“Ban marriage” – of locusts, burns and elektronisch superrockens

“You don’t want you stitches sewn cause then you’ll have the big unknown.”
The Paper Chase


Friday I got up after four hours of sleep to make breakfast for The Locust and of course they got up much later than they had said they wanted to have breakfast. My usual morning grumpiness was sustained by being hungover and my kitchen is too small for many people anyway so I used the time to do some work at the computer while they had breakfast. Justin even did the washing up which is nice. It’s one of those things that show a little respect. Other bands leave you with cigarette stubbs on freshly laid floor. Later I took him to a pharmacy cause he had an ear infection. This guy is some serious sicknesses and accidents collector, the poor puppy. Then we drove to the K4, not without stopping by a health food store. I learned that Tartex has vegan Ravioli. It still was time for a stroll around town and I chatted a bit with Jeroen and helped him find a internet place and then everyone met at the van with pictures of dulcimer players and weird sausage postcards. Then I drove Justin and Gabe to the physiotherapist and the rest took off to a laundry Dominik had showed them. At the Reha place they had chilling background muzak on and I suddenly felt every missing minute of sleep. Could have dozed away instantly. Then I drove them to the laundry and when they asked for a nearby place for vegan food I phoned the guys at the K4 as some friends of ours had their wedding reception there and had a huge vegan buffet and I thought it was worth asking if maybe there was enough to feed the band too. Some of them gave their ‘okay’ but later it proved wrong and we had the guys waiting for the food in vain. I felt sorry for that but couldn’t help it. So we said goodbye and I went to that marriage reception and I had the stupidest accident ever: they had some balloon thing going on for which you write your adress on a postcard and knot it to a balloon and then everybody let’s their balloon fly and whoever finds one of the balloons is supposed to send them back. Well, they also put sparklers at the end of the balloon’s cord and people lit them before they let the balloon go. Some of them were too heavy and one of those came down and the sparkler got caught in my hair and slipped under my t-shirt und I got a bad burning on my right shoulder blade. Actually I think it was luck that the thing hit me as I was standing next to a friend who had carried her baby on her back and I wouldn’t want to know how bad those burns would be for such a little kid. Dominik cured me western style with pouring 73% rum over the wound for disinfection and that almost made me scream out. I stuck around for some food and chats but left after I had heard the first speech cause it just made me sick.

Here’s a picture, take it as when we were kids and compaired our scraped knees:

“We aren’t fools to fall in love but let ‘coupledom’ die: Ban marriage!”
Hidden Cameras

I really really like the guys who married on that day but I admit that I am totally anti-marriage. If just for the romantic reason that I don’t think love should be institutionalised. Of course also because I hate the traditionalist conservative heteronormative family politics behind it and the fact that the state tries to force you into it with the financial advantages you get if you’re married. Isn’t that institutionalised discrimation somehow? To see people give in to that while still claiming to be ‘different’ or ‘special’ is so damn hypocritical.
Being ‘different’ is overrated anyway. To celebrate and cultivate and snob-i-vate ‘being different’ most of the times is the luxury of middle class white boys who never have experienced exclusion for reasons beyond their choice. Woof! But that’s a different subject. Guess I’m in rant mood, sorry.

“Oh, precautions, yes precautions
But if you’re playing with a gun, you could kill someone
And in the dark it’s hard to know a friend
But I’m not angry, I won’t be forever angry”
Ted Leo

Soooo …. I went home early from the marriage but didn’t sleep very good as the branding was on the shoulder I usually sleep on and it hurt. On Saturday morning and noon I got a few phone calls about K4 related problems and already felt that I was in a totally fragile condition. I hate it when I feel that weak. Tinnitus set in and I wasn’t in any mood to talk to anybody but close friends. The ideal condition to promote a party for which we had invited a couple of live guests: Elektronisch Superrocken. Jool & Paluka had djed in Stuttgart the night before and had hardly slept at all, so I think Tobi was the only one of us who was really in shape. Keys were missing, a cable of the PA was broken, and I didn’t have the power to organise anything or talk to people, so I first headed upstairs to clean the Locust mess in the backstage (there were some really creative phallified food things) so Näd Mika & Cameltoe and Washer and Zimmer could use it later. I copied some deco stuff with Daniel and then the dinner that Anna had cooked for us was ready and that was excellent. With the first piece of hot lasagne I realised that I hadn’t eaten warm food for three days or longer. It felt so good. Really felt like warming me up from the inside. Then somebody mentioned it already was 10 pm so I went upstairs and put a record on and suddenly Andi was done with fixing the lights and the first guests came in and almost instantly there were people dancing and I felt like armageddon cause I had forgotten my headphones and djing without headphones sucks, especially with electronic music but somehow it worked but I was glad when Tobi joined me. One girl asked for Crystal Castles which was great but I didn’t have them with me as I thought we’d only spin rather straight non-noisy music. Stupid me. As much as I hate boring requests I love it if people request unusual stuff that fits my taste. The rest of the night was a blurr. We had far more guests than we had expected, not only inside but also outside on the street smoking. Most of them moved whenever a car passed but one guy didn’t and the driver got out and smacked him and the cops came and Tobi and me talked to the cops. They were surprisingly friendly. We didn’t just worry bout the “drunks vs cars” problem but also bout the age of some of the people who were there. Of course our guys at the entry and the bar did their best to monitor the age situation, and they had to cope with some seriously offending responses, but you never know if there’s still some too young folk inside and it gets damned expensive for us if we let that happen. Usually the mutual trust method works fine but on that night there were simply too many people and too many idiots among the nice people. Burning posters on the street and shouting down the bar staff and sitting down on the mixing console and I don’t know what else. It didn’t get out of control but with my nerves being less steel than electric eel I experienced the night as an endless blurr of dancing madness, watchfulness, cheering people, complaining people, too many people, and an endless series of almost-catastrophes and a constant level of pain as countless people touched my brand wound when talking to me. I think it was five when I gave up and drove home. I wasn’t even drunk. I think it was the first time that I was the first one to stop djing but I simply had no ideas and no feeling for it anymore. I know it doesn’t sound like it but it still was a great night, I must say. Outstanding. A thousand thanks to Tobi and Jool and Paluka and Dominik and Melinda for cleaning up the mess!

Yesterday we discussed how to handle future parties and we agreed none of us wants to do all that work for brainless scum that just wants to test their limits. Those guys fit better into some large-capacity-disco-dumpster where they have bouncers to police idiots like them. We’d rather have no parties than ending up like that. I seriously hope our next one, Sophisticated Boom Boom on the 22nd of September, will go back to the usual atmosphere of mutual respect that makes everybody feel welcome, no matter if guest or if bar staff. We want to party together, not against each other. How does that sound?

peace,
eve

x

PS.: Next weekend Tobi and me will dj in Berlin, 8th of September at the Basso. It would be nice to see some familiar faces! As half of Nuremberg has already moved to that silly big city it should be no problem, shouldn’t it?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *