Howe live We saw Howe Gelb in concert in Frankfurt Thursday night. The place, the Cafeteria of the KoZ (communication centre) of Frankfurt University was small and quite packed. Unfortunately Howe was on his own without his Giant Sand sidemen Convertino/Burns. So it was just guitar, a little electric piano and his voice. A little lo-fi but somehow Howe pulled it off anyways. This time I liked his use of the walkman better. There was a tune of Johnny Cash on tape to which Howe played guitar and drowned it. Howe was very entertaining and charming as usual. Flirting with the girls in the public. I was a little bit disappointed that there was no encore. It had taken the public and me some time to get into Howe's strange little songs and then suddenly it was over. As usual he even changed his own old songs so much that they were quite difficult to recognise. After about 90 minutes Howe packed his stuff and started selling the last two CDs which have been released on his OW OM label. After the concert I asked him some questions. He told me that Giant Sand is not finished and that they will probably tour Germany later in the year. When I asked him if he could cover a Velvet Underground song he said he would probably just about be able to do it. But he wouldn't like to as it would be too obvious. The conversation was made a little difficult by a drunken idiot who kept talking to Howe but Howe just put on these noise-reduction headphones which isolate 100% against outdoor noises. Nice stuff. Apparently they cost about 500 euros. It was a strange feeling for me to talk to one of my favourite musicians. Instead of listening to him and his music, he listened to me for a minute. I found him quite attentive and earnest but that was probably due to my direct questions. I am still trying to complete my Giant Sand album collection. Yesterday there was an auction on Stromausfall, a rare album of them. I could not believe my eyes. Six minutes before the end the highest bid was € 49.50. Either there are some people around who are totally crazy or the guy who started the auction bid himself. Just to raise the price (the market value) for Giant Sand rarities in future auctions. I subscribed myself as a leaf to the Sandman series, a Giant Sand CD-ROM tree. It consists of organisers, branches and leaves. The organisers receive the CD-Rs the first and distribute copies to the branches who then distribute copies to the leaves. For every copied CD-R the receiver has to return two blank CD-Rs. Up to now five CD-Rs have seen the light. A nice network.