Before Anti-Cimex: Kloak, Avfall, Bombhot, Bohman Brinner

Printer-friendly versionSend by email

Serious fans of Skitslickers and Anti-Cimex may already know that there were at least four bands that included Tomas Jonsson before the classic bands were formed. These bands were Kloak, Bombhot, Avfall, and Bohman Brinner. But only recently, to my knowledge, has any documentation of the existence of the first two—Kloak and Bombhot—circulated among collectors.

Kloak formed in November 1977 and included Tomas Jonsson (guitar), Joakim Lund (bass), and Magnus Nilsson (drums). The band did not last long. Speakers of Swedish can read something about them here, written by Nilsson. (Tony Gunnarson provided all of the following translations of Nilsson, with minor edits by me.)

Formed in November 1977 by me when I met Tomas Jonsson at school. We both had started seventh year [ie, they were only 13/14 years old]. We begin to rehearse if you can call it that. Then we had to get a bassist so we started looking around. We got hold of Thomas Sundler just before Christmas. He wanted to be in the band. But on Christmas night he got a guitar and he learned to play “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” on it. So we kicked him out immediately. It was a bass player we had to have! But in the spring of 78 we found Joakim Lund. He had a bass and a toaster-like-grey and fury-bass [I'm stumped—ed.] head so ugly that just because of it he could be in the band whether he could actually play or not. (We could not play anyway.)

It was very soon that we would get a second guitarist in Stefan Erneryd (his father made the famous signature to the kids' TV show Fem Myror), but he was too lazy. He preferred to sit at home and listen to Johnny Thunders. So we had to manage ourselves.

Eventually the band started to get somewhere—we had concerts in my house among other places in the garage. We got a gig at Mariestad Theater in Spring 79. It was mostly rock bands and other stoner bands. But it was only us who got bombarded with carrots, tomatoes, macaroni, and more. We got tired of the band name and changed probably once a week: Farfars Sågverk [Grandpa's Sawmill], Gummibandet [Rubber Band], The Haters, and others but in the end it was Bombhot.

Formed in 1979, Bombhot was, as far as I can tell, inna 70s Swedish teen punk style. Bombhot, which means Bomb Threat, played a few gigs with the rock-punk band Reklamation, as documented here. (You can check out Reklamation's lone rare 7" here; also, a track from that 7" was comped on KBD #51.) The Encyclopedia of Swedish Punk 1977–1987 notes that Tomas Jonsson had invited Reklamation to play in Mariestad with Bruset and Attentat. That gig was in November 1979. The kbdrecords.com posting about Reklamation includes this tantalizing detail about a run-in with raggare: "[Reklamation] even gave some future members of Anti Cimex a lesson in how to escape from a window," corroborated by the above-mentioned blog posting by Magnus Nilsson. He writes: "On November 16, the band Reklamtaion set up a DIY punk gig in Grebban community center outside the countryside town of Hjo. After the gig another raggare gang gathered outside the community hall. It all ended with us and Reklamation fleeing out a window to a waiting car, which hauled ass to Zäta’s house [Zäta is the singer of Reklamation]." Today, Reklamation even maintain a myspace page! On that page, there is a small photo of a flyer for a Reklamation/Bombhot gig. Here is a better-quality reproduction of it.

The big surprise, however, is a photo of the band from this gig in Hjo, Reklamation's home town. The photo was taken by Monica Beckmann. The masses of Bombhot fans filled the room, as you can see. Luckily, Monica was able to squeeze off a photo and document this momentous, world-changing gig.

The band included Tomas Jonsson (guitar), Magnus Nilsson (drums), and Joakim Lund (bass). Another gig in March of 1980 featured Bombhot, Reklamation, Attentat, Perverts, X-tas, Givet Stryk med 80w, and Bide. The singer of Bombhot had quit a month or so earlier, and they convinced Zäta of Reklamation to sing for them. Nilsson writes of their final gig, with Product Assar: 

There all the bands were fighting because we were all drunk it was great. When we were playing Jonsson was so drunk that he could not even sing so he kicked me [literally kicked] and said if you want to be in my band you better be singing. Then we fought some more. Then I sang and played drums. That was the last nail in the Bombhot coffin.

This was to be the last show of Bombhot, we tried to start again but it went no further, Bonni from Product Assar was tested as vocalist. Jonsson wanted to play drums instead of guitar. He had got the taste of it from the band Givet Stryk med 80w. We managed to get Jimmy Lindqvist from the band Bide on guitar and we formed Avfall instead. I took hold of the vocal mic and wrote the lyrics.

Nilsson reports that the band recorded 12 tracks. I have no further information about Givet Stryk med 80w, but apparently Jonsson also played in that oddly named band.

Avfall came next and was more clearly a hardcore punk band—though it's not clear the members thought of the band that way, considering that most old-timers seem to call Skitslickers, if not Anti-Cimex, the first GBG hardcore band. One can, however, detect some of the elements of Anti-Cimex's sound in Avfall. Members were Tomas Jonsson (drums!), Magnus Nilsson (vocals), Håkan Hedström (bass), and Jimmy Lindqvist (guitar). As we know, Jimmy turned up in Skitslickers along with Jonsson.

Nilsson writes:

We had a gig at the school we all attended. It was a morning meeting session the teachers won't forget. We played for about 20 minutes. In that small time all the punks at school managed to get a detention after they stormed the stage and pogoed like mad. As an encore I encouraged everyone to sing the new song I had just made up: "Thank all the teachers who made me a robot." The sound of the band was drowned by the teachers’ complaints, and finally we were kicked out of the school as soon we stopped playing.

I have not heard all 20 tracks they supposedly recorded, but here are the six tracks that are, to my knowledge, the only ones circulated. The first three appeared on v/a "Delirium Tremens #6" cassette, released by Marko Orava in October 1987. Notably, that cassette also included two rare tracks by Anti-Cimex, as well as other shit-fi heroes Potas from Spain and Imagen from Colombia (etc). 

Desperat

Soldat

En Lördagkväll

These three appeared on v/a "Delirium Tremens #14" cassette, released by Marko Orava in early 1990.

Naziskins

Abab

Jag tror inte på Sverige

A band called Avfall also released two tracks on the untitled first cassette compilation in the Strultapes series circa 1989. Although the sound is similar, the recording is definitely better, but could it be the same band? The contact listed on the tape is one Ulf Veberg from Helsingborg, which does not match what I know. You listen and tell me what you think.

Varför?

Dubbelmoral

Another band called Avfall released a 7" in the 1990s, and there is a recent Japanese raw punk band with that name too.

Finally, Bohman Brinner comprised Tomas Jonsson (bass), Nils "Nillen" Andersson (vocals), Jocke Petterson (guitar), and Magnus Nilsson (drums). Nilsson left the band, a new drummer joined, and Anti-Cimex was born. I have never seen any photos or recordings of Bohman Brinner circulating, but I would love to know if anything exists. They supposedly recorded four songs.