On Stage - FJK

FJK is a Swedish musicgroup within the singer-songwriter tradition. The group consists of three musicians - guitar, contrabass, accordion, harmonica - and was formed in the early 1980ies. Those were pretty much the days with only two - just imagine that... - TV-channels in Sweden, and if I'm not completely mistaken I heard/saw FJK on one of those hopelessy nerdy TV- or radioshows back then. Or maybe it was my parents who used to enjoy their music on LPs. My memory is slightly hazy when it comes to as exactly how I discovered this little unpretentious gem of a group.

Nevermind. What I'm not the least bit hazy about, is that the early 80ies was the time of my early teens, and as we all know, that can be a rather impressionable age. And with a slight bashful blush I have to admit I kind of fell in major crush with one of those musical guys. Since it probably was a bit goofy to listen to that kind of music back then, even if it was just a tiny part of my music taste, that crush was never shared with friends. And no, I won't blog share exactly which guy it was either.

The group officially split up in 1996, they each moved on to respective solo careers, but ever since they have reunited as a group several times for different kinds of concerts and performances - playscheme here

I've caught a few of their performances over the years and they've all been quite unpretentiously lovely, with geeky interludes of in-jokes and great acoustic music. The latest one was a few months back, when their concert was just about the only balm on that completely Murphy Lawish day...

Some of their really classic pieces are written as wonderful, heartfelt hommages to Stockholm. Overall, one thing - apart from that crush thingie - that probably drew me to their music all those years ago, is that their lyrics are very well-written. And when they don't sing their own material they always chose those lovely, lovely oldish chansons that strike a certain cord inside.

And what about that teenage crush then, when did that subside? Well, to be quite honest it never really did subside completely. Which, for me, is somewhat odd. And whenever I see or hear him perform I still get these semi-fluttering butterflyic feelings inside. Ah, I guess some crushes never go out of fashion, 1980ies or not.