All chapters

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 of Michael 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 a 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

Brülbåjz, 1980 One of few existing photos of Brülbåyz, 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).

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.

The setlist:

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

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 TalkEncores:
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 “4×4”, 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.

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 17th – 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 18th – 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 30th – 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 4th – 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 6th – 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 24th – The Chips-produced Mimikry album ”Alderland” was released.

Sunday 26th – 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 4th – The mix of The Kasbah’s album started.

Fri 19th – 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 20th – Sator at Bolanche in Borlänge. The ”Homecoming show” was a big sucess. A great way of ending 2008.

2009

JANUARY 2009

Mon 12th – 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 13th – 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 24th – 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 17th – 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 26th – 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 20th – 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 29th – 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 30th – 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 6th – The city Eskilstuna (Heikki’s hometown) celebrated 350 years as a city. Sator played at ”Rothoffsparken” to celebrate the city.

Wed 17th – 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 24th – Chips joined Mimikry on stage for the song ”Ett kors” at the ”Peace and Love” festival in Borlänge.

Fri 26th – 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 27th – Sator in Ludvika at ”Ludvikafesten”

JULY 2009

Fri 3rd – 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 4th – Sator in Motala at the same festival as last year and almost the same bands too!.

Thurs 9th – 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 10th – 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 11th – 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 24th – 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 25th – 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.

Heikki

We got to see Zodiac Mindwarp after all these years as well.

Hans

AUGUST 2009

Thurs 6th – 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 28th – 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 29th – 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 9th – Chips was at Decibel Studio playing guitar on a Thåström track. A new ”accoustic” version of ”Ingen neråtsång”.

Sat 12th – 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 21st – 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 2nd – Sator at Debaser in Stockholm supported by RAS and Crypt Kicker 5.

Wed 7th – 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 10th – 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 11th – The writing sessions continued all day.

Sat 17th – 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 13th – 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 18th – Chips started with pre-production for the Stockholm based band Badmouth’s second album. The first with Chips as producer.

Sat 21st – 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 25th – 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 27th – Sator at ”Arenan” in Falun supported by Viet Cong Pornsurfers from Falun and Cleanstream Company from Fagersta.

Sat 28th – Västerås ”Sigurdsgatan 25”. Sator once again supported by Cleanstream Company.

DECEMBER 2009

Wed 2nd – 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 3rd – Sator played in Gävle at ”Heartbreak” No support band this night.

Fri 5th – ”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 11th – 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

2010

JANUARY 2010

Thurs 21st – First date of a short tour supporting the Backyard Babies in Scandinavia. The tour started at the club ”Klubi” in Tampere, Finland. “It’s outa you” by The Hurriganes was performed for the first and only (?) time.

Fri 22nd – Sator at ”Klubi” in Turku, Finland with Backyard Babies.

Sat 23rd – Sator at ”Tavastia” in Helsinki in Finland with Backyard Babies.

Thurs 28th – Back in Sweden. Sator and Backyard Babies at ”Tyrol” in Stockholm.

Fri 29th – Sator and Backyard Babies at ”Sporthallen” in Nässjö (Backyard Babies’ hometown so the backstage area was packed with their friends, parents and cousins)

Sat 30th – Last night of the Sator/Backyard Babies tour at ”Rockefeller” in Oslo, Norway. After the show Backyard Babies left for Spain and Sator went back to Sweden.

It was exciting to be back in Finland and Norway again. It’s been a while. The whole tour was a sucess with mostly sold out shows. I think it was really good for both bands actually.

Kent

FEBRUARY 2010

Wed 4th – Kent recorded a solotrack ”Last polar bear” for a Bear Family records compilation. Apart from Kent the band was Johan Håkansson on drums, Nikke Ström on bass and Bengan Blomgren on guitar. It was recorded and mixed by Micke Nilsson at Music-A-Matic studios in Gothenburg.

Fri 5th – Sundsvall. Sator at ”Club Deströyer” Another sold out show. Support band was local act Spiffed out Naked.

The crowd went totally crazy. It’s a miracle noone got hurt. One of my favorite shows this year.

Hasse

Sat 6th – Sator played in Rättvik at ”Bowling and Krog” supported by local punk legends Bertil Brulba Band.

Fri 12th – Sator in Fagersta at ”The Green Man”. Yet another sold out show.

Sat 13th -Sator in Uppsala at ”Katalin”. Nick Royale (formerly of The Hellacopters and Entombed and now with Imperial State Electric) guested on ”Government Official” and ”I’d rather drink than talk”. It was the first time since the early 90’s that the band played the BBQ-killers song which was originally recorded by F-Word back in 1978. It was a special request from Nick. Chips worked with pre-production for the Badmouth ”Heavy metal parking lot” album.

Sat 19th – Over the weekend Chips recorded backing tracks for the next Nomads album with the working title ”Solna” at Nicke Andersson’s (AKA Nick Royale) studio. 16 backing tracks were laid down.

Chips-”The Nomads album was one of those ”long-time projects” that we worked on when we had time and money. It would take over a year before the album was completed. It was actually recorded quite fast. It was just really hard to find studio time when everyone was available”

MARCH 2010

Fri 5th – The Bob with Kent Norberg played songs by Bob Dylan at ”Björkö Hotell” in Björkö.

Dan Viktor – Vocals and guitar
Kent Norberg – Vocals and guitar
Mattias Hellberg – Vocals and guitar
Fabian Kallerdahl – Keyboards
Johan Håkansson – Drums
Nikke Ström – Bass

Fri 5th – In 1985 the Swedish garage compilation “A Real Cool Time – Distorted Sounds from the North” was released. This extended version “A Real Cool Time Revisited” was released 25 years later. It included 40 more or less rare tracks from the Swedish garage scene of the 80’s. Sator’s contribution was “Pigvalley Beach”, the single version. Never really a part of the garage movement Sator still had many connections to the scene working and playing with many of the bands like The Sinners, The Nomads, Psychotic Youth…

No we were never really part of the ”garage-rock scene” but we always felt closer to those bands than the punk or metal acts at the time. The big difference was that we were always about the future and not about the past. We never wanted to be retro. But we listened a lot to that kind of music and we played a lot with these bands so it sort of makes sense to include us anyway.

Chips

Sat 6th – Another show with Kent’s Dylan cover band ”The Bob” at XO in Åmål.

Tues 9th – Chips and Kent played ”Goodbye Joey” unplugged at the ”Radio Rock klassiker” in Stockholm.

”I Wanna go home” was re-recorded for a Swedish beer commercial this month.

We tried to do it as close to the original version as possible. So we used the same amplifiers drums, microphone set-up and so on.

Chips

It was a strange experience to do a song again like that. Very deja vu.

Kent

At the same session a cover of The Seeds track ”Try to understand” was recorded for an American The Seeds/Sky Saxon Tribute.

Fri 12th -Over the weekend 5 songs with the Stockholm based band The Centerfolds were recorded at Music-A-Matic Studios with Chips as producer and Henryk Lipp engineering. The sessions continued on an off until october. The band was unsigned at the time. The songs were supposed to be relased as an EP in early 2011, but eventually they decided to make a full album in the autumn.

Fri 19th -First day in the studio for Badmouth’s second album ”Heavy Metal parking lot”. It would not be completed until april 2011.

ChipsYet another of those long-time projects that I did on and off for the rest of the year. We took breaks when the we ran out of money. It’s a bit frustrating with all this waiting but it’s a way to make cheaper records now when the music biz has gone down the drain.

Chips

Sun 21st – ”Kent Norberg and The GBGB’s” played at ”Jazzå” in Gothenburg. The band performed mostly originals written and sung by Kent (In Swedish) along with some covers. Kent was backed by Nikke Ström on bass, Gunnar Frick on pedal steel, Bengan Blomgren on guitar and Johan Håkansson on drums.

Fri 26th – Sator once again on a cruise-ship. This time at ”Rockklassiker kryssingen” together with the US metal band Skid Row among others. It was the only Sator show this month since Heikki worked on the Kent tour (The Swedish band – not Sator’s Kent) and Hasse was in China again.

Wed 31st – Last day of the Badmouth backing tracks sessions in Gothenburg. 14 songs was recorded in 10 days. Chips and the band would finish the recordings on ”The Planet of Noise mobile recording unit” in Stockholm. All songs were completed except one – ”I wish I was having fun” – that was dropped before the mix.

APRIL 2010

Thurs 1st – Sator finally played in the city of Uddevalla at ”Mortens krog”. A mini-festival called ”I mitt garage” with bands like En svensk Tiger, Chuck Norris Experiment and Rub a Dub.

We have played almost every city in Sweden over the years but for some reason never in Uddevalla so now we can crross that from the list.

Michael

MAY 2010

Thurs 6th – First night of ”The Arctic tour” at ”Bastard Bar” in Tromsö, Norway. Support on the tour was australian artist Kitto with Pna Andersson on guitar. Chips produced Kitto in 2008. Kitto performed and accoustic set and was backed up by Sator on a couple of her songs (“Mary Rose”, “Jack the Ripper” and “Collision Course”). Kitto and Pna also joined Sator on “I wanna go home”.

Fri 7th – Sator played in Longyearbyen on Svalbard at “Barents Pub”. A new north-record for the band.

Quite an adventure. Svalbard is only about a 1000 kilometers from the North Pole. You can’t play further north than that. Now we have to work on our South record which leaves a lot to desire.

Hans

The setlist on these 3 shows were a bit different as we played some songs with Kitto and Pna and they joined us on “I wanna go home”. The shows were great.. The audience consisted of miners and tourists! We didn’t get to see any polar bears but I’m sure we will come back to Svalbard again. We totally loved Svalbard.

Heikki

Sat 8th -Longyearbyen, the second night at “Barents Pub”. The last show on the short “Arctic Tour”.

JUNE 2010

Sat 5th – Sator at “Nöjesfabriken” in Karlstad.

Sun 6th – Chips played 3 songs with Kitto at “Akkurat” in Stockholm. Sort of an encore to “The Arctic tour”.

Wed 9th – Sator opened up the “Sweden Rock Festival 2010”. And what an opening! 8000 people saw the band. Some of the bands this year was Nazareth, Aerosmith, Danzig…

A great show. We didn’t expect that kind of reception! 30 minutes before the show there were about 30 people out there. When we went on stage the field was packed.

Michael

I got to hang out a bit with Nazareth. That was a highlight for me. There are several Sator songs influenced by the classic 70’s Nazareth hits. I also got the see some other great shows like Danzig and Michael Monroe.

Chips

Fri 18th -Sator at “Mossagårdsfestivalen” in Veberöd with Di Leva, Moto Boy, Janne Schaffer.

Sat 19th -A mini version of Sator (Chips, Kent and Heikki with Kricke from Docenterna on drums) played a couple of songs at Joppe Philgren’s (of Docenterna) birthday party in Stockholm.

The next three days Chips, Kent and Heikki worked on new Sator songs at Heikki’s place in Eskilstuna .

Wed 30th – The Hultsfred festival went bankrupt. Sator was not scheduled to play this year but the band have a long history with the festival, the town and all the people around the festival.

Hultsfred have been such a big part of Sator’s history so it was really sad news. We have spent so much time in Hultsfred over the years. Not only at the festival but we have also rehearsed for several tours there. I hope they start up something again.

Kent

JUNE 2010

Sat 3rd – Sator at “Bunkerfestivalen” in Bengtsfors together with Soundtrack of our lives and a bunch of local bands.

Sat 10th -Sator at “Stadsfesten” in Skelleftå with Teddybears, The Ark, E-Type, Europe.

A tough show with heavy rain. We’ve had bad luck with Skellefteå. Last time we were here in 2002 it also rained so hard that it almost got cancelled. Next time we’ll play indoors.

Hasse

Thurs 29th – Sator at “MC-dagarna” in Västervik. A two-day biker festival with Takida, Electric Boys, Playtones and many others.

Fri 30th -Back to the Dalsland-area again. Sator played at “Kaos festivalen” in Mellerud.

It’s strange, we have never played in Dalsland before and this year we did 3 shows quite close to each other. It’s extra fun for me since my father came from this area so I have lots of relatives around Mellerud. I used to spend my summers here when I was a kid.

Chips

Some other acts that could be seen and heard were The Ark, Petter, Mustasch and The Sounds.

Sat 31st – Two new songs were recorded at Music a Matic Studios – “Under the radar” and “When you lie down with dogs”. They were recorded for a “freebie-EP” tied in with the beer commercial. “Under the radar” was later remixed and partly re-recorded for the album. “When you lie down with dogs” is identical to the album version.

AUGUST 2100

Wed 3rd – Sator played at “Orsa Drag fest”outside Orsa.

A really strange show. We played on an airfield in the middle of the woods after the dragracing was over! There were hardly any people there since everybody was at the “Classic car week” in Rättvik” But we gave everything we had for the happy few attending. We even closed the show with “Ring Ring”, tThe only time we played it in this year. It was probably one of the best shows we did this year playing-wise.

Kent

Heikki played a couple of shows in Hungary with the U2 tribute band ”The Magnificent” at the end of this month.

Thurs 5th – Sator at “Rånock Music Festivalen” in Gävle. Graveyard, Crème De la Crème (with Klas Yngström of Sky High fame) and some local acts.

Fri 6th – Sator at “Club Spitfire” in Avesta supported by Jailbreak Academy. After all the summer festivals a club gig for a change.

Sat 7th – Last show of this mini-tour took place at “Kräftsmällen” at Folkets Park in Dala-Floda. The hometown (or village) of Mimikry. Local bands Wild Bops, Eternal, Remakes…

Sadly Mimikry did not play this years festival but we got to hang out at the guitar player Åsberg’s summer house before the show”.

Kent

Mon 16th – Back to Gothenburg to mix “When you lie down with dogs” and “Under the radar”.

The final sessions for the Centerfolds EP we’re done on Chips mobile studio in Stockholm. The EP was released in 2011.

Fri 27th – For the first time ever Sator played a show with another drummer. Robert Eriksson formerly of the The Hellacopters, now with Tramp helped out when Michael couldn’t make it. The show was at “Daltons MC” in Läckeby. Support band was Fuzzter.

Michael have always been behind the drums apart from two songs when he had to throw up cause he was sick in Eskilstuna a couple of years ago (A guy from the audience drummed on those two songs) and there’s one encore many years ago in Gävle when Micahel had the flu and our roadie Björn played drums on “Pigvalley Beach” because Micke almost passed out. This time Michael was in Las Vegas and couldn’t make it home in time. We didn’t wanna cancel the shows so Robban helped us out.

Chips

Sat 28th – Sator at “Helgeåfestivalen” in Knislinge. The second show with Robban on drums. The band was also guested by Dregen of Backyard Babies on “I’d Rather drink than talk” (Dregen was in the original line-up of The Hellacopters. So you got half a reunion). Kitto and Pna Andersson once again joned Sator on “I wanna go home” and “This is my life”. Some of the other acts playing were Nisse Hellberg, Kitto, Hoffmeastro & Chraa, and Pernilla Andersson.

Kent-Robban did a great job. A funny thing was that Robban made us go back and listen to the original versions of the songs. You tend to change things slowly without noticing over the years (not always to the better). Robban actually played them more correct then we usually do. When Micke got back we forced him to go back and listen to the original arrangements again.

Kent

SEPTEMBER 2010

Sat 4th – Kent performed a couple of songs at the Bear Family records 35 year anniversary at Music Hall in Worpswede, Germany.

Fri 24th – Chips played on 4 songs with Kitto at Fasching in Stockholm. The show was recorded for a live DVD.

Sat 25th – Sator in Eskilstuna. A special show in the memory of a club called “Max 500”. “Max 500” was a legenadary illegal club in Eskilstuna during the early 90’s. This night it was legal and took place at a warehouse in the outskirts of town.

Chips kept on working on the Badmouth album during this month.

OCTOBER 2010

Fri 1st – Chips produced 2 new songs with Nisse Hellberg for a greatest hits compilation. The backing tracks were made at Atlantis studio in Stockholm. Both songs were mixed by Ronny Lahti at Decibel Studio in Stockholm.

Sat 2nd – Sator at an indoor festival “Rocka Fett” in Linköping with Straight Up, Close Quarters and a whole bunch of local bands.

Mon 11th – Another production job for Chips. The Swedish band Mascot Parade recorded their second album “Cause and effect” at Music a Matic studios in Gotheburg. The album was produced by Chips and engineered by Henryk Lípp. The album was completed in January 2011.

It’s hard to describe Mascot Parade. They have a unique sound. Some sort of dark heavy gloomy metal with a bit of stoner-rock thrown in for good measure.

Chips

Sat 23rd – Chips guested with Imperial State Electric, at “Sticky Fingers” in Gothenburg, taking the lead vocals on “Talahassie Lassie” (The Hurriganes version)

The Centerfolds EP was mixed this weekend.

Fri 29th – Sator at “Temakrogen” in Nyköping supported by The Close Quarters.

Sat 30th -Sator at “Safiren” in Katrineholm. An indoor festival named “Musik som vapen!” to mark the 30 years anniversary of the local music community. An all-day event with lots of artists that have played in Katrineholm over the last 30 years like Johan Johansson, Karin Wistrand, Stig Vig all backed by The Diamond Dogs. Some of the other reformed bands were Pilsner, Slammers and Nashville Rebels. Sator headlined the evening and played a full show. Mats “Magic” Gunnarsson guested on saxophone on “Slug it out”. The first Sator show ever with a saxophone player.

NOVEMBER 2010

The recording of the Mascot parade album continued.

I love working at Music a Matic studios. It’s one of the few surviving classic studios in Sweden. They have all closed down or gone digital. The studio has a great collection of vintage gear that fits very nice together with modern equipment like pro-tools. I love pro-tools but you need that old equipment as well to get that warmth in the sound. Pro-tools and plug-ins can be awful when used wrong. I don’t care for those modern slick productions when everythings is polished, sound replaced and corrected so there’s nothing sticking out. I tend to get bored after 30 seconds listening to those records”

Chips

Fri 19th – Sator on another rock cruise . “Rock at Sea” with Mountain, Hellfueled, Lillasyster among others.

Tues 23rd – Heikki, Chips and Kent from Sator and Nicke Andersson and Robert Eriksson From The Hellacopters, Imperial State Electric, Tramp… played a short set of covers. At the re-opening of Comfort Hotel in Eskilstuna. The band was named The Best and the show took place on the roof outside the entry. It was minus 10, windy and snowing. Not an easy ride. The show started with “Detroit Rock City” (Kiss) and continued with songs by Thin Lizzy, AC/DC, Slade, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts…

Really cool show so to speak. It definitively the coldest show ever. My fingers hurt when they almost froze to the strings.

Kent

The Best is our idea of how a good party band should sound. We’re not as “snobby” as the Wild Kings were. We play the big hits. Not forgotten b-sides. I always wanted to play “Detroit Rock City”. Quite a tricky song I must say. It’s really the band we would like to see at a party.

Chips

Fri 26th – Sator back in Köping at Ögir again. “When you lie down with dog”s were premiered this night. The first song from the forthcoming album played live.

Sat 27th – The last show of the close to 2 year long “Under the radar” tour. The band appeared at “Strandcafét” in Åmål.

The Basement noise tour ended in Pontevedra in Spain on July 31, 2008. After a band meeting in Västerås on August 20, 2008 the band decided that things had to change.

We were not happy things as they were. We wanted to do more shows, so after a meeting with our manager we decided to start working from the bottom again, and tour our way back to the top. We called the whole project “Under the radar”.

Kent

So the “Under the radar” tour actually started in Eskilstuna, December 19, 2008.

People think that the tour started with the album. But the “Under the radar tour” actually started almost 2 years ago. Our plan was to do things a bit different this time. We didn’t want to release a new album until we felt absolutely ready for it. So the album was really the end of this “chapter” in Sator’s history, not the start.

Chips

DECEMBER 2010

Mon 6th – The recording of the Sator’s 8th album started. As usual at Music a Matic studios. Over the following weeks 11 songs were completed including the two songs recorded in August.

It was tough. The last couple of Sator albums have been done in a slow relaxed tempo with no deadline. This time we had a relasese date and booked shows before we even started recording. There was much more pressure on us to deliver the album in time. I believe the pressure was good for us. It gave the album a great vibe of urgency.

Chips

3 more songs were recorded but dropped prior to the mix. A re-worked version of “Roll with the punches”, a song also recorded for “Basement Noise” but never released. It didn’t make it this time either. Mainly due to lack of time. “History” A fast one in the vein of “Jetslide”. And a song with the interesting working title “Småland”

Three really good songs that we had to drop because we didn’t have enough time. “Roll with the punches” is actually one of my favorite Sator songs ever. It was written for the “Basement noise” album but we dropped it cause it didn’t turn out right. This time it came out great so we will definitively relase it.

Hasse

Thu 23rd – Most of the recordings were completed and the band took a break over the holidays.

2010 was another really good year for Sator. The never-ending “Under the radar” tour was completed and we managed to get an album written as well. I think all the touring brought us back to where we used to be.

Kent

2011

JANUARY 2011

Fri 28th – The album was completed. The last song, “We’re all gonna die” was mixed today. The lead vocals were recorded at the very last minute.

Henryk started mixing “We’re all gonna die” while we recorded the vocals! As I said we had a very tight schedule this time. I was quite sick as well during the last two weeks which also added something manic to the sound. When I was singing “We’re all gonna die” I can assure you that I really felt like that!.

Chips

FEBRUARY 2011

The Mascot Parade album was mixed and mastered during the first two weeks of February.

Work on The Nomads album was picked up again. Working with vocals and guitars on Chips mobile studio in Stockholm.

Sat 12th – After a 2 month break the touring started again. The first show after the new album took place at “Nöjesfabriken” in Karlstad. Several new songs we’re introduced in the set. “Under the radar”, “S.T.S”, “Wanted: Hope and pride before I die”, “When you lie down with dogs”, “Your up gets me down” and “Drive throught the night”. Support band was Perry And the Travellers.

Fri 25th – The 8th Sator album”Under the radar” was released in Sweden. It was well received by both press and “the old fans” The rest of Europe had to wait a couple of months. To celebrate the release Sator played at the club “S2” in their old hometown Borlänge supported by Jailbreak Academy and Deviled.

Sat 26th – A special show at the opening of the new outdoor arena in Leksand. Sator played 2 sets before and after the Leksand -Mora hockey game. 17 000 tickets were sold to the game! Not all of the could see Sator’s shows but the room was packed. The band Sabaton also played one song outdoors before the game started.

I’m glad we played indoors ’cause it was freezing cold outside. Sadly our team Leksand lost the game but we had lots of fun anyway”. For the first time ever Sators hockey song “Leksandslåten” was played as an encore.

Michael

MARCH 2011

Fri 4th – Chips and Kent once again visited “Radio Rockklassiker” in Stockholm performing “Wanted: Hope and pride before I die” accoustic. Later same day Sator played at “Tobbe’s Amason” in Flen. “We’re all gonna die” was introduced in the set. There were two support bands this night – Airborne Enemies and Code Duello.

Fri 11th – Sator back in Sundsvall at “Club Deströyer”. Local band Degeneration was picked by Chips as support band.

The club had a competition for the support sport and I thought they were by far the best band of those I heard.

Chips

Sat 12th – Sator in Ljusdal at “Stadt” Once again supported by Degeneration. Over 1000 people attended the show.

Fri 18th – Sator in Umeå at “Scharinksa”. Robban Eriksson helped out on drums again this weekend since Michael was in New York.

Sat 19th – The band performed a short electric set in the classic record store “Burmans” in Umeå before leaving for Örnsköldsvik where they played at “The Merry Can” supported by local band called The Mole Station.

Fri 25th – Västerås at “Sigurdsgatan 25”. Michael was back behind the drums again.

Sat 26th – The band played a couple of songs at the record store “Skivbörsen” in Västerås. In the evening it was time for Rättvik and a gig at “Bowling and Krog”. No support band this night.

APRIL 2011

Fri 1st – Chips, Kent and Heikki played “Wanted: Hope and pride before I die” and “I wanna go home” semi-plugged on “Radio Sörmland in Eskilstuna” Kent played accoustic guitar, Chips electric and Heikki played bass. Later the same evening Sator did a secret gig at Martin Roos opening-party for his new garage outside Eskilstuna in front of 60-70 specially invited party-goers. The band played a short set that included “I wanna be your driver” and “Teenage Kicks”. After that, it was time for the “real” gig at “Harry’s” in Eskilstuna.

Martin is an old friend of Sator (and the band Kent’s manager) so of course we wanted to see his new place and while we were there we might as well play some songs.

Michael

Three shows in one day if you count the radio show.

Sat 2nd – Sator in Jönköping at “Ztyle” Supported by Factory Brains from Stockholm.

One of the hottest shows ever. The sweat was dripping down from the ceiling. The crowd seemed to know every word of the songs, even the new ones.

Heikki

Fri 8th – Sator in Tranås at Pub Babar supported by Filled with Hate (Jerker Persson from Rövsvett‘s new band). Again sold out.

Sat 9th – Sator did another “hometown show” at “Trägårn” in Gothenburg supported by Alexia and Factory Brains.

Fri 14th – Sator in Linköping at “L’ Orient” supported by Daylight Stella och Svensk Punk.

Fri 22nd – Sator did an afternoon “family-show” in Sälen. A ski-resort.

We played at 4 in the afternoon for kids and families. It’s always interesting to do different kinds of show. Those daylight shows are really the hardest ones.

Chips

APRIL 2011

Sat 29th – One more “after-ski show”. This time at “Country Club” in Åre. This was a regular show after dark.

MAY 2011

Thurs 12th – The Chips produced Badmouth album “Heavy metal parking lot” was completed.

Fri 13th – Sator played at “Metallsvenskan” A two day festival in Örebro with D.A.D, Graveyard, Bob Log III…

Sat 14th – Sator at “Fegen Festivalen” in Fegen with Mimikry…

Sat 28th – Sator and Docenterna played together at “Hultsfred’s Calling” at Metropol in Hultsfred. A special show with several guests. Conny Nimmersjö from Bob Hund and Birgit Bidder guested with Docenterna.

Nicke Andersson from Imperial State Electric and Micke Alonzo from legendary punkbands KSMB and Stockholms Negrer guested with Sator.

We played two Ramones songs with Nicke: Slug and She’s the one. Then Nicke stayed on for KSMB’s classic “Dörrterror” with Alonzo singning. Nicke also joined us on I’d rather drink than talk and I wanna go home. A lot of fun.

Kent

The whole evening ended with both bands playing Docenterna’s “Chick-e-chack” and Sator’s I wanna go home” together.

JUNE 2011

Sat 4th – Sator at Laholm Kulturfestival in Laholm with Electric Boys, Eldkvarn…

Fri 10th – Chips and Kent played Sator hits unplugged at Sweden Rock festival. Billed as Chips and Kent from Sator. Heikki and Michael “guested” on a couple of tracks. The show was recorded by Swedish radio.

Sun 12th – The recording of Nisse Hellberg’s “Flod av eld” album started at Music-A-matic studios in Gothenburg with Chips producing and Henryk Lipp engineering.

JULY 2011

Fri 1st – Sator played at the Peace and Love Festival in Borlänge.

Sat 2nd – 2 Sator shows today. The first show was a short set in the afternoon backing up Ken Stringfellow (of The Posies, Disciplines, Big Star, White Flag…).
Songs played were:

Please Return It
Solar Sister
Ontario
September Gurls
New Untitled Country Song with Sonja Van Hamel (from the band Bauer)
He’s A Whore

Later the same day Sator performed a covers only set at “Bolange”.

“SATOR DELUXE” AT BOLANCHE IN BORLÄNGE

Brown Eyed Son (The Waves)
Loudmouth (The Ramones)
I Don’t Mind (Buzzcocks)
Rock ‘n’ roll Girl (The Beat)
You’re Gonna Miss Me (13th Floor Elevators)
Suspect Device (Stiff Little Fingers)
12XU (Wire)
Teenage Kicks (The Undertones) with Joppe Philgren of Docenterna on vocals
Love Song (The Damned)
Born To Lose (Johnny Thunders And The Heartbreakers) with Magnus “Larna” Larnhed from the defunct band 59 Times The Pain on vocals
Dörrterror (KSMB)
Outdoor Miner (Wire)
Where Eagles Dare (Misfits) with Kristoffer Åström on vocals
I Wanna Be Your Driver (Chuck Berry/The Swinging Neckbreakers)
Superman (The Clique/R.E.M.) with Ken Stringfellow on vocals
Face Down (White Flag) with Ken Stringfellow
He’s A Whore (Cheap Trick) with Ken Stringfello
Solar Sister (The Posies) with Ken Stringfellow
September Girls (Big Star) with Ken Stringfellow
Blitzkrieg Bop (The Ramones) with Everybody

Fri 8th – Sator at the “Putte I Parken” festival in Karlskoga

Sat 9th – Sator and The Hurriganes as a double bill at Forshaga Folkets park

A dream come true. The Hurriganes were huge when we were kids. If someone had told me back then that they would one day be our support band it would have blown my mind.

Heikki

Fri 15th – Sator played at Hamnkrogen in Visby

Sat 16th – Sator played a full set in a living room in Visby. It was the first prize in a competiton.

A total classic.. I suppose they expected us to do a short acoustic set. We loaded in the whole rig and did a full-on show for 30 people in a small apartment.

Hans

Sat 23rd – Sator played the “Lillhärdalsyran” festival in Lillhärdal for the second time.

Sat 30th – Sator at “Sjöslaget” in Nyköping with Electric Boys among others.

AUGUST 2011

Chips did more recording session with Nisse Hellberg and White Flag.

Fri 5th – Sator in Ängelsberg at “Engelsbergsrocken”

One of the few gigs ever in heavy rain. We’ve been very lucky over the years.

Michael

Sat 6th – Sator at “Way out south” festival in Trelleborg with Bäddat för trubbel… The raining continued!

Sat 13th – Last show of the summer tour in Kalmar at “Kalmar Stadfest”

One of the best shows this year, The crowd went crazy!

Chips

Chips worked with Nisse Hellberg the rest of the month the mixing ended august 28.

SEPTEMBER 2011

Wed 14th – Chips started with pre-production for an album with Swedish all girl metal band Crucified Barbara. Their third album. This would continue into October.

Fri 16th – Over the weekend Chips produced 4 new songs with Badmouth at Music A Matic studios. Part three of H.A.T.E” which is a mirror version of Singer/Songwriter Sofia Talviks EP.

No Sator shows in September. Chips continued working with The Nomads and White Flag.

Thurs 29th – Chips and Kent went on another White Flag tour in Europe. The tour started in Cologne, Germany at Sonic Ballroom and ended in Sweden with Sator on October 14. Other contries visited were Holland, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Italy.

OCTOBER 2011

Fri 14th – Sator played at Konserthuset in Vara with White Flag guesting. Kent’s daughter Ellen also guested and sang Cherry Bomb. The last time Ellen guested with Sator was when she was one day old, recorded over the phone for the Stereo album. This would be the last White Flag show ever with Chips and Kent in the line-up.

Chips worked with Crucified Barbara and The Nomads (final sessions for the never ending album).

NOVEMBER 2011

Mon 7th – The recording of Crucified Barbara’s “Midnight chase “album started at Music A Matic studios with Chips producing and Henryk Lipp engineering.

Sat 19th – Sator returned to the stage with a show at Debaser in Malmö supported by Freefall.

Fri 25th – Chips and Heikki appeared at Hitlistan in Eskilstuna with Lisa Miskovsky, Love Antell, Robert Ericsson, Joakim Fredriksson among others.

DECEMBER 2011

Sun 11th – The final recording session for The Nomads “Solna” album.

Fri 16th – Sator at Katalin in Uppsala

Sat 17th – Sator at King’s Arms in Avesta

Sun 18th – Back to Gothenburg for more recordings with Crucifed Barbara.

Thurs 29th – Eldsjälsgalan on Swedish national TV

Sator backed up “Schlager artist” Nanne Grönvall performing the old Sham 69 classic “If the kids are united” in front of a confused audience.

Fri 30th – Borlänge. Last show this year. Sator played a set of covers at music business legend Ingemar Magnusson’s 50th birthday party. They we’re joined by Steve Almaas of Suicide Commandos playing bass and singing “I’ll wait”, Sator Codex singer Björn Clarin doing “Leech” and Emile Kiesbye singing” The weight” by The Band. This was the first time Björn sang with the band since “The 10th anniversary show” back in 1991. Kent and Chips also guested with The Nomads on “The way you touch my hand”.

And nice way to end the year. We have known Ingemar for many years. He’s one of the goodhearted people in the music biz. The Nomads and Sator played on his 30th birthday party 20 years ago!

Chips

2012

JANUARY 2012

Chips worked with Crucified Barbara

Sat 28th – Sator at “Rockland” in Sala. The band played the old Dag Vag song “Samma sak” as a tribute to the recently departed singer Stig Vig.

FEBRUARY 2012

Chips worked with Crucified Barbara, The Nomads and The Centerfolds.

Fri 24th – Sator played a set of of covers at “The Country Club” in Åre.

Sat 25th – Sator again at “The Country club” in Åre with a more regular set.

MARCH 2012

Sat 24th – Sator at “Nalen” in Stockholm supported by The Centerfolds and Freefall

Fri 30th – Sator at Folkan, Järvsö supported by The Spokes.

Sat 31st – Sator at CH Steakhouse in Söderhamn supported by Son of a gun.

APRIL 2012

Sat 21st – Sator returned to “Ztyle” in Jönköping.

Fri 27th – Sator at “Liljan” in Borlänge supported by Toxic Lab Rats and Factory Brains. Björn Clarin reprised his guest appearance from last December singing the Sator Codex classic “Leech” again.

It was too much fun to just do it once. We planned on doing “Master of The Universe too but we ran out of time.

Kent

MAY 2012

Fri 4th – Sator back at Club Babar in Tranås.

Sat 5th – Sator played at “MX Rockbar” in Alingsås.

Fri 18th – “Hulstfreds’s calling “again. This time sator the band was guested by Mia Coldheart and Klara Force from Crucified Barbara, Joppe Pihlgren, Kristofer Åström and Nisse Hellberg.

Sat 26th – Sator played at “Popstad” festival in Lund. Henrik Venant and Peter Puders performed two old TT Reuter songs “Den Udda Gudens Puls” and Krossa alla tankar” with Sator.

Wed 30th – The Crucified Barbara “The midnight chase” album was released.

JUNE 2012

Fri 1st – Sator played at “Liseberg” in Gothenburg.

Sat 16th – Sator at “Coverfestivalen” in Nässjö with Attentat…

Fri 29th. Sator at “Festhalle” in Frankfurt, Germany. First night of German tour supporting Die Ärzte.

One of the wamest gig ever. We were soaking wet after three chords!

Chips

Sat 30th – Second night at Festhalle in Frankfurt.

Really great shows. Die Ärzte are lovely people and their crew treated us really good. The audience were great too. Bela guested on I wanna go home singing the last verse.

Hans

JULY 2012

Mon 2nd – Sator at “Nachtleben” in Frankfurt without Die Ärzte

A more “selective” audience this night, ha ha! A big difference from the arena shows and even hotter! A lot of fans from the old days so we did some songs that we don’t play that often.

Kent

Tues 3:rd – Sator supported Die Ärzte at “Tui arena” in Hannover. Back to the huge arenas.

Wed 4th – Second night in Hannover

Thurs 5th – Sator at “The Tube” in Düsseldorf.

Fri 5th – Last show of the tour in Stuttgart at “Schleyerhalle” with Die Ärzte. And a long 1300km drive home to Sweden.

Great tour. We love playing in Germany.

Michael

Fri 13th – Sator at No Name MC in Strängnäs

Sat 14th – Sator played in Hudiksvall at “Rock vid havet” with Diamond Dogs…

AUGUST 2012

Thurs 2nd – Chips filled in for Hasse Östlund in the Nomads playing two set on the “Blidösund cruise”

Sat 4th – Sator played at “Kanalrock” in Katrineholm.

Chips started working with Bad Man’s Jam doing pre-production for a future album.

Thurs 9th – “Sator at “Musik och Motor festivalen “in Älvdalen

Another great show in the middle of the great woods.

Heikki

Fri 10th – Sator at “Vinöns Värdshus” on Vinön. An island in the lake Hjälmaren.

Sat 11th – Sator played at the festival “Skogsröjet” in Rejmyre. Chips guested on two songs with Badmouth.

Sat 18th – Sator at “Scribblefest” in Mjölby

Fri 24th – Sator returned to “Helgeåfestivalen” in Knislinge in the south of Sweden. Some other band were Nationalteatern, Bob Hund, The Sounds…

Sat 25th – Sator at the Gutter Island festival in Denmark with Imperial State Electric, Heavy Tiger. Jim Jones Revue, Flamin’ Sideburns… Hasse guested with Bäddat för Trubbel.

SEPTEMBER 2012

Chips produced an album with Versus You from Luxemburg.

White Flag and Versus You toured together back in 2011 and we talked about working together.

Chips

The band Bo-Dogs recorded 5 songs at Music A Matic studios in two days

Line up:

Nisse Hellberg – Vocals and guitar
Chips Kiesbye – Bass and backing vocals
Kent Norberg – Guitar and backing vocals
Patrik Herrström – Drums

A “garage-rock” side-project.

Fri 14th – Sator played at the re-opening party at Bolanche in Borlänge together with Rotvälta.

Sat 22nd – Sator at “Kulturkalaset” in Kristinehamn supported by the old punkband Skäms (their last show ever) and Dekadenta Gossar.

OCTOBER 2012

Chips produced an album with Bad Man’s Jam at Music A Matic studios.

Several more Bo-Dogs songs were recorded as well.

Chips also worked with 69 Eyes from Finland.

No Sator shows this month.

NOVEMBER 2012

Wed 21st – Chips guested with Idde and Sulo at Pet Sounds Bar in Stockholm singing “Borstal Breakout ” by Sham 69, “Reuters” by Wire, “1000 punks” by Grisen Skriker and “Baby Baby” by The Vibrators.

I played three of these song at my very first show with Skandal back in 1979. So it was a tribute to the punk days.

Chips

No Sator shows this month.

DECEMBER 2012

Fri 7th – Sator at “Ögir” in Köping

Sat 8th – Sator supported German metal and The Scorpions in Sandviken. The other bands were Badmouth, Dalton and Skunk Anansie.

Sun 16th – Chips played with Blue For Two at Pusterviksteatern in Gothenburg. The first show since march 1998 years and probably the last Blue For Two show ever.

Thurs 20th – Sator supported Oslo Ess at Rockefeller in Oslo, Norway. Last show for 2012.

This a very busy year for the band with many great shows.

Michael

Wed 26th – Chips played with the legendary Swedish punkband Warheads at “Punk och bössa festivalen “in Gävle. The other bands were The Lurkers, Bisex-B, The Craps, Äshtray and Dead Scouts.

2013

JANUARY 2013

Chips worked with Bad Man’s Jam.

Fri 25th – The Brazilian band Turbo arrived at Landvetter airport, Gothenburg. For the next three weeks 15 songs was recorded at Music A Matic studio with Chips producing and Henryk Lipp engineering. Chips got to play Berimbau (a single-string percussion instrument, a musical bow, from Brazil) and sing some backing vocals in Portugese!

I guess it was a real adventure for the guys. They had never seen snow and it was a tough winter when they were here with lots of snow and really cold.

Chips

FEBRUARY 2013

More sessions with The Bo-Dogs and Chips produced an EP with The Nomads.

Fri 22nd – Closed show at a private party in Alingsås

Sat 23rd – Sator in Enköping at “Strul MC”

MARCH 2013

Sat 23rd – Sator unplugged at hotel Hilton “Earth hour-show” in Stockholm. They we’re joined on stage on various songs by Hannu Kiviaho (from Fatboy and Heikki’s big brother), Magnus “Storis” Holmström and Tomas “Limpan” Lindberg.

APRIL 2013

The Brülbåjz single from 1980 was re-released on Ken rock records.

A very strange feeling to open a box of Brülbåjz singles again. I still clearly remember when I did it the first time around.

Chips

The Billy Pilgrims’ second album (Stiff white gospel) produced by Chips was completed. It would be released digitally and on a very limited edition CD in 2014.

MAY 2013

Fri 24th – Sator at “Effekt” in Karlsham supported by Dust Bowl Jokies.

Sat 25th – By popular demand Sator went back to “Popstad Lund” again. To continue the celebration of classic bands from Lund the band played two songs “Walk on by” and “Love you more than this” by The Sinners with the original members Sven Köhler and Michael Sellers on vocals and guitar.

The friendship between Sator and The Sinners goes back a long time. The Sinners are one of the best Swedish bands ever.

Kent

Kent sings backing vocals on “Love you more than this” on the original record.

JUNE 2013

Sat 1:st – Chips and Heikki guested with The Baditudes at “Gästis” in Eskilstuna playing old punk classics.

Fri 14th – Sator played at the reborn Hultsfred festival “This is Hultsfred”

Sator must have played the original festival more times than anybody else so it made sense that we were there when it started up again.

Hans

Fri 13th – A “new” Sator 7″ single was released on Ghost Highway recordings in Spain. The A-side “World Keeps turning” was recorded for the “Basement Noise” album but never released. The B-side “Brown eyed son” is a cover of The Waves and “should have been a hit”. It was recorded back in 1997.

It’s always been part of Sator/Baby Demons cover set and performed live many times over the years so it was about time it got released.

Hans

Sat 15th – Sator in Kristinehamn at “Marieberg Rockar”, a one day festival with Magnus Uggla, Caroline af Ugglas, Ida Staake, Mammas pojkar and Knekta Kungar.

Thurs 19th – Kent celebrated the memory of Stig Vig lead singer of Dag vag at Mosebacke in Stockholm together with E-Type, Magnus Carlsson, Kajsa Grytt among others.

JULY 2013

Fri 12th – “Stadion Am Hünting” in Bochholt, Germany. Back to Germany for more shows with Die Ärzte and the band Side Effects from Myamar/Cambodia.

Sat 14th – Sator in Bietigheim-Bissingen at “Festplatz am Viadukt” again with Die Ärzte and Side Effects

Sat 27th – “Holmens Rock”, Gothenburg, A one day festival with Electric Boys, Sator, DAD, Crucified Barbara, Siphon Fuel and Bourbon Boys.

AUGUST 2013

Sat 3rd – Another festival “Rockviken” in Frövi. Chips guested with Bonafide and Pontus Snibb of Bonafide guested with Sator on “I’d rather drink than talk”.

Sat 10th – Two shows in one day. An early show at “Getaway Rock” in Gävle and a late night show at “Folkets Park “in Alfta with Per Persson guesting on The Who’s “My Generation”

Fri 16th – Sator at “Ljungarocken” in Ljungaverken with Takida, Marky Ramone’s Blitzkrieg, Black Creed…

Fri 30th – Kent solo show at Kompledigt festival at Ögir in Köping.

Sat 31st – Kärrgruveparken, Norberg. Sator, Docentera and Torsson.

What a wonderful line-up.

Hasse

This was another dream come through. Back in the early 80’s we saw Stiff Little Fingers, Killing Joke and Theatre of Hate at “Kärrgruveparken”. We had just started as a band and our dream was to one day play this venue. It only took us 25 years!

Chips

Michael’s bassdrum-skin broke so we had to do something while we waited so for the first time in probably 25 years we played the theme song from “Tårtan”, a 1970’s children show until Micke got a new bassdrum.

Kent

SEPTEMBER 2013

Chips produced another album with Nisse Hellberg.

Wed 25th – Really sad news. Bill “Pat Fear” Bartell singer, guitarplayer and leader of White Flag passed away. Sator and White Flag shared members and Bill co-wrote several songs for Sator over the years.

This was taken from the Facebook page:

Bill “Pat Fear” Bartell, the front-man and heart of White Flag, has passed away. He’s been a close friend for over twenty years. We first got to know Bill back in the early 1990’s when we were looking for songs for the “Barbie-Q-Killers vol 1” album. Bill was a major help in getting us in touch with all the song-writers and band members of the groups we covered. Without him that record would not have been possible. Remember that this was before the Internet. No Google, Facebook or e-mail. White Flag was one of the bands that we grew up with. The musical anarchy mixed with great songwriting and a portion of humor and irony really appealed to us. It also set them apart from most of their contemporaries. One of the guys wore a police uniform and had a moustache! And called himself Pat Fear. That’s real punk attitude. In 1994 Sator and White Flag released a split single and played some shows together in Sweden. One of them headlining the “Hultsfreds festival” together on the main stage (the biggest festival in Sweden at the time). It was also the start of a long friendship between the two bands. Sator have recorded several songs written/co-written by Bill over the years. Songs like This side of nowhere, Ask The Shadows, On the way down, Face down, Freezer, White Trash and Halter top. White Flag in return recorded several Sator songs. All Sator members can be heard on many White Flag recordings. Chips and Kent have been part of the “European version” of White Flag for many years touring in Germany, Belgium, Croatia, Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland, France, Austria, Luxemburg and even in Aasiaat, Greenland! (Thank you Bill for that adventure). The last European White Flag show was in Vara, Sweden supporting Sator in October 2011. Bill was a character, a “one of a kind” but with a big heart and a great sense of humor. He made a big impression on everyone who met him. He connected people and made things happen. He will be deeply missed by a lot of people, both as a musician and as a friend. Life will be less interesting without Pat Fear around. The man is gone but the memories and the music remains.

Sator 2013

OCTOBER 2013

The Bad Man’s Jam album was completed. The band later changed name to Naked Presidents.

Chips kept on working with the Nisse Hellberg album.

Thurs 10th – Umeå. Sator played at the Opening party for Choice hotel. Lisa and Carolina Miskovsky joined the band on the stage for Tom Petty’s “American girl” and “I wanna go home”. Sator played ZZ Tops “Sharp Dressed man” for the first time since the early 90’s.

Fri 11th – Sator in Västerås at “Bankiren”

Sat 12th – Sator played in Rättvik at “Bowling and Krog” once again supported by local punk legends “Bertil Brulba Band”

NOVEMBER 2013

Fri 1st – Sator closed the punk festival in Borlänge at Bolanche. Mimikry, Troublemakers and Rövsvett were among the other bands this night. Last electric show for 2013. It was decided that the band needed a break to work on new songs and get all the gear back in shape again.

DECEMBER 2013

Chips worked with Factory Brains, Nisse Hellberg and made the final touches to the Turbo album recorded earlier this year.

Thurs 12th – Sat 14th – Chips, Kent and Heikki did three acoustic (more or less) shows at “Hotell Hulingen” in Hultsfred. This was the start of The “Sator Trio”.

We wanted to try this to see if it worked and what place is better for that than good old Hultsfred. The people here have seen us so many times that they will tell us if we suck.

Kent

We played three nights and came to the conclusion that this could interesting.

Heikki

Sat 14th – Hans played keyboard with The Nomads at Stcky Fingers in Gothenburg.

2014

JANUARY 2014

Chips worked with Nisse Hellberg on the “Vad har han i huvudet” album.

There were also several sessions with the Factory Brains recording vocals, backing vocals and percussion for their second album.

Mon 20th – The recording of Crucified Barbara’s “In the red” album started at Music A Matic Studios in Gothenburg with Chips as producer and Henryk Lipp as engineer.

FEBRUARY 2014

The Nisse Hellberg album was completed and Chips continued working on the Factory Brains and Crucified Barbara albums on and off until mid-june this year. Sator took a break.

MARCH 2014

Mon 10th – Chips recorded vocals with Stefan Sundström for the song “Mirakel” by Hjalle Östman (Lead singer of Mimikry) in Stockholm. Parts of Chips studio/rehearsal place in Stockholm can be seen in Stefan Sundström’s video for the song “Fredrik nu är det dags att gå”.

Thurs 20th – Rehearsal started in Gothenburg for the Sator Trio tour.

This is something we had been talking about for a while but we never had the time to do it. Michael and Hans was busy with other stuff this year so we thought the timing was perfect for trying something different. We did three shows in Hultsfred at the end of last year just to see if it worked at all. And we tought it did.

Kent

Yes, most of the Sator songs have melodies it’s not just riffing around so they actually works stripped down as well. We also re-arranged some songs quite drastically. I have never played that much acoustic guitar in my life so it was almost like picking up a new instrument.

Chips

APRIL 2014

Fri 4th – Karlstad The Sator trio tour started at Nöjesfabriken supporting Takida.

The first show was a really strange one. We played at the club’s bowling hall while people were bowling! So in the middle of a song there could be a sudden cheer when someone hit a strike. Very different from the electric shows!

Heikki

Yeah it was kind of a rough start and it took a couple of shows before we learned how to do this. It’s always interesting to go out on a limb and leave your safety zone but it’s also scary.

Chips

Fri 11th – The Sator trio at Åkrogen in Gävle.

Sat 12th – The Sator trio at Q-bar in Sundsvall.

A great show. By now we felt confident that this actually works.

Kent

Yes, this was the first night we felt that we can really do this.

Chips

Thurs 24th – Rehearsals at Erik Brodéns place in Delsbo for the upcoming shows together. Brodén would be support act and join Sator on stage for several songs.

Fri 25th – The Sator trio at Sigges in Hudiksvall. With Erik Brodén.

Sat 26th – The Sator trio at Statt in Ljusdal. With Erik Brodén.

MAY 2014

Thurs 1:st – The Sator trio at Pustervik in Gothenburg. Hans “guested” on Freezer.

Fri 2:nd – The Sator trio at Pop Corner in Alvesta

Sat 3:rd – The Sator trio at Skottvångs grufva in Mariefred. Heikkis son Joel from the band Shift guested on percussion.

Fri 16th – The Sator trio at Clarion Hotel in Visby.

Sat 17th – The Sator trio at Clarion Hotel in Visby second night.

Wed 21:st – The Sator trio at Comfort hotel in Stockholm.

This was another strange show. Not really a concert. We were more like the “lounge-band” in the hotel lobby while people were checking in or out. Some guests stuck around for a while before moving on. We played for really long time doing lots of covers and unusual Sator songs that we had never before. It was great and very different from our usual shows.

Cips

Thurs 22:nd – The Sator trio at Saliga Munken in Norrköping.

One of the best show on the whole tour.

Kent

Fri 23:rd – The Sator trio at East West Sushi in Örebro.

Sat 24:th – The Sator trio at Mastmagasinet in Kristinehamn.

Another one of the best shows of the tour. It’s funny that before 2012 we had never played in Kristinehamn and by now it had became one of our “strongholds”.

Chips

Fri 30th – Kent guested with Docenterna at “This is Hultsfred” in Hultsfred. No Hultsfred festival without at least one Sator member.

Sat 31:st – The Sator trio at Scharinska in Umeå.

JUNE 2014

Some more sessions for “BBQ-killers vol 2” was done this month.

Fri 6th – The Sator trio at the Fishbait Festival on Åland.

Sat 7th – Sator at the Fishbait Festival on Åland. It was the first electric show this year. Some of the other acts were Imperial State Electric, The Nomads, and Nicke Borg.

Wed 25th – Kent solo show at Hulingen in Hultsfred.

JULY 2014

The Bo-Dogs album was finally completed after a long wait.

Bo-Dogs isn’t a real band so to speak. We never do any live shows. The band was put together to record an album of pure garage rock. A thing that had been on Nisse’s mind for a while. Nisse wrote the songs and sang lead vocals, I produced and played bass, Kent played guitar and Patrik Herrström was brought in on drums. We all had some input but it’s really Nisse’s band. We never rehearsed just learned the songs in the studio and put them down on tape very quickly. I think the album turned out great. Maybe there will be a second album and some live shows one day. At first Kent was supposed to play bass but when we switched instruments something magic happened so we went for that instead.

Chips

Sat 5th – Hans played keyboards with Bäddat för Trubbel at Henriksberg in Gothenburg.

Thurs 10th – Sator at the Riddu Riddu festival in Manndalen, Norway. Very far up north!

A sort of homecoming show for Kent. The festival is really more like a world music-native culture festival with no rock bands at all. But since Kent’s mother is from this area and Kent’s got some “samish-blood” in his veins they managed to find a reason to include Sator on the bill.

Hans

Someone started a Facebook group for bringing Sator to Manndalen and they put some pressure on the festival-promoters. It must be one of my favorite shows this year. And we got to see where Kent spent every summer for many years in his youth.

Chips

It was actually in Manndalen I heard The Boys first album for the first time. The Boys have always been a major influence for us.

Kent

In 2015 The Boys will again play a big role in Sator’s history but more about that later.

Sat 12th – Sator played at No Name MC in Strängnäs.

Mon 14th – The Sator trio at Tanumstrand in Grebbestad.

Tues 15th – The Sator trio at Majas vid havet in Varberg.

Thurs 17th – The Sator trio at Hotell Koster in Sydkoster.

Fri 18th – Sator (full band again) at Folkets Park in Tuna Hästberg.

Now it was my turn to “return home”. This area is where many of my relatives came from.

Mikael

AUGUST 2014

Fri 22:nd – Heikki plays bass at “BAS” a dance/performance at Ludgo Bygdegård in Aspa. This is one of several “dance-shows” for Heikki this year.

Hekki also did several improvised dance and bass shows with dancer Anna Ehnberg. Dates unknown but there were quite a few 2013-2015.

Heikki was also did a couple of shows with Mäntysoopa Band.

Fri 29th – The Sator trio at Pubben in Borgholm

Sat 30th – The Sator trio once again at Pubben in Borgholm.

SEPTEMBER 2014

Mon 1:st – Chips started pre-production for an album with Stockholm band Bohemian Lifestyle.

Fri 5th – Kent guested with Docenterna at Nalen in Stockholm

Wed 10th – Crucified Barbara’s “In the red” album was released recieving rave reviews.

Further work on BBQ-Killers vol 2.

Fri 26th – Kent solo show with Micke Westman at Telegrafen in Grebbestad.

OCTOBER 2014

A new Bo-Dogs track “Snake shake Baby” was recorded in Nisse’s basement and Chips’ livingroom for the B-side of the forthcoming single “Bad bad dog”.

Sat 11th – Sator and The Nomads at Pipeline in London supported by Alkatraz. Honest John Plain from The Boys guested with Sator on the two The Boys classics “First Time” and “T.C.P.”.

A vinyl 7″ single “When you lie down with dogs/If you could see me now” was released through Pitshark Records Singles Club. The single was an instant collector’s item since it was only pressed in 100 copies! The B-side was written in 1992 during the Headquake sessions and recorded in 1995 but never released before.

Fri 24th – Sator at Forum in Oskarshamn. Support band was local metal band The Quill. The night was a celebration for the Forum turning 50 years. The reviews said that Sator is “the best live band in Sweden” and who are we to argue?

Sat 25th – Sator at Dalton MC in Läckeby supported by Factum.

Thurs 29th – The Bo-Dogs album “Bad bad dog” with Chips and Kent is released on Low Impact records.

It took a long time to find the right record label and we were all busy with other projects. The music is pretty timeless so the delay didn’t really matter.

Kent

Fri 31:st – The Sator trio at Ögir in Köping.

NOVEMBER 2014

Sat 1:st – The Sator trio at Biobaren in Karlskrona.

Sat 15th – The Sator trio at Royal in Eskilstuna with guests. Erik Brodén guested on several songs, Heikki’s son Joel Kiviaho played drums on one song and on “Bound to be good” the trio was backed by a choir S:t Pauli kyrkokör. Another unique performance for this show was a cover of “Racing” A song by Minx. (Heikki’s first single from 1981) The band was joined by original Minx members Michael Heldring on lead vocals and Christer Heldring on drums. Chrille Heldring have played with Sator before way back in 2006. While Michael was backstage throwing up Chrille helped out until Michael was back.

Sat 8th – Hans once again played keyboards with Bäddat för Trubbel. This time at Truckstop Alaska in Gothenburg.

Mon 17th – The recording of Bohemian Lifestyle’s album started at Music A Matic studios in Gothenburg with Chips producing and Henryk Lipp as engineer. It would continue until the end of the month.

DECEMBER 2014

Pre-production for Captain Black Beard’s third album started this month with Chips in the producer’s chair.

Fri 12th – The Sator trio returned to Hulingen in Hultsfred where the unplugged-story started a year ago.

It was a different band that returned to Hultsfred. By now we had learned the trade of playing acoustic. It was a very good thing for the band and for us as musicians as well.

Chips

Sat 13th – The Sator trio at Hulingen again.

Sat 20th – Chips guested with the old Swedish punk band Reklamation at Snövit in Stockholm singing “Trivs du i Hjo?”. It was a re-release party for their 1980 EP.

Sat 26th – Chips guested with the houseband at Hitlistan/Biff, Grill and Bar in Eskilstuna singing “Paranoid” by Black Sabbath and “C’mon let’s go” by Girlschool. Heikki was the bassplayer in the band.

It was a rather slow year for the electric-Sator since Michael and Hasse were busy with other things. But as a result of that “The Sator Trio” was born. It was still a good year for the band over all.

2015

JANUARY 2015

Chips kept working on the Bohemian Lifestyle album.

Kent went to China to join The Boys!!

When Kent Norberg joined classic 70s punk/powerpop band The Boys it was even beyond a dream come true. To grow up and find yourself in the band of your teenage heroes… well things like that just don’t happen.

The Boys were my idols and in a way they were even one of the things that lead to me being a part of Sator. I got back to Borlänge after a period in Norway, where I had discovered The Boys and thought it was the greatest band on the planet. I wanted to share this revelation with everyone but no one else seemed to know who they were. But then I got a tip that there was this guy called Chips who liked them. Chips was two years older than I and one of the cool guys, but I walked up to him and started talking about The Boys and we quickly found out that we liked a lot of the same music. That was it, he’s been my partner in crime ever since.

Kent

The Boys arrived in China only to find that the Ministry of Culture had cancelled the tour. The official reason given was crowd control and security issues in the wake of the Shanghai stamped at a riverside New Year celebration attended by around 300,000 in which 36 people were killed and 49 injured. The Ministry of Culture had sent letters to all the venues on the tour telling them that if The Boys played there their premises would be shut down with immediate effect.

Undeterred, the band managed to play three secret underground gigs promoted entirely by word of mouth. In addition, the band gave multiple interviews, performed on a top TV channel in Beijing and did a gig that was recorded for a live album, which was released later in the year on Action records.

We decided to make the best of the situation and as it turned out, we had a fantastic time. Meeting all these great people, organizing and playing the secret gigs, it was tons of fun.

Kent

Fri 16th – Chips produced a single with Swedish punkband Besserbitch over the weekend. “Gråzon” was recorded at Music A Matic studios and engineered by Henryk Lipp.

FEBRUARY 2015

Sun 1:st – The recording of an album with Stockholm band Captain Black Beard started at Music A Matic with Chips producing and Henryk Lipp engineering. The recording took 3 weeks.

Sat 21st – Kent solo show at Pustervik in Gothenburg supporting Rome.

Mon 23rd – The recording of Michael Monroe’s album “Blackout states” started at Music A Matic studios. Another production work for Chips and another engineering job for Henryk.

MARCH 2015

Fri 6th – Hans played with Bäddat För trubbel at Pustervik in Gothenburg.

Sat 14th – Last day of recordings for the Michael Monroe album.

Kent did a short tour in Finland with The Boys

Wed 18th – The Boys at Turun Klubi in Turku Finland. Michael Monroe guested on 3 songs.

Thurs 19th – The Boys at Tavastia in Helsinki

Fri 20th – The Boys at Klubi in Tampere

APRIL 2015

Thurs 2nd – Kent solo show with Mikael Westman at Telegrafen in Grebbestad.

Fri 3rd – Hans guested with City Saints at Henriksberg in Gothenburg.

Hans can also be heard playing piano on Bäddat för Trubbel’s third album released this month. Another guest on the album was Nisse Hellberg.

Kent played country in Hagakyrkan in Gothenburg under the name “Come cry with me”; a show with sad songs by Townes van Zandt, George Jones, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Gram Parsons, Daniel Romano, Kris Kristofferson…

The band:
Kent Norberg – Vocals
Gunnar Frick – Pedal steel and keyboards
Bengan Blomgren – Guitar
Stefan Bellnäs – Bass
Johan Håkansson – Drums

Sun 12th – Kent played with Johan Johansson trio at La Sombrita in Gothenburg

Fri 17th – First electric Sator show of the year at Liljan in Borlänge. Chips brother Emile Kiesbye guested on “I wanna go home” singing double leadvocal with Kent.

Sat 18th – Kent played solo with Eric Brodén at Ljusdals kyrka in Ljusdal. They did another show at “Condis” in Järvsö later the same day.

Wed 22nd – Kent with Eric Brodén at Arton.78 in Söderhamn

Thurs 23rd – Kent with Eric Brodén at Sigges in Hudiksvall

Fri 24th – Kent with Eric Brodén at Rosehills in Ljusdal

Sat 25th – Kent with Eric Brodén at Gästis in Eskistuna

A new Bo-Dogs vinyl single was released “Bad Bad dog/Snake Shake baby” on the Kenrock label at the end of the month. The B-side is exclusive to this release.

An unexpected release: The Republikans album produced by Chips and recorded ten years ago (but sadly never released because the band broke up) was finally released on Lonestar Records in Germany. The band evolved into Tramp and relased an album in 2011.

Chips spent the rest of the month in Helsinki, Finland for the mix of the Michael Monroe album. It was mixed by Petri Majuri at E-Studio.

MAY 2015

Backing vocals for the Captain Black Beard album was done with “The Planet of Noise mobile recording unit” in Stockholm. Last work on the album was completed on june 8th. It was mixed in September.

The Kent Norberg’s first solo album “Skyll på mig” was released. The album contains nine songs of soul-full country rock sung in Swedish, including covers of Gillian Welsh, Nick Lowe and Wilco.

Sat 2nd – Sator played at the “Rock ´n´ roll Butterfarth festival”. The festival is located on Helgoland an island between Germany and Denmark. Some other bands were The Movement, Die Mimmis, The Lurkers…

We had to bring the gear in a small boat and we played on a sand dune. Quite an adventure but a really cool festival.

Chips

Sat 9th – Chips and Heikki guested at Gästis in Eskilstuna. It was a release party for Thomas Wahlström’s book with punk lyrics. One Brülbåjz song was included in the book. Headline act was the band Farsta including members from classic Swedish punk bands like Ebba Grön and Grisen Skriker.

Mon 11th – Kent solo at Dinkytown/Café Mejeriet in Trollhättan.

Tues 12th – Kent solo at Dinkytown/Bohusläns museum in Uddevalla.

Wed 13th – Kent solo at Dinkytown/Nolbygårds Ekobageri in Alingsås.

Fri 15th – Kent solo at Dinkytown/Café Mic in Vänersborg.

Sat 16th – Sator at Wisby Strand in Visby supported by Besserbitch and Oak Brigade.

Wed 20th – Bohemian Lifestyle’s Chips produced album “Madame Libertánah” was released recieving really positive reviews.

Fri 22nd – Kent solo at Hulingen in Hultsfred. Releaseparty for the album.

Sat 23rd – Kent solo at Pustervik in Gothenburg. Releaseparty for the album.

Heikki played bass at another dance-show with dancer Niklas Valenti in Eskilstuna.

Sun 24th – Kent short gig and record-signing at record store Bengans in Gothenburg.

JUNE 2015

Fri 12th – The Sator trio at the Fishbait Festival on Åland. For the second year in a row.

The Sator-Åland love story continues!

Hans

Sat 13th – Sator full band at the Fishbait Festival. Some of the other bands this year were Electric Boys, Docenterna, Backyard Babies…

Wed 17th – Kent once again sang at the Stig Vig Tribute show at Mosebacke in Stockholm. This time he sang the Ebba Grön classic “Vad ska du bli?” with various Dag Vag members.

Sat 27th – Sator at “Slottet live” by the castle in Örebro with legendary Pugh Rogefeldt among others.

JULY 2015

Fri 3rd – Sator returned once again to the Peace and Love festival in Borlänge.

Sat 4th – Sator at Willys festival/Folkets Park in Nyhammar supported by Roadhouse, Willys Washroom…

Sat 11th – Sator at Sommarrock festival in Svedala

Sun 12th – Secret show at a private party for the Sator trio in Kristinehamn.

A friend of the band had a birthday party and we showed up as a surprise. We played the longest set ever in his backyard doing almost every song we knew and a couple we didn’t really know at all.

Heikki

Maybe it will be one of those legendary shows that in a couple of years a thousand people will say “I was there”.

Chips

Fri 17th – Chips and Kent guested Erik Brodéns band at Arton.78 in Söderhamn playing some covers and a few Sator songs.

Sat 18th – Sator at Rock ´n´ ride in Malung with Backstreet Girls who’s guitarplayer Petter Baarli guested with Sator on “I’d rather drink than talk”.

Sator and Backstreet Girls story goes way back. We met in the late 80’s and have been friends ever since. In 1992 we did some backing vocals on their album.

Mikael

Sat 25th – Sator played “Summer in the park” at Folkets Park in Örnsköldsvik.

A 12 hour drive, playing the gig and then a 12 hour drive back home! But it was worth it.

Hans

Wed 29th – Sator trio at Sportbaren in Hönö, an island outside Gothenburg. There were a lot of “island shows” this year!

Thurs 30th – Sator trio at DownTown Rockbar In Falkenberg.

Fri 31st – Sator full band at Majas vid havet in Varberg. The song “Under the radar” was taken back in the set again

AUGUST 2015

Sat 1st – Sator trio at Mastmagasinet in Kristinehamn

Sat 8th – The Boys at the Rebellion Festival in Blackpool, UK. One short acoustic set in the afternoon and a full electric set later same day on the main stage in front of around 5000 punks. Since The Boys’ guitar player Honest John Plain had an accident and was unable to do the shows Chips filled in on rhythm guitar. The fairy-tale continues. Now we have two Sator members in The Boys!

It’s complicated. I’m very sad for Honest John but at the same time I’m thrilled to play with The Boys! I will do my best until he’s back in the band again. When Kent moved to Borlänge he asked around if anyone liked The Boys and someone said talk to Chips, he loves The Boys. That’s how we got to know each other and that’s why Kent ended up in Sator. So this is huge.

Chips

Remaining in the Almost Acoustic room, next up was the diverse proposition of The Boys, who are this weekend minus the talents of Mr Rock ´n Roll, Honest John Plain. The guitarist still recovering from a serious accident that had prevented him from travelling this weekend, and even though his presence was missed massively his recovery was far more important as us Uber Rockers. So instead we raised a glass to his recovery and future health and decided to make the most of what was about to happen. With the curse of The Boys once again looming large, today it’s instruments going AWOL that almost ruins things, but some quick improvisation later and it is a guitar case that will provide the percussion and with the stand in 11th hour replacement for John at the ready everything suddenly turns on its head as Dangerfield and Steel didn’t just pull it off they… err… smashed it! They achieve this by knocking out a set of essential Boys’ numbers with bassist Kent Norberg handling Honest John Plain’s vocal parts with much aplomb. Sometimes festivals call for “giving the punters what they want” and by starting with ‘TCP’, ‘Weekend’ and then straight into ‘Terminal Love’ the boys (ouch) work here was pretty much done. Finding time to also throw in new song ‘I’m A Believer’ before going for gold with ‘I Don’t Care’ was a great move and heading straight into the 1-2-3 of ‘Brickfield Nights’, ‘First Time’ and ‘Sick On You’ the best singalong of the weekend has just taken place, and as for that infamous curse of The Boys? What curse? As I scan the room all around me are five mile smiles as we’d not only just witnessed a new band deliver a show stealing performance but also a band who’ve pretty much been there done it and bought the T shirt showing that adversity can spur you on to great things, and as long as you have the songs (boy do they have the songs) you have a more than a fighter’s chance, whatever the situation. I can’t wait to see how they fair later on when they play electric sets.

Suitably fed and watered its back to the Empress ballroom for round two with The Boys, and with all their instruments now finally in place and a thoroughly enjoyable acoustic set behind them I’m pleased to report that it is business as usual, albeit with a bunch of top tunes from their recent ‘Punk Rock Menopause’ studio album slipped into the set. ‘Global Warming’ kicking up an immediate storm down the front whereas ‘You Can’t Hurt A Memory’ applied some light relief mid set. Through a seventeen song set the gap left by Honest John Plain’s rock ´n roll grit was evident and that missing X Factor was obvious but Matt and Casino soldiered on with their fellow Boys and it was by no means a substandard performance and in many respects I actually thought it was superb that they simply didn’t pull the show, because many lesser bands would have bottled it but not The Boys. Under the circumstances this was again a winning performance from The Boys and I look forward to the next time we cross paths and they are complete with Honest John Plain back where he should be. Here’s to a full recovery Mr Plain but your 11th hour stand in Chips certainly did you proud.

Dom Daley, Über rock magazine

Fri 14th – Kent did the “Kompledigt festival” at Ögir in Köping

Sat 15th – Sator trio at Skebopuben in Skebobruk.

Thurs 20th – Chips recorded bass with Glen Matlock of The Sex Pistols, Rich kids… It was for two songs with The Swedish band Zoo Party for a forthcoming album. It was recorded at Park Studios in Stockholm with Stefan Boman engineering.

A pretty good day for an old punkrocker. Recording Glen Matlock in the morning, getting on the train to Gothenburg and playing with The Boys the same day.

Chips

The Boys’ short tour of Sweden started tonight (with Chips and Kent) at Liseberg Amusement Park in Gothenburg.

Fri 21st – The Boys at Rockfickan in Hova supported by Hard Luck Street from Norway.

A great show but I guess what we will remember from this night is a bit of unwanted chaos. Me, Martin the drummer, and Gerald the bus driver decided to go for a swim. We found a small lake in the woods and somehow managed to drop the bus keys in the lake! After about an hour of searching we gave up. No keys! We were stuck in the middle of nowhere with no clothes and no phones ’cause it was all locked up in the bus. After a while some friendly locals gave Martin a ride back to the hotel to get some help. It took a while but new keys came from Gothenburg and we were able to continue the tour. No TVs through the window or driving cars into swimming pools. Just a lower level of rock ´n´ roll mayhem, ha ha! Certainly no more swimming on this tour.

Chips

Sat 22nd – The Boys at Biff, Grill and Bar in Eskilstuna supported by the reformed local punkband X-Rated.

Sun 23rd – The Boys at Göta Källare in Stockholm supported by Blasting Fondas and Shemales. Last show of the Swedish mini-tour.

Fri 28th – Sator at Långnäsparken in Bollnäs.

Last time we played Bollnäs was in 1992 so it was long overdue.

Hans

Sat 29th – Sator at “Scensommarrock” in Torsby with Factory Brains and local bands.

Sun 30th – Another dance show for Heikki “Vatten, folktro, myter och magi” at “Ladan i Inneberga” in Runtuna with dancers Anna Ehnberg and Tove Skeidsvoll.

Heikki was also part of a documentary on Swedish national radio about Finnish people in Sweden called “Sverige är Finskt”.

Mon 31st – Chips started pre-production work for Mia Coldheart’s (of Crucified Barbara) first solo album.

SEPTEMBER 2015

Sat 5th – Sator at Sator at Svea Park in Kaxås, supported by Solds Finest. It was part of the cruising event “Great Lake run” with lots of nice vintage cars. Sator actually won the price of “The longest trip to the cruising”.

We had a 13 hour drive to get there. I don’t think anyone else came from that far away ha ha! So we have a new trophy in our collection.

Hans

Mon 7th – Chips started pre-production for an album with the band Oak Brigade from Gotland, Sweden.

Fri 11th – The Boys at “Herr Nilsen” in Oslo with Chips and Kent. Support band was Hard Luck Street. This was Chips last full show with the Boys. Honest John Plain joined the band for the encores.

It’s been a lot of fun but it also felt good to have Honest John back in the band again. It was The Boys with three guitars for the encore.

Chips

Sat 19th – To celebrate the relase of Sator own beer the band played a full set at a special party the Stallhagen Brewery on Åland.

Another dream come through. To have your own beer brand.

Kent

The Chips produced Captain Black Beard album was mixed at Music A Matic studios with Henryk Lipp this month.

Fri 25th – Kent returned to Telegrafen in Grebbestad for a show with Mikael Westman.

Sat 26th – Kent guested at “Avskedsfesten för It’s only Rock´n´roll” in Umeå. Some of the other guests were Staffan Hellstrand and Conny Bloom.

OCTOBER 2015

Fri 2nd – Rehearsal for the upcoming “Headquake” show in Fagersta.

Luckily we have a lot of friends in Fagersta. The Hives provided their rehearsal place for us. Thanks a lot guys!

Michael

Some if the songs haven’t been performed since the 90’s so it was a bit up and down at first. We had to re-learn them again.

Kent

Sat 3rd – Sator at Mikis Klubben/Fagersta Hotel in Fagersta supported by The Dahmers. Another sold out show. The setlist for this night was quite different with many older songs like “Dog”, “Turn off the news”, “Ain’t seen nothing” and “Bound to be good” back in the set for one night.

Fri 9th – The Chips produced Michael Monroe album “Blackout States” was released through Spinefarm Records. It was very well recieved by the critics and fans all over the world,

Sat 24th – Last regular show this year iat Palatset in Linköping supported by Bad Möthertruckers.

Sat 31st – Chips and Heikki were part of the backing band when the club “Blå” in Eskilstuna celebrated the 15-year anniversary of the opening. Some of the guests were Robert “Strings” Dahlqvist, Yvonne among others.

Chips also worked on an album with the band The Ring, The River on and off this autumn.

NOVEMBER 2015

Sat 14th – The Boys at Pipeline in London with Kent and Chips. Honest John Plain was now fully recovered so Chips just came up for the encores “Tumble with me” and “Sick on you”. They were also joined by Andrew Matheson and Eunan Brady from The Hollywood Brats and also by Jack Black, the original drummer of The Boys. A once in a lifetime line-up for sure.

Another dream come through. To play these two classic songs with three original Hollywood Brats members! And we also finally got to meet Jack Black. A great guy too. What a night.

Chips

The exhibition “Musiklivet Göteborg 1955-2018 opened at “Göteborgs Stadsmuseum” in Gothenburg. Sator and Sator Codex played a part in the musical history of Gothenburg. Especially during the 80’s and 90’s. Sator is still based in Gothenburg so it continues to this day.

Wed 18th – Kent guested at The Raga Rockers tribute in Oslo singing “Ekspander eller dø”. Sator met Raga Rockers for the first time way back in 1986.

They have always been one of my favorite Norwegian bands so it was an honor to be part of this.

Kent

Fri 20th – The band spent 4 days in Gothenburg rehearsing the Headquake show .

It sounded much better now and it was actually quite interesting to re-visit the past.

Hans

Sun 29th – “The Ring, The River’s” first album was mixed at Music A Matic Studios by Henryk Lipp and Chips at the end of November into early December.

DECEMBER 2015

Fri 4th – The Sator-trio at Hotell Hulingen in Hultsfred for the third year in a row. A new Christmas tradition. The news this year is that they were joined by local heroes Wild Rover. The two bands that have without a doubt played most Hultsfred festivals of any artists.

It was an experiment that we’ve been talking about for a couple of years. We started with a “slow” set then Wild Rover did a slightly faster set. The third set was a joined event with both bands playing together doing both bands biggest hits and some extra covers.

Kent

It worked even better than we thought. Their Swedish-Irish mix together with Sator’s high energy rock became something else.

Heikki

I think it turned out to be one of the high-lights this year and I’m sure we will do this again. It’s too good to waste.

Chips

Sat 5th – The Sator-trio and Wild Rover at Hotell Hulingen in Hultsfred. Second night.

Fri 11th – The Sator-trio and Wild Rover at Hotell Hulingen in Hultsfred. third night. Sator drummer Michael “guested” on two songs.

Sat 12th – The Sator-trio and Wild Rover at Hotell Hulingen in Hultsfred. Last night. Again with Michael “guesting”

Sat 19th – The Headquake show at Debaser Medis in Stockholm. They were supported by Factory Brains. Sator played the Headquake album from top to bottom and did another set of “greatest hits” The show was sold-out to the last seat in the house. A perfect ending of great year for the band.

Chips pre-production work for Mia Coldheart’s album continued this month. Along with more pre-production for forthcoming albums with Troubled Horse and Oak Brigade.

2016

JANUARY 2016

Sat 9th – Chips produced three tracks with Feast of Fools at Music-A-Matic studios over the weekend.

Mon 11th – The recording of Oak Brigades first album “Creators of the world” started at Music-A-Matic studios with Chips as producer and Henryk Lipp as engineer.

Sat 16th – The recording of Troubled Horse second album “Revolution On Repeat” started at Music-A-Matic studios with Chips as producer and Henryk Lipp as engineer.

FEBRUARY 2016

Chips kept on working with Feast of Fools, Oak Brigade and Troubled Horse. No Sator activity at all this month.

MARCH 2016

Fri 11th – Sessions for the Zoo Party “Lardass” album continued with Chips still producing.

Fri 18th – “Pop Corner” in Alvesta, The first Sator Codex show since 1987!

The celebrate that it was 30 years ago this week since Sator Codex first played in Alvesta. The band was reformed for one night playing a short set “supporting” Sator. Original singer Björn Clarin was not appearing since he had already left the band before the Alvesta show back in 1986. The songs played by Sator Codex were Leech, Howling, You need me, Master of the Universe, She Falls and Final Curtain. Then Sator took over opening with Pigvalley Beach and bringing in Heikki again on bass.

The support band was Johnny Och Dom Andra. Same support band as 30 years ago!

Sat 19th – “Hotell Trubaduren” on Hönö, an island outside Gothenburg. Back to “normal” again. A regular Sator show.

Sat 26th – Sator played a short set after the Leksand-Modo hockey-game at “Tegera Arena” in Leksand. Leksand won!

APRIL 2016

Fri 8th – Sator at “Rockfickan” in Hova supported by The Gloria Story.

Sat 9th – Sator in Alingsås at “MX bar”

Sun 10th – The Sator trio afternoon show at “Kulturoasen” in Uppsala.

Our car broke down on the way to the show. We had to drive really slow because the gear was stuck in one position.

Heikki

Yes it was quite an adventure to drive the car back to Stockholm after the show.

Chips

There was a lot of jokes about cars and gears… during the show.

Kent

Mon 11th – Chips recorded three tracks with Norwegian band The Dahlmanns in Stockholm on “The Planet of Noise mobile recording unit”

Fri 15th – Chips produced three tracks with Skallbank from Karlstad at Music-A-Matic Studios with Henryk Lipp engineering.

The Sator track “Rub it in” was recorded this week. Mostly in Chips bedroom. It was for a Spanish split single with The Nomads.

Fri 22nd – The Sator trio at “Ölkultur” in Eskilstuna. Eric Brodén guested on a couple of songs.

Sat 23rd – The Sator trio-played an afternoon set in Hedemora at “Out and Loud”. They were again joined by Eric Brodén and also Sator’s drummer Micke on several songs.

A full-on show with the electric Sator took place at “Bankiren” in Västerås later the same day. Brodén tagged along.

Fri 29th – Sator at “Live Entertainment” in Karlshamn. Supported by Dampungarna.

MAY 2016

Fri 13th – Sator at Silja Line Rock cruise with Quireboys, Hardcore Superstar…

Sat 14th – A short unplanned and unplugged set on the cruise ship.

Wed 25th – The Sator trio at “Musikhuset” in Örnsköldsvik.

Thurs 26th – Sator full band at “U-rock festival” in Umeå with Europe, Danko Jones and D.A.D.

Fri 27th – Sator played at “Fenix” in Gävle supported by Rebel Collective, Soul Pirates and The Scrags.

Sat 28th – The Sator trio at “Kajskjulet” in Halmstad

JUNE 2016

Sat 11th – Sator trio at “Café Gula huset” in Brålanda.

Probably one of the smallest stages we’ve ever been on. It was like playing in someones living room! A great show anyway.

Chips

Fri 17th – The Sator trio at “Fishbait festival” on Åland.

Sat 18th – Sator full band at Fishbait. A storm arrived during the night so the festival was almost cancelled. All the shows were moved from the main stage to a tent.

A tough day. When we woke up and looked out the window we thought everything would be cancelled. This was more than bad weather. It was a storm! But everyone helped to build a new stage and turned a total disaster into a great night.

Michael

Sat 25th – Sator at “Midsummer fest” outside “Tegera Arena” in Leksand with Takida, AronChupa and Art Nation.

Thurs 30th – The Sator trio at “Liljan” in Borlänge.

JULY 2016

Fri 1:st – The Sator trio at “Näshulta Kulturdagar” in Näshulta. A special show for sponsors only.

Sat 2:nd – The Sator trio in Näshulta again. An afternoon show then jumping into a car for two more shows at “Vinö Värdshus” on Vinön later the same day.

Thurs 21:st – Chips started working with Robert “Strängen” Dahlqvist doing pre-production for an album.

Sat 30th – Sator at “Peking MC” in Norrköping.

AUGUST 2016

Fri 12th – The Sator trio with Wild Rover at “Carlas Café” on Öland.

Sat 13th – Sator at “Folkets Park” in Munkedal. A mini festival.

Fri 19th – Sator Codex/Sator at “This is Hultsfred” in Hultsfred. The second and last Sator Codex show this year. 30 years ago Sator Codex played at the first Hultsfred festival. Tonight the band returned to the same stage “Teaterladan” that still have traces of the chaotic 1988 Sator show.

This was the last ever Hultsfred festival so we played at the first one and we played at the last one.

Hans

There was a lot of strange technical problems this night. Several guitars breaking down, amps burning up… I believe that “Teaterladan” took it’s revenge on us for wrecking it in 1988.

Chips

Sat 20th – Sator at “Strul MC” in Enköping.

Thurs 25th – The Sator trio in Huddinge Centrum outside Stockholm. Two sets in the afternoon/evening.

Fri 26th – The Sator trio with Wild Rover at “Stadsfesten” in Eksjö.

Sat 27th – Sator at “Olssons Brygga” in Arvika.

SEPTEMBER 2016

The Troubled Horse album was mixed this month

Fri 9th – The recording of an album with Helikoptern started with Chips producing.

Wed 21:st – The Sator trio played on “Blidösund” a ship in Stockholm.

Two really long sets. We played all the way back to the harbor.

Heikki

Fri 23:rd – Sator at “Norrehus” in Klippan supported by LoVeDoLLs.

OCTOBER 2016

Rehearsals for the “Headquake” and “Stock rocker Nuts !” shows.

Chips did several sessions with The Ring The River from Falun this month.

Fri 14th – Three demos with Mia Coldheart ex-Crucified Barbara were recorded at Music-A-Matic over the weekend. The un-named band included Erik Berntsson on drums, Sanna (last name not known) on bass, Hannah Smallbone on piano and Mia “Coldheart” Karlsson on guitar and vocals.

Tues 18th – Chips produced a single with Greybeards at “Sound Society Studios Studio” in Gävle. Engineered by Anton Forsberg and Benjamin Nyman. It was the start of a forthcoming album.

Sat 22nd – Sator at “Hamnmagasinet” in Kristinehamn.

Sat 29th – Sator at “Kalmar tatueringsmässa” in Kalmar with Lillasyster, Hardcore Superstar…

NOVEMBER 2016

More sessions with The Ring The River and Zoo Party. And the Oak Brigade album was mixed this month.

Fri 4th – Sator at “Folkets Park, Orrskogen” in Malung.

The last time I played here was with Brülbåjz in 1980! But I still recognized the place.

Chips

Sat 5th – Sator in Sala at “Rocklands” supported by Local Loco & The Idiots.

Fri 11th – Sator played the “Stock Rocker Nuts!” album from first to last track at “Pustervik” in Gothenburg. The encores were songs from “Slammer!” and other early songs. Nothing from “Headquake or after”.

Sat 12th – Sator played the album “Headquake” at “Pustervik” in Gothenburg. The encores this night was later songs. Two nights, two completely different sets.

Fri 25th – Sator played “Headquake” at “KB” in Malmö

These three shows were all amazing. A sort of payback for 30 years of hard work.

Kent

Really some of the best Sator-shows ever.

Chips

Tues 28th – Kent was part of “A tribute to The Last Waltz” at “Cirkus” in Stockholm. A Tribute to The Band’s movie from 1976 with guests like Nina Persson, Kent Norberg, Pär Wiksten, Mats Ronander…

DECEMBER 2016

Chips recorded with The Hellacopters for the first time since the break-up in 2008.

We worked on old stuff for possible release in the future. It felt really exciting to work together again. This line-up had Dregen in the band. He was in the band before I started working with the band.

Chips

Fri 2:nd – The Sator trio with Wild Rover at “Hotell Hulingen” in Hultsfred. A dear tradition now. “The annual julbord-shows”

Sat 3:rd – The Sator trio with Wild Rover at “Hotell Hulingen” in Hultsfred.

Fri 9th – The Sator trio with Wild Rover at “Hotell Hulingen” in Hultsfred. This weekend with Tony Frost on bass since Heikki had other commitments.

Sat 10th – The Sator trio with Wild Rover at “Hotell Hulingen” in Hultsfred the last “Julbord-show”

Sat 27th – Chips guested at “Hitlistan” in Eskilstuna singing “Cherry Bomb” by The Runaways and Silver Machine by Hawkwind. Backed up by Anders “Boba Fett” Lindström on guitar, Heikki Kiviaho on bass and Rocco Gustafsson on drums.

A great year in the Sators history.

2017

JANUARY 2017

Fri 6th – The Boys with Chips and Kent at legendary “100 Club” in London. Support band The Vulz.

Quite an honor to play with such a legendary band at such a legendary club. It’s one of the last classic rock clubs still around.

Kent

Everyones’s played here. From The Rolling Stones to the Sex Pistols!

Chips

Chips worked with The Hellacopters and Zoo Party this month.

Thurs 26th – Sessions for Robert “Strängen” Dahlqvist started at Music-A-Matic studios in Gothenburg with Chips producing and Henryk Lipp engineering. The recording was halted a week later when Robert suddenly passed away. 6 songs would later be completed after Robert’s death.

We had been working on songs for 6 months and it would have been a great album. We didn’t even get around to record the strongest songs since we had a little more work to do on those songs..I know that Robert would have wanted us to complete these songs but it took a while before I could touch the material. I was in shock ’cause Robert’s death really came out of the blue. He died of an epileptic attack and I was the last one to see him. It was tough.

Chips

FEBRUARY 2017

Chips worked with Helikoptern and The Hellacopters. (2 different bands)

Some work was done on the never ending “BBQ-killers volume 2”.

Sat 24th – The Sator Trio and Wild Rover at “Palatset” in Linköping.

MARCH 2017

Chips worked with Zoo Party, The Nomads, The Hellacopters and The Dahlmanns.

A few more BBQ sessions took place as well in March.

APRIL 2017

Sat 1:st – Sator full band at “Folkets Park” in Mora.

Chips worked on some unreleased songs with Nisse Hellberg for an album of outtakes. Chips also did some pre-production with Greybeards for their forthcoming album.

Fri 7th – Kent guested with O’Street Band “Celebrating the 60’s” at “Hotell Hulingen” in Hultsfred.

Thurs 13th – Chips was part of the backing band at “Hitlistan” in Eskilstuna playing “Under hot” and “Tusen Trasiga bilder” by Wilmer X, “Vittring” by Magnus Uggla and “Samma sak” by Docent Död. Stefan Björk the ex-Wilmer X bass player sang the Wilmer X songs.

Fri 14th – “Country Church of Haga” at Hagakyrkan in Gothenburg. A concert with sad songs from the world of country.

Kent Norberg & The Straywalkers:

Kent Norberg – Vocals and guitar
Elin Johansson – Vocals and guitar
Bengan Blomgren – Guitar
Stefan Bellnäs – Bass and vocals
Johan Håkansson – Drums
Gunnar Frick – Pedal steel, keyboards and guitar

“Come Cry With Me”, an album from a previous live-show at the same place in 2015 was released as Kent’s second solo album.

Mon 17th – First day of recording the Spiders‘ album “Killer Machine” at Music-A-Matic Studios. Chips was the producer and Henryk Lipp was engineering and mixing the album. It would take a year before it was released.

Thurs 27th – Kent Norberg and Gunnar Frick at “Crippas Café” in Gothenburg.

Fri 28th – Kent Norberg and Mikael Westman at “Restaurang Telegrafen” in Grebbestad.

Sat 29th – The Sator trio (This time Michael, Chips and Kent) played a secret show at a party at “Tidö Slott”.

MAY 2017

Chips worked with Nisse Hellberg and Helikoptern, Zoo Party and Spiders.

Sat 13th – Wild Rover celebrated 30 years as a band at “Hotell Hulingen” in Hultsfred. Chips, Kent and Heikki guested on 6 songs.

Sat 20th – The Boys with Chips and Kent at “Olsen på Bryn” in Oslo supported by Hard Luck Street.

Mon 22nd – A 5-song demo for Michael’s still un-named “side-project” was recorded at Music-A-Matic studios by Chips.

The band broke up before the recordings were completed so no vocals were recorded.

JUNE 2017

Fri 2nd – The exhibition “Freddie Wadlings Kabinett” opened at Stadmuséet in Gothenburg. Chips, Henryk Lipp and Anna-Lena Karlsson performed two songs by Cortex: “Shotgun Treatment” and “Jesus i betong”.

Sat 3rd – Sator at “Custom Bike show” in Norrtälje.

Fri 9th – Sator Trio (with Michael joining in) at “Elmia Wood” in Vaggeryd.

Sat 10th – Sator performing the “Headquake” album at Sweden Rock festival in Norje.

This was the last of the “Headquake” shows. This night we played the songs in the original order as we first intended the album to be.

Chips

Fri 16th – The last “Fishbait festival”. The Sator Trio

Sat 17th – Sator full band at “Fishbait” on Åland.

A great and very friendly festival. Sadly this was the last year. Åland really took us to their hearts and we played every Fishbait festival.

Hans

Tues 27th – Sator at “Gröna Lund”, an amusement park in Stockholm for the first time since 1995.

Fri 30th – The Boys at “Odal Rock Festival” in Norway with Backstreet Girls, Hard Luck Street, Ed Tudor-Pole…

Lovely festival and it was great to get some “behind the scenes” stories from the shooting of the “Rock´n´roll Swindle” movie from Eddie Tenpole! I mean this is the man who sang “Who killed Bambi”.

Chips

JULY 2017

Sat 1st – Sator at “Skara Sommarland” supporting Europe.

Mon 3rd – Chips worked with Greybeards in Gävle at “Sound Society Studios”. More session followed during this month.

Fri 7th – Sator at the “Peace and Love Festival” in Borlänge.

Sat 8th – Sator at “Vicious Rock” festival in Trollhättan with Lordi, Nicke Borg’s Homeland, Frontback…

Interesting to share hotel with a bunch of monsters. The singer of Lordi stayed in character all night. Luckily the monster spoke Finnish.

Heikki

Thurs 13th – Kent Norberg solo acoustic show at “Pub Hulingen” in Hultsfred.

Fri 14th – Sator back at “Rockfickan” in Hova.

One of our favorite rock clubs in Sweden right now. This was our second time in Hova. Really sweaty and lots of fun.

Michael

Sat 15th – Sator At “Willyfestivalen” in Nyhammar with Willys Washroom, Roadhouse Diet…

Thurs 20th – Kent guested with the houseband at “Brännö Värdshus” outside Göteborg.

Sat 22nd – Sator Trio and Wild Rover at “Smedby Prästgård” on Öland.

A really cool show in an old barn in the countryside. The show ended completely unplugged since there was a curfew. We ended the set outside the barn with just acoustic guitars.

Heikki

Mon 24th – Wild Rover with Kent Norberg at “Lada 1888” in Runsbäck on Öland.

Mon 31st – The Heard recorded 2 tracks “Sirens” and “White Lightning” at “Dustward Studio” in Stockholm with Chips producing and Stefan Brändström engineering. The band features 3 ex-Crucified Barbara and 1 Deathstars members with burlesque performer, model and singer Pepper Potemkin on vocals.

More sessions for The Spiders album took place too. The Zoo Party album was mixed.

AUGUST 2017

Thurs 3rd – Sator trio at “Skogsröjet” festival in Rejmyre.

This was one of those rare nights when it rained at a Sator show. Since we played in a big tent it as actually to our advantage since people rushed to the tent. A great show.

Kent

Fri 4th – Sator full band at Skogsröjet Festival. Some of the other acts were Saxon, Imperial State Electric, Yngwie Malmsteen, D-A-D…

No rain! Apparently it rained at Skogsröjet on Saturday. The day after we had left.

Chips

Sat 5th – Sator at “Helgeå festivalen” in Knislinge together with Marky Ramone’s Blitzkrieg, Hammerfall, Imperial State Electric, The Dahmers…

There had a been a “rainstorm” the day before so parts of the area was still flooded. But as always the sun came when we arrived. For some reason we have always had the weather gods on our side. It’s only been raining on a handful of Sator gigs since we started. It’s been 30 years and quite a few festivals so it’s really amazing how lucky we’ve been. Every festival should book Sator as a rain insurance.

Chips

Fri 25th – Sator at “Falkenberg rockfest” in Falkenberg with Hardcore Superstar, LIllasyster…

The Spiders album was mixed by Henryk Lipp this month. Chips did more session with The Heard and Greybeards and Helikoptern in Stockholm.

SEPTEMBER 2017

“30 YEARS OF BEING SATOR TOUR”

It’s been 30 years since we changed our name to Sator and started our “never ending tour”. To celebrate we did this anniversary tour with our greatest hits from the first 30 years. It was supposed to end in december 2017 but there was such a demand for the anniversary show that we decided to continue into 2018.

The last “30 YEARS OF BEING SATOR” show took place in Hultsfred (makes sense) in September 2018. A year almost to the day after the tour started.

Fri 8th – Sator at “Bankiren” in Västerås. First night of the “30 years of being Sator” tour.

Sat 9th – Sator at “Tivoli” in Helsingborg supported by Existenz.

Sat 23rd – Kent guested with Psychotic Youth at “Hotell Hulingen” in Hultsfred singing “Good time are gone”.

Fri 29th – Sator at Katalin in Uppsala.

Sat 30th – Sator at “Club Destroyer” in Sundsvall supported by Animal Nights.

OKTOBER 2017

Sun 1st – The recording of City Saints album started at “Music-A-Matic Studios” in Gothenburg with Chips as producer and Henryk Lipp as engineer. This was their first album in Swedish.

Fri 6th – Chips did one more recording session with The Dahlmanns in Gothenburg.

Sat 7th – Sator at “Lux” in Motala.

Fri 20th – Sator at “Liljan” in Borlänge supported by Mimikry.

Sat 21st – Kent Norberg And The Straywalkers at “Hultsfred On The Countryside” A festival at “Hotell Hulingen” in Hultsfred.

The band:
Kent Norberg – Vocals, guitar
Elin Johansson – Vocals, guitar
Bengan Blomgren – guitar
Stefan Bellnäs – bass
Johan Håkansson – Drums
Gunnar Frick – pedal steel, piano, guitar

Fri 27th – To celebrate that the Sex Pistols “Never mind the bollocks” album was released 40 years ago Chips and Heikki guested at “Hitlistan” in Eskilstuna performing “God Save the Queen”.

Sat 28th – Sator celebrated 30 years as a band at Pustervik in Gothenburg supported by Troubled Horse.

Chips continued with the Greybeards album in Gävle

NOVEMBER 2017

Fri 3rd – Sator and Imperial State Electric, a double bill, at “Frimis” in Örebro.

Sat 4th – Sator and Imperial State Electric at “Lokomotivet” in Eskilstuna.

Mon 13th – Chips started pre-production with Graveyard in Gothenburg for a forthcoming album.

Sat 25th – Sator at “Donners” in Visby supported by The Exploding Leather Jackets (which included members of Oak Brigade)

Thurs 30th – Chips guested with Dregen of The Backyard Babies at “Debaser Strand” in Stockholm singing the classic The Hellacopters song “Gotta get some action”

Final sessions for the Greybeards album took place at “Sound Control studio” in Skutskär. And the recording of the City Saints album also continued on and off. Chips also worked on Robert “Strängen” Dahlqvist’s album.

DECEMBER 2017

Fri 1st – Sator at “Kägelbanan” in Stockholm supported by Perfect Blue Sky (with Kitto and PNA, old friends of the band)

Sat 2nd – Once again the annual “Julbordspelningar” at “Hotell Hulingen” in Hultsfred. Again with Wild Rover.

Sun 3rd – The recording of Graveyards album Peace started at Park Studion in Stockholm with Chips producing and Stefan Boman engineering.

Fri 8th – Sator and Wild Rover “Julbord” at “Hotell Hulingen” in Hultsfred

Sat 9th – Sator and Wild Rover “Julbord” at “Hotell Hulingen” in Hultsfred

Fri 15th – Sator and Wild Rover “Julbord” in Hultsfred

Sat 16th – Sator and Wild Rover “Julbord” in Hultsfred

Wed 20th – Kent guested with Dom Stenade Rullarna at “Bar Kom” in Gothenburg singing “Play with fire”,”Wild Horses” and “Under my thumb” all by the Rolling Stones

Thurs 21st – Last day of the Graveyard sessions at the “Park Studio” in Stockholm. The recordings continued at Music-A-Matic studios in January 2018.

Fri 29th – Sator at “Nöjesfabriken” in Karlstad with Sparzanza and Rob Coffinshaker’s Underground Fire.

Sat 30th – Sator at “Bowling and Krog” in Falun supported by Ebba Gold.

The last “30-years anniversary show” this year. After this the band took a break before the tour continued. Another amazing year!

2018

JANUARY 2018

Fri 5th – The Boys with Chips and Kent at “The Talking Heads” in Southampton, UK supported by The Vulz and The Glorias.

Sat 6th – The Boys back at “100 Club” in London again as last year. Another sold out show. Support bands were The Vulz and The Heavy Drapes.

Chips continued with Graveyard at Music-A-Matic studios recording lead vocals, backing vocals and keyboards.

The last session for Robert “Strängen” Dahlqvists “Rock på Svenska” album also took place at Music-A-Matic studios this month.

We completed some of the demo recordings and added the band as we were supposed to do if Robert had been with us. A strange feeling but some kind of closure I guess

Chips

The Greybeards album was mixed by Benjamin Nyman at his own studio.

Sat 27th – Sator at “Lucky Seven MC” in Väckelsång supported by Dampungarna.

FEBRUARY 2018

The Graveyard album was mixed at Park Studios, Stockholm by Stefan Boman. And work continued on the City Saints album. The last of The Dahlmanns songs were mixed by Henry Lipp at Music-A-Matic studios.

No Sator shows this month but Kent did a 3 day mini-tour in Söderhamn. Järvsö and Hudiksvall to raise money for cancer research.

The band consisted of Eric Brodén, Eric Bazilian, Sverker Magnusson, Peppe Lindholm and Martin Tronsson.

MARCH 2018

Fri 2nd – Sator at “Kajskjulet” in Halmstad supported by Scenic Belly.

Sat 3rd – Sator and Asta Kask at “N3 Stagebox” in Trollhättan.

Tues 6th – Kents “Live talk-show” at “Hotell Hulingen” in Hultsfred. The first guest ever was Johan Johansson of KSMB, Strindbergs, John Lenin… fame.

Thurs 8th – Chips produced three tracks for Backyard Babies at Park Studio in Stockholm. Stefan Boman was engineering. The tracks were later mixed by Michael Ilbert at Hansa studios in Berlin. It was the first sessions for a forthcoming “Sliver and gold” album.

Sat 10th – The Sator Trio in Nyköping for a secret show at a private party.

Chips also worked on an unreleased Cortex album from the late 1980’s. It was the last recordings with the band, before they broke up in the middle of the session so the album was never complete. Some of the tapes have been destroyed but one tape was saved. Henryk Lipp and the original producer Carl Michael Von Hausswolff completed the recordings and mixed them.

Chips also worked with The Hellacopters.

APRIL 2018

Tues 10th – Kent’s “live talk-show” at “Hotell Hulingen” in Hultsfred. Tonight’s guest Ralf Gyllenhammar from Mustasch.

Fri 13th – The Boys at “Olsen på Bryn” in Oslo, Norway supported by The Blitzkrieg Boppers.

Sat 14th – The Boys at “Odal Rock Club” in Odal supported by The Pretty Uglies.

Fri 20th – A single with The Bobby Briggs “The hitcher” featuring Kent Norberg on vocals was released digitally.

Sat 21st – The Boys at “Punk and disorderly” festival in Berlin.

Fri 27th – Sator trio (with Michael) at “Julita Maskin” a private party in Julita.

Sat 28th – Sator full band in Gävle at “Gefle skivmässa/Gasklockorna” with Imperial State Electric and Besvärjelsen.

MAY 2018

Fri 18th – Sator at “Debaser” in Stockholm. A special show where the band played the “Stock Rocker Nuts!” album from start to end. The first encore was “What you are is what you get” from the Slammer! album. Support band: City Saints from Gothenburg.

We haven’t played “What you are is what you get” in ages.

Kent

Sat 19th – Sator in Fagersta at “Kapellbackens krog”. One more “Stock Rocker Nuts!” show. The last time Sator played this venue was in 1993. It was a pizza place called “Venezia” back then. A legendary show and tonight was as packed and sweaty as the last time.

The City Saints album was completed and Chips kept on working with The Backyard Babies.

Thurs 31st – Kent solo at “Sparrisafton at Hotell Hulingen” in Hultsfred. There’s a first for everything. “Sparrisafton” is “Asparagus evening” in English.

JUNE 2018

Fri 1st – “Dirty Water” The first song from Helkoptern’s album “One more before we go” (release date august 8, 2018). It was produced by Chips and features Kent on lead vocals and Chips on backing vocals. It’s a cover of the Standells/The Inmates classic hit.

Sat 2nd – Sator played in Arboga for the first time ever at “Stadskällaren” supported by The Hawkins.

Finally some more songs for the “BBQ-killers vol 2” album was completed.

Wed 6th – Chips produced 7 tracks by young Swedish punk band Jönssonligan at 44traxx Studio in Stockholm. The session took 5 hours!

JULY 2018

Chips recorded vocals with Tommy “Stommen” Liljegren for the Satisfactory album “In Freeality”. It would not be released until May 2020.

SATISFACTORY IS:
Tommy “Stommen” Liljegren (Stonecake) – Guitar and leadvocals
Mikael Solén (Sator) – Drums
Annika Törnqvist (Amazonas, Cascade, Dilemma) – Bass and backing vocals
Mathias “Senan” Sernerud (Sherikan Music Attraction) – Guitar and backing vocals

Wed 18th – Sator Trio and Wild Rover at “Allsången” in Färjestaden and later the same day at “Prästgården” in Smedby.

Thurs 19th – Sator Trio and Wild Rover at “Lada 1888” in Runsbäck.

Fri 21st – Sator Trio at “Sundbyholms gästhamn” in Sundbyholm. Afternoon show.

Sat 28th – Sator at “Furuviksparken” outside Gävle

AUGUST 2018

Thurs 2nd – The Boys (With Chips and Kent) unplugged at “The Rebellion festival” in Blackpool.

Fri 3rd – The Boys (With Chips and Kent) electric set at “The Rebellion festival” in Blackpool

Tues 7th – Sator at “Liseberg” in Gothenburg.

Wed 8th – Sator at “Rockklassiker augustifesten” in Norrköping with Märvel and Backyard Babies.

Fri 10th – Sator at “Musik- och Motorfestivalen” in Älvdalen.

Mon 13th – The recording of a new track called “Vampire nazi” with the legendary proto-punk/glam band The Hollywood Brats started at Music-A-Matic studios. Produced by Chips Kiesbye.

The Hollywood Brats in 2018 consisted of the three original members, Andrew Matheson on vocals, Eunan Brady on guitar and Casino Steel on keyboards and backing vocals. The three new members was Kent Norberg on bass, Martin Hansson on drums and Petter Baarli on guitar.

Fri 17th – Sator at “Folkets Park” in Huskvarna together with legendary Swedish 70’s band Nationalteatern.

Sat 18th – The first session for the “Darker days” album with Norwegian band Hard Luck Street at Music-A-Matic Studios with Chips producing and Henryk Lipp engineering.

Sat 25th-Sator at “Norrehus” in Klippan a minifestival with No Ones, PJ’s…

Chips did more vocal session with Satisfactory in Limmared and more sessions with Hard Luck Street and even some more “final touches” to “Barbie-Q-Killers vol 2” until the end of the month.

SEPTEMBER 2018

Mon 3rd – Sator Trio at “Nibe” in Markaryd

Fri 7th – Sator at “Hultsfredsbestivalen” in Hultsfred with Perssons Pack… This was the last show on the “30th anniversary tour”. Chips and Kent left after the show to get on a flight to Italy.

Sat 8th – The Boys at the “In Veneto There is No Law Vol 4 Festival” in Veneto, Italy with Lester Greenowski, Belgrado, The Bellicose Minds…

Sun 9th – The Boys at “Spazio Ligera” in Milano supported by Lester Greenowski and The Snakes.

Mon 10th – The Boys at “Last one to die” in Caramagna Piemonte Italy with Lester Greenowski, I Boschi Bruciano…

Sat 29th – Sator Trio and Wild Rover at “Glashyttan” in Bredsättra, Öland

Chips mixed a Wilmer X Live-DVD together with Håkan Wollgård. He also worked on pre-production and songwriting sessions with The Backyard Babies.

OCTOBER 2018

Thurs 18th – The album “Rock på Svenska” with Robert’s last recordings was finally released. A release party and tribute concert/memorial for Robert “Strängen” Dahlqvist was held at “Debaser” in Stockholm. The album was performed by Roberts band with guest singers. Chips guested on guitar. Some of the other guests were Stefan Sundström, Nike Markelius, Thomas Stenström, Kristina Karlsson, Christoffer Berg and Pella Nettermalm. Support band was Jönzzonligan.

Chips continued working with Backyard Babies and mixed the “Soul Engine” album with Capricorn together with Henryk Lipp.

Mon 29th – More sessions for the Backyard Babies album at Park Studios in Stockholm with Stefan Boman engineering.

NOVEMBER 2018

Sessions for the Backyard Babies album continued all through November with short breaks. The album was mixed by Michael Ilbert at Hansa Studios in Berlin. The album was completed on the 25th of november.

It’s a miracle that we managed to keep the deadline. We worked around the clock for weeks.

Chips

Sat 10th – The Boys at “Gasteiz Calling” A festival with NOFX, Cockney Rejects, Street Dogs… held at “Iradier Arena” (primarily used for bullfighting and basketball) in Vitoria Gasteiz, Basque Country, Spain.

Sat 17th – Sator at “Olsen på Bryn” in Oslo supported by The Yum Yums.

We should have done two nights because the tickets sold out in a couple of minutes.

Kent

Wed 28th – The first session for a possible album with The Hellacopters took place at Studio Kapsylen in Stockholm with Chips producing and Jörgen Wall engineering. 2 new songs were recorded.

Fri 30th – Sator Trio “Julbord at Hulingen” the annual “Christmas shows” at hotel Hulingen in Hultsfred. This year with Meja and Conny Bloom guesting the first weekend.

DECEMBER 2018

Sat 1st – Sator Trio “Julbord at Hulingen” with Meja and Conny Bloom (from Electric Boys) guesting.

Fri 7th – Sator Trio and Wild Rover “Julbord at Hulingen”. Back to “normal” again.

Sat 8th – Sator trio and Wild Rover “Julbord at Hulingen

Fri 14th – Sator trio and Wild Rover “Julbord at Hulingen”

Sat 15th – Sator trio and Wild Rover “Julbord at Hulingen”

Wed 26th – Another Christmas tradition. Chips guested at Hitlistan in Eskilstuna singing Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid” and Neil Young’s “Keep on rockin’ in the free world” as usual backed up by Anders “Boba Fett” Lindström on guitar, Heikki Kiviaho on bass, Christer First on guitar and Rocco Gustafsson on drums.

The end of an interesting year. Another major thing is that Sator moved out of their last rehearsal studio in Gothenburg.

After 32 years the “Borlänge-band” Sator was not based in Gothenburg anymore.

Sator recorded “Dead Moon Night” for a tribute album to Dead Moon.

Kent and Heikki did their backing vocals in the hotel room at Hotel Hulingen on the 15th.

And Chips worked with The Ring The River and Hard Luck Street

2019

JANUARY 2019

Sun 6th – Chips not so successful actor career got an extra boost when he showed up in Erika Ulars “More Alive Without You” video playing a “rocker” being thrown out by the guards.

The biggest acting part of a Sator since Michael Solén played a cowboy in the cult movie “Return of Jesus part II” in 1996.

Sat 19th – Over the next two weeks Kent, Chips and Heikki worked on BBQ-killers 2.

Chips also did more sessions with Hard Luck Street and The Hellacopters during January.

FEBRUARY 2019

Wed 13th – Chips started working on new album with Nisse Hellberg. A long-time project recorded at various locations over the year.

Chips also did more vocal sessions with Satisfactory.

MARCH 2019

Sat 9th – Sator Trio and Wild Rover at “Pumpen” in Södra Vi.

Sat 16th – “Vikken ära Tompa Eken”. A charity concert for Tompa Eken and Café 44:an was held at Kägelbanan with lots of band playing for free. Quite a line-up, Sator, Refused Teddybears STHLM, The Nomads, KSM3 with guests, Troublemakers, Moneybrother, Asta Kask, Baboon Show. Strindbergs, De Lyckliga Kompisarna, Weeping Willows, Coca Carola, Psykbryt, No Fun at all, Charta 77, Monster, Adam Nilsson, Infinite Mass…

The 650 tickets quickly sold out so an extra show was booked the day after.

Sun 17th – “Vikken ära Tompa Eken” extra show. Basically the same line-up with a different crowd.

Tues 19th – Last session for the Satisfactory album in Limmared. It would still take over a year before the album was released

Sat 23rd – The City Saints “På Svenska” album produced by Chips was released.

Sat 30th – Sator Trio and Wild Rover at “Palatset” in Linköping.

APRIL 2019

Fri 5th – An EP with the band Loudmouth was recorded over the weekend at Music-A-Matic Studios with Chips in the producer’s chair and Henryk Lipp engineering. The four song EP would be released on vinyl in April 2020.

Chips also worked with Herstory. Another long-time project worked on on and off for a couple of years.

The final sessions for the Hard Luck Street album took place this month.

Mon 22nd – Heikki played with Byråkrat at “O-Baren” in Stockholm

Tues 23rd – The Chips-produced EP with Jönzzonligan (With new spelling of the name so they wouldn’t get sued) was released today. Punk will never die!

MAY 2019

Fri 10th – Sator Trio at Pop Corner in Alvesta

Sat 11th – Sator Trio at Lada 1888 in Färjestaden. A private party.

Fri 17th – More or less the last BBQ session over the weekend.

31st – Heikki played with Byråkrat at “Hotell Hulingen” in Hultsfred.

JUNE 2019

Wed 5th – The second and final tribute/memorial show for Robert “Strängen” Dahlqvist at Sweden Rock Festival with more or less the same guests as the show on Debaser last year.

Fri 7th – Kent Norberg solo at “Nostalgifestivalen” in Vårgårda playing country covers.

Fri 21st – Sator at the “Odal Rock Festival” in Norway with Razorbats, The Dogs, Hard Luck Street, Kosmik Boogie Tribe, Ronny Pöbel…

Sat 22nd – The Boys at Odal Rock Festival” in Norway.

Sat 29th – Sator back at “Dalarocken” in Hedemora after 24 years. Dalarocken was one of the first Swedish festivals and ran from 1981 to 1996. Sator did several legendary shows at Dalarocken between 1988 and 1995. (1988, 1990, 1991 with Thåström, 1992, 1993 and 1995) Now it’s back with a new regime and a new location.

It still felt great to be back. A sort of homecoming.

Kent

JULY 2019

Thurs 11th – Hans did his last recordings for BBQ-killers vol 2. Some keyboards, backing vocals and a harmonica solo.

Fri 12th – Sator at “Rockfickan” in Hova supported by Ebba Gold.

Sat 13th – Sator at “Kristianstad rockfest” in Kristianstad with Graveyard, The Headlines, KSM3…

Fri 26th – Sator at Eagle Riders outside Borås.

AUGUSTI 2019

Thurs 8th – Sator Trio and Wild Rover at Alvargården in Kastlösa Öland.

The rest of August was spent on preparing The Barbie-Q-Killers material for the mix.

Chips also worked with Nisse Hellberg on and off this autumn.

SEPTEMBER 2019

Thurs 12th – The Boys at “Musikens Hus” in Gothenburg with City Saints and The Past.

Fri 13th – The Boys at “Ölkultur” in Eskilstuna

Sat 14th – The Boys at “Rockfickan” in Hova supported by Bodies from Stockholm.

Mon 6th – During the week the backing tracks to four songs was recorded at Music-A-Matic with The Boys to be worked on at a later date.

Fri 20th – The Boys at “Gamla Konsert og Scen” in Oslo supported by Bodies and Virginia Hill.

Sat 21st – The Boys at “Nidelven Bar &Scene” in Casino Steels old hometown Trondheim supported by Sugar Louise.

OCTOBER 2019

Fri 11th – The Boys at “Borgofest” in Bologna with Lester Greenowski…

Sat 12th – The Boys at “Circolo Svolta” in Rozzano with Suicide Generation, La Dolce Vita and Lester Greenowski.

Tues 22nd – Another session at studio Kapsylen with The Hellacopters started today.

Sat 26th – Mimikry celebrated 25 years as a band at “Liljan” in Borlänge. Chips guested on “Alderland”

Sun 27th – Heikki played with Byråkrat at “The Map Room” in New York

NOVEMBER 2019

Chips worked with The Hellacopters, Herstory and The Nomads and pre-production for an album with Bonafide.

The first mixes for Barbie-Q-Killers was done by Henryk Lipp at Music-A-Matic studios.

After over 20 years of recording it was time to let it go!

Chips

Fri 15th – The recording of an album with Bonafide started at Music-A-Matic with Chips producing and Henryk Lipp engineering.

Fri 29th – Sator at “Klubb Undergrunden” in Borås supported by Deadheads.

Sat 3th – Sator extra show Klubb Undergrunden” supported by Professional Againsters.

DECEMBER 2019

Fri 13th – Sator Trio and Wild Rover “Julbord at Hulingen” at Hotell Hulingen in Hultsfred as usual but only one weekend this year.

Sat 14th – Sator Trio and Wild Rover “Julbord at Hulingen”

Sun 15th – The recording of the album “Warpaint” with The Headlines started. Once again with Chips producing and Henryk Lipp engineering. A solid team.

Tues 17th – Heikki played with Byråkrat at Musslan in Stockholm. The first night of a mini-tour. Stockholm, Eskilstuna, Enköping and Örebro was visited this week

Fri 27th – Another dear tradition. Chips guested at “Hitlistan” in Eskilstuna singing Status Quo’s “Whatever you want” and ZZ Top’s “Sharp Dressed man” Once again backed by Anders “Boba Fett” Lindström on guitar, Heikki Kiviaho on bass, Christer First on guitar and Rocco Gustafsson on drums.

Several more BBQ mixes were completed between other sessions.

A quite slow year gig-wise since a lot of time was spent in the studio.

JANUARY 2020

Fri 3rd – The work on The Headlines album continued.

Sun 5th – The last session for the Nisse Hellberg album took place in Helsingborg.

Fri 10th – The Boys (with Chips and Kent as usual) at “The Con Club” in Lewes, England, together with Menace and Last Great Dreamers.

Sat 11th – The Boys back at “100 Club” in London supported by Last Great Dreamers.

Mon 13th – The mix of Nisse Hellbergs album started with Ronny Lahti in Stockholm.

Fri 17th – Sator on a cruise ship “Adrenaline Cruise” with Lillasyster, Dead By April, Eleine, dEmotional, S.O.R.M…

A great show but Heikki broke his legs at the end of the set. After a short break Heikki played the last songs sitting down before being rushed to hospital when the ship arrived in Stockholm.

Luckily January and February are low-season so no gigs were cancelled (at least not because if this).

Mon 20th – The mix of The Headlines album started with Henryk Lipp in Gothenburg.

FEBRUARY 2020

Sun 9th – Chips started working again with Bonafide recording vocals, guitar solos and backing vocals for their album.

The Barbie-Q-Killers mix started again after another long break

Sator also completed a “new” song “Feathered Remedy” for a Spanish split single with The Chuck Norris Experiment. The backing tracks to the song was recorded during the “Under The Radar” sessions.

Another old unreleased song “A song to you” recorded March 11th 1998 was added as a bonus.

Fri 28th – Sator Trio played at a private party in Vara.

Sat 29th – Sator played at “Melmer Cruisers” in Falkenberg. The last show before the Corona breakdown.But we didn’t know it at the time.

Heikki was invited as the first guest to “Loviisa artists studio” in Finland and spent several weeks there working on his photography and music. Quite an honor for an old punk rocker.

MARCH 2020

Fri 6th – Satisfactory played their first ever gig at “Valand” in Gothenburg supporting Psychotic Youth.

The timing to launch a new band could not be any worse. The rest of the gigs were cancelled apart from Borlänge due to the Corona lockdown.

Fri 13th – The second and last gig of the Satisfactory tour at “House of blues” in Borlänge supported by Tommy & The Happy Hookers (probably not as happy now?)

After this all Sator shows were cancelled or postponed until further notice. Everyone was in quarantine and the death numbers went up by the hour. Very strange days indeed. All work was halted. The release of the Nisse Hellberg, Hard Luck Street, Satisfactory and The Headlines albums were delayed.

Heikkis “Texas tour” with Byråkrat was also cancelled.

APRIL 2020

The Corona lock-up continued so nothing much happened. Show after show was cancelled.

The Bonafide album was put on hold.

The Boys gigs in Stockholm and Hultsfred were cancelled too.

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