here's a little intro story for the next band i'll introduce: when we
arrived to the youth hostel we were to stay in for the duration of the
trip, some guys were banging at the locked doors. madelaine went to open
for them. we heard that they were norwegian (norwegian & swedish are two
very similar languages, FYI), and they looked like a band. i didn't     
think more of it, and i needed to go to the john, the lavvie, the       
toilet, WC, shithouse, poop factory, so i went. while in there,         
madelaine had apparently talked to the guys, and they were              
}dipsomaniacs{, i'd never heard them, but i've heard karl talk about    
them, so i blamed nature for giving me a call just as i could've spoken 
to some cool lo-fi band people. whatever. not that important, but they  
stayed at the same hostel. öyvind, the main man/songwriter, was up a few
times next morning to the hostel kitchen and asked us about plates and  
said hi and stuff. that's my stargazin story.
returning to the review, they were the next band to play at the small
stage. at the same time as the }afghan whigs{ on the big one. and since
the }dipsomaniacs{ are not very known in sweden + having to compete with
the whigs, not many people came to see them in the first place.         
secondly, they did not have good sound. öyvind sings too close to the   
mike. still, you would think the soundmen are able to fix that. so many 
people left, leaving about 10-15 people listening through the whole set.
the songs were true ace, i was very pleasantly surprised.               
GbV-sebadoh-sonic youth-alt.country-ish vibe to it. sad that so many    
don't get it. i kinda like musicians with no sense of fashion, style,   
whatever. like bob. or ebbot. or öyvind. in my mind, that means they    
don't waste so much time on anything else than music and partying. he   
looks like some kind of norwegian robert pollard. we asked for their    
setlist as a souvenir after the show, and said they were very good,     
shook their hands and such. öyvind seemed sad that the crowd was so     
small, and as usual when people look sad, my compassion circuits went   
on. but i don't know, maybe he always looks sad. he was shy. he reminded    
me of myself. though i HAVE a sense of style.. but they rocked, yes.   

then, the highlight of the festival for me, }motorpsycho{. damn they
rock. since i only got "trust us", i only recognized 1-2 songs, do they
have a new album/new material going on? this gig had a very high       
octane/blues-rock feeling. i know none of their shows sound the same,  
they jam a lot, play strange covers and such, and that's things i like 
very much. they played a 15-20 minute long jam on some almost          
death-metal riff, and it looked like they wrote the song on stage. then
they went into pure phat feedback noise, competing with sonic youth as 
the masters of that artform. madelaine went to see the swedish         
teen-depression-pop band }broder daniel{ on the big stage while the    
}motorpsycho{ gig just went on, she came back after her show had ended,
and }motorpsycho{ had only played about 4-5 songs since she left. they 
were very very very awesome great good rockin. yep. hello karl. i know 
you agree. and man, what a set of effect pedals/stuff the ordinary     
guitarist (geb? ryan? whussisname?) had. a moog foot organ he did some 
undescribable stuff with. i hope these guys get more recognition than  
they have, cause they are of world class.

by Ralf