[music, concerts] May 19, 2004 at 8:05:00 AM CEST

Swell

are going to play in the Oetinger Villa in Darmstadt tomorrow at 9.30 pm. They used to be one of my favourite bands in the early nineties. Their music is psychedelic indie folk-rock with a very distinctive atmospheric warm guitar sound plus some good drive. There is something all-encompassing about their music. Swell are from San Francisco. Which is a dream of a city.

For a taster I can point you to two sites with mp3s. First there is a French fan page (I think they are most "famous" in France) with two concerts from 1991 and 1998: Is that Important?. Then there is another fan site which offers two mp3s from each of their albums. Meet you at the Villa.

 
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[music, concerts] March 24, 2004 at 1:32:00 AM CET

sophia live

robin proper-sheppard announcing the song the sea as a song he'd written for his daughter who said that she found it too boring and too slow. and who he disinherited as the adressee of the song. that's what i'd call honest. his daughter was right btw. the song was unimpressive. but i didn't care.

robin proper-sheppard who says and shows that after 15 years of playing around with guitars he still isn't capable of tuning a guitar, that's so simpatico.

overall i was slightly underwhelmed by the concert. on disc they sound better but it didn't matter.

swept back, my ultimate goose-pimp song by them was nice but i really loved when they let themselves loose at the end with the noise of if a change is gonna come. instead of all those ballads they should have done more noise because they know how to do it. not like lambchop who are still virgins of noise.

 
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[music, concerts] March 17, 2004 at 10:11:00 PM CET

Noisetalgia

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.

 
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[music, concerts] March 16, 2004 at 9:11:00 PM CET

Lambchop @ the Mousonturm, Frankfurt/Main

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.

 
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[music, concerts] March 15, 2004 at 6:20:00 PM CET

To whom it may concern

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.

 
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[music, concerts] March 7, 2004 at 5:28:00 PM CET

Tokyo post-rock

Anyone interested to go to see Mono in Darmstadt tomorrow? My I Love Music thread doesn't really kick off:

"Almost nothing on this Japanese instrumental quartet on ILM yet. They will play near where I live in the tasteful setting of the Oetinger Villa in Darmstadt tomorrow and after what I heard on their site I think I will go. Post-rock somewhere between Mogwai and Godspeed with a calmer more classical impressionist sound on their forthcoming release Walking cloud and deep red sky, Flag fluttered and the sun shined according to two of the three samples. Does anyone know more about them and their live performances?"

 
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[music, concerts] December 28, 2003 at 2:15:00 AM CET

Sonic Youth

mp3 download with sixteen songs from the show at the Bonnaroo Festival in Tennessee, June 13th, 2003 (via kingblind). Still one of the most amazing live bands in the world if you ask me.

 
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[music, concerts] December 3, 2003 at 12:02:00 AM CET

Jay Farrar in the Sinkkasten

The opener was Shilf from Switzerland. I listened to the first song and was 100% convinced that they were American. Then the singer, a brunette with short-cut hair who reminded me of Ryan Adams from the outlooks for some strange reason spoke German. With a tiny Schwyzerdütsch accent. And they continued their slow Americana guitar rock somewhere between Lambchop, Low and the Cowboy Junkies. The smell of a fat joint was intruding my nostrils. The bassist looked like a human version of Michel Houellebecq. And the singer spoke again. This time in her dialect, a very broad one with lots of vowels and "sch's" which made me think she and the band were Austrian. Some hypnotic songs followed. If I had to choose between Fink (from Hamburg) and Shilf I think I would opt for Shilf. At least for two or three songs that night.

Jay Farrar started his set on his own, a one man band with guitar, voice and mouth-harp. Very loud for one person. Like a Vic Chesnutt without the passion. A low-key affair. Don't get me wrong, Jay Farrar has a great voice, but I was happy when Mark Spencer joined him on his lap steel. And he played like a guitar god. Jimi Hendrix's spirit was in the air. They finished the set with a phantastic instrumental encore, I think it was a very extended version of Fish Fingers Norway from Terroir Blues. It sounded like a raga. Intense improvised guitar freakout (fuck I never got my Eleventh Dream Day album). On the liner notes of the album an electric slide sitar is mentioned for one song. That is such a great idea that it doesn't matter that the realization is a little bit disappointing.

 
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[music, concerts] November 7, 2003 at 11:58:00 PM CET

Bob Dylan

on stage last night in the Jahrhunderthalle in Frankfurt-Höchst was like an extra-terrestrian who hadn’t got used to the strong pull of gravity on earth yet. Who came from outer space where he surely will return to soon. Staggering around, looking pretty lost. His knees were hardly holding him. He was so small, so thin, so fragile. Ducked over his cheap looking electronic piano. The microphone was still too low so he also had to bend his head to sing. Weird that nobody from the crew had pity with him and fixed him his mike. Dylan hardly communicated with the audience outside of his songs.

I am glad I went to see him. Somehow I feel this is his last tour. I hope I’m wrong. My personal favourite was Honest To Me. It started with the guitars on full blast in fast forward mode. Power-rock. The slide guitar cutting the air into molecules. And the lyrics are so Nostradamus-like. Remember Love and Theft was released on 9/11. Another highlight was the calm It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue dominated by the pedal steel. Especially Dylan’s mouth harp play at the end. Here it was quite reserved. On a later song (I have forgotten which one) it was wild and mesmerizing. White man's blues if there ever was any. I have always preferred his mouth harp voice to his real one. The setlist is here at Dylan pool. A wonderful site with setlists of all concerts from 2001 on and discussions on most of the songs he performed yesterday.

P.S. The first five songs of the set as mp3s (via the discussion board of said Dylan pool). They will be replaced by the next five and so on soon.

P.P.S. Zwei Besprechungen des Konzerts. Eine ziemlich treffende Zusammenfassung von Herbert Heil im Wiesbadener Kurier und ein siebenteiliger Versuch einer Rezension von Harry Nutt in der Frankfurter Rundschau, der zwar nur zum Teil von dem Konzert handelt, aber in seiner impressionistischen Unfokussiertheit auch aufschlussreich ist.

 
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[music, concerts] October 22, 2003 at 11:18:00 PM CEST

Fehlfarben in Frankfurt

Peter Hein war sichtlich not amused, dass das Konzert ganz kurzfristig (vielleicht acht Stunden vor Einlass) von der geräumigen Batschkapp in den intimeren Klubkeller des Nachtlebens verlegt worden war. Er hätte schon vor weniger Leuten in der Batschkapp gespielt und Frankfurt wäre ja sowieso früher ihre Stadt gewesen.

Aber bevor es losging mit der zentralen Band der Neuen Deutschen Welle, heizte uns ein Septett aus Bremen ein: Schwarz auf Weiss. Eine funkige, laute und spritzige Angelegenheit. Der Sänger strotzte nur so vor Energie und Selbstdarstellungslust. Die Texte waren in deutsch. Simpel aber gut. Punk und NDW waren nicht weit. Die beiden Bläser (Saxofon und Trompete) setzten das I-Tüpfelchen auf den Sound, der hauptsächlich von der Gitarre und den Keyboards bestimmt war. Am Ende gab es ein langes, hypnotisches gejammtes Stück, dass meinetwegen noch eine halbe Stunde hätte weitergehen können.

Ich befürchtete nun schon, dass die Fehlfarben ihre Vorgruppe, die fast eine Generation jünger war als sie, nicht würden toppen können, aber da hatte ich mich glücklicherweise getäuscht. Obwohl es eine Weile dauerte bis die Band sich warmgespielt hatte. Die ersten Lieder waren von der letztjährigen Reunionplatte Knietief im Dispo und ihnen fehlte etwas der Biss. Zudem schrie Hein am Anfang ziemlich unverständlich ins Mikro und selbst ein Stück wie Grauschleier, das ziemlich hingerotzt wirkte und dem das Saxofon am Ende schmerzlich abging, war nur ein blasser Abklatsch von alten gloriosen Zeiten. Es fehlte ein bisschen die Lässigkeit und Schnoddrigkeit. Im Laufe des Abends tastete man sich jedoch vorsichtig zurück in die Anfänge der Band und der punkigen Vorbands und die vorderen Reihen pogeten wie als wären gerade die Achtziger angebrochen. Ihren einzigen Hit (den sie ziemlich hassen) spielte die Band glücklicherweise nicht. Anstattdessen die wesentlich besser zur Gruppe passende Persiflage mit der das letzte Album endete: Sieh Nie Nach Vorn,

Es fiel auf, wieviel Spaß es den Musikern machte zusammen live zu spielen, sie lächelten sich dauernd untergründig-geheimnisvoll an. Insbesondere die einzige Frau, die junge gleichzeitig burschikose und zierliche, kraftvoll und präzise auf die Felle und Becken eindreschende Saskia von Klitzing, schien permanent mit Hein und den anderen Urgesteinen ganz natürlich zu flirten.

Im Laufe des Abends wurden dann alle meine Lieblingslieder bis auf Das war vor Jahren (glaube ich) von Monarchie und Alltag gespielt. Neben Grauschleier sind das Hier und Jetzt, Das sind Geschichten, Gottseidank nicht in England, Apokalypse (ursprünglich Ernstfall betitelt und von Heins Punkband Mittagspause) und am Ende des offiziellen Sets das grandiose atmosphärische Paul ist tot, das mich immer so unheimlich an die Cure erinnert, ohne die pathetisch düstere Stimme von Robert Smith. Bei diesem Lied verließen dann die Bandmitglieder eines nach dem anderen die Bühne, angefangen mit Peter Hein. Thomas Schwebel spielte am Ende das repetitive rhythmische Riff für eine Weile ganz alleine bis auch er verschwand.

Nach einer Weile kamen sie dann wieder, Hein war es wohl doch etwas zu warm geworden und er hatte sich des braunen Anzugs und des oben weit aufgeknöpften orangen Hemdes, das nonchalant seine haarlose Brust ausstellte, entledigt und war nun im T-Shirt. Es wurden dann noch mehrere großartige ältere Punknummern gespielt, u.a. Große Liebe/Maxi von Thomas Schwebel aus S.Y.P.H.-Tagen, damals noch Industriemädchen betitelt mit dem genialen Zeilenpaar:

Abgeschlossen wurde die eindrucksvolle Zeitreise zurück mit Alte Pizza von der NDW-Dada-Avantgardetruppe Der Plan. Der passend zum Lied leicht in die Breite gegangene Pyrolator Kurt Dahlke, der die meiste Zeit des Konzerts fast unbeweglich ernst in der Ecke an seinem Synthesizer rumgemacht hatte, sang nun vom Charme der ollen Pizza und tanzte wie ein Verrückter mit herumwirbelnden Armen dazu. Ein rundum gelungenes Konzert. Ich freue mich schon auf das nächste Mal.

P.S. Andreas, den ich auf dem Konzert traf, hat hier seine Impressionen niedergeschrieben.

P.P.S. Eine seltsame, die Konzeptlosigkeit der Band anklagende Besprechung in der Frankfurter Neuen Presse.

 
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