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The beginning - 1998 ?

The band first got together in the fall of -98 (some will say spring -99), and the original lineup was Niklas(vocals), Hasse(guitar), Lorenzo(bass), and Danne on drums. After just a couple of rehersals Danne decided to quit and along came Viktor to bang the drums, followed by leadguitarist Tobbe and the band turned into a five piece.

The first demo recorded was a two song CD with "Infected" and "What´s it gonna be?" and it proved that the herbert punksound of Dim´s Rebellion was there to stay a while.

Learning to play in an upright position - 1999

In the early summer of 1999 Dim´s decided to record a 4 track demo, and the man for the job was Johan.

Johan was running a studio in Vasastan, Stockholm and was hired to record that odd piece, one song was originally 6 minutes long and would later become known as "King of my day". However the recordingsession turned into chaos and the band found out that it was more fun smoking a couple of million cigarettes in a studio with NO SMOKING signs all over it, and drain so many beercans as possible than actually play music, so the recorded tracks dissappeared forever. (or did they?)

The first gig was in Tre Backar, Stockholm in the late summer of -99, with Guttersnipe, Chinese Takeaway, and The Pints, followed by their first gig abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark with The Pints and danish hardcore act Intoxicated Bugs.

For various reasons Niklas left the band (or actually they dropped the whole band for a couple of weeks) and Lorenzo got dressed up for singing and they were back to basic in a four piece constellation once again.

The eleventh hour, and a new millenium - 2000

During the spring/summer of 2000 the band left their old rehersalstudio in Sundbyberg, and met up with Johan who had found a new location for his studio in Liljeholmen, Said and done! the band moved in to this bathroom sized studio, and started to reherse some new material, two songs called "Gods and Heroes" and "Do you understand".

These two songs would eventually become their first contribution to the fourthcoming swedish punkcompilation Brewed in Sweden.

Once again they began recording two songs for the new swedish "All-star" punk CD (a CD without a single swedish lyric, by the way ;-), and the result was.....hm?..go see for yourselves in the mp3 section.

Fortunatly the band had the insight not to release these cuts, due to the terrible sound quality, but instead take the bull by the horn and record it all over again, the only thing was that Johan was on the run for a new location on Gärdet in Stockholm, where his studio Asbest Produktion is located up to this day.

So at the 11th hour, just days before deadline, the band and Johan managed to build a temporary recordingstudio and in late december record the tracks all over again, this time with Johan playing organ, and release them on Brewed in Sweden volume 1 called: "Next to the gods", and "Rich little bum".

Somekind of feedback - 2001

Since the use of saxophones and organs never has been part of the traditional lineup in punk music, it´s nothing new under the sun, bands like Angelic Upstarts, X-ray Spex, The Clash, and legendary The Jam have all made good use of these instruments, but Swedish bands have always prefered the cosy action of a 4 piece.

In time for their second gig abroad, this one in Aarhus (but still in Denmark), there was a vacant seat in the tour bus so Hasse asked Johan if he wanted to follow the band to the gig and perhaps be a part of the band for one gig only, and so it turned out to be that the bands sole interest in saxophones and organs originated around gas money.

With a couple of ska, punk, soul, and reggae bands in his backpocket Johan became a bandmember in the spring of -01 and the band turned into a five piece for the second time.The band also had a lot of catching up to do with the sceduled release of an EP on the swedish label A message to you (AMTY) so once again they found themselves in the penaltybooth of the studio, tracks like "Reclaim yourself", "People like you", and two new versions of the appriciated songs "Rich little bum", and "Next to the gods EP version" saw the light of day under that session, but they were not to be released for a year.

In the fall of 2001, and because of the great reviews of Brewed in Sweden, the man behind the compilation "Pike" thought that Dim´s should be present on the vol. II as well, but the band didn´t really think they were up to the job until Lorenzo had an idea and went back to his 6 minutes worth of punkopera and chopped it to pieces and threw it back in under the name "King of my day", and together with a song called "Pride" the showed up once more on Brewed in Sweden vol. II

Bringing the "sub" into urban music - 2002

At the end of 2001 and early 2002 a new community was taking it´s first steps on the web and it became known as PUNKSTHLM, it was a great counterbalance to the big, and semi-big recordlabels that had just laid their greedy eyes on the new wave of punk.

Together with 5 or 6 other bands Dim´s decided to catch the PUNKSTHLM train under somekind of "safety in numbers" agenda and it worked really well with "internet based music", a great website, and even liveshows from time to time.

In the beginning of april, it was time for the release of "Dim´s Rebellion", a four track vinyl EP, and this one was awaited by fans and friends, it received very good reviews although the vinyl sound quality was poor. And now the band was contacted by the people in west (Norway) for a gig in Oslo. But then the leadguitarist Tobbe decided to call it quit and leave the band, again it was down to a four piece, only this time it was the loss of a guitarist and a planned gig in Norway that made things a little more complicated.

After a couple of stressful weeks they finally found a new guitarist in Oscar, and they went off on a chaotic journey to Norway.

When the band returned to Stockholm after the gig Lorenzo had enough of bassplaying and singing at the same time so Dim´s turned into a "bigband", six piece act with the addition of the "doublebassfiddeling straight into bluegrass pick a bale of cotton" persona called Matte.

Four new songs was recorded under this period: "In my bed", "Now we know", "Fade away", and the Motörhead speziale "1916".

Note: The year of 2002 was shadowed by the death of Joe Strummer (John Graham Mellor) on the 22 of december. (R.I.P)

The fall of PUNKSTHLM - 2003

In 2003 the band more or less found itself in a deadend, nothing was like it used to be, the fun of making music was swept away, every chord sounded the same nomatter how you put them together and the band actually considered to call it a day.

Maybe one of many reasons lay in the expansion of the lineup, two new band members in just a couple of weeks and therefore both the structure and inspiration of the band went on a "holiday".

Dark inspiration came in the shape of "No one", "Kill yourself", "Without you", and "So low", with a little ray of light in "Fade away" country version,a CD split with HC band Frontlash was beginning to take form.

Starting off as an extremely popular punksite, PUNKSTHLM slowly began to fall apart and by the end of the summer it became clear that it wasn´t built to last. Once again the punkscene of Stockholm found itself without a sugardaddy, and without a proper website Dim´s decided to postpone the release of the split, and start the rehersal for a gig on the St. Pauli FC party at Kafé 44, in Stockholm.

Another small gig was played at Social Flogging in Gamla stan and these gigs were pretty much the highlights of the "Annus Horribilis" of Dim´s Rebellion, and the days of PUNKSTHLM were definitly over.

Getting an act together, and the Nueva Estocolmo - 2004

After the gig at Social Flogging Dim´s knew that they had to tie up all loose ends and record an album, so they went back into the studio and started to reherse a couple of new songs (actually it was 9-10 new songs), and together with 2-3 old songs they had the material for an album. They also had some material for the postponed splitalbum with Frontlash but the man behind the new recordlabel KjellHell just wasn´t keen on that kind of HC so he suggested The Accidents but they were incapable of making their mind up, so in the end it was released with rocksolid The Dontcares.

Oscar left the band and was replaced by Kalle, who had been playing HC/punk for many years and with his musical colourations he took to Dim´s as a duck takes to water.

The band recorded a rehersaldemo in august to make sure the material was O.K (this is a live outtake of "Can´t you see?" demo version and the result was "Can´t you see?" studio version)

Progression have always been a subject to discussion and "What a band should do, and what a band should not do" is always hot stuff for musiclovers, so Dims decided not to follow the "do´s and dont´s" of conventional punkmusic, but instead try and do something to stand up for when all is said and all is done.

Finally to end the discussion about Dims turning into a popband, or the conspiracy theories about this ridiculous thing called "Power Pop Punk" (Thanx alot Kjell), we must give notice to this reflection:

"What is punk, and who is the most punk of them all?"

In the beginning of the 80´s I received a postcard from my fathers stay in London and it wrote: "Greetings from London", and there were these two rather odd looking guys in funny hairdoes and shiny leather jackets holding up their fingers in somekind of V-shape salute, and for many years I believed that they were the true faces of punk.

So what is punk, and what is not? Is it about NOT having a job?, Is it about spikes?, Is it about giving the finger?, Is it about all the safetypins you can eat?, Is it about getting up on stage and perform those 3 badly rehersed major chords through a busted solidstate amp?, Is it about 1977?, Is it about England or the USA?, does it only come out at night?...or on saturdays?, or does it come out at all?, are you excluded from the band of merry "knowitallpunks" the day you walk your kids to school?, ...is that it?

What about The Clash?, Did they miss the train to "punkrock hall of fame" the day they signed on to CBS?, is Angelic Upstarts "Still from the heart" really a punkalbum?, or was Sex Pistols punkrock at all?, what about The Ramones with their up to date medival paige punkrock hairdoes?....I sincerely think that they have all contributed to the world wide punkscene in what way they ever could.

One thing is for certain, punkmusic is constantly under the pressure of time and will only hit you in the right place if it treats contemporary questions. There´s no point of doing stuff like "Police oppression" in 2005, Mensi made his point some 25 years ago when a policeman actually could use brutal force without the risk of loosing his job.

The finest punkmusic ever recorded was in the days when the music was shaking the establishment, nowdays it´s all about recapitulation and xeroxing the past. We will never again hear the anger of a young Jimmy Pursey, the fury of Blitz, or even the playful cocky attitude of "Stinky" Turner, if all we do is take a look in the rearview mirror. Dims Rebellion can only carry their own small part of the legacy of punk and together with contemporary bands try to tell their own story of punkmusic.