HW:Jonkoping 98'

[Scott Heller]

SPACE AND ROCK FESTIVAL- Rocksjon, Jonkoping, Sweden 8/14-15/98

        The best Space Rock Festival ever put on, that no one came to....
The music at this event was really incredible but there were only 46 people
to observe and document the event..  I believe that Carl Anderson and I
were among perhaps 15 paying people and the rest were the members of the
bands that played at the event. It was an incredible disappointment for the
bands and especially Evert, who spent a lot of time and money to pull this
event off and no one came..  Dietrich Pless and his wife drove 16 hours
from Germany for the event, a british guy living in Trondheim (Norway),
Andreas from Germany, and a few swedish rock fans had traveled from
Stockholm, but that was about it for the paying fans...

8/14    SEAMONSTER- 15M EX*  local band
        EVIL KNIEVEL- 25M EX*  Göteborg
        THE MOOR w/Nik Turner- 90M EX   Falköping
        MAN- 75M EX (Nik on Encore)   Wales

The Rockjon was a beautiful place. A fenced off area right on a lake with
bathroom and shower facilities as well as a little place selling drinks and
some food.  We were able to camp right on the grounds behind the main
stage.  We would have gone swimming but the weather was not that great,
with a temperature of around 60F and raining on and off, mostly on.....
Anyway....
The place was set up with two stages. All the local acts except Ryno played
on the 2nd stage. They tried to time it so one band would start soon after
another finished.  Seamonster, a local three piece band, were very heavy
psych. They played all instrumental numbers some reminding of some of the
japanese noise bands like Fushitsusha. Pretty cool band..  Next up was Evil
Knievel from Goteborg, Sweden.  They were also all instrumental but
included a female organ player, which made their sound a bit more 60'ish..
They had really great bass lines and some pretty spacy stuff. These guys
are really young and this was their first show, so we might want to watch
out for them..  The MOOR were next and sounded really great! They played
about 55 minutes of their own music and then they were joined by Nik Turner
and played some of his numbers from the Xiitoday like Thoth and Pyramid
Spell.  The MOOR were really excellent today, much tighter than when i saw
them in Hamburg in January. The new material also sounded really good. For
those not familiar with the MOOR, they play a heavy gothic space rock. The
vocals are spoken words in which the singer (Hans) improvises a bit upon,
sort of his own brand of poetry, making social commentary along the way.
The guitars can be quite heavy (almost metallic) using wah wah and phazer
at times. Kenneth lays down an excellent synth sound (very rich) providing
the backdrop for the excellent rhythm section of Stefan and Ulf..  Great
band who have two CD's, Every Pixie sells a Story and Flux.

The set list was:  Candlelight, Now, Stay, Body, Soon, Bell, Consider
Death, Suck, Dream Worker, Pyramid Spell, Thoth, Watching the Grass Grow,
Bucket on my Head

        MAN closed the show this first night, not including the hangout
with the band after the show. I had never seen MAN live and neither had
nearly anyone else in the audience. the last time they had played in sweden
was 1973!  They were playing without their keyboard player (who lives in
denmark), so this limited the set they could (or would) play. The band
opened up with The Right and The View and that really got things started.
The thing you noticed right away is that these guys can really play and
there is a great interaction between each instrument. We had Martin Ace on
Bass, mickey on guitar and vocals, Deke on guitar and Terry on drums.  Next
up was a killer version of C'mom lasting over 20 minutes. The slide opening
by Micky was great and then the guitar kicks in and everyone is moving..
Excellent jam....  The band followed with by Do it and Many are called but
few Get up.  These were both great as well, with cruchy guitar riffs...
They closed their set with a 20 mintute version of Spunk Rock with Nik
Turner sitting in on sax. This was the first time Nik had jammed with the
band since 1974!  Everyone was talking about how great MAN was after the
set and many headed into a small tent behing the main stage to party with
the band. I had Deke sign his book, Rhino's, Wino's and Lunatics. He was a
very nice guy. We spoke a bit about some of the things in his book and they
Carl and I called it a night. If you have not read this book, you must. It
is one of the best music biographies I have ever read.


8/15    CHOUAGHAH- 20M EX*  local (horrible)
        RYNO- 60M EX (w/Nik Turner)  local
        MAN- 75M EX   Wales
        PSEUDO SUN- 32M EX*  Stockholm
        SPACIOUS MINDS- 67M EX   Lovånger
        DARXTAR- 30M EX     Sweden
        HAWKXTAR- 45M EX (NIK AND DARXTAR)
        DARK SUN- 60M EX   Finland

        Day two started out by Carl and I heading out to check out
Jonkoping and the one record store they have there. turnsout we would find
some choice CD's at this little store!  Not a bad little town spread across
two large lakes.  This is suppose to be the swedish bible belt!  As for the
music, Chouaghah, a female trio of bass, guitar and drums, were really
amateur and the guitar player had a really bad amp that kept feeding back
all the time driving the soundman mad... Ryno played next on the main stage
and were a guitar and bass duo who were joined by Nik for the entire set on
sax and flute. The band played mostly cover songs by Dylan and and Neil
Young but  few originals as well.  They were enjoyable but nothing but
nothing very special. Nik sounded really great on some of the songs like I
shot the Sherriff and Like a Rolling stone. The band also played Rockin' in
the Free World, and All along the Watchtower.  MAN were up next on the main
stage and seemed a bit tired but still jammed nonetheless.  The band played
most of a song off 2 ounces of plastic during the soundcheck but would not
do it for the audience. The bands opened the set again with The Right and
the View and went into C'mom, which was 3 minutes shorter and the guitar
solos not as hot as the night before. After Do it and Many are called but
Few get Up, we got a great version of Bananas! This song has the great
lyrics, "I like Bananas 'cause they ain't got no Bones, I like marijhuana
because it gets me stoned". They followed Bananas with a short blues
number.. Still a great set, but not quite as inspired as the first night. I
was a bit disappointed that a band that has been playing together on and
off for 30 years would not play a different set of music knowing that the
audience of 40 was the same as the night before... Oh well...

        After MAN, we sprinted over to the side stage to check out PSEUDO
SUN.  This is the band that Juba formed after leaving Darxtar.  They are a
heavy 3 piece band of bass, guitar and drums, with Juba handeling the
vocals and running the pre-recorded sequences (which you could not really
hear at all except at the beginning of the set!).  The band started off
with a new song called Mutiny.  This was a great song with a heavy bass
line and a long solo by the guitar player (Bjorn Jacobson).  This was
followed by the excellent Signs of Life from their CD. This songs was like
15 minutes long and really spacey at times.  They closed their 33 minute
set with Atmosfear, another new song.  The 20 or so people who watched
their set were quite impressed and everyone was talking about them
afterwards. A band to look out for, especially live!

        Next up were the SPACIOUS MIND from northern sweden. This is a band
that I have been waiting to see for a long time.  Their CD's are really
incredible psychedelic mindfeasts...They don't play very many live gigs so
this was quite special. It was dark enoough now that they could utilize the
light show and smoke as well. The band started off with a killer 32 minute
version of Interplanetarian Love Machine. This was just totally amazing.
Thomas, one of the lead guitar players really played more psychedelic
textures, while Henrik, who handled the vocals played the more intense
guitar lines and some leads as well.  Jens was just truely a synth keyboard
organ wizard creating so many interesting and every changing organ to synth
textures and sounds... This song was really incredible. The band followed
that with a song off Cosmic Minds at Play CD called House in the Country.
They dedicated this song to me, which really touched me. The song again was
quite stretched out and moved through several transitions in which the band
would come back into a heavy guitar riff. Very cool... I should mention
that the bass player and the drummer were really excellent flowed
exceptionally well in and out of the various psychedelic moods that the
bands created.  The set ended with a 22 minute version of Euphoria Euphoria
( I think it is this song?) off the new Garden of a Well Fed Head lp, in
which Nik turner joined in on saxophone.  He was able to squeeze the sax
playing into a unique niche within the wall of sound that the band created.
It worked quite well most of the time. Nik incorrectly thanked the band for
the jam calling them the Spasms, a punk band that would play later in the
night! That's nik for you!

While Darxtar were setting up, the SPASMS played a wild and crazy set on
the side stage. They were like a cross between Blue Cheer and the Dwarves.
The singer was just completely mad and had most of those watching laughing
quite a lot. I thought the guitar riffs were pretty cool but it was pretty
much over the top....

        DARXTAR, another band I have been waiting many years to see started
their set with a killer spacey version of Breath Messages. The band has
such a great mixture of spacey guitar sounds and synths. I really think the
synth player is excellent.  The bass player is really good but he does not
have as heavy a sound as Juba, so the bottom end is not quite as heavy as
it used to be. The band followed that with 7 from the Sju release and this
was great as well.  I really like the guitar solo in this song. The band
closed it's 35 minute set with an excellent version of Eternal War from
Daybreak.  I was very impressed with them but was disappointed that they
did not play any longer.  The band was now joined by NIk Turner to create
HAWXTAR 1998! Because we were running a bit short on time and Dark Sun were
to play last and they traveled all the way from Finland, the Hawxtar set
had to be trimmed down. They opened up with Sonic Attack, which was mostly
spoken words as Jens (from the Spacious Mind) and the synth player worked
on getting the audio generator/synth up and running.. The band next
launched into a great version of you shouldn't do that. I have seen
Hawkwind (90's), Nik and Pressurehed, and Sun Machine all perform this song
but never has anyone done such a rendition that was so true to 1971....
Really amazing... wow... Next up was Kadu Flyer.. musically this sounded
great but Nik got confused and had forgotten where the lyrics fit in and
this really through the band off and so the rendition was a bit strange.
Jens was creating some really amazing space sounds to augument the keyboard
lines for the song and were almost too much.. A very strange version... The
band moved back into Brainstorm, a song Nik could do in his sleep!  Again,
the band really reproduced the 1972 sound with amazing clarity!  The band
ended their set with a great version of Master of the Universe. I really
think that Jens was incredible during this song going really over the top.
Really great set of about 40 minutes. The band had planned to play for 90
minutes and do paranoia, D-Rider, You know you're only Dreaming, Children
of the sun, Time we Left and Silver Machine, but there was no time, if Dark
Sun were going to get to play.

        DARK SUN came on about 12:20 or so and started the show with a
improv jam that just sort of materialized out of the soundcheck.  The band
opened the set with Iskariot, a new song that the band has written. The
song starts slowly with some very nice space sounds and chirps and 12
string acoustic guitar. The vocalist, janne has a really excellent singing
voice. I really love his vocals, combining power and finesse. The song
really builds up to a climax and then spaces out again. The acoustic guitar
player, Ylli, is really good and was dressed in a traditional finnish
costume, which was cool.. The band also had various painted wooden symbols
and cardboard figures of people up on the stage, which was an added touch.
Kari, the lead guitar player was excellent, but a little too low in the
mix.  I really liked the way that Mikko used a lot of sampled sounds from
MD and CD and then played layers of keyobard and synth over the top.  The
band then performed another new song called Ethics about a man who went out
to space and never came back!  The band then played Abduction Files from
their excellent (sold out only 1500 copies) CD called Feed your Mind.  This
version was over 10 minutes and was one of the highlights of the bands set.
This was followed by another new song called Dream Circuit in which Nik
Turner joined the band. This was a very cool, song with an excellent almost
funky space rock groove to it. Having Nik playing on it and not really
knowing the song certainly changed the arrangement a bit.  The band closed
the normal set with great versions of Psychedelic Warlords and Hassan I
Sahba!  The band really wanted to keep playing so the soundman cut down the
volume of the PA and the band played another new song called Wooden Man.
Really excellent vocals on this song...  The band tried to start up another
song but it was already near 1:30 and the town has a sound code regulating
music atter 1:00 am and we were already well after this, so the soundman
killed the PA and the band played on for several minutes until janne
realized that his vocal were not being heard at all and he called it
quites. Ylli kept on playing the acoustic guitar and Nik kept playing as
well and they did a bit of silver machine and the audience sang along and
it all ended well. The party continued for several hours and everyone hung
out and had a good time....

        Evert Wysell must be congratulated for the effort that was put
forth to make this event happen. It is quite a blow that so few people
showed up and that he lost a lot of money but one can never know why there
were not 100's of people. Anyway, this was an incredible weekend of music
and one that I enjoyed as much as any I have ever experienced. I met many
incredible people (Evert, Henrik, Jens and the Spacious Mind, Deke, Kenneth
and the MOOR, Janne and Dark Sun, Andreas, Juba and Pseudo Sun, and Soren
from Darxtar).  I did not mind that only 20 people came, like Martin Ace
from MAN said. " It's very nice to be here amongst so few beautiful people.
But don't forget, you are the ones that are here and everyone else is
nowhere, man!".

scott heller
shll at hagedorn.dk

R. Scott Heller PhD
Hagedorn Research Institute
Niels Steensensvej 6
DK 2820 Gentofte Denmark
(45) 44 43 91 96  or 44 3 91 38 Phone
(45) 44 43 80 00 Fax
shll at hagedorn.dk  or  heller at hagedorn.dk
Http://www.geocities.com/sunsetstrip/stage/7713