If you’re reading this you probably already know I was in a band called The Merrymakers in the 90’s. Our two albums which you can find on Spotify came out in 1995 and 1997. We had our greatest success in Japan and was fortunate to work with our hero Andy Sturmer of Jellyfish. The second half of the 90’s were our “heydays” when we were at least somewhat productive and succesful. By then we were a trio featuring me, Anders Hellgren, and Peter Arffman. But that story I’ve told many times – like in this interview or in many blog posts like this one.
But today I’m going to celebrate the “mark 1” line up of The Merrymakers from the formative years. Back in the days when we were still living in Piteå up in northern Sweden. By then we were a five-piece band with no more than four of us figthing about the spot behind the vocal microphone. Almost like a “super group”…
The reason for becoming nostalgic today is that it’s exactly twenty years ago that our first single (with a proper record deal) was released and heard on national radio P3. We were signed by Ola Håkansson (already legendary from bands like Ola & The Janglers and Secret Service) to his new label Stockholm Records. They later fired us partly since we were lacking a clear profile (very true by then!) and that they had found “a younger group”. How old we were..? Twenty-three! The other group…? The Cardigans!
Here’s a picture of the single cover from 1992 alongside the cover of my new solo album Soundshine. As you can see a lot has happened in 20 years!
Anyway, the song is called “Andrew’s Store” and below you can enjoy (or suffer!?) a few nostalgic video clips from that era. You will note I had more hair, more glasses, worse shirts, and a stronger Piteå accent (only notable for those who speak Swedish). I sing lead on this particular song (I won the fight that time probably because I came up with the melody for the chorus and bridge). No matter how painful and embarrasing it may be for ourselves (and our wives) to watch this I thought it was a good moment to share these clips. It might be fun at least for those who were around at the time. And maybe (but no guarantees, hey!) for those who discovered the song much later after our success in Japan where it was re-released again in 1998 o a compilation together with the rest of the singles and B-sides from the early years.
Enjoy and have a nice weekend!
Coverage by SVT (Swedish television) with clips from the studio and outdoors in Piteå (don’t miss the ending picture with the trumpet players behind Andrew’s Store):
Coverage by local TV (Piteå Kanalen) from the release party at local record store Hit It Records.
Playback in Z-TV (first TV performance ever):
Live (but playback) in Z-TV at Stockholm Records release party at Hamburger Börs:
So what’s the world like after the release of my solo debut album Soundshine a little more than a month ago? Do people talk about a “before and after Soundshine” effect? Maybe it’s too early to tell… ?After all the sound of the album is what I usually call “timeless” (sounds better than “dated”, doesn’t it?) and therefore I hope it will live on for years to come.
Since the release I’ve received messages from happy record buyers both on Facebook, Twitter and e-mail saying incredibly nice things about the album. (You can be one yourself – no matter where you live – by ordering it from the David Myhr Store!). And that’s really what makes it all worthwhile. It’s such a thrill knowing that the CD is now spinning in car stereos and the mp3’s streaming out of computers and iPods in the U.K., the U.S., Japan, Spain, Sweden, Italy, France, Germany, and hopefully many more countries. I want to thank you all for those messages – your feedback means the world to me! Please keep the thumbs-up coming for a year or so in order to avoid me sinking into the post-production-depression that I’ve been fearing since I started the recordings two years ago.
There’s also been a bunch of reviews – above all in the blog world – and I thought I’d share some of them with you. Starting of today with a review from americanaUK written by David Cowling that gives Soundshine a 7 out of 10 saying it’s “sheer unadulterated pop music, sheer unadulterated delight” and that it contains “a kaleidoscope of major chords, of bouncy melodies with everything fine-tuned for pleasure”
He mentions the fact Peter out of Peter Bjorn and John co-wrote ‘Icy Tracks’ which he calls “the snappiest song” and that it “sounds like an amalgamation of the Jayhawks, Matthew Sweet, Elvis Costello and Big Star“. The review finishes off by saying that “doctors in Sweden prescribe this CD as a cure for seasonal affective disorder”. That sure as hell would be a good sales boost!
Read the whole review (and feel free to share it with others) by clicking the picture below
Here we are now… this is it! Today’s the day! The wait is over! My solo debut album Soundshine is released!
I could go on forever about how happy I am, how proud I am, how fourteen years have passed since I last, as an artist myself, released an album. I could talk about all the hard work behind the recording, about all the talented people who helped me to make the music come alive and made the sound shine. I could talk for hours about all the millions of creative decisions that were made along the way, the ups and downs, about periods of excitement, but also about struggles and periods of doubt. I could write in length about how incredibly difficult it has been to find the right record labels for me, and what a relief it was when I finally did so. And I could go on about the craziness of putting my own personal economy at risk by recording and releasing this album in an era of ongoing devaluation of music. But instead of all this I would simply like to quote the great Neil Innes saying: “I’ve suffered for my music. Now it’s your turn!”
You can start suffering right away by listening through a four minute teaser of the entire album in a “don’t bore us – get to the chorus” fashion…
For those of you who would have preferred me to write about some of the stuff mentioned above I encourage and welcome you to browse through the old entries in my blog here on my official web page which covers my activities over the last twelve months and to follow (by “liking”) and read my status updates on my Facebook page that goes back 21 months which was when the first notes on Soundshine were recorded.
Any plans this weekend? If not, it might be the perfect moment to read the brand new David Myhr interview for J-Pop World!!! Just click on the screen dump below… enjoy!!!
With the release of my solo debut album Soundshine only a month away I have a special surprise gift for you all to enjoy. Together with my U.K./European label Lojinx that will launch Soundshine throughout Europe I am today sharing with you a free download of the album’s bittersweet opening track “Never mine” in an alternate, very “stripped down” version – or “unplugged” version if you prefer:
The song is one of my personal favorites on the album and I sincerely hope you will like it too!
If you are Japanese fan who already bought the album on it’s pre-release in December – this is your chance to discover an album track in a new way!
All you have to do is click on the “Get it now”-button above and it will ask for your e-mail address. A second later you’l have an e-mail in your inbox asking to confirm and the download begins! I would be thankful for any help from all you early followers in spreading the word. One way to do this is of course to use the “share”-button on the widget above – or this whole blog post with the buttons below.
In any case – thanks a lot for your help! Now please enjoy and “sing, sing, sing, sing…”!
I fell in love with the country when I was there a few times in end of the 90’s with the Merrymakers promoting our two albums. We traveled all over the country to make showcases at record stores, signing records and making interviews. It was in a strange time when the music business was doing well (believe it or not!) and Swedish music was particularly successful there. Such were the times that for example the record company would pay a trip for the three of us to only to take a photo for the front cover of our album “Bubblegun”. They put us, the struggling poor musicians, in one fancy hotel suite each for a whole week and it must have costed a small fortune (not least considering the bills from various sky bars, restaurants etc). Ironically the photo we ended up with features us in the stairs of a subway station – a photo that could just as well have been taken in Stockholm… but in all insanity, for me the experience created some unforgettable memories. Please feel free to enjoy a long lost super-rare promo clip of our Japanese radio smash hit “Monument of Me” which I found the other day on a VHS at home:
After a few years of longing back to Japan Paula and I went there in 2007 and it was great – catching up in person with old friends, business associates, a few loyal fans, and artists that I had been writing for – here for instance together with Puffy (left), Sarasa IFU (center). We also were introduced to the very famous Japanese artist Tamio Okuda (to the right).
We came back in 2009 and this time I also made an acoustic live appearance at Club Wonder in Osaka (which I also will do tomorrow!) even though I still wasn’t officially a solo artist, just a Merrymaker without any new music to present. Only five days later(!) I came back to take part in a songwriting camp writing songs with Japanese artist but that’s for another blog post…
This time there’s no major label involved though. Rumors has it that they are specializing in Korean boy-bands and no matter how I try I don’t seem to fit in that category. Instead, a small cool and tasteful independent label named Thistime Records has licensed the rights for Japan from me. They seem to have a great love for guitar based melodic pop and power pop so I have certainly found a great “home” for my record here in Japan which I am very humbly thankful and happy about.
When I travel and come to new cities what I enjoy most is to just ”feel the vibe”. The best way to that is often just to walk around a little bit, sit down at some café, grab a bite to eat at some restaurant, and maybe (probably) enjoy a beer or two at some nice bar. With that, my life as a traveller is almost complete. Especially if I’m in good company. I can even do it on my own for quite a while – as long as there’s wifi in the cafés and bars so I still can be in contact with my loved one, my friends and family, my fans, and try to get my career going (for the 20th year in a row!) with e-mails, social medias, and so on… It would take many, many hours to get me bored as long as I have my MacBook Pro, a power plug so I don’t run out of battery, and a high speed internet connection.
As for other activities when coming to a new city I must admit I don’t care much for museums. I often find myself thinking: ”I could look this up on the internet anyway instead of standing in front of a wall and reading a sign…” (is this strange?), my legs get tired, and I start longing for the computer and/or the café/bar/restaurant life that I enjoy so much.
“What about shopping then?” you might ask… Well that’s another area where I easily get stressed, nervous, sweaty, and tired (like every man does, or is that just a prejudice?). Again, I keep longing back to the same things mentioned above. This is even more true in modern times when every city has the same kind of shopping complexes with the same kind of chain stores (H&M, Zara, etc….) selling the same things. Quite frustrating actually!
I do get excited occasionally if there are stores that sell things that are unique and appeal to my interests, like Liam Gallagher’s clothes shop Pretty Green on Carnaby street in London. I mean; who can resist a store that have the good taste in marketing a new ”Lennon jacket” for every season. That’s an example where I don’t mind going shopping. However my wife gets worried and frustrated when I start waving around with my credit card since things there are about ten times more expensive than the kind of clothes she normally buys. So I try to not go there too often…
But the one single thing I miss the most from the last few years of travelling is the record stores that suddenly all just disappeared! Such a tragedy! That was like the ”oasis” in every shopping area where I could sneak in and spend long hours just browsing around, looking at record covers, listen to music, check out rock’n’roll biographies and just enter a room that in itself was a ”world of music”. Today everyone carry their own ”music world” around in their iPhones and that’s of course great (I am one of them) but the expereience is no longer shared the same way and there’s nowhere to spend your shopping hours anymore. The last time I remember doing at home here in Stockholm was at Pet Sounds which can be seen in the video for “Looking for a life”:
I completely agree with what my ”good friend” Paul McCartney said when supporting Record Store Day a couple of years ago: ”There’s nothing as glamorous to me as a record store…” ”…what fantastic memories such a collection of music brings back when you see it all in one place.”
Even in the world’s largest cities the record stores are few and far between. When I come to Tokyo the next time I will make sure to visit a few of the remaining ones. I will take my responsibility to try to keep them alive by buying at least ten CD’s this time maybe for instance Tim Christensen’s, or The Jayhawks‘ latest album. It’s true that I put my CD collection in the basement already in 2003 so the CD’s will ultimately end up in a shoebox. But I miss the feeling of the phsycial CD and the record store so much that I will pay the price. The fact that I’m supporting the suffering artists, producers, musicians, sound engineers, graphic designers, and record label people at the same time makes the decision even easier. After all music matters!
I am very pleased to be able to announce that my “upcoming” album Soundshine ACTUALLY is “coming”, finally!!! The first country that will have the album in stores is Japan and the release date is Dec 7, 2011. The album will be released by the fine label Thistime Records.
As some of you may know my former band The Merrymakers had some success in Japan in the late 90’s when we sold more than 100,000 copies of our albums and our song “Monument of me” was a huge radio hit. I had the fortune of going there five times with the band during that period until things calmed down. We made promotional tours doing radio interviews, and in-store performances, signed CD’s, played a showcase gig (with ex-Jellyfish Andy Sturmer on drums!), and so on… I developed a long term love affair with the country and Japan has a very special place in my heart. Through the years I have found so many wonderful people there and things don’t get worse by the fact that I have had the luxury of having a few of my songs released by Japanese artists like Puffy, Miku Kakoi, Sarasa IFU, Yuko Yamaguchi, and Tokio.
As everybody know 2011 has been a year of terrible catastrophes for Japan and my thoughts and deepest concerns have since then been with its people and my heart goes out for all of those who have lost their loved ones.
After such an enormous tragedy the event of releasing my album suddenly can feel even smaller and more unimportant than before when looking at things in a big perspective, but nonetheless it’s a long-awaited (at least for me personally) “comeback” on the Japanese scene as an artist. Way too many years have passed since the release of the Merrymakers last album Bubblegun. I’m looking very much forward to trying to spread some “soundshine” and joy in Japan and I will also be going there for a promotional tour to support the album in the very beginning of January 2012.
The Japanese version of the album will have of two bonus tracks. Both are songs that I originally wrote for the phenomenal and famous Japanese artist duo called Puffy (a.k.a. PuffyAmiYumi). The first one is an exclusive “for Japan only” song called “Boom Boom Beat”.
Feel free to check out Puffy’s version as well (that was produced by former co-Merrymaker Anders Hellgren and me) in this live performance:
The second bonus track is called “Record Collection” and it’s a song I’ve written together with the extremely talented and succesful Swedish songwriter Peter Kvint who I had the pleasure to get to know during a songwriting camp in Tokyo a couple of years ago. Puffy released it earlier this year as their 15th anniversary song which was kind of logical since in their version it was called “Happy Birthday”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYEhpqY_65g
So in some funny way my new versions will by “covers” of my own songs. Confusing indeed! I had a lot of fun returning to the songs again, and recording them in my own way and the best thing is that Ami and Yumi from Puffy were kind enough to lend their vocal services adding some background vocals to these versions so the two bonus tracks will be “David Myhr feat. Puffy”.
For those in the rest of the world who are very eager to hear the album, or are in desperate need for the ultimate Christimas gift – please feel free to investigate the possibilities of international orders either from Thistime Records Onlinestore or here at CD Japan. But rest assured that there will be a European release in the spring of 2012. To stay tuned for updates, just subscribe to this blog and “like” my Facebook page.
