June 7 - Texas

This past Saturday, June 4, Arve Hjalmars held a one-off reunion concert for most of the band's 25th high school reunion. Live footage from the show does not disappoint, and so today I thought I'd celebrate this country band from Trondheim, Norway - dubbed Substitute-Texas by Arve Hjalmar himself.

I still remember when Arve told me he was going to start a country band with friends from high school. I was scratching my head - country music was some of the furthest music to what I ever had in mind. But they started it up - Arve Hjalmars featured Arve Hjalmar himself on acoustic guitar and occasional vocals, Longhorn Man (Jardar Lohne) on vocals, Big Bad Bill (Truls Ryum) on guitar, Dakota Ragnvald (Karl Isak Skau) on bass, and Drunken Dingo (Jan Are Hansen) on drums.

That fall Arve and I started at the university together, and the first mandatory subject for all students in Norway at that time was a semester of philosophy (history of philosophy and formal logic) and an elective. A lot of time in philosophy lectures was spent trying to write country lyrics, but I don't know if any of them ever really saw light of day - but it was fun. And easy.

Anyway, through the years, Arve Hjalmars did have some live performances, including a memorable one at Knaus, one of the side stages at Studentersamfundet i Trondheim. They hadn't played long before the fire alarm was sounded, and everyone was shipped out. That concert is also legendary as Arve Hjalmar came out wearing nothing but his acoustic guitar for the encore The South (Seems So Far Away).

So today I think it is time to dust off the old cassette (yes, I have digitized it all as well - but Dakota Ragnvald has Youtubed quite a few of the songs from the demos) Honky Tonk Inferno, which was recorded and released in 1993. My personal Arve Hjalmars favorite: Texas (I think an argument can be made that it is more rock than country, but I wouldn't say that to the band's face - after all, they don't just play honky tonk, they live honky tonk...)

January 3 - Daddy Doesn't Pray Anymore

Good music is good music regardless of genre. Back when I was in high school, one of my best friends announced that he and some classmates were starting a country band named after him in a traditional "danseband" stil: Arve Hjalmars. It was just for fun - or so I thought - but I have come to realize that while there was a massive dose of humor and timely 90s irony, there was a genuine interest in and maybe even love for country music at the heart of much of what he did (I dare not speak for the rest of the band - and I probably shouldn't speak for him either). And it rubbed off on me.

Arve had started turning my ear ever so slightly in a very stealthy manner as early as middle school, when his passion for ZZ Top filled my small Christmas and birthday present budget until I had purchased most of the ZZ Top cassettes with the orange "Nice Price" label at Playtime, the legendary record shop in Trondheim in the 1980s. I can hear the protests already - "ZZ Top isn't country." Taken as a whole, you might be right - they are still that lil' ol' boogie band from Texas - but there are gems in their catalog that can't be described as anything but country, for instance "(She's a) Heartbreaker" from  Tejas and "Mexican Blackbird" from Fandango. The thing is, not only were the songs country, but they were great as well.

So spurred by Arve's interest in country, which was further amplified by other bands' declared love for the music, I started looking around and exploring, and I found the country that I didn't care for was the country most often on the country charts and radio - the slick and overproduced country made more to sell than from the heart. Then there was the country that usually wasn't corrupted by Nashville, the country of the fringes, and I liked that. Mind you, I am aware that some of that might be by design, just like fast food companies are bringing in food designers to make their mass produced crap (which I admit to eating) look more rustic and artisan, but I still like it...

So during last year's Country Music Awards show, I was teaching my night class as I always do Wednesday night, and Christine was at home with a remote in her hand and space on the DVR, and she pressed record when Justin Timberlake (whom I greatly respect although his music isn't for me - the dude is immensely talented) and an unknown (to me) guy named Chris Stapleton performed, because she thought I might like it - and boy was she right! 

Good music is good music regardless of genre. Chris Stapleton isn't just good, he is great. When I look back at 2015, Traveller is clearly in the top 3 for me. It is an album I have played over and over again, and while I have a hard time picking just one song, the emotional cornerstone of the album is the gem "Daddy Doesn't Pray Anymore," a song he wrote about the passing of his own father. Listen carefully and you might really hear him choking up singing it - and, if you are like me, you might choke up right there with him...