(and occasional blog)

August 18

From the archives: Who came first?

A young Mr Leonard (left) in 1984 with Pete's pants? Bonus points for huge fringe.
23 years later Pete is wearing Jan's pants as if no time at all had passed... go figure!

August 15

New pictures from Belleville AROTR here. Photographer unknown, please get in touch!

August 13

Slight change to Beatle Week schedule here.

August 6

Just got back from Belleville, Ontario from one of the best festivals we've ever played! A million thanks first and foremost to Mark Rashotte of All You Need Is Love for inviting us, taking care of us end for being a super person and a great friend!!!

The experience was almost too great to take in, and it still astonishes me that these can be so much love and friendship in this troubled world. There is hope for humanity, partly thanks to the Beatles, and to the people who take the time and effort to organise these kinds of events. We had three days of peace, love and great music, food and drink, and met lots of new fantastic people. It would be unwise to try and thank everyone here, because you always forget someone even though you don't mean to, but a few names needs to be mentioned anyway. Here goes:

Steve Smith & Laurie - for being super friends and for taking us sightseeing and (almost) sailing
Mark Beyer - Louiville's own Paul Schaffer, thanks for adding your magic, man.
Jim "Ringo" Martin & Paula - good friends
The Cryers - super band and cool people
All You Need Is Love - no words are enough to describe this fantastic band!
Hal Bruce - the one and only, our Nova Scotian mate
John Doud & British Export
Vicki & Marian - friends for five years now, always there, love you guys
Mindy - she's back! In body and spirit
The Gang - for always being there...
Don Butler - guitarist, sound man, dude
Sound & ligthing crews - great job done
Chefs & bar staff - great food, refreshing drinks,
Travelling Beatleburys - coool band
Gary Peck & Big Black Smoke
allbeatlesstore - get your souvenirs here!
Bob House - photographer
Our fellow musicians - all great, always something new to learn
The fantastic audience
The town of Belleville
Canada - a lot like Sweden, actually
KLM - for getting us there and back on time and in four pieces
Wayne's music store

See you all next year!

July 8

The giglist for Beatleweek 2008 has arrived! And it's looking good too.... find it here, see you there!

July 5

A little "manckelemang" with the guestbook forced us to change some parameters and clean it up. There was a lot of duplicates and triplicates for some reason. Sorted now! Sorry, please add you posts again, folks.

See some of you in Belleville and Liverpool in August!

May 15

New pictures from a big outdoor gig in Sweden on June 7 can be found here (this will take you to our Swedish homepage, don't be confused by the language).

May 15

We have a guestbook at our Swedish site www.repeatles.se as well. It's is in Swedish (really) but you can write in English (double-really) as well.
Go and fill it up, please!

To everyone visiting AROTR: Have a great time and a few Bud Lights and Screwdrivers on us! See you next year.

PL&U from the Repeatles

April 11

Spring is just around the corner in Sweden. I guess that's all for now...

March 19

Rehearsing for the My Generation show on April 25. New songs are: "She's Not There", "Light My Fire",  "Tainted Love", "What'cha Gonna Do About It",
"For Your Love" and "Gimme Some Lovin'". We have also managed to crack "Band On The Run" and "Baby You're A Rich Man"...

Steve is having a knee operation today, good luck , man. (Just spoke to him, it went well!)

Jan's mom would have turned 90 (!) today, had she still been alive. Happy Birthday, mom!

March 6, 2008

We have a new, swedish version of our homepage under construction. For those of you who want to check it out please go to repeatles.se or
click the swedish flag on the index page. There will be a guestbook eventually, when I  have figured out how to do it without Frontpage Extentions...

Peace
Web Massa

February 13, 2008

Updated the setlists.

February 7, 2008

Updates to BAND and BIOS.

February 6, 2008

Gear page updated, finally.

February 4, 2008

Some new live pictures here! Thanks to Tommie Ekström for bringing a good camera to the last gig.

January 31, 2008

Last day of January and we managed to survive Blue Monday, and cancelled and turbulent flights to the UK!

Last night's gig at Big Ben Pub showed that we can still play Beatles for two hours non-stop without rehearsing.
Thanks to my band mates for a fun night! More info about our future plans coming soon...

January 24, 2008

More subtle design changes... comments please!

January 16, 2008

I added a little in the adress field, which will appear in you favorites menu when you save this website.
Try it, it looks really cool I think.

Hey, just put an old song of ours in the download section! It's Keys To Your Heart from Mathew Street Beat.
Use your headphones and crank the volume up high!

January 4, 2008

The Repeatles have so far played 305 gigs.
This is an approximate number covering 1997-2007 and it is very close to the truth.
Now this may not seem much compared to a full time professional band,
but taken into account that we all work full time, it is pretty amazing!

December 31

Last day of 2007... let's hope 2008 is a peaceful, honest, eventful and prosperous year for ev-ev-everyone.

Hats of to Nikki, John, Susanna, Clabbe, Arnie, Pete, Steve, Olle, Ronnie, Sebastian, Kent, Anders, "the Crew", Cinnober, Vicki, MERC, Michelle at Viva, Red Chili, Redbone, Micke, Hal & Shelley, Rocks Off, Skifs, Tommy Blom, Berndte, Annika & Anna, Mona & Annika, Bolle, Lillis & Morris, Marble (RIP), Special Fly, Cypoint, Markit CRT, Palms of Goa, Macca, Lucinda, Ray & Brian, Peder & Sex Pistols, Pret'A'Manger, Citadines, London Transport, BA & SAS, Sven the Mod, Itchycoo Park... anyone I accidentally left off this list and God in any shape or form. 

Yours truly Jan Leonard Borgh

December 21

Finally some pictures from this year's Beatleweek added to the Gallery.

December 18

The tour is over, the future is unwritten, and the one elusive chord is still out there somewhere. Thanks to everyone for a splendid past two months!

The Repeatles will now take a well deserved break, and we see you all when we see you...

MERRY CHRISTMAS & A HAPPY NEW YEAR from Jan, Arnie, Pete & Steve

December 11

So we finally did it... we played Stockholm, Rival, home of many shows and big Swedish acts. Owned by Benny Andersson of ABBA fame, and friend of Clabbe. Our families were there, Björn Skifs was there, our friends were there, and we played a blinder!!! God damn, it was fun and it was good and Pete Townshend would've been proud!!! The sound guy failed to record our show (but I'm still alive) and maaaan it would have been great to have on tape. Of course they managed to capture the second act (mostly Liverpool) but there you go... The luck of the Irish... Love the guys. I'm buying back my Rickenbacker 330/12 so that's cool... thanks EMA Telstar for paying us shitloads of cash! Pete and Arnie got new cowboy boots and I got Clabbes's old ones to add to my collection. Steve's lost some weight (good) and I've lost track of time (bad). Tomorrow I'm going to London Transport Museum to buy a London Underground coach for my son John, and excuse me for rambling, but I've had a few with my former boss, and I met Jack Mittleman on his way to see Led Zeppelin and life is fucking great and  I love my woman and Lucinda Williams and the rest is history...

Thank the Lord and Jimi for E7-13 or whatever it's called...

Peace, Love & Pitbulls from Jan Leonard "the Brick Lane Crawler" Borgh (and the sometimes "Leadenhall Street Wanderer", but mostly "the Carnaby Street Fiend"............................ Love is Love and Not Fade Away!!!

December 4

London in December... ah, Christmas decorations in Regent Street, beautifully lit bridges across the Thames, lost luggage at Heathrow and cancelled flights due to severe winds over the British isles. And the LIAYN-tour continues. Seven dates left, including one at Rival in Stockholm where our friends and families will be able to see the whole show. A very hectic past 6 months, and a blank canvas for 2008. How about that, huh? Looks like we will be playing the Beatle festival in Belleville, Ontario, Canada next August. We'll see how that goes... and Beatleweek of course. And maybe Argentina... until then, take care and check back for further updates.

Best wishes for the festive season from Jan & The Repeatables

December 1

Hi All,

Here are some news from the tour we are on...

We are 12 gigs down the line, and we are about to play the 4th gig in Malmö tonight. We do the tour together with Beatles tribute band Liverpool and Swedish artist Clabbe af Geijerstam, who was a big star in the 60s with Ola & The Janglers.

We start off the show with "When You Walk In The Room" followed by "Just One Look" by the Hollies. Clabbe jokes and and tells stories from Sweden in the 60s and mentions when the Who visited Stockholm in 1966. We play "Substitute", "Itchycoo Park" and "Let's Dance" and then it's time for the Kinks: "All Day and All Of The Night" merged with "You Really Got Me".

Over to the Byrds and "Mr Tambourine Man". The first act ends with us and Clabbe doing "Paint It Black". The second act is mostly Liverpool, but we play "Cadillac". "Alex Is The Man" (by Ola & Janglers, written by Clabbe), "I'm A Believer" and "California Dreaming".

We end the show by joining Liverpool on "All You Need Is Love". The encores are many and secret for now. Don't want to spoile the party!
Love you all and see you soon. Merry Christmas from Jan

October 29

Howarya? This is Kid Borghese blogging ya from East London. Our Love Is All You Need Tour together with Clabbe and Liverpool is now 3 gigs old and it's great! Big stages, big crew, good wine and great people. Thanks a lot to those who attended the shows in Uppsala, Göteborg and Norrköping. We even had Tony from Rocks Off guesting on Paint It Black in Gbg, cheers, mate! Next stop on the rock'n'rollercoaster is Västerås on November 4.

And hey, they have added a gig in Stocholm, at Rival on December 9. Be there or be elsewhere... just listening to Mott The Hoople, and that reminds me of the Roundhouse in Camden, where I had the pleasure of seeing Sir Paul last thursday. What a treat that was, and I didn't even have to queue! Life is fair sometimes, don't you think (yeah, and I really DO think)! Mott also makes me think of our band, the Repeatles, and how "Steven lost his childlike dreams, Pete lost his guitar, and Arnie's just a Rock'n'Roll star. In my room, the future looms as I lost a thing or two... but learned so much from being here without you"! Sorry Ian, it's the red wine talking...

Here in London Halloween is all over us, but I'm sticking to red grapefruit instead of pumpkins. Ah, Hunter is singing about the Dudes, and that gorgeous Mick Ralphs guitar is all over the tracks... I'm in 6-string heaven! Elsewhere, SAS has grounded all Dash 8s and Madeleine McCann is still missing. But on the good side, Argentina has a female president, who is NOT the new Evita Peron. But still, they keep it in the family. I'm looking forward to seeing her next year when we go back to Buenos Aires...

Well Dudes, you'd better hang on to yerselves!

Cheers, Peace & Canada Geese
Jan "Janne Borgh" Leonard

September 12

Some new/old gigs added to GIGS.

August 30

Thanks everyone for a smashing Beatleweek 2007! A special thanks to our friends the Tearaways and Hal Bruce for sharing the stage with us on several occasions. Thanks also to Itchycoo Park and Rocks Off, Instant Karma and All You Need Is Love and all our brothers and sisters from Argentina.
Extra special thanks to everyone who came to see us play, midday, evening and late night! No names, none forgotten!

See you all sometime, anywhere...

Jan, Pete, Steve & Arnie

August 23

Details of the upcoming "Love Is All You Need Tour" now confirmed. Check out the dates here.

August 9

Mathew Street Festival cancelled. Repeatles' gig list amended, new, cool gigs added. Detail of Swedish tour soon to be published. Weather in Great Britain improving. Amy Whinehouse survived suspected o.d. Reported sightings of webmaster in East London. Rumour not confirmed...

Hip & Happening:

MERC Store - Carnaby Street, W1
Vibe Bar - Brick Lane, E1
Red Chili - Leman Street, E1
Shakespeare's Head - Carnaby Street, W1

July 15

Guestbook open again... webmaster AWOL...

July 9

Guestbook temporarily closed for maintenance... sorry for the inconvenience!

June 30

New pics coming shortly...

 June 12

One month later and all four of us are back home again.

 May 12

Two new gigs in the Stockholm area. Getting ready for America... One new song: Go All The Way by the Raspberries.
My old band The Moderns used to do a few of their songs, namely Tonight and Ecstacy and that was 28 years ago! Funny how time flies and everything goes full circle. Even got me a new pair of JAM-shoes in London the other week. The Mod fashion is really back in swing again (guess it never really went away) with Ben Sherman and Merc to mention two brands that are really happening right now.

April 29

The dates and venues for Beatleweek have been announced. Check our schedule here. See you all sometime, anywhere...

March 26

The cancelled gig and TV appearance are beyond our control. If you wanna see Steve's new kit, click here and scroll down...

January 5

New gigs lined up here.

December 29

Happy New Year to everyone in Repeatle-land from the Caffe Trieste Kid and all his little helpers. Got a call from Redbone on Christmas Eve and he told me he'd seen a feature on Caffe Trieste in a program about San Francisco. All the beat poets used to hang out there, like Ginsberg, Kerouac etc... pretty cool place on the corner of Grant and Vallejo in the North Beach area of S.F. Coincidentally, there is a Caffe Trieste in Sausalito harbour as well, which is also a nice place to visit... oh yeah, the Repeatles are on holiday (not together)  until January 3!

Dream On & Rock On into 2007!

December 14

New links to A Hard Day's Hotel and Cavern City Tours at the LINKS page. Me, Pete and Arnie will be on Swedish TV tomorrow perfoming three songs acoustically! We will try and get a copy of the broadcast and if possible put it on the download page. Steve can't make it as he is cutting someone's barnet...

November 30

RE: Miscredit on the BIOS page, the picture was taken by Babs Walker, a no one else! Sorry about that.

November 27

Thanks to Tabbe and Hotell Swania in Trollhättan for the great gig last saturday. Also a big hand to Jimmie Rudolphsson and Tony from Rocks Off  for guesting with us. It was great seeing all the people we had met in Liverpool travel from all over Sweden to see us play!

Let's hope this event becomes a tradition...

November 13

The homepage is undergoing some cosmetic changes. I have also updated the bios section and will add more photos to the Gallery. I will also add some new songs for you to download very soon.

November 6

We are forced to make changes to the guestbook over and over again to keep the spammers out. Unfortunately there isn't a good security check in Frontpage, so I had to come up with a very rudimentary scheme which you can see when you go to the guestbook. Let's see if you can crack it folks. I'm sure you can, and I hope the spam-generating programs aren't Beatles fans!

October 16

We are rehearsing a lot of new songs. A few from the Small Faces, more Beatles, among them Cry For A Shadow, Magical Mystery Tour, I Me Mine, Soldier Of Love and Sgt Pepper (reprise). Also we are working on the Summer Of Love theme for next year's AROTR, starting with California Dreaming. The next few months will hopefully see a lot of action from the Repeatles in the marketing area. We need to get out MORE!

September 28

We are building a new gallery of people we have met over the years. Take a look here.

September 3

... Verisimilitude? The real thing? Does it even matter, said the Poet to the Kid, as they walked down the half empty hall towards gate 63. Déja Vu set in big time when the Dude proclaimed; it's time for Jägermeister and coffee! Touched by fear of flying again, the Poet thought as he sat down and wondered if the guitars would even reach the plane before take-off. Switching between the real world and this semi-real fantasy world is not always easy. If I could only step in and out of character like an actor, the Poet thought as the plane took off. But there is a fine line between madness and creation as they say, and with these Cuban-heeled Beatle boots it's easy to trip...

    The Man had decided to avoid Blackpool this time and once the Kid had agreed to take the train, which turned out to be cheaper than the bus due to an offer of a cheap return ticket included in the price, the four heroes relaxed on the 1 hour journey from Manchester to Liverpool Lime Street. He should have been in the Army, the Poet mused as he pictured the Man shouting and pointing orders. But due to this fact, a lot of things actually got done! The Man is a doer and a perfect gentelman too! 

    The band known as the Repeatles have returned to Liverpool for the fourth consecutive year to play at the Beatleweek festival. This year they had lost two of their big gigs due to the fact that bigger named acts needed those slots. These things happen all the time and is just a part of the game, and nothing to worry too much about. Gerry & The Pacemakers are a big name act in England and especially in Liverpool. They packed the Pier Head stage and went down a storm. What this actually resulted in was a much tighter and focussed Repeatles. They actually had something to prove! "We can handle this in style said the Dude, and show Liverpool why we should be on the big stages again next year". Nobody needed to have worried, Once the action started, the chemistry was back. The Poet and the Kid trading licks and vocals, the Dude looking cooler by the minute, and the Man hitting the drums and eyeing the girls in style! The mysterious mr Redbone? Him and the Poet go back some 24 years and he has returned for the 2nd time to help out and be a good friend and mediator. 

    Indian dinners, breakfasts at the Pilgrim (Joe, we love you), the Man and his hamburgers, late nights at the Adelphi, friends, friends, friends... can there really be this much love in one place in 2006? The Poet thought about John. Paul George and Ringo and if they could ever have imagined what they would create? Not a monster but a beautiful thing that people from all over the world can share and enjoy. Remember the fire at the Adephi? Everyone is evacuated, the gigs get cancelled, and the singalong actually continues on the stairs outside, led of course by Hal Bruce, and people just can not stop singing. Song after song in (almost) perfect harmony. The Dude and the Poet were touched...

    What makes a band real, the Poet wondered? Style, songs, passion, obsession, friendship, warmth, kindness on the battlefield? Love IS a battlefield! How can you maintain a certain dignity in the middle of all the madness? By being 100% true to yourself all the time, and to try and treat this music as if it were one's own, that is how. Walking swiftly through the late night streets of Liverpool, after deciding to leave the last night's partying to the people who deserved it, these thoughts fell upon him like a ton of bricks. We are all made of stars, which would then make us all stars, wouldn't it? Ah, some light at the end of the tunnel after all... maybe there is hope... we could be heroes, just for one day!

A lot of new pictures can be found here, thanks to Ms Sandy!     

August 11

We have a temporary mail address for you to use if you want to reach us -->

This is because of some technical issues with the ISP. 

Let's hope everyone can travel safely and without too much hassle, to Liverpool. Specially our friends in the US, The Tearaways, Instant Karma, Hal Bruce et al. There will be issues with guitars that have to be ckecked but we'll just grin and bear it. See you soon! 

(what's so funny 'bout) Peace, Love & Understanding?

August 9

Cavern City Tours have just cancelled two of our gigs at the Mathew Street Festival, in order to have Gerry & The Pacemakers play.
See the latest schedule here.

August 1

Three weeks to Beatleweek! I put some new pictures from Nashville here. More to come...

July 20

Guestbook cleanup again! Crushed Velvet Kisses now mixed and ready for August release. Contains the following tracks:

July 12

You can find a new song to download. It's from Crushed Velvet Kisses, and it's called "Sandy Sunshine".

June 27

One new pic from Halifax can be found here. Thanks Kathy Gurholt! More pics coming soon... actually some of them sre already there! Seven pics from AROTR by Susan Park here.

June 25

We now have our own MySpace site thanks to Ms Sunshine! Check it out here 

June 22

Woahh, it took a while to get back to normal (whatever that is) again... Abbey Road On The River & Halifax, what can I say? We have seen Chicago, met and hung with great friends, passed Niagra Falls & Toronto, seen thunderstorms I didn't believe existed, lost luggage that never appeared until we got back to Sweden and last but not least, played fantastic shows and strange shows, in strange places.

Let's start from the beginning: we left Arlanda for Chicago, flying SAS cause they are very good, and I thought we would avoid hassle as we were flying nonstop. I had another lesson to learn! By the way, it's Jan writing in case anyone wondered, so it's 1st person from now on. The Caffe Trieste Kid is on holiday! Anyway my bag with all my clothes and guitar accessories never arrived at O'Hare.  5 days later it turned up back in Stockholm! Suffice to say I had problems again on day one on a Repeatle-trip. I got hit in the eye upon landing in Buenos Aires last year, but that's a differnt story. I figure someone is trying to tell me something... I want to thank Steve and Steph Angeli in particular for caring and helping out! Now I'm just waiting for SAS to reimburse me...

In Chicago we met our friends Steph, Rita, Kim & Denise and spent some quality time with them. Even got to ride a limo thanks to Rita! We met the New York Dolls at O'Hare on our way to Louisville. Especially cool for Pete as they are his heroes. I like 'em too...

Halifax, Dartmouth & Lawrencetown, Peggy's Cove... Hal & Shelly and all their friends (wow-est), Our Friends' Pub, Canadian TV " The Noon Show" with Duane Lowe, meeting Julia & Roger and becoming their friends, and the Maritime Beatle Event it self with Hal, Scott, Jay Goeppner, Abbey Road and everyone who worked, danced, laughed, hugged, shared beers & smokes, and made the event the SUPER event it was, THANK YOU!!! We will be back again. We stayed with Hal & Shelley for a week and had a really great time with singalongs, barbeques and great friendship. A final humungous THANK YOU to everyone involved in making this trip so special!

One last thing: on our way back "via Chicago" (Wilco song title) we were met at O'Hare by Jay Gueppner from Instant Karma cause he wanted to by us a drink before we left! Isn't that cool? Cheers Jay, see you in Liverpool!

We will now take a summer break until August 2-3 when we play the Big Ben in Stockholm, and in the meantime me and Steve will remix some of the songs on our new album, and Arnie & Pete will do the new cover.

And here it is in writing: we will not have an alter-ego! We will be the Repeatles even if we perform only originals! 

And I wish for a fantastic and slightly magic Midsummer Night for everyone!
(watch out for Pan, he a cheeky l'il devil)
Jan Leonard, Bromma, Sweden

April 30

Had to clean up the guestbook again!

April 28

Another gig at the Big Ben pub announced. August 2-3. The Repeatles/The Repeats, what is that all about? We are trying it out as the alter-ego when we play our own songs. Arnie created the logo you see on the index page... Pete is working on the album cover. Steve is selling his boat! Jan is off to the studio to add guitars and vocals. Redbone is coming to Liverpool. We use mostly Fender gear these days. 

April 12

Hi everyone in Repeatle-land! The recording of what will become "Crushed Velvet Kisses" is underway and we have cut 10 background tracks. There are 6 originals and 4 covers. We have some overdubs, the vocals and the mixing still to do. From what we have done so far I can tell you that it will be smoking! It's got a lot of Who influences as well as some Clash/Jam and late 70's punk, but also epic 80/90s guitar rock, and of course a bit of the Beatles (as always, they loom in the background somehow). Everyone is putting their heart into it  and I think we have progressed into much more of an original band, which is the plan, at least for me as songwriter. Some of these songs have been around for a while now and it's great to hear the boys making them into their songs as well.

We will not stop playing all the great 60s stuff that we do. Don't worry about that. We have 2 missions now: One being the groovy 60s tribute band and the other to try and market our own songs and visions. This can be done in parallell and is not mutually exclusive. One day we will put on a show of epic proportions featuring the best of the 60s and the best of the Repeatles. After all, you have to keep dreaming right...

Can't wait to get the vocals done and of course to get the final product in our hands and get the reaction from you guys! We will definitely play some of the songs in Liverpool this summer...

You will have to wait a while before we reveal the covers we have recorded, but I can tell this: Happy Together is one of them! The rest will have to be a secret for now...

Take it easy out there and we'll see you all soon...

Crushed Velvet Kisses from the Caffe Trieste Kid

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