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Baby Grandmothers were a short-lived Swedish band, but one of the most prolific and unique psychedelic, modal, experimental power-trios to emerge out of the Scandinavian psychedelic underground-scene in 1967. Although hailing from Stockholm, Sweden they only released a single in Finland, which has since become one of the most sought after pieces of vinyl from the era. Baby Grandmothers were formed out of the legendary R&B / beat band T-Boones in the summer of 1967. T-Boones are probably best known for their “At the club/King of the Orient” single which is one of the best, and most collectable, out of the Swedish garage beat-era. Guitar-wiz Kenny Håkansson joined the band in 1965and with the group down to a trio they drifted into the psychedelic sounds of the time and in August 1967 released the single “I Want You”, which definitely was the first hard-rock recording ever made in Sweden. The band was then re-christened Baby Grandmothers by the co-founder of the newly opened psychedelic club Filips, for which he needed a house-band. Filips was the legendary breeding ground for bands such as Hansson & Karlsson, Pärson Sound, as well as orgiastic all night jams with foreign luminaries such as Jimi Hendrix and the Mothers of Invention. Baby Grandmothers also supported Jimi Henrix on his Swedish tour in 1968 and then turned into Mecki Mark Men, who became the first Swedish rock band to tour the US. Founding member Kenny Håkansson went on to form the highly influential Kebnekajse, who created the Swedish electric folk psych sound. This unique collection brings live-recordings made at Filips, their impossibly rare single and a rare live recording made in Finland. Painstakingly collected and researched by Dungen’s guitarist Reine Fiske.

Baby Grandmothers were one of the most prolific and unique power-trios to emerge out of the Scandinavian psychedelic underground-scene in 1967. Although hailing from Stockholm, Sweden they only released a single in Finland, which has since become one of the most sought after pieces of vinyl from the era.

The band consisted of guitarist Kenny Håkansson, bassist Bengt “Bella” Linnarsson and drummer Pelle Ekman. These musicians were later to join forces with Mecki Bodemark and became the second formation of Mecki Mark Men, who’s LP “Running in the summer night” was released on Mercury Records sub-label Limelight in the U.S in 1969. This CD contains the Baby Grandmothers single, various live-recordings and the full story of one of Sweden’s most obscure psych bands.

The origins of Baby Grandmothers can be traced back to deep within Stockholm’s wild and vital pop-scene of 1965/66 with T-Boones, one of the most original r & b bands of the era. T-Boones were successful on the club circuit and their debut-single, “At the Club / King of the Orient” was a highly original piece of vinyl. A super-rare Swedish garage-classic today, the single was produced by the band themselves under the supervision of Bill Öhrström, whose own band, stable-mates The Merrymen, were an equally original and rockier version of the r & b sound. The Merrymen included one Bo Hansson on guitar and Bill would later work as the producer for Bo when he switched to the Hammond-organ in the duo Hansson & Karlsson with jazz-man Jan Carlsson on drums. T-Boones were joined by guitarist Kenny Håkansson (b. 1945) sometime in 1965. Kenny: “My group The Agents needed a new singer and when I heard rumours about the T-Boones splitting up I contacted their much talented singer and songwriter Kjell Lagerström. The T-Boones weren’t breaking up though but the contact was made and this led me to join them instead.” A guitar-player since his early teens, Kenny’s love for the blues and rock & roll via the sound of The Shadows made him the perfect fit for the T-Boones sound and in 1966 came the release of the bands second single “Don’t you ever leave me / What a feeling” on Polydor. It was a slight departure from their debut the record and had a softer approach and was produced by Bill Öhrström. Still playing their own brand of self-penned r & b inspired songs and various blues numbers done in unique renditions during live-sets, they often played at the Liverpool club, a boat anchored up in the inner-city of Stockholm. Gigs at the club were often shared with the even younger and now legendary mod-band Friends.
Most of the T-Boones members had already completed their military-service except for Kenny who got drafted in 1966. During this period some of the guys sometimes joined pianist/singer Slim Notini’s group Slim’s Blues Gang but also with blues harpist Linkin’ Louisiana Peps, with whom they recorded with in early 1967. Slim was something of a John Mayall-like character in Stockholm at the time, with his band functioning as a spring-board for various talented musicians. According to hearsay, this “big-band” would on certain wild occasions make music in the direction of the coming U.S. West Coast scene, with a loose and almost free-form attitude. Sax-player and future jazz-man Tommy Koverhult was also a frequent guest with both T-Boones and Slim’s band. Bill Öhrström sometimes joined in on vocals and congas along with his younger guitar-playing brother Guy (later in Indian inspired acoustic group Handgjort). With Kenny finally back in the fold T-Boones recorded yet another still unreleased single in the folk-rock direction and in early 1967 the original quintet was down to being a trio.

With original members Pelle Ekman (b. 1945) on drums and Göran Malmberg (b. 1943) on bass Kenny Håkansson was now taking to the stage as lead-guitarist and main vocalist. Göran’s interest in electronics made him start to design the bands own amps in early 1966, including a very unique square bass-drum for Pelle built entirely of metal. Göran: “I had some contacts in England that made me hook up with various groups there, including The Troggs, so I built some amps for them. During a trip to England in May 1967 we also purchased two100 Watt Marshall amps as well as going shopping for some great outfits on Carnaby Street. We also went to many of the best clubs in London, one of the more memorable nights being a gig with Graham Bond and his band at The Speakeasy. I later built my own replicas of the Marshall speaker-cabinets as well as my own version of the Gibson EB-1 bass-guitar.” The T-Boones, with a sound leaning towards heavy blues under the influence of Cream and The Jimi Hendrix Experience, was definitely turning louder. Kenny’s playing in particular had evolved massively during this period and the band became very popular at various Stockholm clubs. They were the resident-band at Cobalibreé, but also at Lärkan and later moving on to the legendary jazz-club The Golden Circle. During this time they also started to do shorter tours around the country. The band recorded a single for Decca, a powered-up rendition of the Graham Bond Organisation’s “I want you” backed with John Mayall’s “Mr. James”. “I want you” (available on the “Who Will Buy These Wonderful Evils” Vol.1 comp) was definitely the first hard-rock recording ever made in Sweden and was released in August 1967.

At this time the band needed a stand-in for Göran Malmberg whilst playing The Golden Circle and Bengt “Bella” Linnarsson (b. 1946) was called in. “Bella”, originally from Jönköping in the South-East of Sweden, had been in various groups including The Bell Boys, Gårunt show and the amazing free-form jazz-group Nisse Sandströms Grupp (which also included the multi-instrumentalist Björn J:son Lindh). “Bella” had chosen to stay in Stockholm to look for jobs and to maybe join a new band and upon meeting Bill Öhrström he was offered a gig with the T-Boones. “Bella”: “I had never heard about this band before but I dressed up a bit and headed off to the club with my Hofner-bass. I asked for the guys in the band at the bar and the bartender said that the two characters over by the stage must be the T-Boones. The two almost looked like some “woodsy trolls” to me and I introduced myself and said that I was their bass-player for the night and if Bill had mentioned this. They looked very surprised and Kenny said “Well, you can use Göran´s gear…” Then we just went into some sort of a blues-jam and it worked out pretty well”. Göran Malmberg eventually needed more time for his own business and this led to “Bella” replacing
him full-time. Göran would later form another version of T-Boones and had his own company running for over 20 years, designing guitars and PA systems.

The Golden Circle which had previously been a strict jazz-club now started to support pop and blues music. With this the club started to function as a small forum for the more “educated” pop-listeners in Stockholm and to some of the more progressive sounds of the time. The drums/organ duo Hansson & Karlsson had scored a huge success at the club. Together with the likes of Mecki Mark Men, The Outsiders and Lea Riders Group they were all a hint of things to come…

FILIPS stands out as something of a landmark in Swedish progressive music history. Being one of the first psychedelic clubs in Scandinavia it was the musical dynamo and home for many of the important musicians within the coming underground-rock movement in Stockholm. The club was mainly run by a closely knitted circle of friends with Bill Öhrström, Englishman Steve Roney and Hansson & Karlsson drummer Jan Carlsson in the forefront the place was very much put together around the current success of H&K. Bill’s visits to the West Coast in the U.S and London had sowed the seed for opening a psychedelic club in Stockholm. Apart from H&K another band was needed to share the bill and to function on a regular weekly-residency. Erik “Kapten” Dahlbäck, former band-mate of “Bella” and future drummer of Fläsket Brinner, was intended as the drummer for this band but instead of putting together a totally new group, Bill re-christened the T-Boones ; Baby Grandmothers, and gave them the spot. The band played their long, modal and more or less improvised “songs” on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays on the second floor of the club. Kenny: “These “songs” originally started off as being one slow number moving into a faster one. They were originally called “Georges Slow” and “Georges Fast”. The vocal parts, if there were any, was mainly me “howling” the occasional melody”. One specific visitor to the club was Finnish multi-artist M.A Numminen, who was brought there by fellow composer and friend Folke Rabe, and was totally blown away by the Baby Grandmothers sound. This may have happened on the same night as Pärson Sound made one of their few and rare appearances at the club, Folke being an acquaintance of Pärson Sound founder and leader Bo Anders Persson. M.A Numminen immediately wanted Baby Grandmothers to record for his own label Etenpääin!/Forward!, but this wasn’t put into reality until later next year. The two notorious mods Kenta and Stoffe were often present at the club. These characters would later be immortalized in film-maker Stefan Jarl’s classic Mods-trilogy. Baby Grandmothers were also intended to create the soundtrack for the debut-film “Dom kallar oss mods”. This is the reason why Stefan Jarl made the FILIPS recording included as a large part of this CD. In the end the the Lea Riders Group with Hawkey Franzén in the forefront got this spot resulting in another classic slice of Swedish psychedelia.

FILIPS was a four-story building with a playful, and for many, mind-expanding creative consciousness shared in a myriad of rooms. Whether you were a mod turning on to the hippie scene, a sensitive listener, or just wanted to dance the night away to the latest sounds within the coming psych-scene, FILIPS was the place to be during its 4-months of existence. Anders Lind (later founder of Silence Records and producer of Bo Hansson) was a DJ at FILIPS and he also recorded many of the sacred tapes still in existence from the club. Among the many visitors of the club were the British band Blossom Toes (a recording has even surfaced as a bootleg). Blues Section, being in the forefront of progressive sounds in Finland, also played there. Swedish jazz-legends Lars Färnlöf and Staffan Abbelen with their group were sometimes present as well as Don Cherry who often came for a jam with his pocket-trumpet. The Mothers of Invention came to hang out after their two concerts at Konserthuset with support-acts Mecki Mark Men and Hansson & Karlsson and later that night Jimmy Carl Black jammed with Baby Grandmothers. And Jimi Hendrix, a big admirer of Hansson & Karlsson, showed up for a long late-night jam with the duo. Pink Floyd however played at The Golden Circle that autumn and they were booked by the clubs much fore-seeing manager Åke Abrahamsson who got this interesting group to perform for the Stockholm crowd.

But Stockholm was changing its old picturesque façade of old neighbourhoods in the area, FILIPS eventually became a demolition-site for a new concrete-face of Stockholm, sadly destroying a big part of the very centre of town. After the club closed Bill Öhrström´s eager attempts to support the FILIPS bands finally resulted in his re-opening of the Domino club. Perhaps the biggest international act to perform at Domino was The Pretty Things. Together with the company Artist-tjänst Bill also arranged for Baby Grandmothers and Mecki Mark Men to support The Jimi Hendrix Experience on their short Scandinavian tour in December / January 1968. Gigs were held in Sandviken, Gothenburg, Copenhagen and a closing night at Konserthuset in Stockholm. Travelling in a big bus, at times all three groups together, Hendrix is remembered as filming the wintry Swedish landscape with his 8mm camera from the bus-window. What most Hendrix-fans know about the tour is the fatal night in Gothenburg where he was arrested after smashing up his hotel-room and cutting up his hand on a mirror. In the very same room, hiding in the toilet, was Bill ending up with Hendrix blood on his afghan-fur jacket (it is still there).
Kenny: “During that short tour we deliberately drifted away from those long improvised things to some extent. Perhaps we saw it as a wise step, at the time, when reaching a bigger crowd. I can’t remember what the songs were really but I do remember Bill having contacts with various music publishers so we did tryout some of that material…” In March 1968 Baby Grandmothers finally headed off for Finland. Teaming up with Estonian shaman/musician/underground-artist Robert Jäppinen and Norwegian born, but Swedish based, artist Kjartan Slettermark the band was to perform in their “Symfoni Realista No. 3 – Diamanten Hué”. They were invited to perform the happening at the Art Festival of Dipoli in Otaniemi. Pelle: “Kjartan and Robert got rooms in a hotel closer to town but we had to stay in these barracks on the festival campus and it was freezing cold there. We wanted to hang out with them; they had all the goodies with them too…” A couple of days later they made a TV-appearance together and on the 23rd of March Baby Grandmothers entered a Finnish Radio studio with M.A Numminen and Pekka Gronow to record their single “Somebody keeps calling my name / Being is more than life”. M.A Numminen: “Baby Grandmothers were the first band that me and Pekka actually saw sharing a “peace-pipe” before heading off into their first song. I definitely saw them as a real find. Their sound was so original and direct. It had a unique focus that was created between them. And Kenny was such an amazing guitar-player”. Being a late-night session and due to some technical problems involving Kenny´s amp (it’s actually heard clapping out towards the ending of the B-side) only a couple of tracks were put to tape. Kenny´s guitar-tone is remarkable on the recording, and his use of the Fuzz Face-pedal has created a significant change in his sound compared to the earlier FILIPS recordings. The rumoured tapes from Finland have long since been lost and the master for the A-side is the only tape still in existence today. The single was released as Etenpääin GN-5 in May 1968 and was never really distributed outside of Finland, leading to immediate obscurity in Sweden and basically only reaching the bands inner circle of friends and fellow musicians. It is rumoured to have been a minimal pressing of 300 copies. The only proper Swedish review of the record appeared in the jazz-magazine Orkesterjournalen (!).

Shortly after the bands return to Sweden they teamed up with their friend Mecki Bodemark whose band Mecki Mark Men had disbanded. Mecki now joined the trio on organ and flute, turning Baby Grandmothers into a quartet. Mecki Mark Men was one of few bands that the record label Philips, Sweden, was still eager to support and Mecki was just as eager to keep the band going, especially with a possible American record-deal with Mercury on the way. The new band did their first proper gig together on an outdoor-stage in Heby, about an hour drive west of Stockholm, on the 15th of May in 1968. In June they headed off, still as Baby Grandmothers, for another tour of Finland now acting as the backing-band for vocalist Anki Lindkvist (later in folk-pop group Cumulus) in her “Aikakone” (Time-machine) show. The tour went as far as the very north of Finland. Kenny: “In my memory Anki´s material was mostly made up by cover-versions of other people’s songs. We got to perform some of our own numbers as well, though often to little appreciation from the crowds…”

Exactly when Baby Grandmothers choose to become the new formation of Mecki Mark Men is still a bit uncertain but the more loose concept of the original trio definitely got the opportunity to team up with a distinctive and highly talented arranger/songwriter in Mecki. The band was hastily pushed forward and later the same year they were incorporated and to play and to act in the Swedish production of the musical “Hair”. In the autumn of 1968 the band left for the 2nd Beat Festival in Prague, again teaming up with M.A Numminen and Anki Lindqvist. There they shared the bill with The Nice, Cuby & The Blizzards and Modry Effekt.

Mecki Mark Men were the first Swedish band to tour the U.S in early 1970 and some recordings made in Chicago, with Anders Lind, would later result in the “Marathon” album.

Mecki Mark Men eventually broke up in the summer of 1971 and with the release of the “Marathon” album in Sweden the original Baby Grandmothers went their own way again with Kenny forming Kebnekajse with the addition of ex- Steampacket guitarist/singer Rolf Scherrer. After the release of their 1971 debut “Resa mot okänt mål” on Silence Records, Bengt “Bella” Linnarsson finally left the world of underground-rock in mid 1972 to concentrate on work as back-up musician in a constellation called Opus 3. He is currently active within the world of computers and programming. Pelle and Kenny continued with Kebnekajse which grew into a travelling musical collective that at times consisted of as many as 12 people. The band has become legendary within the Swedish progressive rock movement and by mixing traditional Swedish Folk with their own amazing improvisational skills and original material they were an extraordinary live-band. Apart from their five albums recorded for the Silence label Kenny made his first solo-album “Springlekar och gånglåtar” (-78) and also worked with Bo Hansson on “Ur trollkarlens hatt” (-72), “Mellanväsen” (-76) and “El ahraihra” (-77) as well as being a highly regarded session-player. Kenny later went on to join Dag Vag, one of Sweden’s most popular rock bands in the early 1980´s, and as a solo-artist as Beno Zeno. He has become something of a “guitarists-guitarist” in Sweden. Kebnekajse, with Pelle Ekman still steady behind the drums, have taken up playing again on a more regular basis and are currently working on a new album. (Reine Fiske – ti´llindien)