Review: Man Or Astroman?

My top of the year list is pretty much drawn up. But oh, shock horror, two of the concerts featured never got a review. Guess it's time to get off my lazy (busy) bum and on to it. In this case, I had sort of written the whole review in my head while at the show but then never wrote it down. A Craze classic.

In the 1990s, most independent music bands had "a thing". It could be something subtle like putting on a fake voice (Calvin Johnson and his Dub Narcotic Sound System) or playing a saw in darkened rooms (The Black Heart Procession). Or it could be in-your-face weirdness like pretending you are agents (Frodus), insects (The Locust), or gospel preachers (The Make-Up). Man Or Astroman? managed to top everybody by saying they were from Outer Space and creating a whole story and imagery around it. At some point, they even planned to have several bands tour the planet simultaneously as Man Or Astroman?, though that never materialised as far as I am aware. Incidentally, they also had a side-project called Servotron, in which all band members dressed up as robots.

As silly, and maybe slightly outdated, the whole idea of bands assuming fake identities and making up stories seems, there is something admirable and fun about the effort that went into these assumed personas. You identified each band with a distinct image, you had expectations and live shows could exhale the atmosphere of a circus show. Luckily for 1990s independent music, being a little silly did not take away anything from good music. Really good music.

I do not tend towards nostalgia. The new excites me. The here and now, or better, the future is where I like to be. Every now and so often though, you hear a name or a song and you remember the emotions you felt when you used to hear it. Man Or Astroman? are one of those bands that do that for me. So the minute I read the show announcement by Eine Welt Aus Hack, I was on to buying my ticket. It was only afterwards that I realised that a lot of folks in my surroundings had never heard of this band before. It may be that several of my friends are younger than me. Or it may be that I was just into weirdo stuff back then. Gary and I, and our friend Steffen, got more excited as the day drew near, while everybody else was like "I need to have a listen first". Yeah, you do that. And you'll love. Don't miss!

Preview: the week ahead (16th - 22nd Dec)

One week until Crimbo. A last week of mayhem - let off some stress steam in the evenings at one of these events.
Btw, there will be no preview next weekend. Our calendar is empty except for some forlorn tumbleweed and the howling sound of desert wind. Do look out for some late reviews and, of course, staff top lists of 2013!

Monday

• Joan of Arc and mOck at Schokoladen: Read my love note to JoA and know that they are worth it. Be there for 7ish and enjoy.

Tuesday

• Föllakzoid at Kantine: C*’s gig of the week. Föllakzoid probably share more with Moon Duo than just the label, Sacred Bones. With their looped sounds, I would think that fans of MD would also be into this group from Chile. Though Föllakzoid do not add vocals, they sport a distinct electronic sound to their music, which, at times, reminds me of Goa trance music, too. It might sound odd, but their spacey, trancy, psych music, is super wavey and dancy and just the right thing for losing yourself in music this Tuesday.

Wednesday

• Mother Of Unicorn at Monarch: Mother of Unicorn are a four-piece band from Berlin and play a nice mix of indie pop and singer songwriter elements. For fans of Holy Sons, Rocky Votolato, The One AM Radio and the like.

Thursday

• John Smith and Luke Leighfield at Schokoladen: Some cosy, beardy country music (John Smith) and some poppy British singer-songwriter tunes (Luke Leighfield) in the early evening at Schokoladen this Thursday? Don’t mind if we do, with a drink in hand.
• Fred & Toody Cole at Supamolly: There must be a fair share of Dead Moon fans out there in cold Berlin. Fred and Toody Cole of Portland rock band Dead Moon are giving a rare appearance this pre-Christmas Thursday at Supamolly and we reckon you may just enjoy that. “Stay off the internet and learn how to play an instrument!”

Friday

• Groupshow, Alessandro Bosetti, and Sebastian Roux at N.K.: NK is hosting another very interesting experimental night with music and lectures. Groupshow might be the most well-known of the performing artists, the band consists of Jan Jelinek, Hanno Leichtmann and Andrew Pekler. They play improvised experimental music with Fluxus and Krautrock influences. Read more about the lectures and other music acts on NK’s website.
• Peter & The Test Tube Babies at Lido: Once a year, Peter & The Test Tube Babies play at Lido. And every time, I feature them, but just so that I can share one of my top favourite songs of all time with you: 

Review: Esmerine

Until this show got announced, I've never listened to a single Esmerine song, nor was I even aware of their existence. Nonetheless this show was a pretty positive surprise!

In contrast to every show I saw at Urban Spree till now, this one started pretty early and actually took place in the (not so warm) gallery rather than in the main concert room. The setting was cozy, there was no stage and they had put up benches to sit on - something I strongly support, especially considering the music that was about to happen.

Esmerine are a Canadian band from the Godspeed You! Black Emperor/A Silver Mt. Zion surrounding. Because I like both of these bands, I was curious about how Esmerine would turn out to be live. Their style is often described as modern chamber music and when I took a look at the stage the first thing I noticed was the lack of guitars and the presence of some "unusual" instruments: a large stage xylophone, some oriental looking string-instruments, several percussion instruments and a small horn. The concert began with a brief introduction and started out very post rock sounding with the xylophone player stroking the bars with a bow and the cellist and contrabass player joining in. In the beginning this sounded not too different to other post-rock bands. There were spheric sounds and song structures that built up on another, letting everything sound very melodic.

Yet that changed significantly when more percussive elements joined in. Esmerine were on tour with a guest musician with whom they also wrote and recorded their last record Dalmak together in Istanbul. That setting obviously had a great impact on their music. The additional member played a variety of traditional turkish percussion instruments and his style of playing strongly influenced the mood and feel of the whole music. While there still were obvious aspects of "Western" classical and chamber music (also represented by what instruments they used) and while you could not deny the post-rock background of at least some of the band's members, their songs now got way more rhythmic and Oriental sounding. They mostly played songs from that last record and I really liked how these worked live. The mixture of these different sound elements and unusual instruments and the blending of "Western" and "Eastern" influences created a very special mood and feeling that made this band stand out from any of their probably better-known earlier bands. 

Towards the end of the set, Esmerine threw in a couple of older songs, mostly performed without the additional percussions. They announced a last song after which the audience applauded wildly, making the band come back twice to play an encore. The show ended with a song on a more or less out-of-tune piano and although I wasn't that thrilled anymore by the older songs, this was a pretty nice live experience.

Review: Nohome

Seeing bands or musicians that you have loved since forever and then getting disappointed is a pretty tricky thing. Like all new Sonic Youth solo projects - Chelsea Light Moving, Body/Head, or Lee Ranaldo's new band. It almost seems like they want to destroy their own legacy.

Anyway, I wannt to tell you about Caspar Brötzmann's latest band project Nohome. They played last Friday at Volksbühne. They formed as a improvisational trio for last year's A L'Arme Festival and played a mindblowing set. A couple of month later all three and FM Einheit (of Einstürzende Neubauten fame) recorded a live-album at Radialsystem - if you listen carefully can hear me going mental on that record. Together with drummer Michael Wertmüller and bass player Marino Piakas, Nohome is a heavy (sic!) more-Free Jazz-than-Rock (sicsic!) explosion. 

So, seeing them twice before, I was psyched when I heard they will play again. I got my ticket quickly to avoid standing on the wrong side of a sold-out show. Hmm, but when I arrived Friday evening at Rosa-Luxenburg-Platz and heard only 100 tickets were sold I was really surprised. Strange, I thought, more people are interested in this band and opening act Robert Lippok. Seems like I'm always wrong with prognoses.

Robert Lippok, who founded electronic post rock trio To Rococo Rot in the early 90s in Berlin, played a solo set as opener. His set-up with a strangely installed bass looked very promising. Bouncing beats combined with dark electronic sounds could be good, but maybe I wasn't in the right mood or it wasn't that good. Can't decide. Don't get me wrong his 45 minutes set was probably a good opener and didn't hurt at all.

But I was there because of Caspar Brötzmann. His Caspar Brötzmann Massaker was the soundtrack of my rebellious adolescence. I hadn't heard such a unique guitar sound anywhere else. I'm a fan! He plays more with feedbacks than actual chords and creates thereby a haunting, loud and confusing sound. 

Competition: Damo Suzuki with Sound Carriers

Damo Suzuki is probably best known for being the singer/vocalist for Can, one of the Krautrock pioneer bands and still a strong influence for many contemporary bands and artists. He still performs live, often inviting local guest musicians - the then so called "Sound Carriers"- to accompany him. For this show next Saturday (Dec 14th) at Urban Spree, members of Kadavar, In Zaire and Dead Skeletons will play with Suzuki and the coolest thing about it:

We are giving away two +1 guest list spots for this show! All you have to do to win is send us an e-mail to win@thecraze.de until Friday (Dec 13th) 6pm and tell us: What's your favorite canned food?

Have a look at the Urban Spree website for more info and details about the show and if you're in the mood and have an hour to spare, there's a link to a documentary film about Damo Suzuki below!

Späti Palace video preview

As I mentioned in the preview, people of Julie Tippex, Cranky and other local music booking folk are starting a label to showcase bands and artists of Berlin's music scene. Berlin needs something like this and so I am ever so supportive of this great project. Here is a little preview video they made, introducing the bands which will be on their first record, a compilation.

PS: Please note that Classic Muscle will not perform on 14 December but have been replaced by Skiing. This is due to illness in the Classic Muscle camp. Get well soon!