Amsterdam - textures, dee-tails, vistas... and Gavin Friday!

 

 meeting Kirsten for lunch

Cafe on top of an old tower in the Vondelpark

 Gavin Friday at the Paradiso - we waited 16 years for this! Brilliant! xxx

Brighton gig / The World is Fxxxed torrent

 

Next Plus gig in Brighton, details as follows...

when i'm pretty presents...

28 Feb THE LATEST MUSIC BAR, Manchester Street (Kemptown) Brighton 20h

THE SUMERIAN KYNGS










An 8 piece band creating a sound known as Psychedelic Swamp Groove! With an incredible Light Show, this diverse group of musicians – including Monty Oxymoron, the musical phenomenon and long term member of ‘The Damned’ – bring together many influences, from blues, jazz and electro to punk, rock and improv. But the Kyngs add that vital ingredient – a Groove to dance to – making each Kyngs gig an event worth catching.

+ PLUS

 

Formed in Kemptown 13 years ago, Plus use guitar, 808 and far-out vocals to create a unique noise pop/alt.rock wigout. Part performance art, part punk, part prog, totally unique.

DJ MELITA will be keeping it interesting before, during and after the acts.

Doors: 8.00pm. Price: £4 on the door

 - - -

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The good people behind the (probably appropriately named) The World is Fxxxed Records have put up a torrent featuring the combined works of the esteemed noise pop combo Amy Blue with whom we have played a few times in the past (I first met them when we played together at their first ever gig at the now defunct Pleasure Unit in Bethnal Green, found them again later on myspace (don't let anyone tell you myspace isn't good for stuff like that) and have followed their career ever since, they are really good - pls check them out if you haven't already), evol-1 (which is Simon Amy Blue in more industrial/fxxxed up solo guise), a few other bands/acts they have associations with (most notably tricyclic looper which is Trev's long running bedroom tapes project) and Plus, it's got the when i'm pretty album and the mix CD I compiled a couple of years ago as an introduction to the band. All this stuff is available for free here !

modest refusal; artificial pyramid, ....

I could be erased. They have this tower. My user has information. Just to use this place. Reassurances in red. Hands in the circle. Blue steps, tower guardian. Pollution probe. Flowering distance. More power? Globed head. Fog machine, distortion space. What escapes? Reaching for the disc. Exit loop opens wide. A ray goes up and connects. It's begun. Distorted 80s radio voice. Disc interface communication. Looping down into a digital valley. Clouds, open space. XX. A butterfly connects you with the error message. Giant letters, then a giant face. Manipulate the game! Hexed language exposed! Worn out program! Digital melt! Do we make it? Pray for our side! Sharp zingers collate at the side as the butterfly follows. Reunion helmet slides lower, that is a user demand, lower. You were a fury. What's happening in the distortion? The black sky is no limit. Looping demands. Green square wanders. I still have P.O.W.E.R. . . Leave me alone, we failed. Eyes revolve. Whizzing machine. Optimism prisms. The heart of the whole system. Raise lights. Throw your satisfaction at the sliding walls. Catch the light "Your user can't help you now"....    

Fehlfarben -> Paul ist tot -> Berlin -> April 2010

I finally got around to post this photo-gallery/video I made a while ago, using Fehlfarben's seminal track played live and a gallery of photos from my trip to Berlin. 

In April 2010 I travelled to Berlin to see Fehlfarben, the legendary German post punk band whose "Monarchie und Alltag" album remains one of the most important German language rock records and one of my favourite albums of all time, for the first time on a tour promoting their excellent new album "Gluecksmaschinen". It was a great show, worth travelling for & hopefully I'll get to see them again sometimes, they don't come to London though. I took a few photos during the show (mostly a bit blurry and not that great) and quite a few photos walking the streets in Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain, looking at graffiti, gig posters, corners, squares, exhibitions, demonstrations and meeting old friends, so I put them together with the recording of "Paul ist tot" from that night (thanks to Gavin for the bootleg!)

"Paul is tot" (Paul is dead) is the coda of the Monarchie und Alltag album, the last song, it's very famous, it's long, monotonous, depressing, dirgey and very simple and effective. Most tracks on the album are pretty fast and snappy, this one is mostly melancholic and brings back memories for me, trying to find a perspective where there is none, and generally capturing an atmosphere of utter defeat, an inability to communicate, a somewhat shell shocked ambivalence towards anything you can say or wish for, a moment in time, an empty room after someone has left, an absence, and lots of memories. This live version is actually quite playful and muscular in its delivery.

Some of the things you can see in this video are....: 
0.06 a defaced poster of Mireille Mathieu
0.15 view of the white house right on the Spree in which a friend lived in the 80s and 90s. I have no idea where he is now as he doesn't live there anymore and I've lost touch. The whole area has been gentrified. He used to live there pretty cheap in a massive flat overlooking the river and all these derelict warehouse buildings on the East side (that are now clubs, galleries, corporate offices), when the area was right by the wall and a bit of a dead end...
01.17 Fehlfarben bow out after two encores
03.13 The long running Cafe Jenseits in Heinrichplatz had to close down due to rising rents but was squatted for the time being.
04.21 The legendary SO36 punk rock venue, Germany's CBGBs. or something...
04.36 Genesis P. Orridge collage exhibition
04.42 Chez Frank
04.56 Tray-cee K u l t s t e i n
05.10 The Dennis Cooper shelf, chez Nico
06.10 Frank in the Cafe Kaiser in the big complex of shops, cinemas, etc that is now on Potsdamer Platz. In the 80s this was a wasteland by the wall, one of the buildings standing was a semi derelict ballroom where we saw Sonic Youth in 1986 together, an incredible show. This ballroom, the Kaisersaal, was also used in the seminal Nick Cave live concert scene in Wings of Desire, and is now incorporated into the complex and restored and used for functions, they actually allowed us to go in there and have a look at it again and I can sort of remember it....
06.25 Frank outside Mr Dead and Mrs Free record shop with the new Fehlfarben album in the window. This shop was around in the 80s already and seems to have survived!