The most exciting American indie rock band of the time covers the trashiest British (post-)punkers: Sonic Youth do Rouche Rumble, My New House, Victoria and Psycho Mafia by The Fall in a Peel session from 1988 (via kingblind). The Fall must have been a tremendous influence for Sonic Youth, it really shows in these straight covers.

I just listened to The Mystical Beast's audio stream (up in the left corner, link) and came across this piece mentioned in the March, 11th post (mp3) which has some of the most hilarious lyrics I have ever heard. Listening to it for the first time I had to grin from ear to ear like after having inhaled the smoke of a certain burning substance. The track is more of a mini radio play than a musical song. There are some weird noises and voices in the background but they mainly serve to accentuate the surreal dadaistic dialogue between Fowley and a woman. It's all about the words and the puns. I cannot imagine that he was not stoned when he wrote them. Maybe they just made them up on the spot.

der schönste satz heute. schade, dass du wieder angefangen hast zu rauchen. ich hätte sie umarmen müssen für diesen einen satz.

gestern abend in der letzten s-bahn hatte ich diese fixe idee eines projekts. für einen monat lang immer die erste (gegen 5) und letzte (gegen 1 am folgenden morgen) s-bahn nehmen und über die eindrücke schreiben. ein lokales roadmovie mit social touch.

When I arrived at the Mousonturm last night the venue was packed. The music had already started. I heard listener unfriendly disharmonic violins with double bass. It turned out to be a piece by Polish classical avant-garde composer Penderecki performed by the DAFO string quartet from Krakow. Exactly the opposite of what I had expected to hear this evening.

The next surprise was that the string quartet which was announced as a support act was not really opening for Lambchop. Kurt Wagner and the seven co-members of his band were already installed on stage and immediately started performing their set with the DAFO quartet providing the string section. I was amazed how seamlessly the obviously classically trained three ladies and the one gentleman from Poland blended into the calm and relaxed Lambchop sound. It's a sound with a positive life-affirming vibe few bands are able to create. Like a sweet fig radiating all the sunshine of a hot summer on the palate of the gourmet. And the crowd was soon enthralled by it. It took some time though as in one of the first songs a short time-span attentionist started clapping in the middle of a long pause within the song. Kurt Wagner and his bandmates neither did get themselves worked up by this small incident nor by the short power cut when Lambchop performed unplugged for about half a minute. They were like a slow unstoppable train always reaching the destination but always arriving late without any passengers complaining as the ride is so beautiful everyone forgets about time. Their setlist was fixed and they didn't play any requests (Kurt said that it would have been not easy) but it didn't matter.

Kurt's voice which is in a way holding together the music was raspy but in a gentle way. I had feared it to be much rougher, much closer to the stage just before a throat cancer candidate gets his larynx taken out. His voice was full of passion though I must admit that as so often I didn't really listen to the words. No falsetto this night. Not that I really missed it.

At one point Kurt tried to use his cell phone to call his wife in the States. Maybe it was part of the show but I was really reminded by my own awkwardness with new technologies when Kurt had big difficulties to dial the number. He then left the phone next to him and performed the next song for her. I'd really like to know if she heard it.

The pianist who did a lot of the talking did some good entertaining when telling several lame jokes. The first one went like this:

There was another one which I have changed a little, I guess:

For the encores the string quartet left the stage and Lambchop on their own seemed like a prisoner who had just been released catching up with real life. In their heart they are punk rockers. Suddenly rocking hard they destroyed the atmosphere they had built up in the ninety minutes before like a monsoon rain which is clearing the tension of the heat. Somehow I liked the idea of this cataclysm but in reality it wasn't as good as it could have been. Maybe as they haven't discovered the addictive drone component of noise like Yo La Tengo for example who to me seem much subtler when they rock out.

The following may sound stereotypically but I don't care. If you ever see Lambchop play near where you live go and see them. You won't regret it. Their records are great but their live music is an experience you will never forget.

I will be at the Lambchop concert at the Mousonturm tonight. It is supposed to kick off at 9 pm with a support act called DAFO String Quartet.

at the Tofu Hut with many further reading links and mp3s. Roland Rahsaan Kirk was one of the most gifted saxophone players ever. He was blind and could play up two three saxophones at once. In the early sixties the German jazz critic Joachim Ernst Berendt discovered him playing as a one man band in the streets of Chicago where he also lived at the time.

Links to twelve mp3s of the phantastic Montreal songwriter Julie Doiron at largehearted boy: Monday Morning Mix CD

Especially the first two sparsely instrumented songs full of space from Heart and Crime create a dreamy forlorn atmosphere I can impossibly resist. If Nick Drake had been a woman he could have sounded like that. The ballad The Last Time from Julie Doiron and the Wooden Stars moves me like few songs I have listened to in the past months. What a beauty of a sad tune.

Can anyone explain to me how 212 visitors arrived on this page in the last 24 hours via this Search Windowsmedia redirect link?

The new Liars album They Were Wrong So We Drowned is fully downloadable on their site (link credit to kingblind)! That's about the first album of the new New York rock scene I have heard which deserves to be called post-punk. Abrasive and still captivating. Groovy art noise as we like it around here. Are the Liars the Sonic Youth of the new millenium? Other influences I can spot: Suicide, This Heat and PIL.

P.S. March, 19th update: The download is gone. "Wer zu spät kommt, den bestraft das Leben" as we say in German.