Review: cold meat industry night, 06/01-2006 Dynamo Zurich
"We hate you! We destroy you!“
Oh yes. As i wasnt able to spend Christmas or new years with my dear beloved brother, i went shortly afterwards down for a quick and waaaaay too short visit. Had a wonderfull time down there, as always, and as if not mentioned enough: thank you so much! To everybody! It was good to be back in Africa ;-)
But back to this very special event. I arrived abit late as it took me longer then expected to get from the Airport home to G. and then down to the venue and i wasnt even in the big mood for this to be honest. I was so happy just to be there and see him (you) again that we could easily have stayed at home and talked while drinking beer. But of course it was good to take to the venue as i also had agreed with Roger to meet up there in forehand, as he didnt had time the next days. Suprisingly i met alot of familiar faces there. Holger (electrolurch) from Berlin was there too just for the weekend, so it was nice to see him again and talk. I think we havent met since Maschinenfest or maybe even his Festival in Berlin (Information wants to be free, December 2003!). Thomas was there too, also long time no see and so with Diana who is very very nice, Darius, Justus and his girlfriend, Sylvia and hell knows who else. Real cometogether that night!
We just managed to miss Bocksholm, which i was bit of dissapointed of as i really like their albums and as far as i can remember i havent seen them live yet, so i was bit of courise. Coph Nia i had no problems with missing, dont care too much about em. So first time we spend with socializing, grabbing some beers and just waving hello to everybody. I have a strange relation to beer at this place :) but thats just for outsiders (Haha: the "blond idiot" is back in town!).
When Raison d'etre started we went into the "big room" to hear them and managed to get a spot in the middle so we could still see everything. Well, everything is bit overrated.. there was nothing to see. Just fog, a video in the background on the blanket which again was just theoretical visible as there was so much fog. Otherwise there was darkness and in the right corner on a little school table was Mr. Anderson sitting and doing whatever. That again was not really visible.. i got bored of this after some time and as the music was as present outside as inside i went out again to talk to Roger, Holger and Thomas. Okay, it wasnt possible to talk to Roger as he was busy with some goth chick (good to know that some things in life never change :D). So i talked to Holger instead and then also Graeme showed up. I cant really say much about Raison's set as i was not too impressed.. i am not the big fan of them anyways and truely its more interesting to hear them at home as to starre into a big fog cloud inside a smelly club with lots of swiss goths surrounded. But the music was standard dark Ambient stuff. So it was not bad.. but just not good either.
After that Lina Baby Doll went on stage :) I just love Deutsch Nepal and he got me into the mood for the first time that evening, i really enjoyed his songs even thou he had problems (as always) with the technique and the electricity went twice during his show. I wonder how thats possible actually :) but hell, so many things happen when you perfom drunk.. on the otherhand, he was still very available compared to some other shows i have seen with him. But it didnt reached the standarf of the last show i saw with him here in Albertslund playing before Blutharsch. That was one of his best sets i think, talking of sound quality now. Also i finally had some minutes to talk with Roger during the show, so that was a good thing too. Later he dissapeard without saying good bye. Not nice.. but as i got a text message from him later it was fine, i just hoped that we could talk more as it has been such a long time and i really miss my folks up here.
So coming to the highlight of the evening and a couple of beers later, Brighter Death Now entered the stage. Hell, this was really what i needed. I hadnt the big expectations to his show at all to be honest but it was a pure old school power electronics set we got there with a wonderfull live show! And my participation in it was actually without any will.. i just wanted to hand one of them the mic, i dont even know why i got it in my hands.. but.. as they didnt seems to want it back i ended on the stage singing along with Lina. The Coph Nia guy turned up with a new feminin look and also Lina dressed up in a little skirt :) now after i read some reviews of this evening from others, i must say people dont understand this or take em self too serious. I myself had a wonderfull time and a good laugh and i think the same goes for the swedes. Besides that, during the show i met two guys from norway, as he asked me if i am from Denmark hearing that i shouted something in danish up to the stage. Really funny.. so as a present they got a beer shower from Peter Anderson. Maybe its a scandinavian thing that people think we are fanboys? I dont know, i felt that later after the show while sitting backstage we all had a very good and fun talk. This was pretty amusing as i was speaking danish, Lina and Peter swedish and the two others norwegian and somehow we understood eachother. I guess beer helps :)
So this show was really really good, i had so much fun and it was so intense and authentic that it really gave me the hope of back to Power Electronics. This was a real old school set and i dont know how the other shows of them went, but as the audience (at least in front lines) were willing to participate and not just standing there and looking evil, it must have given them also a great feeling of really waking people up. I totally missed this for long time and was very refreshing.
As i got a bit wasted that night, i have no remembrance of when we got home but thankfully does G. live close to the venue so it took us no time to get there.
Take a look at the funny pictures are
here.
Review: le petit Orb, 23/02-2006
Well prepared, means that i this time had the ticket before i went there, i picked up a colleague who i could convince to join me for this show as he would for sure miss something big out. Well, the orb is well known but it seems like as they couldnt name themselfs as
the orb, most people didnt know that it was them.. so i was bit suprised that there werent so many people. I really expected that his night will be a crowded one.
We got there quite early (i think), as my workmate didnted wanted to stay so long cause of work the next day. So in the beginning, while
Alex Paterson from the Orb had his DJ set - which was a very very good one and i can already say now that it was the highlight of the evening. It was really loud, i think too loud (but that was also cause we were sitting next to the speaker and trying to have a conversation.. stupid idea :) but the only available seats, so thats why) but he played a good mixture of minimal house tunes, click'n cutz, breakbeat and electronica. Got very suprised that he even played
Beefcake! I simply love that track.. so both me and Jesper had a good time and a nice chat too.
After some time we decided to go up and shortly afterwards
Thomas Fehlmann went on stage, who joined the orb, or at least "le petit orb". I have their latest Album,
Okie Dokie It's The Orb On Kompakt, but not been listening to it yet. To take it right away, i was very dissapointed of Thomas's show.. not that there was no show but he played really just a regular nowadays house set and i just missed any kind of specialty in it. Generaly i have to point out that i am everything else then a fan of house music, only some minimal stuff i do like but 99% of the house stuff is just total crap. Hmm.. i might just think too much of the vocal house stuff and mainstream one, but i got fed up with it in my time back in Duesseldorf where they played nothing else then House in its variations and i just totally have the link to these posh people pretending to be cool. But back to Thomas Fehlmann and his set, as this has nothing to do with eachother cause fore sure his set was not commercial house music. But as Thomas is an old guy and having some main influence through being a member of Palais Schaumburg and within that a major player of the early Punk scene, i just expected more of him. I just got really bored of it, he build up these nice sounds in the start but then.. nothing happend with it.. so you had this expectations that his is a cool track now but it got quite boring after awhile as nothing else happend.
The orb, or le petit orb, had a fluent takeover as Dr. Paterson just joined Thomas Fehlmann on the stage. So we were not sure in the start what we have seen and if its still Thomas playing or already the Orb or what is going on here.. the only thing was that i heard the sound changing from the style. So that was the sign i guess. So as without any break inbetween the orb played, as boring was their show. Okay, i might be bit harsh here but again.. i just expected more. People were dancing but far from being enthusiastic about it i think. They were really experimental in the start with their sound and i guess that is the new album (as mentioned above). I missed some unique sounds here, dont know what i had expected also its some time ago i heard any orb stuff the last time, so it was just out of the remembrance that i expected something big to happen and thinking of that its not hard to be dissapointed. Guess its always a thing of big names and filling up to their standards.. true is also, the two guys are not the youngest anymore. This is not meant bad, but its has been some while ago since they had their glorious days.. and you could also feel that we werent at a normal rave event with youngsters :) i think the average age this evening was between 30 and 35.
So after listening for sometime, Jesper decided to go home (around 2) which i could totally understand but i felt like giving them more time so i stayed another hour. Which i dont know if i got the big profit out of it as i got sooo tired around 3, having very hard time to keep my eyes open and therefor decided to bike home. So went to bed around 3:30 or something like that. No need to say that the next day at work was pretty exhausting, but i managed it quite well i think.
So this wasnt a bad night at all, even if it sounds like it, i just hoped for more. I dont know what more, but it didnt lived up to my expectations. Still, doenst mean that it was bad, and for sure i enjoyed Alex Patersons Dj-set a lot in the start of the night.
Review: Mouse on Mars live + Jan Jelinek, 09/02-06
It was on february the 9th '06, a thursday night, as most of the great concerts at culture box. I dont really understand why this is like this here as you could get more people on the weekend but maybe its about the artist bookings. I dont know.
I got there later then i actually wanted to,was bit tired and had things to do in forehand. So when i arrived Opiate was playing the last songs and handed i think without a break over to Jan Jelinek, so i cant really say anything about Opiate's show other then i have seen him before and he used to be worth to see and i am sure he played a good set again.
Jan Jelinek came up with a really nice set, i totally enjoyed it. I think it was mostly from his "kosmischer pfad" album and maybe otherstuff too. For them who dont know him, he is playing some experiemental, ambient likish electronica sound. Ok, this is not really precise but i cant really describe it better now. Maybe bit housey, lower dubs, and minimal sound... yeah minimal is probably the best term for it!
So, it was not so much dancable (as it was not the typical dancefloor music type) ... even thou the people enjoyed it. I by popped into Christian, who i met just the weekend before at a friends house who held a party, so i had someone to discuss the concert with. Suprised by see any familiar faces there :) I dont know what more to say, there wasnt the big live show. Just great sound, very rich and atmospheric..i am sure if he would have sold his new CD he could have sold many that night.
Afterwards there was a DJ break untill
Mouse on Mars went on, they were really loud and started rightaway with a classic track. Dont remember the name anymore but its familiar one. To this one it got really packed and warm too, i was suprised that they were so well known and also as their sound is really unique, that people got so much into them and excited. The audience was dancing and obviously enjoying the show alot, motivating them and asking for two extras afterwards! So there was a very good athmosphere in the club. I was standing very much in the front, so i had a bit of problems with the speakers as it was so loud and i felt like it will blow my ear.. but i had a good view on their equipment and was suprised by them playing with old analog stuff. Explains their glitchy sound. They played a very good mixture of their old and new stuff, i must admit thou that i havent really heard their newer releases as i somehow was dissapointed of the
Idiology, but now seen them i thinking of ordering the
Radical Connector or
Live 04 album.
The funny is that while living in Duesseldorf i always hoped to see them around, but there was nothing like that and now being back at home, they play here.
I had a very good time that evening and was very happy that i went there, even if i had to be at work next day and first got home between 4 and 5 in the morning.
Review: Goodipal with band live at LAB, 28/01-2006
Now that the silence is broken, i can make some additional updates of past events which i had planned to write a short review of earlier. Starting with Goodiepal inclusive live band end of January at the LAB in Vesterbro. This was another great
Komponent records night and i was suprised when i read that
Goodiepal will come here to play, i think its seldom to get to see him here and also i think he is more known abroad then here at home.
I arrived pretty late, dont know why exactly.. i guess i was too lazy as usual to get up.. and if i am not wrong then i had been out the night before so i was pretty tired too. Nevertheless i managed to get there in more or less good time so i still could enjoy the last 30 minutes or maybe more of
Renegades of the Game Boxen who i really really enjoy to hear every time again. These two guys are just great musicians i think and they work very well together, i have a hard time to figure out who of the two is more into one or the othersound as they just harmonize perfectly.
But maybe i just cant see whats really going on as they play all their stuff from their apple laptops. First time seen them on Roskilde Festival in '04 at the Blue Stage during the day and already there were i obsessed by them. Playing a nice glitchy mix of electronica, some breakbeats, some downtempo ambient things and really experimental in their sounds. At this show they got some great Industrial sounds and playing some nice samples along, also they were playing with some other guy together but i didnt recognized him so i dont know more about him. Partly the concert reminded me of Venetian Snares too and i was suprised that the people werent running out, so seems like that either there is a certain interest for this here or the people didnt paid attention. Probably its the last thing :-/ Well, i enjoyed it.
After a short break, Goodiepal started to set up his strange equipment and it was not hard to see that he was pretty nervouse as he also mentioned it himself at the start of his show. Acctually he was talking more then playing music, well.. i think 80% of the concert was him setting up his stuff and whistling the music. He mentioned that he didnt expected so many people, and considering the fact that he was not speaking very loud it was hard to hear what he said so it would have been better if at least half of the people in the room wouldnt have been there.. and i must say that i was standing very close to him. Besides that he mentioned some earlier life experience, seems like he doesnt like Kenneth (the Culture Box owner) which i didnt really understand why and i was almost asking him about it after the show but decided not to involve in this.
Short sidenote: Honestly, i am very thankfull for Kenneths work here in the danish music scene and i think he deserves lot of respect, not just ass-licking as he probably get form 89% of the people here in Copenhagen. To all the haters out there: be happy that we have a venue to listen non-super-commercial eletronic music, maybe you feel ignored as an artist but on the otherhand this gives a lot of possibilities and the venue is really nice, people i think are open and not as superficial as in other venues here in the city and on the top of that, also the staff there is nice. From my point of view, its really the number one club in town!
He was also complaining about an old friend of him, ripping him off and some strange things he experienced overseas at a conference in the US being called a rascist or so, but hey.. its the US! What you expect? I mean.. there is no free speech right? I am not suprised that they didnt understood, specially with a danish humor.. my god, not to imagine the consequences - yet another cartoon strike :)
During the show he presented his band, the Spanish and from his Label presented experimental electronica artist. This was a very radical cut inbetween i must say as Goodiepal played fully analog set, both before and afterwards (i think it was anyways just 4 or 5 "songs" he was whistling away). Too bad that i cant recall this spanish guys name, but people familiar with goodiepal surroundings should easily be able to find out (too lazy to google it right now). It was a short breakcore/breakbeatish set he played and then it went back to goodiepal and his mechanical bird.
He first told this funny story about him being accused to be involved in some satanic rituals, as he took this mechanical selfbuild bird with him to his work (he works at a mental institution as a helper). Really amazing thing, he let it go around while him and the mechanical bird were whistling this song together.. the bird sitting inside this big glass clock, build of different metal plates sitting inside this nest. Soundsed really authentic actually :) nice gimmick.
The show ended with him showing some small cards were he painted different pictures on and moving things around, i got bit lost there as i missed the "main"-concept in this one. Afterwards he had a nice auction, people being able to pay whatever they want for a CD from him as he didnt wanted to say no.. so every price was welcome. Means, i got myself a CD for 30 DKK (didnt had more with me, i thought i had.. but then it hit me that i spent my last 100 DKK on something else before and on the way didnt passed an ATM). I first thought of getting his new album but then i saw somebody having this nice cover in his hands and i bought the
circulation of events, which is very ambientish and i am bit dissapointed of it. I hoped / expected something else.. dont know.
However, it was a nice evening and i was happy to be there but got tired then and went home afterwards. I must admit that i was more fond of Renegades of the gameboxen's show then goodiepals even if Goodiepal was more interesting to see but just not to hear, that was bit strange. Truely interesting thou, so thanks for this one. More infos about Goodiepal and his selfmade instruments you can find
here.
Depeche Mode "Touring The Angel", Live @Parken in Copenhagen
What else to say then: WOW!
I was looking forward to this evening for quite some time, as i got the tickets already last year in september with alot of luck as the stupid website selling the tickets went down cause of not being able to handle the load. I have a really good memory about
Depeche Mode and totally relate it to my sisters listening to it in their room besides me, i can recall that they played People are People (
Some Great Reward, 1984) up and down. Ever since i was somehow following their path and specially when i got more into the 80ies stuff during ..yeah.. well, not so important :)
Anyhow, this was really a great concert and more then natural to see with my sister. We got there around 7 o'clock and it was pretty cold so we decided not to go up to our seats yet and stay in the cold, but warmer then outside, entrence to get a beer where we met some of my sisters old student buddies. After a warmup with a coffee we went upstairs and regret not having been up there before as it was really warm up there to our suprise. Up there means where we were sitting.. quite far in the back but a great view over the entire scene/stage and down to the crowd. The warmup band, The Bravery, started to play at 20 and gave a good show. Reminded me quite a lot of the Cure even if it was abit more rock in it but the singers voice is very similar i thought. They were nice but already stopped playing after 30 minutes, so it was a short warm up and we had plenty of time to cool down as Depeche Mode didnt entered the stage before 21:30. Starting with a short intro and then going straight to their new Single "a pain that i am used to" from their new album (which is really nice btw! Detailed tracklisting below). To that time the stadium was packed, even if there were still some seats available but its was an amazing view from the top. Only thing is that we maybe sat a bit too far away from the stage, so it was nearly impossible to take pictures and without the big screens at the sides hard to see whats going on (at least in detail). Totally annoying was the guy who hold the camera! I might be bit conservative but this MTV-Generation thing was too much for me, he constantly changed the perspective and so fast that it was impossible to follow what he shows now and see any details of Dave Gahan, Martin L. Gore or Andrew Fletcher at all and i thought that this was the main reason of having the big screens around the scene so that also people who are not in front lines can see the "emotions" in their faces. But again, i might be a bit conservative.. sure is just that the guy had fun testing his new camera with all the great effects. Not only fast cuts, also mixing the colors and other nice in-built effects so that it was like a videoclip. Thank you,
You are fired!
The atmosphere was really good and intense and the lightshow fitted very well to the music i think and gave it a nice extra touch, also the sound quality was statisfing i think even if i there were some people complaining. At least there where we were sitting it was really good sound, maybe thing to complain is that it was hard to understand what Dave was screaming in the mic when trying to motivate or communicate with the audience. They played both old and new tracks, but turely i enjoyed more the old ones.. i guess mainly because i am not so familiar with the new album yet. Somehow i hoped that they would play Masters and Servants as i really love that one, but when they played Personal Jesus the audience was totaly freaking out and the entire stadium was singing it along and everybody was standing! It was several times that i got goose-skin, seeing the lights, the crowd waving, the entire stadium singing and clapping. All in all a fantastic and very memorable concert i must say.
If you have a chance to see them somewhere live, do it! Its more then worth it and the new album is also very worth a try if not even to buy it. We are talking about some true legends of the 80ies here, who still are able to keep up their standards. Thanks for that.
Here the tracklisting of the songs being played: A Pain That I'm Used To
John The Revelator
A Question Of Time
Policy Of Truth
Precious
Walking In My Shoes
Suffer Well
Damaged People
Home
I Want It All
The Sinner In Me
I Feel You
Behind The Wheel
World In My Eyes
Personal Jesus
Enjoy The Silence
Encore:Shake The Disease
Just Can't Get Enough
Everything Counts
Never Let Me Down Again
Goodnight Lovers
PS: Too bad that Judit wasn't able to join us, she would have loved it too i am sure, i was thinking so much about her during the concert.
Fantastic Mixtape: Cari Lekebusch Live at Mayday
Haha! This is great.. i just got home from Depeche Mode concert tonight, more about that later, and by total accident i found one of my old favorit DJ mixes. This is soo good, i have to write a Blog about it.
Cari Lekebusch live from
Mayday (Frankfurt Festhalle, 16/12-1995), somewhen back in the early 90ies when Techno music still was good and not a showoff for fancy-pancy-house-boys. Honestly, i love this set so much.. i can remember that i was listening to this old tape in my car so often and i always enjoyed it.
This brings me really back into early 90ies when listening to Evosonic radio and recording almost everything on tape, sharing with friends (mainly Major) and nights infront of the computer doing - whatever :). I am really amazed .. and then later i got into this "black hole" :) Great. If i now find my other old techno mixtapes again, then i probably wont go to bed at all this "evening".
..still raving...
Speechless
Well well .. after I've seen a great but depressive Spanish movie (great prepare for my upcoming vacation trip) and being surprised about actually still remembering some of my Spanish lessons from back in the days *cough*.. i decided to break my blog silence and come back to reporting.
Actually its not that there wouldn't have been anything to write about, the last weeks were quite busy and i simply didn't had the time to do anything. And well.. bit lazy too i must admit. So now i am not sure how to update about what happened (concert reviews, club visits, personal crap...). I might just make several posts the next days to fill up the gap.
So personal things first (less interesting), i had a pretty busy year until now and thinking back i don't even know why. Anyhow, i finally got myself a Sofa which i am so endless happy for that. Gives the entire living room and apartment a new feeling and makes it
a lot more comfortable. Also bought myself a new chair for my little "office", i realised that i really sat uncomfortable on the other one and that i got after some time back-pain. So now i have a much more professional chair and sit also here quite comfortable.. but true. That's not the big thing. Talking about my couch, i should invite more people over! Until now there haven't really been many people here to see it :) Maybe i should organise a Tupperware party or so? Or let Jesper (work-mate) sell some of his handy+feminine-Vietnamese-bags here. At least that could raise the chance of getting some woman inside about 98%
*giggle*.
So what else? Last weeks biggest problems, my electricity, is finally fixed! Hell.. after my fridge/freeze past away and i had to buy a new one (which i am really happy for too - hey! Its the first one i ever bought totally new and unused. Big ting big ting!).
This electricity problems cost me lot of restless minutes and of course the entire system had to collapse on a Sunday evening, 20:40 where you can be sure not to reach any electricians who a) pick up the phone b) help you. Biggest joke about this is that after my freeze was gone and i got a new one, i called immediately this bloke to check up for the problems i had all of the sudden and he couldn't figure out what was wrong. Now that i got the problems solved, i wonder how competent this guy actually is. First of all, he didn't tried any electrical devices - like for instance the micro-oven which was the best example to test that something is fishy here (i tried myself several times.. while my heart was flickering as intense as the lights in the apartment were). But nuff said about him, he will send me a bill for not having fixed anything and wasting my time, while i will have to pay another bill for the Sunday rescue team - who came from Frederiksbergs El-forssyning! Yes yes.. after none of the neighbours had any problems just me and i called my sister who gave me a) super smart answer to questions i didn't asked her, while not answering the question i actually called her for ("
Did you ever discovered anything like his?") b) totally annoyed me by smart ass answers to a) so i got the great idea to call these people and they came and after two hours they left again and i had my electricity back. Pheww.. what a life in darkness . I already had nightmares of spending the evenings with my flatmate playing cards! Imagine that! At the end we probably would have talked to each other.. oh gush.. just the thought of it is horrifying isn't it? (If not, then you haven't met him! ;-) ).
Another big thing is/was that my bike got a big renovation in early January. On my way to work, the chain broke and so i had to bring it to the ambulance. So after about a weeks time i got it back, fully repaired and ready to rumble again. Two days later, i realise that the front tire has a hole .. so i bring it to the next garage as its just the quickest way to have it done. Next day i pay and have it back again.. but.. this bloke ripped me off! The wire is not well done, so i have to spend some time soon on fixing it myself. And all this after i got a new chain. Frustrating.
We just managed to miss Bocksholm, which i was bit of dissapointed of as i really like their albums and as far as i can remember i havent seen them live yet, so i was bit of courise. Coph Nia i had no problems with missing, dont care too much about em. So first time we spend with socializing, grabbing some beers and just waving hello to everybody. I have a strange relation to beer at this place :) but thats just for outsiders (Haha: the "blond idiot" is back in town!).
