In the current pop column, Linus Volkmann has collected a few tips for the quiet time in the semi-shade. It’s about Woodstock, florists, dicks, Jewish punks and team shit.
“Become a florist” SIR MANTIS
Dear readers, I would like to open with a self-disclosure: I am a simple influencer with a hectic look, who usually misses the most important things. Proofs? Under every rock you lift. For example, I didn’t have Sir Mantis on my radar. Always complaining about German rap, but then not even aware of what is now possible there away from the Testowurst stalls with a mad gangsta flavor.
Fortunately, the clairvoyant Finna spoke about Sir Mantis in our interview recently and looked at me intently. Not much later I spotted Sir Mantis on the cover of Missy Magazine – and you guessed it, the dramaturgy of these lines isn’t exactly subtle – now I’m a fan too want to talk about seeds / become a florist” what a great piece. Nothing but respect for that. Now I wanna share the gift. The album “180 Grad” will be released at the end of August.
“Dicks since school” KAY SHANGHAI
The omissions don’t stop: Because I’m a little late at the party at Kay Shanghai too – but in a column you have to use the gift of undoing your own messed-up past (as far as that’s still legally possible, of course). For the record launch (as we native Swiss call it) by Kay Shanghai’s HARAM, I wasn’t really in the right mood. Why not? I mean, besides pop culture, living and sleeping, I literally have no obligations in this world.
Maybe it was because I only knew Kay Shanghai as the head of the Essen Hotel Shanghai and didn’t think he was capable of being an interesting rapper? Be that as it may, it has to be said in the last pop column of the free world: Kay Shanghais lies in extremely relaxed sound beds and tells the greatest stories. Everything is totally colorful and rich, but stylistically always very minimal, very elegant. Music that fits you like a glove. And it is not even mentioned that Kay postulates himself as the first openly gay rapper from license plate D. Give me the almanac of the year 2021 from the basement again, I want to add this by hand to my favorite records.
“I don’t feel like being groped” LULU
Lulu & Die Einhornfarm singer Lulu uploaded a very haunting shoutout to Instagram this week. Having just returned from their tour with the terrorist group, it is about the chauvinist realities that FLINTA people encounter, even in their own (supposedly) emancipated subcultures. Misogynous shit from a CSU speech, the body shaming in the Musikantenstadl or the Ballermann fieslings around the “Layla” song … it’s easy to point your finger at that.
But Lulu makes it clear in her rant that guys in particular have to question themselves and their own contexts if their own scene is really supposed to be a safe space for everyone.
“Kerosene. Match. Boom.” WOODSTOCK ’99
That the “alternative culture” can also be a place of threats and assaults, anyone who seriously needs proof of this should watch the documentary “Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99”. The new Netflix mini-series (three episodes) follows the disaster surrounding the 1999 reboot of Woodstock. Personally, the event and its bursting into flames or in an extreme situation similar to “Lord of the Flies” was not on my radar at the time. All I remember is that the original Woodstock makers of 1969 wanted to do their larger-than-life hippie brand again – only this time for maximum profit and that it all kind of went shit. How bad it was, however, can now be traced here. Of course, like all failed major projects, the whole thing does not lack a certain entertainment value. However, this quickly plummets when the original footage shows how aggressively many groups of men acted in the mega-spectacle. Mind you, at a festival of the alternative acts that were popular at the time, i.e. Korn, Bush, Limp Bizkit, James Brown, Wyclef Jean, Fatboy Slim.
Sheryl Crow was early with her gig, the disaster hadn’t taken over yet, but in the interviews after the performance the singer seemed pretty pissed off. The reason for this was the incessant catcalls and the constant shouts of “show your tits” during their show.
Here a new generation reenacted the omnipresent Woodstock myth and the spectacle turned out to be fatal. The fact that women sometimes showed themselves topless was taken by young men who bleated “Give me something to break” as an invitation to harass females, to touch them without being asked – and in the last episode you also find out what you have long suspected in the uneasy mixture of this event , namely that there were also various rapes.
Anyone who actually still rolls their eyes at topics such as awareness teams at festivals, safe words or the outcalling of macho behavior at concerts should take a close look at this mini-series. Of course, there’s more to this disaster than just toxic masculinity, but just like Woodstock in 1999, letting dudes in their own subculture do as they “think” can wreak havoc.
The attitude of the makers, i.e. those responsible for the festival, acts as a special key disgust. They didn’t want to see it on site – and still gaslight most of the events surrounding their open air in the third tropic of hell today. sad.
“Every way doesn’t feel right” LYSCHKO FEAT. TRIBULATION
After so many difficult topics, now an extremely dark music tip. Lyschko from Solingen celebrate the return of the Dark Wave. Melancholy, abyss, tension and the smoldering question: Shouldn’t I cut myself again? The answer is actually clear, friends. “Fremd” is not a recourse but the current peak of emotional drama pop – even if the video allows many visual associations to The Cure “Lullaby”. The fact that Drangsal isn’t just the band’s friend, but also has a feature on this pre-track for Lyschko’s forthcoming debut album, may arouse some curiosity here.
“Always do everything” NOW DR. BERT RABE FLYED
Actually, I’m not a fan of band concepts that you have to explore. Do I look like a neglected orangutan in the zoo whose food has to be tied up in cardboard boxes so that it has to make a little effort in everyday life? As if everything wasn’t challenging enough. Speaking of Well, Dr. Bert Rabe. This is electronically sizzling chamber music pop that appears just as enigmatic as its two creators already seem. I wanted to become a fan a couple of times, but I kept putting it off because there were too many blank spaces. Now Dr. Bert Rabe made a CD “Stories about the Usual”, which is also accompanied by a book of the same name. It tells of the inn-happy life of the eponymous character Bert Rabe and you can’t shake the impression that the two creators are also driven by a stream of consciousness: “Who is our Bert Rabe – and who are we? Please tell us yourself, dear DIY art!”
This is what Bert Rabe said towards the end of “his” book: “He didn’t know exactly what he had fabricated today either.”
“Stories about the usual” remind me in their somnambulistic way that the “Schwurbelei” occupied by lateral thinkers can actually be something very wonderful, very inspiring. When you just paint, write, make booklets, make music and let yourself be carried away by all of that. Forget about mission statements and hermeneutics, this is impractical art with a twist.
“Spilker always right in the middle” DIE STERNE
If there were an award for Best Song Title, Die Sterne could definitely pick it up for their album pre-single Spilker immer mittendrin. As a songwriter, Frank Spilker has been setting the hustle and bustle of pop culture, the world and the fatherland to music for several decades. Always offering new positions and cleverness about the outside, that’s actually quite mad – and this piece tells exactly about this role. A sparklingly original top view of itself. I love everything about it. Because musically it is also a star song that will last for me. But don’t believe me, believe yourself:
“8:15 PM” TEAM SHIT
When I came across the album with the frog by Team Scheisse at the end of last year, I fell in love so much that I was sure that many people would soon feel the same way. The meme punk of the Bremen/Erfurt band turned out to be too catchy and equally unusual. However, I was surprised that such a wall of team shit enthusiasm would pile up. At the hopelessly overcrowded Cologne concert (the first outside of my own city) at the beginning of the year, I almost touched the white hair of the singer-guru, who seemed to be at a distance from the flow of time. And if it’s currently getting me down that a lot of great acts are having problems with ticket sales in the cultural post-corona ruins, then I’m happy about Team Scheisse. Because at least they are doing the Duracell bunny like it was in the Cold War – and I’m certainly not just measuring that because they once opened the Toten Hosen in front of what felt like two million people in Kiel in the multi-purpose hall. Praise be to the four little angels! But what I really want to share is that new music finally came out this week. A four track single (via kitsch war), one of them got a video at the same time and can be found on YouTube. The theme of the song is “Wetten dass…?” and, as is so often the case with the band, seems like it fell out of the clouds, but it picks you up as soon as you hear it like the night bus.
East Saarzore’s “Punk & Jewishness”
The Ostsaarzores fanzine is making a giant leap with its third print edition. This special summer 2022 issue is a real themed issue that explores connections between Judaism and punk. This happens colorfully and associatively, but everything has a common thread and knows how to guide the readers through the results. This Leipzig fanzine-Punx is very journalistic, the local feuilleton should be jealous of many of the articles, it’s all so interesting and well-founded. There are introductory texts and articles on bands and musicians such as Carrie Brownstein (Sleater-Kinney), Ezra Furman, NOFX, whose Jewish background is otherwise rarely discussed and thus opens up exciting new perspectives. There are short stories such as “Dose und Pali Tuchen”, in which the divided relationship between left-wing subcultures on the subject of Israel/Palestine is not left out. This issue of East Saarzore is perhaps the best current fanzine “on the market”. Have it sent to you or at least have a look at this project: www.instagram.com/ostsaarzores
Post Scriptum:
The opening line is borrowed from Bernd Begemann. One of his most beautiful songs dates back to 1996, is entitled “Stay at home in summer” and is still featured in the live shows to this day.
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