Mikory's ABBA-blog

Marie Ledin talks about Stikkan - and fake autographs

Tonight Marie Ledin, Stikkan Anderson's daughter, appeared on Swedish television to promote her book about her father. During the interview she said that she started working at her father's office at an early age. She was doing book keeping. The host of the show asked her to tell the story about the forgery that was going on at the office. Marie said that ABBA received so many fan letters asking for signed photos that four or five people at the office - not Marie herself though - signed some of the photos.
      This has been discussed in many ABBA forums during the years and it's nice to get confirmation that this actually happened. According to Marie 95% of the signed photos that went out to fans all over the world were genuine and about 5% were forged. As many of us know most superstars have "secretaries" that sign photos for the stars, something I think is totally pointless and dishonest.

"The translation of the description of the book from onine bookstore "Ad Libris.se" reads as follows: He is wearing track suit pants where he is lying unmovable on the kitchen floor and he thinks: "Well, done, Dad. Adidas pants is in. Now you are more "hip" than you think you are!" It's Friday September 12 1997. The former school teacher, lyricist, composer, music publisher, manager and the businessman Stig "Stikkan" Anderson from Hova in Västergötland, has finally subcomed to his illness, bitterness and the alcohol. He was found by his dauthger Marie, who at first refuses to accept the fact. More than a decade she is writing her father's story. It's a rich, peculiar, muscial tale about a person who at the age of 16 years old got his first hit "Tivedshambo", but his big love was jazz music. He created the worldsuccess of ABBA with the help of two janitors and an office choir. Still when the millions started rolling in he kept dragging home baskets with LP-records every day to write Swedish lyrics in the kitchen. He founded the Polar Music Prize to bring them "korv and bröd". Even though he smoked 60 cigarettes a day and drank a bottle of Long John, he was always number one in the ski track. A man of many opposites. Marie's father. Stikkan.

Gudrun, Stikkan's wife talks about Stikkan in this posting.

Happy Birthday to me!

 It's my birthday today. I'm 44 - and my blog is 4 years old. I celebrated it early, yesterday on Sunday, together with my family. A very nice dinner and a beautiful prinsesstårta (Princess Cake) (see picture) was served and friends and family were together.
     Thanks for the congratulations I have allready received and thanks for continuing to read my blog.

Björn slates 'lazy, stingy' Pirate Bay fans

Former ABBA guitar player Björn Ulvaeus has hit out at supporters of The Pirate Bay and accused them of fighting for “the ‘freedom’ to be lazy and stingy”.

His harsh remarks came yesterday after the shock decision by the prosecution in the The Pirate Bay case to drop all charges of copyright infringement against the infamous BitTorrent site.

Ulvaeus, who also co-produced the box office hit Mamma Mia, wrote an op ed on the Swedish website Newsmill in which he berated those who endorse piracy.

He claimed people who share files of copyrighted material were wrong to portray a David and Goliath scenario when it comes to individuals effectively sticking it to the man – in this case the movie and record industry.

"But anything they steal was once one person's idea, a single little person. They don't want to talk about that," he wrote.

Meanwhile The Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde, aka brokep, couldn't resist gloating on his Twitter account about the latest dramatic turn of events in the landmark case yesterday.

He described prosecutor Håkan Roswall's amendments to the charges made against the four men behind the popular file-sharing website as being an "EPIC WINNING LOL".

Roswall, who is representing entertainment industry players that include EMI, MGM and Universal, dropped all copyright infringement charges against Sunde, Carl Lundström, Frederik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg yesterday.

Half the case collapsed in the Stockholm district court after Roswall failed to prove that the torrent files used in court as evidence had any link to The Pirate Bay's tracker.

SVT - ABBA in the Swedish television archives

Here's a clip of ABBA from the show "Nöjesmaskinen". Frida tells the story about her losing her wig on stage in Australia while performing "The Girl With The Golden Hair" musical.

And here's the second part of the interview.
And here they sing "Thank You For The Music" live
To see more (search for 'Lyngstad' Ulvaues' Fältskog') go to this site.

The POSTER book

For us Swedish ABBA fans, who suffered an almost complete silence of ABBA related stories in the newspapers and any other publications, the POSTER magazine came as a big relief.
     Now POSTER's importance has been revealed in a great book from Premium Publishing. It is interesting to know that neither Stikkan Anderson, nor ABBA were that interested in being portrayed in the magazine. ABBA, because they were struggeling to get accpeted as part of the Swedish music culture and Stikkan, for not getting any money out of it. Many of the posters published in POSTER were taken by Bubi Heilemann, the German photographer.
     There is now a book available about POSTER's history. It's a nice colour book that even includes a  poster of  Agnetha (see picture) and Kiss in A2 format. POSTER published no less than 2 special ABBA issues, one in 1977 and one in 1978. The book is in Swedish, but I think it's a collectable for any ABBA fan. Ten pages (plus the A2 poster of Agnetha with the lollipop) is worth it. POSTER helped the people that were teenagers in the 70's and 80's to cover their walls with great posters of their idols (even a nude picutre of Mike Tucker, member of Sweet!) who would'nt want to see that?.
    If you would like to order the book, it's available from Premium Publishing and other book webstores online.
It's a great complete work of what was "in" in the 70s and what we all put on our bedroom walls.

Benny & Frida on American Army Reserve Radio 1974

 This is an interesting old clip from American Army Reserve Radio (with recruting ads and all). The female host interviews Benny and Frida and talk mostly about the "Waterloo" album. Klick here to listen.

ABBA - The Scrapbook: J-M Potiez has done it again!

About a week ago I received my copy of "ABBA - The Scrapbook", beautifully put together by famous ABBA-author Jean-Marie Potiez (visit his webpage here). He wrote this in his foreword to the book:

"Since writing ABBA: The Book, I have wanted to create the most beautiful book published on ABBA, to pay homage to Anni-Frid, Björn, Benny and Agnetha and to thank them in my own way for all the pleasure they have given me since 6 April 1974. It is true to say that they actually changed my life! Even though they separated in 1982, the magic of ABBA lives on and their songs have the same emotional impact on me.

If since the 70s they have made the whole planet sing and dance, it is not by chance but because their music and good humour have put colour into our often grey and aggressive world. The cinema has paid them homage, their songs are sung by numerous artists and a new generation has fallen under the spell of ABBA. So allow me, through this book, to thank them in the best way I can and to share with you my passion and enthusiasm for the ABBA years!

I have put together ABBA: The Scrapbook with all my heart and energies and I wanted this new book to be a visual celebration that would take us back to the mid-70s when ABBA were performing and travelling the world with their magical music. I hope that ABBA: The Scrapbook will make you live (or relive) those wonderful times!

Thank you ABBA and thank you readers!"

Jean-Marie has definitely succeded in what he wanted to achieve with this book. It's full of hundreds of pictures, some that I have never seen. He has done a great research and I find myself going back to the book time after time finding new details I haven't noticed before.

     This book is definitely a must-have for the serious ABBA-fan. I ordered my copy from www.amazon.co.uk, right now they have a special price of £11.89, you can order it here.

Thank YOU, Jean-Marie - you really brightened up the cold, dark and snowy winter we here in Sweden are trying to get through right now.