“Locusts, tornados,
Crosses and nazi halos
They follow, they follow”
The Thermals
The world looks a bit blurred today. Tonight the biting midges finally got me. I’ve had hardly any stings at all this summer but when I went to bed this morning at 4 I’ve already had the first one. Got more and more through the night and the (very real) itching and (the maybe imaginary) buzzing kept me awake. I’ve slept for maybe two or three hours and feel a bit numb like packed in dabbers or in bubble plastic foils. That I went to bed when it still was summer and woke up to autumn doesn’t help much. Especially if autumn doesn’t just mean the weather changed to grey cloudiness but also the political climate got some dark clouds coming up: The NPD, a german extreme right wing party, has made it into parliament after the elections in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern yesterday. Bloody scary. Will this Nazi scum ever fuck off? As if the whole christian propaganda that accompanies the pope’s visit to Germany wasn’t enough stuff for nightmares & nausea. No surprise that the THERMALS “the body the blood the machine” has become my new favorite album in its desperation about those things.
“Is there a happy ending, I don’t think so
Cos even if we make it
I’ll be too far out to take it”
Mott The Hoople
Our D!SCO !NF!LTRATORS party at Friday started a bit slow and we had lots of guests I’ve never seen or recognised before. For a while Stefan and I didn’t seem to get into a flow. Instead we chatted as much as we djed, about new music and that we would from now on call indie kids ‘streifenhörnchen’ (chipmunks) cause of their stripey t-shirt uniforms. It was nice to play our favourite new tunes to each other but didn’t really get people dancing. After a while we somehow crossed the fine line to something you could almost call ‘djing’ and suddenly everything felt right for a while: the sound of the music, the fader buttons under your finger tips, the dancing silhouettes, the drink in your hands, the atmosphere and energy, the smoke in your lungs. I love those euphoric moments. They help me breath. At 4:30 a girl asked if we can’t go on till 5 something cause that’s when public transport starts again. As it was okay for the bar staff we kept it going and I think I left the building at 6 in the morning. Another lost Saturday. In a good way, of course. As if nightlife wouldn’t count.
As I have already mentioned in my last blog SOULWAX made a remix of a ROBBIE WILLIAMS song called “Lovelight” and it is the most wonderful piece of electronic music I’ve heard in a long while. Instant happiness, pure aural endorphine. Maybe since the EROL ALKAN remix of JUSTICE’s “Waters Of Nazareth”. No, it’s almost bigger than that. Maybe like hearing ALTER EGO’s “Rocker” for the first time. Noise and pop in exactly the right doses. I haven’t heard the original song yet. It samples the old soul tune “Let your love light shine”, and that line is the only vocal that works it’s way sparsely into the distorted and moaning synth awesomeness SOULWAX have created here. The build up after the breakdown in its very middle is so wow that it gave me shivers when I heard it loud for the first time. Cathartic. Oh, and it has handclaps. Which explains everything.
The other piece of music that I got on repeat at the moment is THE THERMALS’ new album ‘The Body The Blood The Machine’. Years ago they rocked themselves into my heart with the wonderful “No Culture Icons”. Last year I had the pleasure of finally seeing them live, and that was good. They are one of those ‘we’re about the music’ bands. And now the new album. They haven’t changed much: It’s simple guitar music with a garage edge and lyrics that mingle politics and the private in a very good way. It’s hard to describe why they do this better than many other bands. They sound tighter, closer, more of a unit than most maybe? More personal? Their new album is catchy and heartfelt indierock. Speaking in band names: maybe a little less WIPERS and ART BRUT, and a little more of rock desperation à la REM or MOTT THE HOOPLE.
What I also have to say is that it’s really good to hear a great intense rocking indie album that hasn’t got that stupid over-compression-in-your-face treatment that makes all bands sound alike at the moment. Thank you, Brendan Canty, for the warm production. This one rocks its guts out without that fake loudness. The anger in this one seems to growl straight from the content and from deep inside the music, not from the production. And would it be sexist to say that it adds to my pleasure that they are not another all male band?
Lyrically it is an irate attack on running a country with politics of religion and war. I won’t try and fail to describe their lyrics. I rather will let the lyrics of a song speak for itself. “Power Doesn’t Run On Nothing” is its name and to me it is on a close run for the best punk song of this year with TV ON THE RADIO’s “Playhouses” and THE PAPER CHASE’s “You Will Never Take Me Alive”. Go listen to it. Go buy it. I hope really bad that we can have them play in Nuremberg again.
Edit *jumping up and down excitedly*: They will play! 6th December, K4. Kerstin, do you hear me?! 🙂
we are just a child
we are just a child
we are wide awake
but our legs are shaky
we’re unaware
we’re hyper and we stare into space
with grins on our faces
so give us what we’re asking for
’cause either way we’re gonna take it
our power doesn’t run on nothing
we need the land youre standing on
so let’s go, move it
we are old as hell
we are old and tell the children
when to kill, when to sit still
everyone doing what we say
’til our dying day
’til our breath is empty
they’ll give us what we’re asking for
’cause either way we’re gonna take it
our power doesn’t run on nothing
we need the land you’re standing on
so let’s go, move it
you need to let go, move it
we’re more equal
we’ll move you people off the planet
’cause goddamn, we need the fuel!
so let the beat roll over
let the beat roll over everyone in line
everyone in line
let the beat roll over
let the beat roll over everyone in line
one at a time
they’ll give us what we’re asking for
’cause god is with us
and our god is the richest
our power doesn’t run on nothing
it runs on blood
and blood is easy to obtain
when you have no shame
when you have no shame
so let the sun fade, let the sun fade
we’ll still have light
we’ll burn even brighter
we’ll drain the well
we’ll tunnel to hell
and leave the earth’s surface
for the worthless and dirty
let the beat roll over
the beat roll over everyone in line
everyone in line
do you think we’ll cease?
do you see a reason?
do you think it’s fair?
do you think it’s fair?
do you think we care?
* _ *
One of the at least eight times that I’ve listened to THE THERMALS’ album by now was on my way to BUCOVINA CLUB on Saturday around midnight. It seemed the perfect soundtrack. I walked a station or two before I got on the tram cause it was such a nice warm night. I love to watch people on the tram. A teen couple, he on his cell phone playing cool, ignoring her, she hanging on his lips, following his every move and look. An old guy smelling of cheap wine, jumping in at the very last moment which made him beam a happy smile at everybody that slowly burned out when the feeling wore off. Then at city centre, walking over to the K4 that already had a cluster of kids hanging from its old doors.
We hosted SHANTEL with his BUCOVINA CLUB at that night, his balcan music freak out of a party. Entrance already had to be stopped half an hour after the doors had opened cause it was too crowded. It was a very agreeable audience that night, not so many of the power-drink-till-you-go-down-league. I mean, we keep our drinks cheap so that everyone can afford to drink but not to turn parties into pure alcohol mayhems where people seem to party against each other instead of with each other. SHANTEL spun a great set. He seemed to build in much more electronic elements, or had songs restructured so that they work like dance tunes. No matter of how much you like that gypsy balcan music, you have to admit he is a great dj. Technically as well as for being such a great charismatic entertainer.
He is also finally up to record an album with original tunes instead of releasing the next BUCOVINA compilation. Not so nice news: Next BUCOVINA CLUB, on october 13th will be presented by MTV and will present clips of ALI G’s BORAT movie. I’m aware that other promoters might think that’s great news but for us it’s a bit of a downer. The nicer news are that SHANTEL is going to produce the next GUSTAV album.
It was nice to chat the night away and I had more than one Becherovka and instead of an hour or two I stayed until 7 in the morning. Guess I enjoyed myself.