Kalmar Rocks.

The first time I came to Kalmar Nation I could smell the familiar odor of live music in the pub. And everytime I mentioned it to some Swedes, they got this shiny glance in their eyes telling of glory days when all bands that made it big in Sweden played before in that cozy basement. Half a year has passed, and I saw some good gigs down there.

My first concert at Kalmar was the Bear Quartett, and I still wonder why this evening was the most crowded one I experienced here. Sweden-pop and a Meat-Loafish singer. So what was the point?

16th of october. Smooch and The Motorhomes, two of those hip Swedepop-Bands - but why do all these frontmen have to sound like Liam Gallagher? It was hard to stand when Smooch was playing, and I didn't know if I should be happy about the Captain-Future-keyboard sounds or not. The sound was transparent and energetic - and the headliner turned out to be far away from a cheap britpop-clone. The Motorhomes kicked ass. Walls of sound, guitar-noisepop, a drummer who lived in the music, the bassist strumbling on stage and overthrowing his amp. At the end of "To whom it may concern" the band was breaking the song and destroying it, not appearing back on stage. Great billing for that evening.

Pansy Division played one of the best-entertaining gigs I've seen in my whole life. Too bad that only 40 people found their way to Kalmars that night. The queercore pioneers from San Diego infected the small audience with jokes and good mood - "dance, motherfuckers!" - The bass player dropped his clothes and played in a negligé; kissing on stage, "I wanna be a slut" and westcoast-punk-sunshine-harmonies, fun galore.

10th of december, the popfestival. The first band was Granada. They played... slow. Reeeeaaaally slow. No note too much, harmonica and some Italian; Low-esque drums and guitar. The local heroes from See 'em Square gave a fair amount of wahwah-funk, Fivel reminded of some screaming riot-grrrl-bands but without hitting the central point, maybe because only the singer was female. Monostar, as a headliner, were professional - too professional in my perception. They didn't seem to feel the music, the guitars were hanging too high, the sound was too polished and the lyrics were a bad example of anglosaxiska meningslösheter - "let's fly away, to the stars", something like this. Anyway, an eventful evening.

The day after, multimedia-night, with Swoon and The Teenage Idols. Swoon were a nice contrast to any other band I saw here so far; nearly psychedelic sound with echoing and held back singing. They know what they do. The Teenage Idols have an exceptional singer - a mix between Mick Jagger, Roger Daltrey and Iggy Pop. With a scary stare in his eyes and strange dancing steps - garage stuff like two months later, when they played again on Kalmar's stage.

22.3., Mark Eitzel (Ex-American-Music-Club) appears in Sweden. In the beginning of the evening one could see the excentric sitting outside, his hat deep in his face, whispering "I don't want another whisky, I wanna go home" - in the end he played a brillant gig on the pub's stage. The first too bands were steelguitar/cello/voice/guitar-projects from the Västervik-scene with mellow, beautiful songs that made you cry. The mirrorball was magically turning and the audience was listening quietly. Arctic Fox introduced drums, and it's just cool to have a 2m-tall organ player and a female bassist; the Billy Corgan-like voice fit quite well, and I liked them. When Mark Eitzel appeared on stage with his two friends, he first seemed a bit insecure about everything, but as soon as he got into the music it was just amazing. In between the songs the audience that crowded around the stage barely dared to speak, just listening devotional in a kind of religious experience. Mark had some Aquavit, made fun about the student-setting, sympathetic comments about the songs, great guitar solos, ironic and honest: "just because you lose a lot of money having me here doesn't mean you have to stand in the first line." A gig I gonna tell my grandchildren about.

And, finally, the Dipsomaniacs from Norway, 25th of march. I could write about the small amount of people that found their way, and about games that are lost before they begin, and that even the people that like the music get a bad taste with it; about a broken cable and all the group pressure thing. But anyway, the Dipsomaniacs played a long set with Guided-By-Voices-like lo-fi, but without being boring. The drummer was incredible, the band was a band and although the guitar was hanging too high they had energy. Thank you.