adam Elk and one of me and Michael Holt from my home studio when he recorded the great solo for “Got you where he wanted” on my new album Soundshine.
As the devoted Mommyheads-fan Anders Lundquist from the on-line publication Obladoo (who made an interview with me a while ago) put it the Mommyheads play “Great, intelligent pop music with a progressive twist. Influences: XTC, The Beatles, Radiohead, The Band, Gabriel-era Genesis and King Crimson.”
Also sharing bill with The Mommyheads this night you will You Say France and I Whistle and The Loulou Sisters. We are all invited personally by the Mommyheads for this goodbye party celebrating (or should I say mourning?) the end off their European tour.
Get ready for a two-hour long interview streaming on-line today! I will be talking about my new album Soundshine but also reminiscing the years with The Merrymakers.
Rocker and singer-songwriter David Myhr is our musical guest this Saturday afternoon on The Time Machine discussing his album “Soundshine”. Join us in the radio chat room and listen at http://ttm.popchats.com/
So what’s the world like after the release of my solo debut album Soundshine a little more than a month ago? Do people talk about a “before and after Soundshine” effect? Maybe it’s too early to tell… ?After all the sound of the album is what I usually call “timeless” (sounds better than “dated”, doesn’t it?) and therefore I hope it will live on for years to come.
Since the release I’ve received messages from happy record buyers both on Facebook, Twitter and e-mail saying incredibly nice things about the album. (You can be one yourself – no matter where you live – by ordering it from the David Myhr Store!). And that’s really what makes it all worthwhile. It’s such a thrill knowing that the CD is now spinning in car stereos and the mp3′s streaming out of computers and iPods in the U.K., the U.S., Japan, Spain, Sweden, Italy, France, Germany, and hopefully many more countries. I want to thank you all for those messages – your feedback means the world to me! Please keep the thumbs-up coming for a year or so in order to avoid me sinking into the post-production-depression that I’ve been fearing since I started the recordings two years ago.
There’s also been a bunch of reviews – above all in the blog world – and I thought I’d share some of them with you. Starting of today with a review from americanaUK written by David Cowling that gives Soundshine a 7 out of 10 saying it’s “sheer unadulterated pop music, sheer unadulterated delight” and that it contains “a kaleidoscope of major chords, of bouncy melodies with everything fine-tuned for pleasure”
He mentions the fact Peter out of Peter Bjorn and John co-wrote ‘Icy Tracks’ which he calls “the snappiest song” and that it “sounds like an amalgamation of the Jayhawks, Matthew Sweet, Elvis Costello and Big Star“. The review finishes off by saying that “doctors in Sweden prescribe this CD as a cure for seasonal affective disorder”. That sure as hell would be a good sales boost!
Read the whole review (and feel free to share it with others) by clicking the picture below
Here we are now… this is it! Today’s the day! The wait is over! My solo debut album Soundshine is released!
I could go on forever about how happy I am, how proud I am, how fourteen years have passed since I last, as an artist myself, released an album. I could talk about all the hard work behind the recording, about all the talented people who helped me to make the music come alive and made the sound shine. I could talk for hours about all the millions of creative decisions that were made along the way, the ups and downs, about periods of excitement, but also about struggles and periods of doubt. I could write in length about how incredibly difficult it has been to find the right record labels for me, and what a relief it was when I finally did so. And I could go on about the craziness of putting my own personal economy at risk by recording and releasing this album in an era of ongoing devaluation of music. But instead of all this I would simply like to quote the great Neil Innes saying: “I’ve suffered for my music. Now it’s your turn!”
You can start suffering right away by listening through a four minute teaser of the entire album in a “don’t bore us – get to the chorus” fashion…
For those of you who would have preferred me to write about some of the stuff mentioned above I encourage and welcome you to browse through the old entries in my blog here on my official web page which covers my activities over the last twelve months and to follow (by “liking”) and read my status updates on my Facebook page that goes back 21 months which was when the first notes on Soundshine were recorded.
Here below you can find a slideshow with pictures from the evening. The majority of them taken by Jonas Förare, and a couple by Magnus Jäderbo. Thanks for sharing!!!
After having celebrated the release of my album Soundshine in Japan in January which was documented in a series of blog posts starting here and and in Spain just last week the time has now come to my home country Sweden! This will be celebrated on March 21 at a restaurant on hip and happening Södermalm, Stockholm, called Strand Hornstull.
You can read more about the release concert (in Swedish) by clicking the poster below or join the Facebook Event here – and everybody’s welcome!
I will be performing with a full band which of course always is a luxury. This time the band is consisting of Johan Bergqvist (The Genuine Fakes), Robert van der Zwan (Poplabbet), Michael Ottosson, Erik Jonsson (The Fix), and Zacharias Ahlvik. The show will feature guest appearances from a couple of my co-writers on the album, Peter Morén (Peter Bjorn and John) who co-wrote “Icy Tracks” with me and Stefan Petersson (Mother James) who co-wrote “Wanderlust” with me. Both potential future singles according to rumors within my own band! Also Jenny Sandgren who sings backing vocals on “Got you where he wanted” will help us out on the particular song.
The album is released in Sweden by Lojinx – a label which I’m very happy to have signed with – this coming Monday and it will be distributed in Sweden by Border Music. Also Lojinx is releasing the album simultaneously in the rest of Europe (excl Spain). Pre-orders can be made already now (shipping all over the world!) at the store on this very web page.
They say Spain is the only European country you come back to Sweden from with a jet-lag. It’s the same time zone but still somehow it’s not because of some culture differences when it comes to lunch, dinner, and bar-visiting hours…
Last week I was fortunate enough to enjoy life in Spain since I have been on a promotional tour for the release of Soundshine there which is taken care of by the ultra cool record label Rock Indiana Records. As you have read earlier in the rest of Europe (including my home country Sweden) the record will come out on the English also ultra cool record label Lojinx which I’m talking more about in this previous blogpost.
From Wednesday to Friday I made three acoustic concerts together with Spanish artist Lukah Boo (ex-member of Happy Losers) in Bilbao, Madrid, and Burgos as well as three radio interviews and performances.
The first interview was made by PacoPepe Gil for Plástico Elástico at Onda Madrid and you can listen to it here. The second one was made in Bilbao by Joseba Martin at Radio Euskadi for the program La Jungla Sonora which you can listen to here (starting at 24.50). In the future there will be a video clip available from this mini concert featuring myself playing no less than three songs on guitar and piano. The third and last interview was and was made by Santiago Alcanda for the program Como lo oyes in Radio 3 (national radio) and you can listen to it here. Also this interview features a small acoustic performance. I happened to film this with my iPhone and here’s the video from this occasion:
I also had the opportunity to visit some a couple of record dealers in Madrid that now are selling some Soundshine to the wonderful people of Spain. Below is a picture of Inés from the legendary record shop Escridiscos and a picture of me and Gabriel at Fnac (who you might remember from this previous blog post from Madrid).
I would have loved to write more in detail about the three gigs I made and the great people I met there. The first one in Bilbao, the second one at Moby Dick in Madrid, and the last one at Carabas in Burgos. But I really do need to get back to preparing for this weeks big event: The Soundshine release party in Sweden which also has it’s on Facebook Event.
But at least, in the video below, you can watch the first song from the concert at Moby Dick in Madrid. And if you want to see more the whole concert is available at this YouTube playlist.
Here’s a collection of photos from the same show:
I would like to finish by saying thank you to everyone in Spain who was involved in this promotional tour. The great Pablo Carrero from Rock Indiana who put it all together, my tour partner Lukah Boo, the very warm and welcoming radio people I’ve met and all of those who are playing my songs in their programs, the organizers of the different shows, the audience that listened to my music both on radio and in concert, my Spanish friends, and my Spanish family. Muchísimas gracias a todos! Espero que nos vemos pronto!
With the release of my solo debut album Soundshine only two weeks away – here’s another song in my small series of acoustic cover versions that is available for free download. This time I’m paying tribute to “the greatest band you never heard of” – The Mommyheads!
Please enjoy my version of their precious song “Jaded”!
I bought their brilliant self-titled album “The Mommyheads” back in the 90′s and I fell in love with it. Above all with the brilliant opening track “Jaded”. I never got it out of my head and it became one of my all-time favorite songs. However the career of the Mommyheads, although signed to Geffen at the time and having their album produced by Don Was, didn’t seem to take off. Surely because of record company issues because there was definitely nothing wrong with the music. Anyway – although the song stayed closed to my heart I kind of forgot about the band until suddenly in 2010 they showed up, re-united, on tour to Sweden! I got excited and immedaitely wrote to the band, one thing led to another, and suddenly I had Mommyhead’s own Michael Holt appearing on my own album Soundshine that I had just started to record. It’s Michael’s cool electric piano solo that you can hear on for instance “Got you where he wanted”. Later this spring I will be sharing the bill with The Mommyheads on a live show in Stockholm (June 2, Södra Teatern).
Just like in the case of my earlier acoustic cover versions of ABBA’s “Happy New Year” and Tom Petty’s “Wildflowers” this is a very stripped down recording – one voice – one guitar. Usually I find it very tempting whenever I record to double-track my vocal, add layers of harmony vocals, lots of guitar and keyboard overdubs. To see what it sounds like with only one voice and one guitar is a scary experience of course, but it’s always good to remind yourself of that old cliché that “a good song should work even when accompanied only by an acoustic guitar”. And that certainly goes for “Jaded”.
Any plans this weekend? If not, it might be the perfect moment to read the brand new David Myhr interview for J-Pop World!!! Just click on the screen dump below… enjoy!!!
