rockbear award

YESTERDAY THE ROCKBEAR award show was commited by the leftist paper Aftonbladet. A lot of prices was given away to bands and artists like Lars Winnerbäck, Adam Tensta, Sahara Hotnights. But is Måns Zelmerlöw actually a rocksinger? One thing is for sure after councelling Google trends, the Rockbear award are fast forgotten fenomenon just remebered some days. But rock n roll still lives.

studio work

WORKING IN STUDIO with some great guys. Installing sound cards, Steinberg’s Cubase, trying out software, playing guitars etc. We recorded some guitar channels. Kent plays his Aria Pro guitar here. We also have some Framus, Hohners

Fan Day (Thu 24 Jan)

T O D A Y · I S · T H E · D A Y · dedicated to the fans, yes thats you! :D From the dude living in a shack in the forest going up at 5:00 in the morning running to the bus in the rain for a two hour ride to the job, to the girl living alone with her cat in a big city sleeping all day. I love you all. I hope I can perform live some day with a little strong band.
Take care!

d u d e · w h e r e ’ s . m y . p u t e r ?

W O R L D S · T H I N N E S T · laptop, MacBook Air, was introduced at MacWorld Expo last Week. 1.36 kg weigth with new controll technology from the iPod touch, new keyboard, the optical drive replaced with wireless Bluetooth 2.1 technology.

a l o t . o f . a w a r d s

A · L O T · O F · M U S I C · A W A R D S · in Sweden right now. This week we had the Grammis Award 2008 the Swedish Recording industry award. A lot of old actors and some new. Adam Tensta the great hip hoper got his award in "the best hiphop category". Later we will have the Rockbjörnen (The Rockbear) awards for best rockmusic, and 1 february the Bandit Awards 2008 for best swedish metal/hard rock music.

E S C A W A R D S · Maybe the EscapeZine Awards for best local extreme artistery will be annonuced.
www.escapezine.tk (we will see in the future)
The categories are (prel):
best extreme artist all categories
heaviest alcohol/drug/sex-addict
greatest "mediawhore" (who wants to be seen everywhere and not producing anything)
most missunderstood underrated artist
best pro-stalker
greatest to early past away artist
N B this last passage was a bit ironic part of the blog entry.

d i g i t a l . g a r d e n

T · E Q L S · M I N U S · 7 5 to the Breakpoint demoparty, the biggest pure world leading Scener event in Bingen, Germany, in Frankfurt metropolitan area. This year as allways held at the easter weekend friday to monday. Several competitions will be held. The Scener Award Show with the best Demos, music, graphics etc will be presented. Seminars, lectures and concert will also enteratain the visitors. And don’t forget the outdoor BBQ party with strong german hot dogs.

n a m m . v s . m u s i k m e s s e

W H I C H · M U S I C · fair and trade show is world’s leading business event if you are a music freak? NAMM is taking place now in Januari 17 in Anaheim, CA, USA and Musikmesse in March 12 in Frankfurt AM, DE, EU. It’s USA vs EU in some way.

a p p l . a n d . m a c . w o r l d . e x p o

T H E · P R I C E · right now is USD 180 for the Apple Stock APPL Earlier 28 Dec. the Apple stock was hitting USD 200. When the iPhone was released and later the prices cuted, the interest in Apple search on Google rised.
The price dropped today due to the report on slow down in the ecconomy and job growth. Apple the greatest gainer in 2007 among IT manufacturer lost 7% today according to Bloomberg online.

MacWorld Expo will be held in San Fransisco 14–18 January, with exhibitors and conferences.

i n v e s t . i n . s w e . v g i n d u s t y

N O W · T H E · S T O C K M A R K E T · has slowed down for half a year. It could possibly be time to invest and why not in Swedish game industry stocks. We have Starbreeze (Star), 24hour poker (24h) (formerly Daydream) and the entertaining conglomerat 2entertain (2ent) notated on different Swedish stock trading lists. EA (ERTS) owns Dice (Battlefield) with over 200 emloyees at Sodermalm, Stockholm.

If you are interested in Swedish stocks and market visit Avanza a leading trading site.The cheapest stock trader in Sweden is Aktiedirekt with a 1 EUR prize per courtage. But the most respected agent I think of is Handelsbanken, the banker for the Wallenberg family. The OMX that owns the Stockholm Stock Exchange is possibly going to be bought up by NASDAQ.

t e c n o . t r e n d s . o 8

T H I S · N E W · Y E A R S · clear trends are Web 2.0 and Video on internet. Flat LCD/TFT computer screens are getting better and better. More contrast, better resulotion with over 1000 pixels verticaly, wide screen, larger wiveing angel etc. Printers are also getting better with resolution close to high quality 4-color offset printing. Both printers and screens are getting cheaper. One trend is that Apples products are still very high prized, like designed B&O consumer goods for trendy geekchick design nerds.

v g m . r o c k s . e v l

T H I S · W E E K E N D · the yearly recurring computer convention and LAN Magfest take place in Hilton Mark Center Alexandria (close to Washington DC). It’s the 6:th volume and 1.600 attenders is estimated to show up to listen to video game metal monsters like Powerglove, and learn from lecturers, listen to game music in kiosks etc. etc.

Attenders are showing up from all over the world. One much appreciated guest is Wire the mastermind of GameOver gamemetalists from Sweden.

Visit Magfest 6

i n t e r n e t . h y p e . o f . 2 0 0 8

T H I S · Y E A R ’ S · M O S T · sky rocketing internet hypes were web 2.0 and facebook (fb). I have a fb-acount but I think fb is boring and suitable for office and IT-workers. The social networks where users are more active and creative are growing. Myspace’s founder Tom has over 200.000.000 added friends.

G O O G L E · is moving up and is now gigantic. Most people finding my blog has used Google search engines. Google has introduced the trend tool Google Trends on their web, a tool set making it easy to wiev and study the internet trends over the years. You can even carry out camparative studies. What will be the internet hype of 2008? Could it be Last.fm?

e n t r e p r e n e u r . f o r u m

E X C I T E R A · Enterprise Forum is a network that aim to support students and future entrepreneurs on a common platform with knowledge and competence exchange. 13 December an event evening will be conducted with lectures at Naringslivets hus, Storgatan 19 in Stockholm, starting at 5:45 PM. Moderator is Antia Jekander from Aktuellt the Nine o’clock news at the National Television in Sweden.

a p p l e . u p

A P P L E · I S · S K Y · rocketing with USD 191.95 right now with a 4 times increase since the split in february 2005. Watch Stock
A new Apple Store in West 14th Street in NYC has opened. Apple has also started business in Poland

T H E · I P O D · T O U C H · is out, and on this iPod you can use new applications and play games. You could download the iPunchOut! a remake of the Nintendo game.

A T · T H E · L U C I A · day 13 December the 99mac socitey in Stockholm will meet for a christmas beer at Gallaway Irish Pub at Kungsgatan 24 at 6:30 PM

m a i n . s t a g e . d h w o 8

T I M E · F O R · F U N · at the main stage in the main hall of Dreamhack Winter 2008 computer convention and Lanparty. Four days filled with computer entertainment, with elite-gaming tournaments, IT-ministern Åsa Torstensson talking, music, etc. surrounded by +10.000 computers.

g a m e . d e v . e v e n i n g

X N A · L E C T U R E · with Dave Mitchell the director of Microsofts xna game developer tool department giving a lecture at Game Developers' Evening at Swedish Game Awards at Royal Institute of Technology. Talking about democratization of game development with easier, shorter, cheeper development projects making the game production available for more people.

a l b u m . a r t

T H E · C O V E R · A R T · W O R K · of my new role playing video game christmas concept album called Black Santa.

d r e a m h a c k . i s . o n

N E W S F L A S H · “At 08.00 the doors of Dreamhack Winter 2007 where opened. One hour later over 2.100 game hungry had checked in. The lines of people attending with computers and office chairs where long and it was not easy to reach the booked seats.” (29.11.07 Jonkoping/Sweden )

T H E · P A R T Y · I S · O N · with a terrafast internet connection pumping out 40 GB/s to the the end users. Cisco is representated with their fastest router the CRS-1, a device that is able to deliver 92 TB/s. The speed is 1.000 as fast as todays topspeed between two internetpoints between two ISP:s. This environment is working as a testbay, Mr D. Garpenstahl, chairman of Dreamhack board claims.

With the Cisco router frequently used on internet 1 Billion gamers could be able play at the same time online, says Mr S. Hannervall CEO Cisco Sweden.

40 GB/s out to the end users will make a user able to watch 10.000 videos at the same time, according to E. Hallberg at TeliaSonera.

To sum up: 1.000 times faster networking could give you at least 1.000 times more high quality fun and action.

s o n g . l i s t . c h r i s t m a s . d e m o

C H R I S T M A S · D E M O · A L B U M · R E L E A S E D · 23.11.07 on the Black Friday, first day of christmas shopping season worldwide. The album was produced in Vixton DeSin City aka Vallingby/Stockholm/Sweden and released on own label Black Mask Music. The style on the album is Tom Smokes own blend emotional instumental/orchestral/experimental/electro/game/metal full of strong affects.

T O M · S T A R T E D · H I S · M U S I C A L · career in 1984 working with musical technology and playing drums, piano and keyboards, playing in local configurations. Now working solo and alternating with his psycadelic/jazz/electro/rock band +II+

S O N G · L I S T · (15 songs, X=Xtreme tribute)
00 Intro Spectre (intro/hidden track) (0:32)
01 Black n Red Christmas (X White Christmas tribute) (2:49)
02 Searching Little Ice Lilly (1:49)
03 Black Home at Bell Rock (X j-bell rock tribute)(3:15)
04 Moon Dance (multi awarded orig 8-bit) (2:45)
05 Dark Forest Winter Hut Party (X clips from old swe trad accordions) (2:14)
06 Mountain Tribe (vox) (2:03)
07 Glocko Largo (the gold bell) (3:14)
08 Monster Demon Cratixx (evil demon's dinner, vox, restricted)(2:53)
09 Chaotic Knight (knight stumble in his crazy walse) (X Silent Night tribute) (2:18)
10 Flashing Stairs (The stairs up the stone wall)(3:31)
11 Midnight Gnomes (The Evil Gnomes working out a plan)(X Midnight trad. swe song) (1:22)
12 Walk with the Lard (little zombie walking alone with his big bag) (1:51)
13 Day Break (the sun is going up, the elfgirl is confused and has to surf to the astral dimension) (feat. Ania) (2:53)
14 By the Sea (the party and christmas is over, just a rabbit left down by the sea) (extro) (0:43)

i n . s t u d i o

I N · V I N T A G E · R E C O R D I N G · S T U D I O S checking the guitar and bass rigs by Accoustic amplifiers.