PF Commando – In A Pose Not On Label ‎– – 1979 – Cassette ♬ Side A MP3 320 kbps ♬ Side A MP3 320 kbps

Talking about the emerging the punk scene in Sweden, Peter Alzén, co-author of the book “Vi Lever” summarized it: “You have to remember that back in the 70s Sweden was a little bit like DDR (Deutche Democratic Rebublic) “light” “.

Image to the left: the book: Vi lever by Anders Sundin and Peter Alzén (2014).

Growing up in Sweden in 70s, I have to agree to his statement. You have to understand that these were days when Sweden had two TV channels. There were no need for a TV guide there was a blinking arrow on the screen when a program started on the other channels. As I remembered it there were not much of cartoons on the TV. My childhood is more related to Eastern European animated puppet theater or weird Swedish “children TV” which close to 40 years later gives me anxiety. Another interesting aspect with Swedish TV was that due to no commercial you had to wait until the next TV show. At that time there was just a clock on the TV so you could see how minutes it was left. As this was quite boring some innovative dude at the national TV service started to broadcast a series of short programs called “pause-bird”. This was basically an image of various Swedish birds with audio-recordings of how they sound. If you visit Sweden in meet someone 45 years old or older, talking about how various birds sound, you will be surprise what insight you will be provided.

Music was determined by the Swedish progg movement” with more or less a set of rules what was okay and not. Political (= communism) theme with Swedish lyrics was alright, English was banned (it’s an imperialist language, remember!!!). If you wanted to go out for a beer there were no pubs, typical small towns had only the local city hotel serving beer. I remember that in my home town the hotel had 12 beer pumps; all of them had the same brand “Pripps Blå lager”. To get into these places a dress code applied. Fans of early Swedish punk might enjoy the “Vårdad Klädel” 7 inch by Krimminella Gitarrer. That record described the situations perfectly. “Vårdad klädel” refers to the dress code to get into these types of places. A jacket was expected and jeans were banned. Even up in the early 80s the situation was the same. A sign like ”no jeans and no sneakers” was quite common. In my hometown one restaurant (A pizzeria – a new fancy new thing at the time) were only allowed to serve beers in conjunction with food. This meant that 8 punks order a pizza which was divided into 8 parts and each part came with a beer each. As everyone drunk their beer quite co-ordinated the next round was ordered with the mandatory pizza. As the owner of this pizza establishment somewhat rounded corners the gang could drink 8 beers and one pizza.

As I had a chance to talk to Peter Alzén on the book “Vi lever – När rocken kom från Gävle” (We are alive – when the rock arrived to Gävle) he pointed out that the on-going demolishing of the central part of Gävle as an attempt to modernize the city was a the mobilizing factor for the musicians in the City. The social democrats had spent a couple of decades to build apartment for the common man in the suburbs and now it was time to modernize the city centers. This by building what would at the time be considered to be a gigantic department store called Domus. Domus was owned by the “co-operations” political connected to the trade unions and the social democrats. In most major mid-sized Swedish cities the city centers was torn down in favor for these Domus department stores. For the city of Gävle a compilation record “Diplom” was put out as a protest, no punk on that however.

Image to the left: Peter Alzén.

In most Swedish cities the “progg-movement” organized culture around what was called “Musikforums”. Here musicians secured rehearsal studies, venues to play and of course the mandatory communist propaganda from the leaders. The same happened in Gävle as well. However as Peter bluntly claim, progg-bands were to some extent intellectuals and they had the strongholds in the university towns. Gävle was a harbor city, with a lot of working class, so the progg-movement was not gaining any momentum. But of course there were a lot of “stupid” misfits around. The first bands started 1978 and first out was legendary PF Commando “Punk Force Commando”.

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The band put out the 7-inch “Svenne Pop” already in 1978 and issued the first Swedish punk LP “Manipulerade Mongon in the spring of 1979. Both recordes are excellent releases, mandatory in any serious Swedish punk vinyl collection. According to Peter Alzén, the band made its debut gig at Folkets Hus in Gävle on October 28 1978 as part of the release of the local compilation LP “Nu Gävlar”. 6 people in front of the stage jumped and screamed and each one of them went home to form a band. One of them was Zluggo Pop who formed Bizex-B. It came quite a lot of records from Gävle the first years. I believe that the combination of a local cheap studio, Gävle Ljudstudio in Hille, run by Leif Walter (from Mora Träsk) a local scene (through Musikforum), access to rehearsal studios and some smaller labels like “Mamma” is the reason. All key pieces for a good scene

Image above: PF Commando live at Moder Svea, Gävle, in July 1979. Photograph by: Lars Wiger.

As mentioned above, the band issued the LP in 1979 to have something to present to get gigs outside Gävle. Many believe that the band could have been larger if they had taken assignment more serious. However, when supporting Magnus Uggla at Palais in Stockholm they managed to be thrown out of the venue 3! times for being drunk and general disorder. There are lot of stories like that. The most notorious gig was a Borgarskolan as the audience trashed the 5 first rows of benches (the Ramones audience only managed to destroy 3 rows when they played in Stockholm in 1979), the mandatory fistfights with “raggare” on stage and the caravan of cars with “raggare” waiting outside prepared to give the punks a serious beating.

In 1979 the band decided to record their second full-length LP christened “In Pose” on Pang Records. However, the record manager wanted them to fill the album with dirty lyrics, kind of a punk version of Eddie Meduza. This was not what PF Commando expected, so the project was shelved and they band could not release the record as they wanted due to contract reason. Eventually the record was release by the band 18 years later in 1997. However, the recording was transferred to a few tapes that was given to people near the band. It have to some extent a different track listing compared to the LP. This is one of these tapes which I have been able to score from one of the members of Bizex-B. Thanks Åke Idol!!!

The band stopped playing a couple of years after this demo, but now playing again – even releasing new records. Line-up on this tape – Jan Ricknell : Vocals, Guitar, Sonny Jansson : Bass, Back Vocals, Richard Sandberg : Drums, Kenneth Jansson : Guitar.

Click on the images to expand the higher resolution.

Inlay and the tape