A view from the hill

Ah, holiday time, the time when you finally have some time on your hand. Time to hang around at beaches ... and to read some nice books. This time, I had four books with me, but found just enough time to finish two of them -- there was also swimming and sun bathing to do, mind you.

The first one, "The bed room secrets of the master chefs" by Irvine Welsh is a novel constructed around one interesting idea: what if you could transfer all your personal disasters over to the one person you're hating the most? Although it would be equally valid to say that the novel is constructed around the question what damages permanent alcohol abuse can do to your body, but something along this line is probably the connecting issue of Welsh's books anyway. What I particular liked about this book is the way in which Welsh describes the figures to encounter in British (or make that Scottish) pubs: judging from the few times I've been to a pub in the UK it's easy to take the picture Welsh is painting for real. A note of warning: if you don't like "explicit content" this is not a book to your likening and if you don't happen to be a native speaker (I'm German) this is not the easiest book to pick up. Funny and very recommended if you like pub novels.

The second book I've read is "Gangleader for a day" by Sudhir Venkatesh, subtitle "A rogue sociologist crosses the line". It's an autobiography and a fascinating one. Sudhir Venkatesh wanted to find out more about urban poverty in Chigaco and got to take a very close look into the ghettos of modern America. He befriends a gang leader in Chigaco and learns about how the people in the poor projects manage their lives. Although his writing is a little dry, the characters and stories are fascinating. It's of course a very particular look at american society, one which teaches you respect for the poor, but still one which doesn't increase my respect for the american society and its politicians as a whole. Well worth a read.

Just as with their first albums, "Towards the bright light" and "The back room", it's hard to ignore the impulse to compare Interpols new record "Our love to admire" to the new album "An end has a start" by The Editors. While I did reviews of the first two albums for plattentests.de (here and here), I haven't reviewed the new ones there, so I'm gonna take a step at an informed comparison here, generalizing a little and also taking into account the slew of other bands that people tend to ignore.

Last week I went to see "Broken Social Scene present Kevin Drew's 'Spirit If ...'" playing in Heidelberg. I hadn't written about it earlier because the concert wasn't very exciting. The reason I do so now is that, like most concert I visit, it made me listen more closely to the records of the band. I also bought "Spirit If ..." at the concert, right before the start. Afterwards, I was afraid to have made a classic mistake: generalize from previously nice records to a new one and buy it without a first try, and possibly wasting time, money and emotions.

Where was I? Ah, yes, the reason why I'm writing this entry now: the concert of last week was the first in a very long time in which the concert wasn't up to match the records at all. In particular, I thought that the reduced amount of band members playing and especially Kevin Drews ambitions might be responsible for the uninspired concert, as I left with the impression that Kevin was a little to self-loving and maybe even a little jealous when Branden Canning played and sung two songs that got a lot of applause. But after having listened to "Spirit If ..." now several times, I must conclude that it probably was mainly due to the reduced possibilities of only playing with six instead of the usual ump-teen players. And btw: adding volume doesn't really help -- too often I had to put on my ear plugs which only results in even more reduced distinguished tunes.

The Tender Bar is a memoir written by JR Moehringer -- and one of the books I've read during my holidays. It's really outstanding, both in the many funny anecdotes it tells, all of which are centered around the bar which was basically the authors' replacement for his dad, as well as for the really joyful writing style. I only wish most blog authors, myself included, could achieve a similar ability to write so inspiring and refreshing simply by going to our favorite bar, too.

Well, this post was due since quite some time now, so I'll stop babbling and go for the latest additions to my CD archive (yes, I'm an old fashioned user of those tiny discs).

First of all, I did a review of The Mission "God is a bullet", currently to be found at plattentests.de. It's nice in it's old fashioned guitar-oriented wave, but also not to convincing. Perhaps I've just become too bored with this old stuff. (5)

The Queers new album "Munki brain" also landed on my shelf for a review, but at the time there were to many better other records. We're also not exactly a punk store, so that explains the omission. The record is what you would expect from a number umpteeemth album, and I'm sure every surf punk is going to have a great time with it. Me, I'm not a surf punk, and these days only rarely a listener to punk. (5)

The nicest addition as of late is from Modest Mouse with "We were dead before the ship even sank". It provides so much niceness and comfort that you'll feel as floating around, only to trash you to the ground a mere split second later. Any fan of indie rock will probably know that legendary Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr has become a member of the band, which hasn't exactly hurt the sound. The compactness of the songs is sometimes just stunning and mostly brillantly instrumented. I do have some complaints about the drums though, but nethertheless a fantastic record. (9)

I have my share of problems with The Arcade Fire and "Neon bile" is no exception. There are a lot of good tunes on the album, but sometimes it's just too pathetic. (6)

I'm more and more bored by indie dance pop, like e.g. made by Maximo Park, whose new album I've only dipped into but refrained from buying. But I couldn't resist to buy "Ten new messages" by The Rakes for no particular good reason. Indie dance pop, all the same, though sometimes a little bit rougher, i.e. more like The Dogs. (6)

Finally, there is "Myth takes" by !!!: Just like their last record, this is dance music made for the indie discos or maybe just the other way round. Again, there are some fantastic songs on it (Heart of hearts, for instance) but then again, I may be just too old to learn to dance to this disco sound. (7)

In the category "Yesterday", I finally have "13 Songs" by Fugazi, so I can now assign a name to those songs I knew it would know. Brilliant punk rock and a must buy for anybody. (9)

No, I didn't stop listening to music, I just forgot blogging about it. But, hey, I remembered today.

Looking for a present, I recently stumbled upon the book "How soon is never?" by Marc Spitz. In case you liked the band The Smiths some twenty years ago ... No. Let me try to put it otherwise. Around 1986 there was no one listening to the Smiths, you would have been hating or loving them. So, if you happened to love the Smiths, "How soon is never?" is interesting as it tells the story of some ex-Smiths-fan-become-rock-journalist's life. If you like to check out what your life might have been like in case it had not provided to get over the Smiths, that is. Or perhaps you know that already.

Anyway. Naturally reading the book led me to dig out my old CDs (I own only "Louder than bombs" on vinyl. It was the first Smiths album I bought - in 1987, I think - , although that doesn't really explain it, as I think that I already owned my CD player, which btw. is still the same today). It's true what Marc writes, also in 2007 that music is still worth listening to. Similarly for my favourite other band of that time, the The Woodentops -- their live album from 1987, "Live Hypnobeat Live" is still unbelievable wrt. its intensity -- and speed, of course. I did some web searching and discovered that they seem to have played some concerts again, last year, surprisingly. If they were to play in Germany again (I saw them in 1987 in Oberhausen), I would probably travel quite some distance. There is even a new website (Woodentops portal) on which one can download MP3s of old material, including raw live material.

Yesterday, I voted for Tool as the best live band, although I hadn't seen them yet, as the concert was tonight. Well, they didn't let me down, they easily did win the price as the best live band this year [1]. The concert hall, Mannheim's Maimarkthalle, was a particular disappointment. Or in fact it wasn't, it was just the horrible surrounding I've expected it to be.

The warm-up band, Mastodon, was also a nightmare. Usually, I don't care about bad warm-up bands, but this time the sound was so loud you couldn't ignore them. The loudness was really a problem. Sometimes I felt it was just too loud although I brought and used a pack of ear protectors. Apart from that, Tool were great, especially the light show was the best what I've seen so far.

[1] It was only the fourth concert for me this year. Tomte has been great, Til Brönner (my first Jazz concert ever) was very nice, too, and The Horror The Horror, this years' best newcomer in my opinion, played a nice concert, too (although they had to fight a rather tiny location, Freiburg's Jos Fritz cafe and its ridiculous time table). But Tool was way more exciting.

Wow, it's been quite some time since my last records review. Not too bad, there's not that much new stuff on my desk. I'll give a quick tour.

Yesterday evening, I went to see Tomte, a great German guitar pop band. It was quite a funny evening, with Thees, the singer, showing dias upfront. The concert was quite great, too, btw.

Afterwards, walking the bridge over the Neckar, I encountered a view that makes living in real citites so interesting: At the head of the bridge workers were digging and ripping out lanes of the tram, producing lots of noise and smoke. With the huge lights illuminating the night, this alone was quite a scene. But at the same time below the bridge on the water, 19 swans were swimming silently on the river. I love these contrasts you only encounter in larger cities.

In between days, a sleigh of new records has arrived on my desk. A whole bunch of others isn't even worth mentioning.

First of all, The Twilight Singers "Powder burns" was already reviewed on plattentests.de. I really like it, although I still have
problems with the ever continuing intensity of Dulli's latest records. (7)

The new Tool, "10000 days", was a must buy. Like all their albums, that's not the kind of music you would like to play to your radio loving girl friend. It's also a dangerous record to get drunk to. (8)

A girl's record by comparison is "A feaver you can't sweat out" by Panic! at the disco, which comes across like a mix of Jimmy eat world with Franz Ferdinand. Light and nice. (7)

Finally, a not so new record. Refused, "The shape of punk to come" already done 1998. It's hardcore. No, make that Jazz. Err, electronics. Whatever, but the hardcore tag is rather sticky. What a brilliant record. If you happen to like At the drive-in, you'll also love this one. (9)

We won't publish a review of Viva L'American Death Ray Music on Plattentests.de, but it'll feature a review of The Organ'Grab that gun' instead (update should happen either today or tomorrow).

Viva L'American Death Ray Music have produced a very nice album, somewhere between Velvet Underground style (the singer sounds much like Lou Reed) and the Strokes, perhaps, although there are some punky dribbles all over the record. What hindered a review was mainly that the record is quite short (about 30 minutes) with eight songs and two songs are just alternative takes of other ones. Nice one to figure out anyway (6).

I have a whole slew of new records on my desk, some for review for Plattentests.de, some bought on my own. I'll use the same range of ratings as for Plattentests, i.e. between 1-10.


One of those records, 'Uninvited, like the clouds' by The Church will get a longer German review on Plattentests.de this night, so I won't go into details on this one. (5)

A week later, you will find a review for the new record from Viva L'American Death Ray Music at the same place. (6)


Until then though let me go through a quick review of what has also arrived:

The Alarm have a new record. Keep away unless you want a trip back to the days in the 80s when Simple Minds and U2 were terrorizing the ether. (3)

Mogwai have a new album 'Mr. Beast' that doesn't hold what it promises. There are some nice heavy rock opera songs on it, but it can become quite boring and annoying at the same time. (5)

Motorpsycho indeed may have made their best record since 'Trust us' but it still is nowhere near that one or 'Angels and Daemons at play' or 'Blissard'. (6)

'Meds' by Placebo, in contrast, is their best album since 'Without you I'm nothing', lots of high energy songs as well as some nice slow ones, even some experimental ones, which you won't hear on the radio, of course. (7)


Finally, I bought last years album from Dogs which is somewhere between Les Savy Fav and Franz Ferdinand, so that's quite nice disco-indie-rock music. (7)