Foot Village's new video makes my day

I once stumbled into a Foot Village show at The Smell in LA by mistake. My friend and I had tracked downtown to see Pocahaunted and Experimental Dental School. The problem was that Foot Village were so amazing, we never enjoyed the other two. Everything seemed mediocre compared to Foot Village.
A few months later, last November, Foot Village played at West Germany. This might be a good opportunity to tell you about my love for West Germany. Sure, it's in Kreuzberg and thus not far from my house, and yes, they do have good taste in music and therefore, good bands perform. But I guess those facts can be applied to other venues, too. What I love about West Germany is the atmosphere paired with the audience. The interior is below basic in that it used to be a medical laboratory of some kind and all they have done is knock down some walls. It is still tiled, you still see the bases of the original walls and there are still metal structures hanging from the ceiling. The stage is made of beer crates. The bar is a hole in the wall bascially. But because its owners really care the toilets are always clean, the bar is well stocked and its staff friendly, the sound equipment is good. And they really cater for the artistic needs of its performers. Seldomly do you hear German spoken due West Germany's international audience. The only draw back: a lot of concerts are sold out quickly on the night but there aren't any presales. After missing No Age and a week later John Maus because of capacity issues I actually once wrote an email of complaint to one of the bosses at West Germany but was given back a very warm response. How nice can it get? If you are planning a visit to Berlin, make sure you check for gigs at West Germany in the calendar at the bottom of this blog!

Anyway, back to Foot Village! So they played West Germany and it was not sold out but because Foot Village put their four drum sets in the middle of the room and assemble the show attendees around it in a circle, the size of the audience is not relevant really. The performance was convincing as it was the first time and nurtured my love for this group even further. They are one of the most refreshing bands around at the moment, musically and lyrically. Because their instrumentation only consists of four drum sets and a megaphone the lyrics do matter. You won't understand much of them live, but in the recordings, they support well the energy of the music. I think everybody who left West Germany that night was in awe. You can see a video of the gig here but I don't think you feel much of the energy that was present.

Which leads me to my actual reason for posting about Foot Village today: They are releasing a 7" this month (including tatoos and stuff - go get it!) and Rob Heppell, a writer and video artist who works periodically in London, has produced an artistically interesting video for this. The political message is not uncommon but his take on it is brave non the less. I just wanted to recommend this to you.

FOOT VILLAGE - LOVERS WITH IRAQIS Video

And of course I will post about it should the band come back to Berlin.