Jeff's Staff Pick: January 27, 2025

No personal info for you all this week. I’m gonna dive right in:

I guess that I’m sticking with the Swedish theme from last week. Only this time around, instead of talking 90s death metal, I’m taking us back way back to Sweden’s musical output from the late 70s. Here’s the thing: I love Swedish punk. But I’m mainly familiar with 80s Swedish hardcore, and I would surely never claim to be an expert about the really early Swedish punk scene. I’ve heard about some of the early KBD-level punk bonzers like Liket Lever. Honestly though, I’m due for a proper late 70s Swedish punk education, even on the more well-known stuff! I would love to import some used Swedish punk records that cost less than $40.

I bring this up only because I’ve been jamming this Ebba Grön singles collection LP on repeat over the last several days. I just love it. This past weekend, we actually got some snow here in Raleigh. I mean, yeah it was just SOME snow, not like North Carolina could be mistaken for a proper Swedish winter or anything like that haha. But the weather gave a good excuse to stay in the house, get cozy and jam a bunch of killer records. Last summer, Scarecrow was on our Scandinavian tour with Vidro. Whenever we got the chance, Usman, Daniel and I would split off from the group to go check out record stores. My bandmates cleaned up, buying tons of great records. I was pretty jealous because my budget only allowed me to purchase a fraction of the amount of records I would have liked to take home with me. I would wager that this Ebba Grön Samlade Singlar 78/82 is not too difficult to come across secondhand in Swedish record stores. Still though, I remember Daniel being excited to find anything Ebba Grön while we were record hunting. I don’t know if it was out of feeling bad for me or my lack of scores on our trip, but Daniel was sneaky and bought 2 copies of this Ebba Grön singles compilation and just gave one to me. Now I’m obsessed with these tunes, so thanks again Daniel!!

I honestly can’t believe how late to the game I was on this band. Obviously, I’ve heard Ebba Grön over the years, but I never made a huge effort to track down original copies of their records. Now I feel like I’m fiending for everything I can get my hands on. With a debut album called We’re Only In It For The Drugs, you know I gotta have that! Haha. For any readers unfamiliar, I would equate them to like (what I would assume is) one of Sweden’s exemplary classic ’77 punk bands. Like the way you would talk about The Clash or Stiff Little Fingers in the UK, or Teenage Head in Canada. Very melodic, very rock’n’roll. Still, if you ask me, there’s something very particular about the sense of melodicism from Swedish bands unlike any other region for punk. My personal favorite track is probably “Vad Ska Du Bli?”, which is off of a single from 1979. Kinda Johnny Thunders-esque guitars, but much more up-tempo and gets more sing-songy in the vocals than it does bluesy rock’n’roll.

As the compilation continues to journey into the band’s 80s material, you hear things sounding a little more produced, a little more new wave. Some synths enter the arrangement, and there’s even some reggae vibes going on—which of course, you were just REQUIRED to do if you were a punk band from this era. But the A-side is just straight bangers in the classic punk vein. Man, I would say just about every song on this compilation is great. But listening to the aforementioned 1st album, to my ears it sounds like Ebba Grön is not just a singles band. Including the deep cut album tracks, just about every song is a ripper. At first, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the “Born To Be Wild” cover with harmonica accompaniment, but I’ve come around. Especially once you’re a couple beers deep, it fuckin’ rips.

So, the other night during the snowstorm, I decided to post about this Ebba Grön LP on my social media. I got a bunch of people messaging me to talk about how great the band is. I also got some inside scoop from Swedish friends! Apparently, according to my buddy and Swedish educator Christoffer, the song “Beväpna Er,” which translates to “Arm Yourselves” and has lyrics about “killing the king,” which was very controversial and the song was banned in Sweden for many years. Pretty cool that the band was so confrontational, even back in the late 70s. Now listening to this record, especially a song like “Staten & Kapitalet,” I can totally hear how influential this band must have been on more contemporary Swedish punk bands like Masshysteri and the like. I mean look at the cover of The Vicious Alienated next to this singles compilation. Coincidence? I think not.

If any of you readers out there see this and have any suggestions of Swedish bands for me to check out, please get in touch! I’m sure I’m familiar with some bands you might recommend, but you never know!

That’s all I’ve got. As always, thanks for reading.

‘Til next week,

-Jeff