Nasum vs England/Ireland

Posted: October 22, 2018 19:55:33 by ANDERS JAKOBSON

I stumbled upon a YouTube clip from Nasum’s show in Dublin 2002. This has been on the video platform since 2006 and I have never seen it before. Strange, but never the less exciting to see after all these years. It’s nearly ten minutes long and includes six and a half songs, i.e. these:

1. The Idiot Parade (second half)
2. Den svarta fanan

3. Löpandebandsprincipen
4. A Welcome Breeze of Stinking Air
5. Fatal Search

6. The Black Swarm
7. Multinational Murderers Network

Since Mieszko says ”We are Nasum from Sweden” after the first two songs I am slightly baffled by the song order. ”The Idiot Parade” and ”Den svarta fanan” were usually songs played at the end of a set but on this particular night they were… first? Very weird.

Unfortunately I have no saved setlists or notes from this tour but I have some memories from the only proper UK/Ireland tour Nasum did, six days in May of 2002.

This was during the trio years. Mieszko, Jesper and I were the band and prior to this tour we had been in the US in 1999, Europe in 2000 and Scandinavia and Japan in 2001 with several one-off’s and festival shows scattered around over the years. On the Scandinavian tour, supporting The Haunted, we befriended Bo Lund who was (and by all means, still is) a great sound engineer from Denmark. We brought him on the Japan tour and we brought him to this little spring tour in jolly old England.

The tour was scheduled to start in London at Mean Fiddler May 3. At this time Jesper was attending the university of Lund in southern Sweden so he went to Copenhagen and flew to London with Bo, while Miezsko and I went two hours to Skavsta Airport to catch a Ryan Air flight to London. As we had boarded the flight the troubles began. To start with, take off was postponed 30 minutes. Then the captain said that there was a technical error in the data system and they had to contact the Ryan Air headquarters in Dublin to figure it out. Then they had to turn off all of the electricity and then we had to leave the plane.

In true low-fares flights fashion the information was scarce but finally we got word that a technician from Dublin had to be flown in to fix the problem and that meant a six hour delay and that there are no guarantee that it will be fixed right away. Further more there were no guarantee that all the passengers would get a seat on the next flight to London. Chaos ensued!

I called our booking agent at the time and asked him to check out quick options. Skavsta Airport is an hour away from Stockholm and the big Arlanda airport. He found a some flights but they were ridiculously expensive. In the meantime we got a message that it was possible to reschedule our flights to the Västerås Airport, 90 minutes away by car. We saw this as the only option for us to get to London and possible make it in time for the show. I called a friend that lived near Skavsta and begged him to drive us to Västerås but it was impossible, but Mieszko found two guys in suits that had booked a taxi so we tagged along.

In Västerås everything went smooth and we landed at Stanstead Airport outside of London after two hours. We got on the express train and while in London we caught a cab and came to the venue litteraly 15 minutes before stage time. I remember saying hello to Bo and Jesper and then getting to the stage and putting my cymbals on the stands and then getting dressed for the show and then: SHOW TIME. The only great thing about all this hassle was that there was no time to get nervous!

This tour had another huge set back and that was that our merchandise wasn’t delivered in time for the first show. We had printed a large number of t-shirts at our usual place in Örebro and ordered a delivery to the venue in London, but they never got there. And we never got them during the tour and we did all six shows without having anything to sell. This meant that our income on this tour was almost next to nothing. We got some money for each show but most of it covered the nightliner bus and the agents fee. It was terrible.

A few weeks later the merch boxes came back to the printers and they really took our side and demanded the delivery firm to pay half of the printing costs, which they did so ultimately we got a bunch of merchandise pretty cheap.

All the hassle aside - it was a fun tour. The Dillinger Escape Plan was the headlining band and a band called Rabies Caste opened the shows. It was quite a kick to see DEP a few nights in a row. Really, really cool. They also had a merch guy in their crew, whose name I absolutely not can remember, who introduced me to the movie ”Donnie Darko” which became an instant favorite.

The tour was pretty short, only six dates, then the touring party continued without Nasum for another week but with Genocide Super Stars taking our place so Mieszko kept his place in the bus. I guess Bo Lund stayed as well so Jesper and I fucked off back to Sweden to different airports. I remember reading the Mötley Crüe biography ”The Dirt” on the flight back home. That I remember, but I can’t remember that merch guys name?!

This clip brought back some memories. The shows in Dublin and Belfast the following day was the first and last times Nasum played in Ireland. That never happened again, which makes me slightly sad.

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The working titles of Helvete

Posted: October 11, 2018 16:59:09 by ANDERS JAKOBSON

"Helvete" celebrated 15 years earlier this year. While going through some boxes in the basement I found this pages in a notebook from the moment Mieszko and I made up the final track order and distributed the samples between some of the songs.
replicatime.me

The notes in parentheses are descriptions of the breaks between the songs, which are nothing out of the ordinary, but the fun thing about these pages are working titles. Some of them are basically the name of the band that the song was in some way inspired by, while others are a description of the unique thing of the song. And then there are the weird ones...

(Click on the image for a bigger version...)

Here’s the list with some short explanations to why the working title was chosen. As most of the titles are in Swedish all you non Swedish-speaking people can see this as your first lesson! Here we go:

1. Arslet (Violation)

The title is Swedish for "The Arse", which stems out of "arsel" being an intensifier, as in "arselsnabb", "arselmangel" and so forth. "Violation" was a song "fast as an arse" or something. It really makes no sense in English…

2. Tool (Scoop)

The main riff in "Scoop", as played as intro, chorus and outro has a certain Tool vibe.

3. Ryckig (Living Next Door to Malice)

This is Swedish for "Jerky" which is a way to describe the short breaks and stops in the beginning of the song.

4. Plockriff (Stormshield)

Swedish for "Picking riff", which sort of describes the unique parts of this song.

5. Krånglig (Time to Discharge)

Another Swedish "-ig" word, meaning "complicated". Apparently Mieszko thought my riffs and/or arrangement was a bit of the complex kind.

6. Snapcase (Bullshit)

I would imagine that this reference to the hardcore band is connected to the final part of the song that sort of sounds like Snapcase.

7. Breach (Relics)

Yet another title referencing another band. We loved Swedish Breach and they certainly inspired this track.

8. Snabba (We Curse You All)

Swedish for "The fast (one)", as if this song is faster than any other on the album?

9. Mycket grind (Doombringer)

"Lots of grind" is the translation of this title, which came out of the multiple blastbeat parts in the second half of the song.

10. Carcass/Metallica (Just Another Hog)

Well, how about that? Two "band titles" in one song! The intro made us think of Carcass for some reason and the following verse riff is basically a version of Metallica’s "Battery" riff. Thus: "Carcass/Metallica".

11. Punkgrind (Drop Dead)

This song was inspired by the hardcore punk based blastings of Drop Dead, so the working title and the final title is no surprise…

12. Mycket käng (I Hate People)

"Käng", short for "kängpunk", is the Swedish word for crust punk or d-beat based punk. The word "känga" or "kängor" is actually "boot" or "boots". Anyway, this particular title means "Lots of d-beat parts".

13. Grindig (Go!)

Well, you know the "-ig" words by now, so this is "Grindy"!

14. Crowbar (The Final Sleep)

Yep – Crowbar brought the inspiration for this song.

15. Fladder (Slaves to the Grind)

The title means "Flutter" and is a reference to some riff in the song that has some quick finger movements.

16. Jeppe 1 (Breach of Integrity)

Jesper’s first Nasum song.

17. Death glatt slut (The Everlasting Shame)

This is a weird one. "Death" is not a reference to the band, but to "death metal", and "glatt slut" means "happy ending"… Of the song, that is, you pervert! So: "Death (metal) happy ending (of the song)".

18. Bisvärm (Your Words Alone)

"Bisvärm" is a descriptive word for a certain type of riffing that was made popular by Eucharist and At The Gates (among others) in the 90’s. It’s "Bee swarm" in English and you know what kind of riffs I am talking about.

19. Thrashgrind (Preview of Hell)

Thrash metal + grind core = thrashgrind.

20. Jeppe 3 (Illogic)

Jesper’s third Nasum song, obviously.

21. Suffer the Nasum (Whip)

This was the song we wrote with the sole intention of bringing Shane Embury to the studio to track some bass (which also happened). It has a certain Napalm Death vibe, and perhaps some extra inspiration from "Suffer the Children".

22. Orientalisk (Worst Case Scenario)

The title means "Oriental" which came out of a long intro to the song that we cut during the mixing process. It was a semi-improvised part that had a certain oriental sound, and it was featured all the way until the mixing when we decided it was too weird and that song benefited from a more direct start.

Would you like see more stuff like that? Support the Go fund me page for The Rare Nasum or buy the "Inhale/Exhale" rehearsal for as little or as much you want. There are lots of stuff in the vault just waiting to be unearthed…

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