Peter, Bjorn & John – Young Folks


If i told you things i did before
told you how i used to be
would you go along with someone like me
if you knew my story word for word
had all of my history
would you go along with someone like me

Addictive song , its everywhere – local radio stations , saw it on MTV few times , used in TV comercials , FIFA 09 soundtrack.. I like it, The part of the lyrics that I share with you , sounds so familiar to my own story.. Anyway , enjoy the song and have a nice day

The Peter, Bjorn and John show last night at La Zona Rosa couldn’t have been more fun, cheerful, or impressive, when they proved that their special brand of experimental indie pop translates from album to stage with full-on energy and musical expertise.  I had never seen them live in any capacity before, and when it came down between choosing the Monsters of Folk show or this one, I can’t be 100% sure, but I think I chose wisely.  A full review, pictures, and more videos (check out the ones I’ve already uploaded on my You Tube channel) to come later, but for now, enjoy this video of “Young Folks” with El Perro del Mar’s Sarah Assbring.

Photo courtesy of myspace.com/suzannevega

The “Young Folks” of the 1990’s, the catchy humming from “Tom’s Diner” would follow you around a week after you listened to the song.  Suzanne Vega’s song originated as an a cappella track from “Solitude Surrounded” but, luckily, was remixed and rereleased on “Tried and True.”  Vega’s song reminds me of rainy days, but has a similar haunting/bouncy contrast like the analogous PB&J song.  I remember being in my musical infancy and being amazed that they put in real church bells right after Vega sings “…as I’m listening to the bells of the cathedral.”  Clearly I was easily amused.  The original version is included for completeness, but the most recent version is what you’ll recognize.

-charlie

Suzanne Vega – Tom’s Diner (download)

Peter, Bjorn, & John – Young Folks (download)

Suzanne Vega – Tom’s Diner (Original) (download)

Preciso escolher uma música para entrar na formatura. Tal decisão é muito difícil. Sou tão variável, do humor ao som. Mas seguem algumas opções…

Será que eu revelo meu lado Natasha na formatura?

“O mundo vai acabar, ela só quer dançar”
“O vento sopra enquanto ela morde, desaparece antes que alguém acorde”

Ou será que mostro a Íris, de Laços de Família, que posso ser?!

“Se conselho fosse bom tu vendia
Eu não quero ouvir onde foi que eu errei
Não foi assim que eu quis
Infelizmente foi em você que eu me espelhei”

“Mais fácil julgar
Do que ter que olhar pras próprias mentiras
Mas agora chega, não sou ovelha negra
Nem qualquer menina”

Que tal o lado Sex and the City?!

“Relationships are often so hard to tame
A Prada dress has never broken my heart before”

Ou então meu lado de obsessão?

“You’re hell on wheels in a black dress
You drove me to the fire
And left me there to burn
Every little thing you do is tragic
All my life before was magic
Beautiful girl I can’t breathe”

Meu lado Lily Allen?!
(Esse lado a PUCRS provavelmente censuraria)

“Fuck you (fuck you)
Fuck you very, very much
Cause we hate what you do
and we hate your whole crew
So please don’t stay in touch”

O lado B?

“If I told you things I did before
Told you how I used to be
Would you go along with someone like me”
“No one will surprise me unless you do”

O lado Kooks?!

“But uh oh, I love her because
She moves in her own way
But uh oh, she came to my show
Just to hear about my day”

Viu como é difícil?! HELP!

If i told you things i did before
told you how i used to be
would you go along with someone like me
if you knew my story word for word
had all of my history
would you go along with someone like me

Cuando el amor es puro y transparente, no importa el pasado, lo único importante es el presente, el aquí y el ahora.

Esta canción me remite a un amor sincero, un amor joven y feliz. Una de mis favoritas.

PETER BJORN AND JOHN, le groupe indie rock formé à Stockholm, sera en concert au NORMANDY le 16 octobre à St-LÔ. Avec un nouvel album en 2009 : LIVING THING Peter Morén (chanteur, guitariste et harmoniciste), Björn Yttling (bassiste et claviériste), et John Eriksson (batteur et percussioniste) passent par la Normandie et sont en tournée mondiale jusqu’à fin novembre 2009.

KIM NOVAK assurera la première partie de cette soirée INROCKS INDIE CLUB.

www.kim-novak.com

i’ve been listening to a lot of peter bjorn and john lately. besides young folks, my favorite songs are  the chills, amsterdam, and start making sense.

You know how music has that uncanny ability to bring you back to a super specific memory? Kind of like the auditory version of when you smell someone else wearing your friend’s perfume and you involuntarily think of them. Or when you smell someone wearing your Mom’s perfume and suddenly remember that you forgot her and your Dad’s anniversary over a week ago… (Sorry parents)
I heard this song at work the other day and was transported back to the summer of 2007 (?) I believe, back when I was spending at least 40 hours per week in a lifeguard tower, on the beach, listening to the radio, which played this song every 30 seconds.

I was on iTunes looking to buy it and my dearest roommate showed me this extremely excellent video her friend made to the Peter, Bjorn and John song, Young Folks. He did all of it himself as his application to NYU’s Film program. It’s pretty impressive.
Enjoy.

Hay friands,

I feel like I’m a hippie from the 60’s, or at least living in a land of hippies from the 60’s. It seems like The Beatles are everywhere again and I’m not sure why. They haven’t really made any new music lately and as far as I know, half of them are dead (possibly McCartney too, but that is for another blog post).

I’ve seen them everywhere from Pitchfork to Rock Band to iTunes to Woodstock to dorm room walls facilitating freshmen girls and Greek kids everywhere. I’m sick of it.

If it wasn’t bad enough that I had to live through Beatlemania through the 60’s and 70’s, I am having to live through it again and it blows.

I’m not much of a Beatles fan. I think they were pretty overrated back in their time and even more-so today. Sure, they were pretty influential. They inspired the musicians who would become great. Inspiring them by playing their monotonous mediocre basic patterns mixed with substance abuse. Guitar, drums, and bass are rather easy, simple, and lacking in the technical category. Nothing special nothing spectacular. Borderline atrocious. Essentially equal to the talent of the Jonas Brothers in terms of intsrumental talent. If anything, the only redeemable quality found in the music of The Beatles is in their lyrics which are only sometimes neato, such as the Walrus song or Lucy in the Sky (and ode to LSD).

As far as I can tell, the Beatles only have 7 decent songs:

• I am the Walrus
• Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
• Rocky Raccoon
• Back in the USSR
• Got to Get You into My Life
• The Ballad of John and Yoko
• Strawberry Fields Forever

That’s it. That’s all.

I won’t knock them too much though, because I am not an idiot. I know that without their role in music, many of the artists I enjoy today either wouldn’t be around or as evolved, more than likely. But that being said, this doesn’t excuse us to devolve and start back with this Beatlemania crap that should have never begun in the first place.

I kind of feel like The Beatles are just a fad that will last the rest of 2009 like AC/DC did last year and The Police before them. From what I read online the other day, KISS will follow the Beatles as the next “classic fad” via a personal section at Wal Mart.

Much of America is full of old men/women who can’t accept that Taylor Swift and Lil Wayne are the relevant music types they need to be filling their ears with today. Not antique sub-par hippie trash.

I’m convinced that the kids who listen to The Beatles today only do so for two reasons. 1.) Because their parents make/inspire/expect them to, and 2.) They are elitist craps who deny the FACT that good/better music followed the Beatles.

I just don’t really understand what is so appealing about them to the “young folks”. They should be listening to the “modern Beatles” known as Peter, Bjorn, and John. They are more their age and can relate to relevant issues such as sexting, Macbook Computers, healthcare reform, and hit vampire films.

The Beatles are unable to relate to the younglings. But maybe that is what they have been wanting all along and I have been missing that? Maybe today’s young generation has fallen victim to Beatlemania because they want to escape today’s world. They’d rather live in “strawberry fields”, “holding people’s hands”, and “waiting on the world to change”.

It makes sense, but that is no way to live. You must live in the future, not the past. You must embrace who you are and not what your parents were. You must make decisions for yourself, judging what music is good and sucky. You must must become an interesting person by thinking for yourself.

Don’t be a Philistine:

The Beatles weren’t that good back then. And there’s no way they are any better now.

I don’t even have them in my iTunes. Take that popular culture. I feel like I need more Beck though

They have The Monkees, they were a huge influence on The Beatles.
<3 Uncle Farkus

Once again I swipe something my friend Kristen got to first. Luckily, she has pretty great taste.

Yesterday, as I was winding down another day at the office, I gave a listen to Taken by Trees, Victoria Bergsman’s solo project. You may know her from The Concretes, a band she used to front. Thus, you may have been charmed by the music video for “The Chosen One” or the song “Say Something New,” which was used in a Target ad.

If not, assuredly you heard “Young Folks,” the juggernaut of a song she sang with Peter, Bjorn, and John.

Well, apparently she’s been working on her own for a little while, under a name that brings to mind the theatrical, literary, gender-ambiguous monikers of St. Vincent and Bat for Lashes (if not also the artists’ sweeping, meticulously crafted sonic landscapes). East of Eden, Bergsman’s second album as Taken by Trees comes out later this month, but NPR has it available to listen now.

She recorded this album in Pakistan with producer Andreas Soderstrom (where, at the risk of gawking like an ugly American, they had to pretend to be married). I wonder what relationship Sweden and Pakistan have with one another (if any), what the album title may mean sociopolitically, or what interest Bergsman had in recording there apart from her love of Sufi music. For a more vigorous critique of these issues in the album, I’ll point you toward Michael Cramer’s Dusted review.

That said, I do feel they did a good job incorporating Middle Eastern instrumentation without appropriating or essentializing it. The result is a dreamy song cycle that’s great for the change of seasons.

Note also her cover of Animal Collective’s “My Girls,” which she changes to “My Boys.” (Side note: Listen for AC’s Noah Lennox, aka Panda Bear, who provides backing vocals on “Anna”). Bergsman also subs out lyrics about living “with a little girl and by my spouse” to “with a little cat and by my spouse.” Purr. If I had known about it earlier, I would’ve brought it up in my post on cover songs, along with her cover of “Sweet Child O’ Mine.”

This is one hip groovy song, that I’m sure all you teenie boppers are going to enjoy.  I’m so glad to see that robots are still hooking up together.  I just never see any baby robots.   Doesn’t matter, just enjoy!

(Above: Kanye West and Peter, Bjorn and John marry indie rock to hip hop in  ”Young Folks.”)

By Joel Francis
The Kansas City Star

The distance between whistling and beat-boxing shrank considerably once Kanye West got involved.

When West sampled Peter, Bjorn and John’s whistle-based sensation “Young Folks” for his mixtape, he not only united the worlds of indie rock and hip-hop, he also awakened Peter, Bjorn and John’s burgeoning love of urban music.

“When I first heard his version I thought it was a joke,” drummer John Eriksson said. “I didn’t think it’s strange, though, because a lot of hip-hop artists are trying to get more rock with a lot of electric guitars and the rest.”

West proved his indie rock cred when he asked the Swedish trio to perform the mashup during his set at the 2007 Way Out West festival. The collaboration helped open the band’s ears to new ways of presenting its music. The commercial follow-up to “Young Folks” was this year’s “Living Thing,” which disposed of guitars and traditional drumming and embraced icy synthesizers, spare arrangements and altered percussion.

“Many people think the drums on ‘Living Thing’ are programmed, but it’s not,” said Eriksson, whose band performs Friday night at the Granada in Lawrence. “Eighty percent of the sounds are acoustic but turned to make it sound like a drum machine or given a spaced-out, futuristic sound.”

Hip-hop wasn’t much of an influence when the band formed in 1999, but at the end of the “Living Thing” sessions, singer Peter Moren tried what would have been unthinkable 10 years ago and rapped an entire song.

“I didn’t think it was good enough (to make the album), so we tried to get someone else to do the vocals,” Eriksson said. “That’s how we met Mick Boogie, who helped us come up with the idea of having other people rap over all of our songs.”

The resulting remix album was dubbed “Re-Living Thing” and features original rhymes by GZA, Talib Kweli, Three 6 Mafia, Bun B and Rhymefest, with production from Jazzy Jeff, 6th Sense and Apple Juice Kid.

“I’ve only heard three versions so far. Jazzy Jeff did a fantastic job on his track, and I can’t wait to hear the others,” Eriksson said. “Knowing GZA from Wu Tang is on there makes me want to cry, almost. It seems surreal he’s doing something with one of our songs. I don’t know how Mick convinced him to take part. Maybe they played chess and Mick won.”

After the band released an online- and vinyl-only instrumental album last year and commissioned friends to make different arrangements of past singles for vinyl release, Eriksson feels like Peter, Bjorn and John fans should be up for anything.

“I think our fans are used to us doing weird, surprising stuff. A couple tracks on last year’s instrumental album have a Swedish narrative in the old dialect,” Eriksson said. “After five albums, by now people should be open to who we are. Maybe our next album will be trash-metal mixed with Stockhausen.”

Hesitant or curious fans won’t have to part with much to hear the results. “Re-Living Thing” will be released online today for free.

“That’s just how it works these days. Music is free,” Eriksson said. “When you make music, you don’t think about how to make money. Usually other people do that.”

Eriksson said most of the band’s money comes from licensing songs like “Young Folks” to TV shows and commercials. The corporate funds pay for the band’s creative ventures, like jazz and hip-hop remixes.

“When people ask us if they can use songs in commercials, we think about what the commercial is for. We won’t say yes to banks, McDonald’s and things we don’t agree with,” Eriksson said. “When it’s something we like — like TV shows, beer, maybe ice cream, stuff people need — we have no problem. It’s the only way we can make money. I wish we could sell albums, but most of our money is from that.”

Friday
Peter, Bjorn and John perform Friday night at the Granada, 1020 Massachusetts in Lawrence. Cowboy Indian Bear opens at 9 p.m. Tickets to the all-ages show are $15. Visit www.thegranada.com.

Por las mañanas, recién salido de la ducha o mientras voy al curro, me gusta escuchar la raio alemana. Al principio era por la música, para darse cuenta que la diferencia entre las emisoras de España y de aquí no es tanta, hasta el punto de que aquí es posible escuchar con cierta facilidad a Juanes, Shakira, Manu Chao o… antención… David Bisbal!!! Suelen poner bastante la canción de Silencio. Sin ir más lejos, hoy estaba por el centro de compras y la estaban poniendo en le hilo musical de una tienda. Increíble.

Luego cuando ya intenté aprender unas palabras en alemán, también me molaba escuchar la radio para ir pillando algunas frases o palabras. Al principio me conformaba con pillar los números de telefono de los anuncios, o los precios, o los descuentos de las tiendas. Y últimamente estoy que ya no quepo en mí de gozo. Más o menos comprendo los anuncios. Que si 19% de descuento en Media Markt por su treinta aniversario, que si ofertas en juguetes en el real, y así alguno más. Teniendo en cuenta de que no he ido a clases de alemán, todo lo que aprende por mi cuenta y escuchando es bienvenido.

Sobre la música alemana. Al principio había una canción de una tía con un piano que la ponían a todas horas y no se me iba de la cabeza, pero como no entendía ni papa, ni se quién cantaba, ni la canción, ni nada. Y esta semana iba de camino al curro y de repente empieza a sonar una canción que me sonaba. Parecía Young Folks, de Peter, Björn and John…

En España esta canción también es famosa por ser la sintonía de la serie Cuestión de sexo, aunque ya la conocía de antes. Bueno, a lo que iba. Cuando empiezo a escuchar los silbidos me doy cuenta de que son distintos. Al principio pensé que era una especia de remix, pero cuando empiezo a escuchar cantar en alemán, ya me di cuent de que era una versión alemana de la canción. Cuando volví a casa busqué el video en youtube y me encuentro con esto…

Estos tres sujetos se hacen llamar Nena, Olli und Remmler. La canción es la banda sonora de una peli que se titula Vollidiot, algo así como Completamente idiota.  Mi traducción sería mas radical, algo así como Gilipollas. Los jóvenes parecen salidos de operación triunfo. Pero a mi el que me da miedo es el mayor, con esas pintas de gangster venido a menos…

No tengo ni idea de música alemana. Pero tienen pinta de ser todos unos artistazos :-S

Por cierto, estoy mirando más destinos de fin de semana. Apuntad, por si os quereis venir : Kaunas (Lituania), Gdansk (Polonia), Tampere (Finlandia), o volver a Estocolmo a pasar frío…alguien se viene?

Still makes me smile.

Är ni redo för att låta er förföras av mänskliga toner i form av det underskattade “instrumentet” vissling? Under ett par timmars tid har jag rannsakat mitt inre på låtar med inslag av vissling. Nu finns det givetvis ett kriterium som inte kan förbises, nämligen att det ska vara en bra låt. Dessutom satte Spotify käppar i hjulet när John Lennons Jealous Guy inte fanns, men Deftones version fick helt enkelt duga.

Här följer låtordningen. Kom gärna med tips om ni tycker att någon/några låtar saknas.

• Paul Bryan – Listen
• Kent – Dom andra
• Guns n’ Roses – Patience
• Cornelis Wreeswijk - Somliga går med trasiga skor
• Peter, Bjorn and John – Young folks
• Otis Redding – (Sittin’ on) The dock of the bay
• Bernard Herrmann – Twisted nerve (Kill Bill-låten)
• Mando Diao – Ochracy
• Sammy Davis jr. – Mr Bojangles
• The Smiths – How soon is soon?
• Deftones – Jealous guy

Klicka HÄR för att lyssna via Spotify.

Peep this crazy new video from Swedish trio Peter Bjorn and John, It Don’t Move Me off of their newest album Living Thing which dropped earlier this year.  The video features some fresh Michael Jackson inspired dance moves, enjoy.Download/Stream–>http://www.zshare.net/audio/63246535db732a62/

After my heartfelt plea for everyone to rush out and buy Roscoe by Midlake (one person hopefully converted) I am again making a similar appeal.
Please please please, if you only buy one single this week then buy the latest Peter, Bjorn and John track it is brill.
Dancey drum lines, minor/major changes, summery 60’s slacker vibes, and whistling.
The only thing missing are claps but this is a small complaint.
Seek and you will find a little slice of pop manner from pop heaven.

Comments:
Ooh, yes I got the Roscoe track – great stuff.

Glad you like the Roscoe one – I’m getting the album after I get paid – I think it’s going to be one of those albums that I’ll be listening to in a months time, a years time and 10 years time.
What’s the best song you’ve heard this year so far then?

En versión analógica.
Para verla mejor pincha aquí.

You start craving a full-size keyboard connected to just about anything available, to make writing, including this entry, far less of a chore.

You start craving typing proficiency on your ipod touch, even though right now it is even slower than ballpen on paper.

You realize that writing in a small moleskine-type notebook seems far less romantic now than 3 years ago, but you are still proud of your rather beautiful handwriting (maybe it, too, will pass). This is actually a real crisis – you can’t even remember the romantic feeling you had back then. Considering that you remember most of your past feelings, including those had in long, flowing fantasy-style dresses.

Will you forget your macbook, your yamaha-produced stage piano, your nameless guitar one day? The only tools which memory I still cherish are those from my early childhood – our dendy console (people from Russia and former DDR will fondly sigh at the memory of this nintendo clone), our old TV with only four very colourful buttons, our first video recorder (panasonic! I stay true to them so much that I bought a panasonic camera last winter) – and this has to do more with my nostalgic feelings for my childhood itself than for its equipment. Is this the way of tools? Of the command line, operating systems, accelerometers, infrared mobile phone interfaces, tags, on-line office suites, e-paper? There was this exhibition we went to one hour after arriving in Joyo, about ecologically sound production and tools in the Edo period – the ingenuity and efficiency of the old, like using up every last bit of the rice plant (food, shoes, … ). Is our tool-amnesia only short-term, so that we will be rediscovered in the future as, say, the ingenious inventors of VCR?

the poster from the ecology exhibition

I’m not crying for the old days; as I said, it is hard for me to remember the charm of ballpen on paper (not the usefulness; as I can see right now, the writing style is actually different on paper, since you write less fast, and re-read what you have written less often; so it is only the nostalgic charm that has nothing to do with reality that I lost). But then again, I do like steampunk aesthetics.