Once upon a time, Gothenburg was full of demolition leases and cheap flats in buildings without modern conveniences. I was lucky enough to live in several such flats, just like my casual acquaintance Peter. I first met Peter at Café Norrland. An institution, with wonderful walnut rolls filled with Brie and salami. The coffee was always served in a pot, about three cups at a time. The tiled floor was laid in diamond patterns, rather like an English public lavatory. Everything exuded a state of emergency and a certain need for sanitation. I loved the place. I went there as often as I could as a poor student. Peter was poor too, a jack-of-all-trades with business tucked into his inside pocket for every occasion, from Jazzspecial to bulk lots of blue jeans. More often than not, I would treat him to coffee from my pot or help him out with the soup of the day. It was LPs that brought us together. Music in general, old bands and new.
Peter lived near Redbergsplatsen, in a building that had been condemned because of dry rot and fungal growth. And that brings me, quite naturally, to the psychedelic music that played on his stereo. Music that would, in time, become increasingly sought after, but which had yet to enjoy the renaissance that would later send the prices of rare vinyl soaring. There was often a crate of LPs sitting there, waiting to change hands. Peter needed to scrape together the rent. Prices ranged from five to twenty-five kronor. Crown of Creation was one such five-kronor LP. Appropriately enough, the album revolves around social criticism and a sense that the world is changing. But Peter had a different view. For him, there was only one track worth bothering with: Lather, the opening track on side one. The rest simply wasn't interesting enough to keep. For me, it's quite the opposite. Or perhaps not. Lather is so good that it carries the entire album on its own. A little one-off that has etched itself into my memory, a song that always brings back the best of thoughts and makes me feel free.
I've also said many times that Lather itself, a character in the song who goes his own way, reminds me of – and is therefore, in its own way, dedicated to – my oldest friend, Stefan, otherwise known as Stefan the Man. Perhaps that is precisely what music can do. A song becomes more than music. It becomes a person, a time, a friendship and a feeling that never quite disappears. For me, Jefferson Airplane's Crown of Creation is one of the finest examples of the band's psychedelic expression. But above all, it is Lather that makes this particular five-kronor record mean so much to me. From Peter's crate of records to my own collection. Some finds turn out to be worth considerably more than the price tag could ever have suggested.
