Tag: Hamburg

GIGS

Trixie Trainwreck – Horst With No Name – Columbian Neckties – Les Yeux d’la Tête

Hafenklang, 17.01.2103: Trixie Trainwreck, Horst with no Name, Columbian Neckties, Les Yeux d’la Tête

I’ll lay my cards on the table right away. I’m no fan of one man bands. Sometimes billed as “Solo singer-songwriters”, as far as I’m concerned anyone with an acoustic guitar and a self operated percussion section belongs on a busy street corner or in a metro underpass. Not on the stage in a bar, demanding a covercharge. There, I’ve made a clean breast of it. Disagree if you like. Read on if you dare.

The evening’s entertainment began upstairs in Hafenklang’s non-smoking-in-name-only room, with Trixie Trainwreck’s solo show, “No-Man-Band”. Ms Trainwreck, an American like so many others living in Berlin, has some musical history, with a past in both the Runaway Brides and Kamikaze Queens. In her solo guise, her vaguely rockabilly / country influenced folk-songs seem to take cues from such artists as Tammy Wynette, Patsy Cline and maybe even Arlo Guthrie. Somehow she managed to distil the most boring aspects of all these and more into one giant yawn. To my ears the songs lacked energy and variety, and despite her garish tattoos, Ms Trainwreck lacked colour. The room gradually filled up, but it soon became clear that most people had come to see the Hamburg boy Horst with No Name.

Horst Schneider, guitarist and singer with Hamburg rockabilly/surf/rocknroll outfit Helldriver brought out his solo stuff for his fanclub. Schneider isn’t too bad a songwriter, sometimes verging on the quite good area of the songwriting spectrum, and he crosses through rockabilly, country, rhythm and blues and even Motown influences with alacrity. Unfortunately, as I have already stated, I’m no fan of the one-man-band set-up. I think Schneider works well with the other guys from Helldriver, but his solo show lacked depth and, well, soul. That said, there were a large number of Hamburg hipsters there to see him play and clearly they enjoyed his performance though they were far too cool to move even their necks in time with the music. They packed the room and stood on their hindlegs and barked and wagged their little tails to see such fun!

Meanwhile, downstairs, Paris gypsy swing / chanson / punky outfit Les Yeux d’la Tête were warming up the Hamburg crowd. The six-piece from the Seine, from the musical milieu which produced Les Hurlements d’Léo or Les Ogres de Barback, had the room packed and jumping. Combining accordion, double bass, sax, percussion and guitars, they moved from ballad to balls-out and back again without missing a beat, and took the crowd along for the ride. This sextet of Parisian pretty-boys rode into Hamburg to sell a heady concoction of Balkan beats, solid riffs, seductive rhythms and the language of love – and had Hamburg’s young Francophiles frotting up against each other, drooling for a lick of the elixir. Too heady a cocktail, perhaps. They wanted a Daiquiri but instead got a Mai-Tai. Like Eskimos can’t hold their liquor, Germans just don’t know when too much love is enough. A swiftly placed headbutt was necessary at one stage, just as a polite reminder that ff you don’t know me, rubbing your sweaty body up and down against me is probably a bad idea!

 

To finish the evening, we headed back upstairs to see the Danish garage punk outfit Columbian Neckties. The group was apparently added to the bill at the last minute, I suspect to make the entry price worth paying! These are four Danes out of Aalborg who really know how to rock! With a sound that could be compared to legendary Australian punkrockers The Saints, the Columbian Neckties are one of the hottest topics in the punkrock blogosphere. The room had emptied out considerably after Horst With No Name finished up, and now there was actually room to move and one or two people were actually moving. These guys have energy above image and combine hardshredded guitar with solid stickwork and chunky bass lines. Then there’s the singer – a man with real guts! Some would say there are people who shouldn’t be allowed to go shirtless in public, but this guy raises the middle finger and lets it all hang out. And he moves the mountain! I don’t know the names of any of their songs, but for me they were the highlight of the night. None of them are pretty, they were all badly dressed as only Danes or Germans know how, but in the entertainment stakes, these guys were the evening’s highlight.

For more videos of these and other bands check out the ZASPH! YouTube channel

© CCC

Django 3000
GIGS

Django 3000 play Astra Stube Hamburg

The Astra Stube hadn’t grown since the last time your indomitable Zasph correspondents ventured through the doors of this sweaty broom cupboard nestled under one of Hamburg’s iron railway bridges. This bar, only a few hundred meters away from the trendy shiny-people’s scene that is the Sternschanze, is as gritty and claustrophobic and real as the Sternschanze is not, although the odd morcel of forced laughter and flash of perfect teeth do manage to make an appearance here.

     Despite its size, Astra Stube really puts on some quality acts and this night was no exception.

Django 3000
Django 3000 © Ze Sikret Skvirel (Zasph!)

     For those who’ve never heard of Django 3000, let me paint a picture. This four piece combo from Germany’s deep south combine Klezmer, ska, psychobilly, Russian folk and punk. Then they top off this heady mixture by singing in Bayrisch, the dialect commonly spoken in Bavaria.

     A large bearded man with tattoos and a perky waxed moustache plays the sweetest gypsy violin you’ve ever heard south of Stuttgart, Bavaria’s Stradivarius, if you will. A psychobilly spider monkey keeps rhythm intact with his upright bass, a homeless man in a pair of stolen dark glasses belts out the tunes on a battered acoustic guitar, and the drummer sits to one side behind a minimal kit which would be almost unnoticeable if it were not for the fact that it is lit from within by flourescent coloured neons.

     The crowd was a mix of ages, but down the front were mostly students in their 20s, dancing like sardines would dance if they only could after they had been squeezed into a can. A couple of girls even sported Bavarian-style dirndl dresses, though I’m no expert on these things. They may have been the genuine article or they may have been rented for the evening. The dresses I mean, not the girls. Or, well… I’ll leave it at that. The main thing was everyone appeared to be having fun, and after a brief pause during which the door was opened to allow fresh air in and cigarette smoke out, the band thrashed out three encores, or « Zugabe » in the local parlance.

     These Klezmer Klowns bring catchy rhythms, hummable choruses and unintelligible lyrics to the stage in a mix that makes for pure dance-inducing fun ; and it would be fitting to see them take Germany to the podium at the next Eurovision song contest.

For more videos of Django 3000 and other bands check out the Zasph! YouTube channel

© CCC

GIGS

The Barons of Tang, supported by Kapelle Herrenweide @ Astra Stube, Hamburg – 17.07. 2012

For those who have never been to Astra Stube in Hamburg, the venue is about the size of an airing cupboard and nestles resentfully under a railway bridge in Hamburg. I suppose you could say it’s the troll of all venues.

Local four-piece Kapelle Herrenweide kicked off the evening’s entertainment with their brand of urban folk-rock, for want of a better way to describe it. They combine influences from Finnish humppa music, klezmer, and polka, coupled with German pop and schlager, with lyrics which the band and two or three people in the audience (at this point of the evening I wouldn’t call it a crowd) found hilariously funny.

These youngsters lean heavily on German witticisms and social observations from the Teutonic perspective. The lyrics are of course in German. Their music occasionally runs uncomfortably close to bad cabaret with slight rock influences, a style which is well-liked in Germany but I’m not sure if it could really appeal to non-German punters. I couldn’t understand most of their puns and witty innuendo, so concentrated on the musical side of the performance. After three songs I was on the footpath with the rest of the crowd waiting for the Barons of Tang.

If you thought it was hot inside Astra Stube, the thermostat in the broomcupboard was about to be wound open several notches.

Between festivals, Melbourne’s self-proclaimed Pioneers of Gypsy Deathcore decided to grace Hamburg with their presence. And the Barons were worth the wait.

Combining tango, ska, punk, Balkan and metal influences, just to name a few, this seven piece combo from the Antipodes set the place on fire. Packed like cigarettes the crowd moved shoulder to shoulder as a unit, with just enough space down the front for one white guy with dreadlocks (why is there always one?) to embarass himself and everyone else by dancing like no-one was watching.

The lead singer slapped his double bass to psychobilly speed, with a box full of pedals to stomp on, while the rest of the band kept pace on whatever came to hand. It seemed like every member played at least two instruments, often simultaneously.

From « Villain Stage Left », which combines tango strains with old style ska and wistful jazz refrains, to the sheer musical violence of « Dogs of Rotterdam » and « Even if You’re Missing Fingers You Can Still Make a Fist » the Barons of Tang had us totally under their spell until finally the door opened after the last number and the steam rushed out of the pressure cooker. The band and crowd mingled sweatily on the footpath, gasping like fish and gulping beer.

The Barons formed in 2007 and they’ve risen rapidly. This year they played about 40 dates on a merciless three month tour of North America and Europe. That tour sees them with a berth at no less than ten European festivals, including giants such as Roskilde in Denmark, Sziget in the land of the Magyars and Womad in the UK. Not bad for a band that’s only been around a couple of years.

See them somewhere if you can !

© CCC