Many years ago I was active in the local youth center and every month we tried to organize at least one gig. Most of the times this were bands from the district but a few times a year we invited a more famous band. For these events we had to move to a larger venue in our town. This also meant that the owner of that bar received a large part of the earnings. The bands that played in our own space were usually 'locally known', but that didn't mean that much. They were very successful when they could play a show once a month because there weren't that much clubs in this part of the country. I suppose this is different in a big city. Especially when that city has a vibrant music scene. And I think there is one in Stockholm, Sweden. The State of Samuel has been famous there for a number of years and he has also toured the US and Canada.
Samuel Petersson is The State of Samuel and he has come up with that name in 1996. The first years he recorded his own songs at home and he released them on cassettes. He played his first show in Stockholm in 2000 and his fame grew slowly. He usualy sold a couple of hundred copies of his cassettes and he also performed for growing audiences. The State of Samuel released his first 'real' album "Mutiny on Mercury" on Humblebee Recordings from Canada in 2003 and the following years he also played several shows in Northern America. "I Still Love You" is one of the best songs from that CD. The last few years the band Samuel with Isak Klasson en Peter Eriksson kept a pretty low profile and the main reason was that they were working on their new album. This album "Here Comes the Floods" has been released this week and on this CD you'll find 12 beautiful and chirpy pop songs of which the shortest lasts 1 minute and 50 seconds and the longest 3 minutes 20.