Mikael Bengtsson is not my cousin... I never really met him until Saturday night... but it sounds like a zany coming of age foreign film title, doesn't it?
Mikael records and plays shows under the name Juni Jarvi... formerly he was known as Juniper, but apparently a Christian rock band shared that name, thus the change.
He came over to New Brunswick for a wedding in the area and stuck around for a vacation and to play a couple of shows including one at The Capital in Fredericton.He played two short sets featuring mostly the same material... not a prolific writer, though he did debut a new song written to celebrate the nuptials. His quiet style on finger plucked acoustic guitar and more uptempo ukelele (with occasional iPod accompaniment) did not exactly meet the prevailing mood of a Saturday night jam-jacked groove hounds. Luckily the small crowd was respectful, excepting a couple of boiled-meat brain buffoons congratulating each other briefly on their comic styleee at the bar (sample: "heh, heh, give the guy a break... heh, heh... his dog died and his truck won't start... heh, heh." You have to imagine this repartee as being a few decibels louder than the actual musical performance which, ostensibly, everyone else in the room had been paying attention to).
Anyhow it was rough edged, sloppy good fun, and even well worth the subsequent horror of walking home up York, cutting through the parking lot between Sobeys and the 20/20 Club right around closing time... just in time to witness the disgorging of it's clientele... not unlike seeing misshapen, makeup-less clowns stumbling out of the big top at the end of a long days work.
Here's Juni's website and a song he performed called Rooftops, though this is not from the Capital performance but live from an earlier show. Enjoy.
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