“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!