“When the rain begins to fall” – rain, new release, rain, ted leo, rain, g-hot, rain, …
“And when the rain begins to fall I’ll be the sunshine in your life
You know that we can have it all and everything will be allright.”
Jermain Jackson & Pia Zadora
I made a song called “Fuel (done with dichotomies, fun with dichotomies)” for the Feedback & Disaster project initiated by Doris Disaster. Now it has been released on a compilation called “Too Much, Too Fast, Too True, Too Slow” on True Call Records. Among others it has songs by Washer from Austria and Zimmer from Berlin whom we have invited to rock Nürnberg with their fizzy cut up techno beats on September the 1st (with Elektronisch Rocken and Näd Mika).
I put my track from this compilation up in my myspace player. If you think “enough with all those free mp3s! let’s spend some money!” I would appreciate you to buy the compilation. I’ve got a few copies, so you can drop me an email and get it directly from me: eve@evemassacre.de
Or you get it from Hausmusik, Soul Seduction, Warszawa, and many more. Actually even from amazon.de and well-sorted record stores.
Here’s an info on what the compilation is about:
“TOO MUCH TOO FAST TOO TRUE TOO SLOW The topic of F&D no3 is exaggeration as artistic strategy and means of expression. Themes are expressed in extreme ways to set the focus on them, political and social problems we have to face every day are displayed in exaggerated ways in order to regain public interest. Artists are asked to blur the border between truth and lie, finally they are allowed to tell stories beyond credibility. Samples can be changed from real sounds into mistakeable noises or neurotic repetitions. The participants are invited to trick their audience or at least to let them believe they are tricked. Exaggeration as a strategy against blunting, radicalness as a policy to attract attention. Technically, exaggeration means the possibility of using forms of artistic creation common audio-formats don’t allow. Extreme noises next to almost noiseless audio-pieces, endless repetition follows crazed audio-collages and kitsch pop songs.”
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It’s raining rain. Hallelujah. It’s nice if you wake up far too early and rain is hammering down on your window pane and you snuggle up and sleep another hour or two. It’s still okay if you get up, sip your first cup of tea and look drowsily out of the window. At noon though it would be nice, please, if it could stop and if it got at least a little brighter than this:
This greyness everywhere keeps me constantly tired and last week had so many things that brought me down. Helplessness is the worse feeling of all. I’m glad I have spared one of the happier days lately and can write about it now.
A little intermezzo first: G-Hot and Boss A are getting sued for the song “Keine Toleranz” that calls for violence and zero tolerance against gay people. (And they got kicked out by Aggro Berlin. Fear for their image or sale numbers? Is it more okay to rap about raping women to death than about killing gays? Double standards, tsk.) The lyrics of “Keine Toleranz” go something like “What happened? Why are they accepted now, there were days when they got bisected with an axe”, “in my opinion they don’t deserve to live”, “I take 10 machine guns to the CSD and fight for the straight guys”. A female rapper from Berlin turned them in now and the Landeskriminalamt Berlin says her lawsuit might be successful. I’m all against censorship but it makes me sick to see mainstream hiphop spread hate lyrics like that. It’s not exactly like those hiphop kids are so far beyond homophobia that you could say it’s harmless joking, especially as there’s zero irony in that song. I’ve read about a survey for Germany by Maneo in which 24.000 gay people took part: 35% of them have experienced physical homophobic violence within the last 12 months (from those who were younger than 18 even 63%). 90% don’t call the police. In more than 60% of those cases it was groups of offenders and not just a single person. Don’t be surprised if you see me explode the next time someone uses “faggot” as casual cussword.
Hm. Actually I had wanted to write about something to cheer me up. On the 14th of June Ted Leo & The Pharmacists and The Flesh played in Nürnberg. Even a couple of days later that show got me smiling stupidly happy. First nice surprise was in the afternoon, when I hurried out of the Zentralcafé straight into the arms of James Canty. I hadn’t known that he plays with Ted Leo again and it is always a pleasure to meet him. Some people make you feel like friends even if you have met and talked just a few times. Why I was in a hurry? I tried to get to the tattoo shop before it closed. It’s been quite a few years since I had my last tattoo so I was a bit excited. The tattooer first said he hadn’t time before october or november but then looked through every little corner of his calendar and found me a date on the 1st of August. Yeah! Unicorns ahoy! 🙂
After that it was one of those nights at the K4 that I love… on which it’s not just like watching a show and then leave again… no, those nights on which you meet many people you like – even Kerstin und Tobi were there, back from their Africa trip – and when you slip from one conversation into another and time passes almost too smoothly and quickly. The show was brillant. Once more I was suprised how many Ted Leo songs I know almost by heart. That music is so catchy and charismatic and I think you really have to see them live to get what is so special about them. It’s like you get the most cheerful music – full of mod and soul nostalgia and at the same time fresher than any of the indie bands of the day – delivered with a presence of political attitude that is more than just the lyrics. And what makes it differ from most other political music: It’s positive. It fills with hope and energy instead of fueling hate against whatever ‘enemy’. I’m going into raptures again, uh? Okay, I’ll stop and rather send you to the photo section at www.evemassacre.org to see some snaps or to www.eartrumpet.net to see some proper pictures of the Munich show. The Flesh played too but I only watched a song or two as I went for dinner while they played. It was better then when I’ve seen them two years ago but somehow a bit too sterile and hip for my taste, but like I said: I’ve only watched one song.
Another show I haven’t written about yet was Owen and The City On Film. I missed the latter but Owen was great. Beautiful squiggled storytelling songwriter songs. I really like his voice and it was cool that people were totally quiet when he played. After the show, before we went to my place where they stayed overnight, we sat in the K4 garden to finish our drinks we chatted a little, or rather the guys talked some nerdy musicians ‘i know thisandthat artist personally and know about that detail about thisandthat artists’ record deal etc.’ music talk and their girlfriends listened and waited. Sometimes it’s better to just listen to the music.
Last weekend was so la la too. I had slept very bad on Thursday night and was tired as hell when we started putting up the stuff for the Nurotic Soundsystem night with Maga Bo. It was nice to celebrate Tobi’s birthday but somehow djing didn’t roll good for me that night. Don’t know why. Didn’t feel right. There weren’t very much people showing up but at least when Maga Bo started his set the dancefloor was crowded for a while. I liked lots of the afro and brazil stuff he played. He seemed a very nice person too but sadly I wasn’t fit enough for conversation AND djing on that night.
On Saturday it was like I had already expected: DJing after hardcore shows doesn’t work. No one stayed and danced which is sad cause people missed out on one of the best guitar music sets I’ve ever played, I swear! It was a nice relaxed evening nevertheless.
Yesterday I’ve let my poor cat out again despite all that bird flu no go zone crap. It drove him mad stay inside the house for a week and what’s worse: it drove me mad to get his accusatory looks and meows all the time. He’s too old to kill a bird and get infected anyway. At least I hope so.
Have I ever mentioned that I don’t like beards? Lately there seems to be a little beard renaissance and it feels wrong. I don’t know what I dislike more: the way beards tell my gendercrushing side “hey, see, I’m 100% totally manlymanlymale!”, or if my fashionista sense feels offended by its hippie “it’s just natural, let it all grow” aspect, or if I don’t like how it hides men’s faces, or the hygienic aspect – see, there’s many reasons why not to have beards.
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Tonight it would be nice if you came to see Mika Miko and No Age play at the K4. You won’t regret it.
If you feel like staying home and reading and browsing I have some recommendations for you:
Max Tundra‘s blog about hating leggings.
Agent Lovelette‘s blog, the most charming prose poetic mp3 blogging around.
From BoingBoing: Torrentfreaks‘Anti Digital Right Management’ T-Shirt Contest Winners
Justin Pearson‘s biographical blog, now with pictures. (BTW Ocrilim cancelled his european dates with The Locust, now Aux Raus will be the tour support)
Or you could simply go and calculate how much coffee, tea, coke or red bull it would take to kill you.