New Mexican Accordion Players, Violinists from the Windy City and English Girls who play guitar

I was tempted to call it my All American Week – with two wonderful musicians from the states coming to Hamburg only within the short time span of two days. But then there was this little blond girl from Hampshire, England, who turned everything upside down…

Beirut was coming to town. An event I had actually been waiting for, for more than a year. Only a few weeks short of the gig in Hamburg, Zach Condon had cancelled all the remaining concerts of his tour, leaving me – and a few hundred of other fans - with nothing to hold on to but a little piece of plastic to turn over and over in the player... That was in late 2007. Today, there is a new small, round piece of plastic in the player and the band is up on the road again.
Actually I didn’t really know what to expect. I only knew that, after the Bloc Party concert in February I had sworn never to set foot into that nasty club again: Docks. And had I known that Beirut was going to play there, I guess I wouldn’t even have bought the ticket. But as things were, the concert had been moved to the Docks only after I bought the ticket and I could only hope for a better climate and less people than at the Bloc Party gig. The first came true – the second didn’t. It was sold out and as crowed as it could get. A nice mixture of old and young, trendy and alternative, music snobs and event-concert-goers occupied the vast space in front of the stage. A strange setting for music like that.
Until we finally got to hear the beautiful melancholic tunes of Beirut, we were however forced to go through – an awfully long – half-hour of Winter in Alaska. Hearing parts of his songs on his Last.fm profile I was actually quite curious about this very special brand of indietronic. And at first the funny video performance that turned the one-man-band into an orchestra, and the catchy beats of the song had serious charm. Too bad however, that this charm wore off just as fast as the modulated voice of Brandon Bethancourt started to strain my ears (and nerves). But as they say: even the worst support band does not play forever. And we were finally compensated with a solid hour of beautiful solemn tunes, originating somewhere between Mexico and the Balkan.
Beirut was in good shape and seemed particularly pleased with the enthusiasm the crowd showed to very single brass solo or accordion intro. A splendid gig by all means. But not as stirring as I had pictured it to be. I blame it mainly on the club.

Only 48 hours later, there was another long-awaited concert of me: Andrew Bird and Laura Marling played Hamburg’s Uebel und Gefaehrlich. What an incredibly lucky twist of fate that brought two of my most treasured musicians together on one stage, at one night? I was not alone in my excitement, and even though the concert was far from sold out, I found myself surrounded by my own private Laura-and-Andrew-lovers-clique.
Unlike Cat, who had seen Laura perform twice already, it was the first time for me to see that talented, fair-voiced young girl perform. The half-hour was over in an instance. The girl in the red shoes was gone, but her beautiful melodies still seemed to linger in the air while the stage was being set up for Andrew Bird.
I had actually seen him before. Hardly knowing him at all, I had watched him from afar while he – and his violin and guitar alone – had enchanted an entire four-story theatre hall at The Hague’s Crossing Border Festival in late 2007. But this time everything was different. Not just because I had grown to know and love his magnificent tunes and thoughtful lyrics, also because this time he had taken along his four-piece band. Due to his musical support we got to see less of his magical loop-technique that enables him to slowly rise from a single whistled tune and a few chords on the violin onto the heights of an entire orchestral soundscape… – the band support was however able to transform Andrew Bird’s chamber-music into driving rock songs and catchy pop hymns. Surprising, delightful, simply beautiful.
Cat has been calling that concert by Andrew Bird and Laura Marling the gig of the year. And even though the year is quite far from its conclusion I am quite inclined to agree.


pics: © Cat!

Reading between the lines

So, I revived my “business relations” to the Hamburg Express, simply because they opened a blog-section and I am always eager for more readers. Wagging tongues might even claim that there is a connection between the switch of this blog to the English language and the outlook of blogging there…
But let’s not get into that again…
In any case it only took a few hours after my first post on The Hamburg Express until my former boss and chief editor of the online-publication approached me with the invitation to a concert he was supposed to attend and write about and wasn’t going to be able to. So here it was, my first official writing assignment again after more than a year’s journalistic absence. Too bad, the concert didn’t particularly correlate with my own personal musical preferences and writing a slating review after getting invited to the concert wasn’t really an option… Oh well, I guess you simply have to read between the lines then…

A charmer and a gent (okay, lets stick to the visual, since the acoustic wasn’t my cup of tea): Duncan Townsend and his band performed at Hamburg’s “Uebel & Gefaehrlich” on Wednesday night, and the handsome lad (many, many pretty young girls in the front row with stars in their eyes) from Nottingham (funny… wasn’t there a character in the Robin Hood movie called Duncan, too… it’s all connected: Sheriff of Nottingham – Duncan… can anyone think of a Townsend connection here? The Who and Robin Hood? … am I making sense?) had all of Hamburg at his feet.
It was the first major gig for Duncan Townsend and his “Townsmen” and yet it would have been difficult to squeeze in any more people into the slightly downsized room of the “bunker-club” (partially explicable by the five-page long, single-spaced guest list).
The story Duncan Townsend tells about his journey to Hamburg is almost as romantic as a fairytale (sigh… and from a marketing point of view this makes a lot of sense since a lot of the cute front-row girls might like that type of thing…): It was love that brought him here. He bravely followed the woman he loved to a foreign country. But “stranded on the German shore”, his good fortune failed him, leaving him love- and penniless (sigh the second… I wonder if there is any special point to the emphasis of his single status…). He started playing in bars in St. Pauli, earning some money and soon also a reputation as an excellent musician and songwriter (from rags to riches, if you will). Today, five years after his original arrival in Germany luck seems to be on his side again. His first album “Out of the Red” is about to hit the stores and his first single “Go! Go!” suspiciously sounds like it might be this summer’s radio hit (and I mean it. Sounds like the perfect radio hit. Actually I have to admit that some of the more speedy tunes aren’t bad… just the love songs are awfully cliché – just like the entire “poor love-seeking boy stranded in Germany to become a star”-story).
The concert, in any case, forecasted a great career (if my review wasn’t the only one about it that might actually be true). The audience was enthusiastic, singing and dancing along (apart from at the back – where I decided to hide after the third song, sipping beer, folding flyers into small ships models and then ripping them into neat triangular pieces…), and even calling for a second encore, which was gladly given by Townsend and his four-piece band (all very friendly Hamburg folk). A great show that left little to wish for and plenty to look forward to (I am sure Duncan would look nice on the tube, he’s a friendly lad). One better keep an eye – and an ear - on that charming gent (did I mention his remarkable inclination to wear a bit too formal clothing? Maybe some sort of reference to the singer /entertainer tradition of the 50s – almost Sinatra-style…) from Nottingham. (It’s all marketing. Wonder where it gets him…)

Repeated Offender

I have to admit my Saturday started considerably late. You might want to blame the midnightly idea of watching some good-looking but rather absurd pseudo-cartoon film called “The Spirit” which ironically enough – due to its film noir/ hard-boiled crime atmosphere – perfectly fitted my Master thesis, but had little more to offer than funny costumes and a surprisingly large number of ‘class A’ Hollywood stars…
In any case, I was woken that Saturday morn, by the sun when its happy, vernal rays fell through my freshly cleaned, westward window. After an extensive newspaper reading breakfast and an hour or two of mindless this and that, I was left with only one hour of thesis writing until I had to head off for my date.
The date consisted of two separate concerts of one and the same band. The Rifles, a bunch of cool, down-to-earth, London lads with a crisp indie guitar sounds and sing-along tunes. They first performed in Hamburg’s no. 1 records shop, Michelle, and after that at the sold out “Uebel & Gefaehrlich”. And yes, of course I had to see them twice. Repeated Offender.
I was late. The shop was already crowed with people when I got there at 10 to 6. A full set of instruments, including an entire drum kit, guitar amps and a keyboard were squeezed into the little shop-window of Michelle records, and the only places left to stand were almost on top of the guitar effects pedals or in the face of the singer. Fortunately however, there was Cat standing right there in the front row and I felt authorised to illegitimately join her and a friend in the ‘best seats’ even though I was late. By 6 o’clock, even more people had come in, pushing yet closer to the place where the band was supposed to stand and outside the window a cloud of people had started to gather.
Finally, the band made their way through the crowd, shouldered their instruments and played a nice little set songs. A pleasant mixture of ‘old’ sing-alongs and the new tunes from the recent album that electrified even the one’s in the crowd that just happened to be ‘in the neighbourhood’. The band was in a splendid mood and ready to jest about any stupid comment from the audience. But after six songs and with little intention of coming back for an encore, they vanished into the small backroom of the store. The crowd dispersed just as fast as it had gathered and while we lingered in the shop a little bit longer, sipping on a lemonade, making plans for the rest of the evening and admiring Cat’s miraculous connections, the band slowly reappeared, signed a number of photos, took pictures of one or another funny piece of decoration, called out a few words at us (as we seemed to be the only fans left) and left the shop with a small side trip into the CD racks.
Cat and her friend dropped me off at Uebel & Gefaehrlich on their way to see Simone White at Hasenschaukel that night and I was happy to take my favourite spot in front of the stage just below the ‘balcony’. All I had to do was survive 30 minutes of The Knights. The young and trendy Hamburg support band of the Rifles, looked like the graduation class of the Hamburg School and Music and also sounded like it: A ambitious mixture of rock, pop and electro, with souly vocals and simple lyrics. The very second they started their first song with “oh-ooh-ooooh!” I knew it couldn’t lead anywhere decent. The Knights might be the perfect band to make it to the top of the charts and break many teenage hearts (hey, that line could have been from the Knights…), but what for Christ’s sake were they doing supporting the Rifles?!?
But the good news is that no support gig lasts forever and luckily the DJ had decided to play nothing but the Clash while the stage was set up for the main act. So I had a good time, making myself at home in the second row and singing along to the “Guns of Brixton” while more and more people where gathering in front of the stage.
Then, the lights went out, the spots went on and there they were again: the same guys and in just as good a mood as before. But how could it be any different? The crowd was frantic, eager to dance and sing along with every single tune. Near the end of the concert, their eagerness was almost comic, when people just couldn’t stop repeating the “oooh-oooh-oooh” part of “Romeo and Julie”. The band only smiled and gave the crowd a special, second acoustic version of the song to satisfy their singing urge. I felt a bit like in a football stadium… After a beautiful version of my beloved “Narrow-minded Social Club” and the obligatory “Local Boy”, they were gone. One and a half hours of vocal cords-straining, breath-taking and sweaty indie rock’n’roll was over.
But the night was not… I could go on, making fun of the fact that Hamburg is such a small place when it comes to indie music, and that the same people will always show up at the same places. I could jest about the fact that everybody - whether German or not - starts to speaking in their fake British accent once Brits hit a party, or about the fact that the best music is actually played in the elevator to the club and not in the club itself.
But that’s a different story…


(picture: courtesy of Cat)

Bored of Cheap and Cheerful

Eine Rock’n’Roll-Blues-Band ohne Bass und Schlagzeug. Nichts weiter als zwei Gitarren, zwei Stimmen und eine Drum-Machine. Einfache Songs, straight forward Blues-Lines, Beats, die direkt in die Hüften gehen und Gesang, der mitreißt, kleben bleibt. Tape Song.
Sie klammert sich an die Stange ihres Mikroständers und lehnt sich weit über den Bühnenrand hinaus. Sie ist überall, zu jeder Zeit. Wildkatze in Lederstiefeln. Klimpernde Armreifen. Leoparden-Jacke. Gitarren wie direkt aus Rolling Stones’ Bitch. Sie klettert auf den Lautsprecher-Turm. Ihr langen Haare wirbeln durch die Luft. Hook and Line. Sour Cherry. Es ist ein Tanz. Sie werfen sich Blicke, Akkorde, Textzeilen zu. Ihre Gesichter nur wenige Zentimeter von einander entfernt. Ihre Körper im gleichen Takt. Rock’n’Roll-Tango. Last Days of Magic. Zauberhaft, sexy, energiegeladen.
Die Kills erinnern mich daran wie einfach und zugleich erfrischend Pop-Kultur doch sein kann. Nostalgisch und trotzdem am Puls der Zeit: What New York Used To Be...



PS: Eine durchaus lobende Erwähnung der Supportband 206 will ich an dieser Stelle nicht vergessen. Auch wenn sicher nicht alle Kills-Fans von der Wahl angetan waren und ich selbst auf das Schlimmste vorbereitet war, als ich etwas von „deutsche Punk-Band“ las... (schließlich macht man so seine Erfahrungen mit Supportbands...) Aber 206 waren eine positive Überraschung. Ein charismatischer Frontmann mit leicht androgynem Charme, Songs mit feinem Sinn für Melodik und Songtexten, die ins englische übersetzt auch als solche von Kurt Cobain durchgehen könnten... Not bad, at all!

Zum Start der neuen Saison

Nun sind wir tatsächlich auch musikalisch im neuen Jahr angekommen; und es schmerzt mich wenn ich daran denke, dass einige echte Highlights des letzten Jahres völlig im vorweihnachtlichen Alltags-Strudel untergegangen sind und gar keinen Eingang in diese kleine Konzertchronik gefunden haben. Somit wage ich zum Start des neuen Jahres noch einen schnellen Blick auf diese "verlorenen Jungen" des vergangenen Jahres zu werfen. In chronologischer Reihenfolge wären da zu erwähnen:
The Cold War Kids im Knust und MGMT im Übel und Gefährlich – zwei Konzerte, die - obwohl musikalische grundverschieden – irgendwie sehr ähnliche Miseren verdeutlichten. Beide Konzerte waren gut gelaunte, wohlklingende Erlebnisse mit tollen Melodien und amüsiertem Publikum. Nur blieb bei mir der Eindruck, dass die gute Laune auf der Bühne und das Amüsement vor ihr wenig miteinander zu tun hatte. Keine Verbindung. Die Cold War Kids performten ihre intelligent-kritischen Klang- und Textwelten mit dem auf sich selbst bezogenen Gestus, der beinahe verächtlich auf die klatschende Menschenmenge hinunterblickt – wie als versuchten sie ihren eigenen Erfolg zu ignorieren.
Das MGMT Konzert legte jedoch noch ein paar extra Steinschichten auf diese imaginäre Mauer zwischen Band und Publikum. Wie als planten sie das Publikum ganz des Hauses zu verweisen oder wenigstens auf den Boden der Tatsachen zurück zu holen, präsentierten sie den kleinen Teenage-Mädchen in ihren bunten, Neo-Hippie-Kostümen und Stirnbändern zuerst einmal ihre befreundete New Yorker Supportband A Place to Bury Strangers, die mit ihre Stroposkop-Lichtshow und ihrem nicht ganz leicht bekömmlichen Cocktail aus Electrobeats und Gitarrenwänden die auftoupierten Haare der Erste-Reihe-Mädchen flachfönten. MGMT selbst zeigten sich dann in verwaschenen, grau-schwarzen Heavy Metal-T-Shirts und verbeulten Jeans, ohne große Lichtshow und dem aus Video und Promo-Fotos bekannten Space-Indianer-Look - wie als wollten sie sich nach all diesen Musikbusiness-Exzessen auf die handgemachte Musik an sich besinnen. Sympathisch für jemanden wie mich – Weltbilder-zerrüttelnd für kleine Neo-Hippie-Mädchen.
Das Jahresende beschlossen schließlich zwei Konzerte, die sich ebenfalls unter einem gemeinsamen Label zusammenfassen lassen. Die Konzerte waren Ra Ra Riot im Molotow und The Dodos im Headcrash, und das Label ist schlichtweg: großartig. Kleine, aber feine Konzerte mit toller Musik. Die junge, inspirierte, sechs-köpfige Kombo Ra Ra Riot aus Syracuse, New York (wo auch immer das ist) – komplett mit Cello und Geige und einem Wirbelwind aus hüpfenden Beats und charmanten Melodien - und ein paar Tage später dann das energetische Duo aus San Francisco, California – komplett mit Celeste, völlig zerbeulter Mülltonne und einem Gitarren-beschleunigten Drive, der unter die Haut geht. Perfekt.

So, und damit sei auch den letzten Konzerten 2008s genüge getan.
Willkommen in der neuen Saison!