Morgens aufstehen, wenn die Sonne scheint, was man durch die kleinen Risse im Rollo erkennen kann, springe ich aus dem Bett, geräkelt, gestreckt, ahhh! und dann unter die Dusche. Das prasselt auf einen nieder, massiert die erschlaffte Haut. Abtrocknen, rubbelen, mit der Bürste einmal durch die Haare und darein ein Tropfen Gel, damit sie einem nicht die Sicht auf diesen wunderbar klaren Tag verhängen. Ich habe nie diese Langhaarigen verstanden, die ihr Leben in einem steten Zustand geistiger Umnachtung verbringen müssen, weil sie einfach nichts mitbekommen von ihrer Umwelt. Freiwillige Autisten sind das, wenn man mich fragt. Zähne putzen, Borsten extrastark, das widerlich grüne Pfefferminzzeugs in den Abfluß gespuckt, frische Klamotten, die Pixies auf den Plattenteller…
Which is a line that stuck with me. I don’t want to know what kind of non-conscious role it played in making me want to get a turntable and doing my best to find a Pixies LP that I didn’t own as a CD already.
… 25 Liegestütz, raus auf den Balkon, einatmen, hmm, kaum Ozon in der Luft, tut gut, macht frei, frisch und fickerig, egal, wieder rein, ist inzwischen fast schon wieder Mittag. Wo ist eigentlich der Kater von letzter Nacht geblieben? Futschikado! Noch mal raus, vor die Tür, schauen ob er dort ist. Nein nein nein nein nein, nicht mal im Briefkasten, nichts da. Dafür tänzelt man selbst ballerinengleich durchs Treppenhaus, vor der Tür paffen Dir lustigen Wölkchen aus dem Mund - Vorsicht Glatteisgefahr! - und wenn schon, dann schnallt man sich halt ein paar Kufen unter und kurvt durch die Kurven mit den Kufen, ratsch, ritsch, rutsch, dann aber wieder rein, bloß nicht übertreiben. Man friert sich noch den Arsch ab, keine gute Sache, drinnen wartet das Bett. Genau: Frühstück im Bett. Großartige Idee. An der Tür vorbei, bevor sie im Luftzug zuschlägt, geschafft, 1. Platz von allen. Drinnen ists inzwischen auch ganz luftig, der Muff einfach weggeblasen, jetzt kann man anfangen zu genießen. Die Sonnenstrahlen knallen einem immer noch um ein Haar die Augäpfel aus den Höhlen, alles explodiert, die Konturen messerscharf. A propos Messer: da liegts, und dazu noch gut in der Hand, braucht man fürs Frühstück - aber nicht so ein lächerliches Butterbrotmesser, neee, 18 Zentimeter Klinge; mindestens!
Let’s just say I have a soft spot for oversized knives as well. While I don’t use them for breakfast, I use them for pretty much everything else. Perhaps I should work on my breakfasting technique…
Und dann reiße ich den Kühlschrank, dessen Temperatur immer nur haarscharf über dem Gefrierpunkt liegt, auf, und die Milchtüte raus, schmecke, fuchs, der Tetrapakquader - natürlich einer von den hohen schlanken, die breiten niedrigen vermitteln ein depressives Lebensgefühl, am schlimmsten ist H-Milch, bäh! - eist mir fast an der Hand fest, macht aber nichts, im Gegenteil, das stimuliert nur noch meine Kampfeslust. Lasche hoch und dann säbere ich voll in den Karton, daß mir das ganze Zeug über die Hose pladdert. Ui, da glitzern noch Eiskristalle drin, ich setze die Tüte an und gieße mir das Zeug in den Rachen und schlucke und schlucke und schlucke, fühlt sich an, als würde die Kehle einfrieren. Reine Milch ohne Zusätze, leider auch ohne Frostschutzmittel, da hat mans damals beim Wein besser gehabt: glykolversetzt, den konnte man sich gleich auch noch in den Kühler kippen, der Nachteil war, daß man elendig verreckt ist an dem Zeugs. Nichts für mich. Dann doch lieber den Weißen Riesen, der in meinem Magen inzwischen Eisklumpen bildet, schnell zurück unter die Bettdecke, zuerst aber stopfe ich noch den Schmeckefitzel in den Papierkorb, rülpse und lasse mich zurück in die Kissen fallen. Keine Frage: Jeder braucht mal ne Pause.
And to finish things off, the guy gives a perfect classification of milk packs. The tall 1 litre tetra packs are the ‘good’ ones while the wider and smaller ones are bad and usually contain disgusting UHT milk. After another fun detour to the glycol wine ‘scandal, the singer deserves a break.
]]>The big day! Somehow the festival organisers decided to cram all the good bands into the Saturday. Which made the day very exhausting. But – first things first – we had to drink instant coffee because my friend had brought the cooker and the filter but had managed to forget the filter coffee (among other things) that goes with it. Another omission was the pan and the eggs, both of which make getting up in the unpleasant situation that is a campground a lot more tolerable. To start this day off extra miserably, it was quite chilly. And it was raining. Which is where the party tent came in handy as we could at least be in there rather than crammed into tiny tents.
As noon came near – and damn me do these hours of discomfort last long with the only pleasure being an iPod with speakers that had made it to the campground somehow and prepared us for the day – the weather improved and there were even a few minutes of sun. Finally we moved out of the safe tent and first had to grab some food. I picked a Chinese stall and the food was easily the worst Chinese food I ever had. Yucky, greasy, disgusting and making me feel sick. But at the same time good at fighting a hangover which was a main objective of that plan.
And then the music started for us. First with The Bravery playing, whose music always seems a bit too poppy to me but is charming enough to make you smile and cheesy enough to put on at any party. And I guess their gig was enjoyable. I still have to make up my mind whether the ‘real’ setup on stage which made them sound less slick and synthetic is a good or a bad thing. While that slickness is a big part of their music, I still lean towards the former.
Next on were Virginia Jetzt. I always thought their music was quite charming – particularly their first EP – but also a bit too nice to be great. They played a number of their charming songs and a few of the duller ones and their singer really liked talking. Very few singers are good at that. Very few. Still sort of enjoyable and with a nice logo behind the stage.
Next on were The Sounds. I sort of enjoyed their music at Hurricane last year but found it a bit disappointing on CD afterwards. And they didn’t disappoint, the music was enjoyable again when coming from a stage. Even more enjoyble even while sitting down. But hey – look at the screen in the back!
Slowly things were starting be more serious and Mogwai came on next. I like Mogwai and their music is great. So dedicated to noise. And in a very serious and unironic way (give or take a knitted woolen hat). Not many people make this kind of effort. And go on stage without silly jumping around or at least having some lead singer type of person. And make people like them! Seriously cool, coolly serious music. Best enjoyed loud and close to the stage. Which I made an attempt to do, thus noting that the volume levels were very reasonable at the festival – loud but not painful.
Once Mogwai got going I saw that there was a queue to get into the area right in front of the stage for the next gig. And that the queue was quite short. With Arcade Fire being the next band to come up, I did a bit of queueing (in their somewhat random/idiotic system) and watched Mogwai more from the side for a while. Because, uh, Arcade Fire were the main reason for me to come. After seeing them in Köln two years ago I just needed to see them again. After standing through a bit of rain there next to a bunch of very vivid tiny Italian girls and after (this really sucked!) the set up for the band needing 15 minutes longer than it should have, the band came on.
When seeing them in Köln I had fears that their music wouldn’t translate to an open air stage. A fear which turned out to be completely unwarranted. So this time I wondered how they’ll do on a huge open air stage. I actually was quite optimistic about that. And even that didn’t do them justice. And nor could any description of mine. Their music and their gig were just fantastic beyond words.
I’ll leave it at that. The problem was that they really ruined (well not quite ruined) the rest of the day for me because any other band just seemed old-fashioned, boring, dull and lifeless in comparison. For example Modest Mouse whom I saw afterwards (after just missing Tokyo Police Club, unfortunately) and who weren’t at all bad, just seemed dull to me. Even the crappy photo I took of them didn’t want to be in focus.
With things overlapping a bit, I still managed to see a few songs at the Bloc Party gig. I think they’re an OK band and certainly did well and a good show. But that’s about it. One thing to learn from the kids there: If you are standing way bac and don’t really see the band, look at the huge screens. If you want to take a photo of the band, just take a photo of the screens. That doesn’t make terribly much sense to me. But it works.
Next on at the second stage were the Manic Street Preachers. I never really got into their music but I know a few people who are absolutely crazy about it. I also figured that getting in at the front would ensure me having a good place for seeing Bright Eyes afterwards. Afterwards I have to tell that the Manics surely have dedicated fans. But that I’ll not be one of them. And their bassist has a bit of a problem with thinking he doesn’t get enough attention it seems. It seems mostly unnecessary to jump around like hell when playing bass – which is four strings, pretty much one at a time, the last time I checked. On the other hand, their keyboard and second guitar player were hidden somewhere at the back of the stage. Uh? At least I took what is pretty much the only decent photo of the weekend during the gig:
Bright Eyes came on afterwards with a whole orchestra and all of them were dressed totally in white. I was a bit disappointed by that. And I think it was overdoing it and killing the ‘whiney boy with guitar’ charme you usually associate with Bright Eyes. Things became a bit better when the orchestra left, but I still wasn’t persuaded to stay all the way to the end – I was supposed to meet my friends anyway.
Somehow we didn’t manage to meet, but I got to see a bit of Marilyn Manson instead. While the guy seems to be funny and all, I’m just not a friend of his music. And the whole thing seems to be about the persona anyway. More an ‘act’ than a band or so. The show looked quite elaborate but it definitely isn’t my cup of tea.
I was keener on seeing Aerogramme anyway. Their ‘The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it’ shirts at the merch stall amused me when I saw them (but weren’t pretty enough to actually get one) and I enjoyed their Story in White album. I was shocked to see how old the band are – having thought they’d be much younger. The music was all right, although I thought it lacked some of the lightness I had perceived in their album.
The final gig of the night were Interpol. I have a bit of a mixed relationship to their music because I always think I like it but I’m sometimes disappointed when I actually hear it. Still, their gig was solid and if I hadn’t seen Arcade Fire before, I may have even though it was great.
After that gig it was two o’clock. I had been running around in rubber boots which are two sizes too large all day and because of the mud everywhere I pretty much stood all the time. My feet were aching like hell and all I wanted was to lie down and get some rest. Which I almost got but I made the mistake of drinking a lot of water before going to sleep and not having had enough alcohol to be able to just ignore the noises from the rest of the campground.
Next: Hurricane Sunday
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The Haldern Pop festival finally took place this weekend. We got tickets quite early this year because it was dramatically difficult to get tickets for everyone at a later stage last year. As things go, two people who were supposed to come with us, didn’t come along in the end and there was a bit of drama about selling the two spare tickets in the end, as either many people had the same problem as we did or the hawkers had just bought loads in the hope to sell them at a profit. As the line-up was much more obscure and less teenager friendly this year than it was last year, all those plans probably didn’t work out and we could consider ourselves lucky to find buyers for the tickets a bit below their actual price.
After us leaving Göttingen on Friday morning we drove across the country to pick up Steffen and then go to the festival. With the route being printed from some old version of Route 66, I learned the hard way that not only those printouts contain loads of unnecessary information but also that it’s not compatible with social scientists who prefer reading out all the crap information given on the paper to telling you whether or not to take some exit. Strangely, we still managed to arrive… and meet Dan and Richard at the festival grounds where we quickly put up the tents next to Richard’s group pretty much in the same place where we’ve been in the past two years. I guess by now we can start claiming it’s our place
on the camp ground.
Bands we saw
And that’s just for Friday, check the next page for those we saw on Saturday.
Morning Runner (UK, 17:00)
The first band we saw were Morning Runner. I didn’t really know them before but quite enjoyed their music. Not revolutionary but nice and energetic music and a good way to feel at home at the festival again.
The Zutons (UK, 18:00)
After a refreshingly short time of rearranging the stage, The Zutons played. Everybody had heard of them before and was keen to see them. And they played all right. I think their songs can be a bit long and slow at stages, though. Bonus points for the saxophone and wearing a skirt (which sadly isn’t all that popular in Germany)!
We are Scientists (US, 19:10)
The next break was quite unfortunate. Because it brought dark clouds and rain. A lot of it. We felt cheated then. After having stayed through a whole weekend of rain at last year’s festival in good humour, we definitely felt we deserved better weather this time. But it was a massive downpour that managed to turn all the areas where many people walked into a mud field with little lakes very quickly. My friends were soaked as well (and I only escaped that fate by hiding behind them unter the little roof of a pizza stall). Perhaps this photo of the Rockpalast sign (they’ll broadcast four hours of Haldern later this month), illustrates the rain problem.
And then We are Scientists came on. Having seen them before from just a few metres away, I wasn’t too bothered by just seeing them from the bad angle that standing at the pizza stall gave us. Their gig was all right, but I have to admit that the whole crap, not the whole rain thing again!
thought spoiled it a bit.
After the gig we went back to the tents for dry clothes, saying to ourselves that we should have bought rubber boots ‘just in case’ or being more pessimistic and going in with raincoats ‘just in case’ as well. While enjoying some drinks and snacks in the tent, the rain stopped luckily. It was a one hour and very intense period of rain only. And luckily it was the last one. Clothes could be put to dry, shoes could be replaced by muddy ones and we ended up being reasonably immune against the mud that still remained everywhere and went back to see…
Element of Crime (D, 23:15)
This was my third opportunity to see Element of Crime this year. And yet again they were wonderful, with their songs wiping away the bad weather fear. I keep being amazed how well their mostly quiet and clever music works for open air festivals as well. I’d usually expect this to be something that benefits from being indoors at a small location.
Mogwai (UK, 00:55)
After a bit of a wait, the stage was set up for Mogwai. While I always find it hard to actually recognise and name their songs (because of the lack of lyrics?), I still enjoy their music a lot. Its quiet power that isn’t all that quiet is just fantastic and blows you away. Not all that surprisingly, this was one of the best gigs of the festival.
Mogwai were the last band to play on the main stage. But as in the previous years there were two more gigs coming up in the Spiegelzelt
. And we were keen to go there, as the tent is quite cool and gigs there were quite cool in the past.
The Revs (IRL, 1:45)
The first band to play in the tent that night were The Revs. Unfortunately, seeing Mogwai all the way to the end meant we were quite late in arriving there and had to wait in the queue while receiving text messages from Daniel on the inside telling us that it’s great – and it did sound quite good from out there in the queue as well. They had a screen outside the tent this year which was a great idea as it made the wait much less frustrating. When we finally got in, we just got to see the last two songs. But I got myself their record in the end, so I can double check…
Final Fantasy (CAN, 03:00)
I heard a number of people say that Final Fantasy will be a secret gem of the festival. The ‘band’, consisting of Owen Pallett who plays a violin for Arcade fire, was to play the violin with a dash of electronic weirdness. Where ‘electronic weirdness’ mostly refers to looping being used in addition to the live playing.
Just by the first look this reminded me of Patrick Wolf whom I got to know at Haldern in 2004… and playing for Arcade Fire isn’t the worst thing that people can do either. So I was curious to see what happens.
It turned out that the music was indeed quite different from Patrick Wolf and Owen made heave use of loops indeed – which I found rather irritating at first as you see him play something on the violin which doesn’t match part of what you’re hearing. A situation that I had to adjust to. I also found his singing a bit feeble and unenthusiastic.
In total I was really unsure what to make of it. While sounding irritating at first, the music sounded interesting to me in principle. But I kept thinking that it was a bit weak and needs some more work to be really convincing. Something to keep an ear on, but nothing that can be enthusiastic about now.
And after this gig, around four, we returned to our tents for whatever was left of a good night’s sleep.
Read about the second day…
]]>After stopping at Susanne’s place in Hannover and dropping my stuff there I went on to the club where quite a queue was in place already. From where I stood it didn’t look too bad but word spread that there wasn’t a proper queue at the front and people were just standing there in a massive bulk. But I’m not good at guessing the number of people in a group when seeing them and neither at estimating how many people you can fit in a room (four per square metre? six?), so I didn’t worry too much. What did worry me more at the time is the typically German lack of civilisation in queueing. Jumping the queue for whatever reason is done all the time and we saw plenty of people just walk past us. I really preferred the proper first come first served scheme in the UK where people are actually sent back – or just beaten up – when jumping the queue. None of that happens in Germany of course and the lesson to learn is that you really should skip the ‘queue’ bit of queueing and just join everybody as far in the front as you can. So in the end I didn’t get in. It looked like they could’ve easily filled the venue twice with the people who turned up.
A shame for sure but luckily there was another event on just down the road where Björn and Susanne were going anyway: Element of Crime were playing. As I may have pointed out before they are great. Not rock’n’roll, but quiet music with brilliant lyrics. The place was packed, but I still managed to get a ticket at the door. Luckily having to stand rather far back doesn’t spoil things too much for their kind of music. Which was still brilliant there. While it’s likely that you won’t be able to fully appreciate their music if you don’t know German and all the subtleties in their lyrics – which could merit the use of the word poetry – I still recommend checking out some of their songs.
As their music is rather quiet, doesn’t exhaust you when listening to it and as they have many albums to play great songs from, this is the kind of gig which you really want to go on an on. And it did. Enthusiastic noisemaking managed to get us four encores. Which I’d usually consider too many but which were just right in this case. Fantastic!
Siehst Du wie sich die Wolken zusammen drängen
Als ob es sie da oben alleine friert?
Ich hab nicht darum gebeten Dich wiederzusehen
Wer als erster von weinenden Wolken spricht verliert.
Frag mich nicht wie ich ohne Dich lebe
Den ganzen Tag unter Wasser und Spaß dabei;
Und alles geht immer irgendwie weiter
Im Himmel ist kein Platz mehr für uns zwei.
Siehst Du dort den orangenen Held der Entsorgung,
Der die schweren Container vom Hof an den Straßenrand schiebt?
Der ist heute da und übermorgen schon wieder,
Weil es immer wieder was wegzuschmeißen gibt.
Frag mich nicht ob ich noch bei Trost bin
Den ganzen Tag untröstlich und Spaß dabei;
Und alles geht immer irgendwie weiter
Im Himmel ist kein Platz mehr für uns zwei.
Siehst du den alten Mann mit der E-Gitarre,
Die er jeden Abend in höchster Erregung zerschlägt,
Die er jeden Morgen wieder mit Alleskleber
Zur Erregungsrequisite zusammenklebt.
Frag mich nicht ob ich dich noch liebe
Das Herz endlich gebrochen und Spaß dabei
Und alles geht immer irgendwie weiter
Im Himmel ist kein Platz mehr für uns zwei.
Element of Crime – Im Himmel ist kein Platz mehr für uns zwei
So let me try to translate this – at the cost of some of the beauty, I fear. The title of this one is There’s no more space in heaven for the two of us
or perhaps There’s no room in heaven for the two of us
or possibly the same with the sky
instead of heaven
.
Do you see how the clouds crowd together
as if on their own they’re freezing up there?
I didn’t ask to see you again,
whoever starts referring to crying clouds will lose.
Don’t ask how I live without you
under water all day and enjoying it.
And everything goes on anyhow
there’s no room in heaven for the two of us.
Do you see the orange hero of disposal
moving the heavy bins from the yard to the curbside?
He’s here today and the day after tomorrow again
because there’s always something to throw away.
Don’t ask whether I still am sane [bei Trost]
inconsolable [untröstlich] all day and enjoying it.
And everything goes on anyhow
there’s no room in heaven for the two of us.
Do you see the old man with the electric guitar,
which every night he breaks with the greatest passion,
which every morning with super glue
he reassembles to be the passion requisite.
Don’t ask whether I still love you
the heart finally broken and enjoying it
And everything goes on anyhow
there’s no room in heaven for the two of us.
Ah, great.
Try using last.fm for samples of some of the tracks. They have a little player for that right on the page.
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But eventually sitting through this was worth it. I had assumed the band to not be exactly young as Jörg first introduced me to their music when we were freshers. And they are even a little bit older more mature than that. Eventually they had a singer/guitarist, a drummer, a bassist, a keyboarder and a trombonist on stage but they started off in a very slow and cool way, starting out with some electronic percussion and then very slowly and carefully, the drums, bass and guitar joining in before everything started off a few minutes later. At these slow speeds, it’s not rock’n’roll, of course, but it was never expected to be.
They played a good show to not that many of us who still made the club look reasonably full because it’s very small and the band needing a lot of the space there. It was fascinating to see the bassist play his instrument enthusiastically and carefully, to hear the singer’s typical voice and have a trombone on stage. The drummer was operating equally carefully which I tend to be sceptical about. Not that the sound was bad, but when thinking about drumming, severe physical activity comes to my mind, and a lot of force – which were both missing here. And I’m not entirely sure whether the keyboarder did all that much in the course of the show. In part because I couldn’t really see him, but mostly because they oddly had quite a few piano (and other) snippets coming out of little electronic machines, thus making the real player seem kind of superfluous when he did the playing for a change. I fact, I was surprised by the amount of electronic help they used – with the drummer having some electronica there as well and the bassist having a little device as well which he used quite spectacularly towards the end.
And if you’re into German, you might appreciate their lyrics as well. They’re quite cool and unusual in their subtlety. Check out Nah bei dir, their cover version of Burt Bacharach’s Close To You or the wonderful In den Schuhen von Audrey Hepburn with its nice bass line or Dawai Dawai which I think is the first song of them I knew but which I can only find on a relatively recent album.
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While the organisers had made an effort to use the building more wisely, trying to hide its enormous size by placing the stage differently than they did before, it still looked crap. The fact that very few people turned up – we guessed about 200 – didn’t help. Just another hint at how lame this village is. When three bands, Lolita Nace, Bosse and Madsen, are playing couldn’t town with allegedly more than 120000 inhabitants and over 25000 students have a few more people who’d like to come?
Just imagine you’re in a huge concrete building with a number of people that is an order of magnitude too low to fill it. It’s still light outside and there are enough windows around to remind you of that. Let’s say that’s not exactly rock’n’roll. While it could be cool to have large concerts, I wonder why they never try to organise something slightly smaller – smaller venues, cheaper stages and so on. How can it be expected that sufficient numbers of people come to a larger event if there isn’t an ongoing culture of smaller events to begin with?
Lolita Nace
The first band to play were Lolita Nace. That second word was pronounced in an English way, which irritated me as I didn’t know it (and neither does the computer’s dictionary) and I thought it should be Spanish or so. When seeing their poster and logo I started thinking that it might be a short form of ‘menace’ perhaps… a mystery.
Anyway, the band is a local one with a female singer (which is amusing as the only other remotely known band from Göttingen, the Guano Apes, have a female singer as well – odd in that predominantly male industry). According to friends they’ve been around for a while – with other names perhaps. The singer talked a bit too much for my taste but definitely did a good job at it, hitting just the right speed and keeping the energy in there. She seemed to be a more powerful and less blonde version of Avril Lavigne (in a non-insulting way).
The band’s music wasn’t exactly my cup of tea, though. Reasonably well played and noisy but a bit too noisy for my taste. People who’re into that kind of stuff might even enjoy it.
Bosse
After a considerable break Bosse played. Noisy and somewhat catchy stuff. I had read about the guy and his band before but never heard the music. I didn’t 100% like it but it sounded like solid current German music. It’s amazing how we’re starting to have numerous bands singing in German in the past years. And even those which don’t qualify as brilliant creative geniuses can be good enough to not be an embarrassment and even be reasonably good. Perhaps I should check out their CD. In some parts the music had a light touch of the 1980s. If that’s too dominant on the CD, I won’t like it but if the more noisy and powerful bits are it might be all right.
The singer was wearing horrible trousers, by the way. Probably some fashion stuff but the front pockets started by far lower than they should and it looked really strange.
Madsen
I’ve written about Madsen’s album before and was quite keen to see them play live, hoping that the live setting would make their music a bit more aggressive and powerful – removing the cheesy tendencies from the CD. And for sure, the instruments were more noisy – though not as rough as they could’ve been. What completely put me off, though, was the singer. Expectedly quite a young guy (with quite a cool T-shirt, white with some black outlined faces on it), but his voice sounded by far younger than on the album. Saying he sounded like a smurf would be unfair but he sounded by far younger than on the album, making the songs sound somewhere between whiney and friendly.
And – at least in my book – they shouldn’t sound like that. As I mentioned previously their lyrics are quite ‘charming’. But that charme is a very odd and borderline one. It’s the charme of the painfully obvious lines which will have run through your teenage brain as well at the time. Lines which usually won’t be used for lyrics because they seem too obvious, but which just seemed to work for me on the CD. Listening to the live music broke that. For example, singing
Gib mir Liebe, gib mir Haß,
gib mir Sehnsucht, gib mir Kraft.
Verfolg mich, betäub mich,
gib mir alles, was Du hast.
Bitte lüg mich an, komm und lüg mich an.
Gib mir ein Wort, gib mir eine Form,
in der ich leben kann.
Lüg mich an!
in Lüg mich an, which roughly translates to
Give me love, give me hate,can make very different impression when sung shyly or forcefully, ironically or honestly. Subtle nuances can make a big difference. And, unfortunately, the live singing changed my perception for the worse. And after that change… I can even hear the aspects I don’t like on the CD. Which is a shame – or just an improvement of my previous judgement. My suggestion would be to put the singer on a diet of cigarettes and whiskey…
give yearning, give me strength.
Chase me, benumb me,
give me everything you have.
Please lie to me, come and lie to me.
Give me a word [this also means ‘promise’ in German], give me a shape,
in which I can live.
Lie to me!
Apart from the strange voice the band also did strange things like playing a few bars of other bands’ well-known songs between their own. They also tried too much to be funny and cool. Perhaps another problem that cigarettes and whiskey can cure.
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In a way I think that I’m a bit too old for that stuff by now and that in many places small snippets of the melody of pieces of text remind me of of other German bands, making it seem a bit generic.
But in a different way I’m finding it quite addictive. Perfect music to listen to loudly while sitting in the sun. This starts feeling like one of those ‘guilty pleasures’.
While lacking the sophistication of other bands lyrics-wise, their lyrics can still be funny in places and work well with the shouting that’s going on. And looking at the recent offerings of Tocotronic who used to be the masters of German lyrics and Wir sind Helden who did fantastic lyrics as well suggests that overly focusing on sophisticated lyrics may spoil the songs…
Wo kommst Du her?
So was wie Dich habe ich noch nie gesehen.
Voller Glanz, wunderschön
Dir kann keiner widerstehen,
Nicht zu gut, nicht zu schlecht,
nicht zu falsch und nicht zu echt.
Du bist perfekt, makellos,
Du bist besser als gut.
Du bist perfekt, einfach groß,
ich wäre gern wie Du.
Du bist die Perfektion, die Perfektion…
Du bist die Perfektion, die Perfektion…
Lückenlos, narbenfrei,
glattpoliert, schön und reich.
Was Du brauchst, wird gekauft.
Ich seh gut aus, bitte kauf mich auch.
Nicht zu gut, nicht zu schlecht,
nicht zu falsch und nicht zu echt.
Du bist perfekt, makellos,
Du bist besser als gut.
Du bist perfekt, einfach groß,
ich wäre gern wie Du.
Du bist die Perfektion, die Perfektion…
Du bist die Perfektion, die Perfektion…
Nicht zu alt, nicht zu jung,
nicht zu schlau, nicht zu dumm.
völlig normal, exakt neutral,
völlig banal, völlig egal.
Du bist perfekt, makellos,
Du bist besser als gut.
Du bist perfekt, einfach groß,
ich wäre gern wie Du.
Du bist die Perfektion, die Perfektion…
Du bist die Perfektion, die Perfektion…
Madsen, Die Perfektion
In English, that’d be…
Where are you from?
I’ve never seen somebody like you.
Shining and pretty,
nobody can resist you.
Not too good, not too bad,
not too fake, not too real.
You’re perfect, unblemished,
you’re better than just good.
You’re perfect, just great,
I’d like to be like you.
You’re the perfection, the perfection…
You’re the perfection, the perfection…
Unbroken, without scars,
smoothly polished, beautiful and rich.
Whatever you need will be bought.
I’m good-looking, please buy me as well.
Not too good, not too bad,
not too fake and not too real.
You’re perfect, unblemished,
you’re better than just good.
You’re perfect, just great,
I’d like to be like you.
You’re the perfection, the perfection…
You’re the perfection, the perfection…
Not too old, not too young,
not too smart, not too dumb.
perfectly normal, exactly neutral,
perfectly banal, perfectly indifferent.
You’re perfect, unblemished,
you’re better than just good.
You’re perfect, just great,
I’d like to be like you.
You’re the perfection, the perfection…
You’re the perfection, the perfection…
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While having mainly positive reviews will obviously make sense – at least in the short and I’d even say medium term – for people who are mainly trying to sell the stuff, it renders those review instances much less helpful. But even people like myself who don’t have any benefit from albums being sold (heh, perhaps I should start one of those ‘associate’ things – but I just assume that it’s not worth the effort) will prefer recommending things – just because we enjoy them.
And even when indulging in rating schemes like iTunes’ or IMDB’s, I find it terribly difficult to make up my mind which rating to give a particular item and remain consistent among all the ratings I gave over time. IMDB’s rating system has a scale from one to ten which is just too complex. I always tend to think of anything below five as quite bad, so I very rarely used those.
iTunes only gives you five different ratings, but I’m definitely too lazy to fill those in for all my songs, so I ended up giving four or five stars to songs I really like – making a nice smart playlist called ★★★★ which won’t disappoint when I can’t make up my mind what to listen to. Even the distinction between four and five stars seems to heavily depend on my current mood in this. Then, I mark with three stars songs which I quite like and with one or two stars songs which I enjoy or which I just want to be able to see easily in iTunes’ list. Most songs just don’t have any rating at all. A simple number rating is a nice help but not really up to the full job. Of course there’s the theoretic possibility of automatically assinging ratings to songs depending on how often and in which contexts you listen to them, but I assume that their results will be far from perfect as well…
Ahem… Where was I? I guess all I wanted to say is that people prefer to write about the stuff they like. And that any number based rating scales will be very hard to interpret – if only because people interpret the various ratings differently and the scales aren’t used too well – with the majority of votes seeming to be in the upper half or even third of the scale. In addition many of the albums I don’t like probably won’t make it to my home because I’ll listen to some of their songs in the record store and just leave them there (if only we had a good record store here in Göttingen…), so there can’t be any bad reviews for those.
So for a change, I write about a few albums which I wouldn’t recommend. Of course it’d be easy to come up with numerous albums which I wouldn’t recommend just by going through amazon’s best sellers. So that’s not the point. They are rather albums which one might have hoped (but not necessarily expected) to be nice but which weren’t. As I’ve liked a few of those bands a lot, this is a more or less painful experience. Obviously these are also very personal opinions and people appreciating other (or as I’d say ‘the wrong’) aspects of the bands’ music may reach a different conclusion.
Idlewild
I’ve really liked Idlewild a lot and counted them as one of the great Scottish bands. While they’ve always had a slight poppy touch, their music had lovely rough aspects as well. In fact, mostly rough aspects when listening to their 1998 EP Captain, say which included the wonderfully short Last Night I missed all the Fireworks and the shouty Captain along with rather crappy cover art.
It was soon followed by the good Hope is Important with songs like Everybody Says You’re so Fragile, When I Argue I See Shapes and, I’m a Message. And in 2000 we got 100 Broken Windows. While sounding a bit quieter and controlled than the previous ones, it has songs like Roseability, Little Discourage and Actually It’s Darkness, which remains my favourite Idlewild song to date.
From then on things went downhill. Just looking at the cover art of their 2002 album The Remote Part strongly suggests that they got new people doing their graphics. While the whole blurred and rough letters style stayed around in a weak way, the whole cover art is much more average and ‘consumer-friendly’ than that of the older albums. Their ‘logo’ has been changed to some ‘artistic’ font and there’s a distinct lack of capital letters outside the album’s copyright information. Oh, and while partially still being recognisably Idlewild music, the songs are rather dull as well. Somehow the album must have sold quite well, though, as people started knowing Idlewild afterwards.
Their current album, Warnings Promises, has yet another style of cover art and logo. While I quite like looking at it, it completly leaves the graphical styles they had before. This one goes even more down the cheesy road than The Remote Part did and I am tempted to say that almost none of the old Idlewild can be recognised on this album. Which is sad, as I really liked the old sound. To close the circle, listen to the track El Capitain an compare it to the rough title song of their first EP…
P.S. The more detailed review at Pitchforkmedia seems to share my opinion. And, amusingly, their back-history of reviews does as well.
Tocotronic
An then there is Tocotronic. A German band that started in the mid 1990s and which I really got into back then. They were among the bands who made listening to music with German lyrics tolerable and perhaps even fashionable again.
I just had a tape with 90 minutes out of their first three albums (Nach der verlorenen Zeit; Wir kommen, um uns zu beschweren; Es ist egal, aber) for ages. And only recently I stocked up on the complete records. Fantastic stuff: strange language, a bit of depression, low-fi. I’d say everybody should have it. But as they sing in German and their lyrics are rather central, so you may have to learn German at first. They have also toured the U.S. at some stage and there are a few ridiculously translated English versions of songs. Some of them are on their great 10th anniversary compilation album, which is a good place to start.
After those early days they released K.O.O.K. which was still fine and had a fun CD K.O.O.K Variationen coming after it with electronic remixes of Tocotronic songs. Their 2002 album Tocotronic was when I started being really disappointed. Most of the charm of their first albums seemed to be gone. Only the strange lyrics remained. But all of the sudden those trickily assembled texts started feeling complicated and trying to be intellectual rather than just existing naturally as they used to. To be fair, the album has a few moments… but the only song I’d recommend is Hi Freaks.
And early this year their new album Pure Vernunft darf niemals siegen – ‘Pure reason must never win’ was released. With the first single Aber Hier Leben, Nein Danke being up for download around christmas. It wasn’t remarkable but tolerable. Much better than the rest of the album which makes Tocotronic sound like they turned into dullards like Blumfeld. Music with too much (social scientist) brain and too little music.
P.S. I put in iTMS links in many places above for your convenience to listen at songs. I had forgotten that there is a much better way to legally get at Tocotronic music online. Their label, the wonderful L’age D’Or who are the label for many other great bands like Die Sterne or The Robocop Kraus, Superpunk, Von Spar &c, have an online music store as well. At 96 cents per track (at least for Tocotronic) they beat iTunes on the price and with a lack of DRM as well as higher bit rates, their advantages outweigh the extra effort of using a web browser. Apparently they’re also selling Ogg encoded files for whoever can tell the difference.
Little Barrie
On the first sight, Little Barrie’s first album We are Little Barrie is quite sweet. Nice and simple cover art which looks both old-fashioned and modern to my eyes and a brilliant opening song, Free Salute which I had on heavy rotation for a whole week or so. Quite addictive.
Intermezzo: If you haven’t heard about the band before, just stop reading on and listen to that song and tell me which country they are from.
Just as the cover, their music sounds both modern but also 1960s style. Quite amazing. Kings of Leon for the 1960s I’d say. But it seems a bit more artificial, un-authentic if you wish, than the Kings of Leon and more boring. So while the music isn’t terribly bad, I can’t help feeling that they’re just trying too hard. A shame. And a good album to use online stores on.
P.S. When first hearing them, I thought their sound was clearly American. But they’re from England. What did you think?
Turbonegro
This one is a bit of a joke, I guess. I had the impression that a lot was written about Turbonegro and their Turbojugend fan clubs, which really seem to exist even for the most minor of places. From what I had read about it, I already guessed that their music isn’t exactly my cup of tea, expecting it to be a bit too far on the ‘heavy’ side. So I decided to listen to their new album Party Animals just to know what all the fuss is about.
My impression is that it sounds much too friendly for proper metal, despite songs having charming names like All My Friends Are Dead or City of Satan. And it sounds exactly like the stuff there was in the 1980s or even AC/DC. Hmm, perhaps I shouldn’t be saying that as I don’t know too much about the whole metal scene, the closest I came to it being my neighbour as a teenager having Iron Maiden as the first band he was a big fan of and another friend in England who introduced me to exciting bands like Dimmu Borgir.
And compared to proper Norwegian Black Metal, Turbonegro just sound very tame and lame. Music for kids, I guess. Music that comes in dangerous looking sleeves and that is played be people who look like clowns. Hmm, I better shut up now before the local Turbojugend comes around my flat to disagree…
The Coral
I first stumbled across The Coral on a compilation CD a friend sent me. It included Dreaming of You of their self-titled first CD which I considered good enough to warrant further investigation into their slightly old-fashioned music that lives somewhere between the 1960s and pop. In 2003 followed Magic and Medicine with a lot of old-fashioned goodness and including the nice and Simon and Garfunkel-esque Liezah.
Last year we had Nightfreak and the Sons of Becker with yet more pleasing and different old fashioned songs, ranging from the slightly psychedelic Song of the Corn to the more energetic Auntie’s Operation to the strange Lovers’ Paradise which keeps reminding me of Annie Lennox’ Keep Young and Beatiful. What’s strange about these records is that despite being a bit odd, not being particularly rock’n’roll and very few favourite songs coming from them, I like them and think they’re really nice to listen to.
That’s why I was looking forward to hearing their next and current record, The Invisible Invasion. And I found it quite disappointing. The ‘magic’ that the other records had and that made me want to listen to them despite not being obviously exciting is gone. I can’t find it at least. It’s not that the music is horrible but the songs are unremarkable and I consider it unlikely that I’ll ever come home and feel like I have to listen to this record.
Wir sind Helden
I hate to say this. Particularly as my previous Wir sind Helden entries found a lot of interest. But I am not particularly impressed by Wir sind Helden’s new album Von Hier an Blind. Sure the first two singles Gekommen um zu bleiben and Nur ein Wort are all right. And even their lyrics continue to be interesting. And their front-woman hot. But musically I don’t find the album quite boring.
I have to admit that I wasn’t too much of a fan of the music on their first album. Not the stuff I’d usually listen to. Too much 1980s in there. But together with their power and their lyrics it was easily good enough. The new one seems to be more pop and less action with too much focus given on the singing.
The Raveonettes
I had a mixed start with The Raveonettes. They didn’t show up for a gig but their first EP Whip it On was just fantastic. Things went downhill from there on. Not only do they keep sending me stupid spam messages, the unsubscribe link in which doesn’t work, more significantly their first full album Chain Gang Of Love failed to match Whip it On quality wise – but it has still a few decent songs and at least it’s done in b-flat minor.
Their new album Pretty in Black looks like it’s a kitsched-up version of what there was before. Gone is the cool black-and-white styling. And in comes – pink! Quite a change. B-flat minor also seems to have been replaced with more cheerful stuff and – once again – I find the album a bit on the dull side. All the fantastic power they exhibited on Whip it On seems to have vanished.
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As many tickets had been sold, the gig ended up taking place in the university’s main lecture hall building, ZHG, a large and ugly concrete mess which makes you wonder whether people actually thought it was nice in the seventies. And the band made fun of that later on.
I wasn’t too impressed by the whole thing. The support band wasn’t too good, many of the listeners were very young and the location was so big that it wasn’t properly filled. In addition, I’m not too impressed with their music. It’s not really bad but seems to suffer from being in German. I like to think that German is like the S-class Mercedes of languages. You can have all kinds of comfy things and seriously oversized words. But it’s not easy to manoever. Somehow this makes many lyrics sound a bit clunky and more thoughtful than they should be. Because of that, German songs with the ease and power of the Last Nite or What a Waster will probably remain rare exceptions.
To finish, vaguely related remarks: Kettcar seem a bit similar to Astra Kid who’ll play here in May as well. Kettcar are with the Grand Hotel van Cleef label which has cool name and a nice image on their home page. And they did a bit too much talking during their show. The band members looked much older than I would’ve expected them to be, and apparently they have some history in the punk area. Which in turn explained why the audience had so many older and ‘rougher’ looking people in it as well. As the last encore, asking people not to sing along, they played Balu which is definitely not Rock’n’Roll but quite nice. And has Audrey Hepburn in its lyrics. A feat that I’m impressed by since first hearing Erdmöbel’s In den Schuhen von Audrey Hepburn.
Oh, and take a look at a real Kettcar.
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And that’s the case for The Robocop Kraus, a noisy German band that played in a pub just fifty metres down the road from our flat. Needless to say that I went there. It’s a rather small place, meaning that it ended up being sold out and incredibly hot in there – thanks to having ceilings that are around 2,50m high. And before The Robocop Kraus came on we had to endure their support act, Räuberhöhle.
The ‘band’ just seemed to be a girl singing and dancing to pre-recorded music. And screaming a lot. Too much, for my taste. It was a bit tedious. She had also brought a little puppet theatre in which she spoke with a teddy bear. That was quite funny for a minute or so but widely overdone in the end. The music was mediocre but the recording or the amplifiers were set up badly, which made this a rather stressful experience in total. A few nice ideas, poor execution, overdone. Not good.
The Robocop Kraus started to play some apparently newer songs which I didn’t like too much. But as their gig went on, I started knowing more songs and being a bit more relaxed as it got hotter and hotter. In the end, everybody ended up in a more or less wet mess and secretly hoping that the band wouldn’t play another encore because there was a definite need for fresh air. When we went out to get some fresh air afterwards, everybody was literally steaming. My flatmate Daniel actually steamed for a whole ten minutes or so.
The band looked distinctly un-hip and not even trying to be – quite unlike most other bands I have seen. It looked like the mixing for the concert was done on a G4 in the back. I wondered whether that isn’t a bit cumbersome in comparison to a proper mixing desk.
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