The Sator Biography
The Early Years
pre-Sator
1977
Michael Ohlson got his first drum kit (a snare drum and a high-hat) from his mother.
November 11th - Inspired by the punk movement from England, Chips
formed his first band The Rats
(members unknown). The very first thing the group did was getting stickers
and telling everyone they had a band. (Chips mother draw the rat on the
sticker).
The band's first rehearsals took place in Torbjörn
Lind's bedroom a week later on acoustic guitars
(amplified through a tape recorder) and cardboard boxes for drums.
1978
After lots of line up changes The Rats ended up as a
trio and changed name to Skandal. The band was now Chips Kiesbye on bass, Torbjörn Lind on vocals,
guitar and Tomas Jonsson on drums.
It took all of 1978 to obtain instruments (not always legally) and learn
how to use them. Chips first bass was a Duke obtained for 300SEK (legally
by the way).
The set list contained mostly covers of Wire
("12XU"), The Ramones ("Judy is is a punk",
"I don't care" and "Now I wanna sniff some glue"), Vibrators
("Yeah yeah yeah"), Slaughter and The Dogs
("We don't care") and Devo ("Mongoloid").
Later the band started writing their own material songs like "Kill
them all" and "Storm trooper" all very much in the Ramones
vein.
We rehearsed at the school's leisure centre every Saturday and Sunday between 6 and 12 PM. We were always there on the minute 'cause we really needed all the time we could get. I wouldn't get up at 6 to rehearse nowadays, that's for sure.
Chips
The punk scene in Borlänge wasn't very big in 1978.
It consisted of around 15 punks and maybe 20 "sympathizers".
And as in every small town everyone is aware of each other so it was big
news when Michael Olsson (just a couple of blocks away from Skandal) formed
Sinuit with Anders
Lindström and Mikael Weinestad.
Skandal went to see them rehearse and the two bands played a private show
for each other.
I was very impressed by Skandal, especially their drummer but there was no competition between the bands. We knew that we had to stick together.
Michael
Michael's band's would change members and names
several times.
Some of the names were: The Wombats,
Kaos, Maniacs
(with Peo Ericsson,
later in Sator Codex),
Sune Senils Trio,
Burglars,
Assbests,
Spliff...
The band in various line-ups played several shows in Borlänge and
Falun during 79-80.
1979
At the end of March, Skandal played their first show at Domnarvets skola in Borlänge (a school) supporting two other punk bands on tour together, Disturbers and Fan Club. Both came from other small towns in the region. The second Skandal gig took place a week later on April 6 at Humlan, a Christian youth club. Once again with the same bands on the bill.
The two shows was really a success for us. The small but enthusiastic crowd loved us. Disturbers and Fan Club did not ask us to join them on any more dates.
Chips
In May the band Kaos played a show at their
rehearsal place. This band contained ofMichael Olsson, Chips Kiesbye, Torbjörn
Lind and Mikael Weinestad.
This was just a one-off side project.
It was the first time Michael and Chips played in the same band.
Some songs from the set list: "Pink Flag" (Wire), "Pure
Mania" (Vibrators),
"My Generation" (The Who),
"No Brains" (Eater).
Skandal broke up during the summer of 79 after a third an final gig at the boy's school.
I don't remember too much about why we broke up, but I do recall a big fight about trying to tone down the punk image of the band 'cause Tomas and Torbjörn was worried about not getting their summer holiday jobs if they looked too punky. There was an article about the band in the local paper and we tried to look all nice for that reason. I hated that article and I left the band straight after that.
Chips
Torbjörn and Tomas got their jobs and quit music. Torbjörn Lind moved to America. Nothing further is known about his whereabouts. Tomas Jonsson, the drummer, died in 1999 in an mountain climber accident.
Chips formed Brülbåjz with Michael Olsson on drums, Peo Ericsson on guitar, Stefan "Taggen" Johansson on vocals and Mikael Weinestad on guitar. All "true" punks. They did only one show in Falun, sometime in August 79, before breaking up.
The show was a total disaster. Taggen had the flue and "Weine" was way too drunk. We were all so disappointed that we broke up but we remained friends.
Michael
Nov 21st - Another one-off gig. Maniacs played at Humlan. The line-up this time was Michael, Chips, Peo, Lars Eliasson (on vocals) and Mikael Weinestad. This was actually 3 out of 4 of the upcoming Sator Codex members. After this night Chips and Peo returned to their own project Brülbåjz and Michael and Mikael started Burglars with Anders Rehnsted (the last missing piece in the Sator Codex puzzle) on bass and Mikael on guitar.
Sadly (or luckily?) there are no studio recordings of any of Chips and Michael's first bands. Some lo-fi (closer to no-fi) rehearsal tapes still exists.
1980
One of few existing photos of Brülbĺyz, taken in 1980 (photographer unknown)In January, Brülbåjz reformed but this time
with Chips on bass, Peo on guitar, Stefan "Taggen" Johansson
on vocals and Tomas Olsson
on drums.
Tomas had never played drums when he joined the band, but he had the right
haircut and attitude. Brülbåjz played no covers, just original
songs (all in Swedish).
We tried to learn "Boris The Spider" by The Who but it didn't work out. There were just too many chords in the song!
Chips
The band was actually called Brülbåjz (LLR). The LLR stood for "Legoland Rockers" which was our first name for a couple of days but no one ever said the LLR part
Peo Ericsson
Brülbåjz is some sort of fake Swedish/English for The Brylcreem Boys. They were some local thugs who used to beat us up. It was our way of getting our revenge by naming a punkband after them.
Chips
This line up only played four shows:
Borlänge - Gylleskolan on the graduation day in their school together
with one of Michael's bands (name unknown, possibly Bokassa
Brothers)
Malung - A punk festival with SST, The
End, Sarah Coffman...
Malung - Folkets park (other bands unknown)
Borlänge - IOGT with Sune Studs,
Traste och Superstararna, Bokassa Brothers...
I don't think we ever expected any success or recognition. A punkband in a small town in Sweden in 1980 couldn't get any shows unless you arranged them yourself, and there were no record labels signing punks. We didn't even think it was possible to make a record until we heard about a band called PF Commando who had released an album on their own label. We found the address to a studio and a pressing plant in a fanzine called "RIP" and decided to do a single.
Chips
In late autumn 1980 Brülbåjz went to Stockholm to record their only single; "Dödens apostlar/EAP/Underhållningsvåld".
We had actually planned to record five songs since they were so short. We thought we could make it in an hour or so. It took six hours to do just three songs! We didn't know anything about the studio and how it works. I remember that I had brought the Borstal Breakout single by Sham 69 as a reference but the engineer said, you can't have the guitars that loud it's not possible!
Chips
500 copies of the single was released on the band's
own label, Prylén Records.
The first 200 copies came with hand-painted letters
on the front, some also came with an insert. EAP have now been released
on several compilations with rare punk tracks all over the world, and
the single is quite expensive today. The photo of the burning mannequin on the sleeve was taken outside Bokassa
Brothers rehearsal place. The house would later become Sator Codex rehearsal
place. (It was also the location of the Kaos show in -79)
The photo was taken by Michael Olsson.
He wasn't in the band at the time but he was the only one we knew who had a camera.
Chips
In December, the band broke up again, after not even one year together. The main reason for the break-up was the same old "musical differences".
I had written a new song which I thought was the best one I've ever done. It was called "Jag vill ut". Taggen refused to sing it saying it was too much AC/DC. That was really the end of the band. Me and Peo agreed that it was time to move on, so once again we went after the best punk drummer in town, Michael Olsson. And this time we managed to convince him that he should join us. He brought along his bass player Anders Rehnstedt so I had to switch to guitar. I had no problem with that 'cause I already wrote all my songs on guitar.
Chips
During 1980 Michael had kept on going with another million different line-ups and name changes. First Bokassa Brothers then as Spliff.
Spliff: (probably late summer 1980)
Michael Olsson - Drums
Anders Rehnstedt - Bass
Mikael Weinestad - Guitar
A. Ryshaasen - Guitar, vocals
Stefan Johansson moved up north in the woods and was never heard from again. Tomas Olsson now works as an ambulance driver. Both quit music after the break up. Mikael Weinestad kept on playing music in the short-lived act "Cyklon B" in 81/82. The band also featured two former members of Runo Spotters, Sten Hårdbåge and Morgan Källström. Sten Hårdbåge now runs the record label "Outside Society Productions" and Morgan Källström later started a band with Zip Jonsson (after Zip left Sator Codex).
SATOR CODEX BIOGRAPHY
1981
JANUARY 1981
Sator Codex was formed.
Chips Kiesbye - Guitar, vocals
Peo Ericsson - Guitar, vocals
Anders Rehnstedt - Bass
Michael Olsson - Drums
Leif Rosén joined the band with his synthesizer in April. He had previously played with Zymotic Swiebeck in 1979/80, a punk band that never performed live (other members unknown).
The early Sator Codex music
could be described as equal parts of Dead Kennedys
and Black Sabbath to simplify it. Chips
and Peo brought along some of the last written Brülbåjz songs
to the new band. Like "Jag vill ut" and "Idol".
"Jag vill ut" was actually recorded by Troublemakers
in 1996 for the Sator tribute album.
Michael: "We wanted a non-punk name to mark the new start. After lots of suggestions like X-con, Gigas Codex, Sator Arepo... We agreed upon a mix between the two last ones. It's Latin but it doesn't really mean anything when you put the two words together. Sator means something like creator, bringer of light or sower. (It has nothing to do with Satan). Codex means book among other things."
Chips: "We had no idea what it meant. It just sounded pretty cool to us and it differed us from all the other bands in town. If we had known how many times we would be asked about the name we would have called us "The 5 rocking guys" instead."
APRIL 1981
The first Sator Codex show took place probably in
April in the band's rehearsal place, a basement in the middle of town.
Leif Rosén had just joined the band but did only participate on one
song 'cause he was still learning the set.
It was sold out which meant 60—70 people. Support band was Runo
Spotters, this night reinforced by Kent
Norberg on guitar.
As intro the band used Throbbing Gristle's
"2nd annual report" album.
Chips: "The audience wasn't exactly thrilled but it didn't really matter. We felt like pioneers and we knew that we were great. The world was wrong!"
The music still had a big part punk in it but during the year the music turned darker and the punk influences got replaced by others, mainly UK bands like Cabaret Voltaire, Killing Joke, Bauhaus and everything else on the 4AD label.
Michael: "Another
big influence was the "video explosion" We had big parties at
our rehearsal place every weekend watching a lot (!!) of horror movies
and drinking beer.
Movies like Texas Chainsaw massacre, Tourist trap, Cannibal Holocaust,
Beyond.
Horror and fear was always present. It a was very strange time."
JUNE 1981
The original line-up only played one more show.
It was at a big graduation party for all the schools in town.
The band's brutal music and the weird stage-show in a near total darkness
(with a faked execution of a mannequin) did not go down well with the
audience. The promoter refused to pay for the show, the band's already
bad reputation got even worse.
Michael: "We were said to be everything from drug addicts to satanists, all untrue but it made it impossible to get any more shows for a long time. This among other things caused frustration and problems in the group."
DECEMBER 1981
The band fell apart. Peo left to form Oi
Division with Kent Norberg, Laban Söderström,
Dan Rigtorp (who will much much later
do a show as drummer with Baby Demons),
and Per Karlsson.
Anders Rehnstedt left the music business. He now works in a gold mine
in Arizona.
1982
JANUARY—MAY 1982
Hans Gäfvert joined the band on synthesizer.
Hans: "I was at a new years eve party in town when Michael approached me. I followed him down to the band's basement for a jam session. I'm surprised that I sat my foot in there after the things I'd heard about those weirdoes. A couple of days later they asked me to join the band".
Hans had previously been the a Ska-band called "Svensk Massage". Some time later the band found a singer in Zip Jonsson who was a friend of Hans.
Spring 1982 line-up
Chips Kiesbye - Guitar, synthesizer
Hans Gäfvert - Synthesizer
Leif Rosén - Synthesizer
Zip Jonsson - Vocals
Michael Olsson - Drums
During the spring this line up did two sold out
shows which was very successful.
Even the audience loved it for the first time. But the situation in the
band was not good.
Chips: "Most of us didn't like the new all-synthesizers sound or the stage show with 3 dancers! We were turning into a symphonic synth band! Not my idea of fun. So the band broke up again".
Leif Rosén left to join IQ 19 and later Blue Crow Men before leaving music entirely to become a shaman instead.
JUNE 1982
At this years graduation party Sator Codex got a
second chance from the promoter to repair last years chaos. He had heard
so much good about "the new" Sator Codex. It was not to happen
that way.
Since half the band had already left Hans, Michael and Chips wrote some
new songs in a couple of days and played the show anyway under the group
name 337.
The band looked like straight from a horror movie!
Chips was dressed all in black and masked like a terrorist/bank robber,
Hans as the elephant man and Michael looked like a zombie.
The music was close to industrial noise with lyrics about rape, murder,
drugs and so on. Most of the audience really hated the noise and screaming from
the stage.
The promoter wasn't to happy either and once again the band didn't get
paid and it was all back to scratch again... Not a very clever career
move.
A tape of this show still exists and was part of the "Forgotten Songs"
cassette.
Chips: "We now also lost our rehearsal place and it was all in shambles really. It didn't look good at all. I thought about leaving town for good."
JULY—DECEMBER 1982
It took several months to find a new place. But
after finding an empty bomb-shelter to rehearse in the band started working
again. Now it was back to a harder guitar oriented sound.
They tried out several new members but it didn't really work out. Peo
Ericsson returned for a short period on bass and Laban Söderström
also tried the bass spot for a week. Laban was later in Blue
Crow Men (You'll hear this name again). He also played with Space
Age Baby Jane in the 90's.
But nothing really worked so the band decided to continue without a bass
player.
Some of the songs written
during this period was "Stuck in the ground" and "Final
Curtain".
In December a scheduled come back show as "Sator Codex and Friends"
got cancelled 'cause the band still had no line-up. Instead two bands
played.
Peo, Michael and Mia Wikdahl became Friends
doing among other things a punk version of Popcorn!
Chips and Hans did their part of the job as The
Flying Flopbops, a "synth-a-billy" band doing covers.
Hans: "This was just a one-off thing quickly thrown together so we didn't have to cancel the show completely. it was supposed to be like a cross between Suicide and The Silicon Teens".
Chips: "The audience didn't exactly go crazy about us, I must say, but it was a perfect messy ending for a messy year".
1983
After living in Stockholm for a while Zip Jonsson returns and persuades Chips, Michael and Hans to give it one more try. But no synthesizers and dancers this time.
This became the next line-up:
Chips Kiesbye - Guitar
Hans Gäfvert - Synthesizer
Zip - Vocals
Michael Olsson - Drums
Howling was written but was called "Schäferhund". Most of the songs only had swedish lyrics but the band often talked about doing English lyrics instead.
APRIL 1983
The music got better and for the first time the
band got a short article in the local paper. But it did not work this
time either. After just one show at a local talent contest, one million
arguments and a thousand "major crisises" the band went to pieces.
Mia Wikdahl was added on synthesizer for the talent contest show. The
band did not win.
After the break-up Zip moved to Germany to become a painter and has not
been heard from since.
Mia Wikdahl eventually ended up in Stukas,
who did several records in the 90's.
Michael left the band to join Buy Six.
Chips left as well. The only remaining members were Hans and Zip.
Hans: "Zip was a great showman but not really a singer, and we all wanted to move on to something new. There was no way this band could have stayed together!"
JUNE 1983
Sator Codex had been checking out Kent and Björn
Clarin's band "Buy Six" a for a while and was very impressed
by they way they sang harmonies. Michael had already played one show with
"Buy Six" in early June. Chips was the sound engineer that night.
Chips: "We had known Kent for a long time and we always ended up talking about music at parties so I guess it really was just a matter of time before we ended up in the same band. He just to come to our rehearsals in -81 and we would play Monkees and Beatles songs until the other guys arrived. We talked about me joining Buy Six as well but I guess it was just part of a plan to reform Sator Codex with Kent and Björn."
A new line-up, another change
in music and the lyrics now in English.
Chips Kiesbye - Guitar
Hans Gäfvert - Synthesizer
Björn Clarin - Vocals, synthesizer
Kent Norberg - Bass, vocals
Michael Olsson - Drums
The very first thing the band did was to enter the "Björbo Studion" to record "Final Curtain" (A song from the last line-up with new lyrics) and She Falls (A reworked Buy Six number).
Kent: "It was actually done as a demo for some German record label, but nothing came out of it".
The rest of the old material was thrown away. A few songs were kept from the Buy Six repertoire.
Michael: "Finally, after 2 years of chaos, the search was over. It all fell into place".
Lots of songs were written during the summer and autumn of 83. Some would end up on the "Wanna start a fire?" album (Leech for example).
1984
JANUARY 1984
The band entered "Björbostudion"
to record their debut single. The song Howling was another leftover with
new lyrics from the previous line-up. Middle East Mix was written just
a couple of days earlier.
The first show with the new line-up took place at "Pelarsalen"
in Borlänge.
During the next months the rehearsal room was filled with hand painted
covers for the single.
Björn: "It was horrible. We found out that 1000 copies is a lot when you have to glue them together, spray paint them and make a hand print on every copy. It took several weeks and the place smelled paint for months!"
AUGUST 1984
After some problems with the pressings the single
is finally released on the band's own label. The reviews were good and
the single was even played on national radio. Sales were harder but it
helped the band to get shows outside their hometown. This autumn the band
played more shows than the first 3 years put together.
Chips: "We even did several shows in a row. We had never done that in any of our bands before. We were finally on tour and we loved it!"
Kent: "We were supposed to support The Cult in Karlstad which was a big step for us. The Cult came, checked the place and decided it wasn't big enough for them. They just took all the booze and left but they didn't take the beer so we had lots of beer for free. Great! We played the show anyway".
DECEMBER 1984
The year ended with a homecoming show in Borlänge
in front of 400 people. The biggest show for the band so far. A very good
end of a very good year.
Hans: "It felt like we were finally going somewhere. We got shows all over Sweden, they played our record on the radio. At least we had a chance now".
1985
JANUARY—AUGUST 1985
Kent got drafted by the army so the band could only
rehearse every weekend. Michael and Hans kept working as salesmen at a
hardware store and Chips worked nights at a bakery.
Only a few shows could be booked and most of the time was spent on writing
new material. An 8-song demo was made on a porta studio: Inflammable Hymn,
Sacred Blade, Scapegoat's final act, Kiss me and bleed, Stuck in the ground,
Master of the universe, You need me and The man who's never been. The
last three would show up again on the debut album. The demo was sent to
every record label in Sweden. They all said, "No
thanks. You must sing in Swedish to get a deal." But two of
the demos were released on a cassette compilation called Bai-Bang released
by the Gothenburg based fanzine Res Publika.
The band was also invited by the radio DJ Lars
Aldman (The John Peel of Sweden)
to do a show in Gothenburg for the radio show "Bommen" (who
actually first played the Howling single).
Chips: "We started to go to Gothenburg every weekend cause there was always something interesting happening. Peo Ericsson, our first guitar player, had moved there as well which meant that we had somewhere to stay. I think we met Freddie Wadling, the singer in Cortex, at a Psychic TV show and he introduced us to the guys at Radium Records".
Hans: "We had a meeting at the Radium office and we said -Hey we wanna make a record on your label. They said we haven't heard you, are you any good? So we told them yeah we're great! That's how we got signed".
Michael: "They wanted to start with a single but we told them that we had already done a single so it's time for an album now".
The band also got signed by the booking agency DMR who had actually heard the demo. It was pretty obvious that Gothenburg was the town for Sator Codex.
AUGUST—NOVEMBER 1985
At end of August the band started working in Music-A-Matic
studio in Gothenburg with Henryk Lipp
producing. After two weeks 9 songs were recorded and mixed. Leech, Reality,
The man who's never been, Fete for lost souls, Howling, You need me, Chimera,
Party Frenzy and Master of the universe. All songs written by the band
apart from the last one which is the classic Hawkwind
number. This became the Wanna start a fire? album. A take of Inflammable
Hymn exists as well but it was never finished.
At a band meeting just prior to the recording sessions Björn Clarin
informed the rest of the band that he wanted to leave the group. It was
decided that he would stay until the end of the year to record the album
and fulfil the already booked tour including a show in Oslo, Norway, the
first one outside Sweden.
Kent: "We all knew that the band had reached a turning point even before we recorded the album. We wanted to go in different directions. We wanted to leave the dark gothic sound behind us. Björn wanted to more synth based stuff and we wanted more guitars. The album was like a document of Sator Codex 82-85. We just wanted to get it down on tape and move on. Sadly I now think we picked the wrong songs. There were a couple of much better ones that we just threw away".
DECEMBER 1985
Björn Clarin left the band to start Blue Crow
Men with Leif Rosén and Laban Söderström, two other ex-members.
A single from the album was released. Leech backed with She falls from
the -83 session.
Chips and Kent took over the vocals.
Kent: "I don't think we ever thought about getting another singer. We were a too close unit to bring someone new in".
1986
JANUARY 1986
SATOR CODEX:
Chips Kiesbye - Guitar, vocals
Hans Gäfvert - Synthesizer
Kent Norberg - Bass, vocals
Michael Olsson - Drums
The exodus started. Chips moved to Gothenburg and Kent to Stockholm. On January 29th the new Sator Codex made their debut at "Barowiak" in Uppsala.
Hans: "After 5 years of looking we had found the perfect line up and the show was great. We didn't get paid but were promised everything for free in the bar. That was a very bad business deal for the club actually".
FEBRUARY—JULY 1986
The album was released and the first major tour
was booked. it ended May 17 in Oslo with a big show together with Backstreet
Girls, Cortex and Holy Toy.
The band took the summer off. Kent, Michael and Hans all moved to Gothenburg.
Chips also found time for guitar sessions on Blue
For Two's first album. Henryk Lipp and Freddie Wadling's act.
AUGUST 1986
After the summer holiday the band kept on touring.
At the "Hultsfred Festival" 3000 people saw the band. Another
record broken.
SEPTEMBER—OCTOBER 1986
The single Scales to Skin/Crusade (Gonna start a
fire) was recorded. This was the first evidence of the new faster and
harder sound.
Chips: "We talked all the time about changing the group's name but the shows kept on coming so I guess we chickened out and kept on going for while".
Chips went on tour with Blue for Two. On October 24 a quick video is filmed for Crusade.
NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 1986
Chips returned to Sator Codex and The "Maniac
Misery Tour" tour continued.
It would take the band from the south of Sweden all the way up to Tromsö
in Norway. (Far above the polar circle!) It was a very hard winter in
Norway this year and the band's van crashes two(!) times during this tour.
Michael: "The tour in Norway was a totally crazy adventure. So much bad things happened that you could write a whole book about those two weeks alone. Car accidents, no gas money, rednecks trying to beat us up, engine failure in the middle of nowhere and so on. But at the same time it was great fun and it really tightened up the band".
The tour ended back in Gothenburg on December 12
At the end of the month the new single was released. It was pressed in
only 1250 copies which were sold out in a week. For some reason no further
copies were ever made.
1987
JANUARY—MARCH 1987
This was a pretty slow time for the band. Chips
recorded an album with Marie & The Wildwood
Flowers and a solo track (heavily influenced by Stravinskij)
for the compilation "Gothenburg 86/87".
Hans (Under the pseudonym Dikko) and
Michael also contributed to the album. They both appeared on a track by
Peter Hagdahl.
Some new songs were written. And a new rehearsal
place had to be found again.
In March a couple of songs (Scales to Skin and Leech) were recorded live
at "Errols" in Gothenburg for a TV-show.
APRIL—MAY 1987
Chips worked on a single with Blue For Two. He also
engineered lots of sessions with various bands in the Music-A-Matic Studio
between the Sator Codex gigs.
The last Sator Codex tour took place between April 1st until it ended were it all began. In Borlänge on May 29th, after six years and 90 shows Sator Codex played their last show and was gone forever. All the old material was scrapped, apart from the last single and "Leech" which would still show up occasionally as an encore for another year.
1987
JUNE 1987
The old material was thrown out, and the band started
all over again. New songs were written. The only two songs that survived
the "clean-up" were Scales To Skin and Crusade (Gonna Start
a Fire) from the single they recorded after Björn Clarin left the
band. Apart from writing new Sator material, Chips was also hired as session
guitarist and engineer for the second Blue for Two album "Songs From
a Pale and Bitter Moon". He can also be heard on their debut album
from 1986.
THE RECORDING OF SLAMMER!
JULY 1987
Mon 6th - The band entered the Music-A-Matic studio
in Gothenburg with Michael Ilbert as
a producer and engineer. The guys first met Ilbert during the recording
of the Sator Codex album almost two years earlier. The recording budget
was extremely limited, so the sessions would have to take place during
the hours whenever the studio was available. This would continue for the
following 3 weeks (between Blue for Two sessions) mostly late at night.
Seven backing tracks (drums and bass only) were recorded. What You Are
is What You Get/ So Cold Without a Gun/Wasting Time/Gamma Gamma Hey!/Snakepit
Rebel(Originally titled Dog Shit City)/Bughouse Baby/Angel Angel.
AUGUST 1987
Tue 18th - Kent, Chips, Michael, Hans and Ilbert
stacked all the gear into a rental car and drove off to Brussels.
Wed 19th - The band arrived to "Daylight Studios" at midnight
to start working on the backing tracks they recorded in Gothenburg. Gilles
Martin has been hired as an additional producer. Most of the album
is recorded during the next 11 days.
That was all the recording budget (30 000 SEK) allowed. To keep the costs
down, the studio was booked between midnight and 8.00 in the mornings.
Even though the band had been in a studio before, it was very much a learning
process for all of them, including Michael Ilbert. This was his first
album as a producer.
Chips - "We knew exactly what we wanted, but not how to get it, so we tried everything, sometimes we succeeded, sometimes we failed completely. Amplifiers caught on fire, and guitars got smashed. We destroyed a lot of equipment along the way. It was all done very fast and without much thinking."
Kent told a German magazine some years later: "We didn't have a clue on singing techniques, like warming up for example. We went in to the studio, shouted at the top of our lungs for 15 minutes until our voices broke down. That was our idea of a good vocal take."
Kent - "The song Snakepit Rebel was first recorded as Dog Shit City with different lyrics and another completely different melody line. Thankfully we came to our senses and reworked the words and vocals."
Gilles Martin, already an experienced engineer and producer, was a great help to the band and Ilbert. They learned a lot about recording and producing during the sessions with Gilles. He had been recommended by Minimal Compact, a Brussels based band, whom Sator Codex supported on a couple of gigs in 1986.
Hans - "We really learned a lot from Gilles. The whole atmosphere was very chaotic. We slept on floors, our drummer disappeared for a couple of days, cars broke down, we got into fights with the locals and so on. One night; on our way home from the studio we even got stopped by police officers with machine guns. We seemed to attract chaos and trouble wherever we went."
Since some of the lyrics were still incomplete, most of the daytime was spent writing.
SEPTEMBER 1987
Thurs 3rd - Ilbert and the boys returns to Gothenburg
with 5 finished songs. So Cold Without a Gun and Snakepit Rebel were still
lacking of vocals. The money was all gone by that time, so all further
recordings were postponed.
Michael - "We knew we had a great album on the way but we didn't have the money to finish it. We were all unemployed and Radium Records was a very small label."
Kent - "We sweeped floors, cleaned toilets and even painted the goddamn ceiling at the studio for some extra free hours."
Mon 14th - Chips embarked on a 27 date Blue For Two tour. Between the gigs he also engineered several studio sessions with various projects.
Tue 22nd - Scales to Skin backing tracks at Music-A-Matic studio.
OCTOBER 1987
The Blue for Two tour continues.
Wed 7th - Keyboard tracks on Scales to Skin.
NOVEMBER 1987
More work for Chips engineering for The
Stonefunkers.
DECEMBER 1987
Tue1st - Sator was back at Music-A-Matic with some
newly earned studio time (mostly sneaking in after midnight).
Thurs 3rd - Pigvalley beach was written.
Mon 7th - The backing tracks to the Eurodisco-joke Oh Mama were recorded.
Chips - "We even talked about recording the Kiss song Heaven's on Fire, but it never got past rehearsals."
Mon 28th — Thurs 31 - During these sessions, Pigvalley Beach was recorded and the missing vocals on the last two Brussels tracks gets done. The new version of Scales to Skin was also completed.
1988
JANUARY 1988
Fri 1st - Mon 11th - During several short sessions,
the last missing "things" were put down on tape, 23BC and What
Fucking Vibrations? (both written previous summer) was recorded on the
very last day.
Tue 12th - Sator and Michael Ilbert began mixing the unfinished tracks
from the Brussels sessions. They had to be done by Saturday.
Sun 17th - The running order of the album was decided. Angel Angel and
Oh Mama was dropped from the album. The first is still unreleased, but
the band would return to Oh Mama later.
Mon 18th - The album "Slammer!" was mastered in Stockholm.
Wed 20th - A video for Gamma Gamma Hey! was filmed by Erik
Pauser. Michael was out of town and would have to be cut in later.
Mon 25th - Rehearsals for the upcoming tour began. During the month, Chips
was also working as an engineer on an album by Destiny,
a Swedish "Dark-metal" band.
FEBRUARY 1988
Tues 9th Sator recorded a song called "Hellraiser" with Freddie
Wadling at Music-A-Matic studio. The name of the band was Sator
Cortex. (As a joke, 'cause it was never actually planned to be released).
The song was written by Wadling and remains unreleased. The tape was rediscovered
by accident in 2003.
Chips: "Somehow we all forgot about that session. It was one night only. I don't remember that much about it. There was so much stuff going on all the time in our lives. Can't even remember who recorded it. It was probably me. Freddie played bass and took the lead vocals and Kent was out of town so Kent's guitar was added later. I played slide guitar and Hasse made some weird noises. I found the song when I was looking for something else. It's a one-chord heavy track which is too cool to be thrown away. I'm sure it will be released eventually. We just have to find some time to mix it".
Kent: "We also wrote and rehearsed another song together in 1989 called "I don't know how to say goodbye to you". It was meant to be a one-off single but record label politics or something made it impossible. That's why we dropped the project I guess. Sadly no tape of it exists anymore but I recall it as a really good one".
Wed 24th - Stockholm: The first ever Sator gig. At the "Radium night" at the Ritz club. It was also the first night on "The Intergalactic Tour". It wouldn't take the band around the universe but it would be the boys' longest tour so far. Between the dates there was more session work for Chips with Blue for Two and Destiny.
MARCH 1988
Tue 1st - Slammer! was released and the "Intergalactic
tour" continued.
Tue 8th - Michael did his part for the Gamma Gamma Hey! video.
Thurs 10th - The band returned to Oh Mama. The song is actually a cover,
a recent dance-hit by the Swedish girl duo "Lili
& Sussi". It was meant to be some kind of joke. Sator's
version of Eurodisco, but when the boss at Radium Records later got to
hear the finished track, he instantly insisted on a release.
APRIL 1988
The "Intergalactic Tour" continued.
Thurs 14th - All four Sator boys showed up at Music-A-Matic studio for
some quick backing vocals on a couple of Destiny tracks.
Thurs 21st - Guitar tracks for Oh Mama.
Tue 26th - Keyboard tracks for Oh Mama at Commandante studio in Gothenburg.
MAY 1988
Tue 3rd - A new version of Pigvalley Beach, intended
as the b-side of the band's disco single was mixed at Music-A-Matic studio.
The "Intergalactic Tour" continued.
Fri 27th - Gothenburg: Freddie Wadling, of Cortex/Blue for Two, joined
the band on stage at the Nirvana club and took the lead vocals on Shotgun
Treatment/Saviour and shared the vocals with Kent on the old Nancy
Sinatra/Lee Hazlewood hit Jackson. The show ended with a version
of Union Carbide Productions Ring My
Bell with the "Carbide" Ebbott Lundberg
on lead vocals.
JUNE 1988
Fri 3rd - A support gig to The Ramones was cancelled.
Sad news to the band who'd been looking forward to this a lot.
Fri 10th - Oh Mama final mix. Michael Ilbert got drafted by the army.
That meant trouble for the band since he was touring with Sator as a sound
engineer. Matters got solved when the army let Ilbert return home again
a couple of days later.
The "Intergalactic Tour" could continue.
Sat 25th - Norway: Gig at "Sardines" in Oslo.
JULY-88
Fri 1st - Denmark: Sator played The Roskilde festival,
their biggest show up to this date.
Tue 5th - Chips recorded The Leather Nun
at Music-A-Matic.
Fri 15th - The band made their first trip to New York, where Kent got
blood poisoning after cutting himself on a beer can!.
Mon 18th - Wed 20th - 3 shows in Manhattan.
Fri 22nd - When the band returned to Sweden they were met by surprising
but good news. The Oh Mama single, released a few days ago, was already
sold out and more copies were being pressed. The record cover was a painting
by Gustave Courbet from 1866 and shows
a nude women from the waist down. Because of the cover some shops refused
to carry the single. The single was withdrawn at first, but Radium Records
made a clever move by turning the covers inside out and print only the
band name and the song title on the new front. The "offensive"
picture was hidden inside the cover instead.
Hans - "We all thought this was extremely funny with all the shops carrying the single with the sleeve they hated without knowing it. We performed the song for almost two years, then the joke wasn't funny anymore."
AUGUST 1988
The "Intergalactic tour" continued.
Sat 13th - During the Hultsfred festival, in the south of Sweden, the
"Sator-mania" got out of control when 5000 people were trying
to get into the venue which had a capacity of only 3000. A lot of people
were injured and several taken to hospital.
Sun 21st - Hans and Chips helped out with some backing vocals on Stillborn's
album.
SEPTEMBER 1988
Tue 27th - Sator made their first trip to Finland.
That night they played in Vasa.
That gig was one of 7 shows in Finland.
OCTOBER 1988
Even more tour dates.
Fri 21st - Stockholm: Sator was joined on stage by "Lili & Sussi"
(The original artists of "Oh Mama") at the Ritz for a surprise
encore.
NOVEMBER 1988
Tour dates in Sweden and Germany.
DECEMBER 1988
Thurs 8th - The last part of the everlasting "Intergalactic
Tour" starts in Helsingborg.
Mon 26th - Sator supported Sort Sol on
the last show of the tour in Copenhagen.
This was regarded as one of the best shows ever by Sator.
After all those shows in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Germany,
the band really needed a break before it was time to start writing new
material for a follow up album.
1989
A pretty slow year for Sator, tour-wise. A short trip to Norway, a couple of dates in Switzerland and Finland. There was only two shows in Sweden this year.
JANUARY — FEBRUARY 1989
As a result of all the touring the year before, Sator managed to get rid
of all the debts that had been hanging over the band for a long time.
The guys took a short, well deserved vacation.
During the break Chips took the chance to work with some other bands like
Psychotic Youth, Stry
Terrarie, The Union Carbide Productions, Blue for Two and Whipped
Cream among others.
MARCH 1989
Wed 1st - Chips joined another Blue for Two tour which would last until
April 22.
APRIL 1989
Thurs 13th - Sator cut a demo of Restless Again. 4 more songs were written
on the 18th and 19th.
Fri 28th - Bergen: The first of 3 shows in Norway. A couple of new songs
were premiered.
MAY — SEPTEMBER 1989
Most of the forthcoming album was written in the band's rehearsal-basement
during May and June. The band had about 30 songs to pick from when the
summer was over. One of the very last titles to arrive was Machine Gun
Justice.
Chips also did the last work on the Psychotic Youth album they started
up earlier that year. Kent and Chips also provided some backing vocals.
Kent can also be heard on backing vocals on several tracks on the Swedish
garage band Dolkows album "Levitation".
On July 24 Chips plays bass and guitar on a session with the band Commando.
Details unknown.
OCTOBER 1989
The band rehearses and puts the finishing touches to the songs written
this summer.
Wed 4th - Kent and Chips shows up as special guests at Dolkows show in
Malmö.
THE RECORDING OF STOCK
ROCKER NUTS!
NOVEMBER 1989
Wed 1st - Sator entered the Music-A-Matic studio in Gothenburg. Once
again with Michael Ilbert as the engineer and producer. The recording
budget had grown considerable since the last album. No late night sessions
that time.
During a couple of weeks, 16 songs were recorded Turn off the News/Restless
again/Gruesome Sunday morning/Ain't seen nothing/Hitch-hike to Caudine
Forks/Rise again/World/No reason/Machine gun justice/Sideshow screwballs/
Baby Doc holiday/Dog/Sergeant/Wonder/Raymond/Last call.
All but the last four ended up on the album. Sergeant became the b-side
of the 7" single World, but a long version of the song was later
added to the CD version as a bonus track. Wonder gets adopted by the Psychotic
Youth. The last two are still unreleased.
DECEMBER 1989
Sun 10th - Chips and Ilbert arrived at Hamburg airport on their way to
Loft studios, where the album was mixed with Aaron
Denson. An Englishman exiled in Germany.
Fri 22th - Stock rocker nuts! was completed and the band and the record
label got together to listen to the whole thing at Music-A-Matic.
Sat 23 - Hans, Michael, Kent and Chips played a secret gig in Borlänge
under the name Baby Demons.
A name they sometimes use when they're doing covers only. No Sator songs
will ever be heard on a Baby Demons night.
1990
JANUARY 1990
Rehearsals for the upcoming tour.
FEBRUARY 1990
Tue 6th - A video for World was filmed by Erik
Pauser.
Mon 26th - Stock Rocker Nuts! was released. The band celebrated by rehearsing
hard for the upcoming tour. The single World will give the tour it's name.
MARCH 1990
Fri 2nd - Sator's "The World Tour" opened in Arvika. It wasn't
really a world tour but it would cover Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark
Switzerland and Germany.
APRIL 1990
"The World Tour" continued
Thurs 19th - The band went to Crete, where they had a week off.
MAY 1990
Back on the road again with shows in France, Norway, Denmark and Sweden.
Fri 18th - Slug it out was written. It would take almost two years before
it was released.
4 more new songs were composed that month.
JUNE 1990
Mon 4th - Sator played at "XTC" in Berlin supported by The
Seers. That was the first date of a short
German tour.
Fri 15th - The whole band sang back up vocals on Joakim
Thåström's track "Miss Huddinge
centrum 1972" at Decibel studio in Stockholm.
Fri 22nd - Geneva, Switzerland with Les
Thugs among others.
JULY 1990
Sat 14th - Sator was back in Berlin for a charity show for "Radio
100"
Sun 22nd - A demo was made of the song You Got It All Wrong.
AUGUST 1990
Sat 4th - The weirdest engagement of the tour was when Sator played support
to the Rolling Stones
on the train that brought the audience back to Stockholm after the show
in Gothenburg. Strange gig indeed!
Fri 10th - The Hultsfred festival. A moment that would later will become
very important to Sator. The last minute idea to do a version of the early
Swedish punk rock classic Tyst för fan (something like "Shut
up" in English) with the original band Ebba
Grön's lead singer Joakim Thåström.
After Ebba Grön broke up, Thåström formed Imperiet,
probably the most successful band in Sweden during the 80's. Imperiet
never performed any Ebba Grön songs, so it was a major surprise to
the audience when Thåström showed up on stage with Sator for
the very last encore and sang Tyst för fan.
(A lot of fans still talk about this gig.)
This wasn't the last time the coalition Sator/Thåström would
perform together.
SEPTEMBER 1990
Fri 7th - Kaunitz: The first show of another German tour, as support
act to Die Toten Hosen.
This time Sator played arenas instead of the clubs they played last summer.
Kent - "There were a lot of high-lights on this tour. I remember when we supported Die Toten Hosen in Germany. We've never played that big venues before. In Kiel there were something like 10 000 people watching us".
Michael - "We became really good friends with "Die Hosen" during that tour and on some nights we did The Boys cover First Time and The Lurkers song New guitar in town together. We've been friends since that tour and still get together now and again."
Sat 22nd - Krefelt: The last night of the German tour,
only without Die Toten Hosen. Back to the small clubs again.
Sun 30th - "Hello hello (I'm back again)" was recorded at Music-A-Matic
Studio.
OCTOBER 1990
Mon 1st - The band recorded Dogday Afternoon.
Tue 2nd - The final touches were given to the songs.
Wed 10th - A planned mix of the two songs recorded earlier that month
was cancelled because of broken studio equipment.
Thurs 11th - The studio was repaired and the single could now be completed.
Sun 21st - Chips was working on a 6 song demo with The
Nomads at Sonet studios in Stockholm. It was completed in one 16
hour-session.
Wed 24th - The test pressing of the new single was approved.
NOVEMBER 1990
Mon 19th - A meeting with MNW Records. There was trouble at Radium Records
and the band had started to check out the options if the label goes under.
While the band was in Stockholm, Chips also found some time to put some
guitars on Thåström's LP "Explodera Mig 2000".
DECEMBER 1990
Fri 21st - Kent and Chips sang backing vocals on another Thåström
track.
Some time around Christmas, the bands latest single, a cover version of
the Gary Glitter song "Hello hello!
(I'm back again)" was released. It became one of the live favourites
from that tour. The B-side was a very sentimental country song called
Dogday Afternoon. It was only pressed in 3000 copies and all copies were
sold in two weeks time. Due to the shaky situation at the record label,
no reissues were planned.
It became Sator's last record on Radium Records. Even though Sator's catalogue
were selling more and more everyday, the rest of the label's artists lost
money. Radium finally went bankrupt and was bought by another company.
Sator was not included in that deal. Sator suddenly found themselves without
a record deal, and no one to pay the royalties owed for the two last albums
on Radium Records. They also got involved in a 3 year long legal battle
to get their rights back for the Sator and Sator Codex material. A bad
ending of a good year!
1991
FEBRUARY 1991
Without a label, the band recorded some demos
for another album. I Wanna Go Home/Skyscraper/Slug it Out/No Time, Tomorrow/You've
Got it All Wrong
Tue 12th - Kent and Chips sang backing vocals for a Blue
Crow Men session.
The band contained two former Sator Codex members Björn Clarin and
Leif Rosén.
Tue 19th - A short tour in Finland began in Jyväskylä.
APRIL 1991
Fri 5th - A big show and a two day party that celebrated the 10 year
anniversary of the first Sator Codex show, took place in Gothenburg.
A lot of old and new friends from all over the world were invited and
came to witness a spectacular show with a lot of special guests. Joakim
Thåström once again performed with Sator. This time it's the
Sator song Wasting time.
Freddy Wadling from Blue for Two and Cortex took over the microphone for
What you are is What you get.
Johan Johansson,
another "punk legend" (of KSMB
and Strindbergs)
got drafted as the lead singer for Restless again.
Some really old songs were dug up again. The very first Sator Codex title
Jag vill ut (Let me out) was played with Peo Ericsson on guitar. He was
one of Sator Codex founding members from 1981. Björn Clarin rejoined
the band for another Sator Codex classic Leech. The whole show ended with
a multi-guitar version of Turn off the news with most of all The Nomads
on additional guitars. A very entertaining show indeed.
Tue 9th - Chips produced The Nomads album "Sonically Speaking"
at "Europa Studios" and "Polar Studios" in Stockholm.
The album was completed in June.
Tue 30th - A one-off show was booked in Gothenburg with Sator/Thåström
as one unit. Half of the set list was from Thåström's latest
solo record and the other half were Sator songs. A couple of old Ebba
Grön classics showed up as encores. The show became a much bigger
thing than anybody expected and was seen by over 15000 people. The biggest
show for all the guys ever!
JULY 1991
Fri 5th - Sator/Thåström played Kristianstad. After the success
at the April 30 show, promoters all over Sweden offered the guys a hefty
sum of money to do a whole tour.
Michael - "We couldn't
find a reason to say no to a thing like this. Neither we or Thåström
had any commitments that summer, we all had great fun doing this and they
paid us a lot of money! So we said, yeah sure."
The tour delayed the song writing a bit, but the band still didn't have
a record deal so it really wasn't any hurry. Several record labels were
interested in signing the band.
Sun 28th - The band entered Music-A-Matic studio to do another demo session. This time the tracks were Down, Heyday, Too Much Trouble and Joe.
AUGUST 1991
Sat 10th - The Hultsfred Festival: The last night of the Sator/Thåström
tour.
The band could now concentrate on their song writing.
OCTOBER 1991
Mon 7th-The third demo session for the "Headquake" album
included the titles Around/I'd rather drink than talk/Bound to be good.
Around never got recorded again and remains unreleased. A version of Bloodstains
by the band Agent Orange was also recorded
for a Swedish fanzine-freebie.
Fri 25th - Sator left for New York. It was their second trip to USA,
where they signed a management deal with "Fox Managements"
and also played a couple of shows in Manhattan. One of the gigs was at
the legendary club CBGB'S.
NOVEMBER 1991
Several meetings with various record labels. It would take a while before
the band decided who to sign with.
DECEMBER 1991
Mon 2nd - The band signed a 3-album deal with WEA-Metronome in Stockholm.
Chips - "This time we didn't even have to send out any of the demos to get signed. Suddenly everyone loved us, which we never got used to. We always felt like it was us four against the world, and I guess we still do today."
Mon 9th - The recording of Headquake started at Music-A-Matic
studio with Michael Ilbert once again as the producer.
Sat 14th - Between the album sessions, the very last chance to catch
Sator/Thåström together, was at another 10 year anniversary.
"Rockparty", the promoters of the Hultsfred festival, celebrated
their first 10 years in the business, and invited the team to perform
5 songs at their party.
1992
THE RECORDING OF HEADQUAKE
JANUARY 1992
Wed 1st - The recordings continued throughout this month.
FEBRUARY 1992
Sat 8th - We're Right, You're Wrong were mixed at Polar studios in Stockholm.
A second song, Only the Stones Remain, was completed the day after. It
was originally released by The Soft Boys
in 1981. It took a few more days in the Gothenburg to complete the remaining
songs for the album.
Fri 21st - (7:00 am) The band took the ferry to Denmark. During the next
two weeks, 13 songs were mixed. Someone got shot/Too much trouble/No time,
tomorrow/I wanna go home/Heyday/Slug it out/I'd rather drink than talk/Bound
to be good/Skyscraper/Down/Turnpike/Haywire/We're right you're wrong (Slightly
different from the single-version). All of them ended up on the album
except Too much trouble that found it's place on the I wanna go home single.
Chips- "This was the hardest recording session we had ever done. It was an immense amount of work to achieve the sound we were looking for."
Kent - "This session almost turned into a nightmare, some days it felt like we would never make it."
Hans - "The band and Ilbert had decided that this would be the last album we do together for a while. I guess that made us work even harder for perfection."
MARCH 1992
The first single from the album was released. The band was rehearsing
and appeared on a couple of TV-shows to promote the forthcoming album.
Mon 23rd - The boys made a chaotic appearance at the Swedish TV-show "Popitopp",
where they 'mimed' their single and, pretended to be The
Who (smashing up all their gear just for the sake of getting good
pictures).
Wed 25th - Video shootings for the first single off the album. The video
was directed by Henrik Schyffert, who
later started the band Whale.
Fri 27th - Chips played guitar on two songs with The Nomads at a show
in Stockholm.
APRIL 1992
Fri 3rd - The album was released and reached number 12 in the Swedish
charts, but just when everyone thought the troubles was over, a new shock
arrived. Several major movie companies threatened to sue Sator if they
didn't remove all the sampled dialogue, that could be found between the
tracks. 20 000 copies of Headquake had already been sent out to the shops.
There was nothing to do about that. Starting a war with 5 of the biggest
companies in the world wasn't such a good idea, so the band quickly replaced
the sampled stuff with other 'cleared' ones. A new version of the album
would hit the market just two weeks after the first edition. A major crisis
was prevented.
Between rehearsing and doing promotion, Chips was also working on a new
Blue for Two album.
Wed 15th - Sator dressed up as Kiss,
(with make-up and everything!) for a Swedish evening paper. It was part
of a series where different bands got dressed up like their heroes. Since
the paper had only have one picture of a later edition of Kiss with make-up,
Hans has to be Eric Carr instead of Peter
Criss. Michael looks perfect as Gene
Simmons and so did Kent as Ace Frehley.
Chips got the part of Paul Stanley and
does his best to get the moves right.
Sat 25th - A Blue for Two show with Chips at Chalmers in Gothenburg.
Thurs 30th - The tour finally opened in Ålborg, Denmark.
MAY 1992
Sun 3:rd - On their way back to Sweden the band did some backing vocals
at the Puk studios on a track by their Norwegian friends, Backstreet Girls,
forthcoming album.
Tue 12th - Nothing hurts was recorded for a compilation at Music-A-Matic
studio. At the same session Chips also produced I Remember You with The
Nomads for the same record. Later that month Chips and Kent would also
do some additional vocals for an "all star jam-session" for
the album. (A Neil Young composition
called T-bone.)
Fri 22nd - The tour continued on and off all summer long. That night
Sator was seen in Stockholm, where also a video for the next single gets
done. Once again it's directed by Henrik Schyffert.
JUNE 1992
Sat 27th - One of the highlights of the tour. The Roskilde festival in
Denmark, in front of their biggest audience ever. The band was joined
by Campino of The Toten Hosen for a version
of the old punk classic Ready Steady Go (By Generation
X). Hans and Kent returned the favor by guesting The Toten Hosen
on First Time (by The Boys) at their show the next day.
JULY 1992
I Wanna Go Home, the second single from the album gave the band another
hit single. The song wasn't even supposed to be on the album, but at the
last minute the band changed their mind. A lucky move!
Sat 4th - The band managed to do an afternoon show in Bollnäs then
they had to run to a waiting helicopter to take them to another show at
the Dalarock festival later the same night, where they were joined on
stage by members of both The Sinners
and Die Toten Hosen for a really messy version of Pigvalley Beach as the
last encore. It was only 50 kilometres away from their former hometown,
Borlänge. But Sator had come a long long way from the basement were
it all started.
Thurs 30th - Östersund: Claes Yngström
from the band Sky High joined Sator on
stage for some extra guitars on We're Right, You're Wrong and Turnpike.
AUGUST 1992
Fri 7th - Sator once again played the Hultsfred festival. The set started
with a cover of Stiff Little fingers
"Suspect Device" with Hans on lead vocals.
The day after Chips and Kent joined Docenterna
on T-Bone and two more songs Chips also found the time for a Blue for
Two show at the same festival.
Mon 10th - The band arrived to Puk studios to do their version of Ring
Ring for a tribute album to Abba. One
more song was also put down on tape, So much time, so little to do.
Mon 17th - Sator backed up Johan Johansson on the track "Om du över
huvudtaget bryr dig" at the Music-A-Matic studio.
Fri 21st - The tour ended at Liseberg in Gothenburg.
SEPTEMBER 1992
Sat 5th - I'm gone was written, and the day after, No place to land/Don't
wanna talk about the weather anymore. Another song called If you could
see me now (written during the mixing sessions of Headquake) was also
completed this week. A total of 9 songs planned for the next album would
be written before Chips went on another Blue for Two tour, which would
end on October 31.
NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1992
Very few new songs were composed. The Big Shakedown and Sleep. In December,
Chips produced a 4 song demo session with Rhinos,
a band that included Peo Ericsson, a founding member of Sator Codex, that
appeared at the anniversary show year before. Chips and Hans can be heard
on some tracks on backing vocals and percussion.
The Abba tribute album was released.
1993
JANUARY 1993
Tue 12th - Next to nothing was written. The working title for the next
album was at that time "Dirty Sweet".
Mon 25th - Sator received "The Måzart Award" for best
Swedish album of 1992. It's a prize voted for by the readers of the evening
newspaper "Idag".
FEBRUARY 1993
Fri 19th - The band began another tour containing 19 dates. The whole
tour was sold out in advance. On some of dates, Sator brought along Bazooka!
and Rhinos as support acts. In Borlänge, March 18, they performed
The Suicide Commandos 1977 classic Attacking
the beat with the original 'Commando' Steve
Almaas on lead vocals.
Sat 27th - Sator received a "Grammis award" for best hard rock
act 1992.
Chips - "We just picked up the award and left in a private jet 'cause we had a show in Trondheim the same night. We celebrated by drinking champaign on the plane. This night we really felt like major pop stars."
APRIL 1993
Sun 11th - Another award was picked up. This time it was the Zeppelin
Award for best band and Michael Ilbert got one for best production.
MAY 1993
Sat 1st - The band decided to take a short break. Chips left for Spain
to produce the "Wild weekend" album by the Spanish punk rockers
La Secta.
Mon 31st - Chips arrived back in Gothenburg, and started producing The
Psychotic Youth's "Juice" album. The album was finished on August
21.
During their "time off" Sator still managed to do 12 extra shows.
And late at night, after the Psychotic Youth sessions, they recorded The
Other Newest One, a song for an American Germs
tribute. The fans had to wait 3 years for the record to be released.
JULY 1993
Sat 17th - The everlasting Headquake tour finally ended in Hedemora,
Sweden.
AUGUST 1993
Tue 3:rd - The Other Newest One was completed.
During this month, Sator wrote and recorded a two minute horror-movie
soundtrack for a commercial. Two songs were written especially for this
occasion since the band didn't want to use an original Sator song for
a commercial. The titles are Long Hot Summer/Love All, Serve All. Both
songs were produced by Henryk Lipp of Blue for Two. The later was rejected
by the agency, and is still collecting dust in the vaults. This short-movie
would later get an award as "best commercial of the year".
Fri 13th - A secret gig under the name Lardbyrds
at the Hultsfred festival. The set was a mix of early punk and country
classics. Chips and Hans also joins Bazooka! for a blistering version
of Nancy Sinatra's How does that grab you darlin'?
Sat 21st - The Psychotic Youth session was finally completed.
SEPTEMBER—NOVEMBER 1993
Very few new songs were written. Sonny is a Bad Guy/Tired/In Bed Without
Madonna/My Worst Friend are among the known titles.
Kent and Chips sang backing vocals on one track of Karlsmark's
album. Apart from that, not much creative things were going on.
Chips: "This was actually very depressing times for the band. Our album sold a lot, the Abba song Ring Ring gave us another hit. The shows were great and we were showered with awards, but all the legal troubles got worse. We had no time for writing new material 'cause we were talking to lawyers all the time. And that's not why you start a band".
Hans: "After the tour we were all so tired, it was a really great year and a horrible year at the same time. It really felt like Sator versus the world".
Michael: "We had a lot of "major crisis-meetings" this autumn. Finally we came to a point where we said -Fuck this! Let's put the band on hold, for a while, stop touring and do something else instead".
Kent: "Even if the we had almost a full
album of new material. We didn't
really feel like doing a new record, and go on tour again, so instead
it was decided to go ahead with one of Chips little pet projects".
Hans: "The idea was to record a tribute EP to some of the bands we grew up with. But instead of using already released tracks, Chips figured that the bands most certainly had more great songs that never got recorded. Why don't we record those songs? He'd been writing to all these people asking for lost songs, and after a couple of years collecting material, we now had like 20 songs to choose from, so it turned into a whole album instead".
In October Kent also did some backing vocals on the Swedish band Stukas album "The world according to..." The band included Mia Wikdahl (who appears in the Pre-Sator biography) and Björn Jonson (Long time roadie for Sator).
DECEMBER 1993
Sator performed 3 songs at "Union Carbide's" farewell show.
Carbide's Cartoon Animal with Nymphet Noodler's
singer Mattias Hellberg, The Nuns' No
solution and I don't care by The Boys.
On New Year's Eve The Lardbyrds played at a party. Some of the songs performed
were I'm gonna punch you in the face (by The
Child Molesters) and With a Girl Like You (by The
Troggs).
1994
THE RECORDING OF BARBIE-Q-KILLERS VOL 1
JANUARY 1994
Mon 3rd - Sator began working on the BBQ-killers album at Music-A-Matic
studio with Jim Brumby engineering. During
that time the band also squeezed in a show in Stockholm trying out the
new material.
Tue 11th - Chips was invited to play some guitars on a single by the band
Greenberg. The band also featured some
members of The Stonefunkers.
Mon 17th - The mixing of the album started this day and would be completed
the following Sunday.
Thurs 27th - The album was mastered and sent to the pressing plant. A
quick one this time!
Sun 30th - A low-budget video was made for Black 'n' White.
Mon 31st - The No Solution video was shot, but later it would be withdrawn.
It was only shown once on a Swedish TV-show. Both videos were directed
by Michael Katzeff.
FEBRUARY 1994
No tour followed that album, just a few TV-shows. Almost without any promotion,
"Barbie-Q-Killers Vol 1" still reached number 2 in the Swedish charts!
MARCH 1994
Fri 11th - Sator was one of the acts celebrating The Leather Nun's 15 year
anniversary.
APRIL—JULY 1994
I'll wait was released as the second single from BBQ killers.
More new songs were written and the band started looking for a producer
for a "real" Sator album. While the band waited for the producer
to become available, several songs, intended for a split-EP with the American
band White Flag, were recorded.
Another song, Even as we speak, was done during the same sessions for
a US release only 7" single.
AUGUST 1994
Wed 10th - Gothenburg. An unofficial joint venture between Sator/White
Flag took place in front of about 100 people in a small club. The following
day they'll be on the big stage at the Hultsfred festival.
Thurs 11th - Hultsfred: Nix Vahlberg
and Hans Östlund of the Nomads also
joined the circus for a rendition of The Zeros'
classic song Wimp. Campino of Die
Toten Hosen jumped on stage for The Runaways'
Cherry Bomb. The whole show ended with a chaotic version of The
Beatles' I'm Down. The audience looked a bit confused. Not
much Sator material showed up in the set at all.
Sator/White flag also recorded a very messy 'unplugged' show for Danish
radio. It contained acoustic versions of two White Flag songs; Face Down
and A Moment of Silence.
SEPTEMBER 1994
Thurs 8th - Sator played Halter top and Ring ring for 20 000 kids at the
Ullevi stadium.
Chips: "It all looked and felt very much like The Beatles show at Shea stadium, so we all independently did the "Beatles bow" after the songs. It was great fun".
SEPTEMBER 1994
The band was still waiting for the producer to find some time.
A few more songs were written, like A Safety belt for Suzie and Freezer.
Wed 28th - The producer Tim Hunt, and
the engineer Jim Brumby, arrived in
Gothenburg for the final rehearsals.
THE RECORDING OF STEREO
OCTOBER 1994
Sat 1st - The album sessions began at 11.00. As usual, the band would
do most of the recordings at the Music-A-Matic studio.
Kent: "It had taken so long for Tim to find a suitable date for the album, so when he arrived we had like a million songs".
Chips was "between apartments" so he was living in the studio
at the time.
Sat 15th - The last song for the album was written; Anxiety, Coke and
Chocolate Bars.
NOVEMBER 1994
Tue 22nd - The recordings had to stop because Chips health was getting
worse. The doctor ordered him a to week of complete silence! No more singing!
The producer Tim Hunt had to return to England.
Wed 30th - Chips was better again and the missing tracks were completed
with Walle Kaaling engineering.
DECEMBER-94
Fri 2nd - Kent becomes a father.
Hans: "When Kent's daughter Ellen was born he called us from the hospital and we recorded her through the phone and put her on the album. She can be heard on the outro. She was less than 24 hours old".
Tue 6th - The mixing started at Marcus studios in London, where Tim Hunt
and Jim Brumby met up with the band again.
Sat 17th - 24 songs were mixed. 21 of them ended up on "Stereo".
Over the Top was done for a Swedish Motörhead
tribute. In bed without Madonna/ Sleep/Sonny was a bad guy would end up
as b-sides. Kuddel and Breiti
from Die Toten Hosen, who happened to be in London, showed up in the studio
for a quick guitar-solo session on the last song to be finished - Next
to nothing.
Tue 20th - The Album was mastered in London and everyone went home to
celebrate Christmas.
1995
JANUARY 1995
Sat 14th - The band began rehearsing for the upcoming tour.
Mon 30th - Malmö: The first show after the album (but it's a very
short one) only 3 songs, at a party for the Måzart Award.
Tue 31st - Fox management sues Sator for an unmentionable large sum of
money! A lawsuit that would cause the band a lot of trouble throughout
this year.
FEBRUARY 1995
Fri 10th - The Out of The Void single was released this day. The album
"Stereo" showed up in the stores a couple of days later.
Mon 20th - Back in the studio again for another tribute. This time it
was for a Danish Gasolin tribute album,
planned for release in April. The song - This is My Life. Producer - Nille
Perned.
MARCH 1995
Sat 4th - The Out of the void video was filmed in Malmö. The day after
a video for It Really Doesn't Matter Now was also shot. Both videos were directed
by Björn Lindgren who's been working
with Cardigans, Wannadies,
Brainpool, Kenickie
among others.
Wed 22nd - Hultsfred: A band called The Carbonas
performed the first Ramones album in correct order (with only a short
break between side one and side two!). Some said the four guys looked
very much like the members of Sator, who would start their own tour in
the same city on March 24th.
Fri 24th - "Mother of all tours" opened in Hultsfred. Support
acts were The Zeros from California and Souls
from Gothenburg, who joined Sator on most dates on the tour.
Mon 27th - Gothenburg. During a day off, The Zeros and Sator recorded
two songs together; Talking and You me us. Both tunes were written by
The Zeros.
APRIL 1995
Thurs 27th - The tour had been going for over a month. In Sundsvall, Jan
Kask (the lead singer of Brainpool), sang with Sator on Sweet
Baby's Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby I Love You. A song Brainpool
recorded after a suggestion from Kent. Sator used to do this number a
couple of years ago, but haven't played it for a long time.
MAY 1995
Sat 13th - The coldest concert ever? At an outdoor show in Luleå
(in the far north of Sweden) the temperature was 4 degrees below zero!
JUNE 1995
Sun 11th - Hamburg: Sator went to Germany for a short double-bill tour
with the Swedish band Popsicle.
JULY 1995
The band also appeared at several Swedish festivals during the summer.
Between the show dates, Sator launched their own label, Planet of Noise
Records. It was not meant for Sator recordings, but for vinyl-only 7"
singles. First singles out were by Naked Soul,
White Flag and The Zeros.
Mon 31st - The band arrived in Gothenburg to record some new songs.
AUGUST 1995
Tue 1st - The recording continued and would go on all through the week.
6 new songs were recorded: Find The Time/All Up To You/This Side of Nowhere/Hey
You!/In With The Crowd/I Want You Tonite.
Mon 28th - The mixing of the songs recorded earlier that month, was started.
It would take two days.
Thurs 31st - Malmö: The final show of the "Mother of all tours".
SEPTEMBER 1995
The band finally took a real break. No shows, no rehearsals and no songwriting.
Chips: "This time we decided to really take the break we only talked about a year earlier. We still had one major problem hanging over us, the lawsuit from our former management and it took a lot of energy away from us".
Tue 12th - Chips was guest on a track of Johan
Johansson's "...och hans svarta lilla värld" album.
Tue 26th - A settlement between the management and the band was completed.
Chips: "It was wonderful! We had been involved in various legal battles constantly for the last 4 years! Now we finally saw the end of all the troubles".
OCTOBER 1995
Mon 2nd - The only Sator work during the fall was a mix of an early
version of I'm gone for a single in Japan, and finishing two other lost
demos; What do you want?/If you could see me now (formerly known as Gimme).
Sun 15th - Sator received Slitz magazine's award for most important Swedish
rock band in the last 15 years! They accept the award and performed Pigvalley
beach, Safety belt For Suzie and The Damned's
New Rose.
Michael: "It felt kind of strange to get an award like this. We had always felt that no one really cared about us and that we were on our own".
Chips also appeared with Kai Martin och Stick on rhythm guitar for one song 'cause the original guitar player didn't show up.
NOVEMBER 1995
Two more Planet of Noise singles were released, La
Secta and B-Gum Justice.
DECEMBER 1995
Fri 1st - Gothenburg. Chips produced The Nomads' mini album "The
Cold Hard Facts of Life" and some extra tracks. It was very fast
session, 10 songs in three days! Chips, Kent and Hans can be heard on
various tracks.
Fri 8th - The two Sator/The Zeros songs recorded earlier during the year
were mixed.
1996
JANUARY—APRIL 1996
Chips produced Bazooka!'s album "First
floor second skin".
On February 18th Sator recorded "This perfect day" for a Japanese
tribute album to The Saints. Apart from
that, the only thing the band did together was to play 5 songs at The
Nomads' 15 year anniversary at "Studion" in Stockholm on April
5.
Chips also produced a session with The Moonboys,
and an EP with Mutts.
Sator/Sator Codex got their own tribute album called "Guldskivan".
21 bands do their version of Sator/Sator Codex songs. As a bonus track
you can hear the first Baby Demons song ever released - My baby's
Gone Mental.
MAY—JUNE 1996
Several new songs were written. Swinging London was an early one.
Chips was working on a demo session with Mouth. Kent and Chips also helped
out on the recording of a new White Flag album.
JULY 1996
Mon 8th - Chips jumped the night train to Malmö to produce Mutts
first album.
Sat 20th - Chips played and sang backing vocals on a session with Stry
Terrarie in Malmö.
Sat 27th - Chips jumped on a plane to Stockholm to meet up with Kent for
a short guest appearance at The Nomads special Lollipop show outside Stockholm.
Kent sang 16 Forever/She pays the rent while Chips was banging away on
his guitar. Chips also jumped in on Bangkok with Alex
Chilton on vocals. A couple of hours later he's back in Malmö
again to continue with the Mutts album.
AUGUST 1996
Sat 10th - For the first time in almost a year, a real Sator show! They
were asked to support Die Toten Hosen in Berlin in front of 22 000 people.
Hans: "We couldn't say no to a thing like that, so we had to bring the band back together again".
After the Berlin show Chips left for California to visit some friends of Sator.
SEPTEMBER 1996
Mon 16th - Chips (still in California) were in the studio for a one-off
band that had Hector Penalosa from The
Zeros on bass and lead vocals, Chips on guitar and backing vocals and
Victor Penalosa from The
Melanies on drums and backing vocals. Two songs were recorded at
Chris Von Sneidern's studio in San Francisco.
Meanwhile in Gothenburg, Kent produced the debut album by Smash
Hit Wonders.
OCTOBER—NOVEMBER 1996
Sator finally got back together again and started working on a new album.
A lot of new material was written.
A split single with the French band Gang Bangers
was released. They also did two shows in Sweden, the only Swedish dates
that year (in Köping and Gothenburg).
On November 22nd Chips made another short guest spot with Mutts in Malmö
contributing with backing vocals and guitar on two songs.
THE RECORDING OF MUSICAL DIFFERENCES
DECEMBER 1996
Mon 2nd-The first session of the new album (with the working title "Disco")
began, with Nille Perned producing the first tracks.
1997
JANUARY 1997
Tue 7th—Sunday 12th - The sessions continued with Nille Perned.
The band worked on songs like Go Away Girl, Shining, Idiot's Delight,
My Worst Friend and We're Not an American Band.
Hans also did some extra work producing an EP with "Porcelain Satellite",
and helping out on a solo single by Peter Svensson from The Cardigans.
FEBRUARY 1997
Thur 27th - A short tour in France, to promote the just released split
single with Gang Bangers in Annecy close to the Swiss border.
MARCH 1997
While waiting for the studio to be available, the band worked with their
label. The latest release is the second single with the Swedish band The
Hellacopters.
APRIL 1997
Mon 7th - After a lot of waiting there was finally time to continue with
the album. During this week the band worked with the producer Torsten
Larsson.
Everybody's making plans, Two of These Days and How Late is Too Late?
were the songs worked on this time.
Monday 14th - Two tribute songs were recorded: Come On And Love Me by
Kiss, and The Boys' track Talking. Two more tracks, still in the vaults,
were also done this day - Brown Eyed Son by The Waves and another one
by The Boys: Backstage Pass.
Tue 15th - The first two tracks were mixed by Henryk Lipp
MAY 1997
Pat Fear from White Flag visited Gothenburg to do some sessions
with Sator for the White Flag album "Eternally undone".
JUNE 1997
The studio was booked all the time, so while waiting Kent and Chips
wrote some more songs like Tie Me Up and Ask The Shadows (with Pat from
White Flag).
Sun 8th - Kent and Chips joined Redd Kross on stage, at a show in Gothenburg,
for "massive guitar versions" of The Red Kross song Annie's
Gone and a cover version of Heaven Only Knows, a song performed by both
Baby Demons and Redd Kross.
Fri 13th - The Karlshamn festival. More guest spots. Chips became the
bass player for The Nomads this night, since their original bassman Björne
Fröberg we're checking out the islands of Greece.
JULY 1997
Fri 4th - Pathfinder lands on Mars. Sator's sessions were all cancelled
this month due to illness.
Fri 18th - Chips played guitar on two tracks on Idde Schultz album "Vad
man gör och inte gör". Also playing guitars on the same
tracks were Maria Engstöm from Docenterna and Hans Östlund from
The Nomads.
Wed 30th - A song called Next was written and demoed.
The album is now called "Before and after"
AUGUST 1997
Mon 25th - Another session was cancelled. This time because of a missing
producer!
SEPTEMBER 1997
Mon 15th - Finally back in the studio again! The backing tracks to Love
MF were put down on tape. Torsten Larsson worked with the band this time.
Tue 30th - Nille Perned were back in the studio with Sator. This night
the track Friction were recorded. Other songs worked on this week were
Tie Me Up, Next and Swinging London.
OCTOBER 1997
Mon 6th - Three non-album tracks were quickly recorded; You Ain't Nothing,
Smoke Screen and So Dressed Up.
Wed 8th - TV-Night and Ask The Shadows were finished
Sat 11th - A secret show at a party in Hultsfred took place. This was
the only Swedish show this year. Joppe Philgren
and Maria Engstöm from Docenterna
were guests on The Undertones track Teenage
Kicks and the Docent Död track Bensin
i blodet.
Tue 14th - Everybody's Making Plans and Welcome Back Home were finished.
Tue 21th - A one off show for an instrumental surf band called "Kiesbye,
Johansson, Granberg and Young" took place at the release-party
for Robert Johnson and The Punchdrunks.
The band consisted of, apart from Chips, Johan Johansson (KSMB,
Strindbergs...) on drums and Per
Granberg (Charta 77) on bass.
Neil Young couldn't make it.
Two Robert Johnson songs and one newly written (the same morning) instrumental called Rope-A-Dope was performed. The song was later recorded by Robert Johnson and Punchdrunks and can be found on their "Fried on the altar of good taste" album (released early 2000).
NOVEMBER 1997
While waiting for the producers and the studio to be free again, two more
vinyl singles were released on Planet of Noise Records; The
Fancy Lads from Los Angeles and a split with the Swedish band Moonboys
and The Halfbreeds from New York.
DECEMBER 1997
Mon 1st - One year anniversary of the recordings! The band was not celebrating
but they started working again and continued to finish several Perned
produced tracks during this week. During this month Michael Olsson were
also involved in his "side-project" 45RPM
together with Jörgen Cremonese from
Whipped Cream. Several 45RPM songs were
demoed at the Music-A-Matic Studio.
1998
JANUARY 1998
No Sator work. Kent recorded a demo with his other band, Speed
of Sound Enterprise. Among the members of "SOSE" are
Daniel Levin, who will show up again
in our story.
Kent: "Since Michael and Chips had moved to Stockholm we didn't rehearse that much. So addicted to playing music as I am, I really needed some guys to play with. Through a friend (Johan Johansson from Swedish punk heroes KSMB) I got the word that the "Levin twins" Joakim and Daniel were eager to start a new band since their old band De Lyckliga Kompisarna had ceased to exist 6 months earlier. I met Daniel on Saturday at the Hultsfred festival 1997 and started talking about forming a new band. The following Monday we rehearsed for the first time and I was suddenly in two bands".
FEBRUARY 1998
Fri 6th - Gothenburg, Speed of Sound Enterprise tried out their newly
recorded material in front of an audience for the first time.
MARCH 1998
Wed 11th - A Song to You was recorded for another French split single.
This time with the French band Garlic Frog Diet.
Wed 19th Malmö. First night on Blue For Two's final tour. Chips played
guitar with the band as he has done on several tours over the years. On
keyboards you could see Charlie Storm
who would later show up again in the Sator history book.
APRIL 1998
Fri 24th - The very last weekend of the never ending album sessions. The
last thing recorded was a completely rerecorded chorus for Two of These
Days.
Sun 26th - All the recordings were done!!!
Chips: "The idea was that with two producers we could work much faster but it really became the other way around! This was easily the hardest album we've ever done".
MAY 1998
Sat 2nd - The first mixing sessions with Michael Ilbert took place. The
following four days Everybody's Making Plans, Shining and How are
things in California? were mixed.
Thur 21st - Friction was mixed
Wed 27th - Two of These days was mixed. While waiting, Michael did some
more drumming with 45RPM.
Several non-album tracks were also mixed with Walle Kaaling during this
month.
JUNE 1998
Mon 1st - TV-Night and Tie me Up were mixed.
Tue 2nd - How Late is Too Late? was mixed
Wed 3rd - Love MF also finished. The album, now rechristened to "Frictions",
were finally coming together.
Thur 4th - Another track got mixed, Welcome Back Home. Kent also found
time for a late night show with his other band, Speed of Sound Enterprise.
Tue 9th - Chips did another show as bass player for The Nomads at a show
in Stockholm with the American band The Drags.
Thur 11th - Speed of Sound Enterprise played the Hultsfred festival.
A very short Sator-set at this year's festival. The band did the first
encore for
Docenterna doing their song Bensin i Blodet for them.
If you were unlucky/lucky? you could also see a secret shambolic backstage-show
with a band called "The Raggare". The group consisted of Hans
Gäfvert on bass, Fredde Andersén from "The Bones"
on drums, Chips K on guitar and several guest singers from the audience.
A chaotic event with cover versions of songs by The Ramones and The Rude
Kids.
Sat 20th - "Gearfest" at Tantogården in Stockholm. Another
informal party-gig at a party for the American magazine "Gearhead".
You could see a line-up which pretty much was the who's who of the Swedish
rock scene. First out was The Flaming Sideburns (actually from Finland)
followed by The Strollers, The Robots, The Turpentines, Backyard Babies,
Sator, Sewergrooves, The Nomads and The Hellacopters. That's quite a line-up
for a party!
JULY 1998
Sat 4th - Still waiting for the last mixing sessions. The boys reprised
the encore from Hultsfred at another festival in Östersund. This
time they were not all alone. On extra guitar you could hear Stefan Kauppi
from the legendary early Swedish punk band Shit Kids.
Kent also joined Docenterna for the rest of their tour this summer doing
guitar and backing vocals.
Tue 14th - Chips worked on a single with the metal-band Misdemeanor.
Fri 18th - The very very last recording session for the Sator album (now
called "In technicolor"). The Flesh Quartet adds strings to
Idiot's Delight.
Mon 20th - Idiot's Delight and Ask The Shadows were mixed.
After 20 months of mostly waiting the album was finally done!
No title change this day.
AUGUST 1998
Sator signed with the Swedish label Pool Sounds.
Thur 6th - Hans son Charles was born so Hans took the rest of the year
off from the band.
Sat 8th - Chips got married.
Thur 20th - The new version of Sator started rehearsing in Gothenburg.
Kent now played guitar - on bass there was Daniel Levin from Speed of
Sound Enterprise" (where he plays guitar). Since Hans just become
a father he was temporarily replaced by Charlie Storm (who toured with
Chips earlier this year in Blue For Two) Michael and Chips stayed on their
earlier positions on drums and guitar.
Complicated?
SEPTEMBER 1998
Tue 1st - To avoid a law suit the album title was changed to "In
Color"
Thur 10th - The "new" Sator played 6 songs at an unofficial
show supporting
" Fint Tillsammans". Mostly new songs were chosen.
Mon 14th - The album title was changed again! The final title became "Musical
differences".
Wed 16th - A "double-bill" tour with Whale started at "Sten
Sture & Co" in Uppsala. The bands played 16 shows in 19 days
together in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. Sator got great reviews and most
of dates were sold out in advance! On most nights the two bands ended
the show together doing The Dead Kennedy's Too Drunk To Fuck. The
show in Lund was captured on film for a video to Love MF.
The first single, Everybody's Making Plans, was released during the tour,
but no video was made this time.
OCTOBER 1998
Sun 4th - Oslo, Norway. Last night on the tour.
Mon 19th - "Musical Differences" was released in Sweden. It
was basically received well by the press with just a few complaints about
"Sator not sticking to the formula".
Mon 26th - The band performed two songs live on the air on "Nyhetsmorgon".
A breakfast show broadcasted between 6,00 and 9,00. A strange time for rock
'n' roll.
NOVEMBER 1998
Mon 2nd - Another TV-show. The re-opening of "Nalen", a classic venue
in Stockholm. The place used to be a very important club in Stockholm
from the 1930's up to the late 60's when it closed down.
Several more TV-shows, both live and playback, were recorded this month.
DECEMBER 1998
Tue 1st - The single Love MF/This Side of Nowhere was released in Sweden.
The second song was actually recorded back in 1995 and was written by
Bill Bartell from White Flag, Javier Escovedo from The Zeros with Chips
and Kent adding a bit to it.
Sat 12th - Last show of the tour in Linköping with Monostar as support
band.
Tue 15th - Chips started working with The Nomads producing their "Big
Sound 2000" album at Sunlight Studio in Stockholm. He also co-wrote
several songs on the album.
White Flag released their Swiss 10" "Empty Heaven" All of Sator can be heard on Halter Top.
1999
JANUARY 1999
No Sator work at all but Kent joined Chariot on stage in Gothenburg for
a couple of songs. Chariot contained
members of White Flag, The Zeros, Posies
and Fountains of Wayne.
FEBRUARY 1999
Tue 9th - Chips turn to do some songs with Chariot in Lund. (Black 'n'
White and Wimp).
Fri 19th - Back in Lund at the same venue as the Chariot show last week.
Sator played with The Halos as support
band. Hans was now back in the band after his "baby vacation".
The rest of the month was spent in the studio. Kent started recording
the Speed of Sound Enterprise album. Chips worked with The Nomads.
The TV Night/Smoke Screen CD single was released.
MARCH 1999
More shows.
The first demos for "Barbie-Q-Killers vol 2" were recorded.
APRIL 1999
Sat 17th - Alone in the endzone was recorded for a forthcoming Radio
Birdman tribute.
Sat 24th - The backing tracks to I'm Bored, a track by The
Zero Boys, was recorded. Joakim Ericsson
and Björne Fröberg from The
Nomads played drums and bass, returning a favour. (Chips sang backing
vocals and produced their Radio Birdman tribute Hanging on earlier this
week)
Tue 27th - Time and distance was recorded for the Droppin' out!
EP
The tracks were produced by Jörgen Cremonese who once played in Whipped
Cream (see earlier in this story) and now plays with Michael in 45RPM.
The other tracks - How are Things in California? and Dance To The Rocket
From The Crypt - were recorded sometime between 1995-96 but got left off
the album so this was the first chance to hear those tracks.
MAY 1999
Droppin' Out! was released at the end of the month.
JUNE 1999
Sat 5th - Sator played a festival in Stockholm against racism. "My worst
friend" was also included on their special festival CD.
Fri 11th - Chips started working on pre-production on The
Turpentines album
"By Popular Demand".
Thurs 17th - 45RPM, a band that includes Michael Olsson on drums, made
their world premier at the Hultsfred festival. Sator also appeared at
the festival the day after.
JULY 1999
Sat 10th - Last Sator show before Chips went on tour with Thåström
on the "Kalas" tour. It's a travelling mini festival with Weeping
Willows, Petter, Jakob
Hellman and some local acts (all Swedish). Apart from Joakim Thåström
(who toured with Sator in 1991) the other members in the band were Heikki
Kiviaho and Jörgen Wall from
the band Whale who, as you might remember, toured with Sator in 1998.
It's all connected in some way!
Sat 31th - Sator played in Västervik.
Because of a misunderstanding Chips was still on tour with Thåström
playing at the same time in Stockholm! But the show must go on!
So for one night he was replaced by Jörgen Cremonese of 45RPM.
Some songs sung by Chips had to be dropped but with a back catalogue like
Sator's there was still enough "classics" to keep an audience happy.
Michael: "We don't really have a dress code in the band but everybody usually wears black. It looked a bit strange when Chips, a short guy in black, was replaced by Jörgen, a tall guy dressed in all-white leather!"
This was the first and only Sator show ever without Chips.
AUGUST 1999
Chips recorded a demo with Matching Numbers
and did several studio sessions with Thåström.
Sat 28th - Gothenburg: Sator played "The Rogues" in a performance based
on the movie The Warriors. The Rogues are the bad guys in leather jackets
who shot Cyrus and gets killed in the end. Since The Rogues are supposed
to look like scum and wear leather-jackets, no stage clothes were needed,
just a touch of make-up. The band Lok
were The Baseball Furies, Sahara Hotnights
the Lizzies and Hammerhill Click starred
as The Warriors. M-Rock from The Stonefunkers
was Cyrus. Between the action, short sets were played. The Sator set consisted
of four Sator songs and four songs written by The Ramones.
Hans: "It felt completely right for The Rogues
to sing Beat on The brat (with a baseball bat), Now I wanna sniff some
glue, Loudmouth and Today your love, tomorrow the world. It certainly
was a very interesting and strange night."
SEPTEMBER 1999
A single by The Zeros, You me us/Talkin' was released in Spain on Penniman
Records. The songs were recorded when the bands toured together way back
in 1995. The session was produced by Chips K who along with Kent and Hans
can be heard on both tracks.
Speed of Sound Enterprise mixed their album in New York with Michael Ilbert.
Chips produced The Turpentines' "By popular demand" album at
the Music-A-Matic studio in Gothenburg.
45RPM recorded a song called Groovin' pilgrim.
Tues 14th - Between The Turpentines sessions Sator finished I'm
Plastic by The Weirdos for the compilation "As Punk As Your Mum Vol.3"
on Deifer Records in Chile. To our knowledge it's still unreleased.
The Turpentines contributed backing vocals. The song was originally meant
to be included on BBQ-Killers vol 1 but was never completed.
Chips: "We couldn't find anyone of the Weirdos so the lyrics are incomplete. We made up some extra lines that I know are wrong. That's why we dropped the song".
OCTOBER 1999
Chips did some further work with Thåström in the studio.
A few more "Barbie-Q-Killers vol 2" demos were recorded.
NOVEMBER 1999
Thurs 4th - Gothenburg at "Lisebergshallen". Chips began another
tour with Thåström. Once again with Heikki and Jörgen
from Whale. It continued all month and ended at "Olympen" in
Lund on the 27th. The tour was a major success and the album went gold
in just a few days. It soon went platinum which is 70 000 copies in Sweden.
DECEMBER 1999
Speed of Sound Enterprise signed a record deal with BMG.
Chips did some shows with Staffan Hellstrand
as stand-in for Hans Östlund of the Nomads who usually held this
position. This was not the first time Chips replaced members of The Nomads.
Chips started on pre-production with the "glam-punk" band Plan
Nine from Herrljunga, Sweden.
There was not a single Sator show this autumn.
A 45RPM song showed up in a commercial. This was the second one in a short
time. So even if the band had only played two shows, had no records out
or any record deal 45RPM could be heard all over Europe this autumn.
2000
JANUARY 2000
Tue 4th - Kent's second daughter Vera was born.
Sator recorded "You tore me down" (for a Flamin'
Groovies tribute) and a song called "About Eva" for a
Spanish cartoon. (Both remain unreleased) The lyrics to "About Eva"
was written by Pat Fear of White Flag and handed over on the telephone
a few minutes before it was recorded.
Kent: "The cartoon song was a very poppy bubblegum punkpop thing made just for the fun of it. It was based on an old Sator song called "Always me" which never got past a demo".
Chips: "It sounds just like cartoon songs are supposed to sound or a bit like Scooby-Doo or maybe The Monkees theme. I love it. Michael was out of town so Jocke Levin from Speed of Sound Enterprise played drums on these tracks and I think Daniel Levin played bass on both tracks as well. Hans did some cool psychedelic keyboards on the Groovies track".
FEBRUARY 2000
Chips produced the album "Generation action" by the band Plan
Nine from Herrljunga, Sweden.
The Nomads album Chips produced last year was nominated for a Swedish
"Grammis" but the award went to Lok. Chips was part of an award
anyway since Thåström was awarded "The artist of the year".
The tribute to the Saints recorded way back in 1996 was finally released.
MARCH 2000
Thurs 16th - Speed of Sound Enterprise played a special show at Café
Opera in Stockholm to celebrate the release of their first single "Young
Girl".
Thurs 23rd - 45RPM supported Fidget in
Stockholm.
APRIL 2000
Fri 21th - Gothenburg. The first Sator show of the year took place at
Sticky Fingers. The following two days Sator could be seen in Hultsfred
and Växjö on this mini-tour.
The Speed of Sound Enterprise debut album was released.
MAY—AUG 00
Sat 6th - Sator played Luleå university along with bands like $1000
Playboys and Jumper.
Chips worked with The Hellacopters producing their "High Visibility"
album.
Kent toured with Speed Of Sound Enterprise to support the album.
Chips also continued touring with Thåström doing all the major
festivals and also recording some songs in Helsinki, Finland.
The "Droppin' out!" 10" was released on Safetypin
Records in Spain.
SEPTEMBER 2000
More demos were made for Barbie-Q-Killers Vol 2
Wed 20th - Chips son Kilian was born.
The Gearfest Live CD was released. (Recorded 2 years ago at Tantogården)
OCTOBER 2000
Chips started working on pre-production of the next album by The Nomads.
It would take another 5 months before "Up-tight" was finished.
NOVEMBER 2000
Kent produced an album by the Swedish punk band 59
Times The Pain.
DECEMBER 2000
A few more BBQ 2 demos were recorded.
2001
JANUARY 2001
Tues 16th - Thåström played at an anti-nazi show at Globen
in Stockholm. Chips played guitar. He also played on 2 tracks with Thåström
at Polar studios.
Chips produced the "Up-tight" album by The Nomads at Decibel
Studio and Polar Studios in Stockholm.
FEBRUARY 2001
Mon 6th - Chips produced two b-sides by The Hellacopters and mixed The
Nomads album with Stefan Boman at Polar
Studios.
The Hellacopters album Chips produced last year was nominated for a Swedish
"Grammis" but it went to someone else.
MARCH 2001
Chips produced the "Jennie Bomb" album by Sahara Hotnights.
An all-girl band from the north of Sweden. The album was recorded at Music-A-Matic,
Romarö and Polar studios. Once again with Stefan Boman as engineer.
It was the bands second album.
APRIL 2001
More Sahara Hotnights sessions.
Fri 13th - The Nomads celebrated their 20 years anniversary at Kolingsborg
in Stockholm. The original line-up Chips, Kent, Hans and Michael performed
a short set consisting of Pigvalley Beach, No reason, No time tomorrow,
Get out of my way (from BBQ2), No place to land, I'd rather drink
than talk, A safetybelt for Suzy and I'm gone in front a full house.
Robert Johnson and the Punchdrunks, Flaming Sideburns and The Nomads also
did short sets. (Almost the same line-up as the Nomads 10th anniversary
in -91)
Another demos session with Thåström was recorded in Lund at
the end of the month. One of the tracks "Så kall, Så
het" ended up on the forthcoming album.
MAY 2001
The Sahara Hotnights album was released and got raving reviews.
The Plan Nine "Generation action" album recorded last year
was finally released this month.
JUNE 2001
Sat 16th - The Nomads did another 20th year anniversary show at the Hultsfred
festival with guest stars like Ross the Boss
and Handsome Dick Manitoba of The
Dictators, Chris Bailey of The
Saints, Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys,
Odd Ahlgren of the Robots, Chips of Sator,
Nick Royale of The Hellacopters and
Wayne Kramer of the MC5!
What a line-up!
Chips: "It was a great honor to be part of this show and it's always nice to find out that your old heroes are really cool people when you finally meet them".
Mon 18th - Chips produced two tracks with Wayne Kramer and The Hellacopters at Nord studios, Stockholm; "Gotta keep moving" and "Talking out of School". The second track ended up on a Wayne Kramer album but the first remains unreleased.
JULY 2001
Mon 30th - Chips and Kent started writing songs for the next "real"
Sator album.
AUGUST 2001
Fri 3rd - The band returned to their hometown Borlänge headlining
the Peace and Love festival. The first real Sator show for over a year.
Doing the bass playing this night was Heikki Kiviaho of Whale/Thåström.
His debut with Sator. (Apart from some songs on the Sator/Whale tour)
Sat 25th - Sator played a festival in Örnsköldsvik (Once again
with Heikki on bass).
Chips also produced sessions with The Hellacopters and Max
Waltman this month. 2 of the Waltman tracks was released in 2004
under the name Kung Social.
SEPTEMBER 2001
Mon 10th - Mental Hell was recorded for the Ramones tribute album "The
song Ramones the same". A demo of a new song called "This ain't
the way home" was also completed this week. The band worked with
Johan Forsman at the Music-A-Matic Studio.
Some backing tracks were recorded for BBQ vol 2 as well.
Sat 15th - The last Sator show this year at Chalmers university in Gothenburg.
Daniel Levin was back on bass again for one night.
OCTOBER 2001
The White Flag album "Eternally undone" was finally released
on Empty Records in Germany. It was recorded between 1996-99 and features
all Sator members.
Chips produced tracks with Satirnine,
Sahara Hotnights, The Nomads, The Pain,
Maryslim, The Hellacopters and The Turpentines
for the Ramones tribute "The song Ramones the same". He also
played on several tracks on the forthcoming Thåström album.
NOVEMBER 2001
Chips did some pre-production work with both The Turpentines and The Hellacopters.
Johan Johansson released a 2-CD set of rare stuff called "Sånger
ur trähatten 1982—2000". One track; "Om du över
huvudtaget bryr dig" was recorded with Sator in 1992. Chips also
appears on another track.
DECEMBER 2001
Sat 15th - Chips, Heikki Kiviaho and Jörgen Wall (both from Whale)
and Mats Bengtsson (from Wilmer
X) acted as the "houseband" at The Hultsfreds festival
20 years anniversary party at Metropol in Hultsfred. Various guests were
invited.
The setlist:
- Barn av vår tid (with Fjodor from Ebba Grön on vocals)
- Utan dig (With Idde Schultz/Joppe Pihlgren from Docenterna on vocals)
- Promised land (with Kent from Sator on vocals and guitar)
- Big bird (also with Kent)
- Petters låt (Unknown title with Petter, a Swedish hip-hop guy)
- Because the night (with Karin Wistrand from Lolita Pop on vocals)
- I wanna be sedated (with Nisse Hellberg from Wilmer X on vocals)
- 20th century boy (also with Nisse)
- Levande begravd (with Freddie Wadling from Blue For Two, Cortex Liket Lever, Fläskkvartetten… on vocals)
- Angie (with Idde and Joppe again on vocals)
- Riot on Sunset Strip (with Hans Östlund on guitar and Nix Vahlberg of The Nomads on vocals)
- On top of your world (with Jennie Asplund and Maria Andersson from Sahara Hotnights on vocals)
- 48 crash (also with Jennie and Maria)
- Ramblin' rose (Robert "Strings" Dahlqvist/Nick Royale from The Hellacopters on vocals and guitars)
- Rock 'n' roll all nite (with Ola Salo from The Ark, Nick Royale and most of the other guests on lead/backing vocals)
Chips: "It was a lot work getting this together but well worth it. I think everybody had a great time. It was a chance to play some great songs that would never fit into a Sator set".
2002
JANUARY 2002
Kent did some backing vocals on a Thåström session for his
album in Gothenburg.
Chips and Kent wrote several new songs for the forthcoming Sator album.
FEBRUARY 2002
The French band Gangbangers released their album "When the shit hits
the fan". It includes their version of Pigvalley Beach.
Sahara Hotnights got two Swedish "Grammis" nominations but sadly
they went home empty handed. It's the third year in a row that bands
produced by Chips gets nominated.
MARCH 2002
The Nationalteatern tribute album was
released. Chips is actually featured in the lyrics of The Hellacopters
version of the song "Sent en Lördagskväll". Nick Royale
changed the original names in the lyrics to "Me, Bobba
and Chips". It's a story of a Saturday night drinking session
gone really wrong.
APRIL 2002
Tues 2nd - Kent performed a set of country classics at the club Jord with
his hobby band Jackson 10se.
Chips produced the band Dozers' third
album "Call it conspiracy". 14 songs were recorded at the Music-A-Matic
studio.
The Ramones tribute "The song Ramones the same" was released
on White Jazz records.
MAY 2002
Another show by Kents country band Jackson 10se at Chalmers University,
Gothenburg. Date unknown.
Chips produced The Hellacopters forthcoming album "By the grace
of God", at Polar studios and Romarö studio. Once again he worked
with Stefan Boman as engineer, who also recorded the Sahara Hotnights,
The Nomads and The Dozer LP's.
Mon 20th - The book "Heaven needed a lead singer" (Fans remember
Joey Ramone) was released. Chips wrote
a piece in it.
JUNE 2002
Fri 28th - Sator played the first show this year. At the "Trädstock
festival" in Skellefteå. The rain was more than pouring down
so the show almost got cancelled and many people left the festival in
despair before the Sator show.
Kent: "It was tough but we had a good time anyway. The people that stayed were obviously fans. Claes Yngström of Sky High was in the audience. We spotted him and forced him to join us on "We're right, you're wrong" in a sort of free form jam-version."
Claes Yngström had joined the band before on stage. Back in –92
at the "Storsjöyran" festival.
Sat 29th - Chips returned to Polar studios for more The Hellacopters sessions.
JULY 2002
Fri 12th - Chips started another Thåström tour. The backing
band consisted as usual of Chips on guitar, Heikki Kiviaho on bass, Jörgen
Wall on drums and new for this tour was Per
Hägglund on keyboards. Per used to be in the band Imperiet
together with Thåström back in the 80's.
AUGUST 2002
Sat 3rd - Last show of the The Kalas tour in Stockholm in front of 15
000 people. Other bands on the tour was Kent
(the band not Norberg), The Hellacopters, Mando
Diao and some local acts (different in every town).
Sat 9th - The second Sator show this year at Heden in Gothenburg. No rain
this time.
Sat 31st - The "tour" ends at Ullevi, Gothenburg were Sator
perform 7 songs at the Speedway world cup.
Michael: "It was really strange. We we're standing in the middle of the field on a tiny stage playing to an audience who was there to watch speedway but I think we went down pretty good. We did a similar thing at Ullevi back in –94 playing to school kids".
SEPTEMBER 2002
The final touches were made to the Dozer "Call it conspiracy"
album at Studio Nord, Polar Studios and at Megaphon Studio in Stockholm.
OCTOBER 2002
Chips recorded demos with The Turpentines but the band broke up later
this year, So the album never got recorded. Some of the songs were later
used by the singer/guitar player Markus Karlsson's
next band "The Republicans"
Wed 16th - Kent played unplugged at Nalen in Stockholm backed up by Gunnar
Frick. Kent performed a set of songs in Swedish among them a cover
of Steve Earle's "Christmas
time in Washington" translated to "Juletid i Göteborg".
The Sator song "I wanna go home" came up as an encore.
Thurs 17th - Chips, Kent and Michael wrote some more new songs together.
One of them became "At the end of time"
NOVEMBER 2002
Chips took some time off and travelled around the world with his family
for three months.
2003
JANUARY 2003
Kent did his second unplugged solo gig at KB in Malmö.
FEBRUARY 2003
Chips returned home again from his "around the world" trip full
of energy and ideas. (don't worry it's not gonna be "world music"
on the next Sator album).
Tues 18th - For the fourth year now in a row Chips is part of "Grammis"
nominations but end up without an award. The Hellacopters had two nominations
this year but went home empty handed. At least Chips and The Hellacopters
were part of an award for the compilation "Nationalsånger",
The Nationalteatern tribute record.
Thurs 20th - A Joe Strummer/The Clash
tribute show at Debaser in Stockholm. Chips was part of the "houseband"
together with Robert Cronsieau on keyboards,
Heikki Kiviaho on bass, Conny Nimmersjö
on guitar and Robert Plaszczyk on drums.
- Burning lights (Magnus Carlsson solo)
- Safe European home (with Kent Norberg on vocals)
- Spanish bombs (with Maria Andersson on guitar and vocals and Marit Bergman on vocals)
- I fought the law (with Dregen on guitar and vocals, Nicke Borg on guitar and vocals and Jörgen Wall on drums)
- Broadway (with Kajsa Grytt on guitar and vocals and Mats Borg on drums)
- Tommy gun (with Anders Wendin on vocals)
- English civil war (with Per Persson on guitar and vocals)
- Rudie can't fail (with Markus Karlsson on vocals/Nicke Andersson on guitar and vocals)
- Clampdown (with Joppe Pihlgren and Idde Schultz on vocals)
- Cheat (with Johan Johansson on vocals and Mats Borg on drums)
- Straight to hell (with Balsam on vocals)
- London Calling (with Anders "Brodde" Brodin ex-Brända Barn on vocals and Mats Borg ex-John Lenin, Rymdimperiet, Grisen Skriker… on drums)
- White riot (with Sigge Hill on vocals and guitar)
- Bankrobber "by The All-stars" (with Jörgen Wall on drums, Martin Skjöld on bass, Heikki Kiviaho on second bass, Kent Norberg, Magnus Carlsson and Dennis Lyxén on vocals, Robert Cronsieau on keyboards and Chips Kiesbye on guitar)
Chips: "Another great night. Mick Jones of the Clash were in the audience which made us a bit nervous. But I think he enjoyed it. There we're lots of gret performances this night. Weeping Willows doing White Man in Hammersmith with Mick Jones was awesome. And to see Ebba Grön reformed also with Mick was a dream come through! Infinite Mass did a gret version of This is radio Clash. I think they will make a DVD of the show. I don't know how it sounds on tape but it was one of the hightlights of the year for me".
MARCH 2003
Thurs 13th - The first Sator show of the year at Nalen in Stockholm. "This
ain't the way home" was played live for the first time. The support
band this night was The Mainliners.
Michael: "A very good show. Since we didn't have a new record out in a while there were only "real" fans in the audience who were really interested in the new songs as well the "hits".
The Nalen setlist (not in correct order):
- Time and distance
- No reason
- No Place to land
- No Time, Tomorrow
- Jetslide
- We're Right, you're wrong
- A Safetybelt for Suzie (with some surprise lines from The Cramps' Human Fly)
- Slug it out
- Black 'n' White
- So dressed up
- I Wanna Go Home
- I'd Rather Drink Than Talk
- I'm Gone
- This ain't the Way Home (New Sator song!)
- Get out of My Way (from the forthcoming Barbie-Q-Killers 2)
- Mental Hell (Ramones cover)
- Pigvalley Beach
Mon 31st - A new compilation CD featuring a Sator song was released. The album called "Absolute Svensk Rock Classics" is a double CD with 35 Swedish rock songs, including the Sator recording of the old Lili & Sussi song Oh Mama from 1988.
Hans: "We knew nothing about this and I wish that they had picked another song. I wouldn't go so far as calling it a classic, even if we had lots of fun doing it".
APRIL 2003
Mon 7th - Michael's son Valentin was born.
MAY 2003
Sun 18th - Heikki Kiviaho officially joined Sator. That's the first time
someone new joins as a fulltime member the band since the Sator's formation
in 1987. He had now been playing bass with the band for almost two years
so he probably knew what he was getting himself into.
Heikki also worked with Lisa Miskovsky
playing bass on her second album.
JUNE 2003
Fri 27th - Rehearsals and demos of new songs in Stockholm for three days.
Among the titles worked on were You walk alone, The world keeps turning,
At the end of time, Water on a drowning man and All about everything.
JULY 2003
Sat 5th - Borlänge, The "Peace and Love" festival. Chips replaced
Nix Vahlberg for one show with "De Galna
Hundarna", playing guitar and singing Nix parts. This short
lived band consisted of The Nomads, Bob Hanson,
Olle Ljungström and Staffan Hellstrand
doing a show together with songs from all acts. Kent was also invited
as a special guest taking the lead vocals on "Don't pull my strings"
(The Nomads), "I wanna go home" (Sator) and "Black 'n'
White" (The Zeros/Sator). (Note: "Dom Galna hundarna is Swedish
for "The Mad Dogs").
AUGUST 2003
Fri 8th - More rehearsals and demos of new songs. This time in Gothenburg.
The titles this time was "The things you don't, If time don't get me,
Celebration town, The good guys" and a few more untitled tracks.
Tues 12th - Gothenburg, Liseberg amusement park. The second show this
year and the first time for the song "The things you don't" in the
set for the first time.
Chips: "It didn't have complete lyrics but I made some non existing words along the way. We've had the song for several years but the lyrics never got finished so we never got around to record it. I think it was written during the "Stereo days".
The band also performed their first and only Chuck Berry cover ever. An obscure song called "I wanna be your driver".
Kent: "It was actually more a "Swinging Neckbreakers" cover. We covered their cover of the song".
The setlist:
- No Place to Land
- No Reason
- Time and Distance
- No Time, Tomorrow
- Jetslide
- I wanna be your Driver (Brand new cover!)
- We're Right, You're Wrong (For the very last time?)
- Slug it out
- Black 'n' White
- I Wanna Go Home
- The Things you Don't (Brand new Sator song!)
- I'd Rather Drink Than Talk
- I'm Gone
- This ain't the Way Home (New Sator song!)
- Get out of My Way (from the forthcoming Barbie-Q-Killers 2)
- Pigvalley Beach (with some lines from "Let's Dance")
- Ring Ring
SEPTEMBER 2003
Mon 1st - Chips and Kent joined White Flag and with only two days of rehearsals
they were ready to play Greenland.
Tues 2nd - White Flag public rehearsal at Pusterviksbaren in Gothenburg.
Chips: "No promotion, no entrance and
no people but we had great fun".
Kent: "It was a good way to try out the
band before Greenland. We really wanted to give the Greenlanders a good
show".
Sat 6th - White Flag at "Nipiaa rock festival" in Aasiaat, Greenland with Chips on vocals and guitar, Kent on vocals and bass. Pat Fear on vocals and guitar and Trace Element on drums. The other band were mostly local acts.
Chips: "It was quite an adventure. I don't know anyone who have played on Greenland. There are no roads between the towns in Greenland so we had to ride the last part of the trip with a really shaky small plane. Aasiaat is situated in a archipelago area in the southern corner of the Disco Bay. There are around 3000 inhabitants and it's one of the largest towns in Greenland. But it's still not very big. There are no trees, the roads stop just outside town, there are dogs everywhere and you can see icebergs floating by you window when you wake up in the morning. A very different experience. It reminded me a bit of when Sator Codex played in Tromsö in northern Norway way back in 1986. We also had time to go out for some Whale-watching too. (But we couldn't see Heikki, ha ha ha!). We saw lots of "Hunchbacks" Cool! And I can promise you that icebergs are quite scary when you get too close to them. Sweden is as north as Greenland but we don't have any icebergs".
Kent: "There were much more Inuits than
we had expected. Not so many Europeans at all actually. We were really
taken care of. All the people we're really friendly and they know a lot
about what's going on in the rest of the world. It's not as far away from
everything as we thought it would be. I'd sure love to go back to Greenland
again".
White Flag set Gothenburg, Sweden and Aasiaat, Greenland
Not correct order. And some tracks differed. All songs by White Flag when
not noted.
- Empty Heaven (Pat Fear on lead vocals)
- Don't Bring Me (Chips on lead vocals)
- Instant Breakfast (Pat Fear on lead vocals)
- Demolition girl (By The Saints. Chips on lead vocals)
- On the Way Down (Pat Fear on lead vocals)
- This Time in reverse (Pat Fear on lead vocals)
- Blitzkrieg bop (By The Ramones when Bill's guitar broke down)
- Launch Window (Pat Fear on lead vocals)
- Novocain (Chips on lead vocals)
- Halter Top (By Sator. Kent on lead vocals)
- This is My Life (By Gasolin Kent on lead vocals)
- In the city (By The Jam. Pat Fear on lead vocals)
- 100 years from now (Kent on lead vocals/guitar Chips on bass)
- He's a Whore (By Cheap Trick. Kent on lead vocals)
- Hot rails to Hell (By Blue Öyster Cult. Bill vocal segued into…)
- Cherry Bomb (By The Runaways. Chips on lead vocals)
- Face Down (Kent on lead vocals)
- Instant Breakfast (Pat Fear on lead vocals)
- Shattered badge (Pat Fear on lead vocals)
- Jungle (Pat Fear on lead vocals)
Fri 19th - Legendary country artist Gram Parson died 30 years ago this day. In honour to Gram Kent Norberg and some friends put together The All Star Gram Band for a gig at Pusterviksbaren in Gothenburg to perform songs from Parson related bands as The Flying Burrito Brothers and The Byrds.
The All Star Gram Band was:
- Kent Norberg - Vocals & guitar
- Anja Ryne - Vocals & tambourine
- Kalle Stintzing - Piano & vocals
- Johan Andersson - Guitar
- Marcus & Jacob (The Travelling End)
- Gunnar Frick - Pedal steel (also in Jackson 10se)
- Danne Johansson - Drums
- Nikke Ström - Bass
-
Some special guests included:
- Christian Kjellvander (Loosegoats)
- Kristofer Åström (Fireside)
- Olle & Axl (Whyte Seeds)
- Elisabet Punzi (ex Whipped Cream)
Chips started working with Sons of Cyrus with pre-production of their second album.
OCTOBER 2003
Thurs 23rd - Chips son Milton was born.
Wedn 15th - Bob Dylan played in Gothenburg.
After the gig, there was a tribute concert to Bob at Pusterviksbaren.
The band, The Subterreanean Homesick Experience,
(The S.H.E.) played a bunch of Bob Dylan
songs.
The Subterreanean Homesick Experience was:
- Kent Norberg - Vocals, harmonica & guitar
- Dan Viktor - Vocals, harmonica & guitar
- Mattias Hellberg - Vocals
- Gustaf Karlöf - Keyboards
- Per "Flamman" Westling - Guitar
- Niko Röhlcke - Guitar, pedal steel & keyboards
- Johan Håkansson - Drums
- Nikke Ström - Bass
Heikki (together with Jörgen Wall) produced an album by Fatboy (a Swedish rockabilly band) on and off between October and December.
NOVEMBER 2003
Mon 3rd - The Nomads tribute album release party at the "Wild Kingdom
club", at Debaser in Stockholm.
The All-Star Band:
- Chips Kiesbye - Guitar, vocals
- Heikki Kiviaho - Bass
- Markus Karlsson - Guitar, vocals
- Robert Eriksson - Drums
Chips: "This was actually the start of the "Wild Kings" but it wasn't planned to be anything more than a one-off thing. But the guys at the club asked us if we could be the house band".
Heikki: "Since we had such a great time and all of us really worked together musically we said yes. I don't know how often we will do this. You don't want to turn into a professional cover band. We'll do it as longs as it's fun for us".
Chips: "It's a great!. A club playing "loser-music" that you'll never hear anywhere else. Lots of punk and powerpop straight from the bargain bin. Great music that not too many know anything about. The club is run by Henrik Walse, Nicke Andersson and Calle Von Schewen who all DJ between the bands. It's really "the night of the nerds". Music fans discussing important things like if the album version or the mini album version of The Plimsouls' Zero Hour is the best one".
Setlist:
- Surfin' in the bars - Markus took the lead vocals
- The good stuff - Mats Olsson from Maryslim on lead vocals
- Have love will travel - Thomas "Osten"
Johansson from Distorted
Nation on lead vocals - Can't keep a bad man down - Chips on lead vocals
- A certain girl - Staffan Hellstrand on lead vocals and harmonica
- Top alcohol - Odd Alhlgren of The Robots on vocals
- Psycho - Again with Odd on vocals
- Pack of lies - Nicke Andersson of The Hellacopters on lead vocals
and
lead guitar - Lowdown shakin' chills - Nicke Andersson on lead vocals and
lead
guitar
Sun 30th - Nalen, Stockholm. Sator played three songs at Kent Norberg's manager Petri H Lundén's 40th birthday party. The setlist: "Teenage Kicks" (The Undertones), "Mental Hell" (Ramones) and Pigvalley Beach".
The Sator song "What do you want?" was included in the snowmobile DVD movie "Spunkbastards - No more weakness". You can watch reindeers and snowmobiles to the sound of Sator. What more can you ask for in life?
DECEMBER 2003
Mon 1st - Heikki Kiviaho (and Jörgen Wall) were awarded with Eskilstuna
Kommun's musical award for their "significant achievements in the
region's musical life". The jury mentioned the duo's work as musicians
and producers for artists like Thåström, Ingo
& Floyd, Whale, Lisa Miskovsky, Kent, Titiyo,
Sator and lots of others. The festive awards ceremony was held on December
1st in Eskilstuna city hall. Congratulations Jörgen and Heikki!
Chips started with pre-production for an album with Captain Murphy, and started recording on the Sons of Cyrus album.
Tues 16th - The "All star band" was invited to be the house band at the Wild Kingdom nights. No Nomads songs this time.
Chips: "I came up with the name "Wild Kings" minutes before we went on stage so the other guys were a bit surprised when I introduced us. They didn't know we were a "real band" with a name. I also wrote the lyrics to "Down at Wild kingdom" a couple of minutes before we went on. It was all very spontaneous".
Setlist:
- Down at Wild Kingdom (The band's theme song written by Chips
the
night before, Chips took the lead vocals) - One way ticket (by The Nerves with Chips on lead vocals)
- Ever fallen in love (with someone you should'nt've?) (by Buzzcocks
with Markus on lead vocals) - Teenage kicks (by the Undertones with Jocke
"Instead Of A Hug"
Larsson from Henry Fiat's Open Sore on lead vocals) - Cherry bomb (by The Runaways with Kristina
Karlsson of Rio Grande
on lead vocals) - London boys (by Johnny Thunders
with Altay Sagesen from The
Doits
on lead vocals - All kindsa girls (by The Real Kids
with Tommy "Ferdi" Andersson
ex-Turpentines on lead vocals) - Down at Wild Kingdom (reprise) (just one chorus as some sort
of
outro)
There was a lot of tributes and covers this year. Maybe the band should concentrate on their own album instead.
2004
JANUARY 2004
Chips worked with the Sons of Cyrus album.
He also started pre-production work on the forthcoming Dozer album.
2 of the Max Waltman tracks recorded in August 2001, with Chips as producer
and Heikki on bass, was released under the name Kung Social.
"I wanna go home" was featured on the karaoke DVD "Rockklassiker", released by Svenska Karaokefabriken in collaboration with www.rockkaraoke.nu and Rockklassiker 106.7.
Michael: "It's certainly not us playing on this one. We don't know anything about it but I guess it's some kind of honor to be one of the artists chosen for this, or?"
FEBRUARY 2004
Chips produced the debut album by Captain Murphy.
Tues 10th - Another Wild Kingdom night. The Wild Kings' set this time was:
- Down at Wild Kingdom (Now with a middle-eight thing too. Chips and Markus shared lead vocals this time)
- One way ticket (by The Nerves. Chips on lead vocals)
- Ever fallen in love (with someone you should'nt've?) (by Buzzcocks. Markus on lead vocals)
- 1-2-3 (by The Professionals.
Heikki did his first lead vocals in 17
years!) - Submission (by The Sex Pistols. Chips on lead vocals)
- Rockaway beach (by The Ramones with Bo
Ramone from Rocket
Radio) - I think of demons (by Roky Erickson
with Kurt of the Sewergrooves on
lead vocals) - Nobody's hero (by Stiff Little Fingers
with Andreas Andersson
ex-Turpentines on lead vocals) - Career of evil (by Blue Öyster
Cult with Odd Ahlgren of The Robots on
lead vocals) - Heart of the city (Stefan Brändström
of Henry Fiat's Open Sore on
lead guitar) - Down at Wild Kingdom (reprise)
Heikki was part of a "Grammis" award when Lisa Miskovsky won best female artist this year. He played bass on her album and was part of her live band as well.
MARCH 2004
Heikki toured Sweden with Lisa Miskovsky.
The last songs for the Sator album now called "Basement Noise" were
written.
Mon 15th - Another Wild Kingdom night. The Wild Kings played a set as
usual with special guests.
Setlist:
- Down at Wild Kingdom
- Walking out on Love (by The Beat. Chips on lead vocals)
- Babylon's Burning (by The Ruts. Heikki on lead vocals)
- All kindsa Girls (by The Real Kids with Love of Sons of Cyrus on lead vocals)
- Girl of my Dreams (by Bram Tchaikovsky. Chips and Markus on lead vocals)
- Human Fly (by The Cramps with Bengtsson - everybody's favorite roadie - on lead vocals)
- Zero Hour (by The Plimsouls. Markus lead vocals)
- It's cold outside (by The Choir with Anders Wendin of Moneybrother on lead vocals)
- You're gonna miss me (by the 13th Floor Elevators. Again with Anders Wendin on vocals)
- Teenage News (by Sylvain Sylvain. Chips on lead vocals)
- Riot on Sunset Strip (by The Standells with Nix Vahlberg of The Nomads on lead vocals)
- Thinking of Ways (by The Singles with Nicke Andersson of Nick Royale Gang on lead vocals)
- Garageland (by The Clash with Johan Johansson on lead vocals)
- Wild Kingdom Reprise (just the last chorus)
APRIL 2004
Sun 11th - Chips went into the studio as producer on the first session
for The Republicans album. The following
week 19 backing tracks were recorded at the bands own studio in Stockholm.
The Republicans are Markus Karlsson of The Wild Kings and ex-Turpentines
with Instead of A Hug, Frank E. Male
and Don Wanna of the punk/hardcore band
Henry Fiat's Open Sore.
Maybe Markus should think of a new harder stage name?
Wed 14th - The Wild Kings recorded drums, bass and guitars on their only original song "Down at Wild Kingdom" at 44Traxx studio with Jörgen Wall as engineer. An hour later the band went down to the club Debaser for another show at Wild Kingdom again.
Setlist:
- Down at Wild Kingdom (Now finally completed with full lyrics…)
- Ever fallen in love (by The Buzzcocks. Markus on lead vocals)
- First in Line (by The Romantics. Chips on lead vocals)
- Zero Hour (by The Plimsouls. Markus on lead vocals)
- Walking out on Love (by The Beat. Chips on lead vocals)
- Rock 'n' Roll Hoochie Koo (by Rick Derringer with Robert "Strings" Dahlqvist of The Hellacopters on lead vocals)
- We don't get along (by Phil Seymore with Maria Andersson of Sahara Hotnights on lead vocals)
- 1-2-3 (by The Professionals. Heikki on lead vocals)
- It's outta you (by The Hurriganes with Tommy "Ferdi" Andersson ex-Turpentines on lead vocals)
- Promotion Man (by Highway Robbery with Sonny Boy Gustafsson of Captain Murphy on lead vocals)
- Down at Wild Kingdom (Reprise) (just the last chorus)
Tues 20th - The vocals and guitar solo on The Wild Kings single were
recorded.
The Captain Murphy album was released today.
The Republicans sessions also continued for another two evenings.
Mon 26th - The last missing piece of Down at Wild Kingdom, the backing
vocals, was done when Melinda Rogersten
(Ex-The Pusjkins), Janne "Bengtsson"
Håkansson and the three Wild Kingdom club bosses Nick Royale, Henrik
Walse and Calle von Schewen added
their voices in the chorus. The song was mixed the same evening.
Tues 27th - Kent and his guitar player "Flamman" played at the
club "Kompledigt" at "Storan" in Gothenburg. The set
was mix of Kent's Swedish material and some covers. "I wanna go home"
was the only Sator song performed.
Wed 28th - The mix of the Sons of Cyrus album started. It was completed
in 4 days.
MAY 2004
Mon 3rd - Sator entered the Music-A-Matic studio, Gothenburg. The recording
of Basement Noise started. The following four weeks 21 songs were recorded.
(Not all of them were completed)
The band took a short break after two weeks so Heikki and Chips could do
the last Wild Kings show.
Fri 14th - The Sons of Cyrus album Rock & Rollercoaster was released. The album was produced by Chips who also added some piano and backing vocals.
Mon 19th - The Wild Kings at Wild Kingdom/Debaser for the last time supported by The Ackermans.
Setlist:
- Down at Wild Kingdom (short version)
- First in Line (by The Romantics. Chips lead vocals)
- Teenage Flu (by The Atlantics. Chips lead vocals)
- Teenage Depression (by Eddie and The Hot Rods. Markus lead vocals)
- No Matter what (by Badfinger with Jim Farula of The Upstartz on lead vocals)
- He's a Whore (by Cheap Trick with Anders Ljung of Space Age Baby Jane on lead vocals)
- Uncontrollable Urge (by Devo. Heikki lead vocals)
- Brown Eyed Son (by The Waves. Chips lead vocals)
- Come back and stay (by Jack Lee with Howlin' Pelle Almqvist of The Hives on lead vocals)
- Long way to go (by Alice Cooper with Johan Bååth of Wrecks on lead vocals)
- Turn on the News (by Hüsker Dü with Jocke Ericsson of The Nomads on drums and lead vocals)
- Career of Evil (by Blue Öyster Cult with Odd Alhgren of The Robots on lead vocals)
- Down at Wild Kingdom (Full and finally finished version)
This is as far as we planned The Wild Kings to exist. It's been a great six months and I think we all learned some new licks and that it made us better musicians. It's always interesting to go into other songwriters minds and try to figure how they were thinking.
We might bring the band together again one day or maybe we won't. Who knows? The last night was perfect apart from that some fucking asshole stole Markus' Telecaster which he had borrowed for this night. Some creep just went up on the stage and walked away with it after the show! If anyone knows anything about it please help us. Markus income does not cover this sort of things.
Chips
Fri 28th - Basement Noise session ended for this time. Read more about the sessions.
JUNE 2004
Fri 11th - Chips went to Malmö to produce an album by Wilmer X.
The Wild Kings single released last month was withdrawn since all copies had a pressing fault on the b-side. Just a few copies managed to slip through to the shops.
Fri 11th - Chips went to Malmö to produce an album by the band Wilmer X.
Tues 15th - After 4 days of rehearsals and pre-production Chips and the guys in Wilmer X entered the Varispeed studio in Klågerup just outside Malmö. 15 songs were recorded in about over two weeks. Engineer at the sessions were studio owner Acke Bengtsson.
26th - Sator were supposed to play at a festival in Hjo but unfortunatly the whole event was cancelled for reasons unknown.
I think it had something to do with that some of the artists demanded their money upfront and the promoter couldn't come up with the cash. We were really looking forward to try out some of our new songs.
Michael
JULY 2004
Chips did more Wilmer X sessions at Varispeed studio and also at the Music-A-Matic studio.
Wed 14th - Chips began working with Millencolin's 6th album doing pre-production in Örebro.
Fri 23rd - Some last touches were made on the Wilmer X album at the Music-A-Matic studio.
During the weekend 6 leads vocals was also laid down by Markus Karlsson for the The Republicans album.
Fri 30th - During the weekend Chips produced 4 tracks with the Swedish band The Billy Pilgrims at Music-A-Matic Studio in Gothenburg with Henryk Lipp as engineer. The band didn't have a record label yet so it was ment as a "high profile" demo ready for release.
Heikki kept touring with Lisa Miskovsky all summer long playing most festivals in Sweden like in Skellefteå, Gothenburg, Borlänge among other towns.
The only work done on Basement noise this month was Kent's lead vocals on "No!".
A Sator song has once again appeared on a compilation album without the knowledge of the band. The album's called "Monster Trucks" and the song was "We're right, you're wrong". The CD was sort of the soundtrack to the TV-show "Hotwheels Monster Jam", on Swedish TV4 this summer.
It's quite annoying that we don't get asked before they use our songs! We usually say yes to things like this but we want to keep control over what's released.
Kent
AUGUST 2004
Mon 9th - Another production job for Chips. The recording of Millencolin's album started at Fascination Street Studios (former Kuling Studios) in the band's hometown Örebro. Engineer was Jim Brumby who worked with Sator on Barbie-Q-Killers vol 1 and Stereo. He also worked with Speed of Sound Enterprise on their sole album.
It's been a very hectic year producing albums by Sons of Cyrus, Captain Murphy, Wilmer X, The Republicans, Millencolin and the Sator album. But all the projects were so interesting and I really like the bands so I just couldn't say no.
Chips
SEPTEMBER 2004
The Wilmer X album was mixed by Ronny Lahti
at Megaphon studio in Stockholm from the 6th to the 14th.
Chips also recorded some more vocals in Gothenburg with Markus Karlsson
for the Republicans album in Gothenburg along with more sessions for the
Millencolin album.
Thurs 23rd - The "Thåström band" from his last three tours (Chips Kiesbye, Heikki Kiviaho, Jörgen Wall, Per Hägglund and Joakim Thåström) was brought back together again for a recording session at Decibel studio in Stockholm. A song written by Thåström/Hägglund was recorded for the movie "Tjenare Kungen". The track was produced by Carl-Mikael H-son and Per Hägglund.
That band doesn't exist anymore. It was a one-off reunion for this movie. It took us a couple of hours to learn and record the song which I don't know the title of.
Chips
OCTOBER 2004
Sat 16th - The Millencolin album was finished. It was mixed at Music-A-Matic Studio with Henryk Lipp. 13 tracks were completed. 1 was dropped from the final list.
Sun 17th - After 2 tracks were remixed at Megaphon with Ronny Lahti, The Wilmer X album was also finished. 15 tracks were completed. 2 were left off the album.
Sat 23rd - Kent performed a two hour set with Rolling Stones covers with the band De Stenade Rullarna (something like "The Stoned Rollers") at Jazzhuset in Gothenburg. The set included "I wanna be your man" and "It's only rock 'n' roll" and many more.
Tues 26th - The Wild Kings returned for another show for The Wild Kingdom club at Debaser in Stockholm. The set was a mix of earlier setlists from previous spring.
The setlist:
- Down at Wild Kingdom
- Walking out on Love
- First in Line
- Zero Hour
- Uncontrollable Urge
- Teenage Flu
- Teenage Depression
- Chinese Rocks (by The Heartbreakers with Altay Sagesen from The Doits on lead vocals)
- One Way Ticket (by The Nerves with Måns P Månsson from The Maggots on lead vocals)
- Brown Eyed Son (by The Waves with Kristina Karlsson of Rio Grande on lead vocals)
- Teenage News (by Sylvain Sylvain with Tommy "Ferdi" Andersson ex-Turpentines on lead vocals)
- Down at Wild Kingdom (Reprise)
The opening band was The Silverbug from Stockholm.
Thurs 28th - This year's first Sator show took place on the cruise ship "Silja Opera". It was a festival called "Dalaslaget" The festival's policy was that all bands had to have some Borlänge connection. The other bands were Blacksnake, Voyager, Twin Earth, 197, Machina and Månsson Allstars.
Setlist:
- No Place to Land
- No Reason
- Time and Distance
- No Time, Tomorrow
- Jetslide
- Get out of My Way
- Goodbye Joey (live for the first time!)
- I'm Gone
- Black 'n' White
- So dressed up
- This ain't the Way Home
- Slug it out
- I'd Rather Drink Than Talk
Encores:
- Pigvalley Beach
- I Wanna Go Home
The first time we ever played on a cruiser. We didn't plan to do any shows this year but this was one of those things you just have to do. Apart from some technical problems with the bass amp it was a really good show too.
Hans
Some of the audience was as drunk as only Scandinavians on a boat trip can be. I think a lot of people missed us because they passed out in their cabins.
Michael
Pretty much as we expected. I mean we all come from the same area. "The liquor belt" of Sweden as they call it, so we know how it works.
Kent
NOVEMBER 2004
Tues 2nd - Chips did some more sessions with The Republicans. The recordings continued on the 11th and 14th.
Wed 10th - The Hellacopters "Strikes by Lightning" mini album was released. It was produced by Chips and contains the remaining songs from the "By The Grace of God" sessions in 2002. It includes one song called "Blinded by the light" written by Robert "Strings" Dahlqvist/Chips Kiesbye. (Chips contributed the words)
Tues 30th - The last Wild Kings show for the season at Wild Kingdom/Debaser in Stockholm. All new songs this time apart from the band's theme song.
- Down at Wild Kingdom
- Any Danger Love (by The Starjets with Chips on lead vocals)
- Gary Gilmore's Eyes (by The Adverts with Chips on lead vocals)
- Get over you (by The Undertones with Markus on lead vocals)
- Lies (by The Saints with Markus on lead vocals)
- Rock 'n' Roll Girl (by The Beat with Heikki on lead vocals)
- Summertime Fun (by Nikki And The Corvettes with Chips on lead vocals)
- Fan Mail (by The Dickies with Patrik Wirén from Alpha Safari ex-Misery Loves Co. on lead vocals)
- I need you (by The Kinks with Scott Morgan from The Rationals, Sonic Rendezvous Band, The Hydromatics, The Solution on lead vocals)
- Dog Meat (by The Flamin' Groovies with Chris Wilson of The Flamin' Groovies and The Barracudas on lead vocals)
- Nervous Breakdown (by Black Flag with Chips on lead vocals)
- What Love is (by The Dead Boys with Dregen from Backyard Babies on lead vocals)
- Rich Kids (by The Rich Kids with Janne "Bengtsson" Håkansson on lead vocals)
- Down at Wild Kingdom (Reprise)
This was the second "the last show" with The Wild Kings before we all returned to our "home bands". We only planned for the Wild Kings to exist until last summer but we just couldn't say no to a few more nights. It has actually been loads of fun working as a cover band. This night might have been our greatest moment and it felt quite good to end like this.
Chips
It's always good to go back to being just a fan again and play some songs we like for no other reason than having a good time. But I must admit that there were some songs Chips came with to the rehearsals that I had never even heard before. So I got some musical education as well.
Heikki
Tues 23rd - Release party for the Clash-tribute DVD at Debaser in Stockholm. The documentary was shown on a big screen. Mick Jones and Tony James new band Carbon/Silicon played at the party.
DECEMBER 2004
Chips continued with pre-production and recorded demos for The Hellacopters'
and Dozer's forthcoming albums.
There was also some more work done on the Republicans' album and two tracks
were mixed for a vinyl only single.
Hardrock café opened in Gothenburg. If you go there you can see Sator's Grammis award from -92 and Chips ancient leather vest (seen in many old Sator pictures) on display.
Heikki (and Jörgen "Jugglo" Wall) produced some songs with the Eskilstuna band Le Mans. And the Fatboy album "Steelhearted" they produced was finally released.
Sat 4th - The last recordings on the four The Billy Pilgrims songs were done.
Sun 5th - Finally some more work on the Sator album! Kent and Chips put down some backing vocals on "World Keeps turning" and "Ghost of my control".
Sun 26th - Sator played a short set at the club "Blå" in Eskilstuna. It was the second and last show this year. Hasse couldn't make it this night so some songs had to be dropped or rearranged.
Setlist:
- No Reason
- So dressed up
- No Time, Tomorrow
- Get out of My Way
- Goodbye Joey
- Black 'n' White
- This ain't the Way Home
- I'd Rather Drink Than Talk
Encores: - Slug it out
- I Wanna Go Home
- Pigvalley Beach
We were only supposed to play six songs but when we got started we just couldn't stop, so it almost became a full set anyway.
Kent
Fri 10th - The Clash London Calling albums was released 25 years ago this day. It was celebrated at "Pustervik" in Gothenburg. Kent sang "Brand New Cadillac". Some of the other guests were Stry Terrarie, Incka Ullén, Johan Johansson, Stefan Nilsson, Michael "Krånne" Krohné, Sulo, Marcus Birro & Lasse Franck, Crippa and Balsam.
2004 was a very busy year for me but it didn't become "the return of Sator year" as we planned. It was mostly my fault. I just couldn't find the time. 2005 will be better for the band. The album is almost done and we will play a lot more shows.
Chips
2005
JANUARY 2005
Chips did more pre-production on The Hellacopters "Rock 'n' roll is
dead" album.
Fri 21st - Sator played at Folkets Park in Tranås at a mini festival
named "The Gathering". The other bands were Rövsvett,
Mimikry and Asta
Kask. Sator's setlist was similar to the last two shows' but the
band had to drop a few songs because of the curfew.
I think we dropped three songs but the audience kept on screaming so we were finally allowed to do one more song after the curfew so we did 'You ain't nothing to me' as the very last encore.
Hans
It was a really good night for all the bands. The audience was great.
Heikki
Wed 26th - The Chips Kiesbye produced Wilmer X album "13 våningar upp" was released with good reviews. It entered the Swedish charts at no 1.
That's actually my first number 1. Sator has never been higher than number 2. I think Thåström's album was a number 1 too but it doesn't count as I only played guitar. The charts are not that important to us but it looks good in the 'history books'.
Chips
Mon 31st - The recording of the next Hellacopters album started at the Atlantis studio in Stockholm. Once again Chips produced. Engineer was Michel Ilbert, Chips and Janne Hansson.
FEBRUARY 2005
For the 5th year in a row Chips were part of a Grammis nomination. This time with The Hellacopters "Strikes like lightning" mini album, but as usual the Grammy went to someone else. The recording of The Hellacopters "Rock 'n' roll is dead" album continued the whole month.
Fri 11th - The second Sator show this year (wow almost a tour!), at Blue
Moon Bar in Karlstad. Support band was Mama Kin, a local "sleaze rock"
band.
Kent produced sessions for an album with the singer/songwriter Dan Viktor
at Nacksving/Music-A-Matic studio. The working title is "Mitt hjärtas
monster". It will be Dan Viktor's second long player. Dan is also part of Kent's Dylan
tribute band The BOB.
MARCH 2005
March 3rd - Chips played guitar on two tracks for a Niels Jensen album at 44traxx studio in Stockholm. The album was produced by Heikki and Jörgen "Jugglo" Wall. Heikki and Jugglo also acted as the backing band on all tracks. Niels Jensen is an actor/artist/video director/movie maker… who has released at least 6 albums from 1980-93. Mostly under his own name but also some electro sounds as Vipera.
The album is a total mess of styles and sounds. Everything from punk to more experimental stuff. I don't know what label it will be released on yet.
Heikki
Sun 13th - "ADHD", the last Niels Jensen track was laid down live in the studio by Chips, Heikki and "Jugglo" with Niels on lead vocals and some extra guitar. Michael who happened to be in town helped out on backing vocals.
This is the punkiest track on the album. Pure primal punk.
Heikki
The track was basically written on the spot after an idea from Niels that the chords should fit with the lyrics. So the chords are A/D/H/D and nothing else. It felt like we were all back in the basement in 1979 again.
Chips
And easy job. All I had to do was scream 'ADHD' over and over again.
Michael
Wed 16th - Wilmer X recorded their version of Björn
Skifs' (of Blue Swede "Hooked
on a feeling" fame) mid-70's hit "Michelangelo" for a Eurovision
song contest 50 years celebration compilation called "Alla Tiders Melodifestival".
Chips produced and sang backing vocals. Stefan Boman engineered. The song
was recorded and mixed at Park Studio in Stockholm.
Thur 24st - The Hellacopters album was finished.
Mon 28th - The Hellacopters b-side "It might mean something to you"
was recorded and mixed.
We discovered that we didn't have a b-side for the single and the mastering was booked for the day after! So me and Nicke very quickly put together a song. It was written, recorded and mixed in about 2-3 hours! It was fun to write a b-side on purpose and I think it actually turned out pretty good.
Chips
Wed 30th - The Millencolin album "Kingwood days", produced by Chips, was released and entered the Swedish charts at number 2.
Heikki produced 2 tracks; "A withered rose" and "The letter" for the Eskilstuna band Dave at Studio Ambassaden in Eskilstuna.
Kent produced the first album by Per "Flamman" Westling. Per "Flamman" Westling also plays guitar in Dan Viktor's band and in The BOB.
The album will be great! It's like a mix between Wilco, Neil Young and Creedence Clearwater Revival.
Kent
APRIL 2005
Wed 13th - Sator returned to Music-A-Matic studio to finish the Basement
Noise album.
Some vocals were re-recorded and some extra guitars and keyboards were added.
Sat 23rd - Kent played a show at Jazzhuset in Gothenburg with The BOB. (The
Dylan cover band The SHE's new name from now on)
Sun 24th - The BOB did another show at Jazzå also in Gothenburg.
The Republikans' 7" single "Thanks a lot Buddy" was released.
It was produced by Chips and was the first songs to be released from the
never ending album sessions.
MAY 2005
Tues 11th - 11 of the 13 songs for the Sator album had now been mixed. Since the studio was booked the last two songs had to be mixed at a later date. Chips went back home to Stockholm and some more work on the Republikans album.
The Republikans album is the slowest project ever, but we were finally beginning to see the end of it now.
Chips
Wed 12th - The Billy Pilgrims session produced by Chips was recorded last
august and now it finally got mixed. All 4 songs were completed in 1 day.
Thurs 19th - Heikki played bass with The New York
Dolls tribute band The New Dork Yolls
at the club "Number six" in Eskilstuna. The band existed as Frenchette
in the 80's. This was a sort of reunion. All original members of Frenchette
- Kjell Carlsson on guitar, Håkan Carlsson on drums and the singer
Per Ekström - joined the line-up. Apart from the original bass player
Lasse Johansson who didn't wanna do it so, Heikki helped them out instead.
Heikki's own band from the early 80's - Minx
- was part of the same scene. Minx released two now hard to find 7"
singles.
Mon 23rd - Heikki started working on an album with the band Le
Mans from Eskilstuna. He produced the album together with Jörgen
"Jugglo" Wall. The recording took place at Park Studio and was
engineered by Stefan Boman.
Chips also started pre-production work on the second Captain Murphy album
this month.
Thurs 26th - Chips and Stefan Boman mixed the Wilmer X track "Kungen heter Bo". The song was an outtake from the album sessions last year. It became part of an EP called "4x4", along with 2 more outtakes and "Michelangelo".
JUNE 2005
Thurs 9th - The Niels Jensen album "All min kärlek" was released. Three Sator members are featured Heikki, Michael and Chips.
Sat 18th - The Hultsfred Festival
Chips, Heikki and Jörgen "Jugglo" Wall were the backing
band at the Hultsfreds 20 years anniversary show. Host was Allram Est
(a big doll from a Swedish children's show).
THE GUESTS/SONGS/ORIGINAL ARTISTS:
Joppe Pihlgren (Vocals/Guitar) - Bensin i blodet (Docent Död)
Anders "Moneybrother" Wendin (Vocals) - Ace of Spades (Motörhead)
Olle Ljungström/Andreas Kleerup (Vocals) + Kent Norberg (Guitar) - Shake
some action (Flamin' Groovies)
Maria Andersson (Vocals/Guitar) - Heart of the city (Nick
Lowe)
José Gonzales (Vocals) - Small town boy (Bronski
Beat)
Nix Vahlberg (Vocals) + Mats Gustafson (Saxophone) - Have love will travel
(Richard
Berry/The Sonics)
Kent Norberg (Vocals) - Too drunk to fuck (Dead Kennedys)
Kent Norberg (Vocals) + Robert "Strings" Dahlberg (Guitar) -
Smokin' in the boy's room (Brownsvillle station)
Freddie Wadling (Vocals) - No fun (The Stooges)
Bo Sundtröm (Vocals) + Nix Vahlberg (Guitar) - Sweet Jane (Velvet
Underground)
Nina Natri (Vocals) + Emma "Emmon" Nylén (Synth) - Living
on video (Trans-Ex/Fidget)
Robert "Strings" Dahlberg (Vocals/Guitar) + Various backing singers
- Rock 'n' roll
is dead (The Rubinoos)
Later the same evening Sator were the last of the festival's surprise acts on The Pampas stage. It just wouldn't be a real Hultsfred festival anniversary without Sator.
Thurs 23rd - Another The Hellacopters b-side, "Positively So Naive", was written and recorded in the same way as the previous one. Chips co-wrote the song with Nicke Andersson and played some guitar on the track as well. It turned up on the "I'm in the band" single.
Sat 25th - Sator played at the Midsommarrock festival at Säterdalen in Säter.
JULY 2005
Fri 8th - Sator returned to their hometown Borlänge for the Peace and love festival.
We played quite early so the sun was still hot. It was probably 40° on stage. We almost melted away!
Michael
Sat 30th - Another Sator show at The Vadstuck Festival on Gotland. The set ended with an unrehearsed version of Ring Ring.
We had dropped the song from the set quite a while ago but picked it up just for fun this night. You never know what might pop up in the set list.
Hans
AUGUST 2005
Tues 16th - The last three tracks ("Escape from Pigvalley Beach"/"Water on a drowning man"/"Out of my hands") were finally mixed. The Basement Noise album was completed! "This ain't the way home" was remixed and was the last song to be finished.
It's been a long trip. We started in May 2004! The problem was getting studio time when everybody was available. We didn't actually spend that much time in the studio. It was just ages between the sessions.
Chips
Wed 24th - "Hellraiser", a song Sator recorded with Freddie Wadling back in 1988, was mixed by Henryk Lipp.
No one remembers much about that session. We don't even know who recorded it. It might have been Henryk Lipp or Michael Ilbert. It's also possible that we did it on our own. I'm not sure why it didn't get released back then. I think we left for the Slammer-tour shortly after and didn't get back home for a year. I guess we just forgot about it.
Hans
Fri 26th - The BOB (Kent's Dylan cover band) played at Jazzhuset in Gothenburg
Sat 27th - Chips produced 2 songs with Swedish band Docenterna for a forthcoming greatest hits CD. The recording was done at 44 traxx studio with Jörgen Wall as engineer.
The Wilmer X live DVD was completed as well. And Chips kept on working with Captain Murphy doing more pre-production for their second album.
SEPTEMBER 2005
Tues 6th - The mixing of The Republikans album started. 11 songs were mixed for a yet untitled album. It was done at Music-A-Matic studios with Henryk Lipp.
The movie "Tjenare Kungen" was released this month. Thåström and his bandmates from the "Thåström band" (Chips, Heikki, Per Hägglund and Jörgen Wall) performed a newly written Thåström/Hägglund track called "Bara för mycket" on the soundtrack. The vocals were handled by Josefin Neldén (One of the actors in the movie).
OCTOBER 2005
Heikki played bass on another Lisa Miskovsky album.
Sat 22nd - Kent played with his new band, Luxury Liner, in Gothenburg. The band members were Bengan Blomgren guitar, Johan Håkansson drums, Fabian Kallerdahl keyboards, Petter Ericsson bass and Kent on vocals. The set included some soul, country and a bunch of 60's classics.
Tues 25th - Chips produced 3 tracks by The Steroids at Music-A-Matic studios.
NOVEMBER 2005
Fri 11th - The Wild Kings returned for another Wild Kingdom show at Debaser in Stockholm. The set list was a sort of "greatest hits" and was the only Wild Kings show this year.
We decided not to do any 'new' songs this time. There were so many songs that we really wanted to do again. The Wild Kings have played over 50 different tracks so there were quite a few to choose from. They were finally picked by chance. Whoever of all the guests we ran into first got asked.
Chips
The guests were Howlin' Pelle Almqvist, Maria Andersson, Johan Bååth, Sonny Boy Gustafsson, Victor Hvidfeldt, Robert "Strings" Dahlberg, Kristina Karlsson, Kurt Dräckes, Odd Ahlgren and Patrik Wirén.
Sat 19th - Sator played at Högfjällscenter, Sälen. The last gig before the new album. Several songs got "retired" after this show.
DECEMBER 2005
Fri 2nd - Chips started working on the 2nd Captain Murphy album at Music-A-Matic. It was engineered by Chips and Henryk Lipp. 23 backing tracks were recorded in a week.
Wed 14th - Chips went to Dresden to work on demos with the German band Krieger at the bands own studio.
Fri 23rd - Chips recorded lead vocals for the White Flag song "Land Minds". It can be found on the Italian "Piango con me" 10" EP.
Kent's cover band Luxury Liner played the first 3 weekends at Jazzhuset.
2006
JANUARY 2006
Sat 1st - One more lead vocals by Chips for the White Flag EP was done this day. It was a Joni Mitchell cover called "Both Sides now".
I'm not familiar at all with the original version. I just tried to sing like Doug did on the guide vocals.
Chips
FEBRUARY 2006
Sat 4th - Chips went to Rome for the White Flag tour of Italy. The line-up of White Flag this time was Pat Fear on vocals and guitar, Doug Graves on vocals and bass, Chips Kiesbye (AKA El Swe) on vocals and guitar, Ken Stringfellow (AKA Kim Crimson) on vocals, organ and guitar and Victor M Surrounded on drums.
Wed 8th - The Swedish singer-songwriter Dan Viktor's album "Mitt hjärtas monster" was released. It was produced by Kent Norberg who is also credited as co-writer on one track.
Mon 13th - White Flag returned to Rome for the final show of the White Flag Italian tour.
Mon 20th - Sator signed a distribution deal with Bonnier/Amigo for the Basement Noise album.
Tues 21st - After almost 3 months wait it was finally time to pick up working on the Captain Murphy album again. The band had been waiting for their contracts to be sorted out.
The Steroids sessions that began in October last year were completed this month.
MARCH 2006
Mon 6th - Chips produced 1 track with The Nomads. "No king of Rock 'n' roll". It was recorded at the band's rehearsal studio.
Mon 13th - Another production job by Kent Norberg was released this day. An album by the band Flamman called "Surprising sun". Kent also co-wrote one song. The band consisted of Per "Flamman" Westling on guitar and vocals, Johan Håkansson on drums and Nikke Ström on bass.
Heikki Kiviaho produced a 3 track CD single with the Eskilstuna band Dirty Hearts.
The new 1-track Sator single "So Dressed Up" got heavy rotation on several radio stations this month.
APRIL 2006
The last songs for the Republikans album was mixed by Henryk Lipp at Music-A-Matic studios.
Chips kept on working on the Captain Murphy album.
Fri 7th - Rehearsals started in Gothenburg for Sator's new live set.
It felt great to throw out a couple of old songs and put in some of the new stuff instead.
Hans
Thurs 13th - Sator played at "Eurobowl" in Norrköping. Several new songs were performed for the very first time live. Support band was The Nifters.
Fri 14th - Another Sator show at "Palace" in Kalmar. This time the support bands were Black Pine and Loud 'n' Nasty.
Wed 19th - Sator's 7th album "Basement Noise" was released at last!!!! A release party was arranged at Debaser in Stockholm. The band played the whole album in correct order. This will probably never happen again. The encores consisted of three oldies. "No reason", "I wanna go home" and "I'd rather drink than talk". The band were also DJ's, playing their favorite songs until the lights came on and everyone was thrown out.
This was the first release party I've ever been to that actually qualified to be called a party. Most of the invited were our friends. We had a great time and it was fun to play the whole album. We've never done that before. Some songs will probably never be played again.
Chips
Fri 28th - Sator played on a cruise to Finland arranged by the radio station "Bandit Radio". The event was called "Bandit goes Baltic and the bands were Sator, Stereolith & The Bandit Metalizers.
MAY 2006
Fri 5th - Le Mans released their album "Rebel action" in Sweden. The album was produced by Heikki Kiviaho and Jörgen Wall. It was recorded at "Psykbunkern" studio in Stockholm and was engineered by Stefan Boman. The first single from the album - "Rolling the stones" - was actually written by Heikki. The album reached the rest of Europe in September this year.
Fri 12th - Another Sator show. A semi-official show at the small club "Raw" in Eskilstuna.
We were actually supposed to be waiting at the airport outside Stockholm for a really early flight to Björkliden the morning after but instead of being bored at the airport hotel we asked Heikki to quickly arrange a show in his hometown.
Kent
It was probably one of the longest shows in my life. I got really sick a couple of hours before the show. Throwing up and everything. We all thought that we might have to cancel but I managed to play the show anyway with a break for throwning up.
Michael
Yes, we were really mean to Michael. We played all the fast songs with not very long breaks between them just to see if we could get him to puke on stage. When we got to 'I'd rather drink than talk' Michael suddenly stopped after a few bars into the song and said 'This is not possible anymore' and left the stage very quickly. So there we were looking at each other with no drummer. Luckily Christer Heldring, the drummer of Heikki's first punk band SS Dase (they also played together in Minx), was in the audience so we asked him up. The show must go on! Christer played 'Blitzkrieg Bop' and 'Teenage Kicks' with us before Michael came back pale as a ghost and finished the show. Christer Heldring now plays in The Baditudes by the way.
Chips
Heikki also played in one of the support bands. A New York Dolls tribute band. They sometimes go under the name "The New Dork Yolls" but they changed the name for this night. Sadly noone remembers what the name was. The third band was The Dirty Hearts.
Sat 13th - Sator played at the ski resort Björkliden located in the very very north of Sweden.
That was a wild show. The ceiling came down after only two songs.
Heikki
Mon 15th - Chips went to Iceland to produce the Brain Police album "Beyond the wasteland". Engineer was another Swede, Stefan Boman, who Chips has worked with many times.
JUNE 2006
Fri 3rd - The Brain Police album was completed around midnight after three weeks of hard work. The rest of the night was spent in bars celebrating a well done job.
Tues 6th - Pre-production and rehearsals started for Nisse Hellberg's solo album "Snackbar Blues" in Stockholm. Another production job for Chips, very different from the last one. Nisse Hellberg is the singer and main songwriter of Wilmer X. The backup band consisted of Marcus Källström (Sky High, Stonecake…) on drums, Janne Lindén (Tuff Enuff, Micke "Mojo" and his Bedroom Bazookas, Wilmer X…) on guitar and Affe Östlund (Fatboy, Wanda Jackson…) on upright bass.
Mon 19th - Chips started working with The Bones in Music-A-Matic in Gothenburg. The backing tracks to 19 songs were put down on tape in 10 days.
Tues 27th - Sator and The Bones recorded the backing tracks to a cover of the 1975 hit "Touch too much". It was originally recorded by the Arrows (The band who also did the original version of "I love rock 'n' roll" - Joan Jett's mega hit.). The song would be worked on on and off through july in Gothenburg, Stockholm and Karlskrona. The line-up was:
Sator:
- Chips Kiesbye - Lead vocals and lead guitar
- Kent Norberg - Backing vocals and guitar
- Heikki Kiviaho - Bass
- Mikael Solén - Drums and percussion
- Hans Gäfvert - Keyboards
The Bones:
- Spooky - Drums
- Boner - Guitar
- Andi - Backing vocals
- Beef - Backing vocals
"Touch too much" was released on an Italian compilation CD.
Heikki was also part of a very different side-project this month. He played on a new version of the finish tango-evergreen "Satumaa". It was released as a bonus CD with a book about speaking two languages. Finnish and Swedish in this case.
JULY 2006
Sat 1st - Sator at "Olsson's Brygga" in Arvika
Sun 2nd - The very last stuff was recorded for the Captain Murphy album at Planet of Noise Studios in Stockholm.
Mon 3rd - The recording of the Nisse Hellberg solo album started at Atlantis studios in Stockholm. Chips produced and engineered together with Janne Hansson. The recording continued for 5 days.
Thurs 6th - Sator at the Peace and Love festival in Borlänge. The band went on at midnight. Chips and Michael drove from Stockholm, played and went back to Stockholm again straight after the show. Heikki came with a specially charted private plane from Sundsvall where he had played a Lisa Miskovsky gig earlier the same evening.
This was a very long day but we didn't want to say no to our hometown when they ask so we decided to do it anyway.
Chips
Wed 13th - A Kent Norberg solo show supporting Stefan Sundström in Stockholm at Kulturhuset. Kent was backed by Bengt "Bengan" Blomgren on guitar. Kent also joined Stefan Sundström for a couple of songs in Stefans set.
Mon 17th - The work on the Bones' album continued in Karlskrona and would continue for another three weeks.
Sat 22nd - Sator played at Hot Rats MC's Summerparty in Vetlanda.
AUGUST 2006
Sun 6th - The following six days Nisse Hellbergs album was completed at Varispeed studio in Klågerup. Mainly vocals and backing vocals were done.
Tues 8th - The Kinks-tribute band Kind of Kinks played at "Göteborgskalaset". Some of the guests were Kent Norberg, Ebbot Lundberg and Freddie Wadling:
Wed 9th - The mix of the Captain Murphy album was finally completed when the last song "Buffalo's heart" was mixed by Henryk Lipp at Music-A-Matic studios.
Sat 12th - Sator at Ögir in Köping.
Sat 26th - Sator could be seen at the mini festival at Tantogården in Stockholm with Babylon Bombs, House of Shakira, Titanic Toys, Foxes… The last show this summer.
Mon 28th - First day of The Nisse Hellberg mix. It was mixed by Ronny Lahti at Megaphon studio, Stockholm. It was completed the following Sunday.
Chips also did more work on The Bones' album this month.
SEPTEMBER 2006
Sat 2nd - Kent sang with De Stenade Rullarna at Jazzhuset in Gothenburg.
Fri 8th - Kent played two nights with his coverband Luxary Lineup at Jazzhuset (the same band as Luxary Liner).
Wed 20th - Chips work with The Bones were done. The band completed the album in Karlskrona on their own after this and mixed it with Henryk Lipp at Music-A-Matic studios later this year.
OCTOBER 2006
Fri 6th - A show by Kent's band Luxary Lineup at Jazzhuset in Gothenburg.
Wed 18th - Another Lisa Miskovsky tour for Heikki started at the club "Katalin" in Uppsala. It would continue for the rest of this year.
Wed 11th - Strip Music released their 2nd album "Hollywood and Wolfman". It was produced by Heikki Kiviaho and recorded during the summer at Europa studios in Stockholm. The single "Sugar & Lime" hit the stores a week earlier.
NOVEMBER 2006
17th - A show by Kent's band Luxary Lineup at Jazzhuset in Gothenburg.
Chips worked on demos for a forthcoming album with The Nomads. He also did some demo sessions with the band Café Society Ltd from Stockholm.
DECEMBER 2006
Sat 9th - Another show by Kent's band Luxary Lineup at Jazzhuset in Gothenburg.
Sat 16th - Sator played at a packed "Sticky Fingers" in Gothenburg. The show was recorded for a DVD-release. Some songs were played for the first time ever this night like "Dance to The Rocket from the Crypt" and "Find the time". Other "rare" songs in the setlist were "I'll wait", "Kiss of the rat "and "Ain't seen nothing".
Mon 25th - Chips started pre-production work with Mimikry for their next album.
Fri 29th - Chips and Heikki with Rocco Gustafsson on drums played a couple of songs at "Hitlistan #1", some sort of mini-festival held at the club Raw in Eskilstuna. They did Sham 69's "Hurry up Harry" and was joined by Kenja Edh from The Slapping Suspenders for Ebba Grön's "800°" and "Alla visa män". Some of the others bands that night was The Baditudes, Allan Ladds, Le Mans…
I was some sort of new wave party with 13 Eskilstuna bands playing one song each from 1976-1982. It was a really good party. The Baditudes did a great version of 999's "Homicide/Nasty nasty". We played last so we got to do 3 songs.
Chips
2007
JANUARY 2007
Thurs 11th - Heikki played with Lisa Miskovsky at the "Rockbjörnen" awards held at Circus in Stockholm. Lisa won two "Rockbjörnar".
Fri 12th - Chips got up on stage with the punkband Topper and Mosebacke in Stockholm singing Stiff Little Fingers' "Suspect device" and playing guitar on Sham 69's "If the kids are united". The lead vocals on the second one was handled by Bo Johander, who once guested with The Wild Kings.
Thurs 18th - The Sator live DVD was mixed the following three days by Håkan Wollgård and Chips.
Chips did more demos with both The Nomads and Café Socitey Ltd.
Wed 24th - Docenterna released their greatest hits compilation. It was celebrated with a show at Debaser in Stockholm. Kent joined the band on their classic "Solglasögon" on lead vocals. Chips produced "Dags att bli hög", the only new track on the compilation.
Fri 26th - A show by Kent's band Luxary Lineup at Jazzhuset in Gothenburg. There was a second show by Luxary lineup at Jazzå this month too but the date is unknown.
FEBRUARY 2007
Fri 2nd - A show by Kent's band The Bob at Jazzhuset in Gothenburg.
Sun 4th - Kent played at Jazzå with Ola Bjurman.
Wed 7th - Chips did some backing vocals and guitars on a couple of White Flag tracks for their forthcoming album.
Fri 9th - Chips and Henryk Lipp started mixing the Belgium band Southern Voodoo's second album "Devil's drive".
Fri 23rd - Chips played piano, guitar and did some backing vocals with Nisse Hellberg on Swedish national TV on the show "Go' kväll". The songs performed were "Lyckliga gatan" and "Tufft jobb".
Sat 24th - Recordings for a new Hellacopters album started at Music-A-Matic Studios in Gothenburg. Once again with Chips as producer. This time with Henryk Lipp engineering the backing tracks.
Wed 28th - Recordings for an album with the band Billy Pilgrims started at Music-A-Matic Studios in Gothenburg. Again with Chips as producer and Henryk Lipp as engineer.
MARCH 2007
Wed 21st - "A Tribute To Gene Clark" at the Woody West club featuring Shade Tree, Baby Grand, Kent Norberg among others.
Sator "Live at Sticky Fingers 2006" DVD was released.
APRIL 2007
Chips worked on the Hellacopters ”Head off” album all month.
Fri 27:th-The ”Road to Ruins” festival in Rome. Chips guested with The Zeros on ”Black ´n´ white”. Some of the other bands at the festival was Paul Collins' Beat. Cheeta Chrome (from the Dead Boys) and Chariot (with members from The Zeros, White Flag and The Posies).
Fri 6:th-Clubnight at “Raw“ in Eskilstuna. “Hitlistan#2, A tribute to The Ramones”
Kent and Heikki got up on stage with Rocco Gustafsson on drums and Kenja Edh on guitar.
The songs played were ”Commando” and ”California sun”. Some of the other bands were The Jacks, The Domus, Lemones, The Lindbergs, Baditudes and The Ramned.
MAY 2007
Chips kept on working on The Hellacopters and The Billy Pilgrims albums.
Fri 30:th-The recording of Mimikry's ”Alderland” album started at Music-A-Matic studios with Chips producing. 21 songs were recorded!
JUNE 2007
Work on the Mimikry and Billy Pilgrims albums continued.
Fri 15:th-Yet another production job for Chips. The first sessions for Nisse Hellberg's album ”En tiger i tanken” at the Atlantis studio in Stockholm started today with Janne Hansson engineering..
Sat 23:rd-Chips guested with The Turpentines on a one-off reunion at the ”Gearfest” festival at Debaser in Stockholm. Johnny Thunders old side-kick Walter Lure from The Heartbreakers was headlining.
JULY 2007
The work on the Mimikry album would continue on and off for the rest of the year.
Fri 22:nd-The old Sator Codex song "Leech" was one of the tracks on a double compilation CD called "Svensk Postpunk", featuring 35 Swedish goth rock bands of the eighties.
AUGUST 2007
Chips kept on working with Nisse Hellberg.
Mon 27:th-The mixing of The Hellacopters ”Head off” album started at Park Studio in Stockholm with Stefan Boman.
Wed 22:nd-"Escape from Pigvalley Beach", along with songs from Thunder Express, Republikans and The Turpentines, was used in an online 3D car racing game called ”Pork Racer”.
SEPTEMBER 2007
Mon 3:rd-The final session of Nisse Hellberg's album took place at Atlantis studio.
Fri 7:th-Sator played at the ”Crossroads” festival in Oviedo in Northern Spain. Some of the other bands appearing at the festival was The Bones, El Vez, Sonny Burgess, Jason and the Scorcherers, Georgia Satellites, The Tommy's and The Slaptones.
We headlined this night which in Spain means that you go on at 4,30 in the morning! I'm impressed that people actually stayed for us.
Kent
We were there for the whole festival. It's actually one of the best festivals I've ever been to. We saw so many great shows so it was really worth staying.
Hans
Some new additions to the live set were tried out, among them Dance to the rocket from the crypt, Find the time and Nothing Hurts.
Setlist in Oviedo:
- So dressed up
- No reason
- Find the Time
- Jetslide
- Kiss of the Rat
- I Wanna Go Home
- Nothing Hurts (for the first time ever)
- Goodbye Joey
- You Ain't Nothing To Me
- Dance to the Rocket from the Crypt
- Ghost of My Control
- Escape from Pigvalley Beach
- I'd Rather Drink Than Talk
- Slug it Out
- Ain't Seen Nothing
- Get out of My Way
Sun 23:rd-Nisse Hellberg's album was completed.
Tues 25:th-The Hellacopters album was completed.
Sat 29:th-Kent Norberg was one of the guest stars when Mejeriet in Lund celebrated their 20:th anniversary. Kent performed together with Eggstone and sang Docent Död's "Hand i hand". Some other guest stars were The Creeps, The Sinners, Jakob Hellman and Lars Winnerbäck.
Heikki wrote the music and did the “sound design” for a play called “Hundarna i Prag” at Judiska Teatern in Stockholm. The play was based on Marguerite Duras book ”Abahn, Sabana, David” It was directed by Pia Forsgren and was very well received by the critics.
OCTOBER 2007
Mon 1:st-Heikki followed the path of many rockstars (Mick Jagger, David Bowie…) going into acting when he participated in a stage play for kids called ”Skriket från tvättkorgen”. Heikki also wrote and performed part of the music. The play was directed by Christina Nilsson.
Heikki also wrote some music for an art-project called "Bjanck" this month.
Wed 24:th-Another Chips-produced Nisse Hellberg album was released. "En tiger i tanken" It would (like the previous Hellberg album) eventually give Chips another ”Gold record” to hang on the wall.
Sat 27:th: The second and last Sator show for 2007 at ”Monsters of Mora” in Mora. It was a mini-festival where all band's had some ”Dalarna connection” (The part of the country where the town of Borlänge is) The other bands were Tryckvåg, Sabaton, and Hammerfall.
The Italian compilation "Wild sound from the past dimension" on Go Down Records was finally released. The theme was ”Rock 'n' roll songs of the 60's and 70's” Sator's contribution was a version of The Arrows' "Touch too much" from 1975. It was recorded last summer together with The Bones. Also on the album was White Flag's version of "Both sides now" (originally by Joni Mitchell) with Chips on lead vocals.
Kent started working on his ”Swedish” album this month. It would be worked on sporadically over the following months. Kent's backing band consisted of Nikke Ström on bass, Bengan Blomgren on guitar, Johan Håkansson on drums and Per ”Flamman” Westling on guitar. The sessions took place at Music A Matic studios in Gothenburg.
NOVEMBER 2007
Fri 9:th-Yet another production job for Chips. The Paul Collins' Beat. The album was recorded in 11 days at Music-A-Matic Studios. Kent did some backing vocals on ”Big pop song”. To return the favour Paul Collins played some accoustic guitar on one of Kent's songs.
Mon 19:th Sator recorded the Unnatural Axe song ”3 chord rock” for the American compilation ”Ruling the world from the backseat” A Tribute to Unnatural Axe. The album would not be released until the autumn of 2008 on Lawless records (A two record vinyl only set, limited to 500 numbered copies on colored vinyl).
We just sneaked in late at night and used the Paul Collin's setup. It was done very quickly. We rehearsed it twice and then recorded it on the first take. It was over and done in like 20 minutes! That's the way to record punk rock. The song was actually on the list for possible songs for ”Barbie-Q-Killers vol 1” but somehow we forgot to record it.
Chips
DECEMBER 2007
Chips did more work on the (never ending) Billy Pilgrims album, The Paul Collin's Beat and Mimikry albums.
2008
JANUARY 2008
Mon 7:th-The mix of The Paul Collin's Beat album ”Ribbon of Gold” started today at Music-A-Matic studios with Henryk Lipp.
Tues 29:th-Kent appeared with The Bob at ”Göteborgs Filmfestival”
FEBRUARY 2008
Fri 1:st-The very last recordings for the Mimikry album was done with Chips mobile studio in Borlänge.
Mon 25:th-The mixing of The Billy Pilgrims album started at Music-A-Matic studios with Henryk Lipp engineering.
That was quite a relief!. We had been sneaking into the studio on off-hours for ages. It's a cheap way of making records but not good for your nerves.
Chips
MARCH 2008
Tues 4:th-Chips went on a short tour with White Flag. The tour started at ”The Sonic Ballroom” in Köln, Germany. The other members on this tour was Pat Fear, Kim Crimson (Ken Stringfellow of the Posies) and Trace Element. Chips again went under the name ”El Swe”.
Wed 5:th-White Flag in Utrecht , The Netherlands. At ”A©U” supported by S.U.C. it.
Earlier the same night we went to see Golden Earing which was the reason this tour was booked in the first place. It was mainly so Pat Fear would get to see one of his favourite band's ever. A reason as good as any”
Chips
Thur 6th: White Flag in Rotterdam at ”Waterfront” There was also an interview for Dutch TV.
Total chaos! The idea was the put a couple of young students together with White Flag just see what happened. I think the TV people got more than they bargained for. The kids ended up starting a band and got to learn all about the seedy sides of rock`n´roll. They were probably damaged for life.
Chips
The TV-show was later released on a very limited editon DVD. The support band was again ”S.U.C it” And a short performance by The Fashion Models (the band formed the same afternoon on the TV show by the Dutch kids). After the show White Flag recorded a song called ”Dido” at Waterfront Studio with parts of the audience invited to sing backing vocals. Chips played guitar and sang some extra backing vocals on the track. The title was the band's way of getting back at the artist Dido for calling one of her songs ”White Flag” The song can be found on a German compilation called ”Compilation#78” that came as a freebie with the magazine ”Ox”.
Fri 7:th-Two White Flag shows tonight. The first one was at ”The Baarmoeder” in Amsterdam and the second one at ”El Engel” in Den Helder.
Sat 8:th-Yet another The Bob show for Kent. This time at ”Jazzhuset” in Göteborg.
Sun 9:th- The Mimikry album mix started. Once again Henryk Lipp was engineering at Music-A-Matic Studios.
Thurs 20:th-Eskilstuna. Heikki played a short set with David Lindh (Yvonne, Broder Daniel…). The band also included Henric de la Cour, Rocco Gustafsson and Theodor Jensen.
Fri 21:st-SS Dase, Heikki's first band reformed for one night at ”Raw” in Eskilstuna. It was the first reunion since the band broke up in 1980. The band played three songs by The Clash, ”Clash city rockers”; ”Complete Control” and ”I'm so bored with the USA”.
The SS in the band's name had nothing to do with the nazis. It was written on the rocks at ”Nyforsberget” and it we thought it was a cool name. But of course we didn't mind a little controversy either. We were punks.
Heikki
APRIL 2008
Tues 1:st-Pre-production for an album with The Kasbah (Formely know as Café Society Ltd) from Stockholm started today.
Thurs 10:th-Chips guested with Topper at ”Mosebacke” in Stockholm singing the Stiff Little Fingers classic ”Suspect Device”.
MAY 2008
Fri 16:th-Chips, Kent and Heikki celebrated ”The king” at ”Raw” in Eskilstuna . Chips sang ”(You're so square) Baby I don't care” and Kent did ”Little sister”. Rocco Gustafsson was behind the drums and Kenja Edh played guitar.
Sat 17:th-Kent played with The Bob at ”Slussens Pensionat” in Orust.
Sun 18:th-The Bob at ”Jazzå” in Gothenburg.
Chips also worked o demos for a possible The Nomads album.
JUNE 2008
Thurs 19:th- Rehearsals for a White Flag tour with Chips and Kent started in Den Helder, Netherlands. The tour started in Den Helder on the 22nd and would last until July 15th, with the Sator lads making a short trip back to Sweden for at Sator gig on June 28th.
Sat 28:th-Sator played in Motala. New song in the setlist was Halter Top, a rarely performed song from the Sator/White Flag split.
Our roadie Ola tricked us by telling me that Kent wanted to do this one while telling Kent that I wanted to play it. Very clever of him but a good choice. We have so many songs so we tend to forget some of the good ones.
Chips
Sun 29:th-Chips and Kent reunited with Pat and Trace in Germany for the remaining part of the White Flag tour which would last until July 15 and take the band to Germany, Italy, Croatia and Austria.
July 2008
Fri 18: th-Kent and Chips was back in Sator again when they played the ”Lillhärdalsyran” in Lillhärdal, Sweden. Basically the same set as in Motala last month with the exception that “Black `n´ White” made a short comeback in the set.
Thurs 31:st-Sator played at the “Vibrasons festival” in Pontevedra, Spain. There were only two bands this night. Paul Collins' Beat and Sator. Chips and Kent guested with Paul Collins' Beat on “Rock`n´roll girl” and “Walking out on love.”
After all these years I finally got to see Paul Collins. I've played many of his songs. The Sator show was amazing as well.
Heikki
It was in a beautiful square in the middle of the city. We all had a marvelous time and the bars in Spain plays much better music than the Swedish ones. So we spent as much time as possible in the bars.
Michael
AUGUST 2008
Sun 17:th-Kent went to Sala to work on another album with singer-songwriter Dan Viktor as co-producer, musician and backing singer. One of the songs were called “En stor kuk är en klen tröst I ett fattigt hem” (try that in your translation program).
Mon 18:th-Chips started with pre-production for a 5 song EP with the Australian artist Kitto and he also kept on working with The Kasbah.
Sat 30:th-The backing tracks to 5 songs with Kitto were recorded in two days at Park Studio in Stockholm with Chips producing and Stefan Boman engineering. The band consisted of Pontus Andersson on guitar, Anders Molin on bass and Robban Bach drums and Kitto herself on guitar and lead vocals.
SEPTEMBER 2008
Kitto's EP ”Unlearn your generation" was completed at the end of the month. It was mixed by Stefan Boman at Park Studio in Stockholm.
Chips kept working with pre-production for The Kasbah album and also recorded some demos for a possible album with The Nomads.
OCTOBER 2008
Sat 4:th-Heikki wrote the music to another play for kids called ”Cowgirls”. He worked together with his brother Hannu Kiviaho (from Fatboy). The play premiered this day at ”Nya Finska Teatern" in Eskilstuna and would later continue in Stockholm. It was directed by Timo Nieminen.
Mon 6:th-The recording of The Kasbah's album started at Music A Matic Studios with Chips in the producer chair and Henryk Lipp engineering. It would continue on and off for the rest of the year.
Fri 24:th-The Chips-produced Mimikry album ”Alderland” was released.
Sunday 26:th-The Hellacopters played their last show at Debaser Medis in Stockholm. Chips worked with the band from the year 2000 ”High visibility” album until their last one ”Head off” in 2007.
It was a very sad night since the band has been a big part of my life for a long time. But I do understand why they wanna stop now.
Chips
NOVEMBER 2008
Chips started with pre-production for an album with the band Bonafide from Malmö.
DECEMBER 2008
Thurs 4:th-The mix of The Kasbah's album started.
Fri 19:th-Sator at Raw in Eskilstuna. Several older songs were added to the setlist again.
It's fun to change aroundin the setlist once in a while. We drop some tracks and put in some songs we haven't played in a long time. Just to keep it fresh.
Hans
Sat 20:th-Sator at Bolanche in Borlänge. The ”Homecoming show” was a big sucess. A great way of ending 2008.
2009
JANUARY 2009
Mon 12:th-Chips and Kent wrote a song for Leksands IF.
The final touches were made on The Kasbah album but it would take over a year before the album was released because of various record label problems.
Tues 13:th-The Small Jackets arrived in Gothenburg to work with Chips and Henryk. Chips produced and Henryk engineered. The album was recorded in 10 days at Music A Matic studios.
Sat 24:th-Chips back in Malmö for more pre-production work with Bonafide.
FEBRUARY 2009
The Small Jackets ”Cheap tequila” was mixed by Henryk Lipp and Chips.
Sator recorded the hockey-song ”Leksandslåten” It was released as an exclusive CD single only sold at Leksand IF's supporter shop. It's the first Sator record sung in Swedish.
We did our part but sadly it wasn't enough . Our team just barely missed the opportunity to return to the highest league. It was close. But we have big hopes for 2010.
Michael
Tues 17:th-First day in the Music A Matic studio with Bonafide with Chips producing and Henryk Lipp engineering. The album ”Something's dripping” would be worked on until the end of June.
MARCH 2009
Thurs 26:th-Sator's first show of 2009 took place at the club ”Swing” in Borås supported by local band Leopard Ladies.
APRIL 2009
More Bonafide album sessions.
MAY 2009
Wed 20:th-Sator played at Ögir in Köping supported by Bruket from Fagersta. ”Fuck you” from BBQ killers was played as an encore.
It was the first time since the early 90's that we've played that one I think.
Michael
Fri 29:th-Sator played at a private party on Åland. (an Island between Finland and Sweden)
Great night! One of my favorite Sator shows ever I must say.
Chips
Fri 30:th-Sator at Mashed Kidneys in Skultuna.
It was a small festival at their clubhouse outside Västerås. Another great night. We have always been treated very friendly by the biker crowds.
Chips
The Billy Pilgrims Chips-produced album ”Where´s the goddamn revolution?” was finally released. It only took 5 years from the first session!
It was done on spare studio time. So several bigger bands ”sponsored” the album. That's why it took so long. It's not like we worked for 5 years every day and became Pink Floyd.
Chips
JUNE 2009
Sat 6:th-The city Eskilstuna (Heikki's hometown) celebrated 350 years as a city. Sator played at ”Rothoffsparken” to celebrate the city.
Wed 17:th-Rehearsals and pre-production for another Nisse Hellberg album started in Stockholm. It would be the third Hellberg solo album in a row produced by Chips.
Wed 24:th-Chips joined Mimikry on stage for the song ”Ett kors” at the ”Peace and Love” festival in Borlänge.
Fri 26:th-Sator at the ”Peace and Love” festival. A secret show booked at the last moment.
We were in town anyway so we did a secret show in the afternoon before the area opened up officially but quite a few people showed up anyway so I guess the secret leaked out.
Hans
Sat 27:th-Sator in Ludvika at ”Ludvikafesten”
JULY 2009
Fri 3:rd-Sator played in Nora at the ”Noradagarna” festival.
A part of Black Sabbath's ”Black Sabbath” was played as an intro to another song.
We played at the square outside the church. It looked so great and scary with the lights on the church so we just spontainiously fell into ”Black Sabbath” it felt like a good idea at the time. I don't remember what song it emerged into after that. That's the only time Sator has ever played a Sabbath song live. I think we've done ”Paranoid” at some soundchecks over the years.
Chips
Sat 4:th-Sator in Motala at the same festival as last year and almost the same bands too!.
Thurs 9:th-Sator played in Vansbro at ”Vansbro simmet” Outdoors in the pouring rain.
It had been raining for several days so it was tough. The brave ones that defied the rain deserves all respect. The audience really saved the day and a good time was had after all”
Heikki
Thomas Olsson, the drummer of Brülbåjz, came to hang out with us. Some of us haven't seen him for 25 years! Brülbåjz singer ”Taggen” is rumoured to live in Vansbro so there could have been a Brülbåjz reunion in Vansbro but.sadly ”Taggen” didn't show up”
Chips
Fri 10:th-Sator played at the ”Rockweekend” festival in Kilafors.
The raining had stopped but it was still a total mud-hell! It was one of the worst rain periods for about 100 years in Sweden this summer! And we were in the middle of it. The show was still great but the audience were all covered in mud.
Michael
I had to throw away my shoes after this show. They were destroyed by mud.
Hans
Sat 11:th-Hasslöfestivalen outside Karlskrona. Sator played together with Hardcore Superstar and some other bands.
We left straight after the show in Kilafors and drove all night to get to this show on time, but it was worth it. One of the best nights this year.
Kent
Fri 24:th-Sator played at ”Musikfesten” in Örnsköldsvik with Mimikry and some local bands.
It was nice to be back. ”Ö-vik” was one of our early strongholds and it's always fun to play with Mimikry.
Chips
Sat 25:th-Sator at the ”Rock the mountain” festival in Söderhamn. Some of the other bands were Badmouth, Zodiac Mindwarp and Lillasyster. Chips and Badmouth talked (over some beers) about working together. That's how deals are made in the music business.
First time for Sator in Söderhamn. I hope it's not the last 'cause we loved it. A great festival.
HeikkiWe got to see Zodiac Mindwarp after all these years as well.
Hans
AUGUST 2009
Thurs 6:th-Chips started recording the Nisse Hellberg album ”En Modern man”. Once again Nisse was produced by Chips. This time the recording took place at Music A Matic studios with Henryk Lipp engineering. (The previous two albums were recorded at Atlantis Studio in Stockholm)
We hade a different approach this time. No amplifiers or electric instruments were allowed and there were absolutley no exceptions to that rule. It was quite a challenge to make it as exciting as the previous albums but ”without” electricity. I think it turned out really good.
Chips
Fri 28:th-This day Sator could be seen/heard at ”Eksjö Stadsfest” along with Backyard Babies, Stefan Sundström…
Another splendid show. We also got the see The Backyard Babies again 'cause they played right after us on another stage.
Michael
Sat 29:th-Sollentuna. Sator performed at ”Sollentuna rock och blues festival” just outside Stockholm.
Heikki wrote some music for the short movie ”Bandyfarsan” toghter with his brother Hannu.
SEPTEMBER 2009
Wed 9:th-Chips was at Decibel Studio playing guitar on a Thåström track. A new ”accoustic” version of ”Ingen neråtsång”.
Sat 12:th-Kent guested with The Leathernun at Sticky Fingers in Gothenburg. It was probably their last show ever since the singer Jonas Almqvist left he band the same day.
The Chips produced Bonafide album ”Something's Dripping” was released in Sweden. The rest of Europe would follow a month later.
Mon 21:st-Last day of the mixing Nisse Hellberg's ”En Modern man”. The mix was done by Ronny Lahti at Decibel studio in Stockholm.
OCTOBER 2009
Fri 2:nd-Sator at Debaser in Stockholm supported by RAS and Crypt Kicker 5.
Wed 7:th-Nisse Hellbergs album ”En Modern man” was released to rave reviews. Apart from producing the album Chips also sang backing vocals. Sator's own Kent Norberg also sings backup vocals on several tracks.
Fri 9th-Heikki once again played with his ”Finnish” band ”Mäntysoopa Band” one of several shows this year recorded live at Radio Sörmland in Eskilstuna. The band consisted of Heikki Kiviaho on bass, Hannu Kiviaho on guitar, Harri Mänty on drums and Heidi Kaarto took care of the vocals. All songs were performed in Finnish.
Sat 10:th-The first writing session for a new Sator album with the working title ”Under the radar” took place at. Michael's summer house in Småland. The band took a break and played at “Pop Corner” in Alvesta in the evening.
Sun 11:th-The writing sessions continued all day.
Sat 17:th-Chips played guitar and sang backing vocals with Nisse Hellberg's band on Swedish national TV. 2 songs were performed live on the air. ”Alltid hem hem hem” and ”Bok i retur”.
NOVEMBER 2009
Fri 13:th-Chips and Heikki was part of the ”houseband” at ”Hitlistan-Raw” in Eskilstuna
Some songs played were: Paul Collin's ”Walking out on Love” sung by Chips, Blondie's ”Hanging on the telephone” with Idde Schultz on vocals, Billy Idol's ”Rebel Yell” with Bengt Bruno Warodell from the early 80's band Date X. ”Teenage Kicks” by The Undertones with Joppe Philgren and the Docent Död/Docenterna songs "Solglasögon", "Söderns ros" and "Utan Dig" with Joppe and Idde sharing the vocal duties.
Wed 18:th-Chips started with pre-production for the Stockholm based band Badmouth's second album. The first with Chips as producer.
Sat 21:st-Sator played on the cruise ship Cinderella together with among others Sham 69 and Molly Hatchet!
Sham 69 was one of the band we grew up with so it was cool to hang out with them and finally get to see them live.
Kent
Wed 25:th-Thåström released a ”greatest hits” collection called ”Be-bop-a-lula hela jävla dan”. Chips and Heikki can be heard on several tracks and the all of Sator sings backing vocals on ”Miss Huddinge Centrum 1972”.
Fri 27:th-Sator at ”Arenan” in Falun supported by Viet Cong Pornsurfers from Falun and Cleanstream Company from Fagersta.
Sat 28:th-Västerås ”Sigurdsgatan 25”. Sator once again supported by Cleanstream Company.
DECEMBER 2009
Wed 2:nd-Chips ”guested” with The Germs on one song at Debaser in Stockholm. Chips played ”4-handed guitar” with Pat Smear on ”The other newest one” A song Sator recorded for a Germs tribute album back in 1993.
It was totally unrehearsed/unplanned. I haven't played the song since 1993 so Pat helped me out a bit. We both played on the same guitar at the same time. We got some very interesting noise going! It was fun and a really cool thing to put on your CV. I've played with The Germs! They were very important when we were kids back in Borlänge and even without Darby they're still phenomenal. The actor Shane West does a great job ”as Darby”.
Chips
Thurs 3:rd-Sator played in Gävle at ”Heartbreak” No support band this night.
Fri 5:th-”Back home” This night Sator could be seen at a sold-out ”Sticky Fingers” in Gothenburg. The Billy Pilgrims opened for the band.
Setlist:
- Turn off the News
- Dog
- So dressed up
- Gamma Gamma Hey!
- Jetslide
- Ain't Seen Nothing
- Ghost of My Control
- Goodbye Joey
- I Wanna Go Home
- Dance to the Rocket from the Crypt
- This is My Life
- Escape from Pigvalley Beach
- Slug it out
Encores
- We're Right, you're wrong
- No reason
- I'd Rather Drink Than Talk
"Fuck You" was played at soundcheck but not at the actual show.
Fri 11:th-Kent guested at the Christmas show ”Hells jingle bells” at Storan in Gothenburg together with among others Joacim Cans from Hammerfall.
Fri 18Th-Heikki played with ”The Magnificent”, a U2 tribute band at Raw in Eskilstuna.
Sat 19:th Malmö The last Sator show of the decade at a sold out Deabser club in Malmö. and the end of a very good year for the band..
Support band this nigh was The Headlines. Chips also found time to guest with Bonafide at the club KB two blocks away on their last song doing dueling guitars with Pontus Snibb.
This month Chips also kept on working with pre-production with Badmouth and The Centerfolds.
2009 was a very good year for the band. We played more shows than we've done for many years. We really felt like a great band again.
Chips
