The Schlagerboys love Schlager. We want to be Swedish but unfortunately we have to put up with living in Birmingham in the United Kingdom. We love Schlager so much that we have created this Blog to tell the world about our adventures in Schlagerland.
Oh! My! God! How exciting! Current UK Schlager QueenAgnes is coming to Birmingham to meet the Schlagerboys* and do a turn at The Nightingale in a couple of weeks! The Schlagerboys are very excited because:
OH MY GOD! This ABBA clip is amazing! Whoever put this on youtube deserves a schlager medal for showing Frida slapping Agnetha during a perfromance of "I Do I Do I Do I Do I Do". It's possibly the most schlagertastic moment ever to be seen on the web!
The best thing about this clip isn't the slap, it's the way Frida - ever the professional - continues to smile and sway along to the music immediately after her faux-pas. Who wouldn't love to be in the dressing room after this performance!
And quite frankly Agnetha deserved it. We're Team Frida all the way!
(Thanks to John, our favourite Ace, for sending us the link)
Ooh how exciting! Donal "Double Cross My Heart" Skehan has somehow found himself in a pop band and is releasing respectable schlager-type singles. Hurrah!
Unfortunaltely there's no key change however it's nice enough.
We don't get to see Donal properly in the video until the chorus. This is clearly because he is the real star in the band and the director decided to keep us waiting... rather than because the other bloke is more hunky.
And - oh no! - warning signs afoot of dumperdom... In this interview not only do they sing an acoustic version (bleeuurrggh), but they say that they wrote the Christmas single themselves. Oh dear!
Oh My God! Alexander Rybak and Saint Carola performed two Eurovision classics and ruined them both by just singing one line each about fifteen times over lots of guitars.
They didn't even bother with the "Främling" key change!
However this Youtube clip remains a classic for the following reasons:
1. Looks like SaintCarola's borrowed Shirley's thighs for the evening and is clearly going through a bit of an image crisis. What to wear today? How about these shorts and a low cut blouse...
2. Mind you this is far more appropriate then Alexander's keeping-it-real look with a boring jeans and T-shirt combo. Yawn.
3. Could SaintCarola jiggle her bosoms in Alexander's face in a more obvious way?
4. The strutting! Oh my god when they strut together down the cat walk bit! It's worth sitting through the schlager massacre just for that bit!
5. Why aren't the audience jumping up and down and squealing "Oh my god! It's Saint Carola!!" when she walks into the audience..? Where are the gays? She's obviously had a word with security... They'd never let us anywhere near the stage...
6. We could do without the crap Michael Jackson cover though.
Pjazza is back on Maltese TV this summer. Unfortunately Angie and Peter seem to be doing the show from a studio rather than in front of the crowds in various holiday resorts around Malta, but apparently there is also a swimming pool as part of the set and guests will be doing summertime special type games in the water each week... No news on whether Chiara will be slipping on her swimming cozzy at some point over the next few months...
But what's even more exciting is that Olivia and Ludwig are the interval act each week, no doubt performing by the side of the pool, hopefully with a medley of "Vertigo" and "On Again, Off Again" while various Maltese Eurocelebs thrash around in the water chucking over-sized comedy inflatables at each other...
Just about makes the Schlagerboys want to hop on a plane over to Valetta right now...
The Schlagerboys attempted to inject a bit of schlager in to the Birmimgham gay scene last night as we trolled around the bars looking for anywhere that might play something that sounded remotely like it had a tune.
We settled in lesbian bar The Fox late in the evening because they had a bit of karaoke going on and as everyone was doing yawntastic angsty crap like Coldplay's "Yellow" and Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful", one of us got up and did "Puppet On A String" and the other did "Power To All Our Friends". We really wanted to do "Making Your Mind Up" but would you believe it wasn't on the playlist!
Despite just about clearing the floor for our numbers we could tell that all the gayers were desperate to sing along really, but just couldn't bring themselves to let their inner schlager out! We did wonder afterwards whether any of the assembled crowd had actually heard Cliff Richard's Euro stomper before, the poor things. Well they have now.... well they've heard somone yelling drunkenly over the top of an instrumental version while doing funny hand movements, anyway.
You get to sit round a swimming pool and sing along with schlager legends belting out schlagerboy anthems like this one! Hurrah!
Apparently this wasn't shown on the TV broadcast; Christer sang it during the interval instead. Clearly TV4 were concerned that thousands of old dears across Sweden might choke on their Horlicks in excitement if "I Love Europe" went live. After all it is the most schlagertastic song of all time and it has got two key changes...
It's good to see that Nanne Grönvall was as bonkers as ever as she performed "Pissenisse" on Lotta på Liseberg earlier this week... And have Swedish Health & Safety been informed about that chair lift halfway through with Nanne perched precariously in mid-air? Hopefully she's got velcro stuck on her knickers so she doesn't fall off and slide on to the old dears in the front row...
And how fabulous to see Queen Lotta clappping and singing along on the sofa behind Nanne as she performs. Doesn't she sit up straight! No slouching for her!
Now our Swedish isn't too brilliant, but does this interview with Lotta Engberg in Expressen say that she had an affair with Christer Sjögren in the 90s...?
Or have we got completely the wrong end of the stick?
Apparently on Monday there's the first episode of "Singalonga Lotta" broadcast live on Swedish telly with Christer appearing as a guest. Oooh how fab! Perhaps they'll do a weepy version of "When All Is Said And Done" as an encore. (Although clearly they'll have to change the line in the second verse about not being too old for sex).
We haven't heard from Spanish Euro-fest Operación Triunfo for a while and so were excited to see this on Chart Rigger.
In the olden days it was Rosa wobbling around giving it loads and winning with "Europe's Living A Celebration". Today we get a couple of twinks enthusiastically yelling their way through "Human" with accents that make us go weak at the knees. Bless!
We know its early days but could Spain possibly put Jon y Mario on the list for 2010? Wouldn't they go down well at the Euro Club in Oslo!
Magnus Carlsson is going all discotastic for his new single...
Due to all the live instruments this version is a bit rubbish (keep music mimed we say) but the dance routine, which clearly takes it inspiration from "Ole Ole" in 1985, makes up for it and the Soundfactory Mix is totally schlagertastic!
According to Aftonbladet, Kikki Danielsson and Elisabeth Andreassen are coming back for one night only!
They'll be performing at Dansdax in Gothenburg in November and Lasse Holm will be performing with them too! Oh! My! God!
Wonder what happened to the other woman with rubbish hair singing "God Morgon" in Melodifestivalen 1981 with Kikki, Elisabeth and Lasse... Kikki must have sat on her before they got back in the recording studio to submit "Dag Efter Dag" the following year...
OMG! The Schlagerboys have managed to get seats on the ront row for the Bucks Fizz concert in Dudley on October 23rd! We we say "seats", but we won't actaully be using them once the lights go down.
The Schlagerboys never saw Bucks Fizz live before they started hitting the gay clubs in various guises. Since then we've seen Buck$Fizz with Mike and David Van Day and two girls (awful: they started with "We Built This City" for some inexplicable reason, only did the Bucks Fizz songs as part of a shite medley and the two girls were wearing skin-tight black PVC outfits. We were traumatised for weeks afterwards), The Original Bucks Fizz about four times with Mike, Cheryl and Shelley, (fabulouseverytime, particularly when they played "I Hear Talk"), and we've seen Cheryl on the back of a pick up truck chucking penny chews at the assembled crowds while being dragged through Nuneaton. We've never seen Bobby but who cares.
The thought of seeing Mike and Cheryl and Jay sharing a stage is amazing. It's exactly the kind of thing to get us over our post Eurovision blues (not that we got Eurovision blues this year because we weren't too unhappy to get back from Moscow)
Can we just request a few numbers please? If we get to hear "I Hear Talk", "You And Your Heart So Blue", "Easy Love", "I'd Like To Say I Love You" and "Rules Of The Game" we'll be overcome with emotion and may have to sit down after all. Thank you.
And how about a support act? What's Bardo doing these days?
This footage is completely schlagertastic and fabulous in so many ways. The Schlagerboys would have killed to be at G.A.Y. for this, and had it not been Eurovision night we would have been at the front with the rest of the boys. We had to be in Moscow that night, darlings!
Best bits:
1. Starting the show with "Run For Your Life" OH MY GOD!
2. The Costumes! Oh My God look at the costumes!
3.Jay doing "When We Were Young" complete with fist-in-air-and-left-leg-raised-for-first-line-of-chorus-dance-routine. And we thought we were the only ones who still did that!
4. The live vocals. How fab! At least it proves they weren't miming!
5. The finger wagging on "If You Can't Stand The Heat"
Love it! Apparently there's going to be a tour! Cue Schlagerboys on floor having palpitations...
Blimey! Looks like Anna Book'sdone a Fern and gone and lost loads of weight... Bet there's no more huffing and puffing in the dance interlude during "Samba Sambero" now...
According to AftonbladetSanna Nielsen is going out with the guitarist from her band... Does that mean they'll start writing acoustic "songs" together and we'll never see Schlager Sanna again...?
Hurrah! Jade's got a new single out in September! It's going to be called "Punching Out" and is written and produced by the same people who came up with this...
How completely fabulous! We can just imagine Jade in primary coloured tights and enormous heels jumping up and down on computer generated blocks...
The Schlagerboys are trying to get excited about the new song by ABBA but to be honest we were more excited before we actually heard it.
This is the third time the promise of a new Benny and Björn song has failed to live up to expectation. "Fait Accompli" was dire, "Second best to none" had a nice video but plodded along like something a group of enthusiastic primary school children might produce. "Story Of A Heart" is by far the best of the bunch but doesn't do anything more than Gemini did in 1987.
Or indeed "Heaven and Hell" by Josefin Nilsson before she wobbled around in a right state on Melodifestivalen.
If Benny and Björn are going to unleash new songs on us can they at least give us something like "Dum Dum Diddle" to enjoy
The news that Jay Aston has rejoined Bucks Fizz has made the Schlagerboys very excited!
When Jay left Bucks Fizz in 1985 the Schlagerboys were bereft! In our seperate schlager worlds it was the first time we had experienced a schlager-split and we could barely find the will to go on.
Shelley Preston joined Bucks Fizz and it was a bit like one of us getting in the band, except she said at the time she had to learn all the dance routines for the up and coming live shows, and we already knew them. But the Schlagerboys always had a spot spot for Shelley, and after all she did sing on the schlagertastic "New Beginning" and "Keep each other warm".
But the thought of seeing Jay and Cheryl together on stage singing "My camera never lies" and "Run for your life" is just amazing and we can't wait. It's a shame Shelley had to leave. Couldn't she have stayed as part of the act? There could have been a dance-off between Jay and Shelley during the introduction to "New Beginning" which culminated in Jay slinking off while Shelley burst in to raputrous choruses of "Mamba Seyra...." then Jay could come back on at the end of the set to show there's no hard feelings for a group hug and an encore of "Heart Of Stone".
Oh well.
Meanwhile just to make us lose even more schlager sleep there's a documentary coming up about Bucks Fizz which, judging by the advert below, looks like it's going to be jaw droppingly fabulous. Our favourite bits:
Nicola Martin: "If only they sold as many records as they sold newspapers we would have all been millionaires..... well I suppose I did become a millionaire ha ha ha!" (Oooh... get her!)
Mike: "And she got up and stormed out and I thought, well, if that doesn't get an Oscar I don't know what will" (Ooh... get her!)
Cheryl: "He was a bully. He was a bully" (Bobby or Andy Hill? Or Terry Wogan?)
Cheryl: " I was a cow. I know I was a cow. I didn't deserve that though" (Auntie Cheryl a cow? Surely not!)
Nicola Martin: "You are the weakest member in this band" (ooh... who is she talking about? Surely it can't be Jay or Cheryl or Mike? Maybe she's talking about someone in Bananarama)
No idea when this is on, but it'd better be soon or we'll explode!
The Schlagerboys were very excited that Star Pilots were going to be on the Main Stage at Birmingham Pride yesterday. Real live Melodifestivalen entrants performing in Birmingham... Hurrah! We were a bit disappointed that that the lovely singer appeared not to have managed to catch his flight from Stockholm and that the dancers were lip-synching the words but at least they did perform "Higher".,..
We caught up with the Pilots backstage for an exclusive interview:
SBs: You were fabulous in Melodifestivalen...
Star Pilots: You watched that?
SBs: Oh yes! It should have been you in the final - not that rubbish Caroline af Ugglas...
Star Pilots: (silence)
SBs: Can we have a photo please?
Another exclusive interview from the Schlagerboys!
The Schlagerboys have had another fabulous day at Birmingham Pride! We headed straight for the Main Stage to see Dame Nicki French and managed to spot her as she was hanging around backstage before going on. Nicki came to speak to us and showed us her fabulous Pride shoes! We seem to remember these making an appearance at Stockholm Pride a few years ago... Hurrah! What fabulous schlager shoes!!
Before going on stage Nicki gave us the exclusive gossip on the Maltese Final, where she was a celebrity judge back in February... The judges voted for Eleanor Cassar! Gasp! Shock! Horror! Don't tell Chiara!
Dame Nicki kept us on tenterhooks about the songs she was going to sing. She told us she was going to do three.... well, we could guess two of them... As she went on stage she announced that the Schlagerboys were in the audience! Everyone looked round at us a little confused... Maybe the blurry looks they were giving us were due to all the Bacardi Breezers and WKD...
Dame Nicki started off with a fabulous extended remix of "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" and then went into "Don't Play That Song Again", even doing the clock arm movements for the "Time... time changes everything" bit.... Bless you, Dame Nicki!
Then it was time for the mystery third song... And it was something with guitars... Oh Nicki, what are you doing? Please say you're not doing a Shirley and getting all serious on us... Can you make sure the song gets a great big gay hands-in-the-air disco remix please...?
The Schlagerboys are very excited as it's a Eurovision weekend at Birmingham Pride and yesterday Jessica Garlick was on the main stage...
2002 was the Schlagerboys' first overseas Eurovision and we'd managed to say hello to Jessica at Tallinn Airport but we'd been far too distracted at the time by Rosa and Corrina May walking past heading to the Duty Free to get a photo with Jessica...
We therefore decided to hang around at the back of the stage at Birmingham Pride (well, we say "stage".... more like a hollowed- out dormobile...) so we could stalk her and get a photo, but we were far to busy watching all the fabulous drag queens and the blokes with their tops off and very nearly missed her as she walked past... In a panic and desperate to find somewhere to put our cans of Carling Black Label (yes, how very common... we really should have been sipping Pimms or something...), we ran up to her and said "Oh my god! We loved your song! We were on camera waving our Union Jack in Tallinn just after your performance! Can we have a photo please?" Jessica looked a bit startled but posed anyway and then ran through to the backstage area as quickly as she could....
We dashed to the front of the stage ready for her to be announced and then go straight into "Come Back". She sang her new single and "Papa Don't Preach" and then she was off and it was time for the Madonna impersonator...
Oh and Jessica - ditch the bloke at the back looking after the backing tracks! We'll shove in the CDs for you and press play! We'll even do it for free!
The Schlagerboys were wandering round Birmingham Pride yesterday and stumbled across Svetlana's centurions.... They've obviously got a bit depressed since coming about 93rd last week and have been hitting the Quality Street...
The Schlagerboys are very excited as it's Birmingham Pride this weekend and the UK schlager divas are descending on the city...
On Saturday we've got Jessica Garlick and Sonia...
And on SundayNicki French and Katrina are on stage... We've got our fingers crossed that Katrina does the big gay hands-in-the-air disco mix of "Love Shine A Light"...
The weekend will give the Schlagerboys ample opportunity for Euro celeb stalking.
Obviously we are close personal friends with Dame Nicki French but we've never managed to get anywhere near Ms Leskanich, so our goal for the weekend is to be able to say "We always loved "Love Shine A Light"! Can we have a photo please?" to Katrina...
Don't get us wrong, the Schlagerboys love democracy and televoting is the best thing that has happened to Eurovision (along with letting everyone sing in whatever language they like and ditching the orchestra...)! But democracy only works if people vote for the right song (i.e. the one that we like....)
This year the Eurovision votes were calculated using 50% televoting and 50% jury votes and now the EBU have released what the points would have been if only the juries had voted... And hurrah! The United Kingdom comes in third!!
We love juries! Keep them in for next year Uncle Svante!
It all got a bit mad for Alexander Rybak as he arrived back at Oslo Gardemoen Airport yesterday... It looks like that mad woman in the middle has even knitted him a cardigan...
The Schlagerboys are back in Birmingham after a weekend in Russia... We've just about recovered from getting to bed at some godforsaken time in the early hours of Sunday morning (and that's without even going to the After Party - thank heaven it'll be a 9pm start for Eurovision in Norway next year...) and then trying to cram in some sightseeing round Moscow before flying back to the UK...
To almost quote Davina (Hurray! Big Brother is back soon - that'll keep us occupied until Bulgaria start choosing their song for 2010 sometime around August Bank Holiday...): Here are the best bits from the Eurovision 2009 Final!!!
- realising our seats were just behind Dima's giant polystyrene walls and trying to distract him as hung on the wire grabbing his suitcase... - getting schlager tears during Jade's performance, especially on the bit where she stands at the top of the stairs and sings "I'll show you what I'm made of" while looking over at Lord Andrew tinkling away at the piano.... We're filling up at the thought... - the United Kingdom getting 10 points from Spain and thinking that Jade actually might just win! - getting sore arms from jumping up and down every time the United Kingdom got some points... The Union Jacks actually got some use out of them this year. - United Kingdom ending up 5th. It just goes to show what can be achieved with a bit of effort. And Norway came 5th last year so we're gearing ourselves up for a United Kingdom victory in 2010!
Hurrah for Jade - better nip out to HMV and buy "It's My Time" on CD-single now...
Jade has just rehearsed for the final time and OH MY GOD she was fabulous!
The stage hands are having problems getting her stairs on stage and fixed in place on time; last night there was a huge gap while burly men clanged about and Andrew Lloyd Webber sat waiting at his piano probably thinking 'Well really! This wouldn't happen in Cats".
There was another wait this afternoon after the UK postcard, of about 20 seconds. Cue wide audience shots while Jade totters up the stairs and sits in position.
There was a lovely shot of Jade smiling at the camera as she walked towards Andrew after her second chorus. Oh... except it wasn't Andrew for this rehearsal; he was clearly too busy.
There was a rather disturbing shot of Stand-In-For-Andrew-Lloyd-Webber at the very end of the song which we don't really think is right. Shouldn't the camera linger on Jade instead? Or us in the audience waving our flag and weeping with joy?
Stop press: The Schlagerboys are very excited to annouce that the bit chosen for the reprise is the key change as the camera circles Jade and Lord Andrew at the piano! Hurrah!
The Schlagerboys would love Norway to win so we could go to Oslo next year and Per Sundnes could be the presenter of Eurovison 2010.
Queentastic could do the Green Room and Bobbysocks could open the show by bursting through glittery purple walls while walking on a treadmill. There would be a fabulous gay pride parade through the city centre in the afternoon, the theme of which would be "Let's get happy and let's be gay"
Hurrah!
We quite like "Fairytale" too. Well, we like the dancers anyway.
The best things about "Miss Kiss Bang Bang" are absolutely Oscar's sparkley trousers.
The Schlagerboys had cushions at the ready to put over our eyes for the bit where Dita Von Teese flounced on and got her bazonkers out... only to find at this rehearsal it didn't happen! Now she just walks on, sit on the sofa, looks bored, takes off her gloves and taps her thigh with a riding crop.
Oh.
Did someone complain about the glitter-covered tits last night? Did the sound of one thousand gay men going "bleeurrgh" come across on the monitors? What's going to happen tonight? The Schlagerboys are hoping for something a bit more exciting than the quick leather sofa ride....
Moscow authorities banned a gay pride celebration today and a small march went ahead before being broken up by police. The Schlagerboys were very disappointed when at the UK press conference yesterday the panel were asked to comment on the ban and Graham Norton and Andrew Lloyd Webber refused, saying they knew nothing about it. Andrew Lloyd Webber even murmered something about 'perhaps they had to ban the demonstration because of public safety!'
Compare these pathetic and frankly offensive responses from the UK delegation to the response below made by Melena Ernman on her website:
"Regarding the planned gay parade here in Moscow today I think it’s very sad that they won’t allow a tribute to love. I’m not homosexual but today I am happy and proud to call myself gay - to support my friends and fans."
Thank you Malena. Douze points from the Schlagerboys. If only more Eurovision celebs were like you!
The Schlagerboys had a litle nap during Portugal and Iceland but are now paying attention to Greece. We want to have a go on Sakis's moving walk way.. or maybe we just want to have a go on Sakis..
Sakis noticeably keeps grabbing his nether regions during this song. Perhaps he's suffering a rip in his rather tight trousers. How exciting!
The Schlagerboys are watching the last dress rehearsal for the final on a big screen while spotting euro celebs wandering around the press centre.
Apparently Dame Shirley was seen just three minutes before we arrived! Damn! She probably got wind that we were on our way and scarpered.
There was a constant droning sound in the background for the last ten minutes or so and we couldn't work out what it was till we realised it was the Lithuanian, Israeli and French songs.
There's a fab bit at the beginning of tonight's show, when Dima Bilan plays the "Hole In The Wall" game show. He runs on a treadmill and has to burst though walls that come towards him.
While this is all very exciting, the Schlagerboys think it was be vastly improved if Dima had strange shapes to fit in to and a swimming pool behind him to fall in to if he doesn't manage to contort his body in to the right shape in time.
Incidentally the Schlagerboys think our seats for the contest are right behind Dima for this bit so we'll be doing our best to get on telly during this bit tonight.
The Schlagerboys were getting lost trying to find Red Square this morning as you do, when a woman approached us to ask for help reading her map. We looked up only to find it was none other than Arlene Phillips! Oh My God!
We had a quick schlager conversation about Jade and her stairs and we asked Arlene if Jade was walking down them with her head up like Arlene had told her to. Arlene told us Jade used the stairs properly for the first time at the rehearsal last night. We agreed that Jade was completely fabulous and that the UK had a great chance of winning. Apparently UK is now third favourite to win. Oh My God!
Arlene wanted to get to GUM shop and we tried to explain where we thought it was but she probably guessed we were making up directions. We said we wanted to find Red Square and she walked us part way there and then pointed the way to go. The Schlagerboys can now say we were shown how to get to Red Square by Arlene Phillips! How fabulous!
We love the Eurovision Song Contest and all things Swedish.
Having had a fabulous time in Moscow, we are now looking forward to Melodifestivalen 2010 and Oslo.
Come on Sweden! Choose Schlager!
Oh! My! God! How exciting! Current UK Schlager Queen Agnes is coming to Birmingham to meet the Schlagerboys* and do a turn at The Nightingale in a couple of weeks!
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