Chapter 9
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.