There they go...

...all within days. Imagine they movie they will now do together. A monument.

Of Montreal - The past is a grotesque animal

Is it only my weird mind or does Bergman look on this very picture like another, errr, revolutionary?

Weird band names, part I

As already announced, i will do a little series on weird band names. However i will only feature bands and artists to whom i feel somehow attracted. So here we go. Today:

'The Strange Death of Liberal England'

Come from: Portsmouth, England.

Named themselves: after a book written by George Dangerfield (WHAT a name!) dealing with the decline of British liberals before WW I.

Sound: luckily not like the 110th edition of Franz Ferdinand & Co. Rather like a European Version of Arcade Fire. Or Mogwai. Both not too bad.

Latest album: 'Forward March' (ironically subtitled with 'Traditional marching songs to learn and play')

They are: incredibly young yet good looking.

Specials: Don't talk to their audience. The hold up sheets with slogans written on them instead. Oh, how 'indie', no?

Web: http://www.myspace.com/tsdole

The Strange Death of Liberal England - Summer Gave Us Sweets But Autumn Wrought Division

Next to come: 'Portugal. The man.'

Rainin in paradize

No, Linz is not paradise, but at least it was raining a bit last night and the night before. I was slightly happy about that as temperatures here kept rising up to 35°, in the east of Austria up to 40. Nothing special for, say, Andalusia, but here...not good, especially when you sit in an unclimatized office.

So, now to the good part of this weekend - on Thursday hundreds of artists took over the streets of Linz and there they will stay until this night and they transformed Linz into the city i always wanted it to be. A pity that from tomorrow on the citie's face will reshape again. But for this evening i will enjoy Linz with singers and a capella-bands in every small backyard (and there are many of those backyards - really beautiful ones in renaissance style with flowers all over. never saw them. and i've been living here for nine years now.); jugglers and fire-spitters on the squares and manymany people peacefully enjoying the artistry.










Some friends of mine are also taking part in this colourful fair -they formed an a capella band a couple of years ago and they are absolutely marvellous, especially as one of them is a great entertainer, even when not singing. So yesterday they were in one of those backyards i mentioned above and i had a really awesome time. The evening reached its heyday when an old lady came out of her flat, listened to the guys for some time, left, came back - with a bottle of champagne for the boys. And as they dedicated a song to her, she even offered them a second one.
A beautiful detail: The tiny old lady seemed to grow with every second the guys were singing for her. Nice, nice. Sometimes this city surprises me.

Lateron i incidentally met the guys with whom i was running a bar in the university area for a year during my student-days. Horray we said and remembered those glorious old days, which included drinking some beers of course. And i was told how many of our former guests would marry these days (6 couples! 6!!!). Scary, indeed. On the other hand, it's big fancy split-up-time in my extended circle of friends.

Demain Air à Vienne avec une amie. Je m'en rejouis beaucoup.

Greetz from Linz
Bernie

P.S.: From now on i will refuse to guess a girl's age upon being questioned for. No, no, no. You can only lose.

Le chateau de ma mère

heja, homestory!

'The old Terrace'

A corner to relax

Our cherry tree in bloom

We had two cats, never a dog, but now ducks
(the 3rd one deceased because of greed).

---------------------------------------

Anouncement: Weird-band-name-series is to start soon!

Victoire!

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the boys made it to the round of the last four. i'm slightly proud : )

What makes a fucked up and hung over Sunday afternoon pleasant after all?
- cooking
- booze
- the following three songs aired - in a row - on the radio:

Bush - Glycerine
Of Montreal - The past is a grotesque animal
Bob Dylan - Tambourine Man

20 minutes of 'Weltschmerz'.

Allons enfants de la patrie

le jour de gloire...: L'équipe autrichienne de foot va rencontrer celle des Etats Unis aujourdhui dans le quart de final du Coupe de Monde U-20.

Allez les rouges!


A l'inverse de leurs grands frères, on, comme autrichien/ne, ne doit pas avoir honte d'eux. Au contraire, cette équipe semble d'etre très prometteuse (beau détail: 6 ou 7 des ces jeunes hommes ont des parents non-autrichiens - rappelez le slogan "black, blanc, beurs"!). Et ce soir, quelques amis et moi vont voir ce match avec biere et tous les autres ingrédients pour une soirée bien venue. Je m'en rejouis!

Hier je passerais une nuit très très agréable au 'Gran Café zum Rothen Krebsen' - peut-etre le bar le meilleure à Linz. Mais la nuit était aussi un peu, hum, déconcertant? Je pense que je dois quitter Linz pour un weekend...

Sinon, rien de nouveau, Linz est très calme au moment, encore il fait beau avec températures circulantes 30 degrés. Demain lac!


Enfin, je vous presente quelques chansons de Interpol et Editors, les princes des ténèbres, qui ont tous édites leurs nouveux albums: 'Our love to admire' et 'An end has a start'. Je les aime beaucoup, sinon je pense que leurs albums derniers étaient mieux. Un petit peu trop 'major' ils sont, néanmoins, l'atmosphère, qu'ils diffusent, m'attache, spécialment 'The Lighthouse' - la dernière chanson de 'Our love...'. Voilà:

Interpol - The Lighthouse
Editors - The weight of the world
Editors - Smokers outside the hospital door

J'ai obtenu des tickets pour Arcade Fire à Vienne!!! ahhhhhh!

Citoyen Danton
'Révolution, toujours! '

Surrender!

These boys are Tocotronic. Their meanwhile 8th album 'Kapitulation', released on Friday last week, is so far the best record i've heard in the year 2007. The album-title should be self-explaining, even to non-german speakers. 'Kapitulation' is, to speak with a host of austrian radio FM4, a 'gigantic monolith, brutal and radical'. Nothing to add. 12 songs of total abandonment - abandonment of dedication, of love, of resistance - constitute a manifest of imperfection: A manifest that becomes intenser with every song, finally culminating in the cathartic 'Explosion'.

Tocotronic have delivered their masterpiece: A record, which is, especially in Germany, totally against the so called 'zeitgeist' (remember the '06 football party?), an anti-thesis to both, the neoliberal everything-goes-attitude and the fierce Anti-G-8-platitude. A courageous endeavour. A great record. Not because it is in german, but although it is in german.

Tocotronic - Explosion

Call to order!

This blog's main concern is music. Terribly neglected during the last time, i know, i know.

So....let's get it on:

Manu Chao woke up from winter sleep and saw that the world was pretty fucked up, which made him - surprise, surpriese - write a song: Sing, o godess, the wrath of Manu, son of, ah, whoever...The times haven't changed since Homer (the Greek, jerk), no? Anyway, here it is, and yes, i like it. The rock and roll-guitar gives its best!

Manu Chao - Rainin in paradize


Voxtrot from Austin/Texas have been blogosphere's darlings since a couple of time now. Nice rock and roll, with alleged references to either the Stone Roses or Belle and Sebastian. But form your own opinion.

Voxtrot - Kid gloves


You saw the Coen Brother's "O Brother..." years and years ago and still can't get "Man of constant sorrow" out of your head? Here's a song that might replace it:

Skeewiff - Delta Dawn


Italo-Disco is said to see a revival nowadays, here's one of the results. I still can't decide wether to like this somehow cheesy piece or not, my position on this changes minimum twice per hour. Btw, Sally Shapiro is not from Rimini. She is - believe it or not - from Sweden. Stockholm is in Italy.

Sally Shapiro - I'll be by your side (rude 66 808 remix)


Finally, two more pieces I recently heard on FM4, no idea who the artists are, still, i like the songs.

Maps - I will find you

Midlake - Roscoe


In the next couple of days i will post a short review on the new Tocotronic-record, longly awaited it has been released today. If everything goes right and the album is as the first two outtakes i was able to find, 'Kapitulation' will definitely be a candidate for my album of the year.

See ya folks!

Sous les pieds, le vide

or, in other words, back to reality, back to normality (question: what is real? what normal?). not that i didn't know that this day would come, still, you are surprised when it suddenly arrives. which doesn't make it easier. so goodbye to all of you who made the last 10 months so totally out of everything which is considered being 'normal'.

what will happen in the forthcoming summer? well, not much, compared to what was during the last 10 months. as i already have plans for autumn (Sophie: hint!), i won't take any days off from work, except two days for lovely Frequency-Festival in Salzburg. Very looking forward to that, especially as a friend from Paris is going to show up there as well. and Interpol, my sentimental favourites from NYC, of course. what else, what else. a weekend in Budapest, where Steff is going to work as a slave, ahm, intern i mean, is definitely on the schedule, back to West Balkan, yeah! Greg is still in München, i might drop by there as well.

Linz will be rather empty during the next two months, let's see and hope that there will still be some moments which are worth to be talked about on this blog. anyway, i ask my readers to remain patient, from september on life should come back to the city and the blog.

Cheers to you all, especially to those who left!

P.S.: went shopping yesterday. yummie.

Prey.