Kategorie: Hier kommt alles rein!

How I love to watch my (neighbour)hood shifting! Normally it goes from working class heroes district to yuppy. Same story all over the world.

Neukölln … I remember 20 years ago it was empty, grey, it stank (in winter) of Kohleheizung (carbon stove heating) and EVERYBODY who immigrated to Berlin from Westgermany or elsewhere stranded there, because it was extremely cheap to live there. Or Berlin-Wedding.

Beam up to 2009: it’s getting hip now.
Tonight I discovered a new place in Weichselstrasse 6, called BROSCHEK (the maiden name of the owner’s mother – 3 photos of her as a young very beautiful woman hang on the wall) and watched and listened to Erich, the akkordeon-player who played instrumentals and told accompanying stories and showed slides!
In short: he, living in deep space South Germany / high mountains, got a music cassette from one of his travelling friends (Nepal, India etc), fell in love with the music and wanted to find out more about the musician. So he and his fellows went to Bangladesh and to India and after a long odyssey that took them to the weirdest places he found the guy!

The Regenbogenkino (Rainbow Cinema) in Berlin-Kreuzberg had a good idea: they repainted & repaired themselves and now, in fresh clothes and sofas and colors, they’ve started a great series of pictures & music shows which they say they want to continue monthly: a local band performs in front of a projected silent (or volume down!) film.

Yesterday’s stars: Low Sweet Chariot!
Great performance, boys! Loud, warm, dark, heart&powerful.
(I filmed them and taped the music, here’s a little sound clip: lowsweet1.mp3

At my office, there where I spend 30 hours a week … it’s a nice job: layout, computer, magazines … nothing too creative … there is a coffee machine on the first floor and there is also a swap corner where people leave things they don’t need any more … recently I found 2 items lying there lonely: clips.
A DUCK and a LUCK.
I felt like they were waiting there just for me and I took them home. (Duck is my secret name and luck is all I / we need 😉

I landed back home in Berlin yesterday night!

After 5 days spent in Cambridge and 3 days in London I must say firstly: The Cambridge Super 8 Film Festival is now officially declared (by myself) as my favourite film festival … and London is pretty cool.

I stayed at one of the festival makers home and every day I cycled through Cambridge along the Duck + Toad Path, see here:

… feeling like in the middle of the fresh born juicy green country!
I found rosy trashbins, heavenly beer and cider, delicious sausages in gravy … and a handful of new friends. Thank you for having invited me and letting me be part of the festival.

And then: London.
My first time ever.
I stayed at City Hotel(12 Osborne Street in Whitechapel) which I can highly recommend: book long before on the internet and you’ll get a room for a third of the regular price which means even half-broke artists like me can afford it!
Osborne Street leads directly into famous Brick Lane. If you like Curry, go there. I enjoyed it. It reminded me a bit of my home quarter, Kreuzberg. And the curry and other Bengali meals are just good.

I found this beautiful piece of minimal art in one of a closed down house’s window grating and it made me smile passing:

All in all: Heart Act 😉
More to follow soon.

Thank you Carla for taking me out on a ride to Ely, North of Cambridge. We played tourists and went to the Cathedral, founded in 673 by a young Saxon princess called Etheldreda.
For me (who really despises all sorts of organized powerful religions worldwide) the most amazing discovery was the Mary statue in a sort of light and joyful section of the church: Mary with golden hair and a sexy blue dress, one foot over the rim, definitely channeling something from earth to heaven or sun or vice versa. Totally powerful and positive!

Then we found a lazy bishop and some interesting colorful glass paintings, homoerotic maybe?!

Hey ho from Cambridge, East Anglia!

I had a funny pleasant flight from Berlin to London Stansted yesterday: just 10 seconds before landing, about 20 meters from the ground, the plane went wwhoooooosh and up in the air again for an extra round! The Captain said something like bzzz bzzzz tower bzzzz bla …. Weird ….

Now I’m at the world famous 3rd International Cambridge Super 8 Festival and I feel fine!
Some pictures?

See me and Tony and Clara and Simon testing cider:

Me and Clara discovering interesting shops:

…. and this is the magic Reality Checkpoint in the middle of a huge park (the saying goes there once was a hippie on a wacky trip strolling around and … I forgot the rest, have to ask Clara later! I’ll be back!!

I haven’t done this for years … showed my films in original with my ELMO super 8 projector (at least some of them, the rest: beamer, DVD). I was invited by Directors Lounge to show a bunch of summer films. At Scala. A rather small and intimate place, but it was crowded and people became friends and gathered around the warm-making fireplace in the underground cave 😉
I felt like unfreezing them / us a bit!
Anna Staffel said after the show: „Du trägst eine gesunde Insel in dir. / You carry a healthy island inside you.“
Never got a better compliment in my life.
I want to do that again. Watch out for new dates.

This is a 15 seconds exposure! A projected film becomes white!

… today: Taubenkackewegmacher / pigeon shit remover.
Seen at Kottbusser Tor, a place where pigeons live and die and shit forever.
He held a thing in his hand that pretty much looked like a laser sword from Star Wars. Unfortunately without the zmmmm-zzzmmmmm noise.The smell was gruesome.

I guess this is one of my many balcony photos coming up this long endless colorful warm summer 😉
It’s Eastermonday, another holiday here in Germany, I feel like living in a postcard, and here is the sound of it: ostermontag.mp3

The story continues: me and Khani we’re on the hunt for small bands with big souls. Today I (Khani unfortunately lies down with a summer flu) was washed up at a small great club called Zosch (Tucholskystr. 30, Berlin-Mitte, felt like a wine-cellar!) and experienced O’Hara, a 5 men band from the US and Germany, nicely blended 🙂

Powerful pop, jazzy noise, warm melodies (I love their Canada song), nothing more to say, go and see them live April 22 at weird named Popo Bar in Berlin-Kreuzberg!

Hello out there readers! I’m still full of music – funny, my second day in a row in the Schokoladen in Berlin-Mitte, I have to say that venue is just vibratingly awesome.
Today they hosted 2 bands: The Pattern Theory from Leeds, UK and then The Drift from San Francisco. The 3 pattern guys, I don’t really know how to explain, but they seemed to live in a music bubble, played their experimental melodic (vibraphone! I loved their little vibraphone!) beautiful heartful strange-rhythmic (sometimes) tunes and invited us in. Let us drift 😉 it’s all about drifting this night … 😉 Too short!

The next band is called The Drift and they drifted even more, 4 guys, a deep dive into groovy jazzy warmblooded spacy spicy sound. One member of the band, Safa Shokrai, explains (on their homepage): “You could call it jazz-punk or jazz-rock or post-rock or, as we call it, „post-beard-scuba-vibe.“ Thank you guys!

And talking about drifting … this very early morning when the sun just got up (must have been 5?) I was . er … drifting between two universes, half dream half reality and I heard an early morning bird, a blackbird, in my back yard where my sleeping room is open to. That blackbird sang tunes. Phrases. Lines. Stopped after let’s say a minute and restarted with another tune. In my half-awake state I followed the tune and discovered … patterns. That clever bird took patterns and changed them from song to song. I was deeply amazed in my halfconsciousness. I realized it took notes, rearranged them, repeated, modified, varied … incredible, that little beautiful bird. And it received answers! From other blackbirds! Jeeeeez!!! I swear I’ll make a film called Das Amselnetz / The Blackbird Net!

(blue blackbird-lamps in the Schokoladen)

On the hunt for music pearls I went to Schokoladen-Mitte (Ackerstr. 169) and found two different masters: the opener band was not a band but a single guy (Cedarwell from Wisconsin, USA) who looked a bit out of time and Jesus / hillbilly – like with his rural checkered shirt (that he said is too tight for him now because on his tour through Germany he has grown addicted to German food like Brezel (pretzels) …) whatever, with his glowing Apfelbäckchen (apple cheeks) and his good loud voice and weird lyrics he fascinated me. Songs about restless journeys through Schafficker states (as we call them which means sheep fuckers) states like Montana and the like … and god and love.
What an amazing guitar player!

And then on stage: Monotekktoni.

I’ve seen her only on the almighty internet as an experimental electronic woman but tonight she almost took my breath away. It was analog time now and she played, no, she almost fucked the piano and together with her strong beautiful voice it was an amazing performance, so powerful! Thank you.

On my way back home (I got tipsy with all that springtime blossom smells lingering around and attacking me) I crossed my neighbor Admiral Bridge which has been for a couple of years now a meeting point for people and musicians from sundown until late in the night. I often pass and find unique situations and unique small good bands there. But one thing, guys, friends, foreigners: try to NOT crash your beer bottles as a sign of alleged revolutionary act or pure dull attack of puberty … it really sucks to step through the shards the next day. Peace and brain for all of us!

Sowing seeds, one of my alltime favourite pleasures.Today: Mexican sunflower and desert firewheels!
Live long and prosper 😉
Listening to one of my alltime favourites song by The Wipers: No One Loves An Alien …

All day long there was that big blue high sky, I wasn’t able to turn my eyes away, so incredibly heart-heating after 6 months of grey shit.

And then there was that band there tonight at Café Aufsturz in tourist-overloaded Oranienburgerstrasse … called Formelwesen… what kind of music? I have no idea about jazz but I found it very jazzy, very rhythm-lustfull, quite experimental and absolutely professional. I want to lay a laurel wreath as a crown on the drummer. It was a pleasure to listen to them deeply and to watch them (behind a semitransparent curtain with beautiful projections on it. But in the end they unveiled themselves: nice guys 🙂

It’s so incredible! Every year the same: from one day to the other it’s spring! Winter? Never heard of. Freezing? Never felt. 6 months of winter blues? What’s that?

My backyard Turkish women lean outside and clean windows. My corner ice-dealer is overcrowded with mothers and (more!) fathers and their kids. Suddenly I can smell earth. I almost cry and start to bury my fingers into my ridiculous balcony soil, pull out old dead brushwood (sorry, the word is ridiculous for a Berlin balcony, couldn’t find a better one). I smile crazily at a multidotted ladybird. I’m able to sense something and they all smile at me.
I open windows for things to come 😉
The bar is open.

Later I met my brother Bernd and we thought it’d be good to go out and reward ourselves for anything so we went around the corner to Marquès (Graefestraße 92, Berlin-Kreuzberg, extremely good!) and had deeeeelicious dinner – one ultrathin zucchini touched me and I had to think of Barbapapa, do you remember?

A little later when I was home I thought it would be good to continue me and my brothers work in the kitchen and soak the sink wood board with linseed oil and turpentine. My aroma synapses said thank you!
Mmmmh, earth, oil, zucchini, wine, that’s a lovely start into an endless summer!

… is one of the beautiful many songs that Kitty Solaris (and her simpatico all-guys-band) performed tonight at Admiralspalast. I liked it there! It was intimate, she was in a funny mood (told us about Tourkoller = tour paddy?) anyway – means being on tour and getting wacky – needing red wine, infecting me so much that I had to say hello (after the show on my way home) to my new neighbor shop (open 24 hours a day / 7 days a week, selling a very huge variety of good wine for under 10 € – Kottbusser Damm, entrance Ubahn Schönleinstr.) – back to Kitty: she and the 3 guys rocked the place and I remember when I was wayyyy younger I wanted to be barmaid Kitty (Bonanza??) with red hair and golden earrings and that typical western dress and of course cowgirl boots! I’m almost there 😉

And I think that H&M model (the right one) looks really sick.

… and this is the Spätkauf (allnightlongshop):

Arbeit acht Tüte! My bike had a flat tyre and I went to one of my favourite and closests bike shops in Admiralstrasse, I wanted to have that indestructable tyre now and they did it for a good price and within 20 minutes!
I payed and looked up: they have a board hanging there with pin letters to build words … oh how I loved it, I read some amazing combinations and my day was filled with poetry!

I went out with my friend Hella tonight to have some reeeaaally good dinner – if you live in the Kreuzberg / Neukölln area go to Nansen (Maybachufer 39), I heartily recommend it.
I noticed weird chair-like shadows on one of their walls. It took me a while to realize that it’s not shadows. It’s a painting. Genius.

Constantly yearning for higher temperatures I stroll around in my city with eyes and ears open and antennas upright. Now even bikes love to wear beetle disguises! Or mushroom. Anyway: hello nature! Blossom out!

I looked (at the company where I work) out of the window and watched: a man on the roof repairing something, then smoking and contemplating; fast flying clouds in crystal blue sky; women with dog and bucket pointing at fresh green baby buds; a magpie preparing her nest …
mmmh springtime is approaching and I can’t sit still anymore …

And then I had a cup of China herb tea and it was smiling at me!

Ban Xia + Chen Pi + Fu Ling + Zhi Gan Cao + Chuan Lian Zi 🙂

I’m just thinking about the hilarious German word IMBISS, it’s almost untranslatable, it is a kiosk or a stand and it derives from BITE. I’m hungry, let me bite, that’s good.

Lately I found a closed bite-kiosk in Kreuzberg called SCHROTTI’S INN. Beautiful! The owner might be nicknamed Schrotti (which means something like Scrappy / Junky /Trashy).

Another Emergenza day (read yesterday!) at beautiful Lido club, funny, there was almost no audience at all except friends … why? Weekenders go elsewhere? Many schoolbands and I started to get bored but then a soul voice awoke me again – the music was not that interesting or fresh or awakening, but the voice! That woman has a voice close to Gloria Gaynor! The band is called Hot Action Diso Club and I wish that woman a gigantic future!

Next stop KATO. Johnnie Rook had their record release party gig. That was punk! That was soul! They say about themselves: “Wir haben Herz, wir haben Arsch.“ which means something like we got soul, ass, heart … They reeeaally rocked the place!

And here comes something personal that I discovered: These super front women are no Hungerhaken which means they are not skinny like skeletons, they are sexy. If I were lesbian I’d love every inch of them but I’m not so I love ghost men (sorry, personal, might be erased tomorrow with clear mind) but what I want to say: the Hot Disco girl wore a country flower dress, not very pret-a-porter or shit like that but had a goddesss aura and Franziska the Johnnie Rook front woman showed her Speckrollen that I loved her for and she has power for a continent or two! At least! Super! Sexy! Women!
Kiss!

There’s this Emergenza thing in Berlin I don’t know much of, it’s a kind of band competition from casting a thousand to semifinals or something, the audience votes and the best bands of the evening go on living.
Tonight at Lido, one of the most beautiful venues in Berlin-Kreuzberg, there was Emergenza number I don’t remember and Khani and I watched and listened to a handful of promising bands! Always having Bands On Boats in our mind of course 😉
We liked the first band, very young HipHop performers from Berlin-Pankow called Kurios (lovely woman singer with glasses in the background!) and the chicken gang, sorry, the guys with feathers and makeup looking like they were playing cowboys and Indians without the cowboys, they played rockyfunky reggae-like sun-full warm-hearted intoxicating music! Keep their name in mind: Solrise!