That's right, watch out Chicago. So I've been having throat problems for about 3 weeks now and it's put the album on hold as I haven't been able to finish the vocals. So I finally went to the doctor yesterday and they gave me steroids to reduce the inflammation in my vocal chords. But I also expect to get super buff the next 5 days and maybe turn into the incredible hulk and tear this city down! So if you see something on the news that Chicago was demolished by some crazy guy'.you'll know it was me.

And this is what I'll look like in 5 days'

'comon ladies'you know you love it'

The doctor said that my appetite might increase while I'm taking them so I think I'm going to start eating babies for lunch and a baby cow for dinner. Fear me'

Day 50 of the oil spill is approaching and things are still looking very grim for the gulf region. It is evident that this is going to affect the US for years, possibly decades, to come. There is anger amongst the general public, myself included, about the spill, why it happened, and how it was handled. Many are angry at BP, some at Obama, and some don't know who to direct their anger to. While there are valid claims that BP didn't have a safe blowout preventer or that Obama's response was to slow, everybody seems to be playing the blame game. Throughout all of this, it is my opinion that nobody has pointed the blame to the right culprit: all of us!

This tragedy has been in the making for decades. It is an unwritten fact that in America we value money more than life, personal health, social values, communal responsibility, and family. We put profits above everything, including safety and environmental impact. It is imperative to us that the quarterly profits are higher than the last, even if it means laying off thousands of employees, cheating the accounting books, or in BP's case; compromising the safety system of the oil-rig to save money. I cannot solely place all the blame on BP for this. This is indirectly all of our faults by wanting to see BP's stock go up.  We do not wish to read the fine print of how it is done, we just want to see it happen.

Equally alarming to the greed on Wall Street is America's thirst for oil. The US consumes 869,000,000 gallons of oil per day (2008)!  It is a difficult number to comprehend. We are the largest oil-consumer in the world ousting China, who uses 1/3 of the US daily oil consumption despite having a population 4 times in size. Our dependence on foreign oil has become that greatest issue of national defense, despite not being recognized by congress. In 2007 two thirds of our oil supply was imported. In the summer of 2008 when gasoline was $4.50 per gallon in many cities the country came to a standstill and people began to question their way of life. The US government was helpless as much of our oil is imported. It was a wake up call to all of us that other countries heavily impact our way of life. It is sad that only in times of economic or manmade environmental disaster do we realize the impact of how we are living.

Here is my call to you. Look at your life. What kind of car do you drive? Do you drive a large SUV or truck  during your single person commute to work? How many cars do you own? Have you considered riding a bike to work? We all have to make small changes that will make a large impact for our country and the world.

There is a ridiculous sense of entitlement in the US. We believe we have a natural born right as US citizens to own a car, a house, and land. The fact is that we don't have any natural born rights. We're beasts of nature, and we're not born with any more rights than any other species in the animal kingdom. We have created a false sense of reality by imposing man-made rules and rights upon us that consume earth's resources to make life comfortable for us. This might sound like a load of hippie talk to you and you're probably rolling your eyes at this point. All I ask is that you look at your life and how you live and ask yourself if you are happy with it. Are you happy with your environmental impact? Are you happy with what's going on in the gulf? Please look at your lifestyle and find changes that can help lessen the US dependence on energy. Our current path is not sustainable and we all need to pitch in to help promote change. Thank You.

-Erik

Dear world,

I'm sorry for being a bastard and not keeping up on my bloging responsibilities. But rest assured, I have good reason for it. So it's been about two weeks since we left Toronto and Chemical Sound studio. I thought I'd give a little recap of what took place.

The plan was to track 8 songs in 4 days. Quite a task for any band. Most bands do 1 song per day or sometimes even slower. But being broke and Swedish, we have to work within our means to make it happen'and we did. The first day we spent about 5 hours setting up before we even played a note. All songs were to be tracked live, some to a click, some just full blown rocking out to each other with no care or consideration for time. We started with a song called Dangerous Animals which involved some epic tom overdubs (see 'Tom Magic' video) and did 2 songs the first day. The second day was a marathon. We did 3 songs that day and I did a ton of guitar over dubs on the songs. Many of the songs we've written don't have traditional rythm/lead guitar parts'.or even a complete guitar parts through the whole song. Most of the songs are tiny little pieces of a puzzle that individually don't make sense at all, but if you connect them you get a beautiful picture of Betty White playing poker with a bunch of dogs.

On Thursday we did two songs. There was only one song that we didn't do live. It just didn't sound right or perhaps it wasn't tight enough live. Anywho we did all the instrument separate on that one. In general I prefer the live approach'it just sound way more 'real'. We did some piano and vibraphone overdubs this day as well.

On Friday we did the final song 'Do You Love Me' and Tiffany flew in from NYC to lay down some vocals on the songs. As expected she did an awesome job. Friday was a long day and we ended up going to 1am  trying to finish all the little bits and pieces. So we played Toronto Fashion Week on Saturday which was wicked, and we tried our skills as models (see the pic above) but failed to sign on with any modeling agencies. Those Canadians don't know what they're missing out on.

So we're back in Chicago now and I've been overdubbing synths and vocals for two weeks. Most of the songs are 90% finished and they just need some vocals and special effects here and there. Kent and I are going to enter Engine Studios here in Chicago in a week to record a little diddy called 'rubix cube'. After that it's more writing. We have 4-5 dance songs that need to be fine tuned. So that's what's on the horizon. I have a bunch of studio footage on my camera I need to sift through and post here for you guys. Maybe I'll get  a rainy day to do that on soon. In the mean time'cheerio!

P.S. I saw Shout Out Louds last night at Lincoln Hall and I was in the front row! It was super awesome. It felt like they were playing a private concert just for me'magic! Super good show'exciting and inspirational. Check out thier new album 'Work' if you haven't already.

Dearly Beloved Love in October fans,

We know we've been hiding under a metaphorical rock for the past couple weeks buts it's all been for good reason. We're in Toronto this week recording our next record at Chemical Sound Studio! And we couldn't be more excited'we're going to do some crazy power recording and track 8 songs in 4 days. Most of these songs have an indie rock vibe to them, but we're going to head back to Chicago and record a few more dance tunes. When we are done. We'll try to post updates on our BLOG  every night and maybe a few pics and video as well, so tune in and check out what we're up to.

We are also playing a show in Toronto this Saturday at Alternative Fashion Week. http://www.alternativefashionweek.com/ We'll be going on around 9pm, so all you Toronto fans come and say hi.

Puss Puss

Directions

1) Add  a heap of Lucky Charms

2) Add a heap of Rice Krispies

3) Mix it with a night of insomnia and self-deprecating thoughts

Voila! Bon appetit!

Good Morning Internet,

I know'it's been a while since I've blogged about what's going on. You can give me a virtual lashing across the hands with your digital ruler as punishment. But, here I am'rocking like a hurricane.

Before I talk about LiO stuff let me get political on your ass for a moment. Last night congress passed significant healthcare legislation to stop insurance abuse and provide affordable healthcare for 30 million Americans. This morning on Facebook I've seen many negative comments from people I know regarding this and I'd like to share my thoughts.

Most musicians do not have health insurance. In LiO none of us do. We gamble with the odds and pray that nothing happens to us. Will this legislation change things for us? I'm not sure. It remains to be seen what 'affordable insurance' really means. While 50% of people in this country are afraid of the legislation that passed and think that it is too much change, I believe it is not enough. I was hoping that the public would finally come around to a public option to bring insurance prices down. I think it's sickening that healthcare is privatized and insurance companies try to capitalize on people's illnesses. We need to move from a society that focuses on the individual to a community where we take care of each other and look out for the common good of our neighbors and friends. Perhaps you may think I'm naive, but I guess this is the Swedish part of me speaking.

This healthcare legislation is a step in the right direction, but there is still a significant way to go to bring the US healthcare system up to par with that of other developed countries. Half the US may be scared of the changes right now, but in time I think that most people will come to embrace the changes and even like them.

On to LiO news. So we've been demoing our brains out the past two weeks. We have a list of about 11 songs or so that we're considering recording in Toronto. We've weeded out some of the songs and narrowed it down to 7-8 songs. We have one more song to write and many small arrangement fixes and tweaks. I hope that we'll be finished with demoing in 2 weeks and then we can just rehearse before recording.

]]> Mon, 22 Mar 2010 13:06:39 +0000 ADN-BG-AB028D0AE94DBE16 http://feeds.artistdata.com/a-LO94JGTEIM3C66XU/ADN-BG-C83C9B3F297C30FF Blog entry by

Yo,

It's tuesday morning and I'm in bed. I'm going to work on a dance song from here (non liO)'I love technology. It's pretty awesome that you can make music from anywhere'even you bed. It's kind of sad because I know this is the highlight of my day.

My bob hund mustache sold for $455!!! I'm guessing none of you bought it for me since I didn't receive any emails about it'.or maybe it'll be a birthday surprise.

Here's my inspiration for todays song.

]]> Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:38:22 +0000 ADN-BG-C83C9B3F297C30FF http://feeds.artistdata.com/a-LO94JGTEIM3C66XU/ADN-BG-6E39910DAA59160A Blog entry by

Ok, check it out. I need a generous Love in October fan to buy me a moustache'and not any mustache'a magic one! The synth player from my favorite band Bob Hund, Jonas Jonasson, cut off his gran-daddy of a mustache and is selling on ebay HERE . Somebody please buy it and mail it to me! I'll be forever grateful and play a private show for you. Jonas made a video about the trimming experience. Check it out:

Maybe I should grow one just like it'?

Alex Aldi (Passion Pit) is mixing Desparate today. We're listening to mixes right now'it's crazy good! Stay tuned'.

Yo Yo,

During the last day of our tour we got stuck in an elevator at our friends apartment. Luckily we had the camera there to capture our escape attempts. Luckily we made it out and made it to the after party. Enjoy this claustrophobic video.

Aren't those the guys in'.????

Good Morning Gals & Gents,

Last night we stayed with some friends in Pittsburgh and they have two playful cats. People who know me well know that I'm not really an animal person at all'it's not that I dislike animals, it's just that I don't like them. I don't want to touch them or cuddle with them. I'd prefer staying on one side of the room and having the animals stay on the other. Of coarse, the cats pick up on this and they gravitate towards me like I'm the cat whisperer. So we're sleeping on the floor and these two cats are frolicking all night around our heads playing with each other and doing things that cats usually do. I was super paranoid'I couldn't relax. I hated not knowing where there were or what they were going to do. After a few hours of jumping every 10 minutes, I gave up and fell asleep. When I woke up on of the cats was laying next to my head on my pillow. I though about 'shoo-ing' it away for a minute, then I said screw it and leaned on the cat and used it as a pillow! Cat pillows are pretty awesome. They're warm, fluffy and they purr! So now I've decided I'm going to start on online store that sells cat pillows. Basically I'm going to collect stray cats on the street and from animal shelters and sell them to people. It's my million dollar idea. Don't be jealous you didn't think of it first!

I have a killer idea for a video game'I'll share it tomorrow.

I have to go find some crumbs for breakfast'

Ugh'my back,

Sleeping on air mattresses sucks^2. But it beats the floor. Last night we played Cinci, OH at the Southgate House. That venue is so cool. It's an old mansion converted into a really sweet venue with a lot of vibe. The show went good. We played with our friends Enlou who sounded as spacey and dream as ever. It's good to see them again.Cinci has a crazy amount of snow, maybe 2-3 times as much as we have in Chicago. Maybe we'll go sledding in the foothills or build a snowman? I need to find a grocery store. Eating is so hard on the road. I end up eating a bunch of granola bars and crackers'not really rockstar food. Mike ate a can of Salmon last night'it smelled awesome. He snores like a bear'but that's OK, it's part of being in a band.

Have to get going again. I'll try to grab some random video when I have a chance.

[

Let it snow'

On the second day of valentine my true love gave to me'and acoustic version of Like Nothing Ever Happened.

It's valentines week and we'll be giving you the love by posting live acoustic versions of our songs every day all week long. So be sure to tune in every day to check them out. Now go make out with a tree'

This past fall LiO was approached to provide music for a scooter video about saving the world by lowering carbon emissions. Given that 50% of the band drives scooters, and we're all scooter nerds in general, we couldn't say no to the offer. A video was made and presented at the climate conference in Copenhagen. Unfortunately talks broke down between countries (especially the US and China) so not much was accomplished. But at least a sweet scooter video came out of it.

Props to Carianne for finding this video on youtube. She has magic research skills and is in general awesome.