
An insight in Swedish alternative music in the late 60s and early 70s
Prologue
Handgjort in a historical context
In a couple of mimeographed promo sheets from the groups only record release in late winter, 1970 one can read that the name Handgjort means handmade in Swedish, reflecting that the band only uses acoustic instruments, and that they have brought the music of India closer to us and succeeded in blending it with western music into something beautiful. It says that Handgjort also got some musical inspiration from Pakistan and Scotland, and that each record cover features a handmade painting by one of the members of the group, adding that it was enormous work having to paint thousands of covers (at least a few hundred, as the initial release wasn’t greater than 901 copies!). In one way these short lines could be seen as the quintessence of the group and its music.
Of course the story of Handgjort also includes many more things, for example that the band could be seen as a unique expression of the development of an alternative and progressive music in Sweden and that the story of Handgjort also is related to the story of the birth of a new record label, Silence, and some of the artists and live scenes connected to that label. And as a collectors’ item, as it is today, an original vinyl copy of Handgjort with a hand painted cover and the cover slip intact fetches around $300+ US (if you can find one!). This is the first reissue ever of Handgjort since 1973 (226 copies was pressed in a second print in September of that year) and the project has led to the first reunion of the band members in nearly 40 years!
In many ways the period during the late 1960s and early 1970s was an exiting time. In different contexts around the world a kind of social liberation took place which led to political tensions and countercultures, particularly among the youth, as in the hippie and anti-war movement. This process also influenced the musical world and made its imprint on it, although it was not a homogenous global force. The musical scene was in constant change and the musical expressions were nearly unlimited. Several creative and progressive ideas merged into new and different directions, some with political intentions, and others with more abstract and transcendental ambitions (sometimes in combination with mind-expanding substances).
So, different alternative musical contexts started to emerge around the world and in Sweden this was no exception. After the World War II, Sweden became a very stable country with a flowering welfare state and no meagre portion of social engineering, which, at least on the surface, was very homogenous and economically successful. But of course this is a very simplified picture of Sweden. For a short period of time, in the late 60s and early 70s, Stockholm was partly crowded by frustrated mods, hippies and American deserters from Vietnam and there was a growing feeling of not fitting in in this well-oiled society. This led to social tensions and reactions, which was also driven by the fact that large parts of Stockholm were nearly obliterated by bulldozers and wrecking balls in the pursuit of a modern city.
Underground musical scenes like the club, Filips, on Regeringsgatan (an old café) emerged in the buildings waiting to be demolished. The awareness of the young people led to political statements and protests, like, for example, the battle over twelve elm trees in the park Kungsträdgården that were to be cut down in favour of
a new subway station. The striving for an alternative way of living expressed itself in many ways such as spontaneous musical concerts around the city. In 1970 a team of art students at Konstfack (an art school in Stockholm) together with, among others, Sten Bergman from Atlantic Ocean, musicians from Träd, Gräs och Stenar and the journalist Ludwig Rasmusson started to plan and organize what eventually turned out to be the first festival at Gärdet (Gärdesfesten) in the outskirts of Stockholm. This was somewhat a Swedish version of Woodstock (not in size but in spirit) although the Swedish event was illegal and possibly more locally connected to the tendencies of the city and situation of the young people.
This festival had a lot more impact than its creators could possibly imagine, as it marked the powerful starting point of a new progressive culture in music. Apparently there had been a vacuum that needed to be filled, and small musical festivals appeared all around Sweden. Pandora’s Box had opened. The Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm was also a central venue in the early events of the new Stockholm underground and progressive movement.
A new alternative Swedish musical scene was born and so were bands like Handgjort (other examples of Swedish acts are Baby Grandmothers, Charlie & Esdor, International Harvester). Handgjort could best be defined by the word underground because of its obscure tunes and very limited audience and record releases.
Handgjort had its home in Stockholm’s alternative musical circles in the short period of time when almost everything was thought possible musically, before the more repressive political progressive movement took over. In fact they were so underground that even their record company, Silence, almost didn’t know Handgjort were recording an album in the Silence (at that time Decibel) studio.
Handgjort played acoustical music, improvising around different themes and ragas. The catchy themes were their own original crossover blend of western and eastern music and the result was a unique progressive style somewhere in between, bearing reminiscences of both pop, rock, folk, jazz and chamber music.
Handgjort’s album was the third ever on the newly formed Silence label, released on the same day as Bo Hansson’s Sagan om Ringen (“Lord of the Rings”) 1970. But if the latter album is the one classic album from the era, Handgjort’s album is mythical and only whispered about in closed circles. Handgjort is the forgotten crown jewel of the Swedish underground and has never been reissued until now in this limited edition on vinyl and CD.
The concept of Handgjort has many layers. In sum one can say that Handgjort stands for three different things: A unique expression of early progressive world- oriented music in Sweden, a confrontation with the conventional rules of the music industry.
Maybe one could musically compare Handgjort with obscure and eastern-tinged groups from different parts of the world like the US-act Children of One from 1970, with its improvisational music, the acid folk of the British C.O.B. or even with a band like the German, Flute & Voice from 1971, with its mix of European folk- and Indian music.
Handgjort was a band that remained intact with its original members for only one year, but eventually had a strong influence on each of these members’ lives.

Handgjort
The band and their music
Handgjort was formed in 1970. The members were Gregory Allan “Greg” FitzPatrick (b 1945) on esraj and vocals, Guy Öhrström (b 1945) on guitar, Stig- Arne “Stickan” Karlsson (b 1946) on sitar and Theo Greyerz (b 1946) on tablas. When Handgjort was formed, the four members brought their experiences from the sixties with them – the music, the mind-expanding hippie life and Oriental travels.
The embryo of Handgjort could initially be traced to the friendship between Stickan and Theo. Stickan had been playing guitar with the rhythm and blues band, The Roosters, in the 1960’s. He and Theo met when they were doing their military service. They spent most of the time listening to music. Theo was initially into jazz but through Stickan he got acquainted with Frank Zappa, John Mayall and Jimi Hendrix., and they both listened a lot to East West by The Butterfield Blues Band. Other important musical influences for Stickan were early minimalistic composers such as Terry Riley and La Monte Young. “In this kind of music I feel vivid inspiration and can smell scents, get mental pictures, experience different emotional moods, particularly melancholy and sadness”, as Stickan puts it himself.
After their time in the Swedish army, Stickan and Theo lived in the same block on Odengatan-Birger Jarlsgatan in central Stockholm. Theo had an Indian neighbour named Yoti Shirodkar who taught him the basics of tabla playing. Stickan and Theo used to play together in Theos apartment, mostly ragas on sitar and tablas, sometimes expanded into a trio with Yoti.
In 1969 Theo’s and Guy’s lives were twinned together. They had both, independent of each other yet in the same spirit, travelled to Asia. Fate brought them together in
Varanasi (Benares) and back in Stockholm they signed up for the same Indology class at the University. The main reason and motivation for Theo’s studies was to learn basic Hindu, to comprehend his tabla text books. For Guy the trip to Asia was financed mainly through his performances as a street musician.
The urge to leave Sweden is also reflected in Guy’s soundtrack Gotta Leave the Country. scored for the film Carmilla from 1968. That same year he was playing guitar with Slim’s Blues Gang, a band backing Peps Persson (in those days known as Linkin’ Louisiana Peps) on his first album, Blues Connection. Guy also played with Boz Scaggs during this period. Despite all musical collaborations, Guy describes himself as “a bit reserved” person. In school Guy played double-bass and was soon oriented towards blues and jazz.
Back in Sweden Theo resumed jamming with Stickan. This constellation was soon expanded to a trio when Guy joined the jam sessions. The trio used to rehearse at Guy’s apartment at Renstiernas Gata or sitting in the grass in different parks around Stockholm (on one occasion the long-haired trio had a nightly rehearsal at Jarlaplan Square, stunning stylishly dressed passer-byes).
In late 1969 they were joined by a Turkish fellow called Orhan. He had apparently been playing cello in the orchestra pit of the Ankara Opera House for the previous 20 years and arrived in Sweden dressed like Jimi Hendrix, in a playful yet serious manner, as Guy puts it. Now the loose jam sessions evolved, as Orhan contributed a lot of ideas such as playing in Mevlevi time and dervish music. A Swedish guy named Mats (surname unknown), who played cello and studied at Kungliga Musikaliska Akademien (“The Royal Academy of Music”), also joined in playing second cello. This nameless constellation sometimes played at a key hippie hang- around-place called Gamla Bro. Orhan made his not so glamorous exit from the band after one of these gigs, when Mats had borrowed an invaluable 16th century cello from Kungliga Musikaliska Akademien to be used at the gig. The Turkish cello player simply packed the antique instrument into his car and left, without a trace.

Nobody ever saw him again. But without Orhan’s participation there had been nothing at all, Theo emphasizes.
In the meantime Greg, whom none of the others had yet met, was on his own trip to Asia with his girlfriend Cathrine. He is an American, born in Beverly Hills California, who left USA in 1964 for a long bum trip all over the world collecting stamps for his passport. Greg financed the travels along the way, in the same manner as Guy, through the incomes he recieved as a street singer. “We mostly played Dylan, Kingston Trio and corny stuff” and “We always got more money if a chic was passing the hat around” he recalls. Via the Middle East he came to Europe and eventually Finland. There he recorded three garage/pop singles and joined a tour with the Finnish singer Danny as a supporting act. After about a year he was “thrown out” of the country as he puts it. He then came to Sweden in circa 1967. The first person he met in Sweden was Bill Öhrström, the brother of Guy, and they immediately became friends. Bill was promoting the band Hansson & Karlsson and thought they needed a singer. This led to Hansson & Karlsson playing one gig together with Greg, mostly performing Greg’s songs.
Greg eventually came to join the reformed band, The Quints, which he renamed Atlantic Ocean. Since he didn’t have a work permit in Sweden, Greg started calling himself “Göran Ahlin”. “When we where being interviewed for some news papers I always came off as the Silent Type, since I didn’t want to be spotted as an illegal immigrant and get thrown out of the country”, he recalls. Atlantic Ocean recorded a single in England for CBS and later an album which the company eventually refused to release. A frustrated Greg then stole the tapes from the record company and took them to Finland, where Love Records released them under the title, Tranquility Bay.
In 1969 Greg took time out from the band and left for the trip to Asia mentioned above, a busking adventure which lasted for almost a year. In Pakistan Greg set out to record some music. He had befriended a person who happened to be working at a radio station as a porter. This new acquaintance promised to make his employer’s studio available to Greg one Saturday. Greg enlisted five or six pakistani musicians for the studio date, with his mind set to record his new song, Farmer Jack. Unfortunately the helpful porter had mixed up everything as the studio was already booked for another session, resulting in an embarrassing situation with Greg and his hired musicians being kicked out of the studio before they even got started.
Greg returned to Sweden again in June 14th 1970 the same day as the first free festival at Gärdet took place. Upon his arrival to Stockholm he found himself without a band. Since Greg’s temporary break from the band, Atlantic Ocean had evolved into two new bands, Fläsket Brinner and Jason’s Fleece. The Fläsket Brinner branch of the band performed as Atlantic Ocean for the last time at Gärdet with a surprised Greg watching in the audience. According to Greg there was no spot for him in Jason’s Fleece either. At this time, coming from an electric band and with his recent experiences in Asia in mind, he felt that he wanted to play acoustical music.
Around this time Greg also began organizing concerts at the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm, where a lot of interesting musical activities took place. In the summer of 1970 the Museum had a Tibetan week and Theo, Stickan and Guy were hanging around there playing for several days, sometimes with Don Cherry and his family. They soon caught Greg’s attention, as their Indian flavoured acoustical playing corresponded well to the musical vision inside his head. Soon enough he was a member of the band and he came up with the name Handgjort. Greg is a driven and creative person and soon “took over” the project as an informal conductor-manager for the band. He saw the potential in Handgjort and defined it as a new pop band. The other band members were somewhat stunned over Greg’s enthusiasm and creative ideas.

At the time when Greg joined Handgjort, the band mostly played ragas in the modal scale, usually starting in a melody followed by a longer jam that finally concluded with the initial melody. In this context John Coltrane should be mentioned as an influence. This soon evolved as Greg brought a lot of ideas into the band. He would come up with bits and pieces, usually in the major scale, which the others jammed around until there was a song. Guy contributed themes in a similar way, although mainly in the minor scale. Stickan on the other hand would prefer Indian thalas in the vein of jazz and minimalism. Everything held together under Theo’s steady hands on the tablas. Greg describes himself in Handgjort as the member who was ”the most unabashed with the ideas and the least dexterous with the instruments”.

The band definitely was a mix of the different preferences and influences of the four individuals. When playing live, the music often was improvised and tended to float away, unsure of where to go unless somebody took the lead. The lack of structure could sometimes be very frustrating, as the band members comment today, with the musicians striving in four different directions. The members of Handgjort were all unemployed at the time, living on practically nothing. Their existence was centered around their music, and for a long period of time the band members were very tight on cash. Theo jokingly summarizes the situation as that they ”lived on baked beans and hashish”.

Handgjort played at the second free festival on Gärdet in August 1970 as documented on the double album Festen på Gärdet released on Silence Records (SRS 4603). Silence was an independent record company just set up by two friends and music lovers, Anders Lind and Joseph Hochhauser, mainly with the mission to release Bo Hansson’s album Sagan om Ringen.
As Joseph was studying at the university and Anders had a regular job as sound engineer at Studio Decibel, Silence was just a side-project at this stage. Their ”office” was no more than a corner in the cramped facilities of Studio Decibel on Östhammarsgatan in the district, Gärdet (near the festival field in Stockholm).
In August 1970 Joseph (together with Ingemar Ohlsson, Bengt Göran Staaf and Kjell Johansson from AB Ljudåtergivning who ran the sound at the festival) made the live recordings at Gärdet that eventually formed the basis for the Festen på Gärdet album while Anders was in the USA promoting Sagan om Ringen.
Somehow Greg started to hang around at the Silence ”office” at this time, trying to make himself useful. Conveniently he lived three blocks away in a student girlfriend’s apartment. Greg spent a lot of time at Silence and sometimes recorded bands he liked, although nothing was released. He even moved into the office for a short period of time during a tiff with his girlfriend, sleeping on a desk!
Driven by his ambition and his love of music, Greg started recording Handgjort in September 1970 in Studio Decibel’s small studio that was run by “sound prophet” Ingemar Ohlsson together with Anders Lind and Bengt Göran Staaf. Greg simply showed up at Silence one day and initiated a recording project with his friend Bo Hansson as sound engineer. Greg had helped Bo with his Sagan om Ringen album and Bo was returning the favor.
Anders and Joseph let it all proceed being the music lovers they were, thus giving their silent consent. Greg claims he felt he had to rush on the recordings a bit as he had not been given the full go-ahead from Silence. Guy remembers the recording sessions as quite stressful and even uninspiring under these conditions. One might add that the studio was built solely with the purpose of recording speech, and as such the studio was very small. Furthermore it was built as a floating room with low ceilings so that the musicians were forced to sit on the floor and play, which suited them, of course, just fine. Nevertheless the recording was a struggle for space both physically and musically, as the members comment on the recordings sessions some forty years later.
Greg brought in musician friends to spice up the sessions. He had previously played with Björn J:son Lindh (flute) and Janne Bandel (percussion and wood block, which is not mentioned on the record sleeve) in Atlantic Ocean, and they now had the band Jason’s Fleece. Kenneth Arnström (alto sax) from Jason’s Fleece also joined the recording sessions. Greg describes him as a very positive person, who back then often showed up in many musical constellations such as the later expanded Handgjort, Solen Skiner and Mikael Ramel. (As a sidenote, Arnström and Greg later had a silversmith business together.) Two foreign students at Kungliga Musikaliska Akademien, Dallas Smith (clarinet) and Bruce Green (oboe), were also brought in to the sessions via fellow student J:son Lindh. Guy’s brother Bill Öhrström added some tambourine although he was not credited on the record (the same for the wood block playing of Bandel) .
On the record sleeve Greg took the new pseudonym, “Marcus Brandelius”, the esraj player, since he had found he had problems pronouncing his previous alias, “Göran Ahlin”. In addition to that, one can learn from the sleeve that “Göran Ahlin” produced the sessions and one, “Sverker Ali Khan”, was responsible for the photo and cover design. All pseudonyms for Greg of course. So even though his name isn’t mentioned anywhere on the sleeve, Greg was anonymously ubiquitous.
The exact events surrounding the release of the Handgjort album are a bit unclear, and the memories of the involved parties a bit clouded forty years later. The strange thing about the record is that not only Silence released it (Silence Records SRS 4602), The Finnish label Love Records also released it (Love Records LRLP 24). It hasn’t been possible to find out exactly why it happened to be like this, but as Greg remembers it, Silence was not at first interested in releasing Handgjort. Since Greg had recently been to Love in Finland with the Atlantic Ocean tapes, possibly only a month or so earlier, it was natural to bring over the Handgjort tapes for Finnish release as well. Thus the album was engraved at Love Records and pressed in a micro quantity with Love labels.
When it was decided that Silence would release the album, which must have happened shortly afterwards, the Finnish pressing plant, Finnvox, continued to press the album (now with Silence labels) and that is the reason why the Silence version of the album has matrix numbers in the Love style (LRLP 24 A and B). Anders Lind recalls being blown away upon hearing the Finnish pressing of the album, since the vinyl was so “silent” which suited the music. He was so pleased that he returned to Finnvox a few months later to press Turid’s first album Vittras Visor (Silence Records SRS 4609, Greg contributed some esraj on that album, this time using his real name).
It is unclear if Love ever properly released Handgjort in Finland. It is possible that all Love pressings of the album were shipped to Silence. The few known copies on Love have the Silence album sleeve and seem to have been sold in Stockholm, and Finnish collectors regard the album as the rarest album ever on the Love label. The album was eventually released by Silence on the 4th of December 1970, simultaneously with the more well-known album Sagan om ringen by Bo Hansson.
All of the albums’ covers were made by hand, as an extension of the handmade concept. The core constellation of artists comprised of Greg, who probably painted the vast majority of the sleeves (some of his paintings are signed as GAF or “Marcus B”), and some friends of his – Bo, Judith, Claes Fellbom, Bertil. The Silence office at Östhammarsgatan turned into a workshop cluttered with paint (mostly acrylic), coloured paper, pieces of cloth and so on. Anders Lind recalls that literally everyone who passed by the office had to contribute with at least one painted cover. As a consequence, most of the musicians that played on the other first albums released by Silence contributed with paintings, but also friends, neighbours, and the occasional odd person happening to pass by ”including the postman”. Guy remembers bringing some sleeves home with him to paint, yet Theo claims he didn’t paint a single cover. The initial ambition was to consistently use a piece of painted canvas, but a lot of variations exist such as melted plastic cutlery and tin, color pencil drawings, cut and glued pieces of paper and cloth, aquarelle paintings and so on.
When the cover was ready, a printed paper strip was glued at the top of it, partly to protect the art on the front (the paintings were not always dry yet) and partly to give the album uniformity. The text Handgjort is printed and not handwritten as one might assume. The inner sleeves were printed by SIB Tryck in Tumba, Sweden, and the cardboard sleeves and paper strips were printed in Finland as Greg got connected with a print shop through Love Records (the sleeves for the second edition in 1973, with the printed purple logotype Handgjort, were manufactured in Waxholm outside Stockholm). Eva Wilke at Silence recalls the covers were folded and glued by ”housewives” living around Stockholm.
While the band was over in Finland to oversee the manufacturing of their LP, Love Records arranged a concert at the Concert Hall in Turku to promote some of their catalog of recording artists. The band members recall that at least the American blues man Eddie Boyd appeared (he had recently moved to Finland and released his album, Praise To Helsinki, on Love Records LRLP 25- the subsequent catalog number after Handgjort). Guy remembers the event as a bit weird. Handgjort came over from the current underground melting pot of Stockholm and found the Finnish public a bit “behind” in their straightness.
While Eddie Boyd was singing his heart out in his praise to Helsinki as he apparently thought he had found paradise, the members of Handgjort got a quite dull impression of the city. According to Stickan, the event was filmed. The whereabouts of the material is unknown though. Back in Stockholm, Handgjort performed a couple of times at Pistolteatern, mostly as a quartet but once together with the Turkish group Maffy Falay and Sevda.
On the 20th of November 1970 an extension of the previous two successful festivals at Gärdet was held. The event was staged indoors at the Art Gallery, Liljevalchs, in Stockholm and was called Tredje Festen (“The Third Festival”) and was apparently filled to the brim with hippies and bands. Guy remembers that Ingemar Böcker of Telefon Paisa, and later Kebnekajse, played piano. (As a side note, parts of Fläsket Brinner’s debut album was recorded there). Handgjort found it difficult to find a place inside the crowded building and eventually ended up in a long narrow stair case leading to the top floor where Greg recalls he strung up a 12 meter wire with the intention of creating the world’s longest guitar string.
A couple of weeks later the Handgjort LP was eventually released. The release party was held at a place in the Old Town of Stockholm called Klubb Kamelen on the 4th of December 1970. Klubb Kamelen hosted various events with esoteric themes and Handgjort apparently fitted in nicely between a Russian theme night and a performance of fire-eaters.

Epilogue
The original Handgjort comes to an end In the spring of 1971 the constellation of Handgjort began to evolve as more musicians joined in. Greg became friends with Mikael Ramel, who was in an experimental and seeking phase of his own musical journey, and they played together in Ramel’s home studio. Ramel also joined Handgjort on a more regular basis together with other musician friends. Handgjort performed at Idun Lovén’s art school in Stockholm and on an open air festival at Slottsparken (the Castle Park) in Uppsala. The extended constellation of Handgjort culminated on the Festival on Gärdet in June 1971 with more contributing musicians than ever before. This performance, documented by Anders Lind and presented partly for the first time as bonus material in this release, also turned out to be the very last performance of Handgjort. At this performance, Handgjort consisted of Greg, Guy, Stickan (Theo was in India for a second round), Kenneth Arnström, Einar Heckscher and Johnny Mowinckel of the band Telefon Paisa, Mats Glenngård, Tomas Netzler and Pelle Lindström of the band Homo Sapiens, Bengt Berger of the band Arbete och Fritid, Mikael Ramel, Rolf Wikström, Don Cherry, Marion Noël, Stefan Nylander among others. The performance was also filmed by film students at Dramatiska Institutet. The performance included both re-arranged versions of songs from the album together with many new songs, written mainly by Greg.
After the musical climax and togetherness of the big band, Handgjort as a quartet folded. Theo was already in Asia, having hitch-hiked to India in a trash-can on a flight via the USSR (Soviet), and soon Guy and his girlfriend Gull-Britt followed him. Greg was extremely enthusiastic about what had happened at their last performance on Gärdet. Inspired by the event he laid down the ground and basic tracks in Studio Decibel a few days later for his next project. The songs he had written in English were reworked by Christian Diesen, today a famous professor of Criminal Law, into Swedish political lyrics. Although these texts turned out to be way too polemic for Greg’s taste, they were nevertheless recorded. ”I had written the music for a musical Christian had set up in Gothenburg – he was returning the favour. My misfortune”. Many of the musicians that had performed as Handgjort on Gärdet contributed to the recordings that were eventually released as the album, Tillsammans (“Together”) by Silence in 1973. On this recording no Indian instruments were used in contrast to Handgjort.
In the meantime a new band emerged, called Mikael Ramel’s Handgjort. The band can be seen as another extension of the big band Handgjort. This band featured Mikael Ramel, Mats Glenngård and Kenneth Arnström from the Gärdet band, together with Benny Svensson and Stefan Höglund. This project was later renamed Sambandet, as it didn’t feature any of the original members of Handgjort, and eventually formed the basis to Ramel’s classic debut album Till Dej (“To You”). It is interesting to note that initially Atlantic Ocean was split into several bands, among them Handgjort, and then Handgjort was split into two musical constellations.
Greg left Silence shortly after the Tillsammans project to take charge of building the common distribution networ,k SAM-distribution (short for “Silence, Alternative, MNW”). SAM-distribution grew quickly into a large and efficient distributor of the records produced by the progressive musical movement in the 1970’s and was active for more than 20 years. Greg kept up his practice of ”borrowing” recording studios, now in Waxholm, the home of SAM and MNW, where he continued creating a stream of musical productions – none like the other, such as Snorungarnas Symfoni, Bild Cirkus, and the Persian Adventure. Contrary to his anti-electric, acoustical passions of the early seventies he went on to become the premier synthesizer artist of Sweden, working with a host of celebrity artists such as Michael Wiehe, Jimmy Page, Björn and Benny, and most continuously a group named Adolphson-Falk, that gained him 3 gold records. Today he works as a composer-musician, author, IT consultant, lecturer at Stockholm University’s Department of Law, graphical artist, and rock climbing instructor.
Guy was disappointed when the Handgjort album didn’t reach a larger audience. After Handgjort, Guy was hired as musician at Pistolteatern in the autumn of 1971, contributing flute and electric piano to the theatrical plays. He got the job in competition with Benny Andersson, and the latter had to find himself another job! Guy then switched to work as a postman, since he the thought the theatre was characterized by a “rather strange allotment policy”. As a note, some people from Pistolteatern joined in for the recording sessions for the Tillsammans album.
Theo began working as a driver and porter at the Stockholm University, where he stayed for his entire working career. He joined a Gypsy band, Ziggidim, together with musicians from Södra Bergens Balalajkor. Ziggidim toured Sweden for a summer and backed Hans Caldaras on two albums. Theo also played on two albums by Lasse Englund and an album by a band called Istid in 1978, which consisted of students at the University where he worked.
After Handgjort Stickan became a woodwork teacher and eventually met his future wife in Nepal in the late 1970’s. He is still working as a teacher and has continued to play the guitar in a rock band.

Original album credits
The original album by Handgjort was recorded in September 1970 at Studio Decibel on an 8-track recorder.
Produced by Göran Ahlin aka Greg FitzPatrick.
Sound by Bo Hansson, Bengt Göran Staaf, Ingemar Ohlsson and Anders Lind. Original cover design by Sverker Ali Khan aka Greg FitzPatrick.
Inner sleeve photography by Ulf Hinders.
Marcus Brandelius aka Greg Fitzpatrick: esraj, vocals Guy Öhrström: acoustic guitar
Stig Arne Karlsson: sitar
Theo Greyerz: tablas
Björn J:son Lindh: flute
Kenneth Arnström: alto saxophone Dallas Smith: clarinet
Bruce Green: oboe
Janne Bandel: gong, wooden block Bill Öhrström: tambourine
In 1970 Greg and Silence had 901 records and covers pressed by Finnvox and 1100 inner sleeves were made by SIB-tryck. In September 1973 Silence repressed 226 copies in Stockholm at Grammoplast. The original matrices were used. 310 covers were printed by Waxholms Tryckeri. By August 1975 a total of 885 copies had been sold, the rest were distributed to the band and as promos to selected journalists. The production made a surplus of 261:18 SEK.
Bonus tracks on CD credits:
The bonus material originates from two different tape sources and a lot of banter between the songs was removed and in one case the song ending was mildly edited. The sound has also been polished slightly. Everything is done carefully by Anders Lind. All bonus material is previously unreleased. 24 minutes worth of live material including atmosphere from Gärdet-festival are included on this CD reissue. The CD-bonus tracks were recorded live at Gärdesfesten in 1971. The CD issue has also one exclusive non-live surprise bonus track.
CD-Bonus recording-credits:
Recorded by Anders Lind, Bengt Göran Staaf, Kjell Johansson and Ingemar Ohlsson (1971).
Greg Fitzpatrick: esraj, acoustic guitar, vocals Guy Öhrström: acoustic guitar
Kenneth Arnström: alto saxophone
Mats Glenngård: violin
Pelle Lindström: acoustic guitar Thomas Netzler: electric bass Johnny Mowinckel: percussion
CD-Reissue credits
Einar Heckscher: vocals, percussion Bengt Berger: percussion
Don Cherry: percussion
Rolf Wikström: percussion
Marion Noël: flute
Stefan Nylander: cello Mikael Ramel: electric guitar
Psykofon Records has striven, as far as possible, to produce this CD-reissue not as a replica but with the same feeling and close to the original album issue. In this process we have worked closely together with Silence Records, who generously have provided lots of information and various bits and pieces out of memory and from their archives.
Executive Producers: Jens Fransén and Peter Redving at Psykofon Records.
Research, liner notes and layout by Jens Fransén and Peter Redving.
Proofread and revised by Greg FitzPatrick, Eva Wilke, Anders Lind and Martina Fransén. CD Master remastered and produced by Anders Lind in March 2010.
All the CD-bonus tracks were selected by Anders and Greg.
Cover and booklet printing by SIB Tryck, Stockholm.
Booklet Front Cover Photography: Ulf Hinders
Photos courtesy of Nils-Johan Norenlind, Gunnar Naeslund and Ulf Hinders.
Original handmade album covers provided by: Peter Nordins, Stefan Dimle,
Patrik Carlsson, Silence and The Psykofon Archives.
Silence Records, SRSCD 3618.
Also available on a Double vinylalbum from Psykofon records (Objekt 1).
The vinyl issue has three more exclusive bonus tracks with altogether 44 minutes worth of live material.
A Silence and   Psykofon coproduction                             
P and C 1970 and 2010 SilenceRecords


