Stockholm-based rock n' rollers Wired for Mono are in need of a new bass player. Check their website for contact info: http://www.wiredformono.com/
Serpentine Music is the name of the a new music label collective being started by singer/songwriter Jenny Lundblad that's set to begin in September. The group plans to help promote up-and-coming artists by getting their music in stores and helping them with accounting, publishing and so forth. They're trying to emulate the success of other Swedish DIY artists such as The Concretes, The Knife and Marit Bergman and eventually they even hope to offer all sorts of related services such as radio promotion, photography, advertising and more - the musical equivilent to Ikea they say. It's obviously a promising idea, considering that indie labels don't appear to be suffering quite as much as the majors these days and the overhead will probably be kept quite low, but my concern is that the group will quickly become watered down with lesser talent. I'm not sure I would trust it, but then again, I barely trust anyone to take care of my business for me. The concept of the musical collectives is certainly viable at least (see Elephant 6 for example). Anyhow, read the whole article from MI: http://www.musikindustrin.nu/mi/smpage.fwx?page=198&NYHETER=4787
The Haunted has been added to the upcoming Shadows Fall/Damageplan US tour set to kick off sometime in October. Dates soon.
Norway's Tønes has a new website: http://www.toenes.com/
Their new Tim Scott-produced album "Grønnare Gras" comes out August 30 via Farmen Records, home of Kaizers Orchestra. Listen to samples here: http://www.farmenas.com/toenes/gronnaregras.htm
MTV has posted a new profile on the Sahara Hotnights and lists all of the band's upcoming US live dates this fall: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1490507/20040823/index.jhtml?headlines=true
Once We Were just finished work on an EP for release on A Tenderversion Records sometime around later September/early October. The recording was done at Mission Hall with the esteemed Mathias Oldén of Logh manning the board and lending his Steve Albini-esque sound aesthetic to the proceedings. Check out the song "Em": http://www.oncewewere.net/mp3/oww_ep01_em.mp3
Splendid gives a tepid review to Thomas Denver Jonsson: http://www.splendidezine.com/review.html?reviewid=1092393025176038
Aftonbladet runs down their highlights of the summer: http://www.aftonbladet.se/vss/noje/story/0,2789,522597,00.html (in Swedish)
Aftonbladet has the video for Mando Diao's new single "Clean Town": http://wwwb.aftonbladet.se/vss/streaming/tv_fonster/0,5208,m0no040823mandodiao,00.html
Check out four demo tracks from the new, still-unsigned band Convoj: http://www.convoj.tk/
The band is based out of Göteborg and Luleå and features members from Park Hotell, Cult of Luna and Music 77.
Swedish singer/songwriter Johan Bergqvist has started songwriting and preproduction work on his next album. "I’ve had a real burst of inspiration and the songs just pop out of me one after another," he says, "I’ve got about 10 new songs that are all strong candidates to becoming album tracks." He plans to record some demos at Stickshift Studio soon and will also possibly be debuting new material at upcoming live shows. And speaking of live shows, there's talk of him travelling all the way out here to California for some gigs this fall, but nothing's been 100% confirmed yet.
The terrorists have won! Well, not exactly - but they did decapitate one of Stockholm's art cows: http://www.wegotthecow.as.ro/
Crescens Collective, home of Sanctum and Mago, finally have their new website online: http://www.ratblast.net/cc/