Didn’t find the time to write here for a couple of days, but now I’m back.
I finished a new song today that came to my mind after last Sunday I had visited my fathers grave for the first time after thirteen years. I don’t know what made me go there and I regret it, but at least it gave me a creative kick in the ass. I hope it doesn’t come across too miserable. :-/ “A.C.A.B.”
I took some pictures at the MEDIENGRUPPE TELEKOMMANDER show, have a look here. I’ll post some comments to the shows tomorrow cause today I’m far too tired.
I’ve just emptied my digicam of last night’s pictures. If you’d like to see some shots of MOVIETONE and CRESCENT go here.
The deadline for the next edition of YOT Zine is approaching and as always I’m pretty worried if I’ll be able to finish my part in time. This last week before it goes to print always clouds my mind. I’m really glad to have the distraction of helping to cook for the CRESCENT & MOVIETONE show tonight.
I found this really good interview with ’emo-tronic saviour’ (I think ’emo-tronic’ really is a nice new subgenre expression for the likes of XIU XIU, isn’t it? I seem to like my drawers… 😉 ) Freddy Ruppert aka THIS SONG IS A MESS BUT SO AM I and would like to share it with you: Light Up The Sky Zine. The part about him shivering uncontrollably on stage reminded me of THE PAPERCHASE singer, so I had a look at their website too and there’s news of these guys: They have a new album waiting for release – it’ll be called “God Bless Your Black Heart” and singer Mr. Congleton says about it: “I hope it hurts like hell.”
I’m really jealous on all you U.K. guys cause they tour there right now. 🙁
(March 16th Barfly – Glasgow
March 17th Croft – Bristol
March 18th Cavern – Exeter
March 19th Wheatsheaf – Oxford
March 20th Freebutt – Brighton
March 21st Needles – London)
And I’ll sit here sullenly grumbling and watching their online video of “Don’t You Wish You Had Some More” instead, the title feeling more sarcastic than ever.
It took me a day to recover — and I still feel in desperate need of this awesome DIY Beauty Kit (video, 12mb or 2mb) for selfmade nosejobs, liposuction or breast implants 😉 — of Friday’s Sophisticated Boom Boom – it was such a great night! The first two hours people were just nodding and watching the video stuff, but after a block of Mash up visuals and Devo’s “Whip it” video, we turned the beamer off and then it only took two songs and people were dancing until curfew. I guess what finally broke the ice was when, after a cd-error forced a little silence, The Darkness crashed in. We had the musically most broad minded party guests ever, I’m really thankful for that – following us when we cruised from Avenue D to T.Rex, from Mudhoney’s “Touch me I’m sick” to Superpitcher, from Jay-Z to LCD Soundsystem or Phoenix. It’s great if you see people enjoying themselves and cheering and clapping to such a broad variety of music. I always missed this kind of dancefloor style where you have a round of electro, half an hour of hiphop, followed by a couple of indiepunk songs – you know, the kind of dj set that lives of exploring how long you have to stick to one genre and when to have a hard break. We had so much fun and really enjoyed ourselves getting so many smiling faces for our selection.
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Apropos ‘You’ll dance to anything’ – some sad news: Dave Blood (DEAD MILKMEN) killed himself two days ago.
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My musical and visual recommendation for today is SSION, pronounced ‘Shun’, as in the final syllable of ‘passion’. This is about really dirty dancing, cheap synths, with a raw garage rock feel, shrieking vocals between Sleater-Kinney and The Make-Up, theatrical approach – and that’s the only problem with it, if you want to call it ‘problem’: they are said to have the weirdest live appearances, with costumes and all, and the music on it’s own isn’t that impressing – not bad, but the album – ‘Opportunity Bless My Soul'(Version City Rec.) – only worked its way into my heart when I watched the 4 contained Quicktime Movies – with pictures it unfolds its greatness. Awesome humor, poking fun e.g. at the current love for goth aesthetics in “let me hear you cry” (nice how the bandshirts say everything), or at guitarwanking rock cliches in “what makes a man start a band?”. And I love the self-contained sexy look on Cody’s face while he’s neon nosepicking. The band is the brainchild of Cody Critcheloe, seemingly part wanna-be Madonna, part wanna-be Guy Picciotto, and he is the guy who did the artwork for the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s ‘Fever To Tell’ album; he is a queer film artist, illustrator, performance artist… Go check SSION’s website out and buy their cd!
MP3s:
“What makes a man start a band?”
“Call out the lions”
Video excerpts:
“Let me hear you cry”
“Call out the lions”
“Anorexia rules, o.k.!”
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Rumours have it that mighty GUYANA PUNCH LINE might have split up – that would be really really ruin my day. It’s possible that Ch.Bickel already has a new band, the NEWGENICS – I hope it’s just a project, like CONFEDERATE FAGG, his queer 80s metal band.
I also still strongly recommend the lecture of his reviews at epinion.com, e.g.:
The greatest punk anthem of all time: Renaissance – Village People
or
PRINCE’S “1999” RECONSIDERED
Sadly my most favourite one (about Meatloaf’s ‘Bat Out Of Hell’) is no longer there like many other brillant ones.
Last night we had ISO 68 playing at the K4 (F.Zimmer of LALI PUNA and Th.Leboeg of KANTE) and I’m not sure what I think of it. I somehow expected it to be a bit less jazzy and a bit more abstract electronics, or with a bit more edges. Still I really enjoyed it as a relaxed yet complex show.
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I was surprised when I read today that the next album of AUTONERVOUS (aka Jessy and Billy of THE VANISHING, a goth postpunk band that almost sounds too much like ‘way back then’, you know, like Tones On Tail etc.) is going to be released on Fatal Records, HANIN ELIAS’ label. Not that they wouldn’t perfectly fit in there with their dark vamp style, but what a contrary to GSL who released their ‘Songs For Psychotic Children’ album. In the same newsletter was an interview excerpt of HANIN with a theory on war that’s so convincing that I wonder why no one has thought of this before 😀
“War is Sex – but it is not necessary and can be changed. I think men created war cause they wanted to create a ritual to copy the female menstruation and bleed and invent something to be useful when the hunting times where over.”
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I’d like to dedicate the mix I did yesterday, “Wolf Child Tribulations”, to Stefan, who introduced me to PATRICK WOLF‘s ‘Lycanthropy’ album and with whom I share the disappointment that there will be no show in Nürnberg on his upcoming tour although we really tried…
🙁 (looks like we have to drive to Munich for a show and watch ISO68 again who play support.)
He plays wonderful fragile electronic folk, like e.g. Ekkehard Ehlers’ MÄRZ, but with a heavier use of instruments like violin, ukelelee, accordion and the likes, and a voice that vaguely reminds me of Marc Almond, and like Almond this young beau from London seems to like posing in a Pierre&Gilles style.
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If you like glitch and cut up electronica, e.g. like Venetian Snares, you definitely should check out DROP THE LIME. I stumbled across it at ENDURO, who added him as “this editions ueberfeature”. It’s not as heavy and Mr. Venezia adds vocals to his weirdotronica… lovely. Check out “Dodgey Daggers” mp3 or go to DROP THE LIME’s cute website, where you have to shoot at hearts to get in and burn little birdies with a lighter to switch through the menu. Lovely.
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A tired Sunday, wasted my time away reading – among other things the diaries on CEX’s website. He’s a talent between indie electronica and hiphop. I really dig his writing style too… cynic, with love, with a love for details… and I was glad to find an acapella of an earlier version of “Stop Eating”, still my favourite song of his “Maryland Mansions” album, so I wasted another couple of hours making a new bootleg: “I survived Bauhaus Cex“.
Last night a friend and me drove to Stuttgart to see ALICIA LEDON and REDWORM’S FARM but we got lost and when we stopped at the venue the ALICIA guys already were loading… it’s the second time I missed them. Sucks. But I got a sweet memorabilia – their split 7″ with MÄD MIKA (including a remix I did for A.L.), released by Dictation Of Brady.
REDWORM’S FARM are an awesome liveband!! I already liked their album but it doesn’t really catch their sound. I wonder how long they played together to work this out – amazing. Somewhere between the ultra-tension of SHELLAC and the smoochy warmth of SONIC YOUTH and the energy of earlier faster FUGAZI songs, but it defo isn’t a rip-off. It really was worth the three hour drive. And it was nice to meet friends I hadn’t seen for a while. Here’s some mp3 links to REDWORM’s FARM songs:
“Two Ways”
“Instrumental”
“And when no hope was left inside
on that starry, starry night
You took your life as lovers often do
But I could have told you, Vincent
This world was never meant
for one as beautiful as you”
Today I finished another song: “Scarry Scarry Night“. I put an mp3 of it on the ‘music’ section of this site.
Of course the title refers to Don McLean’s “Vincent”, an almost a bit too slushy song for my taste, but still nice. The “starry starry night” line popped up in my mind when I was driving home last night, and it reminded of the quote “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture” (was it Elvis Costello who said this?) in its effort to write a song about a painter (van Gogh) and a painting (“The Starry Night”). And it’s somehow special to have a guy who’s himself the subject of a song called “Killing Me Softly With His Song” singing a song about someone who killed himself. Homo faber, the novel by Max Frisch, is another set of associations I had: the taboo of a guy falling in love with his daughter, scientific thinking used as a shield from all the incomprehensibilities of life… to believe that science can explain everything and that innovation always is good… and to forget that it’s only a belief. And Luke Skywalker was the one figure of Star Wars that I always wanted to see fail – he was too ‘good’. And almost more asexual than C3PO. See, Han Solo never needed a symbolic light saber. 😉 I leave it to you to discover the other things that it made into the lyrics and I hope you enjoy the song. Would be nice if you let me know what you think of it!
If somebody has a clue how to make these archive files work with Blogger – please share this secret with me! I just spent half an hour and they still give me a ‘file error’… >:(