Hej, my name is Martin and I played drums for the Faintest Ideas/ javelins when we were around. These ögnhalsmottagningen that me and Stew Boyracer formed over the phone in late 2007. Apart from that I make hip hop/ dance music under the name Acid Lindgren, play guitar in a new band that might be called Anti-social Darwinists, Pretentious Assholes, Compulsive Record Collectors (or something completely different) as well as DJ under the monkier ADHDJ (thanks for the name Marisa). I live in Gothenburg, Sweden and one of my dreams is to one day have enough money to release a vinyl box of everything The Capstan Shafts will ever record. I am allergic to lactose, and think Chuck Reutter and Mike Spiegs should move to Sweden and start a band with me. Some of this stuff is actually true.
1. Huggy Bear "Her jazz" (7", Wiiija/Cat Call, UK, 1993) – Huggy Bear is, together with Black Flag, Minor Threat, Bikini Kill, Boyracer and Beat Happening the most important and influential bands ever in my book. Everything about the band was, and is still so exciting to me, and why I never went to Emmaboda to see them in 93 still puzzles me to this day.
2. The Carpettes "Small wonder" (7", Small Wonder, UK, 1978) – A totally perfect punk song (with a simple, but amazing drum beat in the chorus) that sums up everything that's so great about D.I.Y. in a few lines, so just sing along; "I don't need record companies that wanna rule me/ all of them think so obscene/ but I don't care about publicity/I just don't care for your generosity/ Small wonder/ they give you the bright idea to be a star/ you'll never make it, you'll never go far/ they say a good musician has gone to waste/ I tell you it's just a stupid taste/ Small wonder/ you talk about popularity/ d'ya think that it's a wise move?/ the useless generation knows nothing, so what does it prove?/ I can tell you straight to your face/ small wonder, the saviour of the human race yeah!/ Small wonder"
3. Lockjaw "Radio call sign" (7", Raw, UK, 1977) – I can't resist to include at least one release from Lee Wood's Raw label as he released way too many great bands. This is the band that introduced Simon Gallup of the Cure to the world, and the song got enough energy to light up a medium sized Swedish town. Great drum rolls and fantastic Spaceward production.
4. Svart "Otålighetens gräns" (7", Stranded, Sweden, 1980) - This song is taken Svart's debut EP, which is one of Sweden's finest post-punk releases. The band did an LP the year after this 7" was released, and even if the LP has some great songs it could never match the ones on their debut. I think this just might be the first Swedish indiepop record.
5. Roadrunners "Love me as I am" (7", Beluga, Sweden, 1999) – The Roadrunners were one of Sweden's finest neo-garage bands that had everything I want from a band it that genre. They looked great, had great production on their records, and most important, they knew how to write killer tunes. All of their 7inches and EP's are well worth searching for, even if this is their best song in my opinion.
6. Hormones in Abundance "Bad songs, bad people" (7", Heavenly Pop Hits, Sweden, 2004) – Bad people get the bad songs they deserve and in my opinion Patrik is one of the greatest song writers in Sweden. 41 seconds of indiepop perfection!
7. Unrelated Segments "Story of my life" (7", Hanna-Barbera, USA, 1966) – 13 years before Dead Kennedys released "California über alles" these Michigan kids released this amazing slab of proto punk thrash, and in my opinion it seems like Jello Biafra owes quite a lot to the Segments lead singer Ron Stults when it comes to vocal delivery. This was the bands first 7" out of 3, and they are all equally great and intense.
8. ABKK "Ronny" (7", EFMD, Sweden, 1981) – Fast, faster, fastest, weird, weirder and weirdest keyboard in the history of Swedish punkrock! This is released on the same label as Tuppjukk and Dom Vässade. EFMD stood for Enad front mot disco (United front against disco) and the label took lessons from Desperate Bicycles and printed the breakdown of the total printing costs on their record sleeves.
9. Lars Langs "Chartertönt" (7", Pels-Votten, Sweden, 1980) – This song is taken from Lars Lang's only EP, that's thanks to a typo is called "Greatest Hit" instead of "greatest hits" and it's one of my favorite Swedish 7inches. 5 songs and they are all as great as this one.
10. Mizz Nobody "Smittad" (7", DO 69, Sweden, 1978) – Mizz Nobody was Sweden's answer to The Petticoats or Poly Styrene and this is once again one of my favorite songs. Pay close attention to the amazing guitar sound she managed to come up with, and pay even closer attention to the killer guitar break in the middle of the song.
11. Push Kings "Florida" (7", Double Agent, USA, 1996) – Together with Pants Yell! and The Remains, The Push Kings are among the best pop bands ever from Boston, and this is probably my favorite song by these well-dressed pop stars. Anyone who knows what happened to them; feel free to let me know.
12. The Jumpers "My girl" (7", Dront, Sweden, 1982) – These young small town mods only released one EP, where this is the best song. It's not the best mop top song from Sweden by far, but it still got a guitar line and melody that I just can't resist.
13. Lee Kings "On my way" (Flexi, Bildjournalen, Sweden, 1966) The Lee Kings was pretty much your average 60's teen band, but on this flexi they sure gave the Who and The Sorrows a run for the money when it came to feedback driven breaks. I'm pretty sure Stew Boyracer will like this one.
14. Mecano Ltd. "Face cover face" (7", No Fun, Holland, 1978) – Here's some great and raw Dutch punk on the legendary No Fun label that also released one of the best punk records of all time; The Helmettes' "I don't care...". From what I can understand from their discography the band is still around in some form, but this 7" is basically all you need from them in my humble opinion.
15. Boyracer "Where to place yr trust?" (12", 555, USA, 2009) – Boyracer is one of my favorite bands and Stewart is a great friend of mine, and not to mention an amazing song writer, so not including them in this set would just be preposterous. This song is takes from the LP version of Happenstance that was first released as a CD by HHBTM, but as the LP's got a few bonus tracks I highly recommend you to pick up a copy of this release as well as everything else Stew's got in stock before it's too late. In the songs I wrote for javelins/ The Faintest ideas I borrowed (or stole) so much from Boyracer that I owe them royalties for the rest of my life I guess.
16. Von Gam "Hasse parasit" (7", Gam Produktion, Sweden, 1980) – Brilliant and quite noisy punk from these young kids from Hovmanstorp (situated next to nowhere) produced by Sticky Bomb from Kriminella Gitarrer and demon producer Pål Spectrum. This song is about a creepy bastard who only lives for profit.
17. The Misfits "She" (7", Blank, USA, 1977) – The first recording by the Misfits is their finest moment according to me. I love that Glen played a Farfisa organ through a fuzz pedal instead of bothering with finding a guitar player. Sloppy card board drums, the way too loud mixed bass and Glen's amazing voice together makes this the best version of this fantastic song.
18. Pizzoar "År 3000" (7", Massproduktion, Sweden, 1980) – The Faintest Ideas covered this song for the Yellow Mica compilation "Wearing our punk rock hearts on our sleeves", but our version could never hold a candle to the original version. No surprise there I guess, even if I really liked Christoffer's weird and one of a kind accent on our version.
19. Milky Wimpshake "Dialling tone" (7", Ferric Mordant, UK, 1999) – Daniel who played guitar for the Faintest Ideas introduced me to Milky Wimpshake and for that I'm forever thankful to him. This is such a great song and I wish I could write songs as good as this one.
20. Bugs "Bloody mess" (7", Bugs, Sweden, 1979) – A bunch of very young kids who had a drummer who never figured out how to use the kick drum, so they just ignored that part of the drum kit. The singer counts in the song by saying 1,2,3, shotgun! Brilliant!
21. Kriminella Gitarrer "Vårdad klädsel" (7", Kloaak, Sweden, 1978) – This 7" recorded in December 1977 has been labeled Sweden's first punk record sung in Swedish. Two of the most magic minutes in punk record history!
22. The Zeros "Radio fun" (7", Small Wonder, UK, 1977) – I listen to the radio a lot when I'm at home or at work, so what could be better than a song that celebrates the fun with radio? Most of the early releases on the Small Wonder label are equally great as this one, so do yourself a favor and keep an eye open for that label when you go through the records at your favorite 2nd hand shop.
23. Bad Town Boys "Borrowed time" (7", Dionysus, USA, 1990) – The first time I heard this song I was sure it was a recording from the early 80's, but it's actually written and recorded during the late hair metal period and released long before the entire retro punk wave became fashionable. This is one hell of a song!
24. Richard Berry and the Pharaohs "Louie Louie" (7", Flip, USA, 1957) – The BEST song ever written. Period!
