[music, concerts] December 11, 2002 at 10:54:02 PM CET

Tom Liwa and Low concert

December, 4th, Offenbach, Robert Johnson

The opener Tom Liwa from Duisburg sat with his guitar on a chair with legs crossed and seemed very detached from the public when singing his dreamy intimate songs. It was almost like if he sang them to himself. He played mainly acoustic and some electric guitar. His songs are about everyday life and the lyrics are in simple German. But they somehow speak to me about the mystery of normal unspectacular life. The special thing about Liwa is his voice. It is very soft and mellow and sounds very natural. Though he hardly ever rose his voice it was rather expressive as he sang with different phrasings and accentuations. The sound was quite good for one man and a guitar though the bigger part of the audience preferred to stand behind the scene and talk. In one song he made me think of a fortyish Nick Drake. Often I didn't listen to the words and was distracted in a good way. I started to think about totally different things. The music was inspiring. At the end he introduced Low as the best band of the world which I found really weird as it was so over the top.

Low started with the phantastic song In the Drugs which was probably the best of the set. The audience was totally mute and listened to this in awe. The band created a spiritual atmosphere from the beginning on with their unique sound stretching the notes to eternities. Most of the evening they played songs from the new album Trust which I didn't know before. Mimi's voice impressed me a lot the whole evening. Sometimes it was sounding like early Joni Mitchell without the very high bits where Joni doesn't hit the right notes. Very clear and often modulating, changing. Alan often sang in a kind of falsetto and he even joked about it by making his mike responsible for him not sounding very masculine. The best songs were the ones where both of them sang. Usually he sang a line first and then she repeated it. Two other phantastic songs were Amazing Grace and Sunflower. Before playing a weird Pink Floyd cover (Fearless from Meddle) I had never heard before Alan joked by asking us if we knew Pink Floyd. Some people in the audience including me had to laugh and then he described them as this young, hip band from NYC. They were full of that kind of absurd dry humour all evening long. Alan alluded to the fact that the Robert Johnson usually is a dance club and wondered why the audience didn't dance. Pointing to the enlarged photos hanging on the walls he said that the people on those photos were having fun. And asked why we seemed so sad and said as well that the band is very happy and not sad at all. We didn't dance as their music obviously isn't dance music at all. Later the bassist said something about feeling sorry as they didn't bring any junk if I understood him well. Nobody laughed including me.

They are very professional performers. Extremely relaxed and sure of themselves. I understood at the concert that actually only playing a note every ten seconds or so is extremely difficult considering that if you hit the wrong note it will immediately show.

I found some a cappella songs sung by Mimi and another one sung by Alan slightly annoying. Alan announced the La La La Song as easier for us to sing-a-long than the previous songs (very funny). Of course no-one in the audience sang (I hummed a little) and I think they were a little disappointed. Another song was quite traditional. Their roots must be somewhere there. They sound solemn in a way and the simple lyrics which are often about grace and things are pointing into the direction that Mimi and Alan are Mormons. Alan did most of the set with eyes closed.

They only gave one encore and seemed a little uninspired. They didn't do their amazing slow motion cover of Joy Division's Transmission and I was slightly disappointed in the end. They also did some loud songs, one was for Napalm Death (;-) who played in Frankfurt the same night. Distorted guitar and hard rocking bass. Mimi played the cymbals and drums mostly with the brushes.

After the show I asked Tom Liwa of whom I bought his latest double cd Two Originals... (one cd acoustic songwriter, the other punk) what his favourite album of Low was. He said Things We Lost in the Fire. It was at 20 euros which I found an exaggerated price for a concert sale.

 
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[music, concerts] December 4, 2002 at 6:27:05 PM CET

The ex-Moldy Peaches,

Kimya Dawson and Toby Goodshank plus Jeffrey & Jack Lewis and Dufus will play at the Dreikönigskeller in Frankfurt on Sunday, December, 8th (announcement in German). That small and cosy place conjures up good memories for me. I saw American Analog Set there a couple of months ago. Just before they disbanded.

Has anyone already seen this bunch of weirdos live? Are they worth to check out?

Antifolk to me seems the most stupid genre labeling ever. Lo-Fi would be more meaningful I guess. They have been compared to Beat Happening and the Violent Femmes. That sounds interesting to me.

ILM discussion: Moldy Peaches et al

 
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[music, concerts] December 2, 2002 at 8:23:38 PM CET

Concerts this week

There are three live shows in Offenbach this week I thought of going to:

• Tuesday - Ryan Adams in the Capitol
• Wednesday - Tom Liwa opening for Low in the Robert Johnson
• Thursday - Bright Eyes in the Robert Johnson

I am not sure if I will go to any of them anymore.

Ryan Adams is on his own this time and all I heard of him in the past nine months (after the last excellent concert in the Batschkapp with his band The Sweetheart Revolution) was bland middle of the road rubbish.

Bright Eyes singer Conor Oberst hasn't got the voice of my dreams and I am not in the mood for his melodramatic, introspective and self-lacerating songs.

I will probably attend the Low concert though. I heard one of their newer tracks which I didn't like too much as it sounded more like a normal rock song than the older slow atmospheric stuff on their first two records. But Tom Liwa from Duisburg which is almost my hometown (only the Rhine separates them) should be interesting. He played in an indie band called Flowerpornoes before which I don't really know but I listened to some tracks from his latest double album 2 Originals of.. and I liked what I heard. Singer songwriters singing in German without sounding pathetic are quite rare in this country.

 
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[music, concerts] November 23, 2002 at 6:29:50 PM CET

Sparklehorse and Norfolk & Western concert

My first visit to the small cave club Nachtleben was quite an impressive experience.

It started with the young band Norfolk & Western from Portland, Oregon which played calm and tuneful music radiating a warmth like few other bands. American Analog Set come to mind whose singer's timbre is similarly unobtrusive. Luna is another band covering the same soft and mellow ground. The very slowly evolving relaxed songs reminded me of Low who are going to play with Tom Liwa in Offenbach December, 4th by the way. Besides guitar, bass and drums some extra instruments on some songs added to the sound. There was the lap steel guitar giving a slight country touch, the vibraphone played by the female drummer, something like a hair dryer which intensified the atmosphere. On the cd I bought at the show, their second release Centralia from 2000 there is also a lot of viola which makes the comparison to Australia's Dirty Three featuring Warren Ellis expressive violin play almost inevitable. Actually Cat Power's masterpiece Moon Pix featuring Dirty Three's guitarist Mick Turner also has a similar soulful sound as Norfolk & Western.

After this very good opener I already feared that the main act would be a disappointment. Mark Linkous arrived on stage only with a drummer and started his set with a loud abrasive rocker with distorted guitar and voice. It came as a surprise to me as I would have expected this kind of stuff by Trent Raznor from Nine Inch Nails but not from Sparklehorse. All night long Linkous switched between his melodic sentimental songs and noisy punk interpretations of his songs in which the original tune could still be heard by the attentive listener. He was massacring his own beautiful songs as if he had had enough of the deeply emotional originals mostly from his first brilliant album Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot. I liked these abrupt changes between quiet and loud a lot. They gave the concert a dynamic aspect which I hadn't anticipated. Linkous as a performer was rather shy and did hardly interact with the audience. Between songs he seemed quite nervous and created a hectic atmosphere when he changed instruments. He only gave one encore, a quiet song which was an adequate end of an exciting evening.

 
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[music, concerts] November 21, 2002 at 1:40:05 PM CET

To whom it may concern

Sparklehorse will play at 9pm tonight in the Nachtleben near Konstabler Wache in Frankfurt. I will be there.

 
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[music, concerts] July 17, 2002 at 11:29:00 PM CEST

Do Make Say Think live When we arrived in the KoZ (Kommunikationszentrum) on the Frankfurt University Campus at 8 o'clock last Wednesday we were greeted by a wall of noise. The band was still on rehearsal. Around 9:30 when the concert was supposed to start there were hardly twenty spectators. Around 10 when the places started to fill the seven band members enter the stage and the bass player utters the only sentence of the evening: "We are Do Make Say Think from Toronto". They begin their set with "Classic Noodlanding", the first track on their last album & Yet & Yet. A promising slow starter introducing us to dense hypnotic droning soundscapes. The following pieces are noisier with guitar and other freakouts. The repetitive tuneless tracks start to grate. After a while we move from the front to the bar at the back of the room. The overall sound and especially the two drummers are too loud. The music resembles progrock and is very heavy. The musicians change instruments often. At one point there are two saxophones and two trumpets. The main trumpet player looks into the audience with a big smile whenever he pauses. Later on I understand why he grins so much. His muffled but still crystal clear trumpet sound makes me think of Miles Davis. A guy next to us rolls a joint with one hand and I suddenly think that that's it: dope music, music which can only be properly enjoyed under drugs. The guitarist is extremely thin and looks a little like Nick Cave. His guitar is way too big for him. After the concert I talk with the trumpet player who is extremely relaxed. I tell him that I am going to see Sonic Youth in Cologne the next day and it turns out that they play Cologne on the same day. Apparently they had also played Berlin at the same day as Sonic Youth and therefore didn't have a big audience. I mention my beloved Cowboy Junkies (dope music par excellence) as another band from Toronto and he tells me that at their concerts you can hear a needle fall (German expression) as the public is extremely attentive and silent. Margo Timmins languishing voice is simply irresistible. Though the concert was not really that impressive I still enjoyed it. At concerts with unknown bands in small places I feel more comfortable and closer to the music than listening to big names in big venues. P.S. All Google searches (and some other engines as well) leading to the front page of this weblog are now temporarily (until the next Google crawl) deviated to my old home page at Geocities. I took this rather strict measure to be able to read my referrer logs again. The visitor numbers have already dropped by two thirds. Hooray!

 
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[music, concerts] June 24, 2002 at 8:03:00 AM CEST

American Analog Set live The concert took place last Thursday night in the small Dreikönigskeller in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen. We had been waiting for almost 1 1/2 hours before the support act Don Lennon, a young singer/songwriter from Boston started around ten o'clock. He sang with a pleasant baritone and articulated the words of his often rather trivial lyrics centering on himself, on parties and girls very well. I thought the song in which he repeated his name in three languages was ingenious as it prevented me from forgetting it as it happens so often to me with support acts. His last song Dance Music was outstanding. He finished it without guitar just humming and making other strange noises with his mouth. That reminded me a little of Bobby McFerrin. Around 11 o'clock the five guys of the American Analog Set from Austin, Texas arrived on stage and started tuning their instruments while Murray Street, Sonic Youth's excellent last album was still playing on the stereo. AAS music is almost purely instrumental, the singing is subordinate, soft and rather high, more like a background effect, the lyrics are quite difficult to understand. Though AAS have existed for more than seven years the guitarist/singer seemed to be very young. He was extremely sympathetic and laid-back. Somehow this guy was so sweet that he radiated sunshine. He even apologized for playing a song they had performed six months ago when they had already been at the same venue. His guitar playing technique is rather economical and careful. At the end when his band already had left the stage he asked if there was a drummer in the audience to continue jamming a little. Of course there wasn't. The drummer was the motor of the music. He provided the frame to fit in for the others. His drumming was very focussed, mostly rather energetic, sometimes more restrained. The peculiar thing about him was that he sticked out his tongue while drumming. I can think of the following adjectives concerning the music: hypnotic, addictive, psychedelic, warm, mellow, serene, tender and tuneful. Many songs are rather minimal and repetitive. Some explose in a small crescendo. Besides drums and guitars there was a bass, keyboards and percussion (often xylophone). I had the impression that the keyboards sometimes played the same notes as the xylophone but with a small delay. The effect was like a kind of echo. During the second half of the concert I often closed my eyes to concentrate and enjoy the music better. The musicians did the same. For one song the guitarist used a black box which he stroke over the strings. The resulting sound was very low and full. Almost symphonic. In another song there was only drums and xylophone. I had difficulties to hear the bass. The bass player always turned his back on us. Overall I loved the concert and bought their singles compilation Through the 90s: Singles and Unreleased after. It seems that they have changed their style slightly on the last record. The keyboards which have been dominating on many older singles have been pushed more into the background whereas the drumming has become more prominent. To me this is like a shift from psychedelic (keyboards) to hypnotic (rhythms). On the other hand it could be that this impression is mainly due to the concert where the drums have been louder than on the records.

• Genre: Drone-pop (due to AMG)
• Similar bands: Yo La Tengo, early Stereolab, Luna (for the singing and mood)
• Mp3s: "The Kindness of Strangers"(3.2 MB) and "The Only One" (2.1 MB) from their latest album Know By Heart and "Weather Report" (2.7 MB) from the album The Golden Band.

 
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[music, concerts] April 9, 2002 at 12:21:00 AM CEST

Linkage

• Discussion at lost for life: Why Chan Marshall sucks live. One reason seems to be that she takes acid before her shows. I saw Cat Power twice. The first time it was the Moon Pix tour and it was a phantastic trip. Dirty Three's guitarist Mick Turner accompanied her and had a very stabilising effect on her perfomance. When she sang she was completely gone but Turner's slow guitar playing absorbed her. The second time she was on her own with her guitar and piano and it was the Cover Songs tour. We saw her in a very small venue about the size of our living-room and it was painful. She didn't hit the right tones and almost ran off in the middle of the set.

• Another one of those damned quizzes. It has got to do with music and is short (five questions only) though:
  The Band Quiz By Rahel

 
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[music, concerts] February 17, 2002 at 12:33:00 PM CET

Ryan Adams in concert We were lucky on Thursday and got tickets at the box office. The Batschkapp was extremely crowded. If there had been a fire or any other emergency it would have been almost impossible to escape. We arrived just before eight when the concert was supposed to start but the poor support band only started around nine and was saluted with many catcalls. It was a Swedish duo comprising a pianist and a singer. They did some romantic low-fi numbers. I liked the piano player but the singer was quite annoying as he sounded very affected. The public got more and more impatient after they had left the stage as there was no sign of the headliner. A guy next to us was quite pissed off of the delay and left around half past ten. Shortly afterwards Ryan Adams and the Sweetheart Revolution arrived on stage and started with a rocker. Ryan and his band were on top form. They were amazing as they switched from country ballads to punk songs. I really liked the hard rock guitar sound when there were three guitarists playing. Ryan has a very strong stage presence and talked a lot to the audience which did not understand most of what he was saying. He even got away with saying "I am sorry that your girl-friend has a crush on me" to a guy in the public. He behaved as a rock star but it was perfectly natural. Unfortunately the concert finished after only two hours as people did not insist enough on another encore. Ryan Adams was absolutely stunning. His music is pure power and emotion. I could hear many influences like Springsteen, Dylan, Presley, Neil Young, Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead etc. But he has his own sound and I loved it. I'd say he is not the future of rockn'roll, he IS rockn'roll. Unfortunately next time he won't play in such a small place again.

 
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[music, concerts] February 2, 2002 at 1:05:00 PM CET

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.

 
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