“Something that can’t last” – looking back at last ORCHID and at IT’S THE BEAT with RUSTIE & Co.

“i have a love
i have a love for this world,
a kind of love that will break my heart
a kind of love that reconstructs and remodels the past
that adds a dryness to the dry august grass
that adds the sunshine to the magnifying glass
and makes me fight for something that cant last” J.Lekman

Over the last few months I had once more felt a little party recession mood rising in me. Too much booze&co., too many people who can’t handle booze&co., people coming for elbow & ego rave pits and testosterone house only instead of coming for dancing and socializing… all in all sometimes more stress than fun and I had secretly started to wonder why I was doing this at all. It’s one thing if you only turn up as a dj somewhere else and only have to care about your set but when I also am one of the promoters I want everyone on that night to enjoy themselves. And that includes the people at the door, wardrobe, bar. I don’t want me and them to have to constantly worry about possible problems that come with a rowdy crowd.

ORCHID two weeks ago restored my faith in club nights. I really really loved the friendly and sparkling atmosphere of that night. I bet it was because it was the second ORCHID night in a row at which I got a fluffy unicorn as a gift! :)
I also think I’ve never heard so many different people saying ‘thank you for the night’ while actually I was the one who felt thankful. I mean, let’s face it: With music and decoration and flyers you still can only give people some kind of ‘vessel’ when you put up a club night. It is always the crowd who fills it and makes it what it is. And it’s always thrilling to wait which people come out for it and what they make of it. You never really know what will happen. And on that night you worked magic. At some point when I walked around it was as if every single one in the room and in the hallway was beamingly happy but not in a hysteric way, more in a relaxed ‘here I can let go’ way. The prototype of ‘friendly atmosphere’.
I was really happy that Martina and Irene made their fabulous ‘Make your own mask‘ stand and it worked a treat. Usually I don’t really like party photographers but this time I really wish I’d had some more pictures to remember. It was wonderful to have Jörg Freitag over, an old friend who also was part of the musikerein when he used to live here. He also was the first person to try setting up electronic club nights at the K4 at all. I think we worked pretty good together musically..?! The crowded dancefloor and the many smiling faces made us think so. :)
What got me in a bit of sweat was that the time pitcher of one of our cd players broke that night and I only had cds with me. Somehow I steered my way through the tunes without emptying the dancefloor anyhow. Anyway? Whatever. At the end of this blog entry I’ll post a brainstorming effort of a tracklist of some of the weirdo pop I played out and I hope I find the time to upload a little ORCHID mix within the next couple of days. And thankyouthankyouthankyou again for this wonderful night.

Last weekend then it was time for IT’S THE BEAT meets SUB:CITY for which we had invited RUSTIE from Glasgow, and 8BITCH played as surprise guest (we asked her at dinner and luckily she had her laptop with her and said yes), with Chris (= Selfintoxicated, YesYes of sub:city) and Benni (= Jazz:Pa of Amplified Attitued, Rock:it) as local djs. That night was a blast too. We had a rather diverse crowd that was wild but not aggressive. Some party nights I remember as one constant flow and blur of things but that night I remember for lots of shiny tiny impressions that made me smile. Seli decorating the room with her never ending supply of bass owl variations. Rustie’s shy&short soundcheck. Robert selling white fruit gum mice he had nabbed from the theatre premiere’s buffet next door. Another great snapshot in my memory was when while 8bitch was playing out some infectious R&B flavoured stuff one of the Lonsdale-cliche-hool hunks sat down on the edge of the stage with an inner sigh of resignation so big that you could almost see it while in front of him some girls were dancing wildly. People chanting in the hallway instead of going home in the morning. The poor little video beamer desperately trying to fight the mighty bass waves with ‘keystone correction’ all night. The sub was a mighty one indeed. On the edge of painful in some moments. Loads of people used our free ear plugs on that night. A few parts of RUSTIE’s set got so loud that it got distorted but. But. BUT! I loved each and every set of that night but Rustie really killed it. It was the best ADS-style set I’ve heard since I don’t know… Kid 606 with his two chaospads when breakcore was still exciting? RUSTIE’s a genius in not only picking excellent tracks but in actually composing them into a monster of a set. If you take only a short glance the combination of beats might sound too broken for a dancefloor but everyone who really gave it a listen – (and thank you, Nuremberg, lots of people did on that night) – RUSTIE’s set relentlessly sucked you in. I really don’t dance often these days but that was such fun and had such mighty beats and silly synths and was anarchic and wild and yet so-well combined (some of us wondered if he Rustie had parents that already had brought him up with some musical background because the set showed a really broad musical horizon.) Made me smile, made me dance, made me go “WTF?!”. Perfect.
And he seemed to enjoy himself too as he played muuuuuch longer than he had intended to. Hours. :)
It was all so good that the not-so-nice things of the night didn’t bother me much. Of course there were a few: It was annoying sisyphos-work to try keeping the smoking-ban up. Some idiot started a fire alarm but gladly the guys from the K4 stopped it before the firemen turned up. A few times our door people had to close entry cause it got too crowded and some guys misbehaved a bit when they didn’t get in. Guys with rucksacks on the dancefloor. When we started to clean up after the night the floor was a pure mess of flyers, broken glass and things-you-didn’t-want-to-give-a-closer-look.
Ach, in my eyes this all was more than outweighed by the monster of a party we had. I can’t wait for Otto von Schirach in march cause I expect equally mind-whirling controlled-anarchy-madness music from his set in march.

* _ *

Weakmemorybrainstormingeffort of an ORCHID playlist that makes it seem I played less electronic music than I though I had:

DJ John – Rockin down the house with rum & cocacola
Ali Love – Love Harder (Mighty Mouse mix)
N.A.S.A. – Theirs a party
Atomizer  – Je suis lesbien
LCD Soundsystem – Tribulations (Tiga mix)
La Roux + The Kooks – In for the Kooks (Reborn Identity mix)
Le Tigre – Hot topic
Kelis – Acapella
Boys Noize – Jeffer (Modeselektor mix)
The Knife – Heartbeats (Rex The Dog mix)
The Cure – Just like heaven
Feathers – Small rooms
Gils – Lust for life
Colder – To the music (Optimo mix)
RAC/Justice + Freeeze – I.O.U. a pragmatic phantom (eve massacre mix)
Peaches – Mommy complex
Matt & Kim – Daylight
The Faint – The geeks were right (Boys Noize + DIM mix)
Bloody Beetroots + Bloc Party – Bloody party (eve massacre mix)
MGMG + Peaches + Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Fuck the kids (eve massacre mix)
Gossip – Love long distance (Riva Starr mix)
Fever Ray – Triangle walks (Tiga mix)
Vitamin C – Last nite
Bloc Party + Pussycat Dolls (Dunproofin mix)
Hurts – Wonderful life
The Golden Filter – Thunderbird (Villa dub mix)
Bloody Beetroots – Theolonius (French Fries mix)
O Children – Dead disco dancer (The Golden Filter mix)
Luscious Jackson – Deep Shag
Prince & The Revolution – Raspberry beret
Hudson Mohawke – Joy fantastic
The Very Best – Warm heart of Africa (Kissy Sell Out mix)
Interpol – Mammoth (Erol Alkan mix)
Le Tigre – Deceptacon
The Thermals – How we know
C.Aarmé – Ti ca tu a
Patrick Wolf – A boy like me
Simon Bookish – Michael (Franz Ferdinand cover)
Jens Lekman – Into eternity
The Smiths – Everyday feels like Sunday

“Victims we know so well” – us poor poor artists…

“Victims we know so well”
Culture Club

‘Poor artists” rants like this one by DJ Shadow and Bono’s NY Times piece (that is equally oversimplistic and wrong about piracy and ISPs) get on my nerves, especially in times of a real economic crisis during which many people have lost their not-so-nice jobs and in which culture has gotten a bit more of a luxury good. I mean, imagine a QUELLE assembly line worker blogging stuff like “I take my job very seriously” as if that alone gave him a natural right to be paid. Of course it would be nice if people spent more money on decent music (instead of firework, Abwrackprämien-sponsored cars, computer games, etc.). Maybe the money people will save from not flying so much anymore now that the new OMGterrorpanicsafetymeasures make it so uncomfy will be spend on music. Anyways. Due respect to some of DJ Shadow’s past work but maybe people just don’t like his new stuff as much? How dare you blame them for not buying your music? Also if the world of the magic interweb moves too fast and in mysterious ways for you – ‘t’s not exactly your potential listener’s fault. Complaining about ‘them no buying’ doesn’t help. Somehow it s really bothers me how easy some artist are to blame vague entities like ‘the music listener’ or ‘the internet’ because they are just an anonymous mass of nobodies to them. At the same time most of them artists still shut up tightly about the record companies’ faults. It was the record companies who slept instead of finding a way to deal with new media and keep it interesting and fair on a value/price level for their customers. It was the record companies who were too greedy to invest/risk any of their money to give new exciting artist time and space to develop their skills and grow. Instead they put their money on short-term success, pressing talent into boring forms such creating one-season-bands/artists they spit out after a year or two with not the tiniest bit of feeling sorry. If anyone then it was the big record companies who taught the world how to treat artists with zero respect. The big record companies also did their part to widen the distribution gap between the small labels  and themselves, making their existence even harder as before. etc. etc. [/oldschoolrantaboutrants]

(picture is from guardian.co.uk, found none for a worldwide statistic)

Anyways… Please artists, you wouldn’t really want people to buy your music because they feel guilty or out of pity, do you?! Stop acting as the victim or it might happen that people won’t even bother to download your music illegally anymore.

In a rather unrelated massacre fact randomness this is my favourite Culture Club song:

And as P.S. for those who escaped my facebook fancying of it: This footage of OWEN PALLETT covering OMD just with his violin, a delay/reverb thingy and his voice made my last night. His ‘Heartland’ album is my first favourite album of this young year.

Don’t waste your time on ‘(500) Days Of Summer’

I guess I hate this movie with such passion because it uses so many things from movies I actually like. It is a plain patchwork of copied ideas. And what’s even worse: It is a deeply conservative coupling codex movie construction dressed up as ‘lightfooted’ ‘clever’ ‘indie’ ‘rom-com’ that uses ‘cool’ ‘weird’ ‘techniques’. Quotations marks intented. Hey, this movie even has brackets in its title.

The shortest way of putting it is: Imagine Mario Barth tried to copy Nick Hornby. Yes, you are very right to shudder at that thought. Instead of sublety you get cliches, instead of irony you get …. well, failed irony: Mocking abstract art and foreign movies, using ‘bitch’ in the very intro of the movie, using male  buddies’ ‘you sound gay’ comments – there would have been lots of moments for irony but they are choked and soon you start to realize: ‘oh my, they might actually mean it…’ Or when the couple goes IKEA shopping – potential, potential but if you want to play with cliches you have to do a little bit more than to just bring them up. Overall this movie is like reinventing the smug 50s conservatism of Doris Day / Rock Hudson movies for today’s indie twentysomethings, only instead of the funny scenes you get whining indie boy machism. While the form, the way of story-telling, all the different techniques, the ‘numbered’ scenes and split-screens are kind of nicely made I have to say without a fresher content they are nothing but random frameworks.

While the overall reception seems to have been very positive there are at least some voices of reason:
Armand Whyte: “It is so annoyingly cute about the smartness of middle-class young white people in love that one quickly realizes it is only about that—not love nor passion” … ” There’s no parity in such malecentered sob-stories; it’s always from the selfrighteous guy’s point of view”
http://www.nypress.com/article-20093-%28500%29-days-of-summer.html

New track for you! Fagget Fairys, Röyksopp / Boys Noize, Jaguar Love, Rustie, M.I.A.

mpfree

soundcloud

“Machine Gun Nirvana” (gloomy unicorn mix) – new eve massacre track

 

MP3

Long time no new track and then I don’t even return with a cheerful dance track for you but with a full blast of autumn/world-as-such gloom distortion tune.  Hope some of you like it anways.

This day was far too short

This day was far too short. Wasted it with things I didn’t really have to do today but it’s good to have them off my shoulders anyway. And with some nice band bookings for next year. No big names. More in our ‘best of the underground while it still is underground’ tradition. Really great bands but I guess most of you will miss them anyway because you will still be too hungover or skint from a party you will have been to the day before of the show. Or because you have to get up early for work and some weird live show isn’t worth a tired day at work for you anymore. Or because you don’t want to waste money on a show of which you are not sure what it will be like and you rather go see bands that play exactly what you expect them to play. Or because… ? Why is it that people don’t appreciate live shows anymore? This year seems to bring that phenomenon to bands / venues of all genres and sizes.

“Want to see your ass on the ceiling” – new old track

“I want to see your ass on the ceiling”
The Yellow Press

Here’s another tune for you:
http://soundcloud.com/eve-massacre/happy-ending-or-screwed

Not exactly a new one but I’m not sure if i have shared it yet and I’ve just come across the live footage below that reminded me of uploading it.

Whenever I get people dancing like loonies to this one being played out in the club it brings back memories of one of the sweetest concert moments ever: The Yellow Press at Trainspotting Festival back in… erm, 2005? Perfect crowd, perfect band, magic happened.
I swear the air was actually sparkling of excitement and energy and joy.

The mix includes Gossip (Soulwax rmx), Robbie Williams (Soulwax rmx), Beastie Boys, The Yellow Press (R.I.P. <3 )

“Sin is bonkers” – new track to celebrate website resurrection

MP3

A silly trashy track and artwork – upped just for you to celebrate the resurrection of my website/webspace and black arrows of death to those who had hacked it.

“Come what may…”

“Everyday it’s a-gettin’ closer
Goin’ faster than a roller coaster
Come what may…” B. Holly

Breathing the morning. Getting up early to have a little time to waste. I enjoy the stripey blue sky / wooden shutter view I get when waking up in my new bedroom. Not sure about the wide balcony window situation in the other room. I definitely need something like a curtain to not feel so exposed. Tsk. Me thinking about curtains. Tsk.

I’ve slowly started the moving process. Got one room painted, need to pain another one that’s quite big and might take two days. Have already shifted clothes and cds. I HATE garbage separation. It’s fine for everyday garbage but not for a massive tidy out of a whole house. I enjoy painting walls although it takes longer than I had thought. But it feels good to be busy with something that takes a little less thinking and to get rid of the constant feeling of ‘I must have forgotten something’ that kept nagging on me lately. I usually enjoy coordinating stuff for the MV but from time to time it takes over too much of my thinking and starts haunting me like a little ghost that clings to your ankles and is all cute so you can’t hate at it but still it takes twice as much energy to keep moving if you carry it with you. Maybe a ghost would make a proper motif for the next ORCHID poster. Still had no cool idea for it. Would love to (ab)use another ‘pleureuse’ with cutting up and moustache and collage work but am not sure if it isn’t too boring to have a similar picture twice. Hmmm….

I’m looking forward to our robot party on the 28th of august, next Friday. At the same time it’s a bit sad that it’s also some kind of goodbye party for Simon who mainly organises the robot party and will move to Madrid in September. He will be missed. We’ll try to make it a night to remember and will meet on Wednesday to make proper robot costumes  and hopefully we will find time to make some extra parts for guests to put on. If someone wants to join us and help with making costumes and decoration or make a robot-head or something for yourself, get in touch! We plan to meet for it on Wednesday night. I still got no clue how to make a robot head that’s comfy and lets me use the headphones I need for djing. Wish I had a little more time cause I’d love to do something with tiny LED lights but got no clue how.

HEALTH is my new favourite live band. Along with EDIE SEDGWICK it leads my ‘best shows in 2009′ charts. Love how much they seem to be into their music while playing. Love how they seem to use every wave of feedback and noise consciously and skillfully while at the same time they are all rhythm/movement/in-the-moment. Not necessarily a contrast but often is. Also love that there still are noise bands that don’t have that smell of back-to-nature esoterics that most of the times sets my caydar (conservatism radar) on alarm. Love their sense of melodies. Love their sense of fashion too. Oh, and I loved that there were so many people at the show and stayed so long afterwards although it was a Monday night.

Other news: I’m thinking about letting go off my self-hosted website cause it still gets shown by google as hacked / spreading malware although I’ve wiped my whole webspace clean and only got a tiny forwarding htm to my blog on wordpress online. Don’t know what else to do but in this state it’s useless and even if it’s not that expensive there’s no reason to keep paying Servage when the site is down for months. Tsk. And sites like soundcloud or fairtilizer are also good for hosting tunes so I guess I’ll go for such a ‘decentralized’ web presence.

Well, I’ll go back to the painting job now. Listening to the second Dexter audio book.

“My inky hands” – hm.

“My inky hands will stain your blouse, your good blouse.”
The Paper Chase

As you might have recognized from my silence here I spend more time on facebook (www.facebook.com/evemassacre) and twitter (www.twitter.com/evemassacre) these days as those seem less flooded with advertising and spam and thus more fun as little communication and entertainment tools while working.
But also I’m more and more often lost for words which I find a bit scary because writing to me always has been something necessary. Something I do to make myself slow down and assure myself that I’m really there. Something like an anchor to which I knot all the lose ends of the things and thoughts that flood through my life so I don’t get lost in it. We’ll see how good I’ll be in giving that more room again.

Right now I’m sitting here in my kitchen-studio typing these lines into my new notebook (thanks again for the lenovo recommendation, works wonderful and I’m especially surprised by the cooling system as after a few hours my old notebook got so hot you could burn your lap), I’m typing away and watch the sun disappear behind clouds that have by now tightened up into a little grey and wet explosion. The radio plays LOST.FM and I cringe a bit when I hear Seppo announcing MISS TK & THE REVENGE as ‘a band who’s singer is the wife of a guy of LIFETIME’. Defining a female artist by her marital status to a better known male artist – tsk, the implications! You may tie a Cymothoa exigua to my tongue if I ever start doing that. ;)

Lately I feel my inner feminist sending soft warning signals a bit more often again. Reminding me that nothing has changed. Most bands I get to see and hear about around here are all-male, all the new djs of the younger generation are boys, and I don’t see new females turning up as promoters either. Of course there are exceptions but exceptions are nothing but exemptions to the rule. Most of the time I ignore it like everybody does but sometimes it boils up and I want to shout: Ladies, what’s wrong? There are so many of you I see at shows or parties who know exactly what music and sounds they like and I see that some of you really love music. I can’t imagine that if you dance in the dark in your room you play the imaginary girl in the audience who waits to get eyed up by a guy from the band or the dj. Get your asses in motion! And by that I don’t mean shake ‘em for the boys. At the same time I don’t understand how you male musicians just lean back and are happy with your status instead of feeling uncomfortable keeping music such a boy’s club thing. What about encouraging and inviting … ach, I don’t really have the energy to warm that dreary subject up again.

Death and the helplessness that comes with it was a lot on my mind lately too. How we can’t communicate the sore hole that it leaves to lose a person that matters to you. How that loss adds a new cruel and cold dimension to life as it goes on as if nothing had happened. How isolated the mourning person is in that sphere. Even from those who feel the same loss. I’m again and again amazed how perfectly we sealed off something so natural and omnipresent in our world. I hate feeling helpless.

I wish this soothing light grey Sunday afternoon would last a little longer. Some sparse sunrays come back through the clouds righ now. Don’t want tomorrow to come. It holds a visit to the dentist for me as I’ve lost a filling on Friday. You know, I’m one of those people who prefer a five hour tattoo session to 15 minutes at the dentist’s.