Just a quick note to say that this Saturday, at 4 pm, Diät are playing
at Static Shock Music record shop in Bürknerstraße in Neukölln in
support of the release of their new 7". Come on out and hang with us in
the sunshine, while one of Berlin's finest contemporary bands is
performing.
Thursday, 26 July 2012
Review: Jack White
Was I excited? Hell yeah! Did I have particular expectations? Nah.
I am guessing that Tempodrom works better for some performers than for others. For Jack White, it was pretty damn perfect. That's because, ideally, you would want to see this man in a small smokey bar up close. But because fame has graced this talented individual, you have to content with large venues, and as far as large venues go Tempodrom is one of the cosier ones. It's a giant tent after all.
Like I said in my preview, there is a bit of a Jack White fan in all of us, some of you may just not know it. It has been generally agreed that the man is a musical genius, having been honoured in the film "It might get loud", among other accolades. This praise aside, not everyone agrees with his actual songs or, more importantly, with the individual himself. The press usually struggles to make out who this man is. He has publicly received good and bad feedback from band members and staff. He appears to be a notorious liar, making up his own biography as he goes along ("Now, is that his sister or his wife?"). And while he continuously quotes the blues as his major influence, most of the music is rather rock'n'roll and mass accessible.
Quick review: Against Me!
I end up in a lot of odd places. Like, last night, I found myself in the neo-punkrock-crowd at the Against Me! gig in the smaller room at Postbahnhof. Having been pissed off at "that song" for years, I was curious what would await me.
Our curiosity was heightened by the recent attention the band had gotten for the singer's outcoming as a transsexual and the subsequent change of gender. How was this going to be taken by the punk fan base? Was Laura going to move people the way Tom had done?
The quick answer, I am pleased to say, is yes. Not only was the show sold out but you rarely see such dedicated fans who will celebrate their group in such a way. It was very touching actually. I saw a few middle fingers rising during "Teenage Anarchist" (the song I get very passionately angry about) but, apart from that, there was a lot of dancing, singing along and smiles all around from the mixed-age audience. Wonderful to watch.
Against Me! were of course solid and played those songs to perfection, sufficiently rocking out on stage and giving the audience what they wanted and deserved for their undying support. A good gig, albeit not my kinda thing of course. I like neither the pop punk genre nor am I partial to neo-punkrockers in the 2000s dressing up like it was 1977. But everybody does their thing and they do it well, taking with them the unpretentious audience, while the band goes through several transformations, be it politically or personal. May they go on for a long while because, while I will never become a follower, the world needs these kinds of bands among the "fabric conditioner pop" the radio usually plays. I just hope that the next generation of teenagers will "get it", too.
Sunday, 22 July 2012
Preview: the week ahead (23th - 29th Jul)
Can't think of a clever/funny/fancy headline for the preview. Nevertheless there are some real gems this week. There's also plenty more stuff in our calendar which you can find at the bottom of the page, as you probably already know... enjoy the sun and see you around!
Tuesday:
(Electric)Vocuhila and Molly Mega Trio at bei Roy: See our preview for Vocuhila from last week, they play again with slightly different and expanded line-up this week. Support is Molly Mega Trio from Berlin, if you're a friend of mathy noise rock, you'll like them.
Wednesday:
The Black Atlantic at Roter Salon (Volksbühne): The Black Atlantic played Berlin several times before, here's another chance to catch their dark and melancholic indie pop music in a quite nice venue. They sound not unlike artists like Tiger Lou, Rocky Votolato or sometimes even the Black Heart Procession.
Thursday:
Knertz Fest at about:blank: Three bands from the Knertz collective honor about:blank with their presence this Thursday. Les Trucs play dancy and weird 8bit electro stuff, music to party to. Then there will be something more hip hop with Oskar Ohlsen and Babel Fish and Fnessnej also play dancy and squeaky electro pop. Pretty sure this will be a fun night!
Friday:
Crazy Spirit, Tremors, Sarg and Diät at bei Roy: Noisy dark punk meets crusty hardcore meets early 80s punk. This sounds awesome and I can't stress it enough, go see Diät live! Definitely one of the best bands in Berlin right now!
Saturday:
Make Out! at Schokoladen: Make Out! play their last show ever this Saturday at Schokoladen. They're awesome and sound something like a no wave mix between Mika Miko and Erase Errata. So sad they break up!
Tuesday:
(Electric)Vocuhila and Molly Mega Trio at bei Roy: See our preview for Vocuhila from last week, they play again with slightly different and expanded line-up this week. Support is Molly Mega Trio from Berlin, if you're a friend of mathy noise rock, you'll like them.
Wednesday:
The Black Atlantic at Roter Salon (Volksbühne): The Black Atlantic played Berlin several times before, here's another chance to catch their dark and melancholic indie pop music in a quite nice venue. They sound not unlike artists like Tiger Lou, Rocky Votolato or sometimes even the Black Heart Procession.
Thursday:
Knertz Fest at about:blank: Three bands from the Knertz collective honor about:blank with their presence this Thursday. Les Trucs play dancy and weird 8bit electro stuff, music to party to. Then there will be something more hip hop with Oskar Ohlsen and Babel Fish and Fnessnej also play dancy and squeaky electro pop. Pretty sure this will be a fun night!
Friday:
Crazy Spirit, Tremors, Sarg and Diät at bei Roy: Noisy dark punk meets crusty hardcore meets early 80s punk. This sounds awesome and I can't stress it enough, go see Diät live! Definitely one of the best bands in Berlin right now!
Saturday:
Make Out! at Schokoladen: Make Out! play their last show ever this Saturday at Schokoladen. They're awesome and sound something like a no wave mix between Mika Miko and Erase Errata. So sad they break up!
Sunday, 15 July 2012
Preview: the week ahead (16th - 22nd Jul)
Okay we (or at least I) definitely reached the summer hole, C* is enjoying herself somewhere sunny and I need to catch up about three weeks of sleep. So just a rather short preview for a week without that much going on except a weekend of festivals.
Monday
Vocuhila at Wendel: I already saw Vocuhila and also various solo projects of Maxime Bobo, their saxophone player, live a few times and they were always pretty awesome. They're a saxophone/double bass/drums trio and play a nice mixture between free jazz and more song oriented jazzy tunes. They're really good, go see them! They play again on Sunday at the Great Heisenberg, check our calendar or the Echtzeitmusik site (check sidebar) if you're interested in more jazzy and experimental stuff going on.
Thursday
Bambi Davidson and Schürhaken Körner at Schokoladen: This one sounds interesting, Bambi Davidson is a project band from the former Robocop Kraus drummer and a dutch musician. They invite new guest musicians for each tour. Support is Schürhaken Körner, they play something between noisy math rock and wavy punk from the 80s.
Friday
Teengirl Fantasy and Fatima Al Qadiri at Naherholung Sternchen (starts at 11pm): Dreamy and poppy electro indie music meets some sort of "Muslim Trance" music. Apparently Fatima Al Qdiri almost never plays live outside of her hometown New York so everybody goes nuts and is excited about this. For further info and the full line up for this night check the Shameless/Limitless blog.
Saturday:
Down by the River Festival: nice and huge line-up with various bands and music from wavy dance punk to weird anti-folk. Check their tumblr page for the whole line-up and more info!
Friday, Saturday, Sunday
Schokoladen Hoffest: Check out the Schokoladen website to get the full program on this one. I'm sure there will be something in for everyone. There's a shitload of bands playing!
Monday
Vocuhila at Wendel: I already saw Vocuhila and also various solo projects of Maxime Bobo, their saxophone player, live a few times and they were always pretty awesome. They're a saxophone/double bass/drums trio and play a nice mixture between free jazz and more song oriented jazzy tunes. They're really good, go see them! They play again on Sunday at the Great Heisenberg, check our calendar or the Echtzeitmusik site (check sidebar) if you're interested in more jazzy and experimental stuff going on.
Thursday
Bambi Davidson and Schürhaken Körner at Schokoladen: This one sounds interesting, Bambi Davidson is a project band from the former Robocop Kraus drummer and a dutch musician. They invite new guest musicians for each tour. Support is Schürhaken Körner, they play something between noisy math rock and wavy punk from the 80s.
Friday
Teengirl Fantasy and Fatima Al Qadiri at Naherholung Sternchen (starts at 11pm): Dreamy and poppy electro indie music meets some sort of "Muslim Trance" music. Apparently Fatima Al Qdiri almost never plays live outside of her hometown New York so everybody goes nuts and is excited about this. For further info and the full line up for this night check the Shameless/Limitless blog.
Saturday:
Down by the River Festival: nice and huge line-up with various bands and music from wavy dance punk to weird anti-folk. Check their tumblr page for the whole line-up and more info!
Friday, Saturday, Sunday
Schokoladen Hoffest: Check out the Schokoladen website to get the full program on this one. I'm sure there will be something in for everyone. There's a shitload of bands playing!
Review: Excepter
Sorry not much time but nonetheless a short review from the Excepter show at West Germany:
Through a state of tiredness and weariness I forced myself to head for West Germany that night, because I just really, really wanted to see Excepter. So my willingness to deal with the support bands wasn't exactly very high... the first one sounded a bit like a not so exciting copy of John Maus. The second one was some sort of dark drone something... anyway, let's just say I spent some considerable amount of time on the balcony, enjoying fresh air and the view of Kottbusser Tor before Excepter finally began to play.
I've never seen them live before. They have released a huge bunch of different records since they started in 2002, some on Load Records and on Paw Tracks, the Animal Collective record label, and a couple of them I like a lot! Also they're pretty diverse and range from drony ambient stuff to experimental more dub influenced music. So I wasn't sure at all what to expect from this, but I had a feeling it's going to be good.
Turned out my feeling was right. They were four people on stage using various synthies and electronic devices plus some more "traditional" instruments like harmonica and tambourine and also massive reverb on the vocals. Their music was an awesome and intriguing mixture of ritualistic chanting and broken beats somewhere between danceable music and total amorphousness. For a good amount of the concert I, and probably some more people, had no idea how to react appropriately, so you could watch interesting variations of dancing, confused nodding or plain staring... I really loved the fact that they managed to challenge peoples attention by not resting on certain beats and moments but instead by constantly adding breaks in their structures, if there were any at all. West Germany was hot and packed and although it got a bit emptier towards the end of the show a good part of the audience didn't want this to stop.
I definitely don't regret having forced myself to go there. Hope Excepter will be back sometime soon!
Through a state of tiredness and weariness I forced myself to head for West Germany that night, because I just really, really wanted to see Excepter. So my willingness to deal with the support bands wasn't exactly very high... the first one sounded a bit like a not so exciting copy of John Maus. The second one was some sort of dark drone something... anyway, let's just say I spent some considerable amount of time on the balcony, enjoying fresh air and the view of Kottbusser Tor before Excepter finally began to play.
I've never seen them live before. They have released a huge bunch of different records since they started in 2002, some on Load Records and on Paw Tracks, the Animal Collective record label, and a couple of them I like a lot! Also they're pretty diverse and range from drony ambient stuff to experimental more dub influenced music. So I wasn't sure at all what to expect from this, but I had a feeling it's going to be good.
Turned out my feeling was right. They were four people on stage using various synthies and electronic devices plus some more "traditional" instruments like harmonica and tambourine and also massive reverb on the vocals. Their music was an awesome and intriguing mixture of ritualistic chanting and broken beats somewhere between danceable music and total amorphousness. For a good amount of the concert I, and probably some more people, had no idea how to react appropriately, so you could watch interesting variations of dancing, confused nodding or plain staring... I really loved the fact that they managed to challenge peoples attention by not resting on certain beats and moments but instead by constantly adding breaks in their structures, if there were any at all. West Germany was hot and packed and although it got a bit emptier towards the end of the show a good part of the audience didn't want this to stop.
I definitely don't regret having forced myself to go there. Hope Excepter will be back sometime soon!
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