Snow

When it's snowing you can heat up with some glögg. Anya and Jenny.

Clearing little paths for the dog so he can patrol his habitat. All he could see were white walls.

My friend Paul and Anette's house and Paul's babe-magnet (Volvo V70) last night. A lot more white matter came down since then. It's been snowing cats and dogs.

The road is un-drivable more or less. A militairy vehicle just passed to try to clear a path.

My neighbour Fabio from Milano came out: "-This is the most I've seen. I tried to drive before. I have summer tires on still. Driving is fine but I couldn't stop!"

Clearing snow from the green house so the windows will not crack. The picture almost look black and white since there is so much snow.

Assorted pics from the past week.

This is something you see more often in Hammerfall these days. A more relaxed feeling. A few beers before the gig. I personally never drink anything before the gig. I have a hard time playing being affected by alcohol both coordination and overplaying-wise. Also when you play drums your pulse goes up and it makes you more drunk and you get tired faster. This new era started when rock n' roll-road dog monster Pontus and laydback and overall relaxed Fredrik joined the band. Oscar doesn't drink before the gig. But during he does sometimes. I'm the only total non-gig-alcoholic in the band. Joacim might have one a few hours before even though it looks like he is hammering away in the pic.

They drive too fast in Germany. If something happens you are likey to injure yourself worse than in lesser speeds. I always end up telling the driver to go 120 km/h maximum. Or else:-) Last time our driver Rafael did a good job and was understanding towards our more careful aproach to driving.

This is a bit typical for Germans. Everyone that has dealt with them know what I mean.

Kübler hotel. Fredrik Larsson's and Pontus' room.

Udo Dirkschneider. He played with his band a few bands before we did last Saturday at Knock out-festival. He is a metal god. Joacim, the shortest guy in Hammerfall, is seen passing in the foreground. I always wondered what a "Dirkschneider" is.

Hotel Kübler in Karlruhe. Strange layout wouldn't you say?

At a burger place at Frankfurt. They had 1000 sparrows waiting for scraps. I threw a french fry and 1000 birds attacked it. Another fry...and 1000 more birds came flying down from the sealing. Yes, the place was outdoors. Fredrik was annoyed since they were really close to his hair. Maybe they could have got tangled up? Check what Pontus ordered.

Mark from "Brave words, bloody knuckles" drinking in stereo.

A lot of the people I meet while touring say: -I met your brother. He is a really nice guy and a hell of a musician. I wonder if they tell him the same thing?

Typical people-behaviour:

-I want of the plane! I want of the plane! So I stand up as soon as possible, just to stand here like an idiot waiting for 10 minutes standing instead of relaxing and sitting in my seat.

Some people often (not showing in the pic due to the fact the people in the pic are nearly dwarfs) stand with bent backs for ever under the overhead compartments looking like jackasses...

This is a bit typical in Scandinavia: Just before they let the people of the plane they ordered the ones about to embark to stand just outside the gate to form a line. Making the disembarking passengers confused. They also went into the line thinking it was an extra passport control. It also blocked the whole gate area. One might think they would have learned by now...

Hammerfall's rehearsal space. Today some weirdo that handles it called Fredrik and complained about the racket. What did they think when they rented it to a heavy metal-band.

In the pic: Pontus doubles up as usually as a sound tech while Oscar is whatching.

On the way to Gothenburg I always stop at the same place halfway there. Rasta in Snapparp.

The latest time I asked for a hamburger plate and wanted to exchange something for something else. -No problem, was the response. I wish more people in Sweden said: -No problem! regarding everything instead of: -Sorry, I'm not authorised to do that for you...

The phone camera

Going to rehearse in a few days with Hammerfall and have to get the physical playing up to date (even though I was just starting my daily practice here). Not much fusion playing usually before meeting them, just metal.

This was recorded with a Nokia N 82. Pretty OK camera both for stills and moving pictures (here compressed a lot).

R.I.P. Peter Rudolw

A great guy decided to leave this world. He was the driving force behind the Anderslöv rehearsal place where all the bands hang out and rehearse. His decision came out of nowhere and shocked us all. Peter was a very talented musician and everyone feels it was a great loss.
Above is a Peter-shrine the musicians from his place made. He ment a lot to them. One of the bands made a song to his honour:

Niklas' room

Jenny is an accomplished IT-technician. Dealing with the broadband here.

Niklas used to have a typical kids-room. He is 14 next year and we thought it was a good idea to upgrade his room. Had a bunch of furniture laying about he inherited and got a few new lights. But first we painted the whole thing and took out all the toy cars and the like.

Karate

Karatekas in action at Trelleborg's Shotokan karate club. I have been there for one term now. It's very similar to ITF/UTF-Taekwondo. Actually Taekwondo's patterns and techniques comes from Shotokan karate. Some patterns are almos identical. I feel I'm improving and it shows while doing TKD as well. Soon I'm a red belt in both ITF and Shotokan.

Swine flu shot went strange.

Took my swine flu shot today. Everything was fine at first as always.I have taken shos many many times before. It didn't really hurt at all as usually. I sat down for a while afterwards like the tell you to. Then it started creeping up on me when I red the paper they give you with what kind of reactions that might occur to some unlucky people. A very bad feeling came over me. It got worse and worse. I started to feel totally avful. Really terrible. Sweating buckets. Then my vision got blured and dark. I fainted. I was put on a stretcher and nurses and doctors were called in. I thought I was having an alergic reaction and was dying for sure. I have thought I was dying before in life. It was on a flight in Serbia that had to emergency land in a scary way. Today felt worse. I started coming around. And they took my blood preassure. The thing went of the scale for some reason (maybe me tensing up). They tried again. "-I can't get a reading on him!" the nurce said. I started freaking out again. Almost fainted once more. I remember once Jonas Hellborg and I were taking yellow fever shots. I was first up. I pretended it hurt like hell to scare him and he fainted when he took his. Now I know how it feels.

Geüsir of kack

Got this fancy built in water container for the toilette. It cracked of course. Making a bunch of problems everywhere.

De-mounted it and ordered a new one. A few hundred euros. Note the wet floorboards.

An accident never comes alone. The sewer drain clogged for some reason. I tried everything. Wires and hoses. Days of work. Twice I got an avalance of sewage on me.

Tree days later I gave up and called in the pros. What a strange job that is. Going to peoples houses and dealing with their disgusting wastewater. You must like it to do it. Really nice guys, though. Only strange thing was that they had raging hard-ons all the time while working with the pipes.

Afterwards I had to take a shower to get the feces out of my skin. And soothing myself with some pure protein. This tastes really bad. I usually get the dry and wet heaves from trying to drink it.

Today at 19:30. Swedish television channel one.

The news. Rapport.

Today at Swedish television channel 1 19:00 hours.

Kulturnyheterna kl 19:00 tonight on Swedish television channel 1.
Unfortunately I'm not playing like the picture might mislead, but there is something about my father. We got these recordings from a music scientist called Olle Lind that mainly specialises in Lars Gullin but also in other jazz musicians. He gave us 200+ recordings with my father.

Battle and dog feelings.

The scottish terrier is a feisty and stubborn breed. Sometimes on his walks he just lays down when he doesn't want to walk the same way we do.
It takes hour to cut his fur. He is batteling like it was a life and death situation.
He has a muzzle or we would get bitten.
Talking of bitten. The other day he tried to jump up on his favourite chair. He didn't succeed. He tried several times. I think there was a bass guitar in the way as well as a pillow. He was in a bad mood, you could tell, annoyed and frustrated. People say dogs don't have human feelings but I'm sure they can feel happiness, anger, being scared, sadness and frustration. Later I tricked him to come and lay down elsewhere by luring him there was food. When he realized there was none and when I tried to drag him away from the chair he bit me hard in the arm. He tried biting once again but missed. Afterwards he whimpered and layed down on his back knowing he'd gone too far. If he would have been a big dog we would have to submit him to Cesar Millan, but small dogs get away with things like that I guess.

New haircut.

Double checking everything.

People often tell me to be more trusting, to let people do their jobb. I tried to order pizza the other day. I stopped the urge to double check if everything was right.
But of course it was wrong. They forgot the sauce on the kebeb-pizza. So I put some on myself.
Everything else was pretty much wrong with the other pizzas as well...but who really cares.

Swedish tax authorities

This is the Swedish tax authorities' logotype.

My brother thinks it looks like the money is getting sucked in towards a black hole, where you never see any of it again or find out what ever happened to it.

We have high taxes in Sweden. First when you earn the money they deduct astronomical amounts. Then everytime you buy something they add on 25% tax on top. So you get taxed twice really.

Or if you have a car or own a house, or made a profit from something you already paid with taxed money. The list goes on. Where does it all go? Hospitals and roads etc suck like in any third world country.

Lately.

Life is going along in a steady manner.
I'm attending karate lessons every week as well as taekwondo and going to the gym regularly. It's now possible when we are not touring. Benching 160 kg (arms in 90 degree and with help lifting the bar down). Trying to play drums an hour a day. Have to keep it up. Gigs are coming up in December. Been to Gothenburg for a couple of days last week. Bumped into Oscar and went bowling.




Oscar and Olivia. Stefan Elmgren can be seen at the bottom.





Been transfering compact cassette tapes from the past. Some funny things were found. The un-edited version of the infamous Tokyo flight, for example.



And some rough tapes from different records. The Odyssey-record is one. Some versions without singing, some out takes and covers. I like the rough mixes better. Clearer. Maybe I put something on my website. There are literally boxes full of tapes. Silver Mountain, Slem and just us guys babbling. Live tapes with Rising Force. Thousands of those.





Scanned some old pics. Here is one of my father playing bass while smoking a cigarette. He was not a smoker for long.







Been in contact with a jazz tape collector. He gave us at least 30 different live recordings with my father in different contellations. Some are for sure going to be realeased someday.

Website

www.andersjohansson.org

I'm learning how to do websites.
It's really easy if you don't want it to look fantastic.
I kind of dislike fantastic looking websites anyways. You can't see anything clearly since there is so much stuff everywhere and everything takes longer to load.
The one above is not yet done.
I'm going to upload more stuff soon.
Maybe also having a drum lesson-section.
We'll see.

My dad

My dad around 19 years old.
He also played music, mostly famous around the world for his song: "Pippi Longstocking" and for playing with Stan Getz among others.
Here in Sweden he recorded several albums under his own name.
One still holds the record for the most selling Swedish jazz album out of all times. It's not really pure jazz but Swedish folk-melodies in instrumental piano versions.
Interested? Go to:

Scandinavia/Europe.
http://cdon.se/musik/johansson_jan/jazz_p%c3%a5_svenska_(remastered)-518212

Rest of the world
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/johansson15

Grandfather

My grandfather Valter Johansson as a 19 year old. He built his own power plant (hydro powered). He was into music. Played several instruments. Composed marches and other music. Strange thing is how looks are inherited as well as interests and hobbies. Looks like me or Jens somehow. Same nose and mouth especially.

Party

Drinking race? Somer-spy cider. Became autum puke cider later for one person (not in the picture).

More partying. Stefan is saying: OooohhHHHHHHHHAAAAAAaaaaa!

Oscar is always hard to capture in a pic due to his fast motions.

Paul is very popular with the ladies. The rest of us guys wonder how he does it, but some people are just naturals.

Fredrik had a bit too much to eat, but was fine the next day.

CCCP Hockey

This is a great documentary. I just got it in the mail.
It's about the former Soviet Union's hockey team.
They where unbeatable more or less.
As a bonus on the dvd you get to see the world cup finals between Sweden and SSSR from 1981. The big russian red machine won with 13 to 1. In a final! That's how superior they where.
On the other hand they practised for 50 weeks out of the year. Three ice passes a day. Then physical practice on top. The swedes had it more as a hobby and had ordinary jobs as well.

Stefan, the pilot

Helmsman Elmgren ready to take his heavy cargo plane to the skies. Stefan gave us a tour of his job. It was really interesting. Sometimes when Stefan has been flying all night and are getting hungry he can smell food from the cargo. It's been close that he nicked a loaf...

Stefan always drinks a "Full Strike" before his flights.

The Palmcity

The city where we live is the southenmost city in Sweden. Some weirdo has decided that it should have a nickname. The Palm city. You can see this on cabs and elsewhere nowadays. The Palmcity this, the Palmcity that. They have imported and put a few palms in big pots next to a street. These palms are barely surviving. They have to take them in after the two summer months when the cold and darkness is coming. During the years the palms have been there they have not grown at all. The Palm city...in Sweden. Really strange.



On the other hand it's possible to grow exotic fruits outdoors here. All these come from our garden. (Yes, pears and apples are not that exotic, but apricots and vines should be).
We also have figs (not shown in the picture).

Random öld pics

Me in 1965. Drinking a "Festis".

First drumkit.

Pic from 1977. I was so ugly back then. Still am, by the way.

On a mule in Spain. Fell off and it hurt my sholder like a jackass. 1970

Rising Force mark 4. I was in Rising Force mark 2, 3 4, 5 and 6. Me, Jens, Vally Voss (r.i.p), Yngwie and Jeff. The clothes I were are often refered to as "the traffic signs". 1985

Jens with his Yamaha organ. He was a keyboard-monster already back then. He played circles around everyone and everybody.
He had a knob which he detuned it a few cents with. This was a trick he played on other musicians when they tried to tune their instruments. 1978.