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A book featuring me

Did I ever tell you I’m featured in a book? Yes, one of those thick things you read before falling asleep. If you didn’t know, it’s ok, because neither did I until just a few months ago when I walked into a bookstore in Sweden and picked it out by chance.

The book is called “Kampen om Saab” (the struggle for Saab) and was written by Svenska Dagbladet reporter Jonas Fröberg. Like I said, I spotted it whilst browsing through Akademibokhandeln in Stockholm. I had heard about the book previously but never felt inclined to buy it for whatever reason. I decided to have a quick read there and then.

To my surprise I discovered that the very first chapter, entitled “heart and soul”, read (translated):

He made up his mind on Christmas Eve 2009. The 24 year old shop assistant David Blumberg from Skärholmen, outside of Stockholm, started composing a song, which he would put on YouTube to support his favourite car brand.

I almost fell off my chair! Did I read that correctly? Is that Griffin Up! he’s talking about? Sure enough, an excerpt of the lyrics followed and some impressive YouTube stats for my video. Obviously I had to keep reading. Convinced of its quality I purchased the book about ten minutes later and continued reading at home.

This book is definitely a good read and offers some very interesting views and insights I hadn’t known about previously. It details Saab’s struggle between 2009 and 2011, with a quick introduction to the brand and its history.

I enjoyed reading it a great deal and devoured its content in just three weeks. I’m not usually a quick reader but the thriller-like intensity of it kept me hooked through out. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in Saab.

My edition of the book ends on a bit of a sour note, in june 2011, when things weren’t looking good at all, just six months before Saab’s bankruptcy. Of course, that’s all history by now and, as we all know, NEVS picked up the pieces and is set on an electric future for Saab.

So there you have it. My effort to help Saab when it was needed the most made it into a really cool book, without me even knowing about it. That’s pretty rad if you ask me :-)

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The Music of Life :: Mailah I

This is the fourth post in a series called The Music of Life which details the songs and videos produced by me and the stories behind them.

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Mailah I

About three years ago a friend of mine showed me a guitar melody he had created. I was blown away the moment I heard it and immediately wrote a harmonising melody to accompany his. The result was spectacular. Inspired, I later tried to write something similar but with a more modern touch, since the original had been quite medieval in style. What I really wanted was to write an entire song based on just two intertwining guitars, weaving in and out, and harmonising with each other. Admittedly, I ended up adding more bits and pieces to the song as I went along, but I tried very hard not to overrun the original idea.

My fourth music video was perhaps never meant to be so direct and simple. I am  after all a big fan of artistic videos teeming with special effects and strange camera angles. But whilst trying to imagine a visual story, all I saw was openness; a sense of vastness and space. As it happened, I had some shots in my library from a recent hike, which fit the description perfectly.

Mailah I is featured on my debut album I’m not lying. I’m telling stories.

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Why EV Saab is cool

I would like to present four reasons why I think EV Saab is cool. In fact, not only cool, but down-right awesome.

1. EV Saab 9-3 Sedan

The classic sedan.

2. EV Saab 9-3 Combi

The practical, versatile and very handsome family car.

3. EV Saab 9-3 Crossover

Go off-road in style with this Swedish mountain goat.

4. EV Saab 9-3 Convertible

The icon of Saab’s fleet: an all-weather four seater convertible.

So why is this so cool? Because NEVS has the ingredients to release all four of these models, making it the world’s foremost producer of electric cars.

Very few car manufacturers today offer electric vehicles, and those that do, carry only a single model. We already know that Saab developed an electric version of the 9-3 convertible well before the sale to NEVS, so that’s model number one in the bag. It seems plausible that the engineers thought ahead and designed the electric drivetrain so it could easily be fitted to any of the 9-3 models. That’s model number two, three and four.

Result: NEVS could offer customers four times as many models as anyone else, including the first ever EV convertible and crossover. That would unquestionably propel NEVS and Saab to the forefront of cutting edge EV technology and position itself years ahead of any competitor. And that’s not even including the next generation EV vehicles based on the Phoenix platform…

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The Music of Life :: Mr. Backwards

This is the third post in a series called The Music of Life which details the songs and videos produced by me and the stories behind them.

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Mr. Backwards

This one has an interesting backstory. It all started with a simple guitar progression, dreamed up one day when I probably had nothing better to do. I quickly added some words to it, but I was never convinced, so the song was placed on the shelf for quite some time. It was not until a jam session with a friend that this one resurfaced. I just kept playing the progression over and over while my friend added words to it. It turned out to be pretty cool so we decided to meet up soon again to record our creation.

We never ended up recording together. Instead, I decided to rewrite the song yet again, why exactly I can’t remember since I could’ve just recorded it the way it was. The song was pretty good after all. At the time I was philosophically pondering conservatism and wondered if I could fit those ponderings into a song. The result is this semi-cryptic critic of conservatism, masked as a relationship story between two people – one conservative, the other not.

Mr. Backwards is featured on my debut album I’m not lying. I’m telling stories.

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The Music of Life :: Luftslott

This is the second post in a series called The Music of Life which details the songs and videos produced by me and the stories behind them.

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Luftslott

The sweet feeling of a summer’s day in Stockholm. That’s what it’s all about. It was one of those amazing days, when the sun burns your skin and the atmosphere feels like nothing you could ever describe. Me and a very good friend of mine were strolling trough the city, sharing stories from the past year. I was studying abroad at the time and only went home in the summers, so there was a lot of catching up to do. As our steps took us along the waterline and crowded boulevards, I began to reflect. Sometimes you make decisions in life that in hindsight feel a bit rash, perhaps even foolish. Reflections of just this kind surfaced that day, and lingered on long into the night. There was really no other choice but to write about it.

My second attempt at a music video was supposed to be as abstract as possible, yet still feature recognisable elements through out. At the time I was heavily in love with Regina Spektor, and I watched many of her music videos. One that really caught my attention was Eet, in which, you must admit, she looks stunning. That aside though, what I really also liked about the clip were the strange camera angles, choice of colors and stop-motion effects. So that was my inspiration. The location had to be Stockholm of course, and as it happened, it was just a few weeks before the royal wedding of Crown Princess Victoria and Daniel, so the city was covered in all sorts of interesting things.

Luftslott is featured on my debut album I’m not lying. I’m telling stories.