Radio Z Nachtclub massacre mix

I’m back on Radio Z and have just done a Nachtclub mix.
You have a chance to relisten as it will be repeated here on livestream at 14:00 uhr (= 2pm gmt+1):
http://radio-z.net/Radio-Z.m3u

Domeyko/Gonzales: Shadow March
Domeyko/Gonzales: Eschatol
http://deathstrobe.bandcamp.com

Luke Dsico: The Mercy Seat

http://lukedsico.bandcamp.com/album/amateur

Turzi – Baltimore (Turzi vs Zombie Zombie alive in Baltimore)
http://www.myspace.com/turzi

Midnight Juggernauts – Lara vs The Savage Pack (LOL Boys remix)
http://www.facebook.com/pages/LOL-Boys/44530251851

Eskmo – Gold & Stone
Eskmo – My Gears Are Starting To Tremble
http://www.facebook.com/ESKMO

1, 2, 3 – Confetti
http://www.myspace.com/1comma2comma3

Devin Therriault – New Horrors
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Devin-Therriault/329766378280

Styrofoam – Extra Careful
http://www.facebook.com/StyrofoamMusic

Body Language – Huffy Ten Speed
http://www.facebook.com/bodylanguagemusic

Houses – Soak It Up
http://www.facebook.com/sunhaus

oOoOO – Burnout Eyess
http://www.myspace.com/wkwkwkwkwkwkwkwk

Salem – Hound
http://www.facebook.com/pages/SALEM/63673823203
http://wwww.sb.hipsterrunoff.com/tag/salem

Zola Jesus – Night
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Zola-Jesus/40150202899

Xiu Xiu – Sashay Away http://www.facebook.com/pages/Xiu-Xiu/106196996078909 – one of the two songs on their wonderful new digital release: http://xiuxiu.org/singles

Bananamania – Alrighty
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bananamania/322795188021

George McCrae – You Treat Me Good
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_McCrae

Trickski – Pill Collins
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Trickski/83232175392

Hudson Mohawke – Acoustic Lady
http://www.facebook.com/hudsonmohawke

aMinus – Billy
http://www.myspace.com/heyminus

Fitout – Gil (LOL Boys & Buckmaster Buckboys remix)
http://www.myspace.com/fitoutrecords

We Are Enfant Terrible – Wild Child (Myd remix)
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Myd/112523426998
http://www.facebook.com/weareenfantterrible

Roska & Untold – Myth
http://www.facebook.com/Roskaroskaroska
http://www.myspace.com/untolduk

Shortstuff – A Rustling
http://www.facebook.com/shortstuffmusic

Cardopusher, Mushug & Goldielocks – Creepin
http://www.facebook.com/pages/GoldieLocks/11091960302
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cardopusher/37714455688
http://www.myspace.com/mushug

Blackpocket – U’re A Sta (Martyn remix)
http://www.myspace.com/blackpocket

Rudi Zygadlo – A Room To Sing
http://www.facebook.com/zygadlomusic

Glasser – Mirrorage
http://www.facebook.com/Glassermusic

Teams – Bali
http://www.facebook.com/pages/teams/121459617877742

“Smashed in the face” – castrop playlist+blurbs + no star cop cast #01

For them, I guess middle-of-the-road is the safest place to be. But, for me, it’s a place where you’re going to get smashed in the face by an oncoming truck.
Patrick Wolf

Little Ninja has been castrated yesterday. He’s still a bit sleepy and clumsy today. I feel slightly evil for having that had done but he doesn’t seem to bother much. He already curls up in the front of my hoodie again while I’m typing this.

Here’s my radio playlist+blurbs from Castrop on Radio Z two days ago.
Here’s the list and a mix at the end:

CURSES! feat. THE JUAN MCLEAN & NANCY WHANG – The Deep End (HOLY GHOST rmx)
Curses! has made a really nice space disco track, especially this Holy Ghost remix version is great. I’ve already played Holy Ghost’s Panthers remix a few months ago, it’s really good too. Curses! is Luca Venezia aka Drop The Lime who is part of a New York music collective that’s all about bass music. I fell in love with his kind of breakcore a few years ago because I thought he had quite a unique sound to it and I loved the vocals on his ‘This Means Forever’ album (2004). I always thought of an ‘out of the ashtray, into the ashtray’ Guy Piciotto when I heard them. You know, that kind of breathless moaning/shouting.

DROP THE LIME – I got you now

Ha, I remember when Tobi and me had the Nurotic Soundsystem breakcore disco night going that this kind of music seemed extreme. Now, just a few years later, with Justice and grime and all these things happening, this doesn’t sound that wild anymore.

PRODIGY – Omen
Aye, the new Prodigy album. Neither fish nor soy. Nor ant. There’s a bit of rave nostalgia going on but no rave enthusiasm and fun coming with it. Glowstyx has mastered the rave revival with a far better hand for irony. The vocals on the new Prodigy are an extra big turn off. I think what makes the album so sad is that there are a lot of nice bits and pieces so you can sense that the creativity and enthusiasm is still there but all those little sparks sound like instantly chocked off. I just don’t get in favour of what.

I get a much better feeling from playing two songs from the GYBO ‘Prodigify Me!’ challenge. These really gave me a big smile:

hXc KITTAH – Rave invaders must die
Dunproofin hosts this track for Miss Kitty so you can download it from free from here.

IRN MINKY – Kenny Everett & Sugar Minott
You can download this track for free from Irn Minky’s website.

After so much rave silliness I thought there should be a counterpoint. Serious music. Music that deals not just as endorphine pusher but with serious subjects. For a smooth transition here’s the King Blues with a political punk song about squatting:

THE KING BLUES – Let’s hang the landlord
Every once in a while a punk nostalgia song finds its way into my heart and although these guys are no new Against Me!s I like quite a few of their songs a lot. And antifa chic is better than empty chic as it at least carries the possibility of raising some kids interest in politics. I guess. 😉

PATRICK WOLF – The childcatcher
This might be one of the most explicit and intense pop songs about child abuse. I love it. I drag out Wolf’s ‘Lycanthropy’ album every few months and really hope that on his next one he will try to return to something equally daring. I still think that ‘Lycanthropy’ captured his talent best: beautiful haunting  music with a raw edge. The later albums lacked those raw and raucous elements and only showed that Wolf needs that contrast to make the beauty of his melodies and vocals shine through. Without them his music just sounds like average teen angst pop songs.
For his new album he goes new financial ways: People can paypal money to a website called www.bandstock.com to contribute to the album, its promotion and the live show. For that you get a few gadgets: free download of the album, possibility to buy a limited edition of the album cheaper, some special shows for members only, etc. And – that’s where it gets really surprising: the people who invested money into the album will get paid back a share of the money the album earns. I took part in this. I think it’s cool to try such new ways and I’m curious about how it will work. Truth is I only paid money to this because I had read that Tilda Swinton will appear on the album. Have I already mentioned in this blog that I love Tilda Swinton. Really? Ach, I don’t get tired of it.
Well, I confess that I don’t really believe that the wolf pack will pay the investors any money back because that sounds too fair to be true but I don’t mind that much and will feel all generous and drink to his great musical past.
Will keep you updated if something interesting happens with it.

Pitchfork has an interview with Patrick Wolf online. It’s a good read. It has majorlabel badmouthing, satanism and the quote I used at the beginning of this blog entry.

XIU XIU – Support our Troops OH! (Black Angels)
This might be the most direct and angry anti-war song of the last years. In it Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart denies any kind of sympathy or even empathy for soldiers. The lyrics go:

Did you know you were going to shoot
off the top of a four year old girl’s head
And look across her car-seat down into her skull
And see into her throat and did you know
that her dad would say to you,
“Please sir, can I take her body home?”
Oh wait, you totally did know… that that would happen
Cuz you’re a jock who was too stupid and too greedy
And too unmotivated to do anything else but still be
The biggest and still do what other people tell you to do
You did it to still be a winner
You shot your grenade launcher into peoples windows and
Into the doors of peoples houses
but you really wanted to shoot it at someone
just to see them blow up.

why should I care if
you die?
ATMOSPHERE – Can’t break
Atmosphere are one of my favourite acts if it comes to alternative hiphop. This song is from their album ‘When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit In Gold’ which they have released on their own label: Rhymesayers Entertainment. I wish I could afford to spend a little more money on records because there is a de luxe edition of it, packaged as a 40-page gold embossed hard cover book featuring an illustrated children’s story written by Slug.

KOTCHY & SHUNDA K – First encounter

Some more good free music comes from Kotchy and Shunda K of Yo Majesty, it’s nice soulful lezzy hiphop. They put an EP of their collaboration online for free. It’s called ‘Le Passion, yo!’ and there’s a download link on their myspace.

METRONOMY – A thing for you (SINDEN rmx)

Sinden does what Sinden does best: turn a cutesy electro pop song into bouncy dancefloor goodness with a bailebassline feel. We had Metronomy playing here in Nuremberg two days ago. It sold out. I liked it. And they seemed nice people. A tad professional but nice. They even did the washing up after breakfast. Which was a kind gesture but unnecessary as I have a mini-dishwasher. I have put some snap shot pictures of their show up on www.myspace.com/musikverein, along with pictures of ♥Selfish Cunt♥ who ruled my world last week (Cam batteries ran out so it’s just a few crap pictures. Sadly.). Totally fell in love with them. Live the instrumental bits could have been a bit noisier and free-er for my taste but listening to their records again now I think they are just the perfect mixture of in-your-face-aggressive politics/rants and a sexy live show with a hint of queer glam. I can’t really compare them with any other band today. The next time they will play here I hope they will have at least as many people at the show as Metronomy. They deserve it. It sometimes breaks my heart that most people prefer going to parties and to shows of bands that get written about in mainstream music press. You guys miss out on such a fantastic parallel universe of music and people.

I digress.

MI AMI – New guitar

Mi Ami sound like Blood-Brothers-gone-Liquid-Liquid-kraut-disco = awesome. Although I guess that association just came to me because their singer Daniel Martin-McCormick (ex-Black Eyes) sounds similarly high-pitched and screamy as Johnny Whitney (BB, now Jaguar Love). Mi Ami have two members of the Dischord free jazz noise rock extravaganza Black Eyes and just like that band I guess Mi Ami will split people into those who think they are genius dancefloor dynamite and those who find them utterly annoying. I love them. Thanks to Thomas Hartmann and Seppo Defect for giving me a heads up on that band.

Their album ‘Watersports’ has just been released on Quarterstick Records, part of Touch And Go who topped the bad news of the indie world last week: They are in such big financial trouble that they put their releases on a hiatus and what’s really really bad: They stop the distribution of other, smaller indie labels. They had a very important function in helping to spread the records of such fine labels as Kill Rock Stars, Suicide Squeeze and many others to the rest of the world. So please, friends – go out and buy some records or cds or mp3s! No use starving those whose work you enjoy.

EDIT: Took the Star Cop cast down again because it wasn’t good. It was neither radio show nor proper mix. Maybe I’ll make it a proper podcast with talking and all. It’s tempting cause I usually digitalise the music I play on Castrop anyway so it wouldn’t be that time consuming to make star cop the english podcast version of my castrop shows. Hm. I’ll give it a thought.

The people of Sarga who will put up their last show, or rather: last festival on the 28th of February have asked me to contribute a song (one from the time when I played at one of their festivals) for a free download compilation. Check their myspace, I’m not sure when the compilation is going online but there are some fine bands contributing so don’t miss out on it!

P.S.: HCpunxfriends – cheer up: Limp Wrist will play at Esslingen’s KOMMA on the 28th of June!

“Deep down” – Castrop playlist, Dr. Who, Batman Begins

“Deep down you may still be that same great kid you used to be. But it’s not who you are underneath, it’s what you do that defines you.” Batman Begins

Here’s my playlist of last week’s Castrop on Radio Z:

Dunproofin: Deebee Planes (a fine M.I.A. mash up, downloadable from his blog, generous as he is)

Sunshine: Top! Top! The Radio (They used to be one of my most favourite livebands back in the ’00s and we’ve put up quite a few shows for them at the K4 and with my old band, The Flamingo Massacres, we played with them lots of times in other towns and they gave us a place to stay in Prague when we once drove there to visit De Facto or Mars Volta. I lost contact and was surprised to hear they have a new record and are quite big in Czech Republic.)

Parts & Labor: Nowhere’s Nigh (They have an excellent new album out called ‘Receivers’. It’s a bit less in-your-face-energetic but not less intense. They are really good at bridging from hymnic melodies to experimental noisy indie. I’m glad we can welcome them again live at the K4 on the 3rd of February, thanks to Tobi.)

Cloud Cult: May Your Hearts Stay Strong (nice experimental Songwriter/Indie with electronics thrown in, they are from Minnesota)

Balkansky: Hipnoza (who says quality dubstep has to come from the UK? This ravey dubstep tune got stuck in my head and the guy who also has released DnB under the moniker of Cooh comes from Bulgaria AFAIK)

Wiley ft. Hot Chip: Step by Step (who’d have thought Wiley+HotChip sounds like a tamer version of Hadouken!?)

Pigeon Funk: Not Gonna (funky sample-sparked project by Sutekh and Kit Clayton. They have their second album out and it sounds as if they had a lot of fun producing it. Not very danceable but fun.)

Edie Sedgwick: Sissy Spacek (Justin Moyer, former member of the wonderful Supersystem, also has his second album out under this name, produced by Ian McKaye BTW. Moyer hasn’t only picked a woman’s alias but live he slips into that persona by dragging up to play that ass-kicking postpunk.)

The Hold Steady: Joke About Jamaica (For quite a while to me The Hold Steady have only been ‘the band for which that Lifter Puller singer guy has stolen Franz Nicolay from World/Inferno Friendship Society‘ and ‘the band with that Lifter Puller guitar player who had played on the Song Of Zarathustra’s (one of my favourite ‘screamo’ bands e.v.e.r.) final tour here in Europe and rumors had it that his presence hadn’t exactly kept the band from splitting up‘. Those two things made me decide not  not to like and listen to The Hold Steady. Thatof course was quite silly because obviously it didn’t matter to them and because it robbed me of some great story teller indie rock which I knew it had to be because I had already liked Lifter Puller a lot. Now, four albums later, I gave in. Yes, they are good at what they do. Mucho good even. And here’s a nice interview with Franz.

Fuck Buttons: Colours Move (‘Load Records drone noise gone pop (if that’s possible)” was my first association and I stick with it and love it. Haven’t heard a whole album though.)

Margarita: Parque Magico (great twisted hi-energy indiepunk from Madrid I instantly enjoyed and after having found out that we have even kind of met before and that they come on tour with the band below I simply had to convince the musikverein to let me put up a show for them in april. Don’t miss them, please!)

Grabba Grabba Tape: Dr. Grox Gronix (electronic duo somewhere between casio-chiptune-core and Daft Punk, erm – sorry: Dat Politics! One of the guys is the maker of Gsssh!Gsssh! Records who have an excellent taste in experimental music and super-chic colourful artwork and packaging.).

Love Of Everything: Drive Through Rainbow (beautiful fragile indie songwriter stuff with that certain weird edge that reminds you that it’s the band of Bobby Burg of Joan Of Arc and Make Believe fame. Thanks to Quirin they will play in Nuremberg in May. Hooray. I like this song a lot because it develops so slowly from sweet guitar plingplong to noisy distorted parts at the end.)

Herman Dune: When We Were Still Friends (I can’t think of Herman Dune without thinking of Jean Reno in ‘Leon’ because of that one time when they played with one or two anti-folk bands in the K4 garden and one of the Dune brothers was such a lookalike I couldn’t stop watching him. They have made an album with some tropical sounds in it and it fits them well although I stick to it: They only develop their full power when watched live.)

Stanley Brinks: Pease Pottage (This is one of the brothers gone solo in Berlin. Tsk, that town doesn’t even stop at splitting bands. I like his solo stuff better than the new Herman Dune stuff because he’s got that certain weirdness that gives songwriter music charisma.)

* _ *

I’m still being kept down by a cold that has already started more than a week ago. My right ear has been blocked since xmas night which keeps me from enjoying music as I can hear hardly anything but a low-frequency rumble on that side. My throat/tonsils seem(s) to ache more every day. I’m getting a bit impatient with getting well. Especially as I’ve been a nice kiddo inhaling salty herbs steam and drink lots of tea and took at least 5 capsules of Gelomyrtol a day, and I have only smoked on two occasions.
The good thing about colds that make your head so fuzzy you can hardly concentrate on reading or anything else is that it’s the perfect time to watch movies. Entertaining make-the-world-go-away movies. That’s what I have mainly been doing the last couple of days: Children Of Men, Harry Potter and The Order Of The Phoenix, Stardust (starring unicorns! yeah!), PS I Love You, Solstorm (Sunstorm), Batman Begins, even half of Titanic and Leon for the x-ths time and:

http://www.evemassacre.org/pix/drwho.jpg

The Next Doctor. The Dr. Who christmas special sadly wasn’t as good as I had hoped it to be but good enough to soothe the withdrawal symptoms. I think the new season won’t start before april. A shame. Last year’s christmas special also wasn’t exactly brilliant but at least it had the glamorous appearance and death of Kylie Minogue and angel robots and a Titanic space cruiser being hit by meteors and almost colliding with the Earth. This year’s xmas episode had lots of cross-references and I think that’s why it seemed it a bit cluttered and left me with a feeling of missing explanations and a lack of surprise twists. What I still don’t get is why Mercy, a woman having been promised liberation by the cybermen when joining them, turns into a Cyberking and not a Cyberqueen, and we also don’t get told what she had wanted to be liberated from. Could have been a little less cryptic here.

http://www.evemassacre.org/pix/batmanbegins.jpg

I have really enjoyed watching Batman Begins. First it felt a bit strange to see the slick Bateman actor as Batman but seeing Bruce Wayne being introduced as such an excentric arrogant rich guy type who else would fit that role better than the American Psycho. A very subjective flaw: I can’t stand the sight of Katie Holmes anymore after all that Cruise/Scientology press. Putting that aside it was a wonderfully dark adventure movie that keeps a fine balance between telling a character-developping story, action scenes and very aesthetic scenery and costumes. More than other Batmann movies this one seems to stress that he is a human super hero without supernatural powers but only special gear. (Somehow I expected Morgan Freeman to come up with some 007-Q jokes when he introduced the gear.)
The gap between the part of Gotham City with the asylum and where the poor people live and the rich people’s part of the town brought Land Of The Dead to my mind. I think the subject of class should maybe better have been left alone in Batman Begins. Romero’s zombies are less deindividualised and more capable of taking any kind of action for the better than the poor people of Gotham: they stay just faceless victims or mad villains and only the people who live on the rich side of town have faces and the power to act. Zombified. But maybe that’s overinterpreting the movie. What really would be going too far is when I would start now on how I compared the scenes down the wellshaft with those in Murakami’s ‘Wind-up Bird Chronicles’, haha. I’ll spare you that and get back to tea and another movie instead.

“Encourages women” – Z-Fest and other recommendations and blah

“Feminism encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.
(Rev. Pat Robertson, 1992 Republican Convention)

Best clip I’ve seen in a while. And I needed to share it with you to get you in the right mood for this:

Tomorrow there are quiet a few really good acts at the RADIO Z WINTERFEST at the K4, on two floors!
My four favourite acts:

THE DEATH OF ANNA KARINA
– briliant screamodancepunk
IRON CURTIS – awesome smooth velvet minimal house
JAZZSTEPPA – deep and powerful live dupstep from London/Berlin
IBSEN – lovely hi-energy posthardcore
and many many more.

It starts at 8.
Don’t miss out on it!

As of late this blog seems to turn into a nightlife recommendation thingy, I might as well go on:

On Saturday there’s the KOMMODORE KLUB night:

Frittenbude are not really my kind of thing but the rest should be fun and I’ll make that my once-a-year visit to the MUZ CLUB if my cold losens it’s grip.

And on Sunday I’m toooootally looking forward to seeing Kerstin getting one year older and watching RAEIN and THE DEATH OF ANNA KARINA live at the Kafe Kult in Munich. If there’s a perfect place to see those two bands then it’s this one. I’m sooo looking forward to this evening!

Today actually was the first day this week that I made it out of my house and I wouldn’t have but there was no food left. I hated it. I hate shopping anyway but being all sweatycoughysneezy doesn’t exactly make it better. And standing at the till suddenly recognizing that your money card is still in the back of another pair of trousers where you had put it after your last visit to a cigarette machine… well, it wasn’t my day… my week… lots of sleeping and self-pitying and working and finding myself unable to concentrate very long, another round of self-pitying (at least I’m good at that), cursing at record labels that withdraw their financial support to the tour of a band that you had just had confirmed for a show after endless weeks/mails/nerves… yaaay, more self-pitying.. you get the idea. Worst thing about this cold is that I’m to blame myself. Standing outside for a smoke in your t-shirt when it’s snowing is no good idea.
The only cute thing this week was little Ninja turning out to be a true eve massacre cat: There was a little bit of Earl Grey left at the bottom of my mug and he first tried to squeeze his head in and when he couldn’t reach far enough he dunked his little paw into it and licked the tea off. And his new favourite sleeping place is cuddling up on my belly under a few layers of shirts while I’m working on the computer. Aaaaw. Cats rule.

You noticed it was International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on the 25th of November? Yawnyawnyawn, no big matter anymore? Well, I doubt that if statistics (numbers taken from an UN comission and Terre des Femmes) give it that “Globally, at least one in three women and girls is beaten or sexually abused in her lifetime”. Just two more numbers: 25% of all women in Germany have suffered physical or sexual violence from their male partner or husband, 40.000 women every year seek refuge in women’s shelters. Domestic violence is still one of the worst crimes to fight because it all happens in privacy and too many people think it’s not their business what goes on behind their neighbours’ doors. Maybe you have a few euros to spare. Here’s the bank details of a local women’s shelter:
Verein Hilfe für Frauen in Not e.V.
Konto: 30441850
BLZ: 760 100 85
Postbank Nürnberg

I have to admit though that I’m no big fan of those remembrance days cause there are really too many of them. I think if serious subjects like that turn into lists they lose impact. Lists can kill meaning. It’s like being 10 or 15 years back watching a hardcore band (I think it was Dropdead or some similar band) that seemed to tick off all the crimes that humankind ever committed in their announcements between the 1-minute-attacks of their songs. It was a small show and it was obvious that everybody in the audience had the same background/ideals/opinions, it was just preaching to the converted and taking all the power out of their music and I had come for the music, come to enjoy that kind of hi-energy music with likeminded people. I preferred to read the lyrics at home when listening to the record, or reading the lyric sheet a band had handed out at their show. Sometimes hardcore bands seemed to be a bit too competitive about being the most political one of them all. Schwanzvergleich / pissing contest style.

Anyway… I wanted to post another tune too but I guess I’ll spare that for tomorrow. It’s midnight, I’m tired and freezing and want hot chocolate before going to sleep.

“We’re so 1984” – a new song, a radio show

Tobi convinced me to get back to something I’ve actually missed quite a bit: Hosting a radio show. Castrop on Radio Z. Weekly would be a bit too time-consuming for me, so it will be a two-weeks rhythm with Tobi and me taking turns. Hope it will be quaaaality!
Turn on the radio or livestream every Thursday 03:00 pm (c.e.t.)! My first show will be on the 2nd of October.

* _ *

I’ve finished a new song: “We Dance Alone (We’re so 1984)”.
It’s up in my myspace player and here.
The lyrics go:

“we are synchronized
we are immune
when we rectify
we think in tune
but
we dance alone

we’re so 1984
we’re the peter-pan-teens
numbed by adervertising
numbed by a million screens
but
we dance alone

we’re well-trained to shy complexity
a little lost to the beauty of conspiracy
cause
we dance alone

since each of our steps gets filmed
we act as if we could rewind anytime
we act as actors but
we dance alone

shot down with promises
our mouths got sewed
we’re tied up with premises
look to tvs for a clue
but
we dance alone

we get by
thinking ‘we could’
sometimes even
‘we should’
while we patiently
hold the line

lights
camera
sit tight

lights
camera
we gotcha”