I miss New York, but New York with Anna and Joe. Today Anna and Joe met in London. I wasn’t there. And both of them in different ways told me how great it could have been if we hanged out together again. That they miss those days during the New York Popfest. They have to be among the best days of my life. Of course. Could we be like the gang of Bande A Part? Me and Joe love Anna Karina… and hey! Anna has the same name! So maybe? Perhaps. Joe will be playing next week (on the 28th) in Malmö, at Kris’ club. And Anna and Joe will hang out together again. And I will miss them again. But if you are in that town, don’t miss the show, a Pinefox gig is something else! He jangles!

The memory of that June weekend in New York is still fresh. The Chinatown kids playing and cursing in the park while Anna and me were trying to figure out the lyrics from “Besando a Otra” by Los Saicos. Let me say that Anna is Swedish, but for some strange reason she loves Los Saicos, a Peruvian garage band from the 60s. Maybe you’ve heard about them? Collectors from around the world go CRAZY for their records and their prices truly eclipse what would anyone would pay for the rarest indiepop 7″. Also for many music journalists their track “Demolición” is the first punk song ever. Anyhow, Anna remembered how the song went but I couldn’t stop singing “Ana” for Anna.

I’ve become good friends with Anna for a couple of years now, emailing not that often and chatting a wee less. But this year she came to Florida. Not to the east coast, but the west coast, to Ft. Myers. I took a Greyhound bus and hanged out for a day. It was great. We had Chinese food: I had chicken and Anna vegetables. Chinese restaurant is always a winner when you are going to have food with a vegetarian. Now we were best friends. It works perfect, in New York we had Chinese again.

Back to the Big Apple. I had just got out of the plane and we were making time. It was Thursday and it was the first day of the Popfest. The Pinefox was going to play and I really wanted to see his show. Anna likes The Pines so she was looking forward to it too.

I had just put out the third Cloudberry fanzine that included an extensive interview to Joe, even featuring him on the cover. The regular Cloudberry fanzine usually has 24 pages. Joe was kind enough to answer everything with all the details you can imagine. The fanzine grew to up to 32 pages! That was unexpected! The printing price sky rocketed and in a kamikaze mission I sold out the fanzine at 2 dollars less than it’s real value. But it was worth it. It was a great zine and I wasn’t going to chop down Joe’s answers. But maybe something else, as Rachel from The Local Heroes wrote me: “Joe tells me you had to chop down an entire rainforest to print it!”.

As you know Joe also records as The Arc Lamps and as The First Division (with Tim Hopkins, from The Visitors, singing). Oh! and not forget about The Foxgloves… he has had several bands before those but I forget the name of them. He says they are not important. Okay, I easily lose the thread. Let me rewind. Okay, on our way to the Cake Shop we got a bit lost and we arrived maybe 10 or 20 minutes after 7. We went downstairs, were the bar is… and there was Joe already ready to play. He was playing an acoustic guitar that Pelle Carlberg had signed the year before at the Popfest 2007. Joe’s outfit was great, striped shirt, shorts and camping boots. I liked the anti-glamour, down to Earth and friendly approach of Joe. And then he started, some Pines songs, some Foxgloves songs…. and a GREAT cover of Glo-Worm, Joe’s favorite Pam Berry band (well, after The Pines). A lovely and intimate gig. He opened the festival in the best way possible.

To be continued…

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Listen
The Pines – Forget-Me-Nots