It all started... ...sometime back in 1980 in the suburbs of Malmö in south of Sweden. In a small dusty room four guys are doing their best to play their instruments. Per on guitar and Fjalle screaming vocals...they call their band Moderat Likvidation Meanwhile in Malmö City bands like Hjärnsubstans and Black Uniforms are doing the very same. Hjärnsubstans had Stefan on drums and Sami played the bass, while Cliff was the drummer in Black Uniforms. In 1981 Per and Fjalle starts to hang out with the punx in Malmö. They often meet up in a cellar behind the central station where bands like R.P Savoy (where both Cliff and Stefan have played drums), Black Uniforms, Sterila Stenciler and Cell 13 (Tobbe) among others rehearsed, or just hanged around. Soon Sami and Stefan joined Per and Fjalle in Moderat Likvidation. Songs like 10 Timmar and Brända Celler are being made. In the beginning of -82 Sami got tired of the bass, and hung up his bondagepants in a closet somewhere. His substitute was Cliff, who quit drumming for Black Uniforms, to pick up the bass in M.L. The band does two rehearsals at a pigfarm in Svingsta before they make a chaotic gig on a youth recreation centre in Malmö, supported by bands like Disaster and Hjärnsubstans (now with Tobbe). The newspaper the day after had a story about punk, disorder and discharged fire extinguishers! This year Moderat Likvidation also makes their first studiorecording at Startrack Studios in Malmö. They record Nitad, White rastas, Hiroshima, Marionett i kedjor, Proggrebell, Brända celler, Tio timmar and Enola gay. The songs end up on different compilation cassettes and- years later- cd´s. There is also a cassette-release called "Before EightyFour", but none of the guys knew where it came from!? Songs are played on the radio and now people starts to hear about Moderat Likvidation for real. Sometime during 1983 Fjalle quits and get replaced by Tobbe. The band started to get more gigs now, among other things they play as main attraction in Malmö Folkets Park- two times the same year. They feel ready to hit the studio (Startrack) again and they record the songs Nitad, Sprängd, Dödens Barn, Tio Timmar, Enola Gay and Atombomb. This recording became the original 7" EP, much thanks to Per who made an effort gathering money to this selfpaid album. Only 4 days later(!) it was time for M.L to record again. This time it was a recording paid by the Swedish National Radio, which took place at the Victoria Theater in Malmö. The songs this time was Köttahuve, KKK, Sne 83, SPD and Våld. When it was done they realized they had 10 minutes left of the time given. In this 10 minutes they wrote music and lyrics for the song Anti Fag. The most difficult part in this was to prevent Tobbe from laughing when singing the lyrics. It didn´t fully succeed, which can be heard in the song. This recording became the cassette Anti Fag Music, which made some people wanna discuss the meaning of the title. They now started to have a more intense period of gigs. Memorable among others are two gigs in Göteborg with Anti Cimex. There was also a gig in Helsingborg where a bunch of nazi-skinheads showed up and wanted to discuss the song Köttahuve (Meathead), which was all about… naziskins. This “discussion” took place in a dark alley after the gig. However, when Tobbe started waving with a Magnum 44 they didn't wanna “talk” anymore but ran away. They didn't know it was a plugged gun. There was a story about this incident in a local paper, and nobody knew how it got there!?. But the outcome was to the punk-rockers satisfaction, cause there were less incidents like this afterwards. This story is the reason why "Tobbe=Clintan" was carved out on the original EP (Clintan=swedish nickname for Clint Eastwood). After some gigs in -84 Stefan quits the band. The band finds another drummer and continues playing more gigs... they also have some plans about changing their name to Liquidation, and to start playing songs with english lyrics. They write the songs Soldier Without Fear and Speed Trap but find no time to record them. There’s a big turbulence in the Malmö punk scene these days and things are not quite the same anymore and in the end of -84 Cliff leaves the band. Tobbe and Per continues for a little while, selling the EP, raising a few more gigs with a stream of different band members (even Fjalle got back a short moment to play bass) – none of them able to match the successful combination of Stefan and Cliff. These turns by the end of their career was most unfortunate, for about the same time as the saga of Moderat Likvidation ends, their work had finally started paying off. By late spring 1985, when Tobbe and Per finally gives up and dissolves the band, they were requested for touring in Finland, England and Italy. But as the guys in M.L. says: “We were never into becoming famous, we just had a good time playing punk rock, getting pissed and raising hell”. Ironically history has proven them wrong, and despite their anti-heroic attitude (or maybe thanks to it) the name of Moderat Likvidation has reached out around the globe as a signum for early 80’s Scandinavian hard core punk. (R.I.P).
