Monat: Juni 2009

Good night, mighty ship, dear Spreeprinzessin!

We had a special beautiful evening – 4 great bands which couldn’t have been more different … 4 rounds on the boat … 4 new audiences … 4 new light conditions (for us filmmakers) … 4 little explosive concerts, 4 times diving into fresh music universes (we had them all! Swedish pop with a fresh haircut and the sweetest Pippi Langstrumpf cover version I ever heard, shoegazing superguitars who learned from Daniel Johnston and Syd Barrett, accelerating Texasbilly Umhauer, decelerating Salsacolumbiafusionhiphop, and so many more words to describe them that I can’t think of at the moment … photos will follow … Thanks again 48 Stunden Neukölln for letting us be part of your festival!!

This is me and Nadine (friend, helper, autopilot) waiting for bands at the landing place of the Spreeprinzessin. Sewing boat patches on our shirts.

The ship is full!!

This is Kör Sakta!

This is Milsantos:

From left to right: video, super 8 and Boundary Jim at dawn!

A Pony Named Olga shaking Neuköllns Bridges!

Fotos: Uli Strempel, me

48 Hours Neukölln. It’s like a big fair all over Neukölln, a very special part of Berlin, growing, getting more colorful and hipper.
Starting today, ending tomorrow night. It feels just great, at every corner there’s something happening, something to see and to listen to.
I spent some time at Marie’s Toilettenhäuschen 😉 , former public toilets, now a little art space. Tiny pictures and photos hanging there (I loved the underwater ones!) and Anything Maria playing, a woman from Marseille, now a Berlin resident I guess. First I didn’t really like her lovelyfrenchbrokenenglish singing, too much Lolita I found, but she got better from song to song: one woman, one loud distorted guitar and some weird electronic little helpers.

And tomorrow we aaaalllll enter the bandboat!! The captains welcome you with a warm beating heart and hopefully a warm sun!

I’ve just come back from a very small cellar-hidden concert at Madame Claude, a café/club in Berlin-Kreuzberg (Lübbener Str. 19) – Boundary Jim, a 4 guys combo (2 guitars, 1 bass, 1 drums). I guess they are very in love with their instruments since they kept on looking dreamily down on them … I liked that. I liked them and their honest good guitar-playing. Sweet and beautiful. (The singer’s voice is like a green apple waiting for more sun to ripen. He will surely do.). Looking forward to see them on our ship and share a cool evening!! —-> Bands On Boats – The Neukölln Edition! – bob-neukoelln.pdf

It’s Fete de la Musique in Berlin. More than 100 bands playing for free on more than 100 stages outdoor and inside.
I went out to see only 2 today … found a rainbow … found two special powerful brilliant super-bands:

Las Rainhas do Norte: They played in a kind of sandy areal (sandsational – sand sculptures) – and they really blew me away, sand in my nose, power in my eyes, percussion in my brain … 6 women 6 sunny devils.

Later, Kreuzberg, picture comes later, a promising band called Milsantos, they played in a tiny club called Café MANO, Skalitzer Straße 46a, Berlin-Kreuzberg. Speedy fire latino corazon party beautiful singing a little hip, a great hop. Watch out. They are going to be great. (for example this coming Saturday on Bands On Boats – The Special Neukölln Edition!!!)

Geocaching part two.
Today: Beelitzer Heilstätten, me, my brother Bernd, my nephew David and his friend Lenny. We spent all day long looking for caches, hunting places, collecting clues … it was a beautiful summer excursion!

We stumbled upon weird rotten houses and sheds, one was like spidermans refuge with red threads all over, so magic!

And then, deep down in the tunnels, I found a lonely toad. Must have been fallen through one of the ceiling hatches. I gave it a lift back up (I kept it in my hand, it felt warmer than expected, I felt it struggling in the beginning and then breathing, calming down …) I set it free up in some shady shrubs.

Does anyone remember Catweazle? His toad was called Touchwood – in German Kylwalda! Electrickery! Elektriktrick! Salmei, Dalmei, Adomei! Schampamporasch!

Berlin drowns in abundant rain and people hang their – not sneakers this time – yellow rain rubber boots on traffic lights and signs.
I saw two pairs today!
Confusing!

Oooooph …
My beloved Hamburg Short Film Festival celebrated its 25th anniversary. I popped up there 20 years ago when I was a little skinny shy super 8 film maker and from that moment on I always felt embraced there. 15 out of 20: shit weather: rain, cold. But: friends! Warm crazy punk hearts.

This year they had so many different programs that I really got confused and by accident fell upon the best ever, the 25 hours marathon! Sepp, one of the festival organs (like heart) hosted it and it was like coming home to your dream cinema, laying back, watching, pure watching, enjoying, 1000000 VHS cassettes of submitted films, some of them jumped into the festival program, some of them got lost forever, some of them got polished by time meaning looked like pointillism paintings magnets dissolving …

Who remembers Beyond My Control? A music clip about love and … yaaawn … man, woman, blood, rose, knife, wedding dress … , but the thing is: the actors tried to look like Depeche Mode and to act really cool and the song was so bad that it hurt … anyway, you’ll never understand but it was so cool to watch it again …

That all happened in the B-Movie cinema yesterday. When I used breaks to open my eyes I saw 3 ravens and 3 raven shadows.

and more: later, on my long bike trip home to Willemsburg I saw more ravens and rabbits sitting on lamp / spy / whatever posts. I better stop here now, the story continues.

The headline translates: Mama, I’m In Jail, which is a song by the Runaway Brides. Come to them later …

Today was a lazy day, a holiday in Germany, a day off for working class heroes (at least some). I processed an old color ORWO double 8 film (you never know with that old material that hasn’t been kept in the fridge for 20 or more years … and Orwo color films almost always have problems with the color layer because they were meant to be processed with original Orwo chemicals at 27 degrees, but no more Orwo, what can you do, only solution is E6 (color reversal) developer which works at 38 degrees, so poor Orwo heats up and the red layer peels off partly, looks like bleeding, very magical!)

There’s a nice small music club in Kreuzberg (Wiener Str. 34, Ex-Bronx) called Cortina Bob (wasn’t that the name of a carousel in the 70ies??) – tonite: A Pony Called Olga and The Runaway Brides.

First band: Reeeaaally good punky powerhillbilly music: one guitar/singer, one upright bass Elvis, one hidden drummer. They had fun and they shared it.
Second band: 6 girls with countrypunk in their hearts, very good musicians (I loved the professional ukulele and the violin!!) – songs about drinking and Jesus … ah yeah, coming back to the title, one was called Mama, I’m In Jail, something like don’t worry Mama, your little jailbird will get along. Pure female fun & power 😉 They got better from song to song. They had fun and they shared it.