Trad Gras Och Stenar bootlegs

oh! i do know a bit of int'l harvester. will have to dig up some of those releases. on a big trad gras kick lately.

Both int'l albums are great. The cd's have bonus tracks that are worth your while. Not sure if lp copies are available, anyway.

Oh the second album is credited to just "Harvester," by the way.

Harvester "Hemat" is a record I have been searching for for some time now! One of my most played CDs.

Can someone help me find something that is not this when I search for International Harvester?

http://www.healthtrucks.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/International-Harvester.jpg

http://primitive-future.blogspot.com/2010/05/international-harvester-sov-gott-rose.html

:)))
thankee!

it's an incredible record tbh, i think you'll love it.

yup it's truly something else

i will report back once i listen to it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL-1AEYyw1k

Being is more than life, imo

http://thehornsoundingfaraway.blogspot.com/2010/05/2010-05-27-cca-glasgow-trad-gras-och.html

http://thehornsoundingfaraway.blogspot.com/2010/05/2010-04-28-cumberland-arms-newcastle.html

thanx amon.

tbh, that baby grandmothers record will never touch the harvester/trad gras stuff.

^real talk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMvPXOdJ2w4

ok i love this! the combo of song/incidental noises/birds is so dreamy.

whoa"i mourn you" is so good -- sounds like it's underwater, but it kinda reminds me of listening to unpracticed marching bands for some reason
overall, A+ thank you!!

I am a huge Arbete och Fritid fan.
Swedish prog folk
^First (and maybe only?) ILM thread I started.

listened to international harvester tonight and it is totally hypnotic
love

I binged on them after this thread revive.
Gonna bring Parson Sound to the radio show tomorrow night.
Check that one out, for real. It's got a cool radio session medley of It's Only Love->I Mourn You->Sov Gott Rose Marie.
And two more hours of unbelievably great Swedish power drone psych wizardry.

That Swedish Prog Folk thread is totally not the only ILM thread I've started lol

I have no idea what took me so long, but I finally heard the Parson Sound s/t album. LOVE. I'll just repost what I said 7 mo ago:

ok i love this! the combo of song/incidental noises/birds is so dreamy.

― Fa la la (La Lechera), Thursday, July 7, 2011 1:51 PM (7 months ago) Bookmark

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp6ldaGVjEY

best track on their final lp imo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnQgKjdwc9A

i am listening to this ^^ right now in order to drown out my coworker's conversation. it's working!

fuck, awful news. thomas mera gartz, the drummer from pärson sound and träd, gräs och stenar has died, just a couple of days ago. apparently he fell ill and was rushed to the hospital but died the following day, just like that. RIP.

Oh, that's sad. RIP.

I just found this and it's really good -- long instrumental solo in the middle-end, as I had hoped. anyone heard his solo stuff? I never have (until today). kinda reminds me of bill fay?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukobdt7J-jM

:(

aww damn. RIP. guy was a monster drummer.

Seconded

RIP.

RIP, time to play the Parson Sound box

shit i loved his drumming. he was the best part of seeing them live, very fluid.

his solo album was posted to mutant sounds apparently
i can't check to see if the link still works b/c i am at work, but http://mutant-sounds.blogspot.com/2007/05/thomas-mera-gartz-sngerlp1976sweden.html

coooool, never heard that. link appears to still be functioning. i take it it's not available to buy?

I can't say, but I can now vouch for it being totally 100% worth checking out. Shamanjobbarens Sång may inspire some spontaneous folk dancing if played at the appropriate time during the course of an evening. As a whole, it's rather jubilant!

That's not to say that there aren't lots of contemplative moments too. There are, and freakouts too. It's v enjoyable!

never heard that, thanks

i believe this was thomas mera gartz youtube channel, its got a lot of videos by him and featuring his music
http://www.youtube.com/user/Meramorr

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spvxUKZeibw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qcRS587VN8

this has some early footage of live trad gras och stenar @ 1:02

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXqDKV4MOFA

Stephen Malkmus was given a live album with Träd Gräs och Stenar by some Swedish friends - and it knocked him off his feet.
So when Malkmus appeared in Sweden for concerts in Stockholm and Gothenburg, he asked the old progg dudes if they wanted to be his support act. "Of course," they said.
Sonic asked, of course, if Malkmus wanted to interview his Swedish heroes. "Sure," he said.
Stephen Malkmus, former frontman of lo-fi pioneers and slacker kings Pavement, was amazed by Träd Gräs och Stenars progressive improvisations as soon as he heard them, on the album "Gärdet 06.12.1970”.
- I've always liked groups like Velvet Underground and Can. And Trees, Grass and Stones sounds like a Velvet Underground with traditional Swedish tunes. Some of their stuff is just astonishing, he says.
It's after the concert at the Göta Källare in Stockholm and in the provisory back stage area a quite peculiar combination of American indie rock musicians about thirty and Swedish prog veterans in their fifties are squeezed in.
For Torbjörn Abelli, Jakob Sjöholm, Bo Anders Persson and Thomas Mera Gartz in Trees, Grass and Stones the gig was special. They had not been committed to an American artist/band since they were called International Harvester and played the support slot for The Doors Concert Hall in 1968.
- The first time I heard about Stephen was when he talked about us in "Musikbyrån" about two years ago, says Torbjörn Abelli. I only have his latest album. First, I didn’t get it. The songs are so modest, it does not seem to matter if you play a bit off in terms of lo fi. But the album grows with each listening and now I love it.
Malkmus smiles at the praise and seems to completely forget to live up to the media image of himself as a difficult and cool indie intellectual. Instead, he seems almost childishly delighted by the chance to interview his favorite Swedish band. Cause that's why we're here.
A half-empty bottle of Finlandia is on the table, a few cans of Fanta is passed around, the tape’s rolling.
Stephen Malkmus (SM): The live album from that concert you did outdoors, which was released on CD not long ago, there is a picture of a girl who does this (waving his arms). Who is it?
Thomas Mera Gartz (TMG): That’s Sonja, used to be Bo Anders wife.
SM: Did she live in your commune?
TMG: Yes, Bo Anders had a little house in the south of Stockholm, where I and my girlfriend, he and his girlfriend and some other friends lived. And some other people.
SM: You just hung out there, cultivating vegetables?
TMG: Yes, but it was also a community characterized by music, art, literature and film.
SM: Did you ever play music to the films?
TMG: Absolutely, we even made our own movies.
Bo Anders Persson (BAP): We used them when we jammed, Super 8 movies.
TMG: We had a light show of slides and served food. People could use our instruments and we arranged a lot of happenings. We tried to live as our audience.
SM: OK, which of you was in the group Harvester?
TMG: I, Bo Anders and Torbjörn and a few others that we do not have contact with.
SM: I have that album too. I got it from a guy in Malmö. It’s very expensive in the U.S., a real collector's item.
TMG: (Laughs flattered) Harvester resembled Pärson Sound.
SM: Yes, about the same guys playing in both groups, right? Pärson Sound sounded very primitive too, almost ancient.
TMG: So you have an album of Pärson Sound?
SM: I just got hold of it. Awesome. How was that thing with Jimi Hendrix? I've heard that you jammed with him.
BAP: Yep, it was Thomas who did that.
SM: Was he cool?
TMG: Yeah, very. I was in a group called Mecki Mark Men in those days and we did some gigs with Jimi in Sweden. As a support act, of course. Off stage, he was very calm and relaxed. Jimi talked alot, especially at night.
BAP: He played as effortless as we speak, it was as natural as birdsong.
SM: Yeah.
BAP: I remember one time. Jimi played under a remarkably beautiful, big, open sky and he looked up at it and ... it was like he disappeared off into the sky. He just flew away. Whoossshh!
SM: Yeah. Well, what did you see in the Rolling Stones? You’ve done a few covers of their songs. One was "Satisfaction" and the other was "The Last Time." "The Last Time" is great.
BAP: Nah, you know what, we probably shouldn’t have done that.
SM: Was it the blues of the Rolling Stones music that appealed to you?
TMG: Nah, it was their proletarian-rock'n'roll.
SM: What?
TMG: They made music for the working class.
SM: Once upon a time, yes. But then they turned into something completely different.
TMG: That is correct. But for a while their music was of the English working class and the Stones were more appealing than the Beatles art pop.
SM: Do you like the Beatles now?
TMG: Well, yes.
BAP: There are many Beatles albums that just sweeps you away.
TMG: But back then, at the time, I felt they were not for me.
SM: I can see what you mean, but sometimes you're amazed at how much the Beatles could get out of a song.
TMG: They were nice, wrote wonderful songs, but they lacked focus.
SM: Did you ever tour abroad?
TMG: We toured Scandinavia only. Denmark, Finland…
Jakob Sjöholm (JS): But we toured a lot.
SM: Oh, so you could make a living off your music?
TMG: We tried. It worked occasionally but mostly we were very poor.
BAP: But professional. Professional, poor people on the left. Poor lefties (laughs). We grew our own food that we took with us everywhere.
SM: What did you grow? Beans?
BAP: Beans, potatoes, onions, carrots ...
TMG: Especially carrots. They are easy to grow.
SM: What was it that made your commune fall apart? Was the food too bad?
JS: (Laughs) No, the ideals faded away. This was around 1972.
TMG: The political situation worsened and became more difficult to manage. Heroin and speed became more common, and it destroyed a lot. Police and drug pushers, that combination eventually became unsustainable. It was a disaster. The ”progg movement” also became more involved with populist tendencies in politics and eventually died out.
SM: Hmm.
BAP: I actually thought that your set was best in the beginning, when it was a bit more stripped down and simple.
SM: Huh? Oh. Well, we went in and ran through some pop songs in the beginning after your experimental set. Four or five "ba-ba-ba"-songs for the kids you know.
BAP: I think it saved the evening.
SM: Oh, stop it, you got good response from the audience.
BAP: You had a very nice attitude, but the bass was too loud. It erased the nuances and almost ruined the over all impression. Boom-boom-boom...
SM: Blame it on the sound engineer.
TMG: Your guitar playing was good.
SM: Thank you. Some things are rehearsed, others I make up along the way. I don't care if I miss a note or two.
TMG: The thick bass meant that I could not hear as much of your singing though.
SM: It gets a little loud at times.
TMG: In Sweden, your music’s usually called lo-fi.
SM: Yeah. At least that’s what it was called when I was in Pavement. We recorded ourselves - without really knowing how it was supposed to be done - and apparently that became lo-fi. You really ought to come and play in the U.S., you would probably go down really well in New York.
JS: Maybe we should, do you think it would work?
SM: Sure.
BAP: Nah, it's time to go home. My wife’s waiting. Do you know the way to dance the old Swedish folk dance ”polska”?
SM: No.
BAP: Then I'll show you how. Tomorrow.
SM: Really looking forward to that. Rock on.

^that's nice
Just listened to Mors Mors. Their cover of "The Last Time" is great.

It's unfortunate that it took his death to call my attention to his music, but I've listened to Thomas 'Mera' Gartz's album that I posted about upthread so much this year. It has brought me a lot of happiness. His vocals still remind me a lot of Bill Fay, but with a more ecstatic/joyful sound to the music and songs, generally speaking. Shamanjobbarens Sång only has 8 listeners on last.fm :(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGTaPTSMOjI

http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=433399

Thomas Mera Gartz is one of the two drummers on the upcoming Fire! Orchestra album Exit! on Rune Grammofon. I think it might be his last recorded appearance. It's a great record, too; large-scale free jazz (31 people in all) meets Krautrock.

nuh uh
that sounds GREAT, can't wait to hear it. too bad he has to be dead :(

thinkin about these guys today while i cleaned the kitchen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrkCgwtNtE4&feature=youtu.be

hey i had a terrible/great idea yesterday
TG&S-esque cover of Don't Fear the Reaper -- slowed down, spaced out, -cowbell/+me
thomas mera gartz was really a fantastic drummer. RIP.

i'd be down for that

a thousand boxed sets. that's impressive. they are already going for more than retail online.

yeah the CD box is amazing, sounds great, total jams, highly recommended

Well I didn't expect this but just announced:

http://forcedexposure.com/Catalog/trad-gras-och-stenar-tack-for-kaffet-thanks-for-the-coffee-cd/SUBL.119CD.html

The long-awaited new album from the legendary pioneers of transcendental psychedelic rock music and DIY culture in general. Tack För Kaffet (Thanks For The Coffee) is a tribute to the deceased band members and dearest friends Torbjörn Abelli and Thomas Mera Gartz. It becomes something of a farewell show for the old Träd, Gräs Och Stenar because all the old and new members, including founder Bo Anders, Torbjörn and Mera, and Reine Fiske (Dungen, The Amazing), are all contributing to this album. The sounds were captured on tape in their music workshop in the countryside and consists mainly of improvised moments where the sounds travels beyond time and space, something that has been TGS hallmark over the years. Perhaps there's a form of melancholy over some of the album, much depending on how cruelly and suddenly Mera and Torbjörn passed away, but also on a little lighter and crazier whim. Everything is recorded live so there are no euphemistic circumstances, rather everything is pared down, bared bone drones, sounds traveling in the magical improvised unknown with no makeup, just as life can be when the feeling has control. A manifestation of improvised timelessly organic music and free creation. Real life!

hell yeah

Wow, I'm quoted in the PR email (from my AMG review of their last album, from 2009).

guess what
i played three versions of "all along the watchtower" (dylan, hendrix, these guys) for my students and which one did they like the best? this one!! they said it sounded "like it was supposed to" (dirgey?) and one student wisely noted, after i told her what the band's name translated to, that it sounded "earthy"

even the 20 year old liked it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmrql7Zhg-c

the kids are alright

uh i just saw this in my "early warnings" email from my trusty local weekly and now i wonder who their new drummer will be?! are they really touring the USA?!

Träd Gräs och Stenar, Endless Boogie
When: Thu., Oct. 4, 9 p.m.

plying nyc too.

i fuckin caved and bought the international harvester box which is v spendy but also v awesome

is that box on CD yet?

current version of the band features Jakob Sjöholm, Reine Fiske (of Dungen fame), and Sigge Krantz on bass and Hanna Österberg on drums.

iiiiiiiiinteresting
i already put it on my calendar, who am i kidding

yeah i'm sure it'll be a blast, even if it's not exactly OG TGOS. and endless boogie for god's sake! which band will be able to ride one riff for the longest!!!???

will i get a seat at the show that is the question

So, saw Trad Gras (and Endless Boogie) Friday night, both opening for Ryley Walker, good night all around. To answer tylerw's question just above, Endless Boogie did two songs...but one was very long. So there's your answer!

Anyway, seeing Trad Gras was kinda like seeing faUSt earlier this summer -- it may be down to one last original member, but it was a way of capturing the spirit and keeping it going, as Reine Fiske said briefly towards the end of the set, and Sigge's presence is its own continuity at this point. Would have been great if I could have seen them in earlier years of the reunion but I was awfully glad to see this, the performances were strong and I was very much in the mood. Glad to have caught them.

have been listening to the new record traden a lot last month or so. it's excellent! "tamburan".... mmm. getting excited to see them later this week!

man, they were really great last night. everyone locked into this beautiful, fluid sound. loved it.

thought their current drummer hanna was particularly good. her heavy, lumbering playing driving things forward. perfectly complimented the rest of the band.

finally got the träden record months after seeing them with endless boogie, and just here to say how good it is.

i hadn't listened to the new träden until a couple weeks ago and uhhh yeah it is amazing!

I didn't know this band, but they are playing Marfa Myths in April and after listening to Träden I am v. excited to see them play live!

nice! you will enjoy -- and if you do there is a lot more where that came from!

Awww man I missed they had a new album???

it's really good!

I'll give it a listen this weekend!

The old speakers of Träd, Gräs och Stenar is up for sale on Swedish eBay. Hand built and just simply beautiful. A work of art! pic.twitter.com/2KJCZwVZLs

— Beta Max (@rhizome_in_) June 4, 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SXOItN8zEw

The band's oral history book is out now in English, so I made it and them the subject of this week's Substack newsletter.

thank you for pointing this out; book looks great. hopefully my family also reads burning ambulance and are getting some good ideas for christmas presents

this revive has made me realize that I can buy the LP-only tracks from that huge live box digitally via Bandcamp, hell yeah

I think there are even another two tracks that are digital-only? https://tradgrasochstenar.bandcamp.com/album/tr-d-gr-s-och-stenar

Hoping my book gets here soon.

On another note, does anyone know anything about the label Arcangelo? Amazon shows listings for three upcoming releases from International Harvester on the label - Remains 1, Remains 2 and Remains 3. Looks like a CD reissue of the Remains box set, but weird that it's broken into three discs @ $32 each.

https://www.amazon.com/Remains-2-International-Harvester/dp/B0CL4L21FB

Ordered my book the other day, very happy for that!

Discogs says Arcangelo is a Japanese label specializing in prog reissues and archival stuff, so this could be a legit license (and could explain the price).

Thanks, just curious. I've been hoping that would get a CD reissue at some point.

Me, too, since there was never any digital version at all — the files I downloaded have (very mild) vinyl crackle because they come from someone ripping their (presumably brand-new at the time) LPs.

Recorded over their two day residency, 9.9.16 spans the pastoral, the brooding, and the free-form progg moments of Trad Gras in one oozing zip folder. Their seemingly endless, bucolic bass lines and humble DIY approach create an ever expanding atmosphere of good will - these are surely the nicest guys in rock? The opening 'track' is a 25 minute wigged out version of Harvester's 'När Lingonen Mognar', and 'Stina' is a never before recorded folk-rock track written by the band's close friend Mats G Bengtsson. Spread the word my friends.

Reine Fiske / guitar, vocals
Sigge Krantz / bass, vocals
Tom Watts / drums
Jakob Sjöholm / guitar, vocal

Tracklisting:

1. När Lingonen Mognar - 24:18
2. Kaffe med Tårta - 12:52
3. Down in the Basement - 11:07
4. Stina - 7:12
5. Sommarlåten - 13:54
6. Silverffloden - 11:39

Recorded live at Cafe OTO on the 9th and 10th of September, 2016 by Simon Holliday and Shaun Crook.

https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/shop/trad-gras-och-stenar-9916/