Grass Show

The quintet’s moniker, Grass-Show, nods directly to the horticultural work that first united Peter Agren and Erik Kinell as employees of Falun’s municipal gardening service in Sweden. Rather than devoting every hour to pruning hydrangeas, the pair passed the time absorbing Agren’s Beatles and XTC cassettes while brandishing garden tools like makeshift guitars. Following their move to Stockholm and several intensive songwriting sessions, EMI Sweden recognized promise in the duo’s idiosyncratic vocal blend and assembled a full lineup by recruiting guitarist Robert Gehring, bassist Andrew Dry and drummer Mattius Moberg. The resulting Scandinavian debut album reached Food Records founder Andy Ross, who promptly relocated the group to a shared west London apartment and booked them as opening acts for Kula Shaker and Silver Sun. That shift suited Grass-Show’s longstanding preference for British new-wave textures over the prevailing Swedepop sound of their peers; the point was underscored when the album’s track list featured a version of Ace Of Base’s “All That She Wants” recast in the manner of a youthful Elvis Costello.