IN MEMORY OF MIESZKO TALARCZYK

EULOGY BY ANDERS JAKOBSON

"Mieszko never had the chance to be a hero or a survivor. He most likely died in the first wave. I do know that the last thing he did was to protect his girlfriend so in my eyes he died as a hero."

I've written so many texts about Mieszko now that I've lost count. This is by far the most difficult one to write. I have a draft somewhere that I wrote as I was waiting for a band to start at a concert. In my head I have hundreds more, and thousands of memories. What should I share? What should I keep for myself?

The other day I was reading one of Sweden's biggest newspapers online and read the headline "Three months after the tsunami" and I thought that the headline obviously was old, but it made me realize that soon it will be six months since the tsunami. About the same time as the annual Swedish festival in Hultsfred - which Nasum was supposed to play at - it'll be half a year since Mieszko died.

Time flies even though you've lost a friend.

I still have a hard time understanding everything.
Mieszko is dead.
I can visit his grave any day I want.
A year ago we were writing songs "for Shift".
It all doesn't add up in my head.

I loved writing songs with Mieszko. We had some uncanny bond when we played together. It just clicked. It was always like that. The first time that I met Mieszko (as a musician at least) was in Necrony's rehearsal room. We were jamming with a mutual friend. At one point I ended up behind the drums and Mieszko picked up the guitar and bashed out one great grindcore riff after the other. I was amazed. Rickard Alriksson and I had already started Nasum and thought we were the only grindcore freaks in Örebro. I asked Mieszko what he was playing and he said that he just made it up.

We never really jammed much in Nasum. It worked better for us to present complete songs, but during the years Mieszko and I have played a little bit of everything and it has always clicked.

I will forever miss that.

I dream about Mieszko almost every night. Just after the tsunami I dreamt he was a hero, saving people's lives. Then I dreamt that he just called me one day, and spoke in that lazy voice he could have when he was tired. I've also dreamt - and this probably a thousand times - that we are on stage again ready to do what we did best. But it's only dreams.

Mieszko never had the chance to be a hero or a survivor. He most likely died instantly in the first wave of the tsunami. I do know, though, that the last thing he did was to protect his girlfriend Emma, so in my eyes he died as a hero. Not many people do that.

As my fellow Nasum members have written, Mieszko was no saint. At times I hated his guts, and he hated mine. We couldn't really argue with each other since we reacted the same way. It was pointless and useless. We were really different in our lives outside Nasum, but regardless of what we thought of each other at difficult times, we had a mutual respect for each other. We loved to grind, goddamnit!

After his funeral I spent most of my time finishing the "Grind Finale" project and since I kind of was out on dark water working with sound and music, something that always was Mieszko's part in Nasum, I often thought of what Mieszko would have thought about my work.

When the collection is finally printed I will bring a copy to his grave and maybe he can bless my final Nasum work in some way. I hope so. And I hope that he can in some way read all the nice words that has been said about him. At least that's what I hope when I stand at his grave.

I will forever miss you, Mieszko.

Anders Jakobson

Jon: "I still pick up the phone to call you just to ask if you think we'll go to Japan soon or if that drummer still sucks /.../ and I remember there is no one on the other side of the line."

Urban: "He really tried living his life to the fullest and since he was such an efficient person I think he, for the most part, succeeded in doing so."

Jesper: "I regularly find myself chuckling when I'm on the subway or walking around and come to think of Mieszko's moronically funny sense of humor, or some stupid situation we have been in."