“I like panda / Bye bye Panda” – PANTHERS minus TR…

“I like panda / Bye bye Panda” – PANTHERS minus TRUST minus DAS OATH

“I like panda
Bye bye panda” (Deerhoof)

On 6th September PANTHERS played at K4. DAS OATH, the chaos core unit with CHARLES BRONSON members and Jeroen of COALITION Records had cancelled because one of them had to go back from tour earlier ‘because he had to work’. TRUST, an argentinian all grrl hardcore band had cancelled only a couple of days before because of financial problems with their tour. We had tried to find another band to play with PANTHERS but it was a bit too short notice. (A little rant about artists cancelling their shows will follow soon.)
With only one band playing we had a relaxed evening. The band were nice guys. Urte cooked a great dinner. I was unable to descry who of them had played in ORCHID until they pointed it out to me and said they even had stayed at my house when they had played in Nürnberg back in those chaos-was-them days. Once more I feel superficial for my bad memory concerning names and faces. I’m sorry. Give me a fraction of a conversation that was going on between us and I’ll remember you.

There were 40 or 50 people showing up for the PANTHERS show. Could have been more but they all were into having a good time so it was okay. I hate it when a band gets that folded arms / safety distance / petrified kind of crowd which sometimes happens in Nürnberg, especially if the show is on Sundays, Mondays or Tuesdays.
What a LED ZEPPELIN t-shirt predicted in the afternoon came true at night: PANTHERS played a r.o.c.k. show with a nice noise r.o.c.k. flavour, only sounding a tad too grunge to totally meet my taste. Still I enjoyed the show very much. They are such an energetic hard rocking love spreading bunch on stage. I also liked how they don’t look like your usual wide stance stoner rock “i’m-sooo-male-of-the-species!” when they rock. There are no handclaps and hipswings in today’s hard rock heaven. We need more Panthers.
Only thing I don’t like is them being on VICE records. It would be nice if someone of you US Americans could share an opinion on VICE magazine over there. The German version only just had been launched and its strained anti-political-correctness wanna-be provocative approach is pathetic. I hardly ever read a mag that was so totally written from a white middle class hetero male point of view. Like a written pendant to Jackass but at least in Jackass those guys are only out to hurt themselves most of the time. VICE in Germany fits almost scaringly well to the german battle rap with its nationalist, homophobic and sexist exaggerations. I really hope it will not find a place in the punk scene. Why I asked for an US American view? Cause I think that political correctness went much further in the USA than it ever did here. If it’s pushed to a prudery and censorship level I understand agitating against it. In Germany it doesn’t really make sense cause you have tit&bum mags openly displayed in shops, you have phone sex lines dominating the TV ads from 10 p.m. on through the whole night, etc. VICE doesn’t make sense here and I’d like to know if it makes sense in the USA or if it also has this sad core of white middle class hetero boys being scared of the other parts of this worlds’ population.
Oh, and back to the PANTHERS: Knowing that members of ORCHID (having been a smart band whose (socio-)political background I never questioned) play in PANTHERS made me blindly trust their attitude too and it was kind of a surprise to see them releasing their stuff in and thereby supporting that VICE context.
There are pictures of their show on
www.evemassacre.de.
http://www.myspace.com/panthers

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