The year is 1963 and the picture is from our rehearsal room located in the basement at Kroppkärrsvägen 111 in the city of Karlstad where our base player Krister “Crash” Berglund lived.

Krister (top left with his out of the ordinary Höfner-base), and at his side Lars “Lasse” Carlsson (wine-red Höfner-guitar) who were our first “real” guitar player. Below Krister is Lennart “Affa” Alftrén with his (black-green Echo-guitar) and beside him Mats “Wicke” Wickén (with a Zildijan cymbal and two drum stocks from the mark Ludwig in his hands). The guy to the right (Peter “Pide” Jonsson) didn’t belong to the band (Carrions) but often participated during the rehearsals as he was a neighbour to Krister and were one of our first chauffeurs. He holds a Beyer microphone in one of his hands.

Mats has got a new set of drums (long gone is the set of military drums from the early phase of the career). After having a short sojourn of using Sonor set of drums it was time to move on to the top mark of them all: Ludwig which, by the way, was the same mark used by some Ringo Starr. Make a guess: was he proud?

Note: The microphone he used was of the mark Shure and is nowadays stored in the original cardboard. The year is 1963.

We are standing on the Fire station’s (The fire station were situated in the area of Sundsta those days) bridge towards Klarälven close by to Gylleniusgatan in the city of Karlstad. This also is 1963 and from the left we are Wicke, Lasse, Affa and Crash. Note that we had agreed to let our hair grow on all of us real long (!). This was not approved at all from Lasses father nor from Affas mother as seen on the picture. Also it was very popular wearing “boots”. Affa didn’t like that too much so he came to the photographing using  wooden shoes!

1963 in the rehearsal room at Crash. We tried to look a little cooler and borrowed pipes from Kristers brother Björn. At this time it was “only” Lasse and Crash who were smokers. Note Affa has changed from wooden shoes to more convenient “slam creepers” although we are indoors! It should have been the other way around or….

P.S. I will never forget that painting D.S.

1964

1964 Carrions consists of four guys (Lennart Alftrén, Mats Wickén, Krister Berglund and Lars Carlsson) and get to play (first ever!) on a staff party at KMW in the city of Karlstad. The band became very popular and got to win several rock band competitions this year (e.g. in Deje (outside Karlstad), the first price was a casting rod!)

Krister, Sven-Erik (Svenka) Lundström, Mats and Lennart. The photo is from 1964 and Carrions has exchanged lead guitar player from Lasse to ”Svenka”. Note Mats’ hair length that a while later was one of the three longest In the city of Karlstad.

We are in the “Peoples house” in the city of Karlstad and the time is one hour before a rock band competition (that we actually wan) from the left Svenka, Crash, Wicke and Affa.

Affa, Crash, Svenka and Wicke in the wardrobe at Kst FH.

From one out of many rehearsals at Krister’s, the year is 1964 and one sees that Affas guitar is a “Höfnerplank” . Mats’ set of drums was a complete Ludwig-set with cymbals and high-hat of the mark Zildijan. On the base drum skin there is a Carrion painted by Kristers brother Björn.

1965

... is the year when things seriously goes in the right direction. Carrions plays on several clubs, “Peoples houses” and “Peoples parks” all over the middle of Sweden. A fan club is created and is taken care of by Lasse Wendel in the city of Karlstad. In November 1965 Carrions plays at, the noble place with great traditions, Nalen (Harlem) in Stockholm together with Ola & The Janglers and Mascots.

This is our member card, in fact we had quite a lot of members even though we never received any member fees.

1966

Another year with a lot of gigs on several galas (Nalen again in February, Jump In on Gröna Lund, Sunside, Kingside etc.) together with Tages, Hep Stars, Lollipops and Fabulous Four. Carrions is rebuilt to Lavions, who besides Lennart and Mats also consist of Kenneth Andersson on lead guitarr and Lennart Flinth on base.

The picture is taken 1966 on "Örsholmen" nearby "Skrot-Villes" popular junk-yard for cars.

From left: Mats Wickén, Kenneth Andersson, Lennart Flinth and
Lennart Alftrén.

Note Mats fantastic little finger ring and Kenneth's necklaces.

1967

Mats and Lennart studies on the Technical gymnasium in the city of Karlstad and meet Klas, a very skilled keyboard player who played with a group called Chunks from Skoghall. Lavions are nowadays a quintet and Göran Tångring has replaced Kenneth Andersson on lead guitarr. Lavions wins all rock band competitions when participating and plays at several rock galas e.g. together with Peps Blodsband.

The picture is taken 1967 in the bar at Televerkets dining room at Älvgatan in the city of Karlstad!

From left Göran Tångring (guitar), Mats Wickén (drums and vocals), Lennart Alftrén (guitar and vocals), Klas Camling (keyboard and vocals), Lennart Flinth (base).

(Worth mentioning is that Mats still keeps the scarf as well as the light blue shirt safely stored)

1969
Due to studies in different parts of the country, the band keeps a low profile. Mats is still going for a period with occasional band members e.g. participation of the Andersson brothers Kenneth and Bosse.
Lavions is terminated 1971.

1972
Lennart , Mats and Klas make some radio performances and it all comes on once again. The trio is now focusing to compose and record own music and does very few live performances. As the boys nowadays live in different places (see above) and have jobs and families in three different cities we decided to meet a couple of times a year to bring together our music composed by each and one of us which shows off to be a good as well as fun way of stimulating a continues friendship.

1980
Mats meets Henrik Jansson, at that time leader of the group Mantra, who gets inspired of the music. The result is a radio program in Radio Värmland, with Urban Ericsson as anchorman, with six own songs together with Mantra mixed with interviews.

1981
The latest performance on stage is done in “Malmös Peoples Park” in the series “Summer rock” under the name of Spice and we played at the same gig as Robert Palmer. As additional musicians the boys in Mantra helped along, e.g. Henrik Jansson (nowadays world famous within rock and pop business) and Patrik Karlsson who today plays the base in Sven-Ingvars.

1981
Another change of name, this year also as the group Mashed Swede. Gets an offer to do an audition for a recording session in London at a famous record company. Logistical problems with themselves as well as with the group Mantra unfortunately prevent this to happen.

1982
The trio writes the songs “Stop there’s another time” and “Shake it up” , but it comes to….

1983
before the songs are recorded at Stockholm Recording and released on vinyl and the band name is now TTF. Both songs get very nice reviews in the press around the country and are top three on the top list of Värmland. As a matter of fact the single is played on a Los Angeles radio station, “Radio KXFM”.

1986 
The songs “Powerful noise” and “Boy” are recorded in studio “Atlantic” in Stockholm. Both songs are played on the nation-wide radio stations as well as Radio Stockholm. Klas gets interviewed by Annica Dopping who wonders “which California group is this?”

1989
The TTF chapter is now ended and the band is now MusicOnAir. The bands first single with their own song “Ljumma vindar” is released on a collection record in the series “Absolute Swedish Music”. The song is frequently played in the radio, is number one for several weeks on the top list of Värmland and once called the summer hit of the year in Radio Malmöhus!

1990-1999
The band had many local hit songs on the Värmland top list, e.g. “Det känns okey” and “California”, both climbed high on the list.

2001
The boys (?!) decide to start recording a full length-CD purely with own material. Since there is a bank of several hundred songs there is no problem to find songs to fill up the CD.


2006 - 2011
The record is getting ready and an maxi-singel is released during January 2007. A full length-CD with 12 songs will be released during 2011. The name will be “Final call” which also is the title on the last suggestive
song on the CD.