What´s Wrong With This Picture

Coneycopia

coneycopia.

Beautiful time-lapse video of New York and Coney Island by Graham Elliott.

Nothing New but Normal (and Robert Rental)

Rare footage of The Normal (aka Daniel Miller) and Robert Rental performing live during the Rough Trade Tour in 1979

The Vyrotonin Decision

The Vyrotonin Decision by Matt McCormick is a post modern disaster epic featuring thirty-six appropriated television commercials from 1971. using a hole punch, junk store splicer, and lots of tape and glue, the vyrotonin decision is a hand-made film constructed from the images and sounds of dumpster-rescued television studio discards from the days before video replaced 16mm production. the vyrotonin decision mocks the formula of current hollywood blockbusters while re-inventing some of televisions most embarrassing moments.

Warning!

After Edgar Schlepper unpacked the new guitar-synthesizer he had ordered for his music-shop he immediately called his friend Hans Müller and they spend a drunken night toying around with this new device. Müller, who worked at a record company must have seen the potential of their experiments and the two formed Warning. They called themselves Ed Vanguard and Mike Yonder, put on black robes and Darth-Vader-esque masks and invented (and buried) death-metal-doom-disco.

The German producer duo hit it big when their bizarre and disturbing single "Why can the bodies fly" was used as the memorable soundtrack for a 1982 episode of popular TV-crime program "Tatort" (Crime-scene).


In the now classic episode "Peggy hat Angst" (Peggy is afraid), the killer listens to the song over and over while playing bongos. He terrorizes women by playing the song over the phone late at night. He finally kills one of his victims (a fashion-model) while she is on the phone talking to a model-friend. We only hear the music blaring through the speaker overlaid with the screams of the dying woman.

On the next day, people stormed the record-stores demanding the single which soon climbed to #11 in the charts.

This spooky novelty song with its totally disembodied voices and hilariously “dark” lyrics is a lost classic. Outside of doom-metal you won´t hear a voice like that and even today "Why can the bodies fly" sounds as strange as it did in 1982.
Check the cheap video and dig the backing-girls cooing "they killed it" over the simulated puking of the vocalist!

Take KISS in their disco-phase, bury with Italo disco and Munich Machine and witness the missing link between Amanda Lear and The Sisters of Mercy rising from it´s disco grave.



Warning released two albums which some goth-heads regard as very influential.

Today, Edgar Schlepper is producing audio-plays while Hans Müller died in 2004.

1000 Tears Deep

When Blumfeld released "Tausend Tränen tief" and their third album "Old Nobody" in 1999 their fans went berzerk, but not in a good way. It was a bit like when KISS went disco, or as a commenter on Youtube puts it: "when this came out it was the end! We were almost a youth-culture, we had lived with "Ich Maschine" and "L´Etat et Moi" every day. With "Old Nobody" we felt like abused children!".

Nine years prior Blumfeld, along with a handful of other German bands were the heads of a new indie-rock movement that combined guitar feedback and intellectual, German lyrics. After an almost five year hiatus the release of this new record must have felt as if Blumfeld have grown up and grown old at the same time.


"Tausend Tränen Tief" could be mistaken as a German George Michael song and it became a great success for the band, bringing in new listeners via a radio-friendly, timeless love song. One to be played at future funerals.

The video is a stroke of genius! We see Helmut Berger, the notorious, forgotten world star getting dressed up in a hotel suite. In between, Jochen Distelmeyer, Blumfeld´s voaclist is sitting in a taxi, driving through the night. Fireworks illuminate the sky and finally the two meet in the lobby. Formal handshake, champagne is ready, Berger refuses to drink. They begin to talk, Distelmeyer makes Berger laugh, the ice is broken. Is it the first meeting to discuss the idea of the video we have just seen? Early morning, Berger walks alone along a foggy lake, he fades away. The end.

Watch and listen:

The stunt casting of Berger secured heavy rotation on all music channels and today "Tausend Tränen tief" is a classic of German pop music, a genre that still has not that many contenders.

Anyway, it has to be said that Berger really owns his part. The way he flips through the selection of his suits, the moments of inner turmoil as he is riding the elevator... A legendary person who happily enjoys being a legend for pay, for this one day.


As with most great songs, the lyrics are almost banal. I tried to translate the words as close as possible, including some awkward grammatical terms, trying to saty true to the ambivalence of the original lyrics.

"Thousand Tears Deep"
within me
thousand tears deep
sounds an old song
it could mean so much
into the day
it wants to be with you
it sings to you only
of new possibilities

come to me in the night
we hold each other tight
until the day awakes
kiss me then
as if it was the first time

with you
into a different blue
we share a dream
a picture from different times
like you are a part of me
I am a part of you
I can feel it
the way we touch

a song of two people
how love feels
we flow in rhythm
to the sun
everything is earthly
the world lies dark
we float as a whole
the night belongs to us

within me
thousand tears deep
sounds an old song
it could mean so much.

Decapitate your Mate!

"He´s behind you, he´s got swine flu!" Funny, clever and sexy Mike Skinner aka The Streets launched a great and biting viral comment on the swine flu paranoia. If you consider a mix of cleverly edited gory scenes from various horror films set to Mike´s rap as NSFW, you should probably watch it at home.

Tripping Round The Acid House

Here is a very interesting British TV feature, "A Trip Round Acid House" that mainly focusses on the media reaction (from demonization to exploitation) towards the exploding youth culture of the late 1980´s.


Part two and part three.

Counterpoint

Not much is known about Delphic, apart from the fact that they are from Manchester.

Their first single "Counterpoint" is released on Belgian R&S records (go figure) and it sounds like the inevitable "crosspoint" of recent indie-dance productions like Cut Copy, Friendly Fires, more upbeat Junior Boys and fellow Manchester legends New Order and Section 25.


The Sequencer is back in poppy dance rock and "Counterpoint" hits straight on the twelve. The video, on the other hand, is a bit shitty.

Rip Up My Passion Pit

Inspired by the urban chiffre of finger thick layered, half ripped-off posters and flyers, Passion Pit´s new video "The Reeling" tries to create this decayed and frayed look. According to the production company Humble, the process of destroying and re-creating the footage took about a month.
Looking cheap was never easy!

Pacific Ocean Park (Pt. 4) - Who Will Buy?!

I can´t believe that I never found this one before! Nancy Sinatra performing a song in the closed down Pacific Ocean Park! She even poses on the top of the "Sea Serpent"-coaster and the camera moves around with her in a great panning shot. Sometimes things just fall together...




I am not too wild about the song "Who will buy" from the musical "Oliver!" (it must be a musical if it´s got an exclamation mark) but everything is well when the hilarious dance break sends the "West Side Story"-ballet into wild dance routines inside the coaster´s wooden structure.

Here is the whole thing:

Video Vexations

The Black Dog have put up a short movie with visualisations for musical excerpts from their upcoming "Further Vexations" album. It´s not especially spectacular, but it fits the very nice music.


As a friend of mine used to say: "Nothing new but normal".

OMG! Tiga´s Shoes!

I always wanted to love Tiga since his stupendous "Hot in Herre"-cover! But his later releases always left me a bit cold and underwhelmed. Fun, but just a little bit too forced.


It´s the same with his new "Shoes". A song that tries hard to tick all the right boxes but ends up sounding like a novelty record from ages ago. I am probably thinking too much about it. "Shoes" will certainly become a club smash for a few weeks. It will have people dancing and acting out the lines for each other.
"Do you remember that `OMG SHOES!´ skit from back in the day?" - "Yeah! Good times!"

What more could you want from a track like that? What about a video that employs a make-up artist by the name of Christian Fritzenwanker?! Here you go!
Go, Tiga!

Do It Yourself - The Story of Rough Trade

Do yourself a favour and watch this great BBC 4 documentary "Do It Yourself - The Story of Rough Trade", if you haven´t done already.
From its humble beginnings as a small record shop filled with records which owner Geoff Travis had brought back from America, to its rise as a major distribution force of independent music and one of the most influential labels of the 1980s.

It´s especially interesting to follow the rise and fall (and rise) of a couple of devoted people who never wanted to be part of the mainstream music industry but soon found out that they needed hits, "Top of the pops" and binding contracts to sustain their growing business.

It is a whopping 88 minutes, but there are lots of worse things you can waste your time on...

Back from Barcelona

Back from the most beautiful city in the world, where even the millions of finely honed decorations on the splendid facades have fractal decorations. A city that looks like it grew out of the sea, made of fossil stones, plants and shellfish


We walked the streets, the beaches, the mountains and bars like mad and we actually feel like we need a vacation from the vacation. But as we arrived sunburnt and thinly dressed in cold, grey, snowy Berlin we just wanted to go back.

What else is to say about Barcelona? The architecture is just so ripe and overflowing without being overly decadent. People are very friendly and helpful and despite the fact that the city is full of tourists you never get that rip-off feeling that follows you around places like Paris (which doesn´t even have a beach, nor an Amanda Lear exhibition).


I am not spending much time with taking good photos, and I think that it´s impossible to catch the beauty of Barcelona on film. So it was a nice coincidence that a tram ride through Barcelona appeared in Youtube a few days ago. I didn´t recognize much of it, since the footage was taken in 1908! By the time Catalan Modernism was almost finished but the main focus of this clip is the movement and watching the people on the streets. The piano music is very nice and soothing.



The same video (with another, more silent-movie soundtrack) that compares the old with current views, can be seen here.

Abstract Raquel

Raquel Welsh a true Stellavista Ultramodel goes far out in this abstract dance from her 1970s TV special. Hard to say what´s more amazing: The Ruta de la Amistad sculptures from the Mexico City Olympics, the music or the outlandish dance routines.

Bow Down! They Are The Superions!

urprisingly, The B-52s released a new album last year after aeons and now Fred Schneider is already fronting a new band which could finally bring pure Exotica back into the mainstream (or not).


With collaborators Noah Brodie and Dan Marshall they are The Superions. Formally called The DelMorons, the trio has released "Totally Nude Island" as a single late last year. The original version is a slow, lilting panoptikum of Martin Denny/Les Baxter-style exotiki, complete with the sounds of crashing waves and bird calls. This aural concoction is completed with Fred Schneider reciting the legend of totally nude island like a horny and tipsy National Geographics narrator at a suburban backyard luau.


The invocation of getting nekkid ends with the hilarious cop-out line: If you have any inhibitions cast them aside! Put on a strategically placed shell and raise a little hell on totally nude island.

Then there is the Ursula 1000 version of "Totally Nude Island" which ups the tempo that adds an irresistible groove to the whole thing. If the song passes you by on first listen, play it again and you will be hooked!


VJ Tom Yaz has created a video for each version. If you are into horny animals and vintage tits you should watch the original. In the remix video the women are better dressed, while 50s beefcake guys are showing their stuff. So basically, there is a straight and a gay version. You should -of course- watch both. They are the Superions after all!

The Superions - Totally Nude Island

The Superions - Totally Nude Island (Ursula 1000 Remix

Thunder! Lightning! Frightening!

"Knock on Wood", the Eddie Floyd song was given the disco treatment by Amii Stewart in 1978. Produced by new-comer Barry Leng it has a similar devastating and in-your-face-sound as Donna Summer´s "I Feel Love".



Although, "Knock on Wood" is less electronic and alien, the frantic, storming drums and the accelerated soul-freight-train-sound shared a similar vision.
"Knock on Wood" can still light up a dance-floor. The fantastic vocals of beautiful Amii Stewart are very forgiving when pitching up the speed to every required BPM.



One year later, the producers of French disco project Sheila B. Devotion ripped off the the song for their "Seven lonely Days", which is actually an (uncredited) carbon copy of "Knock on Wood".



The always great site Freaky Trigger is currently discussing the song in their "Freaky Triggers Top 100 Tracks of all Time"-series. Amii sits comfortably at No. 32!

Automatic Everything

In 2009 everything is coming up robots, but is there still anything romantic about the man-machine?

"Terminator: Salvation" and "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" will both have giant robots smashing things up this year. The former will also have it´s own roller-coaster: "Terminator Salvation: The Coaster" will open at Six Flags Magic Mountain in California. But -strange marketing ahoy- it will be a wooden coaster. So robotic!


Then there is the news that the re-make of "Tron" will have a soundtrack provided by Daft Punk. On a smaller level, Röyksopp´s next single -a duet with Robyn- will be called "The Girl and the Robot" and most recently every politician is eager to have a photo taken on which they generously reach out their hand to shake the mechanical extremities of some robot. Say hello to our new overlords.


Robots and art are always a good combination and now someone wrote the first robo-drama for humans and robots. The machines were supplied by Mitsubishi and judging from this still-shot, the whole thing looks very serious.


All this robo-love brings a few metallic words to my head: "I am your automatic lover. beep." Let´s have a few looks and listen to Dee D. Jacksons notorious, cheesy but groovy eurobo-hit "Automatic Lover". Any song that opens with the words "Love in space in time, there´s no more feeling" and goes on with immortal lines such as "He´s programmed to receive automatic satisfaction" is a classic in my book.



Dee D is/was a clever British girl who used to produce sci-fi short films and comissioned the fabled Giorgio Moroder and members of his Munich Machine to do some soundtrack work. From there she took the idea to produce a record which turned out to be the brilliantly titled "Cosmic Curves". "Automatic Lover" and the follow-up "Meteor Man", produced with Gary Unwin and Keith Forsey in Munich became world wide mega hits.


Today, Dee D Jackson lives in Italy and runs her own record label where she reportedly releases hip-hop and trance records. I was secretly hoping that she became a robotics scientist, but running a record label in sunny Turin is certainly not a bad career choice. It goes without saying that she has a superbly awful website, complete with badly scanned photos. Must visit!