212.105.71.5 writes:

Ok, my "journalistic vein is activated". When Christer Nilsson a couple of years ago was to release his book "The Not Even Close to Complete Sweet Encyclopedia" (brilliant piece of "investigative journalism" Christer!; with lots of facts about dates, recordings, sources, etc) we had some contact. My interest in my "childhood heroes" awoke anew and I did some investigating myself, at the university library's section with microfilmed newspapers. I looked up some articles from around ´74-´76 (also interested in seeing what "the Stockholm incident" actually was all about since I had forgot it all; I did remember the thing well but not exactly what had happened - I had seen Sweet live some days earlier in Lund 1976, and back then read those papers with interest...).

In the 70s Mats Olsson was a sort of "god father" as a popular music critic with the paper "Expressen" here in Sweden. We some times read him with great joy (then we didn't know that he got his information from papers like MM & NME, listening to Radio Luxembourg and also getting free material from the record companies, etc to review). This was a Stockholm based paper, but Olsson himself came from the same town as myself originally, Malmö (just opposite to Copenhagen down south in Sweden). He and his friends were very much into the music scene here in the 60s; they went around everywhere, saw/met Stones, Who, Hendrix,etc when they were here ´64-´69, and were also THERE when Page decided to do some warming up-gigs in Scandinavia with his The New Yardbirds-combo, then not officially named Led Zeppelin yet, before "going out with it" officially to the rest of the world. In short: these guys knew what it was all about! Mats Olsson had (still have) a friend called Lennart Persson who were also in that exclusive gang. (Since many years Lennart Persson is running the eminent record shop Musik & Konst (Music & Art) in my old hometown and have always been deeply involved with the music scene as such. Then Olsson went to Stockholm and became a critic with Expressen but of course still had contact with the "old network" (and together they became very influential in covering the popular music field and having contacts, etc).

Around ´74 Olsson was very positive towards Sweet (which is also revealed in Christer Nilsson's book - he's positive towards Desolation Boulevard , but convinced that Sweet "hasn't yet made the good album that they're capable of doing". He also mentioned that SFA had been "drenched in the production"). This was around the time that Sweet had been mentioned to go on tour - or at least warm up - for The Who, and Pete Townshend himself had gone out in the English music papers (such as NME & MM) some year or so earlier and declared that Sweet were one of the most interesting new bands on the scene (probably seing them as some kind of "off spring" to The Who's musical legacy - also with the obvious "Who-medley" in mind that Sweet were doing, and the fuzz they created with their show and their clothes, etc). BUT, as we all now by now, Sweet never did warm up for Who at the Charlton-gig (due to Brian being kicked in the throat). Perhaps the reasons for it was never revealed to Mats Olsson, or perhaps he misunderstood it as Sweet were "having and attitude" or so (because NO ONE in their right mind would turn down an offer like that from one of the true legends of pop/rock music) because their own star "was rising" and they "didn't need" the Who. No matter what, Sweet never got the critical recognition they would have needed back then (even though they included a brilliant version of My Generation on DB), and also took a "break from the scene" (after having worked hard since their commercial breakthrough ´71-´72). When Sweet "resurfaced" with their new European tour, around May of ´75, in Copenhagen (Fox on the Run had recently been released as single, and Lennart Persson - Mats Olsson's friend from way back - reviewed it in a local paper (Arbetet) and gave it rather poor reviews; saying it was lacking imagination and "drenched with synthezisers", etc, hence hinting Sweet couldn't do really good "organic" music). He also attended the press conference that Sweet gave in Copenhagen then, and I think this is a no 2 reason to why "the press came to love to hate Sweet" in Sweden. During the conference/interviews Steve was, obviously tired of "boring questions and insinuations about that Sweet couldn't play themselves", etc quoted saying "But we make A LOT OF MONEY"! as a sort of "pay back-comment" (sorry Steve, this is how this guy percieved it!) towards critics who always attacked Sweet (also something which hang on to Sweet since the days when they actually were not playing themselves on the A-sides, due to the Chinnichaps...). When Steve said that Andy tried to "jump in and try to save the situation", being the diplomat and trying to explain the trauma for Sweet, and that they were fighting for their lives to get accepted as "real musicians", etc. (This guy, who obviously didn't make a lot of money, and also before had some kind of negative perception of Sweet was only more hardened in his belief that Sweet were only "products", four cynical guys who were(like Zappa said) "only in it for the money", not having the true conviction or pathos as musicians, and not caring for their fans, "only for the money". Lennart Persson still had frequent contact with Mats Olsson. When Sweet later played in Stockholm on that tour of ´75 no critic really emphasized that Sweet's popularity "among the kids" were so big that one gig had to be two at the Concert House in Stockholm. During at least one of those shows (there are people reading these boards who were there...) Sweet didn't come out on stage until very late, and worried parents had to wait until midnight or so before they could take their little kids home again (and the kids who were to be early in school the next day). This was taken as yet another sign of Sweet's diva attitudes (not caring about the little children...) and almost more written about than the concert as such. (Also there was the question - right or wrong - whether it was right to expose young kids with "pornographic films", etc. This was also when the progressive music was dominating the scene, and it was very strong here in Sweden, Sweet was the very opposite to anything "natural and organic or political" with all their show, clothes and equipment" and were, together with ABBA (!) in that sense, more or less not better than Anti Christ himself. (Then someone like Mats Olsson didn't mention that he was one of those who were "treated" with whiskey, etc at a porn club when Stones held conference in ´72!). Sweet therefore were not very highly appreciated in genereral by critics/writers (since they were "commercially evil" and only cared for "money"). (But in papers like Poster, that Henka and others have mentioned, Tiffany, Go, Zip, Zonk, etc Sweet were still treated pretty good - they were more "teen magazines" (much like Bravo and Pop magazin in Germany!). I think that is what actually became the grounding for the "hatred towards Sweet" with many critics here (they were seen as some Backstreet Boys... products "manufactured" only to generate as much money as possible).

When Sweet returned the next year, ´76, they had developed further (they had been to the states and also had a "heavier approach" in their music, not glamrock any more...)and now wanted to be considered as serious musicians. But their "stardom" (by most writers considered to be an effect only of efficient marketing only, and seducing little children who didn't know better (how old were Beatles' fans in the early years? Stones'?)) was only considered as them being ignorant divas not caring for their fans at all, only interested in money! Then the "Stockholm incident" was triggered off, starting with the thing at the warehouse NK were young fans weren't allowed to get an autograph unless buying a Sweet record - another sign of their GREED and not caring. This was blown up in the papers and the media got going since Sweet's stardom also generated selling figures for the papers... Then came the day when Sweet were supposed to play at Gröna Lund. It was pouring down with rain and Sweet wanted to cancel while the amusement park director (who this year - 24 years later - was featured in a tv-sent commercial for an energy company where he - which he actually did - pulled the plug for Jimi Hendrix at the same stage in 1970 so that he couldn't play the encore he wanted to - now saying that it was an absolute right thing to do, people should have the right to use the amusement park at a certain time...) wanted them to go on. This led to Andy approaching him very brusquelly, wheter or not he actually hit him...and the gig being postponed to the next day. Meanwhile the media coverage had started and the less serious weeklies (two very well known with a lot of porno in them, Lektyr and Fib Aktuellt) were positioned outside of Grand Hotel and saw "girls coming and going", etc. They also interviewed some girls in some kind of scandal article were these girls (15 and 16 years old) were said to know that Sweet were using them as groupies but that they were also using the guys in Sweet. (How many girls have Bill Wyman bragged to have had?) The "machinery" had started (and Mats Olsson was there as well). Finally the Gröna Lund-gig actually took place, but only after there were said to have been some construction-solution added to the large equipment that Sweet brought along (which was said to further decrease the netto of that concert for Sweet, in the end another reason to get upset about MONEY). What then happened in the dressing room after the gig only Sweet and the staff there really knows! But the director of the park some day after went out in the papers and said: "The pigs in Sweet are not welcome back here anymore". He stated that he had been punched and that in the dressing room the windows had been smashed, "the dumping" had been done in Champagne bucketts together with urine and it was all a mess. There were also an article where David (F-k it up) Walker was said to "try to explain the situation" with that Sweet were only "simple guys not used to sudden wealth and stardom" and hence had more or less "lost it" this time which was of course sad ... This, together with rather poor reviews of the concert (by Mats Olsson, who then had set the tone for many critics here), and an article some days later asking the kids "whether Sweet were actually worth their love" - together with a "total account" of their Stockholm visit, which then was said to have been about cheating fans on their money at NK, visiting porno clubs at night, seducing under aged girls, beating up Ove Hahn, and then behaving like animals in the dressing room after the show). These articles, together with the artiles in the porn magazines, came out within the range of some week (and some week later for the porn mags) and it once and for all "cemented" the view which the press held towards Sweet. Everyone agreed that it wasn't, as it were, a very "sweet" behavior (not mentioning anything about the angles from the porn mags, or the "grateful position" for the dailys to sell numbers with.. ). Sweet became more or less trialed and sentenced that week. The kids shouldn't listen to artists who behaved like that (yet again, no mentioning from Mats Olsson having been proud interviewing Keith Richards, with a whisky in the hand, at a porn club in ´72; did anyone around then mentioned anything about the scandals of Led Zeppelin - well, not very often - or Stones, or Purple, Uriah Heep, etc. When punk came it was expected and "a la mode" to be obnoxious against "everything" - although there were one or two points in some of the "attacs" on "the establishment").

Around that time many instead "turned" to Kiss and other bands who had been around a little while by then and gained popularity fast in the school yards - I know, I was there and also listened to it a bit. Kiss may have looked horrendous "but off stage they knew how to behave towards fans, etc" (right, how many girls does Gene Simmons claim to have slept with? He's also keeping them in some photo albums or so isn't he...?) And how much merchaindise did they "produce" to get money?).

But life goes on...

Sweet came back two years later in ´78 with a more mature "image" (according to some critics only "turning with the tide" again...). In Sweden they were no way near the thousands who had attended the concert at Gröna Lund in ´76. But some, not Mats Olsson though, admitted that they had actually developed a bit musically... Some of us took it upon our selves to defend the honour of our "home team" against "evil critics" and actually went up to the office of one of them, Olle Bergren at "the Evening Post" in Jan/Feb 1978 : ) (I've written a piece about it at Christer Nilsson' site...)

Mats Olsson went on with his career and was a New York correspondent through much of the 80s for this paper Expressen; actually "we" learned to appreciate him more then - lots of his reporting was good, funny and interesting and he tipped us about many new good and young bands. We "forgave him". Then he went on to write about Sports! Now he can be "seen" returning to music in the net magazine Fever (www.feber.se) together with his old pal Lennart Persson (!) and two younger writers here in Sweden. I don't think anyone of them would be interested in discussing Sweet though...(althoguh they are actually discussing Thin Lizzy ...).

Jimmy