“Comes in bells, your servant, dont forsake him
Strike, dear mistress, and cure his heart …
I am tired, I am weary
I could sleep for a thousand years
A thousand dreams that would awake me
Different colors made of tears”
Velvet Underground, ‘Venus In Furs’

The M TO THE V Festival was wonderful. Lots of nice people to chat along with and lots of great bands to watch. I was happy that so many people showed up although there was no really well-known or headliner band. The musikverein wheel of fortune Quirin has made was cool too! And I drank a bit too much of the punch that was my contribution. I took quite a few snaps and you’ll find them over in the pictures section.

And hey, among the dozens of musicians of the six bands that played we even there even was one female! A friend has reminded me of what actually lingers as a dark shadow of bad conscience over all the last shows: Where are the girls, where are the women, where are the ladies in today’s underground music? Can you please get your bloody asses in motion and grab yourself some instrument and mic start making some noise? From all the booking requests we (musikverein) get for shows there’s still 90% male artists. It’s the 21st century, damnit! Will it ever change?

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I’m a bit lazy with new songs myself though. Today I’ve kind of finished a song I had left simmering for a while. I hate it when I can’t get it all done in one piece but it’s not that easy when you make beats, synths and vocals yourself and produce it too although you don’t really have much clue of it. I did the rearrangement of the instrumental part yesterday, wrote the lyrics and vocal lines today and recorded it. Now I got stuck with equing and compressing and finding the best effects for the vocals. Wish it would be done right now.

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I’ve got Velvet Underground’s ‘Venus In Furs’ stuck in my head since a couple of days and youtubed this Warhol clip of it for you cause it’s such a wonderful song:

I remember drunkenly discussing a part of the lyrics with some band when we drove to my place but I don’t remember which band and when it was.

I would like to hear Get Hustle covering that song or “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane:

And I would please like to get a pill to make me small.

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This morning I recollected Jack/Pete of World/Inferno telling me how great it is when during a live show you feel so high as if you were on drugs and suddenly realize that you are not but that what you feel actually is real ecstasy.

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I’ve listened through most of the cover versions that Buffet Libre so nicely arranged on their website: They have a big 80s cover versions project called “Rewind” with artists like Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, South Central, Dragonette and many more. You can download the single cover songs and watch little clips of the original tune or you can download all the fiftysomething tunes in one big zip.
Cool cover versions are a guilty pleasure of mine. My favourite one of those is RAC featuring Karl Kling covering A-ha’s “Take On Me” in a bleep-noise-pop kind of way. South Central‘s take on Big Black’s ‘Kerosene’ is cool too. Go have a listen yourselves!

Not a real cover but I like Men‘s (a Le Tigre side project) remix of the BeeGees‘ “More Than A Woman”. A nice and solid queer electro trash pop thingy.

Oh, and with all the talk about the new Girltalk stuff over at GYBO I’ve reuploaded this monster of a mix. I still love (almost) every second of it.

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In other news I still hate myself, the rest of the world and am feeling a bit lonely but at the same time the pure thought of meeting a friend and having a proper personal conversation about myself exhausts and disgruntles me. I hate it that these days I don’t even manage to keep track of friends’ birthdays.

Well, it’s good that tomorrow there’ll be another big la famiglia event to dissolve my little self in: Melting Pop. We’ll already meet in the afternoon to have enough time to decorate which will be a lot of work but hopefully worth it cause we want it to become a night to remember! Last year I already was exhausted when we opened the doors but the party crowd pouring in and lots of nice little chats and impressions pumped enough endorphines back into my veins to stay till seven or eight in the morning until we had everything cleaned up. Exhausting but worth it.
Please don’t miss it!
It’s one of the few big events in town that’s organised by a loose collective of befriended djs of several more or less underground parties in town. No big club promoter is behind it, no professional bouncers hired. Just the djs and friends from Musikverein and Cafe Kaya for the door and bar. The money will go to a charity we’ve not yet decided on. There’ll be 10 dj teams from 12 different parties spinning in two rooms so there should be music for everyone’s taste to dance to and it should be a good and friendly atmosphere (if only because I’m in the mood to kick any ass that discommodes others).

Oh, and it will be the very very last chance ever to dance to the Sophisticated Boom Boom tunes! We’re on at 3pm on the big floor upstairs. Yes, 3pm. As if any of us but Tobi would be sober enough to dj properly at that time of the night. 😉

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Yesterday I got my bandnew shiny copy of The Bug’s ‘London Zoo’ but although it is – Tobi, you’re right! – a great successor to ‘Pressure’ and although it makes more than good for the mediocre teasing live show at the OK in April I won’t take it with me to Melting Pop tomorrow because limited-triple-180g-vinyl is cool for posing but far too heavy to carry around with me when djing. 🙂
It brings together his harsh dancehall/ragga riddims with hints of grime and fresh dubstep ideas. I remember him already being too bassy and loud to cope with back in his noisy Techno Animals days. Anyway, buy that album. It’s already one of the best of 2008.