Alle Tragen Diese Karierten Burberry Pullis

Last week me & Wulf went to see the Goldenen Zitronen play at the Kultur Bunker in Mülheim, where unfortunately it was too dark to take photos with my phone-cam. But one floor down they had an exhibition of anarchist and protest posters, so I’m posting pics of those instead.

The poster below is protesting against a population census.

The Goldenen Zitronen were dope by the way. They’re a punk band from Hamburg – their best songs are sparely composed with lyrics about how it’s easier to enter Europe as a sneaker than as a person (Ectomorph thought the sneaker song sounded like an updated DAF). On their merch table they had a poster saying ‘Schwabinggrad Ballet’. (Schwabing is a la-di-da upperclass area in Munich)

After the show me & Wulf got lahmacun with parsley, radish and pickled chillies from the Turkish street in Mülheim. Über-geil!

Excerpt of lyrics: Die Goldenen Zitronen – Mila.

What I don’t really do often, is to get lost.
I always try to travel paths that are known to me.
At least, in the countryside it was like that.
What’s it called again, that crap shop?
It can’t be possible, that they didn’t pick me up. Shit.
Everybody’s wearing these plaid Burberry sweaters that you can get from H&M. Shit shop.
You can memorise the number for the directory service yourself, you wankers.
I’m really terrified of situations where I’m assessed.
Jens said he only has 13 summers left.
Next stop: the train stops.
Don’t throw any German shepherds out the window.
Again, there’s nothing in the air.
Apart from fear.
This is true: somebody I know named his book “I Can’t Take it Anymore”.
I am Papi the dummest crocodile.
I believe I was in the same street last week, with the same questions.
I don’t dare to call any of you guys.
A topped-up prepaid card doesn’t entail an invited circle of friends.
The lights are blinding my eyes. A spark singed my knee.
Mila. Mila. You psycho. Please.
C’mon, you know what to do when you’re wobbling. No? Mila!
You’re the queen of the stone age.
I’m an idiot in pantaloons.
Tomorrow I’m going to the best Media Market store of all time.
Because that’s what they said. On TV.
Men would destroy telephone booths, but they seem to be blind in their magenta eyes.

Ich Bin Keine Maschine

Just posting a few photos from my workmate Niklas’ band Locas in Love at a show in the Altes Pfandhaus in the Südstadt a couple of weeks ago.

The most enjoyable songs for me were ‘Maschine’ (I pretty much like any song with lyrics that confirm or deny being a robot or a machine), and their Julee Cruise – Falling cover version with dramatic ride cymbal flourishes. They also did a cover version of Aphrodite’s Child who are pretty rad.

Cute, aren’t they?

I couldn’t understand most of the patter between songs but it seemed to be stuff about looking for houses in the countryside and banging your head on the ceiling.

If you are based in NYC you can see them play in January at Cake Shop and Union Hall.

Rühr-ei

Germany’s Love Parade yesterday attracted 1.6 million visitors to the unlikely location of Dortmund. For New Zealand readers, I would compare this to having a Love Parade in Papakura. Dortmund is located in the industrial Ruhr area, apparently Europe’s fifth largest ‘urban area’ after Moscow, London, Paris and Madrid. Polish people abound in this coal-mining region, and after WWII the area became home to a large number of Turkish and Italian ‘guest workers’ as well.

The Italian ‘ndrangheta mafia clan have established something of a stronghold there, causing a stir last year with five sensational murders in Duisberg.

Maybe that’s part of why the region agreed to hold three successive Love Parades (last year’s was in Essen, which is also in the Ruhr area), despite the security and sanitation head-aches suffered in its long-time location of Berlin.

The mayor of Dortmund presented this new, upbeat face of Ruhr on TV in a ketchup red t-shirt with some crazy yellow graphic on it, while self-professed ’stadium minimal’ jock Dubfire rocked the proletariats (‘prols’ as they call them in Deutschland). Then the camera turned to some good-natured grannies who were dancing around in plastic Hawaiian leis. They were probably the cutest thing about the footage. And by the way, ’stadium minimal’ is probably not such a stretch from the persistent beat of schlager music (Germany’s ‘party pop’ for old people).

It’s hard to imagine now, but for the first couple of years (back in the early ’90s), the Love Parade really was a celebration for music lovers, queers and true freaks (not just office workers in body paint). Even my workmate Wulf confesses to having danced on a speaker stack there in purple leggings. That was just what you did. But things were different. Back then, Moby even had a few OK songs. I can vouch for it: I had one on a mix-cassette from a local radio show in New Zealand. (I didn’t wear leggings but I did copy some gothic purple eye-paint from a story on rave culture in i-D magazine. Hey, I was 13.).

My boss Torsten says the second Love Parade, the one when it rained, was the best. You can imagine the fun to be had, with a straggling crowd of anarchists on ecstasy.

The Love Parade today is far from anarchistic. But musically, it could be worse. Dubfire (once part of US deep house act Deep Dish) is still marginally better than, say Paul Oakenfold or Tiesto.

Needless to say, we didn’t visit the Love Parade, but we did accidentally end up on a train headed to the Love Parade (we were going to nearby Düsseldorf for Japanese groceries). Despite Deutschebahn supposedly adding 500 trains to the networks that day, it was packed, and clouded with smoke of both varieties.

The antics of the techno gangbangers above led the kids sitting next to us to grumble about the ‘azis’ (German for bogans or white trash). ‘C’mon’, I wanted to ask them, ‘Did you really think this was going to be 1.6 million people who are all there because they really, really love Dubfire?’

Who do you think the Spiegel showed photos of in their coverage? Techno gangbangers getting down with the Ruhr area’s Turkish, Italian and Polish Germans in a symbolic act of unity: or ugly girls with bare breasts?
Like Nas said, it ain’t hard to tell

There was only one way to deal with this long, tangled journey, with prolonged stops in Benrath and Leverkusen as the train attendants struggled to get people to mind the closing doors.