“We read eunuch porn” – shows, movies, rants
“We’re the unicorns and we read eunuch porn
We’re the unicorns and we’re people too
Don’t you stop believing in me!
(The Unicorns)
Last week me and some friends drove to the ISLANDS show in Erlangen. Thanks to Eva for driving the sober me there and to Tobi for driving the tipsy me home. The ISLANDS show was nice although it sadly took place inside and not as open air show. The bar room at the E-Werk is divided in several narrow levels for people to stand or sit at tables. It’s perfect for readings or for slow, quiet shows but I guess you will hardly get to see people dancing there.
ISLANDS looked much younger than I had expected and a looked like a nicely random bunch of un-scenester kids. I loved the way how some of them didn’t look up after a song until they heard people clapping and cheering. It was nice to see them beam up into the crowd then, as if they had passed some test. (Though I shouldn’t pick on their shyness as I also was too shy: of course I didn’t say hello from you, Shawn. 😉 ) Their show made me feel good. Their fragile indiepop somehow revives the innocence that 60s pop à la Kinks managed to suggest so fine, but it’s too quirky to just be filed under ‘nostalgia’ and there’s a certain feel of bitterness underneath that I like. With all the sugary melody attacks from violins and clarinets I understand that for some people it’s on the edge of being too much cuteness to bear over the length of a whole show. I love songs like “Don’t call me Whitney, Bobby” and “Rough Gem” but like the album the live show didn’t blow me away as a whole. It had many wonderful moments though. Here are a few pictures.
“Stay for a while
You make us smile”
(Marc Bolan, from the ‘Unicorn’ album)
The day after that I drove to Munich to see HYACINTH, a french chaos core band, at the Kafe Kult, and to visit friends. The drive there was a bit too much stop and go for my taste as there were short attacks of heavy rain all the time. I had accidentally caught a butterfly in my car which I found out when I suddenly saw it flattering around in my rear mirror. Cheered me up although he struggled a bit to keep his contenance. (He survived by the way: the next day Kerstin placed him on a nice leaf in front of the Kafe Kult.)
I helped Kerstin and Steffi and the others a little bit in the catering kitchen and at the door but it was more about chatting than being a real help. Oh, and about eating the yummy spicy cake! Tasted like christmas. Happy Birthday again! And Steffi aka RAGARELLA finally promised to come and do some performance in Nuremberg and in the meantime it’s settled: Under the name CRISIS? WHAT CRYSIS! she and a friend will play with CHARIOTS and GET HUSTLE on the 6th of October. Hopefully she will also bring some of her clothes and bags and zine thingies to sell. In the meantime you can and should check out those and other great things at www.craftista.org!
HYACINTH were great. Powerful guitar walls, brutal bass and drums, passionate screamed vocals, an energetic show and a singer who talked to the audience in no less than three languages. And with a good balance between message and humour which is rather rare. An intense show. Nothing more, nothing less. I took some photos, they are here. Oh, another thing: Please, punx: Shaaaave! Touring is no excuse! 😉 I hate beards (with very few exceptions, like the PAPER CHASE bass player or the FOOD FOR ANIMALS guy.).
And can someone explain to me that male urge to get naked in public that seems to have grown in popularity lately, usually I guess especially if there’s only men present. Some time after the show guys from HYACINTH and I think the support band pulled down their trousers and showed each other their cocks and asses, hooting in hysteric fits. I didn’t get it.
Then I had the pleasure to stay at Kerstin’s and Tobi’s place, on their excellent über-big sleeping sofa. We chatted a bit about mafia / gangster movies and although I said that night I don’t like many of those, in the meantime I have figured that’s not that true: I love DONNIE BRASCO and GLORIA (Gena Rowlands is awesome) and LEON THE UNTOUCHABLE. I also like BONNIE AND CLYDE, ROAD TO PERDITION, THE UNTOUCHABLES, GOODFELLAS and ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA, but I’ve never gotten into classics like SCARFACE or THE GODFATHER.
Another movie that doesn’t really fit in with that bunch but that I have really enjoyed was SUMMER OF SAM which I watched last night. In case I’m not the only person who had missed out on this one: It’s a Spike Lee movie on the ‘Son Of Sam’ serial murders back in 1977 in New York about suspicion and what you could subsumise under multiple ways of xenophobia. Colourful and a bit trashy.
Back to last week: I drove home Sunday afternoon and was much too tired and lazy to go to the HARAM and KAOSPILOT show in Würzburg. Instead I spent my time trying to make pizza dough. Took me three hours till it had the consistency it should have. That taught me to appreciate the invention of pizza services.
Well, I ended up driving to Munich again on Tuesday to see them and HARAM at the Kafe Kult. I was a bit exhausted as I had slept very little and we had spend the day beautifying the Zentralcafe: sewing a new curtain for the stage background, sanding and painting tables and chairs, etc. Hope you appreciate it when you come there the next time. Which could for example be next Friday, if you want to join our goodbye-party for Urte, or Saturday to watch my SOPHISTICATED BOOM BOOM dj team lefthandedly battle down the KAROSHI djs of ZUENDFUNK. And please don’t miss the TV ON THE RADIO + SEXO Y DROGA show on Monday! I’m really excited about that.
But back to last Tuesday: Melinda and Sepp came with me and we had an entertaining drive to Munich. She has one of those magic web&walk machines and googled anything we wanted to know for us: What that cherry motif means that so many girls in the punk’n’roll-a-billy scene wear (surprise, surprise: sexiness, innocence, but also fertility. Are you serious, Betties?). Or what the symptoms of Japanese Enzephalitis are (you don’t want to know). It’s somehow awesome and weird at the same time to have access to all kinds of knowledge anywhere anytime.
We arrived just in time to see HARAM play and they were great. Posthardcore with a nice dose of noise rock and great vocals. I haven’t heard any of their records yet but live they are really impressive. KAOSPILOT were a bit disappointing. Although the crowd was really ready to be into them and there was lots of cheering and confetti the band seemed not really to be ‘there’. Sadly there were only some intense moments, the rest was a slightly dull screamo/Neurosis stuff. Maybe my expectations were a bit too high but at least HARAM were really worth the drive to Munich.
“In the distance hear the laughter of the last unicorn”
(America)
This week I also learned about the Invisible Pink Unicorn (IPU), creator of uncertainty, which wonderfully continues the theme of Herr Mueller’s awesome poster motif for Melting Pop. The Invisible Pink Unicorn is a kind of atheist anti-theistic-thesis to show traditional religious believers the arbitrariness of their belief, here‘s the wiki entry for it.
Lately I feel my anti-religious feelings have been sparked again because it seems that increasing parts of a ‘scene’ I had believed to be anti-religious too suddenly has no problems to “tolerate” religion. People don’t mind if bands with christian messages play at their festivals, as long as there’s ‘unity’. Movements like the Jesus Freaks worked their pathetic path inside of what I had thought was a ‘community’ that I had hoped to be a bit more aware of the hierarchic and sexist and homophobic background of such beliefs – and thereby it kind of excludes or at least makes that scene less attractive for female and queer people. But maybe that doesn’t matter as those still are the smallest part of that scene. Tsk. I guess we’re on a new high of a “I don’t care” phase of ‘subculture’. How ‘punk’. It’s scary enough that religion is on a rise in the rest of our society but I had hoped that our niche culture still has some places that are free from that.
Can’t this whole new weird ‘coolness of neo-conservatist shit’ tin be shut and sealed tightly again?
Please, pretty?
Thanks.
[/rant]
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Oh, and something else: Last Friday, 11th August, I watched a movie with Steve Buscemi on TV, it was on TELE 5 I think, and I don’t remember the title and I am too stupid for finding it with the mighty google. If someone saw it too and could tell me the name, please tell me!
Tomorrow Seppo Defect is coming home and that’s good.
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