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Radiohead at Kindl Bühne

Danno — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 15:00:00 +0000

One of the greatest bands in the world and one that’s without a doubt earned its place in music history, fucking Radiohead, there’s seriously nothing else we really need to say about them. This is the ticket of the year and we can even say that completely objectively since tickets are on sale and will sell out a full seven months before the show date. It’s not a rubbish venue either, it’s Kindl Bühne, when they could have easily put themselves on at O2 World and done a boring stadium show they’ve instead gone somewhere nice and a bit green and with a bit of character and remember that it’ll be a Summer evening, they’re obviously keeping the quality of the evening in mind. It’s not just that they’re an amazing band, but they’re obviously nice blokes too.

Tickets on sale 26th November 2011.

CANCELLED:Laurence & The Slab Boys at Magnet

Lea — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 22:00:00 +0000

CANCELLED DUE TO ILLNESS. The Rooftop Runners will be playing in replacement.

If you were a fan of Glaswegian post-punk Indie band The Cinematics and possibly still upset about the demise last year (or maybe you didn’t even release they were no more, as it was never officially announced. If so: here is a very telling interview called “Basically everything we had to do had to be acceptable to American girls”) then you should be naturally curious to see what Laurence & The Slab Boys sound like.

However, if you thought of the Cinematics as not much more than another Editors-sound-alike then you might still enjoy this new combo of former guitarist Larry Reid (sponsoring the “Laurence” in the name, and here functioning as singer, guitarist and main song writer) and bassist Adam Goemans. Together with two friends they met in Berlin they named themselves after a set of plays by Scottish playwriter John Byrne and started creating the sound they weren’t able to produce before under the pressure of record companies.

Though my boyfriend claims to hear a similiarity to early-80s-Bono when it comes to the vocals, do not be alarmed by this. I think they are giving a fresh twist to the old shoegaze label. Think more Ride and Adorable than Slowdive, all songs have powerful hooks, are very energetic and with a big emphasis on guitars.

Larry himself cites “Dylan, the Velvet Underground, the Jesus and Mary Chain, Neu!, Radiohead, The Smiths, My Bloody Valentine, Bowie, Primal Scream, Ride, Tom Waits, Felt, Momus… most of the Creation stuff, actually” as his influences, which warms my heart, especially the Creation shout-out.

I am really looking forward to their upcoming album but sadly no date is set and they are still unsigned (and unsure about whether they want to change this). Thankfully we get to see them live in the meantime. Who knew we got bands this good still hidden in Berlin!

Laurence and the Slab Boys make noisy dream-pop with teeth.

Their sound is a lyric-driven sonic-tapestry of fuzz-guitar, dulcet feedback and contorted, echo-soaked vocal harmonies.

Mirel Wagner at Privatclub

Lea — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 06:18:39 +0000

Mirel Wagner’s eponymous debut album sounds as if she’s just been through a time machine and sent to current Finland from 1920s Mississippi. Her classic finger-picking style and these clear-structured bluesy folk songs just don’t seem to go with what female musicians are supposed to sound like today. To make things even more interesting, her dark voice is so straight and honest that it seems almost impossible to imagine her singing anything but the truth. This makes for a bone-chilling listening experience when it comes to her debut single No Death, a song about staying by a lovers side even after death:

“She answered to my kiss with a rotten tongue. No death can tear us apart. Her body is cold, well its gonna get colder (…). I’ll keep on loving till the marrow dries from her bones.”

It doesn’t really take more than one listen of that song to suspect that gig is going to be something special.

Mirel Wagner is a 23 year old singer/songwriter, born in Ethiopia and raised
in Espoo, Finland. Since age 16 she’s writing gloomy Blues and Folk songs,
stripped down to the bone. It’s just about her airy but rough voice and a
minimalistic guitar picking. Avoiding theatralic gestures effortlessly her
music has a unique intensity and emotional weight.

Purge II feat. Ancient Methods at Chez Jacki

Danno — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 22:00:00 +0000

Heavier on the techno than what we’d normally send you to, but we’re we’re good with it still since it’s pretty much entirely awesome: the evil aliens of Purge comes at us again with their second installment of their new party series, once again at Chez Jacki, once again dripping with cosmic horror.

Headlined this time round by the heavy industrial-tech magick of Ancient Methods, creating a soundtrack to Cthulhu robots breaking through inter-dimensional barriers. Which is something we’re actually hoping might happen, we’d probably have a lot to talk about.

Main support comes from local act Sun Worship (pictured, previously) who’ve been getting a bit of attention lately from the type of Berlin punter who know’s what’s good. It’s easy to enjoy music that’s all about angst, but when the material is at the same time contemplative and weirdly uplifting, enough so that there’s almost a sense of escape out of the noisy oubliette, that’s when we’re onto something more than a bit interesting.

Also joining in on the night are DJs Hanno Hinkelbein, BlackBlackGold (GucciGoth), Xorzyzt (BL4CK M4G1CK) and Tom Ass (Gegen). Visuals courtesy dieLamb.
BlackBlackGold Mix for PURGE by PURGE Berlin

Battles at Postbahnhof

Danno — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 20:00:00 +0000

The first time I saw Battles was at a music festival in Sydney where it was 42degrees and the beer was warm and you had to wait for 20 mins to go to the toilet and some guy wearing an Australian flag around his neck, like some kind of drunken redneck superman cape, had punched a friend of mine in the face because he wouldn’t kiss it. The flag that is. By the time that Battles came on I was pretty cranky and not in the mood and basically completely over standing in the sun listening to music. Not that any of that is their fault. And in the defense of standing in the sun listening to music, Battles were slightly astonishing and made the day pretty much worth it all. Except the face punching, that wasn’t cool.

That long and kind of pointless story aside, Battles’ve come a long way as a band and ended up in a kind of a funny place, if they don’t mind me saying so. Even though they’ve only just gotten finished with releasing their second album, there’s almost a hallowed reverence that music fans pay them whenever there’s any mention of them. They’re kind of like the new Björk or Radiohead or something in the fact that they’re just the band that everybody likes. Everybody likes Battles. There’s no point saying at the pub table that you like Battles, it’s a completely redundant statement of fact since nobody doesn’t like Battles. And while I might not be being very scientific with my evidence, the strongest bit of evidence that I can provide you is that if you sit at my pub table and bust it out that you think Battles are shit, you can find yourself another pub table. Seriously, just leave. You and your idiotic ramblings are dead to me. Dead.

Good then that headlining a massive night at Postbahnhof here in Berlin will be the exclusively non-dislikeable kids themselves, Battles. Supporting will be, the equally sparsely recorded, The Field. Stablemates to Battles at the Little Big agency and playing on the night in full band formation, the debut LP From Here We Go Sublime earned it’s place on the Pitchfork Top 100 Albums of the Decade chart and a lot of us will finally get to check it out live.

Additionally on the lineup you’re going to find London based electronica act Walls who’re more than just a favourite act of Battles, last year’s self titled debut from them scored a 9/10 from NME and took out the Electronic Album Of The Year award from love-it-or-hate-it ‘merikan magt Mojo.

Berlin’s leisure system DJs play in and under and througout all of this, rounding out the night and making it into something fairly amazing. That means it’s got you written all over it. Unless I’ve previously thrown you off my pub table, in which case you’re still dead to me. Dead.

Brand new stuff from Battles featuring the legendary Gary Numan…

Photos: Brother & Bones at Columbiahalle, Nov 28th 2011

Olga — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 20:30:25 +0000

Live photos of Brother & Bones playing a gig supporting Ben Howard at Columbiahalle, Berlin, November 28th 2011. Photos courtesy of Olga Baczynska.

Check out photos of headline artist Ben Howard, click here.

Review: The Tunics at Lido, Nov 26th 2011

debjay — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 15:41:58 +0000

It was the third time that I saw The Tunics perform at Lido yesterday night and the sixth time in total which makes them my most seen live band.

The Tunics have come a long way since I first saw them opening for Nada Surf at this very spot in April 2009. Back then they had one album out (Somewhere in somebody’s heart) and were still a three piece. Now there’s officially five Tunics with only Joe Costello (vocals, guitar) and Scott Shepherd (bass) remaining of the original lineup. Andy Benn has recently joined the band as was revealed in an acoustic performance of All Shall Be Revealed, a yet unreleased song. However, he wasn’t included in yesterday’s show (he handled the merch desk instead) because some more rehearsing is required. Hopefully next time. The band launched into the set with The Way It Is which is also the opener to their first album. Once the band started playing I realised that the huge screen in the back of the stage was not static but showed scenes from old movies carefully arranged to the music (I believe this was Andy’s doing). You can see a bit of that in the photo album.

Shine On was put in the middle of the setlist and I’m glad they didn’t save it for the end this time. They played a good mix of both albums and some new songs (Awful Peace and Quite, Symmetry and All Shall Be Revealed) which I enjoyed a lot.

Towards the middle of the set Joe sat down on a bar stool an switched to an acoustic guitar for Stay Young, Slaves Ride On These Waves and the new tune Symmetry. The acoustic guitar (and the barstool for that matter) were a fine addition to the set.

All in all, The Tunics just seem to get better and better. I hope we’ll get another album soon and certainly more shows.

setlist:

The Way It Is
A Winter’s Tale
Low
Wit And Acid Tongue
Shadows
Awful Peace And Quiet
Waiting
Shine On
Stay Young
Slaves Ride On These Waves
Symmetry
Do What You Did
All Shall Be Revealed
Berlin
Cost Of Living

Encore:
All The Young Dudes (David Bowie/Mott The Hoople cover)
Paris, France

Kat Frankie at HBC (solo)

debjay — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 19:00:00 +0000

Kat Frankie is clearly one of my most interesting random music discoveries. Ever since I first downloaded a free mp3 (Kat Frankie – The Tops) off her first album Berlin based Kat Frankie has risen from being an insider’s tip to become something of a local troubadour. Originally from Australia, Kat Frankie has been in Berlin for six years to pursue her music carrear and she also has her own label called Zellephan.

I find it really hard to describe her music because it cannot simply be pinpointed to singer-songwriter. She is often compared to P J Harvey but personally I feel like her voice is closer to that of Sarah McLachlan. I guess you just have to hear for yourselves.

Her live shows really are amazing. Her record release show for her second album The dance of a stranger heart at the Festsaal Kreuzberg in Berlin last year was sold out. Tonight, she will be doing one of her solo shows that I love so much.

Frauen Verlassen has always been my favourite song of hers and for a long time it could only be heard at her shows. She once said she wouldn’t release it as it has to be played live (because she records and loops her own voice at the beginning of the song as you can see in the video below). However, the song is now available digitally on her website. I can’t wait to hear this gem live again!

While most of the song is sung in English, there is also a few German lines to hear if you keep your ears open.

Frauen Verlassen by Zellephan

Monster Magnet at Huxleys

Danno — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 19:00:00 +0000

Kind of always a bit under appreciated and never ever really breaking out of their niche (except with the MTV support of Negasonic Teenage Warhead and brief flash of broad appeal that followed), Monster Magnet (previously) have kept on keeping on since 89. As is the case with cult bands that keep pluggin away for long enough, their fanbase keeps growing with them until they get to the point where they’re playing venues the size of Huxleys, playing to an absurdly devoted audience and getting the kind of attention that they always would have had the stars aligned themselves properly early on.

Playing in it’s entirety their super amazing ’95 hit Dopes To Infinity, Monster Magnet hit Huxleys for a night hard-rock astral travel through worlds of the psychedelic and the cosmic. While not a new concept, front man Dave Wyndorf had this to say about the potential of playing the whole album live from start to end:

“I’m really into this trend of playing complete works,” Wyndorf says. “Lots of people I know, like Josh from Queens of the Stone Age, the Mudhoney guys, Buzz from the Melvins, they all say they love doing it. So I thought, ‘Wow, I have to do that too’.”

Wyndorf relishes the opportunity to step outside the expectations of a typical gig. “In a lot of ways it allows me to do stuff that I never thought i could do before,” he says. “When you play a record that’s been out for a long time there are no expectations and there are no question marks around whether it’s going to be a hit or not. It already came out and whatever it was going to do, it has done.

-Guitarworld

Feedback Orchester at Theaterkappelle

Danno — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 18:00:00 +0000

Experimental berlin string ensemble Feedback Orchester soundtrack organic-decay and compose synthonies the colour of the sky tuned to a dead channel.

A Knochenbox production, although hosted in the church upstairs, supported on the night by Kulku and Interflug Galaktika on visuals.

Blitzgigs.de - Berlin's #1 live music, concert & nightlife listing. » gig

Radiohead at Kindl Bühne

CANCELLED:Laurence & The Slab Boys at Magnet

CANCELLED DUE TO ILLNESS. The Rooftop Runners will be playing in replacement.

Gig Details

Mirel Wagner at Privatclub

Gig Details

Purge II feat. Ancient Methods at Chez Jacki

Gig Details

Battles at Postbahnhof

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Photos: Brother & Bones at Columbiahalle, Nov 28th 2011

Review: The Tunics at Lido, Nov 26th 2011

Kat Frankie at HBC (solo)

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Monster Magnet at Huxleys

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Feedback Orchester at Theaterkappelle

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