The working title of the new collection is Transistor Troubadour.  We are planning on doing some more covers as well as some Hepnova originals and to continue to develop the unique electro-acoustic sound that has emerged in previous Hep tunes like “You’re For Me” and “Again Tonight.”

Check out the new Hepnova tracks on Bandcamp. More tracks in the Transistor Troubadour collection are in the works, so check back often for more music!

Lyrics after the jump:

En la plaza de mi pueblo
Traditional

En la plaza de mi pueblo
dijo el jornalero al amo
“Nuestros hijos nacerán
con el puño levantado”.

Esta tierra que no es mía
esta tierra que es del amo
la riego con mi sudor
la trabajo con mis manos.

Pero dime, compañero,
si estas tierras son del amo
¿por qué nunca lo hemos visto
trabajando en el arado?

Con mi arado abro los surcos
con mi arado escribo yo
páginas sobre la tierra
de miseria y de sudor.

Märk Hur Vår Skugga (Fredmans Epistel #81)
Carl Michael Bellman

Märk hur vår skugga, märk movitz mon frère
Inom ett mörker sig slutar
Hur guld och purpur i skoveln den där
Byts till grus och klutar
Vinkar Karon från sin brusande älv
Och tre gånger sen dödgrävaren själv
Mer du din druva ej kryster
Därför Movitz kom hjälp mig och välv
Gravvård över vår syster

Lillklockan klämtar till storklockans dön
Lövad står kantorn i porten
Och vid de skrålande gossarnas bön
Helgas denna orten
Vägen opp till templets skriftprydda stad
Trampas mellan rosors gulnade blad
Multnande plankor och bårar
Till dess den långa och svartklädda rad
Djupt sig bugar i tårar

Så gick till vila från slagsmål och bal
Grälmakar Lövberg din maka
Där ditåt gräset långhalsig och smal
Hon än glor tillbaka
Hon från Dantobommen skildes idag
Och med henne alla lustiga lag
Vem skall nu flaskan befalla
Torstig var hon och uttorstig är jag
Vi är torstiga alla

Dagens Nyheter, a Swedish newspaper, came out with an article yesterday about the internet phenomenon (and now book) Stuff White People Like.  It’s got some great commentary and a precious interview with the SWPL author Christian Lander.  Here is the original article (in Swedish) My rough translation below:

Photo caption: Christian Lander makes fun of white people’s desire to recycle, eat healthy, like “indie” and to do things outdoors.

The White Will to be Unique

The well-educated, liberal and self-righteous upper-middleclass are the subject of ridicule in the successful blog “Stuff White People Like,” which is also now in book form.  Author Christian Lander explains for DN (Dagens Nyheter, a Swedish newspaper) why this group is so fun to make fun of.

People seem to have always liked to put each over into categories.  “Us and them,” is probably the most basic of these.  If we break things down in more detail, not only are there groupings based on socio-economic class (upper class, working class, etc.) but also groupings based on appearance and interests (stekare [preppies], Emo, kulturtante [women of a certain age who like the theatre and culture], hipsters).  Charles Dickens did just this in 1836, when he published a collection of essays under the title, Sketches by Boz.”  The book begins with a rather dry and ironic description of a number of characters in Victorian London.

One-hundred and seventy-two years later, Christian Lander started his blog, “Stuff White People Like,” mostly as a joke after a discussion about how he would like more white people to watch the TV show “The Wire.”  On the 18th of January this year, he posted the first entry, “Coffee.”  After six weeks, the visits counter had reached 300,000 visitors a day, and was up to a million earlier this summer.  The latest entry on the list was number 106, and is about Facebook.

“The growing popularity of the blog was totally viral,” explains Christian Lander by telephone from Los Angeles.  “People told their friends about it, posted links on their own sites, and spread the word more widely.  If I had understood the fully [how big it would become] I would have sold my work for a lot of money to a marketing company, but unfortunately I didn’t do that.”

The white people that Lander caricaturizes belong to a well-educated American upper-middle class.  They lean towards the left and concern themselves with the environment, culture and the world around them.

“One thing that sets them apart the most is perhaps organic food.  They are out for recognition that what they are doing is right.  There is definitely a certain measure of self-hate there; as if they have to undo all of the evil that white people have done historically.  But at the same time, they also look down on other people who don’t do as much good as they do.”

The blog’s popularity led to publisher taking notice, and last spring Lander landed himself a contract that allowed him to quit his job as a “kind of copywriter.”  For the last few weeks, the book version has been number 17 on the American bestsellers list.

Christian Lander is himself guilty of many of the descriptions in the book, which he believes to be one of the reasons for his success.  He is obviously white, with an unfinished doctorate in literature (#81) and has studied abroad (#72), has a beard (#95), glasses (#140), and a nice bicycle (#61).

“I know that I am pretentious and silly with a lot of those things, but I can’t help it.  I am in fact looking out for myself for the most part.  If I can’t make fun of myself, then it wouldn’t have been all that funny.”

Lander’s book is an heir both to Dickens and to earlier classics in the genre.  Lisa Birnbach’s “The Official Preppy Handbook” in 1980 dealt with the dresscodes, drinking habits and mating rituals of the American northeastern upperclass.  Three years later, literature professor Paul Fussel put out “Class. A Guide Through the American Status System,” which investigates, among other things, why the upperclasses prefer small balls and the lowerclasses big ones.

In recent years, we have been able to read the same kind of comic anthropology applied to hipsters in “The Hipster Handbook,” and the filthy rich in “The Filthy Rich Handbook.”  And now we can read about the group Lander caricaturizes with the subtitle, “The unique taste of millions.”  For one example of this, one only need to go to the side muxtapestumbler.com, which is search function linked to the popular internet service Mutape, where users upload songs to their own “personal” mixtapes.  One quickly realizes that there are extremely few users that get even close to being original.

“Yup, that’s a good example,” says Christian Lander

“The funny things is that the people I talk about think that they belong to a awfully special minority.  They forget in fact that there are actually millions of people out there that also have that ‘alternative taste,’like ‘indie,’ read books and watch movies.”

You’ve studied in Copenhagen.  Do you have anything in particular to say about Scandinavian white people?

“They are what all American white people aspire to be.  You are fantastically socially progressive, you are physically fit, you speak several languages.  Yes, you are the ideal.”

But is the book meant to be a guide for becoming a white person?

“No, no, no, it is a guide for how to take advantage of white people.  What you want to do is to use their weakness to get them to do favors for you.”

What can one get them to do then?

“You can get them to paint your house, give you a lift to the airport, cook you dinner.”

And if they cook dinner for you, will that be a good dinner?

“Absolutely.  As long as they stay away from trying to do your national cuisine.  In that case, there is a risk that they will fuck it all up.”

By Agnes af Geijerstam

Translation by Lee-Sean

visited 31 countries (13%)

create your own visited countries map