Here’s a premix version of the song “Easy”. It will be available for a couple of days, so you’ll have a chance to see where we’re heading with this one. Download if you like to keep it. Later on this song will be available on the upcoming album.
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We’ve removed the song now. We’ll come back soon to show you more songs we’re working on.
Tonight we’ll send a premix version of the new song “Easy” to our mailing list. If you want to hear it, you can join the list here: http://busstopdreams.fanbridge.com/
As far as we can see today, this song will not be released as a single, as we’re heading for the full album for our next release. We do want to show you, though, our progress with the songs and we appreciate all the feedback we can get.
This is a premix of the song which means that we have yet to spend a couple of days in the studio to finalize it and then send it to mastering. Here’s a take from the recording of the vocals with Tobbe Möller earlier this year.
You’re at home, in the kitchen doing the dishes. You look through the window and see your two sons, 8 and 10 years old, having fun att the playground further down the road. You smile to yourself and turn your attention again at the dirty plates and bowls in the sink. Minutes later the noise from a car startles you and you look up again. You see a dark van speeding up down the street, away from you. You look back at the playground, and your kids aren’t there anymore. You panic, run out the door, scream for them, but no one answers. Your kids are gone and nobody cares. There’s no one to call, no one to go to and no one to help you.
This nightmare scenario is probably nothing you have to worry about, but if you are poor and live in Mali, Burkina Faso or Togo, this is reality. There it happens every day as slave dealers kidnap and buy children for transportation to the Cocoa plantations in the Ivory Coast. There they are forced to work under extreme conditions, beaten and constantly exposed to pesticides. Because of the cheap labour, the cocoa is sold cheap to companies like Nestlé, Hershey and others, while they in turn can offer us cheap chocolate with a taste of child slavery. 70% of the worlds cocoa comes from the West Africa, which means that it’s very likely that it’s present in the chocolate you eat if the package doesn’t say otherwise.
Two years ago I watched the documentary “The Dark Side of Chocolate” a film made by Miki Mistrati & U. Roberto Romano and I was chocked. It’s an eye-opener where they closely examine every step of the supply chain of our chocolate; they even managed to go inside a plantation and interview some of the kids. If you haven’t seen it, watch it. (There’s an embedded version in the end of this post)
After I had watched this film I somewhat naively expected fast and strong reactions from people, just as the headlines had shouted out some years before, that clothes from H&M were made by Chinese child workers and wares from Ikea as well, which in both cases forced these companies to act fast and do something about it. But not much happened, at least not in a magnitude comparable to the other cases.
It seems, though, that it started something, an increasing pressure and awareness which at least has made most companies realize that they have to do something. But a little something isn’t good enough and one has to remember that Big Chocolate has profited on these child slaves many years and successfully stalled efficient legislation in their home countries, fully aware of what has been going on in the plantations. Hershey, the biggest cocoa buyer in the world, has hardly taken any action, until this February as a result of the campaign “Raise the bar, Hershey!” by International Labor Rights Forum.
Last Friday I was in the supermarket with my daughter and she wanted a chocolate bar as Friday candy. I asked her to at least choose a chocolate bar with the “Fair Trade” certification, which she agreed to. But it was hard to find. Only some bars from Lindt had the mark. We discovered, though, that some of the more expensive bars from Marabou (Kraft Foods) had a Rainbow Alliance Certification which in the description sounded fair. When we read on the backside of the package, they stated, though, that they only guarantee that 30% was slave-free, which means that 70% of the cocoa is not accounted for. Why? Well, they claim that there isn’t enough slave-free cocoa to buy on the market for the entire chocolate bar, and I guess when it comes to the cheaper bars without the certification they are cheap just beacause of the slave labour.
Apparently there are companies like Lindt that guarantee 100% control of the cocoa and I for one are going to try to choose brands (here is a list of other ethical companies) that are less dirty than the others, or at least look for Fair Trade marks.
Shady business doesn’t like light, it thrives because of the darkness and this is my little pocket torch contribution to hunt down some shadows. I hope you go and fetch yours.
/Pär
The Dark Side of Chocolate:
Today we shed our tears for the demise of a an inspiring and fantastic musician, Levon Helm who died away from us today, too early. I’ve never seen him play live; the closest I got was in the late eighties when he and two other The Band-members were supposed to play at a festival, but they had to cancel in the last minute. Nevertheless Levon’s and The Band’s music has been something that I have always come back to, again and again, ever since I found them.
Since I was too young to experience them in their heydays, I discovered them in the early eighties, in a sort of backwards manner. It was Martin Scorceses movie of their last live performance, “The Last Waltz” that caught my attention. The line-up with Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and many others got me curious and before I watched the movie I bought the corresponding triple vinyl of the concert. And It was fantastic, and I still think it is. Here’s one of The Band’s and Levon Helm’s finest moments from this film, together with The Staple Singers, “The Weight”:
/Pär
Recently Tobbe Möller visited Lasse’s studio to record the lead vocals for the new song “Easy”. Lasse Thomasson has written the music to the song and Fredrik Muscos the lyrics.
We’re happy to have Tobbe Möller on board, a brilliant songwriter and singer. If you haven’t listened to his solo songs before, you can visit his Facebook page. Here’s the clip from Tobbe’s visit:
It happened somewhere in the middle of the nineties, when the music stopped for me. I felt like I had run into a dead end and I couldn’t find a way out of there. There was no new music that satisfied me and I was somewhat bored with the old one.
The transition from vinyl to CD:s a few years earlier wasn’t really helpful either. I had hoped that I would appreciate the better sound and enjoy the comfort in being able to play music for hours without swithching CD:s (I had a 5-CD-player). What happened instead was that I was struggling to build up a new music collection that would replace all my vinyls, realizing that I couldn’t afford to have it all and I ended up buying a lot of best of-albums or the latest albums from favourite artists that made their best work ten years earlier. The comfort just got me lazy about choosing what to play, and the real music experience wasn’t there anymore. On the radio they were playing R’n’B hits all day long and I thought: “They don’t create good music anymore”.
But hey, it’s only music, it’s not the end of the world! For me it was almost like that, though. I was starving and there was an emptiness inside of me that I didn’t know how to fill. Lucky for me, I was saved by love.
I met this wonderful Spanish-Brazilian woman, who walked right into my life and later on became my wife. One day she received a package of CD:s from her brother in Brazil, containing music from some of her favourite Brazilian artists. Instead of snearing at it, as I would have done some years before, I decided to give it a try and listen without any preconceptions. And in that decision I must have unhinged a closed door in my mind, for what entered through my ears was a completely new music sensation I hadn’t experienced before, and my world changed.
I didn’t understand a word, but the new harmonies and soft voices spoke directly to me from across the world. Djavan, Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Maria Bethania, Chico Buarque all knew how to open my eyes. Instead of stopping there I decided to look for more, everywhere I could. When I went to Spain later that year, I spent hours in record stores listening to music, and I travelled home with a lot of new music. Rock and pop in Spanish, flamenco singers, jazz and other stuff.
When music started to surge through Internet about ten years ago, I dived into it wholeheartedly in a quest to push my boundaries further and further, and I still do. Even though I listen to a wide range of music, I feel today that I’ve only scratched the surface and that there are so much more to discover for me. Compare that feeling to what I felt in the beginning of this story, when I obviously told myself that there was nothing more to discover; a horrible sensation.
I do believe that most people would have richer lives if they opened their mind for more new music and not only for what is served on the radio. 20 years ago, the possibilites were limited by the size of the record store shelves and the record label wallets, but now everything you could possibly imagine is just a click away. It sounds easy, but now the problem is the reverse, finding the true gems with your name on among loads of other gems.
The radio won’t help you. On the radio, with few exceptions, they don’t want you to hear new music, they want you to hear music you already know, because otherwise they believe that you will switch to another channel. The people below, though, can help you. These podcasters and bloggers are the ones that dive into those heaps of music trying to find something they like, and they play it for you, hoping that you will share their love for this new music.
Here are some podcasts and blogs that have played our new single “Come Together” or in some case one of our other songs in the past month; a good starting point I thought, since you begin here with us, Bus Stop Dreams.
Parasites and Sycophants is a great music blog with a tag line that led me to write my music discovery story above: “No, the music never stopped. You just let yourself get old.”
Michael Angel’s Cosmic Grab Bag
/Pär
Since we released our third single “Come Together” we’ve received quite some attention from music curators online. Especially podcast shows have played the songs “Come Together”, and I wanted to show you some of our new aquaintances among them, new for us at least.
Every Monday Justin Wayne airs his show on the net full of new independent music, interviews with artists and more. Every show can be streamed or downloaded from The Justing Wayne Show site. A lot to discover there and highly recommended if you haven’t listened to it before. We were happy to be included with the song “Come Together” a couple of weeks ago.
Steven Wheatley is a true podcast veteran. His latest Dalecast show, where he also played “Come Together”, was his 799th show since he started in 2007! There are heaps of great music to be found here, and you can download his shows on the Dalecast site.
Speaking of veterans,the Homegrown podcast started as early as 2005. Nic, the excellent host, presents not only independent music but also poetry and prose. A very nice show to discover and I’ll certainly put this one on my subscription list.
Another pleasant surprise was that Rawrcast featured Come Together the other day. Rawrcast is not a music podcast, but rather a podcast about computer gaming, with a lot of discussions and info about online-gaming and related stuff. I have since then tried to throw some fireballs to the tones of “Come Together”, and it worked perfectly.
I’ll be back with more tips about podshows and music blogs within short. /Pär
We like stuff that sounds good, things than make us sound good. Instruments and gear are very personal and to some you form relationships over time. You fall in love, you break up. They irritate or surprise you. Are cooperative or just refuse to do what you want.
So we though to we’d present some of them to you.
And don’t believe those who say that things are not alive. These things are. We promise!
This is my 12 string Ibanez. Bought sometime in the mid 80’s it’s actually the oldest instrument I still got. I’ve bought and sold a few over the years but this one has stayed. No wonder really, it sounds very good with a well collected and even sound and it’s got very easy action for being a 12-string. And getting better with age. Still a effort to tune, but it’s a 12 string isn’t it? What would you expect?
Not used that much on recordings anymore. Don’t know why really, perhaps because it doesn’t work in our current sound. But it can be heard on the second and third chorus of Come Together.
/Lasse
Imagine a cold, bleak winter morning. You are going to work and riding in an overfull bus with still almost sleeping passengers. You are all alone with all these people. Everyone is sort of staring but no one seems to be focusing on anything.
You are wishing for something more. For someone to meet your eye. So you drift off dreaming how it would be if we could come together instead of just be in the same place.
This image was the premise for Come Together and it turned out to be easy to write. Most of it, both music and lyrics come in one song writing session. I did a little search and found an mp3 mixed after that first night, with my vocals, and as you can hear most of the song is already there.
Come Together – First demo from 2009
Come Together has actually be recorded and release before with my previous band The Broken Assembly. And even though the different versions share much of the same arrangement the feeling and emotion are very different. The Broken Assembly version is lighter, more airy and have a dreamier timbre. The new version is more sparse, up front and ads a bit more realism to the lyrics I think. The difference is very much due to the different vocals. Helena Ahlbäck and Andreas Lundgren both does an excellent job of rendering meaning to the song in very different ways.
Here are both if you like to compare them
Bus Stop Dreams – Come Together featuring Andreas Lundgren
The Broken Assembly – Come Together featuring Helena Ahlbäck
Recording and producing was harder and took much longer time than writing in both cases. To me the most important quality to the song is it’s repetitiveness, almost like it’s played on a barrel organ, that nicely complements the lyrics. Still at the same time it needs to be dynamic and not to static. It’s all a matter of balance. We’ve spent a considerable amount of time trying to achieve that.
If we did succeded? We hope so, but only you can be the final judge.
/Lasse
Today our new single “Come Together” was released on music sites around the world, such as iTunes, Amazon, Wimp, our own music page of course and other sites. The only one that’s missing at the moment is Spotify, but we’ll keep you posted about that.
As with the singles before, there are two songs with two different singers on the single. This time, though, the second song, “Let Us Light a Fire” is written by Pär Enqvist, while “Come Together” is written by Lasse Thomasson.
We’re also introducing a new singer, whom we have told you about before, Andreas Lundgren, whos sings lead vocals on “Come Together”. The wonderful Ulla Wrethagen, who you’ve met before, sings on “Let Us Light a Fire”.
We’d like to think of the songs as two facets of the same subject, interpreted by Lasse and Pär and expressed in dystopic way and a rock romantic way respectively. Have a listen, and tell us what you think.
