Eddie Bengtsson is
the greatest Swedish musician in the
synthpop genre. He has been a
part of many of the most
influential (and best) Swedish synthpop bands, such as
Page,
Sista Mannen På Jorden and
S.P.O.C.K.
Eddie's musical career started in 1980 when he started Page together with Marina Schiptjenko (today of Vacuum fame). The story goes that he first purchased a drum set, but then returned to the store and exchanged it for two synthesizers when he realized that you couldn't really make a lot of music with just a couple of drums ... Page lived on for 20 years, until the band finally gave up in April 2000, when Eddie had grown tired of media's negative view on Page (which they saw as outdated crap).
During these twenty years with Sweden's synthpop cult band number one Eddie did a lot more, though. He started Sista Mannen På Jorden as a side-project together with Matts Wiberg in 1986, however none of the members were interested in spending more time on the band than just writing a few songs and making a few live shows. In 1998 Eddie concentrated more and more on SMPJ though, and they were given a record deal by Subspace Communications. As of September 2001 SMPJ have released four CD's, and Sista Mannen På Jorden is now the only "major" band that Eddie Bengtsson is involved with.
There is more however. In 1988 a man named Alexander Hofman started a band called "Mr. Spock" together with another man named Finn Albertsson. After talking to Paramount Pictures about the name, they soon changed the name of the band to Star Pilot On Channel K, or S.P.O.C.K in short. Eddie Bengtsson did not become a full-fledged member of the band until 1993, but he helped the band offstage and he was S.P.O.C.K's song writer from the very beginning. On S.P.O.C.K's first record release (the 7" "Silicon Dream" from 1990) Eddie's credited for "Tunes", "Additional Instruments" and as producer. (Not as song writer though.)
Eddie finally left the band in 1997, presumably because he was tired of all the touring (S.P.O.C.K had been highly successful, and made 48 live appearances in all in 1997) and because he wanted to focus more on his other two bands.
The story of Eddie Bengtsson's musical career doesn't end here though. He also had a musical project together with female vocalist Katarina Larke called XL, which is still at least semi-active (XL was last seen making a live appearance in Malmö in the year 2000). And finally Eddie has a solo (?) project on MP3.com called Jeddy 3, which was started in 2000. Little is known about Jeddy 3 since Eddie refuses to comment on the band, or even acknowledge that he's got anything to do with it. Jeddy 3 has so far put up no more than six songs on MP3.com (all of which are very good, however), but more is surely to come. Eddie Bengtsson never seems to tire of making good synthetic music.
For more info, feel free to visit the following webpages (and e2 nodes).
(This list can also be seen as a list of my sources.)
Page: http://www.subspace.se/page/
Sista Mannen På Jorden: http://www.subspace.se/smpj/
S.P.O.C.K: http://www.subspace.se/spock/
Jeddy 3: http://www.mp3.com/Jeddy3/
This Fish Needs A Bike: http://www.mp3.com/this_fish_needs_a_bi/
(I know very little about XL unfortunately, and have found no person or webpage to enlighten me. If you know anything, feel free to send me a /msg.)